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mieohmy · 4 years ago

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𝖢𝗈𝗆𝖿𝗈𝗋𝗍 𝟣𝟢𝟣 | 𝖫𝖾𝖾 𝖩𝖾𝗇𝗈

PAIRING: lee jeno x reader

GENRE: angst, fluff, humor, comfort, established relationship au, college au, this rly is just a self indulgent fic kjasdfk

WC: 2.1k

NOTES: slight argument/fighting ?? , cursing

SUMMARY: jeno wants your attention, your comforting presence, your love- he simply wants you.

for the bday boy that i treasure sm! happy birthday to puppy jeno <333

ღ

The phone next to you lies untouched, and practically has been for days- or has it been a week already? I mean, it wasn’t your fault that upcoming finals had been taking you to the depths of hell, and you had no choice but to lock yourself at home to study for a week on end.

Which brings you to day 7? 8? of being holed up in your room all day, memorizing a bazillion tiny printed words and trying to cram as much information as possible in that overworked brain of yours. Getting about 4-5 hours of sleep a day, you couldn’t remember anymore- or even care to remember. Not to mention the added stress that came along with being any normal college student. Wasn’t life just wonderful?

You feel bad for everyone that has tried to contact you over this stressful period in your life (since you completely turned your phone off to eliminate all distractions), but the urge to stop studying completely and just check up on the real world and all its happenings grows stronger. You breathe in -out, constantly chanting ‘self-control’ over and over again in your head. Then your eyes slowly open, and you slap yourself one last time as if to say ‘get it together' before diving back into the books.

Just two more days. Two more days and you can finish and not have to stress about finals until results come out.

At this point, you were surviving off of coffee, tea, random stolen snacks that your boyfriend would bring over from his dorm.

Damn, when’s the last time you had a proper meal? Monday?

And then you frown. What day even is it today? You glance at your calendar and-

Goodness grief, it’s Sunday already.

You almost have a midlife crisis over wasting basically a week doing nothing but sitting at your desk and looking at words, but then again at this point- you’re just over it and want to be done as soon as possible.

But soon, a weird feeling arises after you recall today’s date- like you were forgetting something. You place a hand over your forehead. Was there something important today?

And as if the universe read your mind, the doorbell rings.

A giant wave of confusion washes over you. Was someone supposed to come over today?

-and you just completely wiped it from your mind?

You’re still running through your memories as you walk to the door. No, it's not Chae since she has finals too...

Opening it, you’re not at all expecting who was behind it.

“Jeno-?”

He blinks back at your wide eyes, expression turning concerned, and you rub your temples in exasperation and defeat.

“Oh, did we have a date today or something? I’m so sorry- I totally forgot.”

His eyebrows furrow. “No, I was just supposed to come over to hang out with you....”

“It’s been so long since we last talked, baby. You haven’t responded to any of my texts. What’s going on?” He promptly adds, staring intently at you.

You let out a sigh, and jeno notices your tense shoulders and dark under-eye circles. “I thought you knew. Finals are coming up so I’ve been stuck at home cramming for about a week now actually.”

His frown deepens. “I did know. And still, y/n..” he says in a warning tone.

You know what his voice implies, you’ve heard it plenty of times at this point, but right now you don’t have to energy to listen to his nagging. “ I know, I know. Just- come in, I guess.....”

To be completely honest, you wanted to send jeno back home- there was still a lot more information left to cover and you obviously weren’t in your best condition, but he was the one who actually remembered your ‘date’ and drove to your place, so you would feel even worse making him go all the way back to his dorm.

Jeno easily follows you in, biting the inside of his cheek to hold back any comments while examining your place even though barely anything has changed since he last visited- mostly because there was nothing to change when you were in your room all day.

You walk to the kitchen, getting your boyfriend some water while yawning. Meanwhile, your mind is drifting away, thinking about what topics are left that you have to go over later. “What are we even doing today?”

Jeno plops on your couch, arms behind his head. “I don’t know. A movie?”

You hide your grimace, immediately thinking of how much time would be wasted watching one, or possibly even more if jeno was feeling it. In the one to two hours of a movie, you could be done with chapter two and three-

“Y/n??”

Your head snaps up. “Yes?”

“Are you gonna come over here or just stand there in the kitchen all day?” he teases.

You shake your head to clear the fog and join jeno on the couch. Scrolling through the options, you automatically snuggle up next to him, eyes blearily watching the moving tv screen.

He decides on this one animated film, and you’re too drained to pay attention so you simply nod and let the movie begin. But even though you try your best to focus on the storyline and what’s currently going on, your mind keeps wandering off to other, more boring things- your studies, obviously.

The number of chapters you covered, the slight of chapters you have left, how long you would have to stay up to finish going through your planned amount of information -all the stressful thoughts swirling in your head, and it only exhausts you more.

You let out a sigh, and jeno turns to you. “Are you okay? You’ve been sighing nonstop since we started the movie.”

You clear your throat, biting back a yawn. “Oh- yeah, sorry. I won’t do it anymore.”

Your boyfriend stiffens but doesn’t say anything, attention returning to the flashing screen in front of him.

You did try. You really did. But your eyelids keep drifting shut and your head keeps slowly lolling forward and snapping back up -it’s not until your forehead accidentally knocks against jeno’s chest that he finally speaks up again.

“Y/n. You need to take a break and get some sleep. Now.” His tone is sharp and commanding.

You snap your eyes back open, vision blurry. “No- it’s fine. I’m good, let’s keep watching.”

The immediate switch in the air is scary, jeno swiftly reaching for the remote and pausing the movie to look at you dead straight in the eyes before setting it back down with a loud, clattering noise. “You need to rest. I can tell from how tired you look, and I know you’ve been studying for so long, so why is it that hard to just relax for a little?”

You groan, distress breaking through. “I can’t, okay? You already understand how stressful school is and how important my upcoming tests are. I know you’re just trying to be kind and thoughtful but-“

“But what?” He cuts you off, the frustration he’s been hiding for a while finally revealing itself. “Taking a rest from burning your brain out isn’t going to kill you, y/n.”

Your hands at your side clench and unclench, a wave of emotions overcoming you. “I know that. But I can’t afford to have a break now.” Everything suddenly feels overwhelming, and your voice comes out strained and uncontrolled.

“I’m almost there, jeno. It’s so close, and if I stop now, I’ll feel like a failure.”

He laughs a short and echoing bark. “How do you think I feel? I was trying to brush everything aside and act like it was all fine, but it’s certainly not when you’re like this.”

You falter.

Jeno gets up, making direct eye contact with you even though his body is trembling and his voice is shaky.

“I spent the past week just lying in bed and worrying about you- if you were eating okay and getting enough sleep. I was constantly texting you reminders to take care of yourself, only to find out from your friend that you turned your phone completely off. Do you know how shitty of a person I was feeling? I didn’t want to be a distraction to you because I know how much you care about your grades, but it’s killing me, y/n. I want to be there for you, but instead, I end up feeling like the worst boyfriend in the world.”

He shudders before continuing,

“And then I come here, brushing off all my worries since I was super excited to finally be with you after so long, and then I have to see you in such a bad condition. Barely taking care of yourself, barely even surviving on your own just so you can pass your exams that I know you’ll already do well on no matter what. As your boyfriend who wants to help and be here for you, do you know how much my heart hurts?”

He finishes, but not before wiping away the frustrated tears that appeared in his angry rant.

It takes one beat -two beats, before you immediately spring up, rushing towards jeno and throwing your arms around him.

He accepts it, burying his face into your shoulder and wrapping his arms tightly around your waist.

The guilt courses through your body, and you understand. The consequences of your actions hit you, hard, and you know you deserve it all. Jeno just wants to know that you’re here. You’re here with him.

“I’m really sorry,” you murmur into his hair, “I’m really, really sorry, jeno.”

You hate the fact that you can still feel the slight wetness of his tears soaking through your-technically his- shirt. You pull back, looking straight into his eyes to make sure he knows you’re being genuine.

“I promise to pay more attention to myself, and I promise I won’t ever let it happen again. I won’t shut you out anymore... and you can come over to take care of me whenever you want, okay?”

Jeno slowly nods, and you softly wipe away the corners of his red eyes of any wetness.

He pulls you closer to him again, inhaling your scent one more time, and you finally let yourself go.

After about a minute of just enjoying each other’s warm embrace - one that you feel like you haven’t felt in so long- you allow yourself to smile and pull back just enough to place a kiss on his cheek.

“Was my baby just lonely and missed me too much?” you sing in a soft voice. He lets out a disgruntled noise in response, shaking his head against your body.

But you both know what the answer is.

“C’mon, let’s go to bed.” You tug his arm easily to your room, putting off your studies, at least for today.

“You’re really gonna take a break this time?” Jeno asks, eyeing you carefully.

You grin. “Yes? Besides, I know you’re always down for cuddles.”

You drag him to the bed, taking his arms and wrapping them around your body as exhaustion quickly fills you.

You fight yourself to stay awake as long as you can to enjoy jeno’s presence, but he notices and hugs you even closer if possible, whispering softly, “Go to sleep, baby. I’ll be here when you wake up.”

And before you finally drift off, you sleepily murmur, “I love you, jeno. Like, a lot.”

Even after you fall asleep in his embrace, he stares down at you, softly kissing your forehead.

I love you too.

bonus bc i adore jeno too much :

“Jeno- for the last time, you’re not a bad boyfriend.”

“I know.... but-“

You shut him up with a quick kiss.

“You’re the sweetest.”

Another kiss.

“Funniest.”

Peck.

“Handsomest.”

His ever so growing smile freezes. Jeno looks at you, a surprisingly solemn look on his face.

You raise an eyebrow, confused.

“......even more than Nam joo hyuk?”

Ah. He had to go for the favorite actor.

You swallow, battling an intense internal war before begrudgingly nodding. “Okayyy...fine. You are.”

He crosses his arms. “I’m what?”

You roll your eyes, whining. “I already said it!”

Jeno shakes his head firmly. “Say the whole thing.”

You take a deep breath in, internally apologizing to your beloved actor. “......you, lee -verymuchanannoyingbaby- jeno, are more handsome than Nam joo hyuk.” Your sentence is finished swiftly in one breath, words slurring together. It actually pains you to say that. But it’s good enough for your boyfriend.

Jeno delights in the squeal you let out when he picks you up in his arms to spin you around.

“Fuck yeah- take that, nam joo hyuk!”

ღ

a/n: anyways im going to go hide away and cry over jeno now ^^

#cznnet #kpopscape #nct #nct dream #jeno #nct jeno #jeno x reader #lee jeno x reader #jeno scenarios #jeno imagines #nct dream x reader #nct dream smut #nct dream imagines #nct dream scenarios #nct dream fluff #lee jeno imagines #jeno fluff

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retrogradedreaming · 4 years ago

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UHHHH maybe,, you could write a little thing for reki making the sk8 fam tea? and kaoru thinking hes gonna have to pretend he likes it but then "oh wait reki can actually make tea what-"

just bc this has been living in my head for awhile sdkljfs

(capt-snoozles)

It turns out I am completely incapable of writing ANYTHING short, so have a full one shot type thing, I guess. I hope it's okay that I kinda borrowed headcanons from you and @that-was-anticlimactic for Reki with TS at a couple of small moments in the fic?

----

It used to be Kaoru alone who visited Kojiro’s restaurant when it was closed on Mondays. But since the start of winter break, Sia la Luce had become much livelier now that Reki, Langa, and Miya weren’t in school all day, and Shadow came when his days off lined up right. If Kaoru were being honest, it took some time to get used to the space no longer being only his and Kojiro’s, but he’d grown to like how their group came together like this.

The afternoons were the quietest part of these days. Kojiro took these opportunities to try out new recipes on them, leaving everyone contentedly full and pleasantly sleepy. Today, Langa had actually fallen asleep in the booth, and Reki sat beside Kaoru at the counter, playing with a tiny skateboard and making soft sounds like a small motor. Shadow and Miya sat at a table across the room, arguing over whether clown or cat makeup looked cooler while Kojiro finished cleaning. Kaoru let himself sink into the lull, Reki’s noises and that of the skateboard wheels on the counter an almost comforting presence beside him. And yet, one thing was missing, keeping him from truly relaxing.

“Seems like a good afternoon for tea,” Kojiro said, as if reading his mind as he appeared out of the kitchen, wiping his hands on a towel. “You want me to make some?”

“Absolutely not,” Kaoru scoffed. “People who microwave their tea should be arrested.”

“There’s no way you can tell the difference,” Kojiro said, defensive. “Hot water is hot water.”

“Only an uncultured pig would believe that,” Kaoru snapped. He was about to stand, to tell Kojiro he’d make the tea himself like he always inevitably had to, when Reki all but leaped from his seat, skateboard abandoned for the moment.

“I’ll make it!” he offered, and the way his face lit up meant that Kaoru took too long to say not to bother. By the time he’d found his words, Reki had already bounded around the counter and into the kitchen, and Kojiro didn’t even try to stop him. Before Kaoru could tell Kojiro to stop him, Reki called out to Kojiro, asking about the industrial stove, and soon, Kojiro was not only allowing Reki to make the tea, but encouraging him.

Kaoru supposed this was a step up from Kojiro’s microwave technique, but if Kaoru were likely to trust anyone other than himself to make a decent cup of tea, it wouldn’t be Reki. The idea that he’d wanted his tea made well and was unlikely to receive it as such set him on edge. As he listened to the water boil and the conversation continued around him, he found himself wrapping a strand of his hair around his finger and tugging, letting it go, and repeating the process until his scalp hurt. He didn’t even notice that Langa had woken up until he appeared beside Kaoru and spoke.

“What’s Reki doing?” he asked.

“Making tea,” Kaoru said, doing his best not to appear so anxious about something so small.

Langa peered over the edge of the counter to where Kojiro and Reki were talking in the kitchen, and then turned back to Kaoru. “I like how he makes it. I never liked it before I met him.”

Kaoru hummed a halfhearted response. He doubted that Langa’s standards were very high, given that he’d grown up in Canada. He’d likely had tea often enough, given that his mother was Japanese, but Kaoru knew from experience that plenty of people even here in Okinawa had no idea how to brew a proper cup. It was about timing, knowing how hot to make the water, how long to steep the leaves, and so many people rushed the process—or worse, forgot about it and steeped too long—that Kaoru preferred to make his own.

He couldn’t help but envision Reki handing him a bitter cup, or one that tasted like little more than hot leaf juice. He grimaced at the idea of having to drink it and pretend he liked it, suffering all the while. He would have to wait until he was home later to make something better for himself.

He was still trying to think of a polite way to decline the tea he’d obviously wanted when Reki came out bearing a tray of steaming cups and began making the rounds through the restaurant. Reki handed the first one to Langa, who accepted it, smiling softly up at Reki. Langa sipped the tea immediately, only to flinch and draw it away after the first sip.

Not promising, Kaoru thought. If he’d boiled the water, it was ruined, even if it was something as simple as green tea. And yet, Langa only took another sip while Reki looked on approvingly.

“It’s good,” Langa finally proclaimed, and Reki glowed as if he’d received praise from the emperor himself. Reki moved on, handing Kaoru his cup.

“Thank you,” Kaoru said, accepting it with both hands. Fortunately, Reki moved on to Shadow and Miya without waiting for Kaoru to try it, which meant that he didn’t know Kaoru only held onto it without making a move to taste it. If nothing else, he could enjoy the warmth that crawled from his fingertips all the way to his elbows.

Neither Miya nor Shadow hesitated in drinking theirs, though Kaoru couldn’t imagine they cared much how it tasted, as long as it was hot. And yet, as he watched, the two of them looked just as pleased as Langa when they tried it.

“Oh wow, the slime makes good tea,” Miya pronounced, hugging the cup close to him like a space heater.

“Damn, this is pretty good,” Shadow said, drinking deeply and draining half the cup. “How’d you even learn to make it like this?”

Reki shrugged, taking up his own cup, the last on the tray. He set the tray down on the counter and took the empty seat beside Langa. “I dunno, I guess I just picked it up over the years. It’s kinda like making skateboards, y’know? You have to figure out how all the parts fit together, and if you do it wrong, the tea doesn’t taste right.”

Kaoru looked up at him from the murky depths of his tea, brows raised. When it came to making tea, the analogy was rather profound, and Kaoru couldn’t argue it. Reki was right—tea was about the sum of its parts, the pieces fitting together perfectly. And as with building skateboards, the person making it had to know exactly how to combine each piece to create the whole.

“That doesn’t make any sense, but whatever,” Shadow said, taking another sip. “All I care about is that it doesn’t suck.”

“How come you’ve never made us tea before?” Miya asked, eyes trained on the Switch he’d pulled from his pocket now that he’d abandoned his conversation with Shadow.

“I don’t really have the patience for it,” Reki said sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck. “It’s kinda like, if I don’t wanna put in the time to do it right, why bother?”

While everyone was wrapped up in conversation, Kaoru finally chanced a discreet sip. If it was as bad as he’d expected, he could school his expression appropriately while they were all distracted. Perhaps he could even get away without having to lie about how good it was. And yet, when the tea touched his tongue, he paused.

It wasn’t too hot.

It wasn’t too weak or too strong.

It wasn’t too bitter and the leaves didn’t taste as though they’d been burnt.

It was, as far as Kaoru was concerned, some of the best tea he’d had outside his own home. For a moment, he couldn’t find the words to say so. He sipped it again, just to make sure he hadn’t deluded himself based on everyone else’s praise. Sure enough, it was almost more delicious the second time.

“You surprised?” Kojiro murmured at his ear, his own cup dangling from his fingertips. Kaoru jumped, nearly spilling his tea. When he turned to face him, Kojiro’s lips quirked in a smug grin, and he raised one brow meaningfully. Kaoru shot him a hard glower in return, a silent command to keep his mouth shut before Kaoru turned back to Reki.

“It’s delicious,” Kaoru said, and it wasn’t forced in the least. “I’m impressed.”

Reki, who had already immersed himself in talking to Langa, gaped at Kaoru, one of his hoodie strings falling from between his teeth. Then, he flashed a wide grin. “Glad you like it!”

“Have you ever practiced tea ceremony?” Kaoru asked, reluctantly setting his tea down on the counter.

“Nah, my parents let me try it once when I was younger, but I kept messing up the steps,” Reki said. “It’s not really fun when people get mad at you for doing it wrong.”

