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weaverofthreads · 4 years

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On the process of writing a novel...

Ok, so this began as a DM to a very dear friend who had said they were super excited to work on a novel of theirs that they'd abandoned for years, but they felt a bit lost when looking at the project again. They had "too many characters, too many intrigues" and they didn't "know how to create order" for all their ideas. They didn't know "what to keep, what to remove, what to change" and wanted to know if I had any tips.

I began to reply in messages and then realised I needed to make a whole post out of it, so here it is! All 3k words of it. This is for you, darling! I hope it helps.

Things I found extremely helpful when planning my novel for NaNoWriMo this year, after also taking some time off from it.

Most of this comes from Alicia Lidwina’s Four-Part article on her NaNoWriMo prep process, and setting up a writer’s notebook, for 2018. You can find the link to the first part here and I highly recommend you check out the whole series of articles for a more in-depth read.

Content of this ‘essay’:

Preparation, Groundwork, and Materials

Project 'Stats' & Overview

Mood, Moodboards, and Key Imagery

Things to Consider, and Important Bullet Points

Get to Know Your Characters

Chronological Order

Tangential and Preceding Events

Basic Premise, Plot Definition, Sub Plot Ideas

List of Locations

Scenes

Chapter Outline

NaNo Plan

Additional Notes and Tips for Writing

Ok. Let's begin.

First of all, I'm not saying that this is the only way to write or organise a novel. It can be tackled in as many ways as there are writers in the universe. This is just the method I used to get my ideas crystallised and organised.

Preparation, Groundwork, and Materials.

Take your preparation seriously. I bought a cheap but still nice A4 sketchbook with blank paper for maybe £2 at the local hobby store, and used it solely for the purposes of being my Novel Notebook. It doesn’t have to be a pretty, perfect, Aesthetic(TM) journal at all. Its function is to act as a route-guide through the process.

I bought a cute sticker from Etsy and used it as the front cover design so that I liked the book and that it felt a little bit special, without being too intimidating to put a mark in. Then I left the very first page blank, and opened it to the first double page. On the left, I wrote ‘Contents’ and then moved on to the right and wrote ‘Project Stats and Overview’.

I used a pen that was comfortable to write with, which for me was important. I’m a very tactile person, and having nice paper and pens (not necessarily fancy), made the process feel good.

Project Stats and Overview

This is the bare bones of the book, and includes details such as:

Project Working Title: (in my case it’s Weaver of Threads)

Targeted Wordcount: (to give yourself an idea of the scope, but it’s not necessary. For me it’s 50-100k)

Genre: (for me, fantasy)

Series: (will it be one book or more? For me, probably more than one, and at least two).

Inspiration: (here you can jot down all sorts of things which inspire your world and your writing, and it can be anything. In my case, I began with “density and lore, and feeling of being grounded in a real world from LOTR and Tolkien.” And I went on to include other writers and novels in the fantasy genre, as well as elements from our own world, such as Mongolian herding communities and way of life, the history of the Persian Empire, and Renaissance Florence!).

Project Timeline: Give yourself a structure, and be realistic. If you know you’re a slow writer who’s prone to distractions, be generous, but if you’re someone who responds well to short deadlines, tighten the time frame up a bit. I said “November 2020 - November 2021 for the whole manuscript” because I know I’m a procrastinator who gets dejected if they shoot past intense deadlines….

Editing Deadline: December 2021-January 2022. I know I can edit fairly quickly, so I made this one much shorter.

Main Requirements Prior to Starting: What do you need to get sorted before you can get going? It could be purchasing a laptop or figuring out a magic system. In my case, it was the latter.

What Happens in your novel?: This is not ‘what do your characters do?’, but what, in one sentence, actually happens in the book. For Fellowship of the Ring, you could say ‘a diverse group of people assemble and set off together with the goal of destroying the Ring’. LOADS more stuff actually takes place, obviously, but that’s probably the key thing that happens in that book. So, write the same thing for yours. I’m not going to tell you what happens in mine, because that would spoil it :).

That took up the first A4 page of my writer’s notebook, and after that, I moved on to Mood and Key Imagery.

Mood, Moodboards, and Key Imagery

On the left hand side of the page, I wrote down the words and concepts that sprang to mind when I thought of the novel itself. These were in no particular order or placement — just a random cloud of ideas in a rough column on the left hand side of the page — and they included: history, mystery, love, friendship, betrayal, nostalgic, homesick, sense of belonging, sense of place, searching, closeness, secrets… etc. etc.

Then on the right hand side, I wrote down five key words that I wanted to associate with the novel. These would form the ‘visual aesthetic’ in the background of my mind, and could be very easily expressed with a moodboard.

This same process (writing down words and creating a moodboard) could be achieved on a website like Pinterest. Take your time with it, find the right visual clues that really match the essence of your story, and create a final mood board with a limited number of panels that will be your novel’s ‘true north’ when it comes to feelings. If you're artistically inclined too, you could draw sketches of things relevant to your world too.

While this stage is really important for solidifying the feeling and mood of the novel, don’t get stuck here and spend forever procrastinating on Pinterest or whatever. Once you’ve crystallised that ambiance, it’s time to move on. It’s also perfectly fine to come back to this at a later stage if you find yourself running out of inspiration or drifting a bit. Daydreaming, drawing, mood-board-ing are all great ways to work on your novel on days when you don’t feel like writing.

Things to Consider:

Alicia Lidwina asked herself some questions which helped me get past the ‘block’ that I’d created when thinking about the novel, and those were:

What scares me about this story? (in my case it was the scope of it - it was easy for me to get lost in over-thinking tiny details and get too overwhelmed to handle the big picture)

What will readers take away from it? (in my case, I hoped that it was a sense of friendship, people from desperate cultures finding common ground, and a sense of being grounded in a real, tangible world.

What is its selling point? (essentially, why would an agent/publisher choose yours over the next one in the pile?). Don’t be bashful about this. This is your notebook, so if you’re proud of a feature or aspect of the story, write it down. In my case, there is no ‘Big Bad come to destroy the world’, no Chosen One who is the only one who can stop it. There is an antagonist, but it’s on a personal scale, and that’s the selling point. It’s about two people going on a personal journey to uncover a lost piece of knowledge that’s arguably not all that world-changing on its own, but which means the world to them.

What will be the three biggest issues in writing the first draft? Identify the three biggest roadblocks, and then take a bulldozer to them. For me, it was time management, getting mentally stuck, and the sheer darned effort of it becoming overwhelming!

Important Bullet Points

These are five key facts about your novel, distilled from the sections above. They include: What’s at the heart of the story? How long is the story? What’s the narrative focus of the story? What are the maximum number of main characters? And the maximum number of supporting characters (this obviously doesn’t mean you can’t have other, less important characters too!)?

Relationship between the two main characters is forefront

50-100k words

The novel’s focus is on the characters’ main goal (had to be more vague here so I didn't give it away)

2 main characters

3 supporting characters

If you find you’ve got too many main characters (not necessarily a bad thing to have a lot of characters - look at A Song of Ice and Fire after all!), then figure out whose story you want to tell here. You can always write another story with other characters in a connected novel, or a sequel. You don’t have to tell everything all at the same time.

Speaking of characters…

…Get to Know Your Main Characters:

Here you can write character sheets for each of your main characters and cast. There are hundreds of these templates available on the internet, asking questions like ‘how would your character react to [insert event]?’ etc. to get to know your character. If this isn’t your thing (it isn’t mine) then at least write down some useful information about them. Rough height and weight, hair, eye and skin colour, general temperament, and any other defining physical or mental traits.

Next came the Chronological Order

This does not have to represent the final order of the novel’s structure, nor the order in which you write the manuscript, but you need to know what happened within the timeline, and when, in order to be really clear when you’re telling the story. You can write the manuscript out of order, and you can tell the story with flashbacks or in a different order, but you need to have the underlying chronology securely in place so that your writing makes sense and so that you don’t confuse yourself or the readers in the process.

Preceding and Tangential Events

These don’t need to be in the novel itself, but it may be important to define the sequence of events that also led up to the moment where we pick up your story, and what is happening elsewhere so that you can be sure of these too. In my case, I defined the events that concerned one of the supporting characters’ lives so that I knew how and why they were at the point they are in the story. It relates directly to - and heavily influences - the events of the novel, so I needed to have this person’s history nailed down as well, even though I don't tell it all explicitly in the book (because that would be unnecessary and a bit dull).

Basic Premise, Plot Definition, and Sub-Plot Ideas (plus writing a synopsis)

Alicia Lidwina defined the story premise helpfully with the following formula:

Story Premise = Main Character + Desire + Obstacle

Pick a different colour for each of these components, and write a short paragraph to explain them in the context of the novel. Alicia Lidwina used the following:

[Main Character] “Harry, an orphan who didn’t know that he’s a wizard, [Desire] got invited into Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and wanted to live his school life to its fullest, [Obstacle] but a certain Dark Lord who killed his parents is trying to rise into powers again and kill him in revenge.

Do this for your novel, and keep it really short.

Plot Definition: This is even shorter than that! It’s a single sentence!! It’s most closely tied to the desire of the character, and lies at the heart of the story. It’s most likely a distilled version of the ‘what happens in the story’ from the Project Stats page, so check that to see what you wrote there.

Sub Plot Ideas

Five bullet points (no more) for things that are happening concurrently and which are related in some way to the main story. For me, Kae and Tomas are doing their research, so that’s the main theme, but beneath that there are a few other related incidents.

Writing a Synopsis - developed out of the points in this section, and includes:

Who the main character is

What the stakes are (the story premise is your guideline)

What the main plot line is

How the MC resolves the problem in the main plot line

How the book ends.

List of Locations

Start with the main ones and add to it as you go on. Write a little bit of information about them so that you have something to refer back to. I also drew a big old map which I found very helpful and also really fun to do.

List of Scenes

It’s very important to map out every single scene that happens in the novel. Use your timeline to help with this, but remember a scene is not necessarily a chapter. You can have more than one scene within a chapter, but try not to have too many.

I used small post-it notes (sticky notes) and wrote down things like “M joins K’s clan at the fire and K learns about magic” and “K studies at Citadel, intro to Citadel, magic, and characters” as separate scenes. Once you’ve written down everything that is going to happen (this will take some time! Get a drink and some snacks ready, and go slow), you can stick them into your notebook in the order you’d like to tell the story. Some chapters may have just one scene, while others may have two or three. I didn’t have more than two in any of my chapters, and actually ended up splitting some scenes that I’d made too vague in this section into more chapters. It doesn’t have to be set in stone, but it will form a road map.

Additions and Notes:

I left a section of the Scene Outline bit of the notebook blank for things to add in as I went along. I haven’t used it yet, but I might.

Chapter Outline

I arranged the scenes into the chapters already by sticking them in order, but you could do a chapter outline separately after this. It’s up to you.

NaNoWriMo plan:

I did this back in October, and wrote down the main goal for nanoprep, which was to finish the background info. Breaking that down further, I listed - magic (how does it work exactly), geography, and politics.

After that, it was just a case of writing the 1667 words a day. *spoilers, I got distracted and didn’t do NaNo this year* . What I should have done, was break it up into chunks and write down my goals so that I had something tangible to use as a road map, and I will be doing that now for the novel as I take it up again outside of NaNo. Having check boxes and manageable goals really works for me. Find what will work for you, and if it turns out not to, adapt!

Some final pointers and tips:

Set regular goals for yourself. Whether you work by saying ‘I’ll write 1000 words a day’ or ‘I’ll write something every day’, make a structure for yourself. If you slip and miss a day, week, or month (I didn’t meet NaNo this year because I chose to work on another project instead *slaps forehead*), don’t beat yourself up. Writing is a craft and it takes a long time and a lot of discipline to master a craft.

Your first draft does not have to be good. At all. Your first draft is just words on paper. A first draft is the block of marble taken from the quarry, and subsequent edits and reworking is the process of carving the sculpture itself. The editing that is done by the publisher or the professional you employ to edit it for you later, is the final polishing. Don’t be demoralised if the block of marble seems very rough when it first lands in your studio. That’s ok!

Take regular breaks. Writing is hard work, and most people can’t concentrate on something successfully for longer than 55 min's, and if you’re doing that, you’re already doing really well. Personally, I’m at 15-20 on a good day. Write in little sprints of ten minutes or so, and then get up and stretch, look out the window, maybe leave the room, come back in with a fresh approach.

Stretch your hands, and wear wrist braces when you work. Seriously. I gave myself tendinitis on my first major project, and couldn’t use either hand properly for weeks. The ones I have are these, and they allow me to work safely for much longer.

Keep hydrated. Have a bottle of water on the desk in front of you between your arms as you type and sip it, otherwise you’ll forget. 2 litres a day is usually recommended, but know your body and drink accordingly.

Treat yourself. Whether that’s something as simple as a decadent hot chocolate after your first chapter/chunk/sprint is done, or a new notebook or a pen or that sticker set you wanted on Etsy or literally anything nice, reward yourself for the hard work you’ve put in, with tangible things you can look at or experience and say ‘I have that because I did the work’. It’ll help with your sense of achievement, especially if the project is a long one.

Join a local writer’s group for feedback. With the current Covid-19 chaos, this is probably not possible right now, but getting constructive feedback on your work from someone who hasn’t been cocooned in the project in the way you are, but who respects you as a writer and wants to help you grow, will be invaluable. It’s too easy to exist in a little isolated bubble and think you’re doing ok, when in reality you could be creating bad habits which will be difficult to break later. By these, I mean things like ‘filler words’ you don’t realise you use, or other pit-falls it’s easy to tumble into when you can’t see the wood for the trees…It’s intimidating, and it might take some courage to work up and do, but I promise it’ll help you grow. You don’t have to do what the people suggest, but it’s great to get outside opinions all the same.

Submit work to writing competitions. This will help with showing agents and publishers later down the line that you’re not only committed, but hopefully talented, and will help you to push yourself. Use the world of your novel for the setting, and get to know it by writing short stories on the competition’s theme set there.

Read. Read the writers you admire, and read them ‘actively’ - figure out exactly what it is about ‘that’ sentence that made you shiver, and use the same techniques in your own work (don’t plagiarise, obviously, but if it was alliteration that made the sentence work so well, use it yourself! Perhaps it was the metre of the line? Great, now you know a rhythm that will drive a sentence forward or slow it down etc.)

Enjoy it. If you’re not enjoying what you’re doing, it’ll show in the work. Take a step back if you start floundering, and ‘interview’ yourself about why it’s not fun any more. Refer back to the sections in the notebook that helped to clarify the plot/process, and see if you’ve wandered away from them. Make yourself answer questions like: ‘What is the main reason I don’t want to do this?’ ‘What is the character’s motivation?’ ‘Should I scrap this section?’ (don’t delete it, but cut and paste it into another ‘scraps’ document, and then start afresh from the last place you were happy with. Nothing is wasted - it all goes into building the world and getting to know the characters, even if it doesn’t get explicitly told in the finished product, so don’t be afraid to do that last bit).

Good luck!

I hope you found this helpful, and if you have any questions or things you’d like to add to this, please feel free to send me an ask here on Tumblr.

If you’re a new writer hoping to get an agent or publisher, you might also find this post on ‘talking to a published author’ helpful or interesting.

If you would like to keep up to date with my own novel’s progress, you can follow me here on Tumblr, as well as on my writing Instagram @rnpeacock

#writing #writeblr #writing process #how to write a novel #novel writing #nanowrimo #national novel writing month #writing a book #writing advice #author #authors on tumblr #how to structure a book #long post

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awed-frog · 4 years

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Do you have any advice for someone who’s really struggling to study? I’m really stressed and demotivated, and I can’t seem to sit down and just study. In my country we only have virtual classes so maybe It has something to do with that, it’s really sad that it’s my first college year and I haven’t attended one single face to face class. Anyway, If you have any kind words I would really appreciate it. Love your blog btw <3

Hey! Thank you for this! And I’m very sorry you feel that way...just know you’re not alone, I think we’re all a bit ‘what’s the point’ rn, and for students (and teachers) this period must suck especially hard. I don’t know exactly what can work for you, but here are a few things that come to mind. I hope you can find something useful!

Have habits and routines. Our days are all over the place, which is not good for motivation or mental health. Instead of procrastinating, feeling guilty, working in a hurry and then feeling even worse, decide on a schedule that works for you. Don’t be too hard on yourself - give it as much time as you need to do the work well, and devote the rest of your day to stuff that makes you feel accomplished and serene (maybe learn or practice a non-screen skill, such as cooking or painting?).

And: at risk of sounding like a yoga mom, don’t forget about your body. Very often stuff like bad mood or exhaustion has physical, not mental, causes. Try to make time for sport - dancing in your underwear, running outside, walking the dog, online pilates, a 7-minute app - and, if you can, a few minutes of meditation, singing or breathing exercises every day. I’d recommend the ‘cardiac coherence’ stuff - lasts about 3 minutes, makes you feel really great. And: remember to stretch, smile and drink water throughout the day. If possible, go outside or have plants and flowers around you.

When it comes to habit, try to understand what kind of person you are and react accordingly. Some people work best when they change cold turkey (new day, new me), while for others it’s better to adjust things more slowly (for instance by moving the alarm clock forward five minutes every week or two). If you’re the second type, a method like Pomodoro could work well to organize your work schedule.

Have pretty things. Try switching to ink or coloured pens, have nice stationery, organize your Word documents so they’re neat and tidy, use candles, plants, ‘good mood’ incense - whatever makes you feel your work has meaning and worth.

Try background music. Some people work better with noise, and you can find all kind of noises online, from stations to coffee shops to purring cats. Others like classical music. For me, what works is video game music, which is designed to keep you alert and focused while being unobtrusive.

Try to keep your workspace as similar as possible to a ‘real’ workspace. No stack of dirty mugs and plates, no abandoned pajama bottoms. If you can manage it, start your day as if you were actually going outside - dress for actual human company, put on make-up if you like to - and remember to prepare your desk the night before: textbooks, charged laptop, notebooks, water bottle, possibly a diary or a motivational quote or anything you find useful.

If it helps, study with friends or classmates. Have video meetings, chats or shared Google docs and work together. Rant with people who’re going through the same thing, but also find a way to help one another. If you live with flatmates or family members, maybe you can find a moment to work together on your separate things? Dad does admin, mom prepares a work presentation, you do your homework and that’s ‘work time’ for everyone?

Divide your tasks. Make clear lists of what you have to do - as detailed as possible (not: shakespeare essay, but: 1. read book, 2. write essay, 2b. introduction and so on) and pay attention to when the stuff is due, either writing it down in agendas or post-its or creating alerts on your phone. Some people also like the square of doom (you know, that ‘important + urgent’, ‘important + non urgent’ thingy).

Keep track of what you’re doing if you find it helps you. There are good apps for this, or you can use a nice journal or an Excel sheet. Track whatever you want - minutes of study, words learned, tasks accomplished...a favourite of mine is ‘a time logger’, which can track your entire day. When I was in uni, it made me realize I was working a lot more than I thought, and reaching daily goals kept me motivated.

