#I say forced into this poetry class because I hate poetry actually

[mahounostairs]

Ouroboros

The first of two poems that I like, wrote from Kuroto's POV about Emu for a poetry class I'm being forced to take for my major

You are so many things to me all at once.

I long for you, I detest you so,

You are the reason I am like this,

I am the one who molded who you are.

You wish for my true smile, I thrive from your despair

My Adam, my Virgin Mother Mary.

How I still desire your crystal; your heart

To take it into my bare hands and

crush it into dust, shatter you so that

you can never be the pure “you” you once were.

Although, I cannot determine how to do so.

How do I want to see that light fade from your eyes?

Do I want your blood on my hands?

Do I want you entangled in my sheets?

The more I question it, the more the lines blur.

No matter what, it will make you truly “mine.”

A nemesis, an ally; never a friend.

You cried for me the first time I died.

Despite everything I had done to you.

I know you don’t forgive me, nor am I asking for such.

The snake shall continue to swallow its own tail.

[quidam-sirenae]

Howdy! I'm taking a translation class this coming quarter. Any tips for beginners at translating? Thank you and have a lovely day!

This is the best ask I could have possibly gotten. I want to talk about this so bad.

So I am not an expert by any means but I love to talk about translation so:

For beginners, I would say translate everything as literally as possible so you don’t lose points for misunderstanding. Something I do in all my classes is when I translate a singular third person as “they” I always write “they(plr)” so I don’t lose points.

So if I was translating let’s say the beginning of the Aeneid in an Aeneid class I would translate “I sing of arms and a man who came first from Troy, over the high sea as a refugee from fate seeking lavinian shores” so that I got all the possible points (that translation is from memory so I’m sorry if I missed anything)

But now the fun stuff! Literary translations! I’m of the opinion that the job of the translator is to make you feel something. Not necessarily what the poet wanted you to feel, but what the translator feels. I always go into translation trying to use the text to explain what made me want to translate it.

Translation for me is a fun hobby and not yet a job (one day) so I don’t ever force translations. I have something I want to translate and then I agonize over it for months and months until I’ve exorcised the original from my mind. I do actually call my translation projects my “poetry demons” which sometimes confuses my roommates.

I also don’t try and make my literary translations completely accurate. Taking the beginning of the Aeneid, this is my favorite translation I have of it: “I sing of a man and his weapons/Who came from Troy, chased by fate,/Looking for Lavinia’s shoreline. /The war is over,/But Juno’s still angry. /He went through so much, /Down in the ocean,/Ilium’s war…”

I’ve mixed up bits- the Juno’s anger bit is before the “iactatus ab alto.” Im listening to Jesus Christ superstar so I can’t recite the Aeneid to try to remember the actual bits right now but my thing with the Aeneid is I want to make you love Aeneas as much as I do and I want you to hate him as much as I do because he’s both the best man you will ever meet and an absolute shithead. I also want to keep at least some rhythm in there, which is always the hardest bit of poetry translation. I translated the “who came from Troy, chased by fate” bit like that because the stress goes who CAME from TROY, CHASED by FATE, and the parallel stress was important to me. Same with down in the ocean/iliums war. I’m trying to keep some semblance of poetry even at the risk of sacrificing some of the meaning because the poetry, in my opinion, is more important than the exact words.

Also! I’ve been told my translation is very simplistic which I don’t deny but I think that if you’re reading classics in order to read very difficult poetry/prose, cicero is right there. Lucretius is right there. You cannot translate Catullus into difficult prose and keep consistent with the poetry- it’s easy poetry not difficult prose.

Anyway thank you for this ask it was so fun to talk about and this is possibly my favorite thing in the world. Right now I’m thinking about Sappho as marginalia- I’d need to find the right text to make it the marginalia to, but it would be good fun, maybe a combined Sappho and Trojan women? I think that would be cool.

[gayshitanddadjokes]

hi i'm taking a poetry class this winter and am very interested to hear your infodump on The Flea but i currently don't have the energy to dm someone so if you wouldn't mind infodumping on this ask? i have not read the poem yet but i'm about to literally as soon as i send this ask lol

"The Flea" by John Donne! Okay, so if you just read The Flea, you know how gross it is. A man telling another woman that since a flea bit both of them they've basically already had sex, so it wouldn't be remiss if she were to have actual sex with him 'again'.