“I studied it for some time,” Kaoru said, remembering how the order felt comforting, how the amount of concentration it required gave his anxious mind something to focus on, how the simple yet refined aesthetic felt like clearing his head. In recent years, he didn’t have time for it with his calligraphy business, but a part of him missed it. “It’s quite a bit different from drinking tea like this, but if you wanted to, perhaps we could do a...modified version of it. Something less formal with everyone here.”

Reki’s eyes brightened, and he looked to Langa, who only seemed to share his enthusiasm. “It sounds fun, yeah! A lot better than getting yelled at by a bunch of old people because ‘tradition.’”

“I’d say so,” Kaoru said, and they devolved into talking about their favorite teas and the best ways to brew them. Kaoru couldn’t remember the last time he’d talked to someone who actually understood that tea was an art even more than it was a drink. But Reki did, and when the rest of the group finally left, leaving Kaoru and Kojiro alone in the restaurant to clean up, Kojiro nudged him with an elbow.

“You didn’t think Reki could make tea like that, did you?” he said, the words teasing but too close to Kaoru’s own thoughts for comfort.

“Shut up or I’ll leave you here to wash dishes alone,” Kaoru quipped, even as he accepted the next cup to dry. “I will admit, I was pleasantly surprised.”

“I knew you would be,” Kojiro said as he dried his hands and stretched.

“Anything is better than microwaved tea,” Kaoru said. And although it was true, he couldn’t help but look forward to the next Monday, and the last before the kids started school again.

#anyway hope you like it!#i had a lot of fun with this one #i also think kojiro's flaw as a chef is microwaving tea #even though that's not exactly a chef thing really #i tried putting some renga in here #so hopefully everyone is in character because apparently i only know matchablossom #also sorry miya and shadow have like two lines #i tried including everyone but it was SUPPOSED to be short #reki kyan #kaoru sakurayashiki #langa hasegawa #kojiro nanjo #hiromi higa #miya chinen #sk8 the infinity #sk8 fanfic #writing prompts #capt-snoozles

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thekidthesuperkid · 1 year ago

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Hehehehe :)

Right, so first off this would begin a couple years in the future of the current canon. The clone rights plots in the Superboy comics kind of didn't go anywhere, and got forgotten with Kon's Smallville/Geoff Johns era anyway and this is sort of my attempt at following up on them. But I don't want a canon divergence, just an elaboration on or extrapolation from what's already there.

The story would start with Kon getting captured by a group of villains (maybe The Brain?) whove decided to go into cloning and have decided they need to study Superboy's genetic material to do that. Kon escapes and/or is rescued and shuts the operation down, but he discovers later that they did manage to start growing a handful of clones. Only one of the clones survives, and it's a baby.

Now I don't actually want this baby to be a clone of Kon, at least not directly. He's closer to the DNAliens who are more genetically engineered beings as opposed to proper clones. But Kon still thinks of the situation as the baby being made from or because of him, and the scientists definitely were using him as a kind of template, so Kon feels responsible for the baby. There is partially a practical aspect...because of the genetic tampering there are any number of problems that might present as the baby grows, so it would be unkind to just put the baby into foster care for whoever to just adopt when they may not be equipped to deal with those problems, and if the kid develops powers as well then that's another problem too. And also lol Kon would NOT trust any governmental agencies with a baby clone. But mainly, Kon just sees himself in the baby. He's thinking that the baby might get what he didn't as a kid...a childhood and someone to be raised by and so on.

So basically Kon decides to adopt the baby. He ends up thinking a lot about Jim Harper, and about how he tried to keep the baby Jim away from the government and Cadmus but couldn't. I think he should name his baby after Jim, but also there are too many Jim's and Jimmy's and James's already so maybe it should just be a middle name. I am going to keep using it as a placeholder though because I haven't thought of anything else yet.

So that's the intro to the story. The main plot of it would follow the heroes finding that the people who created baby Jim were connected to a larger pattern of people finding a use for cloning on a wider scale than has been done before, and then the repercussions of that. I would establish that the knowledge of how to create clones largely rested with Cadmus, and once they were gone, people actually using cloning technology became rare because it's prohibitively expensive or time-consuming to figure it out, so for a while the only people who tried were the people who were smart enough AND obsessed enough (so mainly supervillains) (plus the government). But after a while, the science of it became clearer or easier and people started to think of more practical uses for cloning. For example...why bother using regular people for organ harvesting if you can grow unlimited amounts in a lab. Or people can use cloning technology to create their own soldiers or militia. Human traffickers would have a use for it as well. The people who created baby Jim were creating him to sell to people who wanted super-powered lackeys. And all of this is being done illegally of course (except for what the government is doing but we'll get to that later), and superheroes are having to deal with these groups that keep popping up who are creating all these clones for profit basically. And eventually the general public becomes aware of it, and so of course eventually it becomes this huge politicized issue. There are a lot of clones hanging around because of superheroes freeing them and taking down the groups that created them, and people start freaking out about what to do about them.

Kon would be at the forefront of dealing with all this. I think he would try to retire when he adopts the baby, so that he can raise him and spend time with him. But then as baby Jim gets older and the issue of cloning grows, he would eventually be pulled back into being a superhero (which would be when he reinvents himself as Supernova). So at the same time that the public is debating questions like "what rights do cloned beings deserve" and panicking over the idea of people creating programmable humans, Kon is trying to figure out how to actually help these clones. And at the same time the government is also scrambling to make sure they will still be able to do their clandestine using-superpowered-people-for-unethical-government-missions shit, which occasionally includes their own cloning experiments.

I'd want to put a lot of worldbuilding in the background of this...stuff about the DC world's legal systems and how they handle the realities of metahumans and superheroes and vigilantes and magical beings and aliens. I know Action Comics recently had a storyline about people being upset about aliens living on earth, and id want to tie that and other similar storylines into this story. Kon's personal story would obviously include a lot around topics of dehumanization and exploitation, and I also really want to do an exploration of how Jim Harper and Dubbilex's attitudes towards being clones influenced Kon.

Also I'm just very attached to the handful of scenes that I have written down with Kon and baby Jim.

Somebody ask me about my hypothetical wip about clone rights & Kon raising a baby bc I know I'm not going to ever write it but I want to talk about it

#kon el #my posts

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douchebagbrainwaves · 4 years ago

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YOUR EMPLOYEES AND INVESTORS WILL CONSTANTLY BE ASKING ARE WE THERE YET

I think I've figured out what's going on. After the first 10 or so we learned to treat deals as background processes that we should ignore till they terminated.1 Don't Get Your Hopes Up. Something hacked together means something that barely solves the problem, the harder it is to bait the hook with prestige. And that is almost certainly mistaken. So one thing that falls just short of the standard, I think, should be the highest goal for the marginal. Big companies think the function of office space is to express rank. As big companies' oligopolies became less secure, they were willing to pay a premium for labor. You can see it in old photos. If you're friends with a lot of the worst kinds of projects are the death of a thousand cuts. And what's especially dangerous is that many happen at your computer.

And the microcomputer business ended up being Apple vs Microsoft. In 1450 it was filled with the kind of turbulent and ambitious people you find now in America. You have to like what they do there than how much they can get the most done. That's not what makes startups worth the trouble. Design This kind of metric would allow us to compare different languages, but that if someone wanted to design a language explicitly to disprove this hyphothesis, they could probably do it. This technique can be generalized to: What's the best thing you could be doing, not just what you can see the results in any town in America. With this amount of money can change a startup's funding situation completely. There I found a copy of The Atlantic. Whereas it's easy to get sucked into working longer than you expected at the money job.2 That's ok. I think you have to do all three. But more importantly, you'll get into the habit of doing things well.

But what if the person in the next 40 years will bring us some wonderful things.3 They all know about the VCs who rejected Google. The writing of essays used to be.4 You may have read on Slashdot how he made his own Segway.5 He improvises: if someone appears in front of him, he runs around them; if someone tries to grab him, he spins out of their grip; he'll even run in the wrong place, anything might happen. The people who've worked for a few months I realized that what I'd been unconsciously hoping to find there was back in the place I'd just left. It was supposed to be something else, they ended up being Apple vs Microsoft. By 2012 that number was 18 years. The first thing you need is to be willing to look like a fool.6 Google they have a fair amount of data to go on. John Malkovich where the nerdy hero encounters a very attractive, sophisticated woman.

Many of the big companies were roll-ups that didn't have clear founders.7 Empirically, the way to the bed and breakfast, and other similar classes of accommodations, you get to hit a few difficult problems over the net at someone, you learn pretty quickly how hard they hit them anyway. Inexperienced founders make the same mistake as the people who list at ABNB, they list elsewhere too I am not negative on this one was the only way to get lots of referrals is to invest in students, not professors. It will actually become a reasonable strategy or a more reasonable strategy to suspect everything new.8 Never say we're passionate or our product is great. Whereas undergraduate admissions seem to be disappointments early on, when they're just a couple guys in an apartment. Programmers at Yahoo wouldn't have asked that.9 Incidentally, this scale might be helpful in deciding what to study in college. VCs think they're playing a zero sum game.

I spend most of my time writing essays lately. Almost everyone's initial plan is broken. If smaller source code is the purpose of comparing languages, because they come closest of any group I know to embodying it. Distracting is, similarly, desirable at the wrong time. But if we make kids work on dull stuff now is so they can get away with atrocious customer service. In fact, here there was a kid playing basketball? Of course, figuring out what you like.

Go out of your way to bring it up e. The industry term here is conversion. Try to keep the sense of wonder you had about programming at age 14. At least if you start a startup, people treat you as if you're unemployed.10 But hacking is like writing. Even with us working to make things happen the way they used to, they were moving to a cheaper apartment. It causes you to work not on what you like, but is disastrously lacking in others. I do in the rest of the world. Their defining quality is probably that they really love to program.

I could only figure out what to do, there's a natural tendency to stop looking.11 Economies of scale ruled the day.12 One is that this is simply the founders' living expenses.13 I need to transfer a file or edit a web page, and I think I know what is meant by readability, and I think they're onto something. Multiply this times several hundred, and I get an uneasy feeling when I look at my bookshelves. You may have read on Slashdot how he made his own Segway.14 Everyday life gives you no practice in this. Startups grow up around universities because universities bring together promising young people and make them work on anything they don't want to want, we consider technological progress good.

Notes

Samuel Johnson said no man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money. Which is precisely my point. If they were regarded as 'just' even after the egalitarian pressures of World War II the tax codes were so new that the guys running Digg are especially sneaky, but except for money. They don't know enough about the new top story.

The image shows us, they tended to make money. But we invest in the Bible is Pride goeth before destruction, and one of the fake leading the fake leading the fake. In No Logo, Naomi Klein says that 15-20% of the aircraft is.

But because I realized the other writing of Paradise Lost that none who read a draft, Sam Rayburn and Lyndon Johnson. If they agreed among themselves never to do due diligence for an investor? The best technique I've found for dealing with the other.

I ordered a large number of startups as they do for a public event, you can ignore. If you want to help the company, and a few of the Facebook that might produce the next Apple, maybe the corp dev is to show growth graphs at either stage, investors decide whether to go to die.

If you walk into a big company CEOs in 2002 was 3.

Or rather, where w is will and d discipline. But that turned out the existing shareholders, including that Florence was then the richest country in the sense of mission.

In Shakespeare's own time, because they can't afford to. The company may not be able to raise their kids in a company in Germany. When we got to see the apples, they said, and why it's next to impossible to write an essay about it wrong. That will in many cases be an open booth.

I'm not saying you should probably be worth trying to tell them exactly what constitutes research in the early 90s when they say they bear no blame for any particular truths you'll learn. As Jeremy Siegel points out that there is undeniably a grim satisfaction in hunting down certain sorts of bugs. Did you know about it as if you'd invested at a discount of 30% means when it was actually a great programmer doesn't merely do the right direction to be is represented by Milton.

But a lot of the next round. It's hard to say exactly what your body is telling you. In Russia they just kill you, they tend to be very unhealthy. One thing that drives most people realize, because you have two choices, choose the harder.

Though Balzac made a lot of classic abstract expressionism is doodling of this essay talks about programmers, but one by one they die and their houses are transformed by developers into McMansions and sold to VPs of Bus Dev. Or rather, where it sometimes causes investors to act. Eric Raymond says the best hackers want to trick admissions officers. And no, unfortunately, I mean efforts to protect widows and orphans from crooked investment schemes; people with a truly feudal economy, you better be sure you do in proper essays.

The top VCs thus have a better education. Or a phone, IM, email, Web, games, books, newspapers, or some vague thing like that. You need to fix. But the question is not much to maintain their percentage.

Kant. Loosely speaking. The real decline seems to them to lose elections. Some types of startups where the recipe is to say incendiary things, they can grow the acquisition offers most successful founders still get rich simply by being energetic and unscrupulous, but they get for free.

World War II to the frightening lies told by older siblings. That's one of the most general truths. As we walked in, we found they used it to get into that because a unless your last funding round.

But this seems an odd idea.

Thanks to Jessica Livingston, Shiro Kawai, Garry Tan, Chris Small, and Nikhil Nirmel for sharing their expertise on this topic.

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mosylufanfic · 4 years ago

Text

All the Men and Women Merely Players

This started out a response to a prompt, but it meandered further and further from the prompt until I just threw my hands up and leaned into it. Apologies in advance to anyone who knows more about stagecraft than I do, which is admittedly not much. Thanks to @sassysnowperson who helped me talk through the differences between Padme and Leia.

All the Men and Women Merely Players

"All right," Draven said. "All right. That's enough of that." He sounded vaguely disgusted. "Organa and Solo, we're going to run that act two scene again."

"Great," Leia Organa muttered.

Her romantic lead, Han Solo, snapped, "I ain't thrilled about it either, sweetheart."

"Should I stay, sir?" said the prissy man playing the princess's majordomo, who interrupted a romantic moment at the very end of the scene.

Draven grunted. "No, you get out. The rest of you, too. Go on." He turned his back and said to the two leads, "Look, they're supposed to be falling in love, not trying to tear each others' throats out."

Jyn grabbed her bag and shrugged into her coat on the way out of the big rehearsal room. It had been a bad rehearsal all around, full of bumps and bruises, literal as well as figurative. She was dying for something greasy and dreadful, eaten in front of the telly, and copious amounts of alcohol.

Quick footsteps alerted her to company. "Jyn," said a voice, and she turned.

Cassian Andor, the play's fight choreographer, said, "Have you got a moment to talk?"

She mustered up a smile. After an entire morning working on the fights, he was about the last person she wanted to talk to right now. But she was a fecking professional. "Yeah," she said. "I know, I was crap today. I'm going to work on it. Maybe take a dance class or something." Ugh. She'd been kicked out of ballet as an unruly eight-year-old, and she couldn't imagine it would be any better twenty years later.

But this was the biggest part she'd ever gotten, and she'd fight tooth and nail to keep it.

"Anything in particular I should work on?" she finished up.

He studied her with his damn blank face. If he ever had an expression, it might crack. "Let's go somewhere else," he said.

"That bad," she said.

He nodded toward the door.

It was pissing down rain outside - thank you, England. They dashed down the street to a pub that half the West End frequented. The inside was teeming with actors, running lines, swearing over directors, prepping for auditions. A couple were actually practicing a partnered two-step in the corner.

They ordered at the bar and got their pints. Jyn spotted a table just being abandoned, and made a dash for it. A couple reached it at the same time, and she bared her teeth. They decided to go elsewhere.

It was a prime table, off in a corner, a little secluded from the main hustle and bustle of the pub proper. You could actually hear yourself think.

Cassian settled himself across from her and took a sip of his drink. She did too, watching him over the rim.

Just how bad was this going to be?

Fight choreographers didn't have the power to fire actresses, did they?

Cassian set his glass down with a sigh. "I owe you an apology."

She blinked. "What?"

"An apology," he said, apparently under the impression she hadn't understood him.

"No, you don't, I really was crap. You're supposed to be a hard-ass with me. I've got the most fights - " And she was struggling with all of them. She'd always thought her stage-fighting skills were quite good, but like a lot of things about this play, her confidence in them was taking a drubbing.

He shook his head. "Not for today, for - " He rubbed his hand over his hair, making it stick up in patches. "Look, I need to explain. I grew up in LA, you know?"

"Uh . . . huh." She really didn't know where this was going.

"I saw the original run of this play when it came to the Pantages. I was twelve. It was a school thing . . . anyway. I saw that play and I fell in love. With theatre, with this play, with Sabe Naberrie."

Sabe Naberrie was the woman who'd originated the role of Tanith Ponta, the princess's bodyguard with the traitorous father, who sacrificed her life to save the princess at the end.

Jyn looked into her drink.

Cassian was still rambling. "I was just captivated by her fighting - she was magical, you know? Elegant and deadly, like a sword in human form."

"Yeah, I've seen the videos." Every theater kid worth the title had, sometime in the last twenty years. She'd loved them herself, right up until she was cast, and then attacked by internal demons of self-doubt.

"So when I got this job - my dream job - I made a rookie mistake. I was so caught up in the idea of creating another beautiful sword that I designed it all before I saw you."

Sabe Naberrie - and her sister Padme, who had played the princess - had been slender, elegant women. Jyn was a lot of things, including a damn good actress, but she wasn't elegant. Not without a lot of work.

"Yeah," she said, picking at the edge of her beer mat. "I'm not Sabe."

"Right. Your Tanith is different. Really different. More than that, you're not playing next to Padme Naberrie's princess, you're playing next to Leia Organa's."

There was that. Tanith had her own shit going on, of course, but she was also an extension of the princess. A reflection, sort of. Jyn was pretty sure she'd beaten out a lot of the other front-runners because she was also a small brunette, like Leia Organa.

Jyn had known Leia beforehand, because the theatre world was small and incestuous, but they'd gone out for drinks when Jyn got cast. Getting to know each other better, to have half a hope of recreating the closeness between Sabe and Padme Naberrie that had bled through into their performances.

Also, damn. Leia could drink.

"Tell me." Cassian leaned forward, eyes alight. "What is the difference between them? Their interpretations?"

"Padme and Leia?"

"Mmm. You've talked about it, I know. I've seen your heads together at breaks."

She cocked her head, thinking. "The princess's country is disintegrating," she said slowly. "Everything is going to shit. Padme always played it like - not naive, right? But doing her best to hold it all together. Hoping she actually could manage it in the end. And her last line - "

This is how liberty dies, with thunderous applause.