Rethink your internet consumption, especially news, TV shows and social media. Try having periods where you go off-screen whenever you need a break. Stuff like, ‘no TV before 6 pm’ or ‘no tumblr on weekdays’ can automatically make you a lot less stressed and a lot more productive.

You can also decide to modify the way you engage with these things. For instance, if your studies involve a language, you could watch only TV shows in [language], or turn on [language] subtitles, or you could switch to Buzzfeed [country]. If you like IG, pinterest or tumblr, try having a separate ‘weekday’ account which is about healthy escapism and/or accountability: landscapes and poetry instead of fandom content, or a personal blog about your day - use the right tags and connect with others who’re going through the same thing.

Imagine you’re teaching someone. I’m guessing you’re passionate about your subject, so turn your study sessions into imaginary conversations. Teaching a lesson (or making a speech) is often the best way to see what you understand, what you need to work on, and what you’re interested in learning more about.

Websites like b-ok can help you find books about your subject (or not) - possibly stuff you’re not actually compelled to read, but which sounds interesting nonetheless. Broaden your horizon, discover different stuff, and sooner or later you’ll find yourself making connections between the exciting stuff you’re basically reading for fun and the actual subject you’re studying.

And: remember why you’re studying this. What are you passionate about? Why did you fall in love with your subject? Why are you studying it? Sometimes we have to endure a few boring classes to get to the good part, and that’s okay.

And finally: visualize the future. The world will get better, and at some point you’ll be glad you’ve spent a few (or many) hard and boring hours getting your degree. What are you going to do after this? Make a ‘future’ board, write a fake Wikipedia article about yourself, give a Nobel or graduation speech, give a pep talk to your (imaginary) future children about the hardships you faced on Zoom and how you overcame them to become the mom they know and love. Whatever works, no matter how ridiculous or narcissistic or far-fetched is a good thing!

I hope this helps! Remember to remain calm and positive, and talk to yourself as if you were talking to a child or a best friend. Less You suck and the world is going to end and more Yes, you didn’t do great today, but we can always do better tomorrow, it’s okay to have an off day! Uni is hard enough under any circumstances, and right now...do your best and resist the bait of dark thoughts: we will get through this, and everything will be alright. It’s how it works.

#ask #studying #students problems #life tips #life advice #motivation #anxiety #mental help #singing about the dark times #you can do this <3

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offspring-of-calliope · 4 years

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Oneshot #2: Three times someone checked out Darcy’s ass and the one time he didn’t mind it

Description: A crackfic based on this post I made a few days ago. Basically what it says in the title and it plays during the canon era. The main pairing is BillDarcy.

words: 1645

A/N: To be honest, I don’t even know what this is, I just suddenly had this idea yesterday when I originally wanted to write the little idea for a Jojo/Elmer-Oneshot I have in my head. But hey, if there are things I’m good at, it’s procrastinating and doing things wrong, so here we are. As always, it’s possible that there are mistakes regarding grammar and spelling (I checked for them but since English isn’t my first language I might have forgotten something). It would be nice if you left a comment.

I hope you enjoy,

Sincerely, me,

Lélodie

—–

Darcy hated puberty. Pimples were scattered all over his face and a few days ago, his mother had helped him trying to figure out how to shave his face without cutting himself. Still, there were some leftovers of an incision on one of his cheeks.

The worst thing was that he hadn’t even had something that he could have called a ‘beard’. But he had overheard some of his classmates talking about the positive effect of having a beard – looking more mature and therefore having a better chance with the ladies they wanted to court. Darcy himself didn’t want to court a lady, yet he always wanted to look more mature so that his father might stop treating him a like little child. So, after a lot of insistence on his part, his mother had helped him with the soft hairs over his upper lip and on the sides of his face and he regretted it.

He was attending some important event, where all the influential persons in the world of newspapers were gathered. And he was there with a bright red face, full of signs of imperfections.

“Look at that fancy new suit! Darcy, puberty’s starting to grow on you.”

Startled, Darcy turned around and was promptly hugged by one of his best childhood friends, Katherine Pulitzer. “Kathy, I’m glad you could make it,” he said, quickly hugging her back.

Katherine freed herself from the embrace. “I couldn’t leave you guys alone with all these people now, could I? But back to what I said, when did your ass get this gorgeous? Or is it just the suit?”

Darcy choked on his own spit. He was always surprised by Katherine’s bluntness. A blush spread out over his whole face as he truly realised what she had said and he made an embarrassed sound. “My ass is the same as always, thank you very much. The only thing that’s changing is the constellations of pimples on my face.” He grimaced.

“Uh, how poetic. Maybe you want to write my next article, then I’ll have a lot more free time.”

“Kathy, I’m having a serious problem here.” Darcy threw a glance at the people surrounding them, making sure they were out of earshot. Then, he whispered, “How can I face Bill when my face looks like I’ve been burned by the sun, over and over again?”

Katherine was the only one who knew of his infatuation with Bill – his other childhood friend. She had also been the one who had helped him overcoming his long phase of self-hatred because he was falling in love with another boy. At first, there had been all these thoughts like: “It’s wrong. Two boys can’t love each other.” But when Katherine had told him that she as well did like people the same gender as hers, he had felt a lot better. He wasn’t the only one. He wasn’t hurting anyone. So why should he be ashamed of who he loved?

“Don’t worry, Darce. I think it looks cute. And if he doesn’t like it, you can always show him your ass.” Katherine winked.

Again, Darcy blushed. “What’s it with you and my… butt?”

Katherine just shrugged inscrutably and led him to the buffet.

When they met Bill, he didn’t mention the pimples. He also didn’t mention that Darcy’s suit was apparently too tight around his ass. He had only brought life to the butterflies in Darcy’s stomach when he had constantly readjusted Darcy’s glasses and therefore brushed his skin from time to time.

II.

A soft breeze was caressing Darcy’s hair as he and Katherine wandered along the streets of New York, arm in arm. Katherine was going on about some vaudeville show she had to review that night, until they came across the Newsboys’ lodging house. A smile appeared on her face as they watched some kids dancing around, presumably on their way to the circulation gate. Darcy knew how she admired these kids that had nothing and still seemed to be so happy to at least have each other.

Since the kids weren’t walking really fast, Katherine and Darcy caught up with them and Darcy rolled his eyes as one of the boys started flirting with Katherine. It was always like this. Katherine was a beautiful girl and therefore, she caught the attention of many boys on the street. But only some of them mustered up the courage to actually speak to her.

Trying to suppress a sigh, Darcy let his gaze wander and couldn’t help but notice some boys passing them while the presumable leader flirted with Katherine. He blinked. Had he just imagined it or were two of the boys checking him out? He lowered his head, not daring to look back at them and not really listening to Katherine’s conversation.

He took a deep breath, fiddled with his hands and eventually glanced back at the two boys he had noticed. He nearly let out a surprised gasp as he caught one of the boys checking out his ass once again. A blush crept up his neck. The boy noticed him looking back and winked.

Darcy had never been more glad of Katherine taking control than in this moment. Oblivious to Darcy’s own problem, she grabbed his arm tighter and led him away from the newsies.

He took another deep breath. Had the boy been flirting with him? Darcy couldn’t handle people flirting with him. The only exception was Bill but that didn’t really count, considering that Bill was his lover. Which Darcy still couldn’t quite believe. He and Bill were a thing. Bill had been the one to take the first step, turning a little moment of them cuddling into a sweet, intoxicating kiss.

Darcy smiled and it didn’t take long for him to forget the incident with the newsies.

III.

Apparently, people did have a thing for his butt. That was the conclusion Darcy came to when he was ready cleaning the printing press and went to put on his coat. Bill had already left the cellar, presumably talking with Katherine and Jack outside.

He hadn’t meant to eavesdrop but he couldn’t help but hear two voices, a few feet away, seemingly not noticing his presence.

“… yeah, but one of 'em definitely had a stick up his ass.” The heavy Brooklyn accent in this voice was obvious and Darcy suspected that the boy talking was that Spot Conlon that every single newsie seemed to either fear or respect.

“Obviously. He’s refused ta shake Jack’s hand when he’d spit on it,” the other person laughed. It was also a boy but Darcy couldn’t quite place who the voice belonged to.

Was he talking about Darcy? It would make sense, considering that Spot had talked about two people specifically and he and Bill were the odd ones out (Katherine didn’t count since she had already been involved in the strike before they had been printing the banner tonight). Suddenly, Darcy felt offended. Just because he had manners didn’t mean that he was uptight.

“But you have to admit, it’s a pretty nice ass,” the person whose voice Darcy didn’t recognize answered.

It took Darcy all strength he could muster up not to cough and make his presence known. That would be even weirder than only hearing people talk about his ass. He hurried with putting on his coat, while contemplating listening a little more. Of course he was embarrassed but he kind of wanted to know what else the boys had to say.

“You’s right, Race.” A pause. “But do ya know who also has a great ass?”

Alright, that was Darcy’s cue to leave.

+ IV.

“I can’t believe you!” Darcy exclaimed while Bill only laughed more and more. He sighed. “I shouldn’t have told you, I knew it.”

“I am sorry, I did not mean to offend you, Darce, but that’s just too funny,” Bill said, letting his fingers run over Darcy’s arm, yet not even trying to suppress his laughter. “Why did I never notice that your butt is apparently so interesting?”

“I hate you,” Darcy retorted, crossing his arms in front of his chest, all the while trying to come up with a convincing pout.

Bill stopped laughing at that but the smirk didn’t leave his face. “No, you don’t.” His voice was soft and he moved closer to his lover. “Do you want to know what makes you the most handsome in my opinion?”

Darcy threw him a sceptical glance and let his arms fall to his side again. “What is it?”

“Your nose.”

“My nose?” Darcy let out a small laugh. “Seriously?”

“Well, it is,” Bill replied and shoved him lightly. “Especially when you’re wearing your glasses.” He raised his hand and started to trace the rim of Darcy’s glasses, gently, as if he was afraid of breaking them. Darcy’s breath hitched. “Shoving your smartness in everyone’s faces.”

“Glasses don’t make people smart.” Darcy remembered the time he thought that he would seem more mature when he acted as if he indeed had a real beard. In retrospect, he nearly laughed at that.

“But they make people look smart. And smart people are very, very attractive.” To prove his former point, Bill planted a short kiss on Darcy’s nose.

Darcy smiled. Then he leaned back a bit and took off his glasses. “But what happens when I stop wearing my glasses and don’t look smart any more?” He teased.

Bill made a face like he was thinking about something real intensely. Eventually, he embraced Darcy and smirked. “Then you still got your ass to show off,” he whispered, letting his hands wander lower and lower over Darcy’s back.

For once, Darcy didn’t mind someone paying attention to his butt.

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batfamily--headcanons · 4 years

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Advice for Finishing University Work Right Now

This obviously isn’t Batfam related, but given the situation the world is in right now and that this is where I have the biggest platform (still can’t quite wrap my head around seeing that 5000 number), I’m posting it here.

If you’re like me, you’ve been forced to complete your school year online (this is advice from a university student in regards to my classes, but it could totally apply to high school work too) and working from home during a pandemic is not the easiest thing in the world as we’ve all learned. So here’s how I’ve been coping and what I’ve figured out since I started online classes.

1. It really doesn’t matter what you wear. I’m seeing all these people saying to get dressed like you’re actually going to school and that does not matter. For some people, that works, but I used to do all my assignments in my dorm in my pajamas long before this happened. Although, it might help to take a shower and put on some clean PJs, but you don’t need to dress up for this.

2.Don’t beat yourself up for not being as productive as you usually are. We’re in the middle of a fucking pandemic and that shit is traumatizing. Even if you feel fine, studies have shown that this amount of stress makes your brain work differently. So, it’s not your fault and you shouldn’t feel guilty about it.

3. Find a place to work that works for you. Because I had to move out of the dorms, I’m now back home at my parents’ house and the thing I miss the most is my desk. My big, beautiful desk. It was L shaped and took up almost the entire back wall so there was plenty of room for my laptop, my books, my printer, and a few snacks. I don’t have that at home. We have two desks and neither of them is wide enough to fit both my computer and my textbook. I’ve had to get creative and I turned my couch into a makeshift desk while I sat in my moon chair with a lap desk. They say not to work in bed, but if your bedroom is the only place quiet enough to study in right now, use it.

4. If it doesn’t distract you, crank up the music when studying. Personally, the only way that I can concentrate is when I have the music as loud as it can go and I’m singing along. It makes working a little less boring. I’ve created an entire playlist just for this and it’s full of the most upbeat songs that I know the best so that I don’t even have to think of the lyrics when singing. Music is a great stress-reliever and it can help your mind from wandering and thinking about the reason that you now have to work from home.

5. Procrastination is going to happen. Just because many of us have nothing but time, it doesn’t mean that we’re able to use it to work. Like I said, this shit is traumatizing and stressful. Every day, the prime minister of my country does a press conference and I watch it every day and in the hours after watching it, I don’t do anything. Some days, you are going to feel terrible and on those days, don’t try to work. Some days, you’ll feel more alert and like yourself again. Spend those days enjoying it and getting some work done too, but not so much that it ruins your mood.

6. If you don’t feel like doing the actual assignment but feel like doing something, go through your notes/course material and highlight/make notes on what you’re going to do your assignment on. For example, I’m doing a paper for my poetry class and yesterday I wasn’t feeling up to writing so I highlighted quotes from the poems that I can use as evidence to back up my thesis. I also found an academic article to use as a source for my paper as well. It’s helped tremendously because now I know my topic and have the evidence right here in front of me so all I have to do is write without interrupting myself to find one of those things.

7. Take breaks!!!! I have never in my life taken a break from working on an assignment unless it was to eat and even then, I forget to do so a lot. However, ever since I’ve been home, I cannot work for hours straight with no break. That’s partly because I don’t have a proper area to study in and partly because my brain is preoccupied with my constant anxiety and fear. Also, when you are literally in pain from looking down at screen or from being hunched over a book for hours at a time, take a break. Don’t “power through” because you have to do this. Being in pain mentally or physically is a reason to stop.

8. No amount of study tips will get you motivated if you are not in a good place mentally so stop torturing yourself by scrolling through them on tumblr and feeling like shit about yourself because you aren’t as productive as everyone you see online. I say this from personal experience. Plus most of these study tips I see going around are way too fake and overly optimistic for my tastes. That’s why I wrote these down, because they’re honest and they’re real. They view this situation as a goddamn vacation when in reality, it’s a tragedy. A shower and a change of clothes is not going to fix your life, especially now. You not being productive right now isn’t laziness or lack of motivation, it’s because of your mental health.

Hope this helps in some way. I’m just doing the best I can under the circumstances and it’s taken me a while to come to terms with the fact that this isn’t lack of motivation and to stop blaming myself for not getting anything done. Stay safe, everyone!

#studying from home #studying tips #quarantine #not batfam #reece rambles

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makeste · 5 years

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BnHA Smash!! 01 and 02: Smash!!Might is a Fucking Menace

okay, so. I have about a million other things I should be doing instead, including (1) responding to asks and/or finishing in-progress metas, (2) reading Vigilantes, and last but not least, (3) actually making a dent in the ever-increasing backlog of Actual Work That I Really Should Be Doing Instead.

so naturally I’m procrastinating by taking my first stab at reading BnHA’s cute 4-panel omake spinoff series, BnHA Smash!! IT JUST MAKES SENSE. look, I have exactly one thing I felt like actually doing and not procrastinating today, so I might as well do the thing. basically it’s my attention span’s world and I’m just living in it.

anyway! so apparently this series was scanlated by good ol’ Fallen Angels. that’s right; prepare yourselves for some very creative cursing, fellas. other background info for anyone who, like me, is unfamiliar with this spin-off: this series debuted on November 9, 2015, a little over a year after the original series. said original series was currently at chapter 66, meaning the Final Exam arc was just wrapping up.

so now that we’re all properly oriented, let me go over a few disclaimers real quick and then we’ll get started!

all comments are my unspoiled reactions from my initial readthrough of the chapter. I did a quick edit for grammar and clarity afterward, and added a few ETAs in the process, but aside from that there are no changes.

I’m aware that not everyone may be familiar with Smash!! even if they’ve read/watched the original series, so I’ve tried to make this recap comprehensible even if you haven’t read the spin-off. that being said, it’s probably more enjoyable if you have, so you can either purchase the first volume from Viz here, or read the chapter online (I don’t want to link directly, but the spin-off is available on most of the usual sites. literally just google “read mha” and you’ll find some good options).

this readthrough contains a handful of sorta-kinda spoilers for the BnHA manga, although there are no direct spoilers. just an indirect reference to a joke in chapter 242, as well as a reference to a theory which as of now is in no way canon. but just to be on the safe side I’m posting a heads-up.

and I think that’s it! so here we go.

so we’re opening with a brief summary of the series. people have superpowers and shit’s nuts. you know the drill

there’s also a brief description of the way that the superhero economy works, complete with Mt. Lady’s employees unionizing and demanding better pay

...what

guys I keep staring at this and thinking that surely, SURELY it doesn’t say what I think it says. sidekick... what... manager??

you know what? Viz unfortunately doesn’t include this series as part of their subscription package (WHAT AM I PAYING YOU FOR, VIZ), but it does at least include a free preview of Smash, and I bet you that this, the first fucking page of the series, is a part of that preview. so... let’s see...

okay, see, this actually makes sense! so did the FA scanlating team collectively all have a fucking stroke?! just, what??

this is one of the reasons why I had difficulty reading Vigilantes too, tbh. those early chapter scans were, uh. but at least Vigilantes has a Viz scanlation too. I don’t want to spend 10 bucks just to read one volume of this, but we’ll see. anyways

so now there’s a strip about baby!Izuku watching his favorite clip of All Might saving one hundred people from a bus accident or whatever

lol Inko you should not have left your shrewdly calculating four-year-old son unattended omg

TWELVE MONTHS’ WORTH OF TEXTBOOKS HOW CAN THIS EAGER YOUNG MIND RESIST

and this is why you don’t leave your credit card info saved on the computer when you have kids. life lessons learned today

this is the first indicator we have ever had that baby!Izuku wasn’t perfect and was, in fact, capable of being a little shit and giving his mom plenty of gray hairs in his own special way. ngl, I fucking love it

also 12,800 yen is about $118 USD, which is honestly a really good deal for a year’s worth of textbooks. he got three boxes of books! I just googled the average cost of college textbooks, and the google article said the average student spends about $1200 a year. so this is a fucking steal tbh

OH MY GOD INKO HOW MANY TIMES MUST HISTORY REPEAT ITSELF BEFORE YOU LEARN

at least install a fucking adblocker ffs. you’re lucky quirk supplement ads are the worst of the ads he’s getting! PARENTAL CONTROLS

now we are cutting to a comic about baby!Izuku defending another boy from my problematic fave, as seen in page one of the original series!

lmaooo

I’m not clear on how much of this spin-off can actually be considered canon. my understanding is that it is Horikoshi-reviewed and approved, even though he doesn’t actually write it. but it’s obviously a humor series, so a lot of it is just going to be jokes. that being said, I think my approach is going to be “if it’s not completely ridiculous and doesn’t contradict the actual manga, go ahead and consider it canon”

(ETA: I might change this up after reading the first two chapters. most of these strips would have terrifying implications if they were actually canon sob.)

anyhoo, this actually does contradict the manga in that we saw this encounter play out very differently. but I kind of wish it was canon regardless because looool. these cocky preschoolers and their fucking Battle Tears

the next comic is Mt. Lady accidentally stepping on a guy’s face and the guy being way too fucking happy about it (read: having a fucking nosebleed and taking an upskirt shot). we’re just going to skip this entirely. this is another problem I was having with Vigilantes too. you know, for all my complaints about Mineta and such, BnHA as a whole is so much tamer than it could be, and I need to give Horikoshi credit for that. he mostly knows where to draw the line, and to his credit he’s also much, much better about this kind of thing than he was when he first started. maybe Mineta’s standings in the character poll results are helping to clue him in

anyway, I’ll mostly just skip past the iffy stuff because I don’t have patience for it and there’s still plenty of other stuff to cover. so on to the next strip

which features a bunch of reporters fawning over Mt. Lady’s flashy quirk while Kamui Woods laments in the shadows

and yet we know this kid will have a prominent rise within the next six months. it’s so strange to revisit the start of the series and see how much things have changed in such a short time

oh my god

no one who dresses up as a giant mushroom could possibly have good intentions. I. just

and look at the fucking disappointment in Deku’s eyes. KAMUI WOODS HE BELIEVED IN YOU!

now some strange man is coming up to Deku and is all HEY YOU, YOU’RE A HERO OTAKU, TELL ME WHAT TO BUY MY SEVEN-YEAR-OLD SON FOR HIS BIRTHDAY. better not ask him unless you’re prepared to shell out $120 bucks for some fucking textbooks

hey, what!!

WE DIDN’T EVEN GET TO SEE WHAT HE BOUGHT HIM? unless it’s the action figure the kid appears to be holding? but I’m just going to go ahead and assume Izuku recommended the number one best gift that any seven-year-old child would love, i.e. a giant sword

now it’s a sludge monster omake!

so Izuku is trudging home all depressed after CERTAIN INCIDENTS, and Sludgey is glooping his way out of a sewer towards him

oh no All Might

my biggest takeaway from this is the fact that the entire second half of chapter one takes place after All Might has emerged from a fucking sewer. I forgot all about that somehow. or maybe it never fully processed until just now. but omg. this entire chapter must have smelled so fucking bad. these poor kids

wow All Might

sure called that one wrong. ah well nobody’s perfect

looooool

lmao, Smash!!All Might appears to be quite a bit more vain than the original. wow dude

btw, friendly reminder (and I think this is something that was actually pointed out to me after one of the recaps; that’s one of my favorite things about doing these) that All Might, after saving Deku, actually read his notebook before signing it. super-fast, I guess, because he’s the best. but yeah, so he knew exactly how smart and observant Deku was, and how much he wanted to be a hero. his decision to pick him as his successor didn’t just come out of the blue; even before the “my body moved on its own” thing, there was a lot Deku had going in his favor. this is one of those little details of which BnHA has so many, and which I love

lmao what the fuck

ngl this version of the series would have been amazing in its own way. but yeah. so this is why we clearly can’t assume everything in Smash!! is canon lol. but I can already tell I am going to enjoy the shit out of this series

now we’re cutting to Deku running at Sludgey in order to save Kacchan, oh shit. the most dramatic part of chapter one. clearly no moment is sacred

sob what

I don’t understand this strip at all. is this supposed to be a serious moment inserted unexpectedly among this multitude of joke strips? or did I miss the punchline? heeeeelp

(ETA: okay so. my best guess is that All Might wrote all over Deku’s life-saving advice, and so the joke is that Deku no longer knows what to do when assaulting sludge men because HIS NOTES ARE RUINED. idk. what does 25 P mean??)

now All Might has Done The Thing and saved my boys, and now Mt. Lady is helping with the cleanup. scooping up all the bits of sludge and putting it in trash bags

oh my god

nope nevermind. nope. nope

-- shit. okay, you know what? this first chapter has been a real in-your-face reminder of the fact that the sludge monster was not made of cute sparkly 2018-trending-fad slime, but was in fact composed of RAW FUCKING SEWAGE. (ETA: to be clear, I’m pretty sure the joke in this strip is that she accidentally picked up dog-doo during her clean-up. but still, the fact that it was indistinguishable from the rest of the gunk speaks for itself.) I think I forced myself to gloss over this fact originally due to the nope factor. but just. Izuku and Katsuki were both choking to death on this shit?? and just, how the fuck did they make it out of this not traumatized

and also, like. All Might was straight up going to leave Izuku alone afterwards, just, “well enjoy your autograph, fine citizen” and blasting off out of there. and everyone fucking saw Katsuki almost suffocate to death later on, and after giving him a pat on the back they fucking let him go off on his own too? and you can’t even make the argument that this was Just Another Day In Quirk Society either, because more than a year later, Katsuki is still a bona fide fucking celebrity from the media coverage of his attack. it clearly was not something that happens every day. in conclusion, these kids are resilient as fuck, and thank god for that because people apparently just do not give a shit, holy christ

anyway. at least Mt. Lady had gloves

OH MY GOD

I FUCKING KNEW IT OH MY GOD. THE ROIDS. MUSCLES LIKE THAT DON’T JUST GROW ON TREES, I DON’T CARE HOW MANY LBS OF GARBAGE THIS KID HAULED OFF THE BEACH. THIS BOY BEEN HITTIN THE JUICE

Smash!!Might is so fucking shady omfg. probably sells cheap counterfeit electronics on Amazon

oh shit and that’s the end of the fucking chapter lol. that’s it?? that was only eight pages. fuck it, let’s read another. but first here’s Horikoshi’s note on the spin-off

so he really feels that Neda gets the spirit of the series and understands him. that’s very encouraging. the best spoofs and parodies are done out of love. I really think I’m going to enjoy this series

so! onward to chapter two

so here’s All Might dressed as Mr. 2 Bon Clay from One Piece, I guess??

“you know what’s funny? dressing a man in girl’s clothes LOL.” guys can we grow the fuck up. and also acknowledge that All Might can look good in anything, so this questionable gag wouldn’t have even landed anyway. you work that tutu All Might

lmao check out the past users of OFA here

All for One for All theory fucking confirmed lol. just look. that’s him in the back of the conga line. clearly

so Deku is all “hell yes why would I possibly say no??” but then

HIS LIMBS. lmao. sign here

in all seriousness, given the shit this kid has been through since the part of the series, All Might probably should have gotten him to sign a liability waiver of some sort. not that it would have stood, since Deku is underage! anyways Deku you totally have grounds to sue the shit out of the Symbol of Peace should you ever choose to do so. and the trend of Smash!!Might being shady af continues yes please give me more I love it

so now All Might is giving Deku his fitness plan which has a really elaborate name

given that this is Smash!!Might, I can’t help but wonder if this plan is in actuality some sort of MLM scheme. All Might are you trying to get Deku to do Herbalife

lol what in the fuck

the original series skipped right over a hell of a lot, it would seem. like the time Deku traveled to Arizona and fought coyotes in a poncho

I’m starting to suspect that Neda-sensei might be on some sort of substance. “let’s see what jokes can I make about chapter 2 of BnHA. I know, I’ll send the protagonist to a fictionalized version of the American Southwest in a sombrero, and then turn him into a 65-year-old oil tycoon.” naturally

lmao that’s really it, that’s the strip. moving right along. okay??

now Izuku is staring at the intimidating piles of Beach Trash and is all “I HAVE TO PICK ALL THIS SHIT UP?”

omg Deku no

somebody call Marie Kondo. Deku none of this is salvageable. not even to reuse in a color page photoshoot spread four years from now

OH SHIT

PROVED ME WRONG OH SNAP. SHOWED ME RIGHT WHERE I COULD PUT THOSE SASSY TAKES. MY BAD DEKU I’M SORRY

anyways I don’t know what Smash!!Might is so upset about. he probably wove some kind of clause into the contract Deku signed that allows him a percentage of the profits. unless Deku already spent it all on textbooks

what the fuck is this fucking series lmao

time for a round of “what is All Might casually crushing in this panel?” is it (a) a cardboard box, or (b) like, a mini-fridge or some fucking shit. IT COULD BE EITHER. IT MAKES EQUALLY AS MUCH SENSE EITHER WAY. “HEROES THESE DAYS ARE [FLEEEEEEX] OBSESSED WITH BEING FLASHY”

holy shit no wonder he ran away to the Sierra Nevada. it’s only a matter of time before this freak fucking kills someone

NOW WE’RE CUTTING AWAY TO KAMUI WOODS DRESSED LIKE A DAFFODIL, IN THE SAME FUCKING COMIC STRIP, BECAUSE REASONS

my jokes about the mangaka being high as a fucking kite when he wrote this are gradually becoming less jokes and more serious inquiries??

lol so he coincidentally just stumbled across All Might and Deku at this exact moment

AND IT WAS A FUCKING REFRIGERATOR OH MY FUCKING GOD

do you guys remember during the final exam when All Might beat the everloving shit out of Deku and Kacchan, and everyone was all “JESUS CHRIST WOULD YOU LEARN TO FUCKING HOLD BACK A LITTLE THEY ARE CHILDREN YOU MANIAC.” but now we can see plain as day that he was, in fact, holding back. anyways Smash!!Might is terrifying as shit and if this had been the main series I would have already pegged him as the final villain by this point

here he is now wearing an old-timey bathing suit but looking more like an escaped convict than anything else

this panel is actually canon. I’ve decided. this 100% definitely happened at some point. especially the swimsuit

now two bikini babes are walking up and they’re all “IS THAT ALL MIGHT??” with excited sparkly eyes because they don’t know that he’s actually a deranged con artist who crushes refrigerators like empty soda cans. this spin-off has truly opened my eyes

LOOK AT THIS SKEEVY FUCK. JUST LOOK

AND NOW HE’S RUNNING OFF AND LEAVING DEKU TO DROWN IN EXHAUSTION, SON OF A

“SUDDEN BUSINESS” KSJLDKF SMASH!!MIGHT IS A FUCKING MENACE TO SOCIETY AND ALSO DOES NOT GIVE ONE SINGLE FUCK. NOT ONE!! HE’S OUT THERE FUCKLESS, AND NO ONE IS SAFE

now Deku is approaching his mom all serious and says he wants to change up his diet

and she’s looking at the menu he prepared all impressed and thinking that she might join him. as long as it’s for your health, Inko. if this manga starts making jokes about your weight, I will beat it over the head with Deku’s textbooks

OMFG

THIS WENT IN THE EXACT OPPOSITE DIRECTION I WAS EXPECTING, AND THIS IS THE MOST AMAZING THING I’VE EVER READ WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK. the whole fucking family is on the juice. and the fucking mangaka is on some special juice of his own oh my stars

now we’re cutting to Mt. Lady stomping on a car

thank fuck no one was actually in there. also does she not wear shoes

and also, it only just occurred to me that she must be another person with a special quirk costume, because her suit shrinks and expands along with her. Hagakure and Momo are really getting shafted by the costume design team here. they need to fire some people

anyway so Mt. Lady slipped on this carelessly placed vehicle and fell down and crushed an entire building whoops

bruh, you think you’re “ow.” let’s hope that building was empty too

and now she’s toppling another building just fucking because, I guess. and saying she can’t do urban areas

lmao and now the sidekick [CENSORED] manager from chapter one is back to guilt-trip her omg

I need this man to show up in every freaking chapter. please. respect my wishes

and now Izuku is standing on top of his collected pile of garbage screaming in victory

I only just realized that there’s still a big old Pile O’ Trash on this beach, though. someone needs to haul all of this junk away. or else get All Might and Mt. Lady to crush it all with a combined effort

oh shit here it comes y’all, the famous “eat my hair” scene. potential comedy gold right here omg

lol what the fuck

this man is a fucking billionaire and he’s out here clipping coupons and deleting pictures of his son in order to make room for them smdh

okay now we’re doing the hair scene

oh. oh no. I know where this is going sob please keep this comic rated PG for the children Neda

motherfucker they really --

Smash!!Might is a straight-up felon. this man has no fucking scruples. that’s okay Midoriya-shounen, if you don’t want to eat my hair we could just try some REDACTED, jesus christ I am going to need some bleach for my eyes after this

OR LET’S JUST STRAIGHT UP GO THERE WHY NOT

lmao sob. well, two chapters in and we’ve established that no territory is off-limits here. it’s a brave new world. wow

so that’s it! our introduction to BnHA Smash!! I enjoyed it a lot and I will definitely be reading more! I’m not sure what kind of schedule I’ll keep, but this is a really good procrastination manga thus far, so knowing me I might actually work my way through this relatively quickly. especially since the Manga At Large is on break this week. anyways my deepest apologies to the many people who have been requesting for me to start Vigilantes instead. I just need something lighter right now, and this is a good fit. one of these days I’ll get my shit together with the other two spinoffs as well.

#bnha smash!!#boku no hero academia #midoriya izuku #all might #midoriya inko #mt. lady #kamui woods #bnha smash!! 01 #bnha smash!! 02 #makeste reads bnha #the pile o' trash is a legit plothole though you guys #are we just supposed to pretend it magically vanished #they really drew deku standing shirtless on top of a heap of garbage #and in the very next panel declared that the beach was spotless??#so what is the truth #someone #answer me

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queeniewritesce · 5 years

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Recommendations (2/2)

This is part 2 of my entry for the @mrs-captain-evans 2,5K followers Writing Challenge.

Summary: Twitter is a strange place. But once in a while, you connect with someone.

Word count: 2,484

Warning: mild language, 35 seconds of angst, could be less if you read it fast.

The heavy double-paned door opened with a jingle and a creak, letting the cool air from late November enter the small café on Arrow Street. You didn’t bother looking up from your laptop, where you read an article about penguins instead of finishing grading yesterday’s pop quiz.

Procrastinating was your new favorite pastime since decreasing your online presence. Not that it stopped the ache you still felt every time you opened Twitter to post a new article, which was the only content you shared nowadays. Gone were the jokes geared towards your students, pictures of Captain Hook, or commenting on the everyday shenanigans of the White House and Congress.

The less you shared, the less you cared, and the only reason your profile was still up was because of your job.

You checked the time on the bottom left of the screen. Professor Kincaid’s class had been canceled and you had one hour to kill before your own class started, which prompted you to run to Bean There for a fresh pot of coffee and one huge Boston Cream doughnut.

As you read about penguins kidnapping other chicks if they own young died, you got wind of the murmurs and rushed voices going on around the room. You tried to tune them out, young people got excited about anything but they seemed to get louder and louder with every passing moment. You located your bag seating by your feet and was looking for your headphones when a pair of black boot cladded feet stopped in front of you.

Pursuing your lips, you let the ears buds fall back inside the pocket but didn’t bother to look up. If your assumptions were correct, the owner of those boots was the cause for the raucous around you.

“Y/N…”

Yep, the voice and the boots belonged to the same person.

Tears made your eyes sting and you blinked to prevent them from falling. You minutely shook your head, not knowing exactly what you’re trying to convey; that this was not the place or that you’re not, would never be, ready to talk to him.

“Please. Can we talk?”

The hurt in his voice gave you pause. Why would Chris feel anything but pride at playing you as he did? Did he want to do a coup de grâce to your ego?

Keeping your eyes downcast, you lowered the screen of your laptop, glad you hadn’t bothered with the power strip. Shifting the electronic around you other stuff took more time than intended but after a few tries, you zippered up your bag, grabbing some money out of your wallet and dropping it on the table.

You got up and your nose pressed against the most muscular chest you ever saw. He was so well built that you could see the hard contours of his pecs through the thick cream sweater he was wearing. The smell of his cologne hit your nostrils and you almost swoon, finally looking up.

He shouldn’t be allowed the whole package, that was so unfair to you.

Deep blue eyes framed by thick eyelashes stared back at you, the lower half of his face covered in fine auburn whiskers that couldn’t be more than two weeks old at the most, looking so soft that you had to restrain yourself from reaching out and running the tips of your fingers through them.

“All I am asking is for a chance to explain myself.” Strong fingers reached for you, encasing your small hand in his as if he really wanted you to stay. You scoffed at the notion, this man really knew how to play you. Did he get off in toying with you?

Your scared eyes looked from his eyes to your clasped hands and back again, silently begging him to let you go. He mouthed a soundless no and stepped towards you, bridging the already small gap between your bodies.

Later, if someone asked you why you did it, you would blame your next course of action on the overwhelming need to escape.

“Look, everyone, it’s Chris Evans.”

Chris’s eyes widened and a different kind of hurt clouded his vision. Betrayal. He let your hand go.

Good. Maybe know he would understand exactly how you felt.

A round of applause broke out around the café and the whispers were now cheers. The discretely held cellphones now pointed straight at the man in front of you.

Move, get out. Your feet took their sweet time obeying your brain, but soon you’re grabbing your coat and your messenger bag and making a beeline to the door, not bothering with actually putting on your coat before the full brunt of Boston’s late autumn slammed into you. You powered through, running through the streets that led you to your office, not once looking back, certain Chris would not follow.

Entering the gray building that housed Media Studies and Social Analyses, you allowed yourself to slow down and take a breath. Safe.

The lights stayed off when you entered your office, the loaded mahogany bookcases and dark upholstery making the room more ominous than it truly was.

You let your bag slide to the floor near your desk, not really bothering with damaging the electronics inside.

Heavy feet carried you to the sofa under the balcony window, where you sat with unfocused eyes, mind running a mile a minute trying to understand how your life became a drama movie in just a few short months.

What was Chris doing here? You thought you made your feelings clear when you blocked him. The pain ebbed away after a few weeks, diluted to an ache that accompanied you day and night. For a fleet moment, you had entertained the idea of a relationship with Chris. Not Evans. Just Chris, the wholesome and funny guy you got to know during those four months you spent trading messages with. But that guy didn’t exist, he was just a persona, one more character created and well played by Chris Evans. Right?

There was a knock and whoever was outside didn’t wait for an answer before your door was pushed open.

Professor Travis stuck his head inside your office, a scowl on his face.

“If I hear one more student going off about the Oscar worthy drama on the media department I’ll flunk them and fire you, we’re not a telenovela. Fix whatever this is or convince him to stay away, I got your next class covered.”

He pushed Chris inside the dimly lighted room, raised his eyes brows pointedly at you and left, the door closing firmly behind him.

Silence stretched around you, uncomfortable and unnerving.

His hands stayed on his pockets, heavy coat looped around one arm while Chris took inventory of his surroundings before focusing on you, his gaze never wavering.

“Can I sit?”

You didn’t expect the croaked voice, nor the way it warped around your heart.