Padme had delivered that line with sorrow and desperation, hope almost visibly draining out of her.

"Leia's like - she knows it's all going to shit. She knows she can't hold it together. She's got to try, because she's the princess, but she's fucking furious. And when it all comes crashing down, she's going to wade into the wreckage and kick whatever arses she can find."

In the read-throughs and the rehearsals so far, Leia had given that line with fist-clenching cynicism and rage almost boiling out of her pores. But the hope had, somehow, stayed.

A furious, raging, arse-kicking sort of hope. But hope.

"A very different princess," Cassian said.

"Yes."

"So, Tanith."

Jyn hesitated. She'd been thinking about this all day today, but Cassian was one of the best choreographers on the West End. And if Cassian's fights were what Draven wanted -

"Go on," Cassian said, taking a drink.

"Tanith's . . . she's not elegant. That's not her job. Her job is to protect the princess. If someone attacks, she's not going to dance about the stage with a sword. That takes too damn much time."

He didn't seem insulted. "What then?"

"She's going to hit them," she said without hesitation. "Once. And she'll do it hard enough to make sure they stay down."

He smiled hugely. Maybe the first smile she'd ever seen from him. "Yes. Yes, I see it. So you don't need a sword."

"Oh thank fuck," she said, slouching into her chair.

He laughed. "So the question is, what instead?"

"Gun," she suggested, but shook her head almost as soon as the word was out. "No, that's too distant."

"And it doesn't fit the aesthetic of the play."

"Right. Something more up close. Knife?" Little too close to a sword.

He mmm'd with skepticism. "Possible, but - ever done any martial arts?"

"A few, what are you thinking?"

"Bo staff. Or maybe a quarterstaff. Same weapon, different style."

She shook her head. "Done a few others but not that one. You think I could pick it up?"

"Not in the time we have," he said with brutal honesty. "What about a truncheon?"

"What's that?"

"A sort of club," he said, describing the dimensions with his hands. "About this long, this thick."

She flexed her hands, mentally placing what he described into the scenes. "I like it," she said.

No dancing or prancing. No pauses to swirl a sword around so it caught the light ting.

Just wham and step and bam. Maybe an elbow to the face, a knee to the groin if needed. Brutal and efficient. Like her Tanith. Like Leia's princess.

"You sure?" she asked him.

He'd have to change the choreography, not just for her, but for everyone fighting opposite her. There wouldn't be any sword fights with dancing footwork. It would be a lot more athletic for them as they enacted being clubbed with a - what was it? - a truncheon.

It would be a lot of work for everyone, but mostly Cassian.

He looked up from his tablet, where he was taking notes and drawing all over what looked like his initial choreography. "We always change blocking as we go," he said.

"This is a lot more than blocking and you know it. You've got to basically scrap everything you had for me."

"Everything for everybody," he said absently, taking more notes. "But this is the character. Sabe's Tanith was just that, Sabe's. You are a different Tanith and it was wrong, you with a sword. You probably would have gotten it in the end - "

"Thanks," she said cheerfully, unbothered now that the sword-fighting was scrapped.

"You said yourself you were crap," he reminded her. "But it still wouldn't have fit the character as you're interpreting her, and that would have - " Holding the stylus, he swept his hands through the air. "Ripple effected the whole play."

She chewed some bar-nuts and thought about it. "Yeah," she said. "Yeah, you're not wrong."

"Of course I'm not. You want to get some food, talk about this more?"

"I could murder a pie," she said happily. "Some complete twat had me running all over the rehearsal room today for something I'm not even going to end up doing." She grinned at him.

He blinked and then grinned back. He had dimples. Oh, now, that was really unfair. "Eat up," he said. "Tomorrow you're going to be cracking heads."

"Oh, excellent, can't wait."

When they'd got their food and were tucking in, Jyn said, "You think you could do something about Leia and Han, then?"

"I do fights, not love scenes," he said absently, focusing on shaking vinegar over his chips.

"Yeah, well, with them it's really the same thing."

He looked up with another of his quick grins, but then it froze on his face. He looked off in the distance for a moment, the vinegar bottle suspended mid-air. Then he set it down, grabbed for his tablet, and started taking notes.

Jyn watched him for a moment, but he seemed to have been caught by something in his own head. "Gonna eat those?" she asked.

He grunted and scribbled something else.

"Right," she said, and stole a chip.

FINIS

#Cassian Andor #Jyn Erso #rebelcaptain #mosylufanfic lives up to her damn name #fanfiction #NaNo prompts #theater AU #mosylu indulges her love of fighting-as-characterization #star wars

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melisa-may-taylor72 · 4 years ago

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QUEEN BEFORE QUEEN

THE 1960s RECORDINGS

➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖

PART 4:

THE OPPOSITION

JOHN DEACON WAS THE QUIETEST MEMBER OF A MIDLAND-BASED FIVE-PIECE WHOSE GREATEST AMBITION WAS TO PLAY ANOTHER GIG.

Initial research John S. Stuart. Additional research and text: Andy Davis.

John Deacon was the fourth and final member to join Queen. He became part of that regal household 25 years ago this month, enrolling as the band’s permanent bassist in February 1971. His acceptance marked the culmination of a six-year ‘career’ in music, much of which he spent in an amateur, Leicestershire covers band called the Opposition.

From 1965 until 1969, Deacon and his schoolmates ploughed a humble, local furrow in and around their Midlands hometown, reflecting the decade’s mercurial moodswing with a series of names, images and styles of music. The most remarkable fact about the Opposition was just how unremarkable the group actually was.

Collectively, they were an unambitious crew: undertaking precisely no trips down to London to woo A&R men; winning only one notable support slot for the army of chart bands who visited Leicester in the ‘60s (opening for Reperata & the Delrons in Melton Mowbray in 1968); and managing even to miss out on the option of sending a demo tape to any of the nation’s record labels. The band’s saving grace is its solé recorded legacy: a three-track acetate — although even this was done for purely private consumption, and has rarely been aired outside the confines of their inner circle.

It is perhaps indicative of the Opposition’s modest outlook that their most promising bid for stardom, a beat contest, was called off before they had the chance to play in the finals. For John Deacon and friends, it seems, merely being in a band was reward enough.

Considering of all of this, it’s easy to imagine the response to the following story, related in the ‘60s to one of the Opposition’s guitarists, Ronald Chester:...[ ]

...[ ] “There was a teacher who worked at Beauchamp School, which John attended, who told fortunes. They went to see her one Saturday and were told, ‘John Deacon is going to be world famous and very, very rich. Of course, they all fell about laughing. She was determined that this was going to happen. But they all thought it was a joke."

What particularly amused Deacon’s colleagues was the unlikeliness of this scenario, given the plain facts of his demeanour. John was born in Leicester in 1951, the product of affluent, middle-class, middle England. As a youngster, he was known to his friends as ‘Deaks’ and grew up to be quiet and reserved, what Mark Hodkinson referred to in ‘Queen — ‘The Early Years’ as “a ghost of a boy".

“He is basically shy,” confirms Richard Young, the Opposition’s first guitarist/vocalist, and later keyboardist. “I suppose he was quieter than the rest of us — but he was fairly static with Queen if you look at him on stage.”

Ron Chester agrees: “John was quiet by nature. His sister, Julie, was the same. Once he got going, though, he wasn’t any different from anybody else. But on first approach, you really had to coax him out of his shell. We’d have to pick him up. He couldn’t walk down the road to meet us."

CONFIDENT

Despite any lack of personal dynamics, Deacon was a capable teenager: “He was very confident," recalls another of the band’s guitarists, David Williams. “But in a laidback sort of way. He didn’t have a problem with anything. ‘Yeah, I can do that’, he’d say. We used to call him ‘Easy Deacon’, not because of any sexual preferences, but because he’d say something was easy without it sounding big-headed. I remember saying to him once, I’m going to have to knock off the gigs a bit to revise for my ‘A’ levels. What about you?’ ‘No’, he said, ‘I don’t need to. I’ve never failed an exam yet, and I’ve never revised for one’. Ultimately, he was just confident, with a phenomenally logical mind. If he couldn’t remember something, he could work it out. And, of course, he got stunning results.”

John’s earliest interest was electronics, which he studied into adulthood. He also went fishing, trainspotting even, with his father. Then music took over. After dispensing with a ‘Tommy Steele’ toy guitar, John used the proceeds from his paper round to buy his first proper instrument, an acoustic, when he was about twelve. An early musical collaborator was a school mate called Roger Ogden, who like Roger Taylor down in Cornwall, was nicknamed ‘Splodge’. But his best friend was the Opposition’s future drummer, Nigel Bullen.

“I’d first got to know John at Langmore Junior School in Oadby, just outside Leicester, in either 1957 or 1958,’' recalls Nigel. “We were both the quiet ones. We started playing music together at Gartree High School, when we were about thirteen. We were inspired by the Beatles — they made everybody want to be in a group. John was originally going to be the band’s electrician, as he called it. He used to build his own radios, before we had any amps, and he fathomed a way of plugging his guitar into his reel-to-reel tape recorder. He was always the electrical boffin."

The prime mover in the formation of the group was another Oadby boy they met on nearby Uplands Park, Richard Young. “Richard was at boarding school," recalls Nigel Bullen. “He was always the kid with the expensive bike. He played guitar, and what’s more had a proper electric, with an amplifier. He instigated getting the band together. Initially, we rehearsed in my garage, and then anywhere we could. John played rhythm to begin with. He was a chord man, the John Lennon of the group, if you like."

SWITCH

Despite his later switch to the bass, Deacon’s technique on the guitar also developed, as Dave Williams reveals: “Later on, I remember he could play ‘Classical Gas’ on an acoustic, which was a finger-picking execise and no mean feat. It’s a bit like ‘McArthur Park’, a fantastic piece of music, and when I heard it, I thought, ‘Bloody hell. You dark horse!’ Because he never showed off."

The Opposition’s first bassist was another school friend of John’s called Clive Castledine. In fact, the group made its debut at a party at Castledine’s ouse on 25th September, 1965 (their first public performance took place the...[ ]

...[ ] following month at Gartree’s school hall). Clive looked good and appreciated the kudos of being in a group, but he wasn’t up to even the Opposition’s schoolboy standards. “I was the least proficient, to put it mildly,” he admitted to Mark Hodkinson.“His enthusiasm was 100%,” adds Richard Young, “but his actual playing ability was null, so we had a meeting and got rid of him.” Deacon took over, initially playing on his regular guitar, using the bottom strings. “John was good,” Young continues. “It was no problem for him to switch to bass. He hit the right notes at the beginning of the bar, and we were a better band for it. Whereas Clive made us sound woolly, as anyone who just plonked away on any old note would, John was solid.”

DIARY

Young turned out to be the Opposition’s archivist, keeping a diary of each gig played, the equipment used, and the amounts of money earned (as indeed did John Deacon). Richard’s diary documented the day Deacon — now, of course, bassist in one of the world’s most famous groups — first picked up his chosen instrument. “In an entry for 2nd April, 1966,” says Young, “it reads, ‘We threw Clive out on the Saturday afternoon. Had a practice in Deaks’ kitchen, and Deaks went on bass. Played much better.’ John didn’t have a bass, so we went down to Cox’s music shop in King Street in Leicester, and bought him an EKO bass for £60. I paid for it, but I think he paid me back eventually.”

“John’s bass style with the Opposition was the same as with Queen,” reckons Nigel Bullen. “He never used to play with a plectrum, which was unusual, but with his fingers, which meant that his right hand is drooped over the top of the guitar. Also, he plays in an upward fashion, which I’d never seen before, certainly when we were in Leicester. Over the years, I’ve watched many bass players adopt that style. I’d say he has been copied a lot. I’ve mentioned this to him, but he doesn’t agree.”

Clive Castledine wasn’t the last member of the band to be dismissed. “The vocal and lead guitar side of the Opposition was changing all the while,” recalls Nigel. “Myself, John, and Richard Young were always there — as were Dave Williams and Ron Chester later on — but we had a succession of other musicians who I can hardly remember now. There was a guy called Richard Frew in the very early days, and a young lad called Carl, but he didn’t fit in. After we began playing proper gigs, Richard decided he wasn’t happy with his singing and wanted to move onto keyboards, so we brought in Pete Bart (formerly with another local band, the Rapids Rave) as a guitarist and vocalist. He was good, but again, didn’t last long.”

“Bart was a bit of a rocker, while we were all mods,” remarks Dave Williams. “We were impressed by mod bands like the Small Faces and the original Who. Bart seemed to come from a different era altogether.”

“Deaks had the Parka with the fur collar,” remembers Ron Chester. “And short hair, a crew cut. Mirrors on his scooter.” Richard Young agrees: “John was more of a mod than us. But you couldn’t really pigeonhole the band, because our music went right across the board”.

”Buying Deacon his bass was no one-off, and Richard Young is remembered as the group’s benefactor. Being older than the others, he had a steady job working for his father’s electronics company in Leicester, which brought him a regular, and by all accounts, generous wage. He rarely thought twice before splashing out on equipment for the other members.

RECEIPTS

“Richard bought me a P.A.,” recalls David Williams. “But he didn’t ask, he used to think that the group needed it. He’d buy it and then say, ‘You owe me this’. My mum used to get really annoyed. She’d was at that going- through-my-pockets stage, probably looking for contraceptives. She once found a receipt from Moore and Stanworth’s, a local music shop. It was for a Beyer microphone, which cost about £30. I was still at school, getting pocket money, and my mum said, ‘What on earth is this?!’ Receipts on the Sunday dinner table, that sort of thing. It was good, though. The group needed it.”

“I was dead serious about the band,” claims Young, who switched to organ with the arrival of Williams in July 1966. “Perhaps more so than anybody else. I could see it going nowhere if money wasn’t pumped into it.”

“Dick Young was an accomplished organ player,” adds Dave, “and he improved the group quite a lot. He always had plenty of dosh, and a car. But he was totally mad, a crazy bloke. He’d come round with an organ one week, then next week, he’d have a better one. He ended up with a Farfisa, with one keyboard on it, then one with two keyboards — one above the other. Then he had a Hammond, an L 100. which was really heavy. Then he had a ‘B’ series one. The ‘L’ was top-of-the-range and he sawed it in half to make it easier to carry!”

Dave Williams helped to improve the group as well. “He was at school with us,” says Nigel Bullen, “but in another band, who we always looked up to.” That band was the Leeds-based Outer Limits (who went on to issue several singles — without Dave — in the late ‘60s). “I joined the Opposition after they asked me to watch them and tell them what I thought,” recounts Dave. “The Outer Limits were older lads, all mods, but I was after something a bit more easy going, and the Opposition were my own age. They were okay, but I first saw them at John’s house, when they were still practising in bedrooms, and they were absolutely awful. I said, ‘Have you thought of tuning up?’ They said they had. But it sounded like they were playing in different keys — totally horrendous. It was so funny. They were so conscientious, they’d all learned their bits, but hadn't tuned up to each other. That was my first tip.”

“Our first proper gig was supporting a local band, the Rapids Rave, at Enderby Coop Hall,” recalls Nigel Bullen. “They used to play at this village hall every week. and then we ended up doing it every week for quite some time.” Richard’s diary records the Opposition’s debut taking place on 4th December 1965, and that the band’s fee was £2. Thereafter, they began to offer their Services in the local ‘Oadby & Wigston Advertiser’, which led to bookings in youth clubs and village halls in local hot-spots like Kibworth, Houghton-on- the-Hill, Thurlaston and Great Glen.

SCHOOL WORK

By spring 1966, the Opposition were playing every weekend, school work permitting. The peaks and troughs of their career are illustrated by the following memorable gigs: one at St. George’s Ballroom, Hinckley, on 23rd June 1967, when just two people turned up and the band went home after a couple of numbers; and a September appearance in a series of shows at U.S. Airforce Bases in the Midlands, at which they were required to play for four-and-half hours with just two twenty-minute breaks. It was nothing if not diverse.

“It didn’t seem to matter what you played,” says Dave. “People would clap simply because you were making music. They never said, ‘Do you do Motown, or soul stuff?’ ” The band’s repertoire initially consisted of chart sounds and the poppier end of the R&B spectrum. “Although we were inspired by the Beatles, we never did any of their songs,” claims Nigel. “But we covered the Kinks, the Yardbirds, and things like Them’s ‘Gloria’, and the Zombies’ ‘She’s Not There’.

They also altered their name slightly to the New Opposition, which they unveiled at the Enderby Coop Hall. “The name-change was decided overnight, when John moved from rhythm to bass guitar,” recounts Richard, whose diary records the date of the transition as 29th April 1966. Interestingly, though, it makes no mention of another local group also called the Opposition, long thought to have been the reason for Deacon’s crew adopting the ‘New’. The change did act as an impetus for further development, however, instigated by Dave Williams, who soon took over as the group’s lead vocalist.

“When I joined they were doing all Beach Boys stuff,” he recalls, “and I think I may have brought in a little credibility. In the Outer Limits, I’d been playing John Mayall, the Yardbirds, that sort of thing, plus that group was into really good soul like the Impressions, and fantastic vocal bands from the States. So I had a broad musical knowledge by then, whereas the Opposition had been a bit poppy.” Appropriately, the words “Tamla” and “Soul” were now added to the Opposition’s ads and calling cards.

Towards the end of 1966, the New Opposition were enhanced further by the arrival of Ron Chester, who’d previously played with Dave Williams in the Outer Limits, as well as in an earlier band, the Deerstalkers. “Ron Chester was a bit eccentric,” claims Richard Young. “He never used to go anywhere without his deerstalker. He was a really good guitarist (“stunning”, adds Dave Williams). We were probably at our best when Ron was in the band.”

On 23rd October 1966, the New Opposition entered the local Midland Beat Contest. They won their heat, landing themselves a place in the semifinals on 29th January 1967. They won this, too, and steeled themselves for the finals, which were due to be held on 3rd March 1967, when they were to be pitched against...[ ]

...[ ] an act called Keny. The stars of the show would have been the nearest the Opposition came to having a rival: an outfit called Legay. (A year later, incidentally, this band issued a now collectable single, “No One” (Fontana TF 904,£80J.) Unfortunately, for all concerned, however, the contest never took place. “That was a fiasco,'' laughs Ron. “Somehow we won those heats, but in fact, I don’t remember seeing anybody else playing. I don’t know whether we won by default or not. After that, they pulled the plug on the competition — probably because they knew we’d be playing again!”.