Two fingers pointed to the chairs on the other side of the center table. A safe distance, an actual barrier between you.

Of course, he decided to sidestep the table and sat opposite you on the love seat, his knee almost touching yours.

“What you did back there was treacherous and mean.” He faced forward, fingers drumming on his knees. “I guess I deserved it.”

“You did.”

“I never thought those would be the first words I’d hear you say direct to me.”

You cocked your head, not sure what to say to that.

“I mean, I thought about our first meeting, how you would be surprised but also happy I wasn’t a serial killer, just a dumb actor with too much free time on his hand.” He let a dark chuckle. “I never expected you to out me to a room filled with twenty-somethings years old and run away.”

What did he mean by thought about you? You admittedly had mulled over the idea more than once, wondering if you would click on the real world as much as you did online. Even created a list of topics you could revisit from your online conversation, mixed with silly questions you’d never asked him, like blueberry or chocolate chips on your pancakes? Could this man, so famous he couldn’t even walk into a coffee shop without being recognized, also be so committed to the idea of meeting you?

No matter. He still deceived you.

“I asked you once if you were catfishing me. You said no.”

Chris whole body faced you and he trained his eyes on you.

“I wasn’t. I looked up what that word means. I don’t fit any of those boxes. I’m not in it to hurt you. I never said I was someone else. I just never told you my last name.”

“Or who you actually were.”

He huffed.

“See, that’s where you’re wrong. I shared with you exactly who I was. Am. My opinions, my true likes and dislikes. I didn’t sugarcoat it or played dumb, I didn’t hide behind a forced laughed or a sound bite. You got Chris, the whole unadulterated version.” His expression hardened. “It’s not easy to open up like that when people expect you to be a certain way, act another way. Since you teach about expectations and the effects mass media has on other people, I believed you’d understand why I had to hide behind a pseudonym.”

It was not the first time you wondered what was like on the other side of the fishing lenses celebrities were under. You taught the basics of how media twisted and organized exactly how the public perceived being famous, asking your students to always remember no matter how famous someone was, there were first and foremost a human being.

“I understand why you did it, that doesn’t change the fact that you lied to me.”

“I never lied to you.” Chris rebuffed.

“You told me you were a flight attendant and you worked for Delta.”

“No, I didn’t. You assumed all that, I just never corrected you.”

“I…”

He was right.

You remembered all the times he changed the subject when you discussed his work and you honestly believed he was embarrassed about his job. You never asked what he did, or what he was doing in Atlanta for so long.

You felt the hot flashes of embarrassment creeping up your face and you hung your head low. Were you really so obtuse?

“I’m sorry.” A staggered breath left you. “I’m sorry I didn’t ask and assumed.”

“I have my own share of the guilty Y/N. I wanted to tell you, I wrote hundreds of messages but I could never send them. I was terrified you wouldn’t believe me before I could send you proof. And then I told you my name and it got comfortable, I wasn’t lying, just leaving out some stuff.”

“A lie of omission is still a lie in my book.” The serious tone of your voice washed over Chris and he winced.

“I got that when you blocked me.”

Once again the room was quiet save from the filtered shuffling of feet coming from the corridor.

As a true scholar, you analyzed all the information he gave you, looking for strong points and flaws on his reasoning. It all checked out. You wouldn’t have believed him. He never outright lied to you.

There was only one question left unanswered.

“Why are you here Chris?”

His smile warmed you, made you want things that you shouldn’t. Images fleeted through your head, other times when he could smile to you like exactly like he was doing now.

“I’m here because I spent all summer and most of autumn inside a hot as hell costume, my hair dyed blonde, stuck inside a hangar filled with fake debris and green screens, and the only thing that kept me sane was that when I was on my breaks or done for the day I would open Twitter to a new message from you. I’m here because you were my island of calm while I drifted with anxiety.” Two fingers slid under your chin and he gently made you look at him. “I’m here because I like you.”

“You like me?” You repeated and he nodded.

“I do. You’re funny, wicked smart but you don’t take yourself too seriously unless you have too. You admitted to being a nerd, which if I didn’t make myself clear during the whole Hubble debacle, so am I.” He pointed to black baseball hat he was wearing and you saw the NASA logo. “On a shallower note, you’re way, way more beautiful than all my previous teachers combined. If all professors look like you, I might even give this whole college thing a try.”

Well, wasn’t he a smooth talker. Your smile now matched his.

“So do you like me like me or like me as in she’s okay?”

“Baby, you’re so far removed from okay, it might need a visa to visit you.”

The room filled with your laugh, your heart finally free of the hurt you carried the past few weeks.

He liked you.

“You’re not a nice guy.”

His smirk told you he knew exactly was this was going.

“I’m kind of an asshole.”

“I’m not denying that one.” He pouted and you wanted to kiss him. “So, not a nice a guy but not a complete asshole, so not a bad guy either.”

He got closer, his fingers playing with a loose tendril of your hair, the other hand fastening on your waist.

“That considerably narrows down your options, uh?”

His smile was contagious and you grinned back, shyly nuzzling his chest.

“How about you? You know, if you’re still interested.” You beamed at the man in front of you, bitting your lower lip.

“Let me show you how interested I am.”

The words were barely out of his mouth when his lips descended upon yours. He poured himself into the kiss, months of wanting you, feeling close but so far away. He fell for you during those late nights you stayed up texting, giving his heart and mind and receiving yours in return. He kissed you gently, slowly coaxing your mouth open, his tongue brushing yours.

He trailed his hands up your back to bring you closer and you shivered, settling contently against his chest, your fingers making their own journey to the back of his neck, brushing your hands on the hair there.

“How about that date?” Chris said against your mouth. “Let me take you out to dinner.”

“How about I cook for you instead? My house, 8pm?”

“I’ll be there.”

Disentangling yourself from his arms, you grabbed a notebook from your coffee table, writing down your address and handing it to Chris, kissing him on the cheek.

“Now go before Professor Travis forgets how much he likes us and I lose my job.”

You moved from the sofa, putting some space between both of you. You grab your bag, checking to see if your syllabus for the next class is still there.

“Y/N?”

“Uhm?” You’re sure he’s gonna kiss you again when he comes closer, his lips brushing the shell of your ear.

“One thing though.”

“What?”

The feel of his breath when he speaks so close to you gave you goosebumps. You’re ready, so ready to be kissed again.

“You gotta unblock me on Twitter. I only ever want one person to block me and believe me, you’re not him.”

#Chris Evans Fanfic #Chris Evans Fan Fic #Chris Evans Fanfiction #chris evans x reader #chris evans x you #mrs-captain-evans #writting #writting challenge

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remazdo · 5 years

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It’s about time I shared this...

On July 3rd I was minding my own business and looking though my Facebook feed, as I am prone to do in times of great boredom, when I stumbled across a news article titled “Trump dismisses need for climate change action: ‘we have the cleanest water we’ve ever had, we have the cleanest air’”. Now normally I do not engage in drama on the internet, I like my quite little corner where I can read and watch everything that is happening, but this time it was different. You see, when it comes to things that have to do with environment, I can feel rather passionate, so I shared and added my own little bit at the top that said

“Cleanest air and water compared to where? Venus? Titan? Flint, Michigan? O___o does anyone know where I can get a copy of these reports?”

I should have known better, I received a few funny comments, and then received the one that prompted the writing of this particular post you are reading now.

“Our Country is one of the cleanest I’ve ever been to. Yes he’s absolutely right if the rest of the world was as clean as America wouldn’t have that problem why don’t you go protest in China”

I was taken aback. It wasn’t that this person wasn’t known to say things like this, it was that I am not accustomed to being the start of or even being a part of such internet drama. I felt something inside myself, something my ancestors probably felt when the faced something they knew was wrong and that something had to be done. The feeling led me to do the one thing I never thought I would, I responded...

“This is very true, and I’m not disputing that fact. I’m actually very glad you brought that up. My point here is that the segregation of countries is causing us to miss other important things. I live in California, and the LA aqueduct drained lake Owens, the dust particles from the now dry lake bed are a carcinogen and particles of that lake have been found in lung cancer patients as far away as Russia.

The point I’m making here is that if one country has bad air, we all have bad air. It doesn’t matter the distance and toxins do not obey borders. Everything in this world is cause and effect, reactions even. If you strike a person in the solar plexus, he will double over. You can then strike him in the face or throat easier because you know where it will be moving. If we stand by as an attacker strikes at us and don’t react then aren’t we giving up? Chemicals, toxins, carcinogens. These are our attacker. By not trying to do something, even if it’s uncomfortable or hard to do, then we are going to be beaten. We need to as a species defend ourselves from the threat. And segregation will only make it harder to do. I’d rather be ready for a fight then pretend one won’t happen.

That being said, I do agree with you that America is one of the more clean countries. I just think it could be cleaner.

also, I want you to know that I’m not trying to upset, I just like a good debate and I love hearing everyone’s side of things. It’s the philosopher in me. I would actually love to talk about this topic further when I’m not heading to work if you are up for it.”

I felt the way I responded would have helped steer my point home, and hopefully prevent the online arguing I am so adverse to...unfortunately that is not how these things tend to go. His response was as follows.

“no debate. It’s liberal fools that destroyed California with open borders. You stated it your self segregation of countries. It’s what keeps out disease. Keeps people safe. You and your ideas are what is killing the American. Dream. Don’t protest here, move to China and do your whining. See how far it gets you.”

The feeling got stronger, I felt like fighting against injustice, standing shoulder to shoulder with my brothers and sisters to save the planet, I heard the ancestors screaming in my ears. I spent the next two days writing a response, but Facebook wouldn’t let me send the whole thing, it was to long. I shared it with two close friends, and they suggested I post it someplace where it may actually do some good, and that leads me to here. I hope you all enjoy the following.

“I really would like to keep this from becoming an argument and keep this strictly scholarly, but I would like to make a few points. The first being that I am not a Democrat, I am republican. But that doesn’t change the fact that I am also a tactician, a science major, and a martial artist. Being those things means a few things. The first of those is that I stand for what the definition of republican means.

Republican: adj.

having the supreme power lying in the body of citizens entitled to vote for officers and representatives responsible to them or characteristic of such government.

I will be adding links below anything in quotations to my sources to allow for citation.

“The core beliefs of the Republican Party are centered on the idea that each person is responsible for their own place within society. The party believes that the government’s role is to enable the people to secure the benefits of society for themselves, their families, and for those who are unable to do so for themselves. Republicans believe in limiting the Government’s intervention in the work of the individual towards prosperity. The government should only intervene when society cannot function at the level of the individual. This also means that the party believes in keeping the government as close to the individual as possible, and should be focused mainly on the state and community level, not centered at a federal level.”

https://www.republicanviews.org/what-is-a-republican-republican-definition/

Now that I believe I have put my political stance in order, let’s move on.

From a tacticians point of view, the only thing we have to loose by repairing the environment is money and time. I would rather prepare for a possible problem and be proactive then pretend it is impossible that it could happen and be reactionary. Preparation is always better then procrastination. To quote Issui Sensei, “During a state of order you should consider and prepare for war and in a time of disorder you should think for the best way to bring about peace.” If you believe we are in a state of order, then you need to be ready for and open to anything that may happen that brings disorder. If you believe we are in a state of disorder, then you shouldn’t be arguing with everyone and should be open to new ideas and thoughts in a hopes to find a way to bring about order again. Anything less then that is ignorance and arrogance.

Next, from a scientific perspective. I am not one that just excepts things blindly, if the president says we have the cleanest air and water, I would like to see the report. That is all. If he said we had the dirtiest water and air, I would want to see the report. The fact is that I don’t just except climate change because. Scientist tells me its real, except it because I myself have done the experiments in my own home and have see the results. I am not excepting the word of someone else, I am excepting my own word on it. That being said, if you could provide me with tangible data that said we are not dooming our species, and it was from a trusted source or from multiple sources, then I would be willing to except it as truth. It really is that simple. If you want to change my mind, it is possible, but you need data, reports, and proof.

Now from a martial artist viewpoint. I think I covered that in my other post, but I will go over it again. If you get into a fight you do everything you can to survive, you punch and kick and bite. It’s my life or theirs. That is what we have here. Not between to people, but between all humans on earth and the threat of extinction. I will fight, and it doesn’t matter where I fight, because no matter how much better America is compared to someone else, it can always be better then its current state. No matter how good you are at fighting, there is always someone better out there, and you can always train harder and be better then yourself. So no matter how good America can be, it can always improve.

Okay, now let’s dissect the “killing the American Dream” statement you made.

The historian James Truslow Adams first defined the American dream in 1931 by saying "The American Dream is that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement." And it is protected in the Declaration of Independence where it says “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." Here it clearly says all men, not just Americans. It is an ideal that is meant to be without borders and self evident in all people. If you call yourself American then you have to believe in this common ideal.

https://www.thebalance.com/what-is-the-american-dream-quotes-and-history-3306009

However, we are seeing this ideal being terribly twisted for personal gain and profit. People’s liberties are being taken, and their rights are being infringed upon. The follow pictures in the link below are examples of those rights being infringed upon. If you can look at these people and tell me that you would be able to do what they are and it wouldn’t be against your inalienable rights then my point is moot, because you will have proven to me that this is the normal way all humans should be treated. But if you wouldn’t willing live the way these people are being forced to live, then you will have to agree with me that it isn’t American to do so, and anyone doing this to another person is not only morally bankrupt, but also un-American. “All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.” “Whatever is hurtful to you, do not do to any other person.” “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” I think these words have lost their meaning today. And if you say my thoughts here are liberal brain washing, I would state that these ideals are in fact republican based off of the definition above.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BzOctt1ne_x/?igshid=1c05wg1vwiabz

It is true that people spread diseases, it is also true that animals spread disease as well, especially livestock. So if we are to shut our borders to the world, it would only make sense to provide better regulations to livestock as well. Yet that threat is also being over looked. It’s also important to note that my argument was not against border control, but for the well being of our environment. I know that climate change is real, and not because I saw it on the news, I in fact do not watch the news. All the news is propaganda. All news agencies are owned by the same companies. Instead I do my own research rather then just repeating something that some face on the television told me. If people could just get rid of their personal biases, try to work to helping other people, helping the planet, helping life, then we would have a great America again. But while America spends more money on the prison system then the school system, women’s bodies are seen as property of the state, the melanin content of a persons skin dictates your worth in society, or those in need at the steps of the temple are cast out to die in the streets America will never be as great as it could be, no where near. Nowhere in any of the documents for this country does it ever say that hate and segregation are the way to me things better, it only talks about unification and good will towards all men. And THESE are what it really means to be American, Republican, and human. We should be setting the example, not just ignoring it till it goes away and blaming others for not doing enough. America is supposed to be better then that.”

I would like thank anyone who was able to make it through this lengthy post, it was something I felt I needed to put out there into the world.

#Social #politics #climate change #social change #climate activism #activisim #environmental activism

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bethsblog-languageandnewmed-blog · 5 years

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My Online Communities

It’s no secret that although Facebook is the most popular social networking site with over 2.3 billion active users, and was once the must have social media site, it has kind of become synonymous with middle-aged women over-sharing, re-runs of the same old Tasty videos, and pretty much just ad-central. Though one of the longest standing social networks and clearly the front runner when it comes to longevity and popularity, the site is full of affordances and constraints, with the majority of them, constraints as many argue that Facebook is pretty outdated - but I’m here to argue the opposite. I have more recently become aware of some of the innovative ways people have adapted Facebook’s widespread “popularity” - as let’s face it, it’s hard to find anyone under the age of 50 that doesn’t have their own Facebook account. And though young people may argue that this is a huge constraint (because who wants their nosey Auntie spying on their every move?) the fact that people of all ages, from all walks of life is actually, when it comes to online communities, is a huge affordance.

Facebook is being adapted in really innovative ways to keep up with the times and provide us with communicative tools to achieve things that were never before possible. Pretty deep? Yes. True? Absolutely.

If you think I’m being a bit vague - I’m talking about online communities. Boyd and Ellison (2008) stated that social networking sites are “web based service[s] that allows individuals to... articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system.” As soon as I read this I was reminded that I myself, am a member of three specific “online communities” in particular, each with their own very different purposes.

These groups and the media they share are rich in content, with the ability to react to posts, use polls and of course emojis, restricting the constraint of context and allow users to communicate how they are feeling with almost no ambiguity: this in itself has affordances and constraints - because I don’t think many people would be too pleased with a “sad” or “angry” react on a personal post, or a “haha” react on a sad story - so this can bring problems, but these are in the small minority. These little “reacts” are a great tool to eliminate the constraint of contextualisation and are used in my online communities consistently.

GIRLSMOUTH

Now girls, if you haven’t heard of this one, let me tell you, you’re missing out on some top quality entertainment. In a nutshell, Girlsmouth is a private Facebook group that is strictly girls only. At the time of writing this, the group has 171,146 members, consisting of four admins and six moderators, who monitor the comments of posts they have approved to ensure that there is no selling, promotion, or horrible comments being made. The “founder” of the group, Chloe Todd, describes the group as;

“an empowering support group for women to bring females together rather than bash each other. #girlpower 💁🏼”

The purpose of the group is for members to post for advice, gain support and build relationships with one another. All women are welcome which means that the posts come from women all over the globe, wealthy or struggling, young and old. An example of a post made today is below, within an hour already 28 people have commented offering advice, regardless of the transaction costs of the “conversation” and of over 170,000 people having the ability to see and judge them on their advice and experiences:

On the whole, the group is very supportive and many members have actually built real life friendships as a result of coming in contact on the site. It is not uncommon for women to post their struggles - whether that be regarding their health, relationship or financial struggles, and many will come to their aid, offering support and even in some examples, a place to stay, money to tide them over and offerings of friendship to people at their lowest points.

After being on the group for a while, you start to recognise names and faces and become familiar with people’s stories and struggles and even become a bit invested in some of the stories - a particular stand-out story to me is a girl that has been in hospital for over 13 months now, who has been sharing her story and the challenges shes faced.

Not all the stories are inspirational and moving, and to be honest, this is what I love most about this online community. When trying to find examples of posts to add it took me over thirty minutes to find at least five acceptable ones for an academic blog: I’m talking posts that didn’t mention polls on sexual encounters, disgusting flat mates and family meltdowns and every swear word in the book. As well as these, random questions about people’s favourite foods and make-up are regular features, but that’s all part of life too and really reiterates the idea that people come to Girlsmouth looking to connect and relate to others. I can guarantee now matter how wild or weird your story or post, there will be a group of women on Girlsmouth ready to relate to you. And that’s what makes Girlsmouth so great at what it does - and a huge source of entertainment.

In summary, Girlsmouth is pretty much the best procrastination there is. But aside from that, it reminds us that whilst social media may be full of unattainable goals - whether this be in our appearance, holidays, relationships of financial situations, at the end of the day, we are all just human, and we could all do with a bit of advice and support sometimes - even if it is just about which Diet Coke tastes best (which is obviously full fat instead...)