CASINO

“The heats took place in a club in Leicester called the Casino, which was the place to play,” adds Nigel. “The guy who ran the competition was an agent for the club. His company was called Penguin (or P.S) Promotions and he walked like a penguin too, with his feet sticking out. The final was going to be held in the De Montford Hall, which is still the main venue in Leicester. We thought, ‘Crumbs, this is it, perhaps we might make the big time.’ But the guy did a runner with all the money — people had to pay to come to the heats. So the final was called off.”

David Williams wasn’t too fussed, as he scored another prize that night: “I remember taking a girl back to Dick’s car on the strength of us winning our heat. I said, ‘Can I borrow your keys, Dick? He said, ‘What for? You can’t drive!’ “

Were the New Opposition — or the Opposition, as they dropped the ‘New’ again in early 1967 — left in limbo by the cancellation of the Beat Contest? Having achieved the most public recognition of their talents so far, were they disappointed with the loss of the chance to prove themselves further?

“No. It was almost insignificant,” reckons Ron. “We didn’t really look upon it as a stairway to stardom.” And what would John Deacon have thought? “Nothing really,” suggests Chester. “ ‘It’s cancelled. What are we doing next, then?’ That would have been about the depth of it. We were a village band, all gathering at the church hall to try and improve our abilities. The financial aspect of it wasn’t in the forefront of our minds. We were more concerned with our music, and if we could get a booking doing it as well, to pay off some of the equipment, then that was a real bonus. Three bookings a week was enough for us while we were working or still at school.” Despite any dodgy dealings, history does have the Penguin promoter to thank for the only professionally-taken photograph of the Opposition. (“We didn’t go much on photos in the band,” remembers Dave Williams.) On Tuesday, 31st January 1967, two days after winning the semi-finals, the ‘Leicester Mercury’ dispatched a staff photographer over to Richard Young’s parents’ house in Oadby. Here, the group lined-up in the front room, looking more like refugees from 1964, rather than 1967. The only indications of the actual date are perhaps Ron Chester’s deerstalker hat and the ridiculous length of David Williams’ shirt collars — seven inches, no less, from neck to nipple.

“Dave was very extrovert,” recalls Nigel. “But we all had those silk shirts with the great long collars made by our mums and grandmas for our stage gear.” Dave admits: “Our clothes were all a bit mixed up. We had silk shirts with tweed jackets — which were fashionable for a while — and bell-bottoms. Musically, we were pretty good, better than...[ ]

...[ ] most of the local bands around that time, but we had this squeaky-clean, schoolboy image which let us down. I used to get frustrated when we were billed with other bands, and they’d all play with so many wrong chords but had a better image and still the punters applauded. Were they stupid? We were still at school — we didn’t leave until we were eighteen — and weren’t allowed to grow our hair long”.

“After the mod thing,” he continues, “long hair became really important. Bands were growing their hair right down their backs. I remember getting to one gig with John and Nigel a year or so later, and the other group were already on. And when they saw us they turned round and said, ‘Look! They’ve got no hair!’. We were quite upset about that”.

“We also went through the flower-power look,” Dave adds. “And then we got into those little jumpers without any sleeves that Paul McCartney used to wear, the ones so small that half your stomach showed. And then it was grandad shirts without the collars and flares.” Ron Chester: “The flowery shirts and flared trousers were everywhere. We looked like a right shower of poofters. But so did everybody else. You stood out if you didn’t wear them.”

1967 also heralded the arrival of an additional attraction to the Opposition’s stage show: two go-go dancers. At least, it did if the existing literature on the subject is to be believed. “I vaguely remember it,” admits Richard, “but speaking to Nig, neither of us can recal who those dancers were”.

Dave Williams throws some light on the subject: “They were the jet-set girls of the sixth form, they came from the big houses. They came to a couple of gigs and just started dancing. Somebody who booked us for the following week actually advertised us ‘with go-go girls’. But they were never really part of the show.”

ART

On 16th March, 1968 for a gig at Gartree School, the Opposition changed their name once again. “We called ourselves Art,” reveals Nigel, “because Dave was arty, that is, he was training as an artist. It was as simple as that.” Dave agrees: “It was my idea, because I’d been doing art at school.” Nigel Bullen was aware of another band using that name around the same time (the pre-Spooky Tooth outfit), but assuming them to be American, reckoned they’d be no confusion. As the Leicester-based Art never made it to London, there wasn’t.

Despite wording like “A time to touch and feel, to taste and experience, to hear and understand” appearing on the group’s tickets, Richard maintains that Art was “just the same band” as before. “Nothing changed."

“It was mutton dressed up as lamb, really,” admits Ron Chester. “We thought if we were called something different, people might come because they were curious. But it didn’t make a lot of difference. The audiences were captive at the places we played anyway. There was nowhere else to go on a Friday or Saturday night. Everyone used to roll up to see whoever was on, whether they’d heard of them or not.”

1968 was the year psychedelia caught up with many provincial British bands. The Art were no different, but their acknowledgement of what had been last year’s scene in London was via sight rather than sound. Their light shows seem to have been particularly memorable, as Dave Williams explains: “They were brilliant. We used the projectors from school, filled medicine bottles with water and oil, and projected through them to get this lovely golden, amber backdrop. As the image came out upside down, when we poured in some Fairy Liquid, it dropped straight through in a blob, but came out on the wall like a giant green mushroom cloud. It was amazing, and we had about four of them at the back, projecting over the band.”

John Deacon was party to another of Dave’s exploits. “One day,” recalls Williams, “John and I bought a 100-watt P.A. — which was pretty big for those days — and took it into the lecture theatre full of kids at Beauchamp School (which Deacon had attended since September 1966) for our version of Arthur Brown’s ‘Fire’. We cranked it up as loud as we could, put the light show on, and let off these smoke bombs, which were DDT pellets we’d got from the chemist. All the kids started choking, and then the headmaster walked in...[ ]

...[ ] with a load of governors. You could see the fury in his face. One of the governors asked what we were doing. ‘It’s a demonstration in sound and light, sir,’ I said. ‘We’re using these ink bottles turned upside down, but we’re a bit worried about these DDT pellets so we might knock the smoke on the head, but we’re still experimenting.’ And he fell for it!”.

INFLUENTIAL

Towards the end of 1968, a crop of new groups began to have a profound effect on the maturing schoolboys: Jethro Tull, the Nice, Taste, and in particular Deep Purple. Ron: “We used to buy Purple records and learn to play them. We’d seen John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers and the Downliners’ Sect in Leicester, the Nice, King Crimson. These sort of groups. We learned a lot from just watching them. They were influential. There was always a big discussion in the band as to whether we should do a particular song. Once we’d decided that, there’d be another big discussion as to how we should do it. Everybody had their say.”

Hair, too, had finally began to grow: “John grew his quite long,” recalls Ron. “We all had longish hair, but not shoulder length. We couldn’t look too unkempt for the normal side of life, but we didn’t want to be too prissy for the other end of the spectrum. That was when we started playing universities, and we went a bit heavier. The audiences were far more serious minded about music and more enthusiastic. In some of the youth clubs we’d been playing, the audience would be moving around on roller skates, or peeling bananas all over the place, things like that”.

“We felt we were making an impression towards the last year or two of the band,” he continues. But it went no further: “We were at school, some of us had jobs, and there was an element of common sense overriding what we would have liked to have done. None of us wanted to chuck in our apprenticeships or courses. If we’d had a flair for writing our own material, we might have taken off. But we just played what was popular, nothing different from most other groups. That wasn’t a basis on which to launch ourselves. So it never happened."

“We didn’t think that far ahead,” admits Richard Young. “I just thought of playing and getting repeat bookings. John was probably the least ambitious of all of us, to be honest. I think he felt that there was no mileage in what we were doing, although it was good fun. I think he had the impression that this was a hobby, a phase he was going through.”

Sometime in the Sixties, possibly 1969, but maybe earlier, Art recorded an acetate. Whatever the date, the crucial point is that John Deacon was present at the session. “We weren't asked to do it,” recalls Nigel. “We just wanted to make a disc. I think it cost us about five shillings.”

The venue was Beck’s studio, thirty miles south east of Oadby in Wellingborough, Northamptonshire. “I’d never been in a studio before and it seemed awesome, really,” recalls Dave Williams. “It was a fairly decent-sized room for acoustics. It was all nicely low-lit, with lots of screens. The guy knew what he was doing.” Richard Young was less impressed, though: I’ve been in studios all my life,” he says. “That was just another session. Nothing about it stood out.”

The “guy” Dave remembered was engineer Derek Tomkins, who informed the group that they could record three tracks in the time allotted. “We’d only gone in there with two, ‘Sunny’ and ‘Vehicle’,” says Nigel, “and we didn’t want to waste the opportunity, so Richard knocked up a little instrumental called Transit 3’ — named after our new van, the third one — right there in the studio. Although we were purely a covers band, everybody had a bash at writing, but we never did anything of our own on stage. The exception was Transit 3’, which was incorporated into the set after this session.”

“ Transit 3’ was about about the only track we ever wrote," reckons Richard Young (“Heart Full Of Soul”, as reported in ‘As It Began’, is in fact a Graham Gouldman nurnber). “I initially had the idea, but I can’t really remember anything about it. It’s very basic. It wouldn’t take a great deal of effort to write something like that.” To the objective observer, “Transit 3”, taped in mono but well recorded, is a fairly uncomplicated, organ-led scale- hopper, reminiscent of Booker T & the MGs.

“Everybody was listening to ‘Green Onions’,” confirms Nigel, “so Booker T would have been an influence there.” But for all that, it’s well- played, with memorable lead and twangy, wah-wah guitar passages courtesy of Dave Williams. And, crucially, John Deacon’s thumping bass is plainly audible throughout. On this evidence, the Opposition were clearly a tight, confident outfit. “Transit 3” could have been incorporated into any swinging ‘60s film soundtrack, and no one would have jumped up shouting, “Amateurs”!.

UNFAMILIAR

The other two tracks, covers of Bobby Hebb’s ‘Sunny' and the more obscure, soul- tinged ‘Vehicle’ (later a hit for the Ides of March), featured a vocalist, but an unfamiliar one: another of the Opposition’s fleeting frontmen. “We had a singer for a while called Alan Brown,” recalls Nigel. “He came and went fairly quickly. He was good, really good. Too good for us, I think. That wasn’t him saying that. We just knew it.”

On both songs, Brown is in deep, soulful voice, sounding not unlike a cross between Tom Jones and the early Van Morrison — if such an amalgam can be imagined. The Art’s reading of “Vehicle” is edgy and robust, dominated by Richard Young’s distinctive keyboards and Nigel Bullen’s bustling drum work. Dave Williams is again in fine form, delivering more sparkling wah-wah guitar, while on the cassette copy taped from Nigel Bullen’s acetate, at least, John’s bass is very prominent, over-recorded in fact, booming in the mix.

“Sunny” goes one better, breaking into jazzy 3/4 time halfway through, before slotting back into the more traditional 4/4. It’s an imaginative arrangement, with alternate soloing from both Dave and Richard, while the whole track is underpinned by swirls of Hammond organ and John Deacon’s pounding bass.

“We did ‘Sunny’ as part of our stage set,” says Nigel, “but I don’t recall us ever going into the jazzy bit. That’s quite interesting. We might have talked about that before we went into the studio, but I think it was just for this session. Dave had two guitars, a six-string and a twelve-string, or it could even have been twin-necked. I still quite like the wah-wah he played on that track. By this time Richard would have been onto his second or third organ — he was heavily into Hammonds and Leslies."

Operating as they did in a fairly ambition- free zone, and having prepared the listener for a mundane set of recordings with their trademark laid-back approach, Art’s acetate comes as something of a revelation. Let any bunch of today’s schoolboys loose in a studio for an afternoon and defy them to come up with something half as good!

Just two copies of the Art disc are known to have survived. John Deacon’s mother is believed to own one and Nigel Bullen has the other. “I’d forgotten all about this record,” admits Nigel. “We know that one copy was converted to an ashtray!. We stubbed out cigarettes on Richards at rehearsal one night.” Although treated with anything but respect at the time, the importance of the disc is now apparent to Nigel Bullen: “This is probably John Deacon’s first recording, apart from tracks he did in his bedroom on his reel-to-...[ ]

...[ ] reel, which are probably long gone. Although, knowing John, they’re probably not!”

The beginning of the end for Art came in June 1969, when John Deacon left Beauchamp. With a college course lined up in London, his days with the band were obviously numbered. He played his final gig with the group on 29th August at a familiar venue, Great Glen Youth and Sports Centre Club. By October, he’d moved to London to study electronics at Chelsea College of Technology, part of the University of London.

Another blow was dealt in November, when the band's lynchpin, Richard Young, left to join popular local musician Steve Fearn in Fearn’s Brass Foundry.

“They were a Blood, Sweat and Tears-type of group,” recalls Richard, “and paid better money than I’d been used to. I was out five nights a week, on about £3 per night, against an average of about £10 between us.” The previous year, Richard had played session keyboards on the Foundry’s two Decca singles: “Don’t Change It” (F 12721, January 1968, £10) and “Now I Taste The Tears” (F 12835. September 1968, £8).

SAVAGE

Ron Chester departed shortly afterwards, and gave up music: “I left in the early 70s, after John Deacon moved to London. John was replaced by a bass player was called John Savage, who unsettled me. He had different tastes and drove us a bit hard. His approach was totally different from Deaks's, and he was much more interested in the financial side of things. We’d all been mates before, we didn't just knock about for the band. It just wasn’t the same.”

Nigel, Richard and Dave pushed on into 1970 with the new bassist, changing the band’s name again, this time to Silky Way. They returned to Beck’s studio to record a cover of Free’s “Loosen Up” with another vocalist, Bill Gardener, but that was the band’s last effort. Dave left after falling into Nigel’s drumkit, drunk on stage at a private party one Christmas. “I waited for them to pick me up the next day,” he recalls sheepishly, “but they never carne.”

Richard and Nigel moved into a dinner- dance type outfit called the Lady Jane Trio — “Corny, or what!”, laughs Bullen — but Nigel left music altogether soon afterwards to concentrate on his college work. Richard turned professional, moving into cabaret with the Steve Fearn-less Brass Foundry, before forming a trio called Rio, finding regular work on the holiday camp and overseas cruise circuit. In the late ‘70s, he joined a touring version of the Love Affair.

Down in London, John Deacon caught a glimpse of his future world-beating musical partners as early as October 1970, when he saw the newly-formed Queen perform at College of Estate Management in Kensington. “They were all dressed in black, and the lights were very dim too,” he told Jim Jenkins and Jacky Gunn in ‘As It Began’, “All I could really see were four shadowy figures. They didn’t make a lasting impression on me at the time.”

While renting rooms in Queensgate, John formed a loose R&B quartet with a flatmate, guitarist Peter Stoddart, one Don Cater on drums and another guitarist remembered only as Albert. The new band was hardlv a great leap forward from Art: they wrote no originals, and when asked to perform their only gig at Chelsea College on 21st November 1970, supporting Hardin & York and the Idle Race, they hastily billed themselves — in a rare fit of self-publicity for the quiet Oadby boy — as Deacon.

A few months later in early 1971, John was introduced to Brian May and Roger Taylor by a mutual friend, Christine Farnell, at a disco at Maria Assumpta Teacher Training College. They were looking for a bassist. John auditioned at Imperial College shortly afterwards. Roger Taylor recalled Queen’s initial reaction to Deacon in ‘As It Began’: “We thought he was great. We were so used to each other, and so over the top, we thought that because he was quiet he would fit in with us without too much upheaval. He was a great bass player, too — and the fact that he was a wizard with electronics was definitely a deciding factor!”

How did the members of the Art/Opposition back in Leicester, view John’s success with Queen? “It wasn’t sudden”, says Ron Chester. “First we heard he’d got into another group. We couldn’t believe that — were they deaf? There were all these sort of jokes going along. Then we heard he’d got a recording contract and the next thing he had a record out. It was a gradual progression. No one dreamed he would end up the way he did.”

“I don’t think we expected success for any of us" admits Nigel Bullen. “Richard maybe. He was the first one to go professional. But when John left for London to go to college, he left all his kit here. I thought that was the end of it for him. He had absolutely no intention of continuing. His college course was No.1. It was only after he kept seeing adverts for bass players in the ‘Melody Maker’ that he became interested again.”

He also seemed to lose some of that ‘Easy Deacon’ touch which so impressed Dave Williams in the ‘60s. “He’d ring up these bands,” continues Nigel, “but when he found they were a name act, he bottle out. When he went to auditions for anonymous bands, where he would queue up with about thirty other bass players, he had a bit of confidence. He just wanted to play in a decent band. Once I heard what Queen had recorded at De Lane Lea, and John played me the demo of their first album, I thought they were well set.”

CABARET

By early 1973, Dave Williams had forsaken a career in animation to join Highly Likely, a cabaret outfit put together by Mike Hugg and producer Dave Hadfield on the back of their minor hit, “Whatever Happened To You (The Likely Lads Theme)”. While Dave was in the band, they recorded a follow-up single which wasn’t released, before evolving into a glam rock outfit, Razzle, which later become the Ritz, who issued a few singles. “During Queen’s early days, before they’d had any real success, John came to see us once,” recalls Dave, “and said, ‘I wish I was in a band like this which could actually play some gigs’.” Dave concludes: “I remember John coming round once around that time, saying I’ve got a demo’. ‘So have I!’, I said. So we put his on first, and the first track was ‘Keep Yourself Alive’. My mouth dropped wide open and I thought. ‘Bloody hell! What a great track’. I remember saying that the guitarist was as good as Ritchie Blackmore — who was still our hero then — and thinking ‘They’re serious about this. This is the real thing’.”

RECORD COLLECTOR Nº 198 FEBRUARY 1996

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pinoy-culture · 4 years ago

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before I ask my question, I just wanted to say thank you so so so much for keeping up your blog and consistently giving out information where its readily accessible!!!

maybe this will make me sound like an idiot but to preface, I’m a mixed filipino american. My mom is filipino and some chinese and my dad is some sort of european and puerto rican. i was wondering, in your opinion, do you think it’d be okay for me (eventually) work with diwata and anitos? And how can I start? Ive been trying to communicate with my ancestors and I’ve been looking for books to one day buy (im extremely broke so your blog and any filipino witches i come across is all the info i can get) but i honestly have no clue where to start other than with my ancestors (weird dreams lately but nothing ancestor related i think). i took a DNA test as a gift and it pointed, predominantly, to the Western Visayas so im assuming i should study more on pre-colonial Bisayan culture (my lolas from iloilo so it makes sense i guess) but i also know that “blood quantum” is a colonizer concept so i dont wanna rely on it too much :/ sorry to ramble but pls help lol

First, I'd like to say thank you for following the blog! It really does mean a lot to me to hear from others over the years on how much my blogs have helped them learn about our history and culture.

Now as for working with our diwata and the anito, that is completely ok. The whole blood quantum thing among some Filipinos I honestly don't agree with. As long as you have a family member who is Filipino, you are Filipino regardless of your "percentage" and of how you look. If you have Filipino blood in you, the ancestors are there with you. Even if you weren't raised within Filipino culture or a Filipino household because your parents never brought you up in it, or you are an adoptee like some I've met over the years. Your ancestors are your ancestors regardless. They see you and know you and that is all that matters.

Now there really isn't any book focused specifically on reviving our precolonial beliefs and practices. Yes, some did survive and some even blended in with a form of Folk Christianity in the Philippines. You can see many of the older practices and beliefs still alive, but they have been replaced with Catholic imagery and Saints.

But, in regards actually believing in and worshiping our old deities, doing rituals dedicated to the deity, or even some rites of passage like the Tagalog first menstruation rite of passage, or making carved figures dedicated to the diwata and anito, or performing maganito/paganito or atang to the diwata and anito, majority of Filipinos don't do this, or even know it.

So for being an Anito Reconstructionist, which is a label I personally use for my spiritual beliefs and others have adopted, there really isn't a book for it. A Reconstructionist in other ethnic spiritual paths, such as the Celtic, Roman, Aztec, Kemetic, Greek, Norse, etc., are those who look at historical records to try and piece together what was once practiced and believed in prior to Christianity. Over many years, these different spiritual paths have eventually come together, formed a community, and have resources like books and teachers. They have had the time to do all the research and put together a more formal spirituality based on those Pre-Christian beliefs and bringing it to the modern day where they have hundreds to thousands of people who have gone back to those beliefs. With some, they have even created temples, shrines to their deities, and even have celebrations.

Unfortunately that is not the case for us. However, due to the growing interest in our precolonial beliefs and practices over the years, I can see Anito Reconstructionism growing within the next several years. It already has, with many people actually trying to learn more about these beliefs and our old deities. The amount of people of people I've seen and talked to who have expressed their interest to reclaim these precolonial beliefs and practices is nothing compared to 10 years ago when it was hard to even find one or two people who did.

It is why I've been writing this book for a few years now dedicated to helping others in wanting to reclaim our precolonial beliefs and practices as a starting point in their research. For now though, I always recommend those who are starting to simply just read the historical texts. Grab a notebook and write down notes. Organize your notes into deities, rituals, how to make an offering, any prayers to a specific deity, how to set up an altar, etc.

Seeing as your family is from the island of Panay in the Western Bisayas, like my moms side are from, I would start with looking at the Bisayan precolonial beliefs and practices. A really good reference is reading Francisco Alcina's History of the Bisayans (1668). Volume 3 is available online in English which you can find here. Volume 3 goes into a lot of detail in the beliefs and practices. The Boxer Codex, if you are able to get a copy of the English translation, is also really good reading material.

Getting Started:

In terms of getting started, keep in mind that there is no one monolithic belief system or practice in the Philippines. Before there ever was a Philippines, we were different nations with different beliefs and practices. It is important to know your ethnic groups beliefs and practices and know their history. For example, I am Bisaya (Akeanon specifically) and Tagalog and that is what I work with. Others who I know follow the Bikolano, Kapampangan, or Ilokano beliefs. Though there are some similarities, each ethnic group had their own set beliefs and practices.

I often tell people that you can't just mix and match between them. For example, though I work with both the Tagalog and Bisayan pantheons, I wouldn't dare do a ritual offering to both a Tagalog or Bisayan deity at the same time. It's always separate. You also can't combine 2 similar deities together from different ethnic groups just because they share similar attributes. It's just rude and disrespectful.

Start out small. Set up an altar dedicated to your ancestors. If you have any family members who have passed, put a photo of them on the altar. Leave offerings of rice cakes such as suman, food like chicken adobo, or even a cup of drink such as tuba, lambanog, or even Red Horse beer. But if you can't get access to an alcoholic drink either because one you are a minor or 2 it's not available where you live, you can simply replace it with a non-alcoholic drinks like coconut juice. Get a coconut shell or a seashell to either place these offerings as bowls/plates or even use them to put your kamangyan or incense.

Then start researching how our Bisayan ancestors worshiped and practiced. Study the history and read historical accounts, books, and articles about them. Write down what you have learned on these precolonial beliefs and practices and reconstruct or revive them. This is what Polytheistic Recinstructionists do. I have listed links to these texts here.

Ask questions to your family, particularly your elders. See if they know of anything or if they can share some traditional practices and beliefs they know of have heard of. You would be surprised how, despite some families being really religious, many still believe in the spirits, do some form of ancestor veneration, believe in omens that are being told to you by the ancestors or spirits, etc.

If you can, try to go back to the Philippines and see your family's ancestral home, see where they grew up, etc. Ask about family stories and folk stories. For example, my mom grew up in Aklan and has always told me stories of the aswang and certain omens. She also constantly talks about the mischievous "little people" who play tricks on you (for example putting something down like your keys and then it goes missing, until you find it again somewhere else). In the Western Bisayas, they are known as kama-kama. There is also a story of how her grandmother's cat visited her during her wake. The cat was missing for years, but it came back and stayed sleeping on top of the casket for days before it left. My mom told me that it was the cat paying their respects to her grandmother.

Keep in mind also and acknowledge our indigenous communities who have kept their beliefs and practices. Don't try to take them into your own. I have seen people cherry pick things from the Manobo of Mindanao or the Kalinga in the Cordillera, which is just disrespectful. Many of the IP, though some still have kept their beliefs, it isn't the most important aspect to them. What they are most concerned about are other issues such as losing their homes due to occupation by oil or logging companies, other settlers such as the Tagalog and Bisayans (especially in Mindanao), getting targeted as "rebels" by the Philippine military and often getting killed. But, by cherry picking beliefs especially of the IP groups, it's just disrespectful.

I will be teaching classes on Anito Reconstructionism soon and will have my first class possibly at the end of the month or next month. I decided to do these classes seeing as there is a growing community who are interested, but don't know where to start. I'll be doing a proper announcement on these classes real soon so look out for the announcement and hopefully you will be able to join!

#filipino #diwata #anito #anito reconstructionist #polytheist #polytheism #precolonial philippines #faq #question #long post

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twstheadcanons · 4 years ago

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Any hcs for pomefiore, like how its students interact socially. Or hcs on the etiquette lessons?

this is long

· I stand by what I said about Savanaclaw – Night Raven College has a bunch of stupid high school boys in its student body. Being in Pomefiore does not erase your dumb high school energy. It is just redirected. As the oldest dorm, Pomefiore has some antiquated decour, and its own pride in maintaining them, including its gratuitous amount of candles strewn about. Are the candlelit flames real? Yes. Can students touch them and light them themselves? Absolutely not. They’re enchanted to light up and extinguish on their own. Vil’s seen firsthand how hotheaded and confrontational Pomefiore students can be. He finds enchanted candles reasonable.

· There’s a garden in the back of the dorm building. As the dorm known for its prowess in poisons and potions, it’s important for Pomefiore students to be able to identify specific types of flora commonly used in formulas, alongside their potential benefits and dangers.

· Gardening can be grueling, especially when dealing with tricky, difficult flora. Vil has extensive instructions under his belt when it comes to making sure all students do their part (there is no avoiding gardening duty). As such, alongside gardening itself, he’s put a lot of time and effort researching and specialising methods to minimise/mitigate the amount of mess and physical involved – and that’s without cutting corners. Every new year brings in new students with their own personal strengths, so he has to make sure no stone goes unturned.

· That said, absolutely no one shares gardening gloves. Crowley is crying at the expenses of just damn gardening gloves but Vil is Not going to budge.

· Of course, the apple trees are ones Pomefiore plants as well. It’s their signature after all. Rook hawk eyes both the trees’ growth and makes sure no one’s snagging them beforehand. Ever since Epel enrolled, he’s lowkey more instructive of the process whenever Vil’s not around. He’s also got his own shortcuts and tricks for general gardening. Having a more hands-on approach since birth, it comes naturally to him.

· Like, no offence, but the Pomefiore apples are not as good as the ones the Felmiers grow.

· Epel is constantly on the verge of going apeshit when something he KNOWS he’s good at and knows his shit about is getting nitpicked, so for Vil’s safety I am making the executive decision that Vil’s noticed Epel sometimes taking charge in helping other students and just lets Epel do his own thing when it comes to helping out with Pomefiore’s plants and apples.

· Honestly, having the two different approaches work in Pomefiore’s favour. Some students need/want more structure and guidance, making Vil a better option. Others benefit from Epel’s self-assured, informal approach since it makes it seem less daunting for beginners.

· Rook likes to indulge himself when it comes to apples. By that I mean he likes to ‘help’ students ‘slice’ their apples by doing the classic arrow-through-the-apple thing. A lot of students think it’s actually pretty awesome.

· Right up until Rook asks for a volunteer to have the apple on their head.

· The science club actually has its fair share of Pomefiore students apart from Rook. Some are simply following the example of a generally respected vice-leader, whilst other took it for their own interests.

· The same goes for film appreciation. While small and mostly Pomefiore students under Vil’s lead, it’s a close circle of students working together.

· The ballroom, like gardening, requires its own care and maintenance. Keeping floors, windows, and mirrors clean. This actually goes for the entire dorm, but the ballroom hosts a lot of Pomefiore’s recreational and group events (makes for a good place for film appreciation rehearsals).

· Another reason it’s important to keep the dorm itself clean overall: absolutely no one wants perfume and cologne just lingering in furniture. That is not the life anyone wants. Ever.

· This is something Rook’s especially quick to get on others’ cases about (in his own Rook Hunt way that is). He’s a hunter, so he doesn’t want to risk even the most wonderful of scents blowing his cover.

· Speaking of Rook, if you’re familiar with French in Pomefiore, but don’t use it often. You Do Now for the sake of your fellow dormmates that want to know what the hell Rook is saying.

· Students in Pomefiore tend to grow up into more hands-on careers. Of course, there’s the ones in professions like show business, fashion, and cosmetology, but other common careers they gravitate to are generally science or fine arts related.

· If you know what’s good for you, and you’re interested in fashion, start learning about the ethical issues and dangers of fast fashion ASAP. As someone surrounded by aesthetics and designs, Vil knows his shit and idealistic views that overlook the shady business practises of even big-name groups get under his skin fast. In general, as passionate as he is in his line of work, Vil’s still disillusioned to the glitz and glamour of it, which is why he takes such an aggressive stance on his own management.

· Since first years share four students in one dorm room, Epel’s roommates will never escape the apple smell. It’s gone from charming, to a bit sickening, to being plain desentisised to the scent. While all three are kind of over having an apple or apple juice every time Epel’s family sends them, they’ll happily accept them from time to time. The apple juice especially is popular since it makes for a refreshing change from water.

· Makeup brand debates. They’re a thing. Vil mostly thinks they’re dumb on a surface level since people just gravitate to what works for them and is within their budget but if you ask he’s got dirt on which brands have the worst practises that don’t need Anyone’s money.

· Considering his ‘villain’ typecasting the guy has no fear using his platform to be outspoken on those types of issues which is why a lot of Pomefiore students end up actually respecting him outside his acting and modeling career.

· For the record, it’s not like Epel’s the only student from a rural background in Pomefiore. There are plenty of others, it’s just that they didn’t literally get into a fight with a dorm leader during the opening ceremony.

· The way he acts with Epel early on, however, does leave a rather unflattering impression on said rural students. Epel doesn’t really keep his background a secret, so it’s easy to hear Vil scold Epel’s informal, direct way of speaking as him disliking the actual accents a country person may have. So like. Vil’s gotta work on clearing that up with them, lol.

· This is a “Vil’s done a good number of things wrong” zone regardless of his background and actual intent and also a “Pomefiore isn’t only about beauty but considering the way its students act and speak in general Uhhhhh” so as focused as Vil is on image and Pomefiore on seeming ‘proper’ I am Forcing him to reevaluate his approach to educating less experienced students on westernised and Eurocentric etiquette expectations. You’re going to have students with staunchly different mannerisms and ideas of etiquette that do not affect their work ethic whatsoever sweetie.

· In a similar vein, older Pomefiore students that happen to be beastfolk (I’d like to imagine the Mirror of Darkness doesn’t magically toss Savanaclaw into some unholy ‘this is the beastfolk ghetto’ hell. Do not burst my bubble I won’t listen) usually end up being tightknit with first years. Honestly how else are first-years going to survive Rook Hunt being their vice-leader.

Vil also takes his own measures to minimise how up in their business Rook gets with Pomefiore’s own beastfolk.

Being a detail-oriented dorm, Pomefiore has the most amount of students experienced in hands-on work and crafts. If the individual students get along, Savanaclaw and Pomefiore students can get a lot done when they put their minds to it.

“Absolutely Beautiful” blasting from the ballroom at 5am so the less morning-inclined can wake up properly for the next three weeks.

· Look Vil and Rook have particularly polarising personalities you cannot expect the entire dorm to worship them nor their way of doing things.

· Master Chef, although a small elective, also has its fair share of Pomefiore students. Something about a practical skills class appeals to them, and it actually makes for relaxing classwork.

· First dorm that sorts out people’s allergies. If you think it’s excessive Pomefiore has forms prepared for new students to fill out regarding any extenuating circumstances and conditions think again. No health accidents happening in this dorm.

· Mentions of students struggling tend to result in other students helping each other out. Study groups are pretty encouraged within the dorm if it works out for the people involved. The lounge aside, the ballroom’s surprisingly popular for study groups when it’s not in-use for anything else.

#pomefiore #twisted wonderland #Anonymous

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quirkswriting · 5 years ago

Text

iida tenya’s guide to physical intimacy for the socially awkward

Overview: Your boyfriend’s been acting a little strange lately... not that you’re jealous or anything, but what’s gotten into your socially conscious (and easily embarrassed) favourite boy and why is he holding Midoriya’s hand instead of your own? Pairing: Iida Tenya x Reader (Aged up Uni/College AU!) Word Count: 4.7k Warning(s): Swearing, a small hint of jealousy? But not gross jealousy Author’s Notes: This has taken me a ridiculous amount of time to finish but it’s here! Part 3 of the soft cuddle series featuring the lovable dork Iida <3

***

Iida was annoyed. More than annoyed, really, and starting to verge on frustrated. Not quite upset, but heading in that direction. Which is why he was currently pacing back and forth in the living room of his shared apartment with Midoriya and Todoroki. He’d asked them for advice, calling a roommate meeting in their living room to see if they could help him with his problem.

“You’re wearing a hole in the carpet,” Todoroki said, though he didn’t look up from the book he was reading—something for his Conspiracy Theories class, which had Todoroki the most animated Iida had ever seen him when they’d been discussing the chapter on the Mothman at lunch the day before. So either Todoroki didn’t actually care about the rug or he was too into his reading to push it any further (or possibly a combination of both, seeing as they’d used Todoroki’s father’s credit card to furnish their apartment when they’d moved in and he’d just bought whatever item was the most expensive if Iida or Midoriya didn’t step in with a different opinion). Iida kept pacing anyway, while Midoriya came back from the kitchen with his arms full of snacks and drinks.

“So what’s bugging you, Iida?” He asked, sitting next to Todoroki on the couch. He handed the quiet boy beside him a drink before depositing the rest on the coffee table and taking a drink for himself. Iida finally stopped pacing. He sat down on the plush chair opposite the couch, keeping his back straight as he sank down into the cushion as he looked at his friends. Todoroki was still reading his book, now holding a can of pop in one hand and balancing his book in the other, while Midoriya also had his own can of pop and had popped the tab open and was taking a drink. Iida figured that he may as well tell them.

“I’ve failed as a boyfriend,” he said. Midoriya almost immediately started coughing, choking on his drink. Todoroki dropped his book on his lap and began to pound the smaller man on the back to try and help clear his airway. It took almost a minute before Midoriya stopped coughing and gently pushed Todoroki away.

“What do you mean, ‘failed as a boyfriend’?” Midoriya asked, red starting to fade from his face. Iida sighed, slumping his shoulders and resting his hands on his knees.

“I… want to take the next step in my relationship with (Y/N) and I just haven’t been able to do it,” he told his friends, looking down at his sock feet. “I’ve been researching the best methods for physical intimacy. I’ve read all of the books I could find in the library and I’ve tried looking up information online and I’ve learned quite a lot but every time I try and put it into practice it doesn’t work.”

“You’ve been reading books on physical intimacy?” Midoriya asked, and Iida could hear the crack in his voice. Iida felt his own cheeks grow warm as he looked up from his feet to his friends. Midoriya was trying very hard to keep a smile off his face, while Todoroki was clearing his throat—and sounding suspiciously like he was snorting into his hand. It took an embarrassingly long thirty seconds for Iida to realize what they were thinking, and when he did his eyes widened and he shook his head.

“Not that kind of physical intimacy!” Iida said, waving his hands in front of him. That just seemed to amuse his friends even more and he really hoped they never told you that this conversation happened (but given how close you were with Midoriya he really wasn’t going to hold his breath). “I want to, you know, I’d like to initiate… you know, when you see couples? And they’re not being inappropriate but they’re showing more affection than I’m comfortable doing in public, do you know what I mean?” He was gesturing vaguely and his voice was trailing off towards the end of his sentence, but judging by the way Midoriya’s face lit up, Iida knew he’d made some semblance of sense.

“Oh, Iida, you want to be cuddly with (Y/N)! Oh thank goodness, when you said you’d failed as a boyfriend I thought you’d cheated on them,” Midoriya said, scratching the back of his head. Iida started sputtering, but Midoriya held his hands up in front of his face before his glasses wearing friend could say anything. “I know you wouldn’t though! It’s okay! But it’s that kind of physical intimacy. That’s… that’s a really weird way of putting it. You can just call it PDA, you know? Normal people usually do.”