READING WOMEN WALKING HOME

The second online community I am part of is a pretty new development, and if you live in Reading (which considering this is a university blog, is all of you) you need to join this group. With 2538 members, including University of Reading security team member Steve, this group was created with the purpose of warning other women about the strange and worrying behaviour of members of the public to ensure we can all stay safe. Unfortunately, there are multiple new posts daily, with women experiencing harassment, break-ins and burglaries on a daily basis.

Some may argue that this group does nothing but scaremonger, possibly stating that ignorance is bliss, as they say - but I couldn’t disagree more. As women it is our duty to stand together in the face of such adversities, and in a world where we are at risk simply from walking home from a lecture in the middle of the day, no precaution is too much. This feeling of support and community is exactly what we need when facing these issues.

Thankfully, this support group is not just something that is happening at our university. The group was inspired by The Tab newspapers article on another “Women Walking Home” group chat. As well as a page for women to join, there is also a Facebook messenger group chat in which members are encouraged to message if they feel unsafe so another member can ring them on their walk home in another selfless offering of support, between women with weak and strong ties alike. Some may argue that this group isn’t entirely inclusive because it is heavily orientated towards females, but this doesn’t stop the group from being an online community, as these are defined as a tool to enable users to “ articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection” (Boyd and Ellison, 2008) as aforementioned, and typically, males don’t get approached in this way. Males are present on the group as I have mentioned, in the form of the university security team. In fact, them joining the group could be a positive step, so that they are aware of what is going on, but this could also be negative as this could allow the members of the public who are engaging in this behaviour to become aware of the location of users and thus perpetuate the problem. So, in some cases, being inclusive of both genders is not of upmost importance.

This online community and utilisation of social media is a huge affordance of Facebook and social media, showcasing an amazing and innovative way to use the sites to stay safe. It’s also a great example of the constant development of social media and how we can use these advancements in everything we do. Which begs the question, is Facebook really as outdated and boring as everyone says?

LOST AND FOUND PETS IN BRISTOL/SOUTH GLOS

Finally, a group I have been a member of for a few years now: Lost and Found Pets in Bristol/South Gloucestershire. This group really epitomises the affordances of social media for me. With 30,208 members, this group is responsible for re-uniting thousands of lost, found and stolen pets with their owners, as well as re-homing pets with no where to go. The idea behind it is simple.

Lost an animal? Found an animal?

Simply post a picture, location or description and the tens-of-thousands of members will get to work for you.

Due to the longevity of the group, members and admin have a great relationship with one another, and its a recipe for success. Admin are aware of members and their location so that when an animal or pet goes missing or pops up in their area, someone can be on site ASAP. It really is as simple and effective as that. The admins are so invested in the page that they have been known to recognise pets that have gone missing years prior when their little furry face pops up on their feed - with one cat and owner being re-united after eight years! EIGHT! This group proves that miracles really can, and do, happen.

Never have I lost a pet (thank goodness) but the sheer thought of losing my dogs motivated me to join this group to ensure that if I ever do, I know that 30,000 people in Bristol are aware of it almost instantaneously and can assist in my search, with success. In 2015, 7000 pets were reunited with their owners from the group alone - even pets with no microchip are often re-united purely from the work of this group! If that doesn’t convince you that Facebook can be used for good, I don’t know what can. I think that it is a priceless and hugely innovative way to use social media - gone are the days of soggy “LOST” posters stapled to lamp-posts and trees and loss of reunion hope.

In summary, These communities are characterised by their complex nesting structure but this complexity and structure is what makes these groups so diverse, and so great: the variety of connections made possible by these communities is unparalleled. The media richness and participant framework within these groups, one many times a global level, allows users to be bound together by a common interest, concern or topic and though they may have no personal relationship with other users, referred to as weak ties, this factor doesn’t restrict their capacity to offer advice or engage in conversation, with mavens: who are people with access to things that are beneficial to others, and connectors: people who act as bridges for the facilitation of these things, working together to achieve positivity, costly or not.

These communities are the future of Facebook.

Dunbar’s number, who? We have thousands of online friends now.

Boyd, D., & Ellison, N. (2008). Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication. 13, 210-230.

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english-ext-2 · 6 years

Text

Viva Voce (NEW)

Please note exact requirements will vary across schools, and all analysis here is based on the sample assessment/support material from the NESA website

The Viva Voce is the first formal assessment task, worth 30% of your internal mark. It’s the only assessment carried over from the old course, so some of the information here is recycled from my original post.

The Viva is a 15-20 minute panel interview where you present your Major Work to your teachers and respond to their questions. It’s basically “selling” your MW and its concept: “hey, look at how great my idea is! This is the form it’ll take, here’s the research I’ve done so far, and this is how I intend to carry it out.” You will also need to submit your Major Work Journal for review.

According to the sample assessment material on the NESA website, the presentation could include the following:

A thorough explanation of the purpose, audience, context and form of your Major Work

Acknowledgement of the sources you have used in developing the proposal and inquiry question

An outline of your plan to complete the Major Work project including a timeline

References to your journal to assist in explaining choices made and research completed.

Before I unpack the above, I want to briefly address concept. You obviously need to explain to the panel what your MW is about, but concept also underpins your understanding of purpose, audience, context and form. I have other detailed posts on developing a concept, but for our purposes here I just wanted to highlight concept as key to how you explain everything else required of you in the Viva.

Explanation of purpose, audience, context and form (+ concept) of your MW

While it’s important to explain each of these individually, it’s just as (if not more) important to link them together.

Purpose: Basically what you’ve set out to do with your MW. At this stage, it should not be something bland like “I aim to entertain my audience” or “I want to make people think”. Literally anybody could say that about their major. What is it that you want your MW to do specifically? What is the “conceptual purpose” of your MW, if you will. You might like to start out brainstorming a list of verbs, or thinking about the messages/themes you want to explore in your major.

Audience: Who is your Major Work intended for? Which group of people will respond to your major in the way you want them to? Again, broad answers along the lines of “the general public”, “high school students”, or “young people” won’t cut it. You need to delve a little deeper. Running with the last two examples, it’d be more “high school students who are highly active on social media” or “young people frustrated with their experience of the political system”. Specificity! It’s your friend.

Context: To quote the NESA glossary, context is “the range of personal, social, historical, cultural and workplace conditions in which a text is responded to and composed.” Replace “text” with “major work”, focus on “composed”, and you’ve got the gist. You need to be aware of your context (how your MW links to Advanced and Extension, for example) AND situate your MW in its context, e.g. a critical response on female journalists in WWII would require some knowledge of wartime reporting, government propaganda, censorship, attitudes towards women in journalism, etc.

Form: Most obviously, what is your form? And why have you chosen it? I’m not sure as to how detailed an answer teachers expect from the second question, but you should have some idea beyond “I like it.” This is where tying form to the other elements becomes important. What makes your form the most appropriate for your concept, purpose, and audience?

Putting it all together

Running through every permutation of purpose, audience, context and form would take far too long, so I’m going to limit this section to the relationships I personally find to be the most important. Please note that I’ve chosen to pair the elements for simplicity’s sake, but they all feed back into and overlap with one another.

Form and audience

Let’s say your major is a short story. Your intended audience would obviously not be film critics or even people who enjoy watching films. In other words, your intended audience should be directly related to your chosen form.

But there should also be a consideration of how your concept factors in: for example, why did you choose poetry to explore environmental activism on climate change? It could be because poetry is a strongly emotive form, and climate change is an issue that rouses great passion in your intended audience of green activists seeking new, culturally relevant ways to express their concerns around the consequences of failure to act on this issue.

(Btw there’s no shame in saying that you chose a form because it means a great deal to you personally! Familiarity with and fondness for a particular form is a perfectly legit reason to choose it. Just that it can’t be the only reason.)

(I pulled that poetry/climate change example from thin air, but turns out it’s a real thing.)

Audience and purpose

Your understanding of one is shaped by the other, the why of your MW informing the who and vice versa. Just as you wouldn’t buy someone a gift you know they’ll absolutely hate, you wouldn’t create a MW for an audience unlikely to appreciate it.

Say your major aims to deconstruct the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope in science fiction film and encourage change in the way women are represented in this genre. Film critics and/or cultural studies academics might be interested, but they’re not in the best position to push for change. A better fit would be, say, directors and producers working in the sci-fi genre who are interested in subversive or transformative gender narratives.

Form obviously plays a part here too, since you may have decided a podcast is the best way to reach your affluent and online audience.

Form and purpose

Why is your form best suited to doing the thing you want your MW to do? Or to quote from the NESA description of the Major Work: “The form of the Major Work must be chosen deliberately to contribute to the authenticity, originality and overall conceptual purpose of the work.”

To go with my sci-fi example from above, deconstructions of popular tropes are very well-suited to critical responses (and academic audiences). But as I noted, the purpose of encouraging change in the film industry demands a more visible platform that you’d get with a podcast. If, however, you were more interested in deconstruction-through-satire, a short story or short film would be the better choice.

Acknowledgement of the sources you have used in developing the proposal and inquiry question

It should be self-evident, but bears spelling out in full: cite specific sources. “I read an interesting article online” isn’t as strong as “I read an Atlantic article about how teenagers use Instagram to debate the news, which informed my thinking about the ability of social media to polarise, and the evolution of news consumption among young people.” Let the extent of your independent investigation shine! Show off the knowledge you’ve accumulated! Own your research, basically. (Also ironic in that you’re acknowledging other people’s work, but you get what I mean.)

It wouldn’t hurt to link those specific sources to your proposal and inquiry question. I don’t know how thoroughly you’ll be expected to explain those links, but something like the following would be a decent example: “This Atlantic article helped to narrow the scope of my inquiry question about the impact of social media on news-gathering behaviour to young people, instead of everyone.” The key thing is to at least mention various sources and show the teachers you’ve actually been doing relevant research.

Action plan outline, including timeline

Hint: structure your plan in relation to the composition process. Obviously, the particulars are going to be specific to your major. But be realistic in your planning. Try to strike a balance between micromanagement and no time management at all: while you don’t strictly need to break the entire EE2 course up into minuscule steps like “week two: write the opening scene”, it’s also not helpful to say you’ll tackle the entire investigating stage in January. To reiterate: the points under each stage of the composition process provide a good guide for your action plan.

Be aware of your own and others’ limits too! If you know you’re a serial procrastinator, can you really crank out a first draft in three weeks? Will you be able to secure feedback from your learning community in the week before an assessment block? You also need to account for any other Major Works you’ve got and remember the workload from your other subjects. How will you fit EE2 around them? There’s nothing wrong in keeping your timeline tight, a kind of platonic ideal to which you aspire, but it shouldn’t be so unrealistic as to be impossible.

I say it in my guide to the composition process, but remember that your action plan will likely change throughout the year. Life happens! Something might happen in your personal life; you could come down with the flu; maybe a friend is late in getting their feedback to you, and you find yourself falling behind schedule. It’s not the end of the world. You can adjust your action plan as you go - working around obstacles is part and parcel of EE2.

References to your journal to assist in explaining choices made and research completed

You should be able to point to specific entries in your journal to explain why you made a decision, which is a good time to remind you to keep your journal up to date!! Back-filling entries is a pain but also procedurally unsound, since you can’t return to your state of mind and exact train of thought when you made a decision.

Preparing for the Viva

You’ll be given the questions 15 minutes beforehand, but that doesn’t mean you can’t prepare. Make sure you are familiar with and prepared to discuss your major’s concept, form, purpose, audience and context (particularly links to Advanced and Extension coursework).

If you’re still in doubt, the old English Extension 2 Support Document includes a handy list of starting questions, a sample of which I’ve copied below:

Concept

What concept have you developed for your Major Work? Describe it.

Why are you interested in this concept?

What are your sources of inspiration?

How is your concept an extension of the knowledge, understanding and skills developed in English (Advanced) and (Extension) courses?

Purpose

What are you aiming to achieve during the Extension 2 course?

How are you planning to achieve this purpose?

Form

Have you decided on the form in which you would like to compose?

Why have you chosen this particular form?

Intended Audience

Who is the target audience of your work and why?

The questions you answer in the Viva will be different and/or tailored to your MW specifically, but the list above broadly covers the things you’ll be asked. You don’t need to write an entire essay in response to each question; dot points are fine. The Viva is not a speech, so your language doesn’t need to be as formal.

Practice, practice, practice

If you’re worried or anxious about fronting up before a panel, I recommend doing a practice run with a close friend. Grab your notes, MW journal, a stopwatch, and someone you trust, then get them to pitch you the list of questions you’ve prepared for. Use the stopwatch to keep yourself within 15-20 minutes. Practicing will build your confidence and familiarity with your notes, as well as help you cut down on any waffle you might be inclined to.

During the Viva

The preparation is one thing, communicating what you’ve prepared to the panel is another. Of course, a lot depends on who the teachers are, how comfortable you are with them, your own confidence levels, etc. I can’t really help you there. All I can suggest is that you try to convey your interest and enthusiasm to the panel. It’s your project, and you want it to succeed. Channel some of that passion into the way you present your MW. You’re pretty much stopping short of grabbing each teacher by their lapels and yelling LOOK AT THIS FANTASTIC IDEA I HAVE.

The teachers will ask you questions related specifically to your MW, ones which are spontaneous and based on their understanding of your MW as you’ve presented it to them in the Viva. Again, try not to stress. The teachers are not looking for ways to trip you up, they’re helping you to think about the direction your MW could take. One of the most important things you’ll learn from the EE2 course that isn’t mentioned in the learning outcomes is taking criticism. It’s about being able to accept (reasonable) critique of your work and striving to improve those areas, as well as exercising control over your creative process, i.e. not taking absolutely every single suggestion put forward unless you truly believe they’ll all benefit you.

Post-Viva

When you get your marks back there should be comments as well, like suggestions on what you could be reading, or questions that might help you orientate the direction of your MW. Take these on board, and discuss them with your English teacher(s) as soon as possible. The assessment tasks are certainly there to assess you, but they’re also ways to keep you on track and help you to make your MW better. (Keep in mind what I mentioned above about taking criticism/feedback.)

#viva voce #assessments #my posts #hsc #english extension 2 #this got very long #im sorry for everyone on mobile

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sleepymarmot · 6 years

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A couple of months ago, after finishing COUNTER/Weight, I spent about a week in a total hangover, relistening to scenes and having feelings. I took some notes, but procrastinated posting them, and then finally got distracted. But, a) I hate leaving things I intended for tumblr unposted, even if they have value only for me, and b) I also hate posting things out of order, and there's a big TM liveblog incoming. So, here's a bunch of really random thoughts about C/w from past me.

The gnosis virus did go nowhere huh. I was hopeful for a minute when one of the finale intros mentioned it, but that was it. What was the purpose of that arc even. [Note from present me: Lol. At least I feel better about this one!]

Oh, and the patch AuDy left never reappeared either. And the idea from the faction game that Aria's images owned by EarthHome/Petrichor transmit Rigour code… That's the flip side of the coin. On the one hand, it's really cool to see the creative process – on the other, it sometimes feels like you're listening to people write a script for the tv show, but only get to see a half of the finished product. It's fascinating to see the universe grow organically and the players to come up with new ideas and get excited about them – but that means numerous retcons, some of them not even presented as such, because the creators forgot what the previous revision was or didn't thought it was important. It's a unique feature of the medium that player choice directs the narrative and it's not bound by railroading – but that means some roads lead nowhere, and some branches dry and fall off.

It's a bit harder to make peace with something that could have easily been developed more within the existing plot of the show. How come there's a player character whose consciousness consists of three different people in various combinations, but nobody seems to be curious how that works? No PC or NPC ever asked “Which one of you is speaking right now?” or something. The final episodes made a lot of things clearer, but it still felt too little, too late. Hard not to be reminded of that gripe about certain two characters sharing one character sheet one of whom was left underdeveloped and half-forgotten… Both are very ambitious concepts that require a double amount of work from the player, so I feel bad complaining they weren't realized to full potential, but…

Speaking of L&D… I still want to know how the hell did that one engineer all by herself design 4 gods, one of which became a basis for technology that was advanced even for the civilizations 80,000 years later? This woman singlehandedly surpassed any technological achievement of humanity before and after. Who Is She

I saw a “Wake me up: before you go go / when september ends / wake me up inside” meme and thought “heh, this sounds relevant, which member of the Chime is which?” and it already made me sad, but then I realized that I'd never actually heard the september song and looked it up and. The lyrics fit so well. What the fuck. It's an old song everyone keeps joking about. Why is it appropriate for a legitimate fanmix. What. I guess the word “September” will never be the same again for me.

I looked up the rules for Firebrands, the game used for the finale. Oh my, challenges for the dance minigame are so overtly romantic when you see them in a list together! Imagine this cast of characters having to answer to “do you place your hand upon my elbow, shoulder, waist, or hip?” lmao. Also I didn't realize “May I?” was part of the rules for “stealing time together”. (And I found out there's a party version of that minigame with bug-themed challenges. I might have dug too deep…) "Tactical skirmish" is a really fascinating concept, I've never seen such a masochistic combat system! Really faces the player with the violence they're inflicting: sure, you can always fight on, but are you ready to live with what you'll have to do? But for it to work fully, you need a lot of non-expendable NPCs on both sides. The one with the most likeable team wins! (Like Mako did.)

I'm relistening to Three Conversations and it's pretty interesting that Ibex has a bunch perfectly lifelike android bodies, right? There is no such technology seen anywhere else. Did Righteousness develop and privatize that? Are they so complex that only a Divine would have enough computing power to successfully mimic organic life? Can Aria convince Righteousness to help her perform on stage without leaving her duties? Also, like with AuDy, I wonder how Ibex & Righteousness' consciousness works. Is it a single mind, spread across every body he has, or even anything Righteousness is running on, having a bunch of different conversations at once if he needs to? Or is the original Ibex just gone, and what's left is a personality imprint hanging on to the connection to his still living body, imitating his former self like the automated recording Cass saw wore his face? In other words, has Ibex completely fused with Righteousness, or assimilated and destroyed by it? Does he not exist anymore as an independent singular being, or does he not exist at all? Most info indicates the former, but there was also “You’re not in there anymore” “No”.

If Orth and Jace are anime fans with their Kingdom Come and Panther, then Ibex is the guy who's way too into dinosaurs or paleontology. It's as if the heads of various confessions were called Triceratops, Stegosaurus etc. and only one of them knows wtf that means, and also he compares his Divine to… Were there scavenging dinosaurs? I'm looking at an article that suggests T. Rex might have been a scavenger, so yeah he would compare Righteousness to a goddamn T. Rex.

Hey what do you think is the most thematically aproppriate part of the Hieron anime for Orth to watch alone at night during the Kingdom game. What's the best thematic parallel for when he turns off the episode and thinks he made a mistake. Do you think that he once, after a long day and a long month and maybe a long year of feeling helpless and doomed, sits down for a distraction but ends up sobbing “How could they let this happen to Mother Glory”

On Joypark, there are definitely statues of Eidolons, ancient and holy, that were repainted and repurposed as Hieron deities. Imagine a giant Greek or Roman style marble statue of Apote – and it’s painted over as Samot, with an anime face and in really bright plain colors like these “reconstructions of original coloring” that actually only use base colors so they look like cheap action figures.

I was reading Austin's top ten games of 2016 list on Waypoint and he gave first place to The Sprawl! Aww!

The Downloads folder in my phone gallery is funny bc it mostly consists of every freely available f@tt map and also that one photo of Tristan Walker (because I tried to redraw it, very unsuccessfully). I go check a map and every time am met by Ibex just. staring at me. It's unsettling

Some of the many options for how Apostolosian gender could have been presented:

Apostolosians prefer to be addressed by the most neutral available human pronoun, represented as "they" in English, because the human languages don't have anything close enough

Apostolosian pronouns are represented in English by a set of real-life common pronouns and neopronouns

There's a list of Apostolosian pronouns and they're just used in English verbatim (Really impractical because the players need a cheat sheet, but the most fair)

Humans apply human genders to Apostolosians. Apostolosians may be offended, may find it convenient, or something else

As Austin said in the post-mortem, the Eidolon system is not gender. It's represented in English by titles/honorifics/etc

Any of the above, and the creators are aware of the difference between personal pronouns, grammatical gender, and social gender

And that’s not even touching the core problem of what the concept of gender in a futuristic, techonologically advanced society would look like. Yes, I'm complaining about this for the third time but I'm just. So tired of native English speakers' takes on gendered language. They could have made Apostolosian gender look like anything and they made it look like that fucking mess... God, I really hope TM is good enough to make me forget and forgive the experience of listening to “he... sorry, they” for 100 hours. [Note from present me: Well… mostly]

Here’s my take on this: eidolons in Apostolosian language are absurdly broad noun classes with associated classifiers (which fits both the idea that they’re gender but not actually, and that each of them is a patron to several unrelated aspects of life) Apostolosian: the word “(Apo)thesa” is used to refer to people who follow the corresponding eidolon, as well as for counting buildings, heavy machinery, military units, specific strategies and tactics, log entries, historical documents and chronicles, history textbooks and monographs, and eras :) Human: what the fuck

Very critical, imaginative worldbuilding in which 80,000+ years into the future humanity somehow has 21st century gender and 21st century capitalism! TBH, I find any sci-fi set in the far future inherently silly – we can’t really imagine the future technogy and its effect on society. But it feels like C/w barely even tried, and to hear it boast about “critical worldbuilding” is kinda strange. I assumed that meant they build the world critically, not that they recreate modern society or some aspect of it and criticize that! It’s just another Star Trek then! And it was already clear right during the setup when they said “We don’t want Star Trek aliens” and immediately created Apostolosians.

I haven't seen a single piece of fanart with Taako and Mako. Come on, does nobody want to see these two next to each other! Especially considering the outfits artists like to put Taako in!

I really don't understand how and why people do fandom activities on Twitter and Discord where the creators also have accounts. It gives me so much secondhand embarrassment. I can barely peek at Twitter posts before running away. Old-fashioned opinion apparently but I strongly believe the main fandom space and the interaction-with-original-creators space should be separate. I need a space where I can voice my opinions, especially negative ones, with complete freedom. I need to be able to say exactly what's on my mind. But I wouldn't want any of the people on the podcast to read something unfiltered like my complaints above. Being in the same space as the source content creators obliges any decent person to be diplomatic and constructive. And the creators, in turn, need a space where they don't come across complete randos yelling at them about something they said in a podcast three years ago. I'm already feeling uncomfortable because hearing to strangers pour their hearts out for hundreds of hours gives me way too much insight on who they are as people. Of course, nothing’s stopping them from lurking on Tumblr or AO3 and even reading this very post, but a platform where they have official accounts is still a different thing! I even feel uncomfortable talking about the podcast creators using their first names so much. To my ear, referring to a total stranger by first name, especially if it's a shortened form, sounds so rude! I'm not their friend, I don't have that right! But, of course, writing something like “Mr Walker” in my liveblogs would have been even weirder, nobody does that...

Is it a common experience to not even think about fanfiction after listening to Hieron, but going straight to AO3 after C/w? I feel like since Hieron is still a work in progress, writing/reading about it is stepping on the GM&players' toes, and C/w is finished so it's like they gave us the keys to the playground, it's the fandom's turn now. This story has so much blanks and they must be filled! In one of the early episodes they joked that something cute they said would encourage people to ship Mako/Cass and I was like "Bold of you to assume they aren't already" and, indeed, I was right and it's the most popular C/w ship on AO3. Too bad I’m so indifferent to it…

It’s a shame we never had a full scene with Ariadne or even learned what they were up to during the finale.

I still don't understand how Ibex went from “evil CEO” to “leader of a proletarian revolution”, these sound like completely opposite concepts to me

I probably have talked about this too much and have pretty much given up on ever getting a clear picture due to all of these reimaginings but… Righteousness and Voice… Ibex takes Righteousness out of Mako but he still has Voice, that was pretty much openly stated, correct? So how does that work? I’m guessing Righteousness is hidden somewhere in Voice’s code. But if so:

Did Maryland know? On the one hand, she’s too competent not to. On the other, why would she ever allow or accept that?

How did Righteousness not get corrupted by Rigour too? Maybe it did, but broke off the connection with the rest of itself to contain the damage? Or maybe, on the contrary, it kept in contact and was sending intel to Ibex the whole time? But in that case he would have provided more help in the finale.

#friends at the table #blah blah blah

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chloegrayportfolio · 3 years

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Module One - Creating Meaningful Relationships

Week 3 Peer Interaction Task 1 & 2

Task 1: Turn to the instant inventory on page 67 of the textbook “A Teacher’s Guide to Cognitive Type Theory & Learning Style” and determine your own type preferences.

I thought the Instant Insight Inventory was super fun and interesting to do. I was really looking forward to seeing if I would receive the same personality type I was given when I took the Myers-Briggs 16Personalities test—and I did! I would describe myself as someone who is quiet, sensitive, kind, and prefers to be alone. I focus on and remember lots of detail—even the smallest of things. Another thing I enjoy doing is getting away from reality either by daydreaming in my own head or consuming media (books, music, movies) revolving around lives I wish I could live. The results I received told me that my personality type is INFP—meaning I lean towards introversion, intuition, feeling, and perceiving. The INFP is imaginative, idealistic, reflective, independent, creative, stubborn, and easily hurt. My results did not surprise me at all (as I had predicted them and have received the same results every time I have done a personality test in the past), nor do I have much disagreement with any aspect of my results. The only part of the INFP description I feel as though I really do not fit is creativity. I have never really enjoyed creating art (in any form—stories, poetry, paintings, etc) as much as I enjoy consuming art. I appreciate creativity, I just don’t think of myself as a creator. Other than that, I really related to my results—especially the points about being imaginative as well as easily hurt.

Task 2: First, as a group decide who will be in the introvert group and who will be the extroverts. Then please do the following tasks:

As a teacher, what strategies would work for you to get the best energy you can?

With others of your type in your group, discuss what it feels like to be around a lot of folks who are “opposite” to you. (That is extroverts should say what it feels to like to be around a lot of introverts when you are the only extrovert. Introverts should say what it feels to like to be around a lot of extroverts when you are the only introvert.)

Introverts: make a list of how it feels and post it to the group. “Opposite types” in the group please read the list.

Extroverts: make a list of how it feels and post it to the group. “Opposite types” in the group please read the list.

Refer to your textbook to see how others have done this exercise

Come up with a list of how your type behaves in a classroom. “Opposite types” in the group please read the list.

If you have any questions to ask of your opposite type post them now.

As an introverted teacher, the strategies that would work for me to get the best energy I can would be from within, as introverts have a more internal focus of energy. A strategy I think I would use for this is having allocated in-class silent journaling time, for students to share their reflections of the school-day or school-week with me. Not only would this be a way for the students to internally reflect, benefitting themselves, but it would also help me as an educator to get a deeper understanding of my students’ needs as well as what works for them and what doesn’t. When I’m around a lot of extroverts as the lone introvert, I sometimes feel anxious because I’m worried they will take my silence as me being rude or judgmental—like I don’t want to be there (when that definitely isn’t the case). I can also feel quite awkward and uncomfortable as I usually end up doing things that are out of my comfort zone when I am with extroverts (simply following what they’re doing). I can also feel nervous as extroverts are the type to speak their honest truth rather than tread lightly around the subject, which can be a little stressful for an introvert—especially as an INFP, the personality type prone to sensitivity. However, at the same time I can even feel excited because of the new environments and new experiences I am pushed into.

In a classroom, my type behaves as

Cautious

Considerate

Quiet

Thoughtful

Respectful

Private

My question to any of the extroverts: Do you have any tips you would give to inspire the more introverted, quiet kids to participate openly in classroom discussions?

Week 2 Progress Log:

When do you feel…

Safe:

I feel safe when I can stand up and stretch in the morning without my health issues acting up and feeling pain in my chest or seeing stars in my eyes.

The actions I take to make sure I am feeling safe include keeping a glass of orange juice alongside my bottle of water on my nightstand, making sure I have antacids on me at all times, and keeping in close contact with my family doctor as we sort through the variety of blood-related issues I struggle with.

Some other actions I could take to help me feel safe would include being more consistent with taking my iron supplement pills for my anemia, purchasing a wireless blood pressure monitor, and eating a more nutrient-rich, consistent, filling diet.

Loved:

I feel loved when I can talk to someone about anything, such as my likes and dislikes, fears, and opinions, without worry that they will judge, belittle, or speak over me.

The actions I take to make sure I am feeling loved include talking to those near and dear to me often, even if all we really have is virtual communication at the moment.

A further action I could take, and need to take, is to cut off those who I even worry will judge, belittle, or speak over me. I cannot and will not truly feel loved if I am surrounding myself with people who make me feel bad about myself.

Powerful:

I feel powerful when I have had a good, long sleep and I feel well-rested, energetic, and eager to face the day.

The actions I take to make sure I am feeling powerful include reading before bed, taking melatonin supplements, and using a sleep tracker app.

An action I know I need to take to feel powerful in this sense is avoid all technology before heading to bed. My inconsistency with this makes it hard to become a habit, but

Free:

I feel free when I can take time to myself and temporarily tune out the real world by going on long, fast bike rides alone.

The biggest action I have taken to make sure I am able to feel free is bettering my time-management skills. Now that I spend less time procrastinating the schoolwork I need to get done and instead work on it as soon as it is due, I am able to have more free time to myself to actually do what I want to do, creating a nice school-life balance. Another action I could take in order to feel more free (or least in order to be able to do this more often, as I live in Vancouver) would be to invest in water-proof, weather-proof biking gear that will protect both myself and my bike for my own safety.

Pleasured:

I feel pleasured when I eat a good meal, especially when it is a meal I have cooked myself. The actions I take to make sure I feel pleasured include grocery shopping, looking up fun recipes online, and motivating myself to get in the kitchen by following cooking and food blogs onlines.Some other actions I could take to feel this pleasure would be making cooking a fun hobby to do with others, such my family or boyfriend, as well as meal-planning and deleting food-ordering apps, such as Skip The Dishes or UberEats off my phone.

Summary:

Although my answers themselves felt pretty typical to me and did not provide me with any shock or surprise, thinking about the further actions I could take did. While I definitely make a strong effort to make sure I am able to feel those adjectives mentioned above, I’ve realized that the reason I have yet to take those further actions must be out of self-sabotage. The further actions I mentioned were not hard, tedious tasks. They are simple acts of self-care that must be done. Writing this progress log has led me to realize I have been putting off extremely important things, such as taking important health supplements, cutting off people who make me feel bad about myself, and taking further biking safety precautions, as well as reflect on why I have been putting these things off.

Assignment 1: Students With Special Needs

The needs I have chosen to focus on for this assignment are the special needs of the Gifted students of the classroom. The reason why I chose the needs of Gifted students is because I have seen firsthand the neglect and mistreatment they [can] receive from their teachers and classmates due to their differences, as well as how this neglect and mistreatment affects their academic performance, behaviour, development of social skills, and overall well being. The specific needs I will be looking at are their Emotional needs, with a focus on their Social needs as a Gifted student. In “Knowing Your Students and their Special Needs” by Weinstein & Romano, they discuss struggles Gifted students face in the classroom, such as social alienation from peers and a lack of connection and engagement with material (Weinstein, C.S., & Romano, M., Knowing Your Students and their Special Needs, 2015), as well as how these struggles impact things in these students’ day-to-day lives, such as their ability to socialize, interact, and engage with others, their actions, behaviour, and behavioural development, and their level of success in school.

The first article I have chosen is titled “A Case for Affective Education: Addressing the Social and Emotional Needs of Gifted Students” by Stephanie Ferguson. This article discusses the unique treatment Gifted students receive from their teachers and peers, and how this treatment can lead to things such as social isolation. The main points of this article are:

How being Gifted can lead to exclusion and alienation as well as the effects this exclusion and alienation can have on students.

The importance of developing a flexible, special curriculum and routine, leading to a more balanced school life for each student involved.

The second article I have chosen is titled “Putting the Well-Being of All Students (Including Gifted Students) First” by Tracy L. Cross. This article discusses the crucial role teachers play in the performance of Gifted students as well as examines the toxic side effects incessant praise and expectations from an educator has on a Gifted student. The main points of this article are:

In order to truly improve the schooling experience of students, the school board itself and teachers must have each and every student’s best interests in mind when planning school activities—even Gifted students. How teachers’ perception of Gifted students can lead to frustrating, strained, disconnected teacher-student relationships.

The third article I have chosen is titled “Social Emotional Needs: Social and Emotional Development of Gifted Students: A Psychosocial Bill or Rights for Students (Including Those with Gifts and Talents)” by Tracy L. Cross. This article discusses the importance of treating every student with equal respect as well as the rights each student has—no matter their academic capabilities. The main points of this article are:

Every student has the right to receive praise for their academic abilities without receiving excessive and uncalled for pressure or guilt.

Every student has the right to access to a challenging, rigorous curriculum and well-trained educators who are able to properly teach it.

Every student has the right to attend an institution they feel safe and welcome in—mentally, emotionally, physically, intellectually, and socially.

The main ideas and points in these articles go hand-in-hand with one another as well as with “Knowing your Students and their Special Needs” by Weinstein & Romano. The main ideas these articles have in common with one another are that Gifted students are often left behind by their teachers and their schools (thus being left behind by their peers, as well) and regarded as not needing any extra help or support due to their academic advancement. These factors lead to issues such as behavioural issues (classroom disruptions), social issues (unable to effectively or confidently communicate), and self-esteem issues (perfectionism, placing unhealthy amounts of pressure on self). Teachers need to do better and hold themselves more responsible and accountable regarding the level and quality of education Gifted students are receiving as well as the treatment these students receive from their classmates and staff.

The Letter to my Future Self:

Dear Chloe,

As a teacher, I hope you always remember the importance of getting to know your students and each of their special needs. No two students are the same, and what works for one may not work for another. I know that this career will get stressful, but if you start to follow and always remember to follow these rules from your first day of teaching, it will make your life and job not only much easier, but much more rewarding, as well.

Three things I WILL do regarding the Gifted students with Special Needs in my future classroom:

I will pay close attention to how they interact with the work they are given. I will make sure they remain intellectually stimulated and engaged, even if they are levels above other students in the class. I will achieve this through the creation of professional, open, trusting relationships with my students through personal, miniature check-ins to update me on how the student is doing and feeling both emotionally and academically.

I will create a social, safe class environment with students that are able to interact and work with those who are even most unlike them. I will create a classroom environment where students feel comfortable around each other regardless of their reading, writing, and arithmetic skills. There will be no levels of hierarchy in my classroom in any way, shape, or form. I will achieve this through the teaching of respect, kindness, and openness.

I will always make sure to leave an element of open-endedness in each assignment, project, and/or essay I assign. I will give my students this option of freedom and variety as to give them the opportunity to intellectually stimulate themselves in ways I may not have considered as a way to keep them interested and engaged with the material, especially if it is material they are advanced in comparison to or ahead of.

Three things I WILL NOT do regarding the Gifted students with Special Needs in my future classroom:

I will not single them out to discuss their work in front of the class without permission. I will not use them as an example to hold over their classmates heads.

I will not isolate or alienate Gifted students by giving them completely different work, allowing them to work with only each other, or sending them to another room or area of the classroom to do their work away from peers.

I will not place extra stress and/or work on them. I will not let them know of higher expectations or levels of disappointment unless I feel it is beneficial and crucial to their schoolwork.

Here is what I hope would be a poem from the perspective of a Gifted student with Special Needs in my future classroom:

everyday I walk into class

wanting to joyfully skip by the desks I pass

I wonder to myself, “Today what will we do?”

but who’s to say, with Ms. Gray it’s always something new

I feel excited,cheerful, comfortable, too

as I approach my seat, my friends exclaim “We were all waiting for you!

”the teacher asks a question I immediately knew

she calls on me and I say “The answer is two!”I used to fear raising my hand

now I’m no longer afraid to take that stand

my peers pat me on the back and give me praise

and suddenly I know I have reached better days.

References

"A Case for Affective Education: Addressing the Social and Emotional Needs of Gifted Students in the Classroom « SENG.“ SENG. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 June 2015. Cross, Tracy L. (2015). Social Emotional Needs. Gifted Child Today Magazine, 38(2), 128–129. https://doi.org/10.1177/1076217515569278

Cross, T. L. (2002). Putting the Well-Being of All Students (Including Gifted Students) First. Gifted Child Today, 25(4), 14–17. https://doi.org/10.4219/gct-2002-84

“Knowing your Students and their Special Needs.” Weinstein, C.S., & Romano, M. (2015).