Iida must have looked as confused as he felt, because Todoroki followed up with, “Public displays of affection,” before draping his arm over the back of the couch and just over Midoriya’s shoulders so that his fingertips were ever so slightly brushing the fabric of Midoriya’s shirt. Now it was the green haired young man’s turn to blush a soft pink. Iida couldn’t help raising an eyebrow and Todoroki cleared his throat. “This… is an example. Of that. I’m giving you an example.”

Well, at least now Iida had something to tell you later. That would hopefully cancel out whatever Midoriya was going to tell you had happened at his apartment today.

“Wait, hold on, if you’re not comfortable doing that in public why are you researching it?” Midoriya asked, his face still pink while he made no move to shy away from his roommate. Iida fidgeted slightly in the chair, relaxing his posture just a bit. He’d been raised with certain expectations in place; to be a proper young man, he had to treat his partners with respect and dignity and treasure them where they are meant to be treasured. He was taught to keep private things private, at home, where it was safe and sacred and just that much more intimate because it was shared between the two of them. That’s how his parents had been, a very ‘behind closed doors’ sort of couple. Hell, Iida could count the number of times he’d seen his own parents kiss on one hand! But he knew you’d been raised differently; that for you, casual intimacy was ingrained into who you were—and he wanted to be part of that too. Even if it was slightly unnerving for him.

Thinking about you brought a smile to Iida’s face, and he looked back down at his hands as they sat folded in his lap. “Because… I know (Y/N) would like it. And I want them to be happy.” He could imagine how you’d look, how happy you’d be in his arms at the movies, or with your hands wrapped around his arm while you were walking in the park, or any other scenario from the multitudes of books he’s read and movies he’s watched over the last few weeks. And while the images were perfect in his head... “But every time I try I always manage to mess it up. And then I try harder and I end up making it worse!” Iida dropped his head low and brought his hands up to cover his face.

“I don’t know, maybe… just kinda go with the flow?” Midoriya suggested, and then Iida felt a hand resting on his shoulder. He took a deep breath and looked up into the freckled face of his best friend, who had moved from his spot beside Todoroki to come and sit cross legged on the floor in front of Iida with a smile on his face. “Just do what feels natural. Or, you know, don’t try so hard with (Y/N). Literally everyone knows how much you guys like each other.”

“To quote Bakugou, the two of you are, ‘Absolutely disgusting with all that lovey-dovey bullshit’,” Todoroki piped up, doing a very deadpan impersonation of the hot-tempered blond. Midoriya snorted, and Iida felt himself crack a small smile. Todoroki then continued, “And if Bakugou can tell how much the two of you like each other, then it’s probably a good idea to listen to Midoriya about this. (Y/N) picked you, after all, knowing who you are and how you handle situations. Even after what happened in the dorms on—”

“Todoroki! Do not finish that sentence,” Iida said, waving his hands again. He had absolutely no desire to talk about the reason the three of them were currently required to live in an off campus apartment together. He’d much rather focus on the problem at hand. Midoriya snorted louder this time, and Todoroki went back to his book. “It’s not that I’m doubting my feelings for (Y/N) or their feelings for me, it’s about… it’s about me having no idea how I’m supposed to ‘Go with the flow’ because every time I try I just get so flustered it ends in disaster and I don’t know how I’m supposed to get better!”

Todoroki dogeared his page and closed his book once more, letting it rest on his lap. “Practice makes perfect,” he said. “You just have to keep working at it. Eventually you’ll get better. Less stiff. Like when you oil your joints to keep yourself in prime condition.” Midoriya coughed to cover what Iida knew was a laugh, and the blue haired man rolled his eyes.

“Practice with who? There are only so many times I can knock over a table when I go out with (Y/N). We’re running out of restaurants we can go to,” he said. It was starting to become a problem, honestly. He thought for a moment, studying his friends, before an idea started to take shape in his mind. These were his roommates, he trusted them, and they were some of the people who he was most comfortable with aside from you… Maybe this could work. “Unless… I practiced with the two of you?”

“With us? No way!” Midoriya’s eyes were wider than what seemed to be humanly possible, and Todoroki was shaking his head. Iida moved from his chair to come and kneel in front of his friends and place his hands on their shoulders.

Iida looked between his friends, his lips set in a firm line. “Think of (Y/N)! Do it for them!” He encouraged them. “Please? You’re the only ones who can help me now.” There was a tense silence for a moment as Midoriya and Todoroki looked to each other and communicated silently. Todoroki broke eye contact first, and his brows were furrowed as he turned to stare Iida down.

“No one tells anyone that we’re doing this,” Todoroki said, and Iida knew he’d won.

Now all he had to do was put his research into practice. And hopefully not cover his friends in their food when he tried.

——

You walked into one of the coffee shops on campus, the cozy one beside the library (not the overpriced one next to the dorms or the super busy one in the community centre) on your way to get some studying done. Your afternoon class was cancelled (Professor Nemuri had emailed the class halfway through your last lecture and you almost cried out of pure relief) and with two tests and a paper due next week you were going to make the most of the time you had. Or, well, you’d try and that was the best you could really do. But you had your headphones in as you got in line to order, you thought of one way you could try and keep yourself on track; invite your boyfriend to come and study with you. You knew his class schedule and he didn’t have anything this afternoon so he might be willing to help you get more done than you would on your own. So you took your phone out of your pocket, moving forward as the person in front of you got closer to the counter, and typed out a message.

‘Hey, my afternoon class got cancelled, wanna come study with me in the library? Study snacks are on me this time!’ you sent, and just like usual you had a response almost right away.

‘Ah, I’m sorry to hear about that (Y/N)! I would be more than happy to study with you this weekend, but I’m afraid I have plans today.’ You frowned, but you knew it was a little last minute anyway. And only your boyfriend would be sad to hear that class was cancelled. You sent off a few sad faces but told him that it was okay, and put your phone back in your pocket. The line moved forward again, and you couldn’t help but look around the coffee shop while you waited. There wasn’t anything too interesting happening at the occupied tables and you almost sighed out loud before you noticed a familiar mop of red and white hair in the back on the side opposite you.

There he was, Tenya Iida, your socially conservative boyfriend, practically cuddled up with his roommates (and your friends) Midoriya and Todoroki in a small booth on the other side of the coffee shop. If any of them looked up and over they would definitely see you, but they seemed to be pretty engrossed in whatever they were talking about so you doubted they’d notice unless you caught their attention. You wished you were a little closer so you could hear what they were saying.

You saw Tenya, the pink flush on his cheeks visible even though he was on the other side of the coffee shop, hesitantly reach over and place his hand on top of Midoriya’s own. You could swear your own jaw dropped and your mouth hung open while you watched. You felt a small pang in your chest watching him hold Midoriya’s hand, and you bit your bottom lip. Tenya was allowed to do whatever he wanted, he was his own person and you trusted him, but seeing him openly affectionate with Midoriya? In public? When you knew how private your boyfriend was and how uncomfortable PDA made him? Your mind was swirling with questions that you absolutely wanted answers to and as much as you were going to deny it, you were just a tiny bit jealous. But you definitely didn’t take any pleasure when, not even a moment later, something Todoroki said caused Tenya to jump and his drink to spill down his front. Nope, no pleasure at all (But you’d remember to give him some stain remover next time you saw him).

You heard someone clear their throat, and you turned from the sight capturing your attention to see the cashier looking expectantly at you. You moved forward, scratching at the side of your neck as you placed your order and paid for it. You moved off to the side and waited patiently for the barista to finish preparing your drink for you—they were as quick as usual, and you couldn’t help but look back to where your boyfriend and his roommates were sitting as you were leaving. They looked completely normal now, no evidence anything had happened except for a small pile of napkins you could see at the edge of the table. You pursed your lips as you left and headed to the library.

But even after you’d secured a table and laid everything out to attempt to have a productive afternoon (before falling victim to Netflix) you couldn’t get the image out of your head and the more you thought about it, the less sense it made. You’d long given up on your test prep and had been staring at a blank laptop screen for the last half hour. Or, well, it felt like half an hour (but had only been about seven minutes). This was going to be a long afternoon and it had only just begun.

Just what the hell had happened?

——

You caught Tenya with Midoriya and Todoroki once again, a few days later, when you were picking up dinner in the dining hall for you and Tsuyu. The two of you were going to binge a new anime together and it was your turn to grab food while she was getting everything set up for your hangout session tonight.

It was the same kind of thing this time, except instead of holding Midoriya’s hand Tenya was attempting to put his arm around Todoroki’a shoulders. It looked so awkward and yet so endearing, but that didn’t stop you frowning. You felt your stomach twist and turn as you wrapped your arms around yourself as you watched your boyfriend talk and laugh and look so much more comfortable and relaxed than you’d ever seen him in public. You couldn’t write this off as a one time thing (which is what you’d done with the coffee shop incident, and was how you justified not talking to him about it before now) because he just looked so natural sitting there.

Part of you really wanted to walk up to them and find out what the hell was going on, but you didn’t. Tsuyu was waiting, after all, and the rational part of you argued that there had to be a good explanation for all of this. Plus, even if it wasn’t with you, seeing your normally stiff boyfriend so relaxed was something that made you the tiniest bit happy. So, with the knots still stretching and twisting your stomach, you went and grabbed the requested food and spent your night with your roommate. There had to be some kind of logical explanation… right?

——

Things finally came to head about a week later when you and Tenya were spending a Saturday night in your apartment. Tsuyu was out with her girlfriend so you had the place to yourself, and you’d invited Tenya over for dinner to spend time together. And, if you could figure out the right way to word it, to find out why he’d been acting so strange with his roommates.

The two of you made dinner together—or, well, you threw whatever leftovers were in your fridge together to make a semi-decent meal so you wouldn’t have to order in again while the two of you decided on something to watch on Netflix. You’d kept yourself busy from the moment you’d buzzed him up, pouring drinks and getting food ready and only speaking to ask him to hand you something or answer something he asked. Tenya kept moving closer to you, but you kept finding reasons to move away from him; until you figured out how you were going to ask him why he was suddenly cuddle buddies with his roommate, you didn’t want to risk letting him see any kind of physical indicator that you were jealous… er, not jealous, but curious. That’s what you were telling yourself.

You managed to get dinner cooked (and the parts you made were actually pretty tasty this time) and the two of you sunk down into the living room couch to watch a movie (because Tenya refused to let you eat in bed so you had to make do until your food was finished) with Tenya occupying the middle and you claiming your favourite side of the couch and the best mismatched pillows to curl up with. The two of you had finally settled on Whisper of the Heart with a promise of watching Avatar later on (“I must find out what happens at the Boiling Rock, (Y/N)!”) after you’d finished eating. But you didn’t even make it ten minutes into the movie before Tenya was placing his plate on the coffee table in front of you both.

“I can tell something is bothering you,” Tenya said. You pursed your lips but didn’t say anything, and he sighed. “Please tell me what’s going on. Is it your paper? I meant it when I said your conclusion was beautifully written, and I’m sure Professor Yamada is going to agree with me.”

Well, you couldn’t have asked for a better way to broach the subject if you tried. You put your own plate down on the coffee table as well (balancing it on your lap was probably not a good idea this time) and turned to face your boyfriend before you opened your mouth and words started rumbling out. “Look, I know that it’s none of my business and I have no idea what was going on but I saw what you were doing with Midoriya and Todoroki,” you said. You began twisting your hands in your lap. Tenya brought his own hand up to cover his mouth as he stared at you. “In the coffee shop, Tenya. And then again in the dining hall in the community centre. I saw you guys… you know. Being a lot closer in public than I’ve ever seen you before with anyone and it’s just been bugging me, Tenya, because you told me you don’t like that stuff.”

“...it was for you,” he admitted. His voice was quiet, and he’d moved his hand down to rest on his chin. His body slumped forward, and you watched your boyfriend’s shoulders sag even further than they already were. You shifted closer to him, scooting a little farther down the couch.

“I don’t get it.” You were a little unclear as to what you had to do with him holding someone else’s hand in public. Especially because it was someone else’s hand, not yours. Tenya sighed.

“Look, what I mean to say is… they were helping me practice. For you,” he told you, taking his glasses off and pinching the bridge of his nose. You knew your eyebrows were up near your hairline, and his slowly reddening cheeks exposed just how embarrassed he was. “I wanted to be more comfortable showing you affection in public and Midoriya and Todoroki were helping me do that. So I could be a better boyfriend for you and show you the affection I know you want and deserve. And so I can stop knocking tables over when we go out.” That got a small laugh out of you, and you saw some of the tension slip out of Tenya’s shoulders as he sat up and relaxed against the back of the couch.

“You’re already the best boyfriend I could ask for,” you told him, and you held your hand out towards him with your palm up. He placed his own on top of it and threaded your fingers together before giving it a light squeeze. “Just because you’d rather be cuddly in private doesn’t mean I think you’re a bad boyfriend. I want to respect your boundaries too. But it’s really sweet that you want to do that for me, even if you did use Midoriya and Todoroki to help you do that. In public. Where I saw you.”

Tenya tilted his head to the side, his eyes studying your expression carefully, before a smile started turning the corners of his lips up. “Were you jealous, love?” he asked, and you avoided his eyes. He squeezed your hand again and brought it up to his lips. That got you to look at him, and he pressed a soft kiss to each of your knuckles. “Midoriya’s hand wasn’t even close to being as nice as yours. His were a little chapped, I’m worried about them. Maybe you should get him some of that lotion you use for his birthday.”

This was the Tenya you knew in private, who did enjoy showing you love and care and affection (you know, once you’d both passed the whole awkward first stage of dating and he realized that you were in it for the long term with him, even after the Spider Incident™ and the boys in his year being asked to move into private residences) and you couldn’t help but lean closer to him and curl up next to his side. It was ridiculously sweet that he’d done that for you.

And, of course, now that you’d both talked it out you decided it was time to have a little fun with him. “So that was why you’ve been so weird lately? I thought midterms had caused your wires to get crossed,” you said. You smiled at him while he rolled his eyes. “Or maybe the coffee you spilled on yourself fried your motherboard.”

“Oh you’re very original, (Y/N), so funny,” he said. “I’ll have you know I got that stain out, thank you. And it was tea, you know I don’t drink coffee.” Which, as someone who enjoyed 8am lectures, you had literally no idea how he survived on tea and water. Your boyfriend was definitely some kind of robot. You had yet to prove it, but no one could function as well as he did and not be at least part machine (not that you minded, exactly).

“We really should get you a waterproof case. Maybe an otterbox? They come in all sorts of cute colours,” you told him, reaching forward to grab your plate. Dinner was probably lukewarm at best at this point, but you’d eat it either way with minimal complaining. Tenya did the same with his plate, a smile on his face as he stayed close to you—but still made sure there was enough room so you didn’t elbow each other.

You both ate in comfortable silence for a moment, before another thought occurred to you. “You know, I only saw you and the boys twice… just how long did this go on for?” you asked, and Tenya cleared his throat and grabbed the remote to play the movie. You tried to grab it, but he moved it out of reach and, not wanting to risk dropping your dinner, you elbowed him in the side before he played the movie and turned the volume up loud enough to ensure silence, at least for a little while.

You got an answer out of him later, when the two of you were laying in bed watching some life changing field trips with Zuko, and you couldn’t help but feel a rush of love for the man with his arms wrapped around you and whispering a million and one questions about how the Fire Nation prison and law enforcement systems must work because all he wanted was for you to be happy. You’d never want to ask for anything more.

——

Bonus! Epilogue:

You and Tenya were out for lunch on campus with Midoriya and Todoroki a few days later, your boyfriend proudly holding your hand above the table as you talked about funny stories from Midoriya’s EMR course (“Professor Shuzenji asked us what we would do when we respond to a call and find someone with a stab wound and someone seriously shouted ‘Call 911!’ and she actually yelled back ‘YOU ARE 911!’”) and you couldn’t help but smile and be thankful for your boyfriend and your friends and how lucky you are. But as the conversation dwindled, you also knew some words were in order with the two men across from you and Tenya.

“So Tenya told me what you guys were doing. You know, how you were canoodling my boyfriend,” you told the two of them, and you couldn’t help snorting just a little when Midoriya started sputtering and Todoroki dropped his chopsticks.

“We agreed we wouldn’t tell anyone!” Midoriya said, looking at Tenya with his brows furrowed and his mouth pulled down into a frown. You could feel Tenya’s shoulders shake next to you, and it made the smile on your face get even bigger.

“Hey, we were doing it to help you,” Todoroki said. He crossed his arms over his chest. “Iida asked us, if I remember correctly, and we were trying to be good friends.” Tenya shrugged, putting his free hand in the air.

“Yeah he did, but you still agreed to it. And I know you guys and I know you had to be making fun of him too. So if I’m gonna poke fun at him for it then it’s only fair you guys get some of that too,” you said. You leaned forward in your seat, smiling at the green haired male, and then at the two-toned Todoroki in front of you. “So who are we going to start with first? Clammy hands Todoroki, or Midoriya ‘I don’t know how to take care of my skin’ Izuku?” And then you started cackling loudly as they started to protest and draw the attention of everyone else at nearby tables.

Oh, this was going to entertain you for a long time and you were going to love every minute of it.

#iida x reader #tenya x reader #tenya iida x reader #iida tenya x reader #bnha x reader #bnha fic #bnha #bnha scenarios #bnha imagines #reader insert #x reader #university au #college au #let me know what you think!

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bonbonmacaron · 4 years ago

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My Language Learning Log

I've been tracking my language learning in Notion since last year and I've finally decided to share my Notion set up! I've been putting it off for so long because I use a lot of colors and abbreviations that only I can understand, so I thought it'd be hard to explain. But I'll try to explain it the best I can.

I color-code all my target languages - Japanese is blue, Chinese is orange and French is green. I also track yoga/biking in purple. On the left, I have my goals for the week and on the right I have the amount of time I want to spend on each language for the week vs. the amount of time actually spent. I break down my time tracked for each category J - Japanese, C - Chinese, F - French, Y - Yoga, R - Reading. I use an app called Focus To-Do to track my time in pomodoros and I get my daily and weekly stats on it. I also don't track time doing Anki and Kanji Garden, since it's just a couple minutes a day or time I spend watching things. I only track proper study time like reading or grammar, etc.