Reflection: I included the Peer Interaction Tasks of Week 3 in this portfolio because they reflect me coming out of my comfort zone. I tend to struggle with forming meaningful relationships and connecting with others on a deeper level, so these Tasks definitely pushed me to be more open. I also included these Tasks in my Portfolio as I believe they have taught me ways to connect with my future students, especially those who may be unable to communicate their needs otherwise. I can definitely see myself using Type indicator quizzes with my future classes in order to get a better understanding of their needs and goals as learners. These tasks also gave me a better understanding of extroverts both as teachers and as students, allowing me to explore a variety of learning and teaching styles I hadn’t considered before due to my introversion. I included the Week 2 Progress Log because it shows a moment of weakness early on in the course—it reflects the struggles I had with deep reflection as well as being able to articulate my needs. I was unable to effectively describe how the feelings and actions discussed were linked to my needs. Though it wasn’t my best piece of work, I believe it is important to include as it was a learning moment for me regarding my understanding of what it means to truly, deeply reflect and connect. I included Assignment 1: Students with Special Needs because it provided me with a deeper understanding of the variety of needs students have in the classroom, especially of those I had not considered prior to doing this assignment. For this assignment, the students with Special Needs I chose were Gifted Students—the reason for this being that prior to this course, I had never even considered Gifted Students as having “special needs” in the classroom. This assignment really opened my eyes on how narrow-minded my idea of Special Needs really was. I thought this assignment was really interesting because it forced us, the prospective teachers, to focus on an aspect of learning and the classroom that for too long the education system has swept under the rug. Overall, I chose the assignments I did for two main reasons. I believe they really helped me overcome the anxieties that originally rendered me unable to open up to others and effectively practice deep self-reflection. These assignments also opened me up to different perspectives I was unable to see otherwise—the perspectives of Extroverts; the perspectives of Special Needs students. As an educator, it will be my job to form meaningful relationships with all students—not solely the students who share learning or type characteristics with myself, and I cannot expect to be able to do so if I have a static idea of what students are like, and what students need. I had big learning moments regarding my understanding of what it means to get to know students as well as the realities of this career. Something that stood out to me is how many different ways there are to get to know and understand your students. One way to get to know your students that has really stuck with me is the use of writing narratives in the classroom, which allows you to get to know your students (and vice-versa), with more depth and understanding. After the completion of this Module, I feel much more informed, but I also know that I have much more to learn. Sometimes, I forget the intricacies of this career and what the job really entails, but this Module has made me excited and eager to learn much more in my coming years. I have also been introduced to the raw, real aspects of teaching, such as the inability to interfere with a students life—there will be students that are going through hardships in their lives that I have no control over, and I must accept I am not a psychologist or a Judge. It is a bit disheartening to think of that somewhat powerless aspect of the career, especially as I am very in tune with feelings and empathy, but I know these feelings will just inspire me to be even better at what I am doing and what I do have control over. Understanding and coming to terms with this was a huge learning moment for me. Though I have experienced some change in this aspect, something I am still in the process of learning and developing is the way I approach work. I tend to rely on my own narratives and ideas because that is what feels most comfortable to me. In fact, I used to feel fear and anxiety when I knew I would be completing an assignment on an experience or topic I was not familiar with. However, my experience completing the Students with Special Needs assignment really helped me understand the significance of doing so. This significance has motivated me to work harder, as I consider doing work like this inspiring, decentering myself and truly thinking about others, which I believe has made me less ignorant and oblivious in my work. The area where I saw the most growth was in stepping out my comfort zones. Throughout my entire academic career, I have really disliked personal writing, as I have always felt uncomfortable and awkward in talking about myself. Prior to this course, I did not notice this, but this disliking for personal writing took a toll on my ability to reflect. My inability to deeply reflect and link my feelings to my needs was evident in my Week 2 Progress Log. I definitely believe I have improved since throughout the course, with evidence being shown in my Progress Logs of Week 9 and 10. To aid with this process, I wrote journal-entries about my feelings and day-to-day life to get more more comfortable with the idea of reflection and sharing. Overall, this Module helped me immensely regarding my ability to reflect, communicate with others, and articulate my feelings and needs. I walk away from this Module reflecting on what I have learned about the power of Narrative, Choice & Type Theory, and what I now know about Introverted/Extroverted students, intuitive/sensing students, and students with Special Needs—as well as how to make the classroom a safe, accepting place of learning that will work for everyone.

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onetoomanysteps · 4 years

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TWST Boys and MBTI HCs Part 1: Heartslabyul

Hey there! First time trying writing this headcanon stuff series. Differing opinions and discussions are welcome since this is only a HC (nice words though, I don’t condone senseless bashing here), and if there is someone already posted MBTI, just think of this as my hot take on the stuff.

While MBTI’s reliability is debatable when used in real world context, I find it a really interesting and neat way to navigate character traits and personalities in fiction. Thus, while I procrastinate on WIP fics and undergrad thesis try to flex my writing muscles, this immediately came to my mind. And here we are.

No need for permission and disclaimer to use this HC in your fan works whatsoever. However, if you happened to enjoy this do consider to leave a trace behind :3

In this HC series, I’m going to use the Introduction, Strength, And Weakness section of the personality overview for the sake of brevity and not use a few points that I deemed inapplicable (and even then I think it’s already quite long).

Mostly canon-compliant, aside from some of my personal interpretations here and there (expect personal story and main story references up to chapter 3).

For those interested in an overview of MBTI, check this link: https://www.16personalities.com/articles/our-theory. You can also check each personality type overview on the same website if you’re curious.

Since this is going to be quite long, if you’re interested, click below:

Riddle Rosehearts-ENTJ (Commander)

Out of all Heartslabyul boys, this one gave me quite some difficulty hence the long introductory part . First, regarding the Extrovert vs. Introvert debate, while on the surface Riddle is not as flashy or outgoing as the traditional portrayal of Extrovert, I think that his goal to direct Heartslabyul and all of its residents to achieve his ideal level of excellence shows enough of his outward-focused thinking.

Second, it also took me a while since his rule-abiding trait is also prevalent in a number of Sentinels personality type group. However, he also shows a lot of curiosity and very eager to learn new things just for the sake of understanding how the world works, a trait especially prevalent in Analyst personality type group in which ENTJ is a part of.

Strengths

Efficient – Unless explicitly demanded by the rules, his first concern is how to make things work, with little to no care about any kind of flairs that have no correlation on efficiency.

Energetic – Always puts 100% energy into his works, be it individual or group activities. Cue the other more relaxed people struggling to follow...

Self-Confident – Deliberately not checking on his test results because he already knew that it would be perfect score? That’s some level of confidence he has over there. Also, consider his SR Robe story where his confidence in his own skills immediately convinced Sebek to register into horse riding club despite his initial dismay because of Silver’s presence in the club.

Strong-Willed – Disagreed with how the previous dorm head managed the dorm? Duel him and take charge of the dorm just after your first week in school, of course. Really, the iron will this boy has is no joke...

Strategic Thinker – Less apparent than say, Azul, but I do believe he does have this trait. One of the most apparent example of this trait is the way he tackles his studies. Not only he makes notes from class lecture, he also thinks ahead and prepare material from outside sources that no one else bothered to look up for such as the latest scientific journal articles (Riddle school uniform R).

Charismatic and Inspiring – When he let himself forget about those pesky rules, he actually has this... thing that kinda spurs people to become the best version of themselves; an inspiration, I daresay. This is especially apparent in his interactions with individual members of Dumbass Squad so far, that either portrayed him as an overall competent and admirable senpai that you can look up to (Jack robe SR, Deuce dorm SSR).

Weaknesses

Stubborn and Dominant – Goes hand-in-hand with his general strongheaded character. One interesting example of this trait is his conversation with Azul in prologue’s first rythmic game, in which he outright demanded Azul to follow his lead and adjust to his pace in capturing Grim. Very telling since technically Azul is supposedly someone with the same standing as a fellow dorm head that you can’t just order around...

Intolerant – Has an extremely poor tolerance for error in other people. Self-explanatory, really, goes hand-in-hand with rule-abiding tendencies.

Impatient – When the underclassmen didn’t bring the tarts for Unbirthday Party fast enough, he was already so close to exploding, only managed to narrowly avoiding it thanks to Trey’s intervention (Trey dorm SSR).

Arrogant – Nurtured to the extreme by his own mother to believe in the innate superiority of people with high magical power. He ended up adopting the ‘might equals right’ mindset to the extreme, believing that he had proven himself as the most competent person in Heartslabyul on the basis of his. Remember that time in chapter 1 when took a jab at Ace and Deuce’s presumed less-than-ideal parentage and basically went ‘lower magical power = no rights for you’...

Poor Handling of Emotions – Guy overblotted because he couldn’t identify his neglected emotional need of companionship, and subconsciously tried to cope by enforcing his ideals towards others...

Cold and Ruthless – The number of people he had ‘beheaded’ for the slightest rule violations speaks for themselves for this behavior, honestly...

Trey Clover-ESFJ (Consul)

An expected result for Heartslabyul’s resident Team Mom. An S-ranking team player that everyone relies on, I think that it’s kind of no-brainer to put him in this category. While the prevalence of his people skill is usually a specialty of Diplomat personality type group, his inclination to value stability above all else puts him firmly in this Sentinel personality type.

Strengths

Strong Practical Skills – Day-to-day dorm management, cooking, dealing with students’ concerns and worries, just all around being a dependable senpai... this guy’s got you covered. We can certainly thank Riddle’s demon temper and borderline impossible standard leadership and his kouhai’s stupidity cluelessness for letting us see this trait appear from time to time...

Strong Sense of Duty – “Knight of the Rose” is no joke indeed: in spite of all the sh*t he has to deal with on daily basis, we seldom hear him to voice even a word of complaint , be it in serious or joking context (for good comparison check on how Cater handles it). A true ‘grit your teeth and bear with it’ guy.

Very Loyal – While this is self-explanatory when it comes to Cater as his fellow long-time suffering underling, he arguably also shows this to Riddle (or maybe more accurate to say, to the ‘Riddle’ of his past memories)... while he low key took a jab at Riddle’s temper in his lab coat SR story, he never really plots something against him, for better or worse unlike that certain snake vice dorm head.

Sensitive and Warm – As everyone’s fave senpai this is a given. This particular trait of his really is a refuge for Heartslabyul students from their demon strict dorm head...

Good at Connecting with Others – Connected to above point. Really good at empathizing with most people’s pain, making him indispensable as buffer to Riddle’s crippling weakness in this aspect.

Weaknesses

Worried about Their Social Status – Arguably, this is one of the main reasons why he never bothered to do anything in regards to mama Rosehearts’ helicopter parenting that caused Riddle so much suffering. Like it or not, she is an influential citizen in his homeland, and maybe after witnessing her unleashed rage at his family, he was not very keen on trying anything risky...

Inflexible – Very, very reluctant to oppose Riddle in chapter 1, despite the clear evidence that his non-action did more harm than good. he tried to convince himself and others that any kind of resistance would be futile.

Reluctant to Innovate or Improvise – While he’s indispensable for the task of keeping day-to-day operation proceeding smoothly, he also has the tendency to keep doing things the same way, for a very long time. This is apparent in his dorm SSR story, where he was not really welcoming to the underclassmen’s suggestion to change their Unbirthday Party’s cake type.

Vulnerable to Criticism – A bit of a hot take, I HC that after mama Rosehearts chewed him and his family out for feeding poor Riddle strawberry tart, he developed a different take from Che’nya on what should he do as Riddle’s friend, and both of them failed to reconcile their views. The prospect of criticism was appalling enough to him that when Dumbass Squad brought up about Che’nya in chapter 1 he got his rare sour face...

Too Selfless – As pictured above in his own robe SR personal story, he tends to take on so many responsibilities from other people and ended up forgetting his own physical and psychological limits. Another prominent example of this trait is his behavior in Riddle’s lab coat SR, in which he was downplaying his light cold and ended up bedridden because he refused to delegate his responsibilities to take more rest.

Cater Diamond-ESFP (Entertainer)

For me, this one needed quite a bit of contemplating, for two reasons: 1) I’m personally not really focused on him; 2) There’s so little info on him (perhaps this is a sign for something big, perhaps not, only time can tell). Like Trey, I initially also wanted to categorize Cater into a personality type in Diplomat group due to his prominent people skill. However, after reading more into the personalities in Explorer group, I found out that he lacks the usual idealism that embodies personality types from that particular group.

Strengths

Bold – Rarely holds back when it comes to experiencing pleasures of life when the opportunity presents itself. Just look at Idia’s uniform R personal story, in which he decided on a whim to whisk off to Kalim’s banquet without so much of a thought, and even forcibly brought a very reluctant Idia along because it would be more fun that way.

Aesthetics and Showmanship – This is very clear from his day-to-day mannerism, that tends to give off the ‘bubbly and trendy’ feel: his default cheerful and open gestures and words, his everyday up-to-date fashion items, you name it. Flat is most probably one of the furthest thing you would associate with this SNS-loving guy.

Practical – So far, he seems like the type of guy that doesn’t really adhere to a big, overarching ideology that underlies his every actions; he is, after all, the best when doing whatever suits his convenience at that exact moment as demonstrated in his own dorm SSR personal story. A good way to understand this trait of his is to compare him to the more idealistic characters like Riddle, that will most certainly hold onto his personal convictions even when it’s not beneficial.

Observant – Really sharp when it comes to identifying what people really want from him and then acts accordingly, as noticed by Trey multiple times (chapter 1, Cater dorm SSR).

Excellent People Skills – Plays the role of resident social butterfly really well... not much to explain here, really...

Weaknesses

Sensitive – Despite his best efforts to gives off the impression that nothing can really hurt his feeling, both his robe and lab coat SR showed us that he does feel things, and they greatly affect his psychological state (sad mandrake, I’m looking at you).

Conflict-Averse – Desperately tried to persuade Dumbass Squad to not butt heads with Riddle in chapter 1. Also has the tendency to bury his negative feelings behind his smiles and cheery attitude.

Easily Bored – Hops in and out of trends constantly, not much to explain here really... he vibes really well with trend-based Magicam for a reason after all...

Poor Long-Term Planners – Admitted to Riddle and Trey that while he is an excellent multi-tasker, he severely lacks the ability to plan and strategize for long-term goal (Riddle dorm SSR).

Unfocused – Strongly related to above point, he also has a considerable difficulty to tackle subjects that need long-term, regimented effort to master such as Practical Magic (Riddle dorm SSR).

Ace Trappola-ENTP (Debater)

Arguably the first non-Ramshackle member of Dumbass Squad, this boy, indeed, lives and breathes the phrase “Bold and Brash” in his every single endeavors in life. Unlike the other boys in this post, deciding on which personality type most suited for him was so damn easy that I felt a bit insulted (heck, even easier than Trey): his cheekiness and motor mouth were quite were like highlights that pointed out to this personality type’s direction. And, ho boy, the second I read ENTP’s overview, I instantly knew that I already hit the mark this time...

Strengths

Knowledgeable – Not of the useful, practical kind of knowledge, but he does have a fondness to learn various amusing little tricks for the fun of it and for bragging material.

Quick Thinker – This boy seriously has a talent to bullshit his way out of trouble in the last second... This trait is basically the entire plot of his SSR dorm story, in which he showcased his ability to use half-lies and misdirection to avoid disadvantaging himself in unforeseeable situations...

Original – This trait is basically his whole stand off with Riddle in chapter 1. Not only using his own very personal opinion, he also linked it to other Heartslabyul students’ various expressions of discontent and made the initially generic and powerless words into a very distinct, powerful argument that basically screamed ‘you and your rules suck’ to Riddle. Add in a very ingenious touch of physical punch to the face that nobody else dared to try, which made the message even more powerful.

Excellent Brainstormer – Considering his extraordinary bullshitting skill, he must be quite sharp in this department... Also, there’s also the fact that the subject that he performs best at is Magic Analysis...

Charismatic – Only shown subtly so far, but combined with his bullshitting skill he does show a knack to influence people’s opinion from time to time. One example is shown when he influenced Heartslabyul students to demand Trey to make different cakes for their Unbirthday Party (Trey dorm SSR).

Energetic – A given trait when you’re a member of the Dumbass Squad, with how much shenanigans that you’re going to face...

Weaknesses

Very Argumentative – Has the tendency to pick a fight with people, arguably just for kicks. One of the example of this trait is his admission of having the thrill out of the possibility getting your neck ‘cut’ constantly as one of the reason that he finds the thought of changing dorm is unthinkable (Ace dorm SSR voice line).

Insensitive – Lacks the ability to read the atmosphere, or possibly just straight out ignoring it. Cue frequent troubles with Deuce and Riddle...

Intolerant – Has shown quite a bit of pre-concieved prejudices to something he’s not familiar with. Combined with his lack of delicacy, this could turn nasty very fast, just look back at his first meeting with magicless MC and monster Grim...

Can Find It Difficult to Focus – This trait is the main culprit for his bad affinity with traditional text-based learning methods and subjects that make use of said methods, such as Magic History.

Dislike Practical Matters – His general dismay to even try memorizing and implementing written, word-by-word rules that Riddle force feeds to Heartslabyul people everyday is rooted on how boring they are. He fully understands why rules are important, but chooses not to obey it because the prospect of just obeying is not very thrilling to him...

Deuce Spade-ISFJ (Defender)

And, last but not least, here comes our egg boy! This Dumbass #2 of Heartslabyul is one of the more difficult one to assign, and my decision to put him in this personality type didn’t really come that easy. While reading through Defender’s personality overview, at first I thought that “Whoa, maybe this one is too soft for this ex-yankee...” and I had intended to put him into something from the Explorer group due to his dumbass shenanigans general spontaneity, but hey, actually, this boy is soft.

When I factor in the fact that NRC is basically a school that consists of talented but egoistical problem kids, this boy quite distinguishes himself with his fierce loyalty to his loved ones and the general earnest vibe that he exudes, that really vibe with this personality type. Also, something about Introvert vs. Extrovert debate, I HC Deuce as more of an introvert because, while outwardly he is no less rowdy than Ace being a pair of dumbasses that they are, he is way more inward-focused in his way of thinking, focusing on his few beloved ones instead of the larger populace.

Strengths

Supportive – A great deal more honest and sincere than Ace in his approach of friendship, think of him as that openly supportive friend that doesn’t hide how he values his friends and always tries his best to support them in any way he can.

Reliable and Patient – In line with point above, he’s that type of friend that you can safely depend on, the type that would always be there when you need him.

Imaginative and Observant – Despite appearances, Deuce is actually quite adept at empathy (especially when compared to his fellow Heartslabyul dumbass Ace), being able to sympathize with people’s feeling. One of the best example of this is Deuce’s response to Azul’s insecurity in chapter 3, in which Deuce pretended that he never saw the childhood photo that Azul was so adamant on hiding because of his inferiority issues.

Enthusiastic – He’s really passionate about the things that he has set on to do; you can practically feel it in most of his dialogue lines...

Loyal and Hard-Working – He’s willing to bend back-and-forth for the sake of his loved ones. Hell, the main reason that he tries his hardest to become a great magician in the future is so that he can make his mother happy...

Good Practical Skills – This is moving more to the headcanon side, but I think as an only child that lives only with his mother he ended up developing this trait, whether he likes it or not...

Weaknesses

Humble and Shy – Might be the influence of his yankee past, he’s rather low key when it comes to his personal achievements. Compare that to Ace’s constant bragging...

Take Things Too Personally – Self-explanatory, when you look at his hands-on approach on things... one of the example of this trait is his robe SR story (pictured above), in which he was about to physically fight a student that underplayed his achievement as a first year.

Overload Themselves – ‘Chill’ is not really the word that could be attributed to this boy, he takes everything he does too seriously. Although right now the effects are not really apparent, but it does make me wonder whether this will pose a problem later on...

Reluctant to Change – Very visible when compared side-by-side to the more mercurial fellow dumbass Ace, overall Deuce has more respect to the existing order in his environment, and he also shows more respect towards authority figures. I HC that this trait is what makes him tried to restrain Ace from punching Riddle in their chapter 1 showdown.

#twisted wonderland #heartslabyul #riddle rosehearts #trey clover #cater diamond #ace trappola #deuce spade

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williamlwolf89 · 4 years

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Why You’ll Never Reach Your Writing Goals in 2020 (Unless…)

Another week passes with no progress on your writing goals.

No first draft, no blog post, no portfolio piece.

Zilch. Nada.

Nauseating guilt washes over you. At the beginning of the new year you were so hopeful, even making a New Year’s resolution to write more in 2020.

But you never seem to get around to it, at least not as much as you should.

Feeling too tired, distracted, or overwhelmed to get into the flow, you procrastinate and prioritize everything but writing.

Fed up with this situation, you decide to set the best damn goals the world has ever seen.

Unfortunately, even if you’re setting writing goals that would make Tony Robbins jealous, there’s still a good chance you will fail.

Unless…

You turn one of your assumptions about writing on its head.

Goal Setting Wisdom: Vapid or Valuable?

You’ve heard it all before.

Maxims to:

Get inspired

Keep a positive mindset

Visualize your outcomes

Repeat positive affirmations

Connect with your “why”

Set goals (more on this below)

None of this is bad advice. In fact, these are all useful practices. But are they enough?

No.

And there’s the problem. You’re told that if you follow the conventional wisdom, set clear goals, and keep your chin up, success will be yours.

Even with all these strategies, victory is not guaranteed.

Why?

Because there is something inside you, in all of us, that will undermine your best intentions.

But, before we stroll down that dark road, let’s review the basics of goal setting. It’s a necessary first step for achieving your dreams this year.

Simple Step-by-Step S.M.A.R.T. Goal Setting

Want your goals to stand a fighting chance?

Then follow the S.M.A.R.T. formula: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-Bound.

Let’s quickly break down each part:

Specific: Start at the Finish Line

Great goals are specific about what you’re going to achieve and when it will happen.

Ask:

“How will I know objectively that I accomplished this goal?”

Measurable: Amount of Time vs Word Count Goals

You need measurable goals that are easy to track. Examples include the amount of time spent writing (“30 minutes daily before breakfast”) and word count (“300 words daily before breakfast”).

A simple spreadsheet works well for this:

Tracking enables you to adjust your efforts and expectations based on objective data.

Another method I enjoy using is a simple Kanban style board with the easy to use (and free) writing project management tool, Trello.

Attainable: Smaller Goals vs Larger Goals

Daring to dream big is noble, but some writers are overwhelmed by bigger goals.

Balance big, inspiring (and scary) goals with smaller goals that feel attainable in the short term. These smaller, attainable goals will lead to “quick wins”, which will give you confidence to tackle the larger goals.

Relevant: Sensible in the Big Picture

You want to be an author, blogger, and start a freelance writing side hustle, but only have so much energy and attention to go around.

Choose your goals wisely. Perhaps you can publish your book in two years and start that side hustle now. Focus, Daniel-san!

Time-Bound: Know Your Goal’s Time Frame

“I’m going to write a book someday!”

Cool, good for you. Someday is a convenient synonym for never. We use it to weasel out of doing the hard work now.

Set hard deadlines to avoid this common trap.

Examples of Effective Writing Goals (S.M.A.R.T. Formula in Action)

That’s a lot of info, so let’s pull it all together. Here are a few good example writing goals:

Blogger: Publish two posts of 2,000+ words every month on my blog in 2020.

Freelance Writer: Apply to 5 writing gigs every week from January through June of this year.

Aspiring Author: Complete my rough draft by December of 2020 by writing every evening at 9 pm for 30 minutes non-stop (no editing!).

See how each goal is specific, measurable, easily attainable, very relevant to the goal setter, and has a clear deadline? That’s what you’re looking for.

If you need more help, read this Hubspot article on the do’s and don’ts of S.M.A.R.T. goals.

Okay, so what if you already have killer goals, a sparkling attitude, make generous offerings to the writing gods under a full moon, and still struggle to write consistently?

You’re not alone…

One Thing You Must Rise Above

How often do you feel like writing?

Let me guess, your list of requirements to write includes:

Feeling inspired, motivated, focused, clear, happy, and confident

Having extra time, enough energy, peace and quiet, and no distractions

You may be asking then, “How can I set my life up so that I feel like writing more often?”

It’s not a bad question. Energy and time management practices to improve performance and mood are useful. But, this question makes an assumption, missing a deeper truth:

Who says you need to feel a certain way to write?

Other worthwhile and fulfilling achievements aren’t easy. Why should writing be any different?

Look, it’s not just you.

Somewhere along the way we all started giving “how we feel” more weight than it deserves. Sure, let your feelings ride shotgun, but don’t hand them the wheel.

Letting how you feel govern your choices places you at the mercy of what Stephen Pressfield, author of The War of Art, calls “resistance.”

Resistance is an insidious beast with many faces, and must be tamed if you’re ever going to succeed.

It’s the voice that says, “You worked hard today, go ahead and take the evening off.”

It fools you into thinking that mundane tasks are urgent, taking precedence over writing. “Afterall,” it assures you, “writing can wait until tomorrow.”

This whole mess generates a vicious cycle.

You blow off writing. Then you feel guilt, self-loathing, frustration, and sadness. This build-up of bad feelings makes you even less inclined to write — and this pattern becomes a habit.

This destructive cycle devours your dreams, one excruciating day at a time.

We must then question our habit of letting today’s feelings determine the fate of tomorrow’s outcomes.

Not to worry, grasshopper. There’s a better way.

Better Writers Know this Uncomfortable Truth

Not to be dismissive of the very real challenges in your life…

But these demands aren’t going away anytime soon, and you still want to write that book or launch that blog.

Don’t you?

If you don’t learn how to decouple your actions from how you feel, your goals will pay dearly.

The result:

No book

No blog

Zero followers

No side income

No legacy

Because, let’s be real, these are the stakes.

What if, like Ryan Holiday suggests in The Obstacle is the Way, you take a different approach? Not only accepting difficulties as a given, but actually being grateful for them.

What I’m proposing here is to go beyond simply accepting the idea that you will have to write even when you don’t feel like it.

No. Take it further.

Seek Out Discomfort

Savor it like Hannibal Lecter enjoying chianti with his fava beans.

Because here is the secret, my friend.

How you feel will always be inconsistent, but you must become consistent in your actions regardless of how you feel.

This is the key that opens a door to the magical realm of growth and achievement.

Jon Morrow breaks this down nicely in this episode of his podcast Break Through the Noise:

“A lot of times, what success usually means is… actually putting yourself into a state of boredom, into a state of unhappiness, in order to create long term results… It’s short term pain for long term gain.”

And before you get the wrong idea…

This doesn’t have to be an exercise in masochism.

Instead, think of your competing desires like an adult with a child.

The whining child is bored and just wants to play. The loving adult speaks patiently, acknowledging that, “Yes, I know this is hard. I can see you don’t feel like it. Let’s just sit down and write for a moment. You’ll see. It will be fine.”

And you know what?

Every time you choose to act greater than your fear, laziness, and resistance, you build the habit of doing just that. Proving that you are greater than what you feel.

Okay, so how can we do that?

Your Writing Habit: Virtuous Friend or Vicious Foe?

Habits are powerful.

Deeply etched upon your nervous system, they compel you to act without conscious will.

The bad news?

You already have a writing habit — a bad habit.

Remember the vicious cycle mentioned earlier? Cycles are repetitive, and repetition builds habits.

Not to worry!

Now you’ll learn how to create a new cycle — a virtuous cycle that doesn’t rely on you being in the mood to write.

Hack Your Writing Process

How you feel is often at odds with your goals.

Fortunately, there are elements in your daily life that can reliably trigger your drive to write.

There’s a scientific approach to this.

In his book Tiny Habits: The Small Changes That Change Everything, BJ Fogg provides his A, B, C framework for building what he calls “tiny habits”:

Anchor: Something happens that reminds us to do the thing

Behavior: Immediately do the thing

Celebration: Immediately reward yourself for succeeding

Fogg recommends you start small.

You’re more likely to repeat the process when it’s easy and rewarding. As the behavior gels into habit you can easily scale up, leading to big changes over time.

Here’s how it looks in real life:

Goal: Write 300 words for my short stories every evening this year.

Anchor: Kiss the kids goodnight (a consistent event that triggers your writing routine)

Behavior: Consider lying on the couch and watching The Bachelorette. No, stay strong! Instead, sit at the kitchen table and write at least one sentence.

Celebration: Reward yourself by punching the air and shouting, “I am a winner!” or tweet self-congratulatory messages: #goals #bestwriting

Goal: Complete my rough draft this year by writing for 30 minutes every morning.

Anchor: Make your morning cuppa’ Joe (this will never not happen)

Behavior: Look longingly at your phone, imagining what you’re missing on Insta. Stop! Shuffle over to your desk, sit down, and write for 5 minutes (to start) before breakfast.

Celebration: Eat chocolate cake for breakfast. Or, you know, just have a small piece of that fancy dark chocolate you love.

Simple, right?

Notice how you’re not trying to achieve maximum output. At least, not yet. As these routines become habit, your word count and writing times will naturally increase.

Do you see the difference between the old “feelings first” approach and this new model?

Fogg’s method does generate good feelings in the final celebratory phase of his process. There’s nothing wrong with that. But, these feelings only help reinforce what you’re already committed to doing.

The only time you need to make any decisions about whether you’re going to write is when you initially set your goals.

From then on, regardless of how you feel, just write when the anchor event happens. No deciding. No rationalizing your way out of it.

Your Shockingly Good Year

Not writing feels terrible. It eats away at your soul, undermining your self-worth.

Remember, setting goals is necessary for achieving something great this year, but it’s not enough.

You must stay vigilant, keeping watch for the antics of that wiley trickster inside you. It will say anything to keep you from writing. Because while you’re goofing off, it feasts on your dreams.

Instead, you must cultivate a writing habit — stop relying on fickle feelings to drive your progress.

And when you reach the end of the year?

Imagine how amazing it’s going to feel not only hitting, but surpassing your goals.

When you finally:

Grow your blog

Break into a new niche

Multiply your income

No more sadness and frustration. No more guilt, shame, or self-doubt. And no more wondering whether you have what it takes!

You will be in control, with the power, confidence, and freedom to shape your destiny. Not only as a writer, but in all areas of your life.

If you haven’t set S.M.A.R.T. goals, do that right away. Don’t wait!

Then think about a simple routine you can start tomorrow. What trigger will remind you it’s time to write regardless of how you feel?

Remember, if it feels uncomfortable, hard, or scary then you’re on the right track.

You, the courageous writer who dines on discomfort and relishes resistance, are unstoppable.

Good luck! You got this!

About the Author: James Everett Youngblood is the owner of ProductiveMen.com. He’s a Smart Blogger Certified Content Marketing Writer specializing in search-optimized longform content, and he can help your blog capture more search traffic and better reader engagement. Click here to learn more about him (and hire him).

The post Why You’ll Never Reach Your Writing Goals in 2020 (Unless…) appeared first on Smart Blogger.

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insearchofgatherings-blog · 4 years

Text

Full Brightness

One

I always took the train to London.

I made up excuses to my many friends with an affinity for swiftness by air. The train took you to the centre, not to Gatwick. Once you factor in the airport bus, it’s probably faster than flying. I like having a table, not a flimsy piece of plastic. Babies don’t scream from decompression. And even the most absurdly hypocritical (for myself), but would always strike a nerve with my environmentally obsessed peers – “the train is electric; flying is one of the biggest consumers of fossil fuels”. I was never one to truly put the environment above my convenience, but I loved how that one shut them up.

But the real reason was one of my few irrationalities – I just have a romantic connection to rail. I love the sound, the views, the ability to wander around, the automated machine coffee that they serve to you in a little paper bag as if it compensates for the taste. Flying is clinical and cold. Airports are places of fear and anxiety; train stations are places of long farewells and slow departures.

They say that for important people, time is everything, and commuting must be as quick as possible. It can’t cut into their important meeting time or their important coffee time or their important phone call time. But glancing around Coach F I can see more men in suits and women with short hair on phone calls than any 50 quid Manchester to London RyanAir flight.

I liked to imagine that they were CEOs and COOs and Chairmen and Chairwomen and that my irrationalities of train travel were also found in highly successful people. I bet Vice would write an article about that. These 10 Weird Habits of CEOs Will Amaze You. Probably more Buzzfeed than Vice. I don’t really read any of that, but the headlines pop up in my feeds against my will on an almost daily basis. A morbid curiosity into which of my friends like them has kept me from blocking the sites completely. But in reality, Phil sitting next to me is just an underling, a scrapper.

He’s set up in the most bizarre way, with one of those tablet-come-laptops propped on the table, wired into the solitary mains plug between our seats. It has a small fold-out keyboard, one that looks like a fake child’s play-toy, without even tangible buttons to press, just marked out character zones to tap on. But despite taking a six or seven-minute interval to retrieve all of this, he’s responding to his emails by phone, the tablet-laptop left unattended as he single-fingers his way through family summons and requests for documents.

A few years back I had made wearing sunglasses at all times part of my core existence. I think it originally started as a joke, but they quickly became something I was uncomfortable without, to the point where I collected three or four pairs of £2 Primark trash lenses just in case I couldn’t locate them when leaving the house. It had nothing to do with the sun, or even general aesthetics. And to this day, I’m not convinced that anyone else has those reasons either. Sunglasses hide your soul, and they allow you to look into the souls of others. It almost feels like a superpower - the ability to look at people, to see every nuance of their movement, expression and emotion, whilst never intruding them with the uncomfortable insecurity of knowing you are watched.

I had been reading Phil’s emails and texts for nearly an hour now, and he was none the wiser. What first caught my eye was the rather absurd signature on his phone emails – “Sent from My Phil’s iPhone X”. I liked to imagine it was a power move. A subtle humblebrag about how busy he is, and that yes, he did have time to respond to your enquiry, but only on his phone and with minimal effort given to email formalities.

I had the window seat. Forward-facing, with a table. The trifecta, as I called it. Trains aren’t like airlines, who charge you out the nose for any sort of upgrade in comfort. If you book it far enough in advance, all you have to do is check the boxes and more often than not you’ll get it. Occasionally, if it was one of the trains that came through from Inverness or Aberdeen beforehand, there would be someone in my window. I took no pride in booting them out, but it was a necessary evil to be able to endure the tough stretch between Peterborough and London when the carriage that began at 20% capacity now stretches to over 100.

I found that as long as you tuck a bag of necessities underneath the seat and go to the toilet beforehand, the four and a half hours is more than tolerable without being able to move. And spreading out while there are no coinhabitants in your compartment detracts fellow spreaders from joining you, only those with few possessions dare sit next to me when I’m at full spread. Still, I do look forward to the return journey, when the carriage capacity inverts, and the final stretch north of Newcastle is completed in a near-empty space with ample room to fire books across the full four-seater and go for exploratory wanders to the closing café car.

I had my laptop out, full brightness. I liked to believe that other people were as nosy as I was, and were constantly looking at what I was working on. I worked best in these environments – cafes, trains, even libraries. My personal penchant for procrastination seemed to disappear as soon as someone else could see what I was working on. It was a touch pathetic, no doubt, but I reasoned that as long as it worked for helping productivity, I was fine with the superficial reasoning.

I always wanted to seem more important and more busy and more creative than I actually was. No scrolling through social media, no films or TV, no reading the news. Just work, or perhaps something that looks mysteriously creative. I wanted the person next to me to think I was a genius or a savant or something above my natural ability. I had dozens of excel spreadsheets that looked like chaotic labyrinths of formulae, and despite their true use being quite simple, the look is all that mattered.

I had opened one that I wasn’t even going to work on today. It had several columns involving a calculation of individual standard deviations, which always requires several formula-heavy helper columns, packing it right out with numbers and increasing its aura of complexity. In reality, it was a spreadsheet that compared cafés across towns in England. Manchester was still winning.

It had been open for about 20 minutes, and I hadn’t touched it, nor even come up with a plan of what I was attempting to do. It was there as a placeholder for other, less sophisticated forms of computer-based procrastination.

I liked to remind myself occasionally that it was okay to shelve productivity and just look out the window for a while because otherwise, my obsession with the forward-facing window was almost pointless. The passing of a train through countryside is oddly captivating, and you can find yourself getting lost in the never-ending flow of towns and farms and animals and power plants and small stations that pass too quickly for your eyes to register the name on the sign. The East Coast Main Line was my regular, but occasionally if I could justify the extra hour, or if the advance ticket turned out cheaper, I’d take a West Coast train just for a change of scenery.

Sophie wasn’t happy that I was taking the train, but I refused to budge. Arriving in at Heathrow at 0500 this morning, a first-thing flight meant I could meet her there, at the airport, at around 7 or 8. A train meant I’d be in at midday at the earliest, and at King’s Cross, not Heathrow. I’m only there for two days, she insisted. Come on, gotta make the most of it. I told her I had already booked. A lie.

I hadn’t seen Sophie in nearly two years, since she vanished to Australia in search of some lost youth. There’s a special visa that they give for ‘young people’ to ‘experience the world’ that lasts for two years. I seem to recall that her haste to leave was brought about by the realisation that, at 29, she was about to miss the cut-off for eligibility.

Her long-awaited return to the UK being only two days told us more than enough about her trip away. She didn’t want it to end or couldn’t go back to England or some endless combination of clichés that seems to possess those who go outside their comfort zone ten years too late. Summoning the girls for a girls’ weekend epitomized this neo, post-crisis Sophie perfectly, because a quick glance at the group of six invited (and three further declined) showed a list of people that had probably never all been in the same room at the same time. I knew all of them to varying degrees, but none as closely as Sophie, and I’d wager the majority of the party felt similar.

It all made sense when Emma mentioned that there was a man now. My mind went off at this news. If I wasn’t already interested in this ‘girls weekend’ for general anthropological reasons, the news that the biggest misandrist and most publicly gay member of the group of queers that ‘the girls’ seemed to be loosely constructed from had now straightened up and got a man was so tantalizing I could taste it.

It also, less importantly, explained the brevity of the weekend. All the couldn’t stand going homes and man, fuck Englands and other clichés are normally abandoned when people return home and realise they don’t have much choice, but the talk on the channels is that this man is Portuguese, and that is where they’re leaving Australia for, London just being a stopover.

Everything about this seemed so hilariously, laughably, unbearably straight. I had always known that Sophie’s publicly overt lesbianism was a cover for something more complex and further along the spectrum, but she would never be seen dead admitting to sleeping with men in her university years, let alone running off to some country she’d never been to with one. Even the notion that this group ever was the girls and ever did things like girls' nights is nonsense. It reeked of something she’d spun her new man, trying to pass as a regular old straight who didn’t attend protests fortnightly just for the thrill of breaking the law.

I hadn’t even given a single thought about what Sophie might have planned for us. Emma, who no doubt had individually messaged everyone else in the entire group with the man gossip, spun off a list that I promptly ignored. I didn’t like going into events like this with expectations. I wanted the drama to slap me in the face, to take it head-on. And boy I needed some of that drama.

#creativewriting queer lgbt queerwriting scotland england queerauthor

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