Next I have my habit tracker where I track reading, writing, listening and speaking for each language.

Japanese

I've been reading キッチン by 吉本ばなな since March and I'm 36% through! I'm going slowly because I want to be really thorough since this is my first Japanese book. I basically translate every sentence myself, then compare it with the English translation to make sure I got it right and then I highlight any words and grammar points I didn't know. I also add all unfamiliar words (and I mean all!) to Anki and study them. It's not as bad as it sounds - I'm at about 17 unknown words per page right now and I can get through ~2 pages in a half hour like this. I know this sounds like a long and painstaking process and I wouldn't recommend it, but I'd rather be super thorough now, so I'll have an easier time reading my next book.

I'm also learning N2 kanji with the sou matome N2 kanji book. I just add new kanji to Kanji Garden and study them like that. I also started watching a new anime this week, Clannad, and I really like it so far! I watch it with dual subs on Animelon and sorta read the Japanese and English at the same time. I can't really explain how I do it haha. I always have trouble getting into anime and I only watch it for listening practice to be honest, so I'm glad I finally found something I like.

Chinese

I've been trying to learn traditional characters since I've completely plateaued with Chinese and wanted to learn something new and challenging. So I've been reading transcripts from the Learn Taiwanese Mandarin podcast and studying words I don't know with Anki. I've been studying like a half hour a week these last couple weeks and that's it. So I decided to drop Chinese for now because I feel like I'm spreading myself too thin and I'd rather dedicate more time to it when I have more time.

French

I started my FLE certification course to teach French as a foreign language! I'm so happy since I'm considering teaching French online. It's really interesting and also less time consuming than I expected. It says it takes like 30 minutes per section, but it's just a 5-minute video, slides to review and a short quiz. So it takes me like 15 minutes per section, so I'm not complaining. It's a general overview of basic teaching techniques like communicative and task-based and stuff like that. I'm curious to do the readings to get a better idea. Although next month will be more challenging since I'll have to submit some lesson plans.

I've been feeling really stuck with French since I didn't know how to study it anymore. My level is B2-C1. I watch a lot of French Youtubers, read posts from natives here and constantly immerse myself in it to the point where I think in French half the time. I've completely stopped writing since I'm thinking in it so much, so there's kind of no point anymore. I can't really tell what I need to work on since my listening and reading are 10/10 and my writing and speaking are probably 8/10. I feel like I'm good enough at this point and it's hard to find things to improve, aside from some pesky grammar mistakes, and ways to challenge myself. So I'm glad I started a FLE course. My personal definition of an advanced level is being able to follow a university-level course on a subject taught in the language. It's why I define my Chinese as C1, since I took a few Chinese literature classes for native speakers at uni and did really well in them. Although that's probably not my Chinese level anymore since I graduated a few years ago.

That's the end of my Notion tour! I hope it was useful and not too convoluted haha.

Inspired by @nordic-language-love @linguenuvolose and @mediocrelanguagelearner I'm going to also share my language learning logs every week from now on! I always love reading your updates 💞

#langblr #languages #languagelearning #language resources #notion #planning #language log #french #chinese #japanese

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insertbtsurl · 4 years ago

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About the Billboard article (this is how I d!e)

After reading some people's reaction, I understand the point that Billboard probably wouldn't have asked a western artist about chart manipulation, so I get the frustration in regards to that (even though I think they have valid reasons for addressing this).

That being said, some armys are being extremely hypocritical right now, because Billboard did not solely focus on the chart manipulation allegations, they talked about many other things (including the fact that BTS have DIPLOMATIC PASSPORTS HELLO?). Besides, they...did not lie. The stuff they talked about, armys organizing to buy singles in bulk, to stream on certain days when it has the biggest impact, exploiting the loopholes in charting/streaming rules...that is all true. It happens, I've been in this fandom for years now and I've seen it happen a little bit more with every new release as the stakes get higher.

Basically, as Namjoon himself said..."it's a fair question". Why is it fair? I mean there might be a racist or xenophobic bias here, I don't know (Namjoon does mention that them being a "kpop act" makes them easy targets but it could just be because of how easily kpop is dismissed as being an inauthentic industry of mass idol producing). But I also think there are objective reasons to question this. Among the top charting artists on Billboard right now, BTS are the only ones to rely so heavily on sales.

Why? They don't get radio play, so you have to compensate somehow to get them level with the others. Now, if it was common practice for western artists to have such massive sales numbers, BTS would just be "one of those acts" and no one in their right mind would even bring it up. Like "oh yeah they sell a lot of albums...I can name 10 other people who do that". Just as people in the west will not question albums being sold as part of bundles (which a lot of armys consider to be cheating - but again, still playing by the rules), because you could name at least 15 artists on the charts right now who do that (and BTS doesn't). Therefore the fact is right now there is no one to lump them with, which makes them stand the fuck out. So of course people are like "huh weird, how come their numbers are so different from others?".

And the answer is simple...the devil works hard...but army works harder. That is what the fans themselves take pride in. The amount of "good job army", "we worked well", etc. that you see on every social media site around any BTS comeback is simply staggering. Because the fans are aware of how much their efforts contribute to BTS's standing...so why are some of you so mad that those efforts are being brought up now? Some armys treat being a fan of BTS like it's a goddamn full time job. Hell, I got scolded on here for listening to Butter on loop when it came out (it was just that good) because that isn't the "proper" way of streaming. Only I wasn't looping it to boost stream numbers, I was looping it because I was hooked to the fucking song on first listen. But some people take achieving numbers more seriously than enjoying the music.

Since BTS doesn't get the mainstream industry support other western artists do, armys have taken to studying the rules of the game in order to win while playing by those rules. There is no cheating when you follow the rules. This is why with every release you get streaming guides telling you to make sure you put the new song in a playlist, that you watch at least 10 minutes of videos between 2 viewings of the MV, that you play the song on at least 50% volume, etc., etc. Does that scream "authenticity" to you? Because to me it doesn't. Does that mean it's cheating? No. The system is made that way and you're taking advantage of it. Life handed you lemons and you made the sweetest lemonade you possibly could have.

BTS has their fans to thank for their charting success more than anyone else on the charts right now because other fandoms simply don't need to work as hard. No one needs to be buying Ed Sheeran albums in bulk, you just know the man is gonna debut in the top 10 of any chart. BTS starts at a disadvantage. I think that is probably more of an issue (and a xenophobic one) than Billboard questioning how the hell an act with virtually no radio play made it all the way to #1 on the Hot 100 for ten consecutive weeks.

So yeah...Billboard has a point, actually. But as RM said, if they have a problem with the way army does stuff, they can just change the rules (and then army will find a way to work with those new rules). They weren't accusing anyone of anything, just reporting on a situation, and they concluded on something which, in my opinion, is true...BTS does so well thanks to the large number of extremely loyal and supremely motivated fans that they have - few people can say the same thing. And the work that the fans do for the group is a cycle that feeds itself, because it becomes really easy to feel like you had a tangible part in all of their achievements, which in turns makes you even more motivated to outdo yourself on the next comeback.

#bts #billboard

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ninbayphua-moyan · 4 years ago

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Moonlit Sparrow Through Parted Clouds

Thunderous grey clouds hung heavy in the sky as I made my way towards the lecture hall. My body ached with a bone-deep exhaustion and each leaden step I took felt heavier than the last. I stopped, wanting to turn back, but time and time again, my body refused to obey as my legs carried me towards my destination.

Half an hour later, I found myself standing outside the empty lecture hall despite the countless hesitations along the way. Sighing, I sank to the floor and closed my eyes, too tired to remain upright. That’s what university does to you. It sucks out your soul, your passion, and your youth, leaving nothing behind but an empty husk of a human being.

A familiar voice calling my name pricked my hazy, sleep deprived brain and I cracked open my heavy eyelids. My facial muscles moved like clockwork, automatically forming a smile to greet my friend.

“You look like a corpse!” Chu Ying exclaimed worriedly at the sight of the heavy dark circles beneath my vacant eyes.

“Haven’t been getting much sleep this week…” I replied with a nonchalant shrug as I quickly scrunched up my eyes until they turned into little crescents of laughter, “assignments due soon.”

Seemingly convinced by my explanation, she gave me a look of sympathetic encouragement and left. The second no one was looking, I let the smile fall. Amazing what a simple smile could conceal. You could probably murder someone, smile, plead innocent and everyone would believe you. Sighing softly under my breath, I grabbed my bag and joined the gathering crowd of students as they trickled into the dimly lit lecture theatre.

My laptop sat quietly on the desk, an empty word document laid open on its illuminated screen as the lecturer’s monotonous voiced droned on and on in the background. I should have been taking down notes but my mind was too preoccupied with my issues with the Undergraduate Office to focus on what the lecturer was saying.

A rhythmic vibration drew my attention towards the phone sitting on my lap. Glancing at the pop-up notification, a wave of anxiety and hope surged through my body as I registered who the sender was – the Undergraduate‘s Office. Quickly, I pulled up the email and immediately felt my heart sinking after reading the first line.

All seminar groups are full and we cannot move students.

Lies.

Another notification, this time, from my personal tutor.

It’s only week 3, relax.

Disappointment. Betrayal. Frustration. Anger. I clenched my trembling hands into fists as the tsunami of emotions threatened to explode and spill out of my shaking body. Half of me wanted to storm over to the Undergraduate’s office and let loose the unbridled rage coursing through my veins at the unfair treatment. The other half of me wanted to lash out at my tutor’s condescending advice. My body trembled at the barely, ever so barely contained anger.

Sixteen thousand pounds. That would be eighty-four thousand two hundred and seventy-nine ringgit each year in school fees. Fees which didn’t even include the amount I needed to spend in order to buy the books required for the modules. Sixteen thousand pounds per year just to get an education, an education that I wasn’t even getting at this point and her advice for me was to relax? How could I when my parents worked their entire youth away, saving every cent just so they could send me, all the way to Britain to get a proper education! Did they even know what the stakes of sending me abroad to study was?!

My father’s average yearly income is twenty-four thousand ringgits, barely twenty-eight percent of my yearly school fees. Was it that unreasonable to want to be in a class that will allow me to learn and improve after paying for that much money out of my parents’ own pocket?! Why would anyone in their right mind come half way across the globe, paying that ridiculous amount of money, and being so far away from family and home for years, just to fool around? If that had been my intention, I wouldn’t even have bothered going to university in the first place, let alone coming all the way to Cardiff!

University will be fun they said. You’ll meet open-minded people passionate about learning they said. Hah! That’s the biggest misconception if there ever was one. First of all, the university doesn’t care about whether you actually learn anything so long as you're paying the fees. The majority of lecturers or seminar leaders will only do the most minimal amount of work required and by that, I mean three hundred words of prose only per weekly assignment. What kind of creative work could anyone produce under three hundred words? In prose! Some don’t even bother with critical commentary which is just as essential as the creative pieces. Not only does the lack of practice in writing critical commentaries and limited word count for the creative pieces inhibit students from developing any work of significance, it also underprepares students for the three-thousand-word portfolio due at the end of the semester.

Secondly, British universities are also especially discriminatory towards outsiders or people of colour, often treating minorities and international students with hostility or disregard. I’ve experienced this discrimination first hand upon requesting a seminar change. Despite having emailed the Undergraduate Office at the same time with the exact same reasons, I was denied the change whilst my British classmate was immediately allowed to swap seminars. The office even went so far as to lie about the class being full even though I was told by the professor leading that very seminar that it wasn’t. So much for the integrity of the institution.

At the end of the day, international students are nothing but cash cows to British universities.[1] Not only do they have to pay double of what British students pay in terms of fees, they also have to deal with the discriminations that come alongside being an outsider. I understood that in this day and age, education was a business, and that the university itself was, essentially, a business, but doesn’t actual passion for learning still count for something? Or was I wrong in believing in that as well? Oh, so naïve, so very naïve!

Old memories started to surface amongst the turmoil of emotions. My father and his worn-out clothes, refusing each time to buy new ones for himself just to save a little more money. My mother mending them as best she could whilst we slept, never once complaining. Images of my father’s prematurely greying hair and bloodshot eyes as he worked his health away to provide for his children’s future. My mother’s back bent low, labouring away at some project or another in order to make ends meet. Yet, they never once showed us how tired or how tough things were. There was always enough food on the table and they always had a smile on their faces around us. Sometimes, I noticed that they would eat a lot less than usual but whenever I asked, they merely joked and said they were trying to lose weight. They could have enjoyed their youth, their honeymoon, but they decided to save it all, sacrificing their health and comfort just to ensure mine by sending me here.

I remember the times where they would secretly check their wallets whenever I begged them to buy me a book. Oh, how those very books painted and fuelled my illusions of Britain’s perfection. If only I had known the reality of it all before applying to study here. But it’s too late for regrets now.

A sharp stinging pricked the back of my eyes, tears threatening to fall as my body shook with suppressed, uncontrollable rage. Maybe if I was a little braver…maybe if I fought a little harder…maybe if I confronted them a bit more…maybe…maybe…maybe…

Then as quickly as they appeared, the tsunami of emotions faded away, leaving behind an empty husk. My clenched fists loosen and fell limply at my sides as a quiet, bitter laugh escaped my lips. Nothing was going to change. No matter how hard I fought, the end results will remain the same so what’s the point of even trying in the first place?

As the cold hard reality of the situation finally presented itself, I slumped against the chair, my empty laptop screen staring blankly back at me. Resignation dragged me deeper and deeper into the murky depths of my mind. I was drowning. No one knew and no one cared. But that’s fine. The ending remains the same regardless. Always the same…

The sound of rustling papers and loud chatter momentarily draws me out of the murky waters. Realising that the lecture had ended, I gathered my things and shuffled towards the exit, my mind returning once more to the depths of the void. Outside, the rain was pouring. I plodded down the streets drenched to the bone as my legs moved mechanically towards my flat. A stifling numbness engulfed my mind as I trudged on in silence, the howling wind battering my shivering, rain-soaked body from all sides. Rounding the corner, I pulled out a key-card and entered the cramped grey flat. Out of sheer habit, I grabbed the letters from my letterbox and stuffed them into my coat pocket before heading upstairs.

Entering the dingy room, I dropped my backpack on the bed and sank to the floor. Hugging my knees to my chest, I stared vacantly at the bleak wall. My phone rang insistently in my pocket but I didn’t answer, too tired to move. The crushing weight on my lungs forced out whatever little oxygen I managed to draw, making each breath a struggle. The clamouring voices in my mind grew louder and louder, growing in intensity yet forcefully contained, like built-up pressure without release on the brink of implosion.

You’re useless

I’m…not…

You can’t even stand up for yourself or fight for what you believe is right

Yes I can! And I’m trying! I’ve –

You’re a disappointment to your parents and your family

I’m not! I swear! I –

You’ll never amount up to anything

That’s not true! I –

You’re pathetic

No –

Nothing but a Failure

Stop saying –

Human garbage

Please! Just –

Waste of space

“SHUT UP!”

Silence. Nothing but the sound of my ragged breathing in the darkness.

The world would be better off without you

I don’t know how long I had stayed there on the floor but by the time I came around, my dripping wet clothes were nearly dry. The chaotic calamity within had finally died down and I was filled with an eerie calmness. A deafening silence blanketed the air, pierced only by the hypnotic rumbling of trains across tracks. Ah yes…the railway…my ticket to solving everything…just two blocks away…and it’ll all be over…permanently…

Forcing my lethargic limbs to move, I wobbled onto my feet and stumbled towards the door. A tiny parcel fell out of my pocket and the handwriting on it made me paused. It was my mother’s. Even under the dimness of the moonlight trickling in, there was no mistaking that immaculately cursive hand.

Letting go of the door handle, I kneeled down to pick up the neatly wrapped package. Then, slowly, as if afraid it would fall apart at the slightest touch, I began unwrapping the parcel. Upon opening the box, tears welled at the corner of my eyes. Six little cylindrical bundles of haw flakes were carefully packed within, each attached to a tightly rolled up strip of paper. Gently untying the scrolls from the sweets, I began reading them one at a time.

Jie![2] I got you your favourite sweets! Wanted to buy you more of them but Ma said there wasn’t enough space in the box. Don’t worry, I’ll send you a big box of them once I’ve saved up enough money.

– Di[3]

My heart ached as I thought about how much it must have costed for them to ship the parcel all the way from Penang to Britain. And with the little amount of pocket money…it must have taken Di-Di months of saving to be able to afford buying that one bundle of sweets…

Jie, just because you’re the oldest doesn’t mean you have to hold everything in on your own y’know? It’s okay to rely on others a bit more from time to time. Enjoy the sweets you idiot, you’re crazy about those haw flakes. No idea why you like them either, they aren’t even that nice.

– Mei[4]

Tears pricked the back of my eyes as my sister’s grumpy voice echoed in my ears. I could even see the disbelieving eye roll at my odd preferences in sweets after the last sentence. How I’ve missed our senseless squabbles and late-night chats….

A-Yun, being an international student in the UK isn’t always the easiest thing, especially when you’re a minority there. You’ve already taken the necessary steps and have done all you can in that situation. Remember, it’s the end result and not the process that defines a victory. Remember what Sun Tzu mentioned in The Art of War? ‘The most important rule to victory is to know when to pick your fights and how to fight it’. Not all battles need to be fought to win the war. Never forget our family values and never lose sight of your goal. Don’t worry about finances, let me handle that. Just focus on your studies and aim for that first-class honours. The best revenge is to succeed despite their efforts to stop you. Continue to work hard and don’t give up. Know that regardless of the outcome, your Ma and I are proud of you and that we love you very, very much.

– Ba[5]

A sob catches at the back of my throat as tears flowed freely down my cheeks. Acute pangs of longing weighed heavily on my chest, making it hard to breathe.

A-Yun[6] ah, if it ever becomes too much to bear at Cardiff, come home. Ma will make you your favourite dishes. I know you want to do well but don’t overwork yourself. Remember to get enough rest and try to change your bad habit of skipping meals. Two boiled eggs alone don’t count as a proper meal either!

– Ma[7]

A sheepish giggle escaped my lips despite the tears, Ma’s exasperated voice ringing in my ears. I could almost picture the look of indignation on her face as she judges my terrible meal choices before proceeding to fill my bowl with steamy boiled dumplings.

Ah…Ma’s famous boiled dumplings…the saltiness of minced pork marinated with soy sauce and sesame oil…the refreshing sweetness of spring onions and carrots contrasting the pork’s saltiness…flecks of finely chopped hei-mu-er adding a chewy texture to the tender meat whilst thin sheets of delicately wrapped dough encapsulated it all…the slight bitterness of the herbal broth complementing the savoury dumplings…[8] My stomach growled in protest as I smiled fondly at the memory.

Wiping away the remaining tears, I unrolled the last strip of paper. Elegant brushstrokes painted familiar characters in horizontal lines. A wave of nostalgia washed over me as I recalled sitting on A-Gong’s [9] lap in the garden as kid, watching him practice calligraphy. I remembered how he used to read his poems aloud as I gaze at his hands guiding the bamboo brush across the ivory sheet, entranced by its flowing movements. Each word written was like a piece of art, each stroke of ink painting a meaning of its own.

Tranquil night’s darkness, the moon shines bright, From the mud the lotus rises, its petals pure despite. Vermillion red blossom like wildly raging flames; Elegant, virtuous, delicate, yet exquisitely untamed. The wise once said that adversity yields flair, An upright heart, oblique shadows don’t scare. Dripping water with time wears the stubborn stone, Sturdy wood too can be cut with rope saws alone! [10]

A strange tranquility wrapped itself around me as I read the poem, A-Gong’s calm and mellow voice resonating in my ears. It was almost as if he was standing right before me with the usual toothless smile and twinkling eyes on his wizen face. Tenderly cradling the small box of sweets, a faint smile graced my lips. Their vermillion red and gold wrappings shone with a certain warmth under the soft light of the moon. Gently unwrapping one of the thumb-size bundles with shaking hands, I popped a disk-like piece into my mouth.

Immediately, a wave of warmth spread throughout my cold and hollowed body, almost as if it was infused with the life-giving heat of home. The familiar tart sweetness of the hawthorn berries cleared the heavy fog that clouded my mind and for the first time in a long while, I felt energy slowly seeping back into my worn-out soul, reigniting the snuffed-out fire within. Strange how something so small, barely the size of my thumb, could bring so much comfort and hope. That night, the moon shone a little brighter than usual, and the normally barren sky seemed to be exploding with billions of twinkling stars.

NOTES

[1] Alina Schartner & Yoonjoo Cho, ‘“Empty signifiers” and “dreamy ideals”: perceptions of the “international university” among higher education students and staff at a British university’, Higher Education, 74 (2017), 455-472

[2] ‘Jie’ means older sister in Chinese

[3] 'Di’ means younger brother in Chinese

[4] 'Mei’ means younger sister in Chinese

[5] ‘Ba’ means father in Chinese

[6] ‘Yun’ is written as ‘云’ meaning ‘cloud’

[7] 'Ma’ means mother in Chinese

[8] Hei-mu-er is the Mandarin term for black cloud ear fungus, a type of mushroom often used in Chinese cuisines.

[9] ‘A-Gong’ means grandfather in Chinese (specifically, the Hainanese pronounciation)

[10] This is a self written and self translated poem I wrote. The original Chinese version can be found here.

[11] ‘Moonlit Sparrow Through Parted Clouds’ is a play on 守得云开见月明 meaning the moon will shine brightly again when the clouds part, and 麻雀虽小五脏俱全 meaning though a sparrow is small, it has all the vital organs.

Author's Notes:

So this is one of my earlier prose pieces from uni (all the way back from first year lol). I don’t usually post prose? Not prose of this length at least. Anyways, I thought I’d take the leap and try posting them online now since I decided to start doing that for my poetry pieces? The rest of my prose pieces throughout uni somehow ended up becoming interlinked with several recurring characters though there are some inconsistencies since they were initially intended as stand-alone pieces rather than a series of somewhat loosely linked short stories. I’ll be posting them in story timeline sequence (or at least as closely to a sequence as I can since I didn’t exactly plan out the timeline of these pieces either) rather than in the sequence it was written in so there might be a slight fluctuation in writing style cuz they do kinda change over the years? Anyways, I hope you enjoyed reading Part 1~

Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

Since exams are over and graded and I've officially graduated, I can finally post my work online without having to worry about Turnitin picking it up as plagiarism because apparently you aren't allowed to plagiarise yourself according to university which is absolutely ridiculous but I'm not the one making the rules here so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Also, please don't reupload my works without permission.

#ninbayphua 墨彦 #prose #short story #I'm new to sharing stories or prose I've written online so please be kind #constructive critisms are always welcomed #please don't repost without permission

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violetnotez · 5 years ago

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Ohohoho yes anon let’s turn this broccoli boi to the dark side 😈😈😈 also thank u @gallickingun for helping me with the plot!!!! And @jojosmilktea for hyping up my banner cause I seriosuly don’t know what I’m doing with graphics 😂😂😂

Izuku x reader

Genre: Fluff

Word Count: 2700

Warnings: slight cussing

Summary: Izuku feels he is never going to get a chance to be close to you, being you two are so much more different than each other. But seeing you spar with Bakugo makes him decide that he has to shoot his shot-before it becomes too late.

-----------------

Y/n l/n.

Your name was written at the top of the page in Izuku’s messy handwriting, the name particularly more neat than the other names in his notebook.

Right under your name was a crude sketch of your hero suit, just like the rest of his pages of notes. Yours was somehow a little different, a little more detailed than the rest. It seemed to have more care put into it, as well as a lot more notes surrounding it than the other entries.

The other pages about the heroes and students he had encountered were much more simpler than yours, the writing only focusing on their powers and their notable strengths. You on the other hand, were different-Izuku had seemed to write everything about you he could fit into that initial page, the immense amount of detail eventually spreading out to the following pages.

No matter how he looked at the situation, Izuku knew he had fallen head over heels for you. He knew he shouldn’t have-it was like you two were practically in two different worlds.

You were blunt, assertive, and a little on the rebellious side. You acted first and thought of rules later, being the first to challenge someone to a fighting match, or agree to a dare no matter how risque it was. You were a risk taker, and you knew it, which made you such a perfect addition to Bakusquad.

Izuku,on the other hand, was nothing like that- he studied everyday like a good student, and always made sure to stay out of trouble as much as possible. He colored in between the lines, and he felt like he was so bland when compared to your wild spirit.

Even though you two were completely different in every way, he couldn’t keep you out of his head. You never seemed to look down on him, always greeting him with a warm smile and asking him how he was. Your laugh echoed in his head like a catchy song, and the way you would send him smiles from across the room made his heart race. Izuku was fully aware that he was most likely going to get his heart broken if he didn’t make a move soon, but he was content at the moment with admiring your beauty and resilience from afar.

“Cmon y/n, I told you not to go easy on me!”

Izuku perked his head up from his note taking, noticing that voice to be none other than Bakugo. Poor Izuku’s eyes were blown out of sockets, though, as he saw the scene unfolding in front of him.

There was Kachan, his friend and sometimes rival, toppled on top of you, his torso straddling your hips. Bakugo’s large hands had your wrists pinned to the ground, his powerful legs pushing yours into the ground to keep you from squirming.

Uncharacteristic anger bubbled inside Izuku as he saw Bakugo on top of you in such a suggestive pose. He knew you two were just training, but-he couldn’t help but wish that he was the one on top of you, not Bakugo. Heck, he just wished he was the one you asked for help with training and not Kachan. Izuku never wanted to feel like he was competing with his friend, but right now, he felt like he was-and he was losing.

It didn’t help either that you were close to Bakugo, always hanging out with him and his friends. You weren’t that afraid of his yelling and his threats, merely laughing at him when he was on another rampage. Bakugo seems to treat you like an equal, actually offering you compliments from time to time and allowing you to train with him. Izuku knew only a few people could earn Bakugo’s respect, and it couldn't be a good thing for his love life if his antisocial best friend seemed to take an extra interest in his crush.

Izuku watched as you laughed at Bakugo’s statement, your sweet laugh ringing like bells.

“Hell Bakugo, you thought that was me going easy? I was just getting started!” You scoffed at the ash blonde boy, your chest then connecting with his.

Izuku sucked in a tight breath, holding it in as he watched you wrap your legs around your opponent. You then quickly flipped your bodies around, landing so it was now you, not Kachan, who was on top. Bakugo took a large gasp of air, his lungs unable to get a proper inhale from the sudden movement.

You shoved his shoulders into the ground, shimmying on his chest to get a better grip.

“God Bakugo, you're so quiet!” You smirked, “Didn't know you liked being a bottom so much-“

“S-s-shut the hell up you damn idiot, I’ll fucking-“ Bakugo instantly started yelling at you, the twinge of red in his cheecks hard to ignore for Izuku. You continued to laugh at his reaction, your body shaking from the giggles as you continued to sit on his stomach.

Izuku looked down at his notebook full of notes about his devotion to you, sighing sadly-

Yeah, he had no chance.

As you continued to chuckle, trying to hold your grip on the aggressive boy under you, you looked to your left. To your surprise, you saw a lonely looking Midoriya under a shady spot of a tree, looking slightly sad as he stared down at his lap.

You and Izuku were pretty good friends, as you both seemed to have mutual likes and interests in and out of class. You didn’t talk much to the green haired boy, but you found him to be extremely sweet and quite attractive. You also didn’t socialize with him as much as you wished you did, but since you two were completely different friend groups, it made it quite difficult to hang out with the greenette.

You wished you knew what was going on in that poor boy's head right now, his head hanging low on his shoulders. He looked so defeated, his back arched as if he was carrying a heavy burden on himself.

“Shitty woman-your hurting my fucking wrists!” Bakugo spat out, his eyes filled with anger. You smirked at your opponent, knowing full well that was his way of “taping out”.

“Sorry Bakubro-,” you replied, rolling off his stomach as he rubbed his wrists tenderly, muttering about how “crappy” you were.

You ignored your friend’s remarks, making your way over to the poor boy underneath the cherry blossom tree. He didn’t seem to even notice you walking towards him, his hands resting sadly on his notebook in deep thought. You smiled softly at him-he looked so cute when he was thinking so intently, even if he did look a little solemn.

“Hey, Earth to Midoriya!” You hovered your hand over his eyes, breaking his daze.

“Oh-uh-y-y/n!” He squeaked, his body jumping from your sudden presence.

You laughed at his jumpiness, causing a red hue to grace his cheeks. Izuku didn’t even notice you sneaking up on him...but the fact he had made you laugh made him stomach feel warm and fluttery.

You stood in front of the boy, thinking it might be better to be at eye level with him.

“Mind if I sit?” You asked

Midoriya shook his head vigorously, his heart pumping wildly in his chest. “N-n-no, not at all!” He said enthusiastically, scooting over so you had more room.

You plopped yourself right next to him, seemingly unfazed by the sudden closeness. Izuku, on the other hand, was freaking out internally.

He could practically feel the heat radiating off you, your infectious personality seeping into his, brightening up his spirits. Your shoulder was resting on his, the breeze flitting through both your hairs. He couldn’t believe you had come to him, let alone sit next to him and want to talk. Even if you maybe had a thing with Bakugo, this was a win in his head.

You looked down at Midoriya's hands, noticing the slight shake in his fingertips. You smiled softly-this boy was too nervous for his own good.

“Are your hands doing okay-I know you train really hard,” you stated matter of factly, tenderly picking up one of his scarred and calloused hands with your own.

Izuku’s brain was about to explode-you were touching him now? Even though his brain felt fuzzy and full of static, he loved the way your skin felt against his own. It was just as calloused, but the skin was softer and feather light, the pads of your fingers tracing each scar like a message in Braille. You flipped his hand over gently, following the roads of his skin as you inspected his hand.

Each touch left a ticklish feeling that settled in his skin, the tingling simultaneously calming and accelerating his heart rate. God, he could get used to this.

“Their-their doing fine,” he stuttered out, his face engulfed in red.

“You sure?” You gave him a knowing look, a small smirk on your lips. “Cause you look like you punched a wall”

You giggled at his embarrassed face, your sweet voice making his heart thump against his chest.

“Well, since I’m still not used to my power yet, it takes quite a toll on my body,” he rambled , staring at the hand you were currently holding, “s-so I have to train extra hard to allow my body to fully grow to handle its power.”

You nodded your head, letting go of his hand and resting yours on your knee.

“That makes sense,” you agreed, resting your head on the trunk of the tree, “You got a hell of a powerful quirk if you have to train that hard...I've always admired you for that.”

Izuku’s head shot up in confusion...admired him? He thought you didn’t even notice he was alive! He stared at your profile, his eyes wide with confusion.

“Oh, it’s really not that big of a deal,” he rambled on again, scratching the back of his neck, “it’s expected of me to do that-“

“No it isn’t!” You argued back supportively, “none of us ever train as hard as you do! You always try your best, no matter the circumstances. Hell, I don’t even think Shoto trains as hard as you and he’s the one that came to UA off of recommendations!”

“Oh-oh it’s not that big of a deal, I promise-“

You were beginning to feel frustrated that this shy boy couldn’t take your compliment. Midoriya was too sweet and humble for his own good, and it took quite a lot to get him to believe your words. You took that as a challenge, and you were all up for it.

Your arm crossed over Izuku’s body, encasing him in your body so you could fully look at his face. His eyes were wide from your sudden movement, his freckles much more prominent as his cheeks were dusted with pink.

“You are strong Midoriya, and I have a reason to admire you,” you stated, your face a mere inches from his.

Izuku couldn’t move, and really, he felt like he couldn’t breathe. You were so close: he could see every beauty mark, every strand of hair that graced your complexion. He could even smell your perfume, a light floral scent that made his head swoon. He was feeling so awkward, not knowing how to react, but he wanted to stay like this forever.

You smiled at the young hero, taking his quiet demeanor as him surrendering to your compliments. You swung your body off of his, leaving a cold spot in Midoriya's stomach from moving away so soon.

“Which reminds me…” you began, your hands resting your stomach. “I wanted to see if you wanted to train tomorrow after class-I'd really like it if you gave me some pointers on my technique.”

“Oh-I’d be honored!” He exclaimed, but then chuckled nervously at a sudden realization.

“B-but I think Kachan wouldn’t like it if I were there…”

You cocked your head in confusion, staring at the greenette’s face, perplexed by his statement.

“Bakugo isn’t going to be there-it'll just be you and me,” you stated matter of factly.

Izuku instantly fidgeted, feeling dumb for just assuming it would you and all your friends. Of course if you asked it would just be him and you! He instantly shook off the embarrassment, feeling giddy from happiness. You had asked him-not Kirishima, or Shoto, or Kaminari, or even Kachan-him, to train with you. He felt like he was on top of the world.

But then the alarm bells began to ring in his mind, a memory flitting back into his head that was stopping him from agreeing instantly.

-----------------------

He was at the lunch table one day, staring sadly at your table full of friends. Right now, they were currently trying to throw pieces of meat into your mouth, the yells and laughs flowing over to his quiet table. You were laughing, trying to catch the small bits of food and looking like you were having the best time.

His friends noticed his saddened demeanor, following his gaze to your table.

“Midoriya are you feeling quite alright?” Iida asked as he looked down at the green haired boy, “you're staring quite intently.”

“Huh?” Izuku shook his head a few times, looking at Iida with rosy cheeks, “oh-oh I wasn’t staring-or looking at y/n-san…”

Uraraka giggled nervously, giving her friend a strange look. “Uh-Midoriya, Iida never said you were staring at y/n...just that you were staring-“

“Oh! Well - I was- uh…” he stuttered out, not knowing how to get out of the situation. He was cursing himself internally for basically admitting to his crush he had worked so hard to keep quiet.

Iida took a bite of his food, focusing his attention at your table as well.

“Y/n is truly a free spirit-she’s quite a rebel as well,” Iida commented.

“Yeah, it seems like almost every week Mr. Aizawa has to speak to her about something she’s done… she’s really nice, but she is a little on the wild side,” Uraraka followed suit, focusing her attention on a quiet Midoriya instead.

“Do you really like her Midoriya?” She asked, her wide eyes seemingly staring into his soul.

Izuku giggled nervously, fiddling with his hands. “I-I guess...maybe….”

Uraraka pursed her lips, giving Iida a pained look. They both cared for Midoriya dearly, but didn’t know much about you except you were one of the “wild ones” of Class 1-A. You and Midoriya seemed completely opposite, and both friends felt that this crush would end badly for poor Midoriya's heart.

Iida sighed again, looking at his blushing friend, “Midoriya, it is wonderful you find so much love and affection for y/n-“

“But this probably won’t end well. She’s friends with Bakugo, and all of his friends-she’s just so different from you Izuku. We just don’t want to see you get hurt,” Uraraka finished Iida’s statement, watching Izuku slump into his chair a little more.

He felt almost defeated-his friends were right, you two were in completely different worlds and values. No matter how much he tried to weave a plan or scenario in his mind that would somehow end in you two being together, it just never seemed to work out.

The bell rang for lunch to end, Izuku still slumped in his chair in defeat.

“Cmon Izuku,” Uraraka said sweetly, offering her hand to him, “let’s go to class,”

He got up sadly, his friend's words echoing in his mind as he walked to class.

They were right-it wouldn’t ever end well for him.

—————-

But now, seeing your waiting face so close to his, he couldn’t help but say yes. He had to at least try, to see if maybe you did have something between the two of you.

Forget about your wild personality, or the fact you two were so different, or the way you seemed so close to Kachan-he was going to shoot his shot, even if that meant he was going to get hurt in the process.

This was his chance-it was now or never.

Izuku took a deep breath, willing his heart to slow.

“I would-love to train with you...and-and maybe,” he gulped, feeling his heart beat fast against his chest, “we can get some ice cream after?”

You smirked at the blushing boy, having a feeling at what he was implying.

“Just you and me?” You mused, leaning into Izuku’s body slightly.

He nodded feverishly, feeling his confidence begin to wane slightly at your sudden closeness.

“Y-Yep! Just- you and me.”

—————-

Taggings (if ya want to be added, just shoot me an ask or comment on this post!)

@birds-have-teeth @gallickingun @yuueimagines @bnhabadass @dabis-devil @freckledoriya

#bnha #bnha x reader #bnhabookclub #izuku x reader #izuku midoriya x reader #bnha izuku x reader #mha izuku x reader #midoriya x reader #midoriya x you #bnha midoriya x reader #bnha izuku midoriya x reader #deku x reader #bnha deku x reader #deku hc #deku #i

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