It's actually a very common poem to be taught and studied. Before I read it in my Intro to Literary Analysis class in college I was forced to read it in my freshman year of high school. I hated it. Everyone hated it. It made everyone really uncomfortable but the teacher made us read an analyze it anyway. But when we analyzed it he took it at face value. That John Donne had been writing it with complete seriousness of the content. But that isn't true.

In medieval times, there was a style of poem called the seduction poem with the exact theme of The Flea: convince women to sleep with you when they really don't want to. It makes everyone really uncomfortable but, at Lincoln's Inn law school in the 1590s, the teachers made their students read and analyze it anyway. And those poems were completely literal; the poets actually thought that this would convince their 'lovers' to not 'deny' them anymore.

And that place and time is exactly where John Donne was. He was a student being forced to read this really shitty, gross poetry. So one day he thinks to himself "haha, this is so bad and creepy, what if I make fun of it by writing one and sending it to my friend!" and that is exactly where The Flea comes from. He memed that poem and sent it to his friend and it was never supposed to be in the public eye because it 1. wasn't serious and 2. people outside of the Inn weren't exactly taught seduction poetry, so they wouldn't get the joke.

Our boy John goes on to graduate and become Dean of St. Paul's Cathedral as well as a respected poet. Then, he goes even further, and dies. Happens to the best of us.

People have a nasty habit of going through a dead artist's stuff to find 'unpublished works'. They just love it. So, they go through Johnny boy's old stuff and what do they find but the original copy of The Flea. They don't know the context in which it was written and have never read a seduction poem so they think "huh John was more of a freak than we thought" and say it was a completely serious work of his and publish it.

These days, if you try to look up seduction poems, you don't find what Donne had been reading at school, you find "The Flea".

"The Flea" outlived what it was parodying to the point where it is no longer considered parody and I feel so bad for Donne because imagine being him. Your work is still being studied years later except it's usually the poem you wrote as a joke that you hated. That has to suck.

[amateurletariat]

So we watched Dead Poets Society last night.

CW: Suicide, abuse, romantic manipulation/coercion(assault) all below the cut.

Also spoilers, obviously.

Besides having a completely white (and mostly male)cast...except for one black dude in the kitchen we saw for literally a second...and the main characters basically being rich kids in prep school, the message of 'don't conform, be an individual that seizes your own life' is a good one, but feels off somehow. A constant theme of the movie is the attempt to be authentic, but within specific parameters, lest ye be punished.

The english teacher, Keating(Robin Williams), is highly unorthodox. The first thing he has the students do is leave the classroom and go stare at the pictures of students from previous years. He starts talking about carpe diem to inspire. He gets them all to rip out the cold and analytical introduction that reduces the quality of poetry to a graph. He shakes up preconceptions and pushes people to explore themselves. These are inherently important to self-actualization, and I genuinely enjoyed those aspects of the movie.

But that's where it stops for me.

"Carpe diem", "life is short", "live fully and authentically"; these are all good messages. Except, in the context of the movie, it's specifically about the next generation of the white owning class seizing their lives, living authenically, and self-actualizing. With one exception°, none of the teens are directly prevented from exploring and pursuing their passions.

This includes one of the 'leaders' of the group of 17 year olds falling in love at first sight with a high school girl he's never met before. When he gets back to his own group, he says it's a tragedy that she loves some oafish jock, that he loves her so he'll go tell her, no matter what. This leads to him first calling her, to which she expresses happiness he called(uh oh), and she invites him to a party that her boyfriend is throwing. At said party, he winds up feeling rejected because he wasn't getting the attention he wanted from her. Eventually we come to him on the couch, dejected and intoxicated, when he notices the blonde girl passed out next to him is the girl(read: object) of his desires. This leads to him leaning over and kissing her on the forehead while she's asleep, which is noticed by no one. Except one of the boyfriend's jock friends sees and directs everyone's attention to it. He's immediately attacked for what he did, but for some reason the girl leaps to poetry boy's defense and gets mad at her boyfriend for throwing punches, not at the guy who was assaulting her in her sleep. After apologizing and leaving, he continues his obsession and pursues her at a later date, confessing love and reading poetry he wrote to her in the middle of her classroom, and after telling him NO multiple times. Just before the big play of the movie, she shows up at his school to warn him her bf is on the warpath, and that she isn't interested in him at all, which he takes as her playing hard to get, because why would she warn him if she didn't care?... So he pleads and prods to let him take her to the play as a date, promising to finally leave her alone if afer the date she still doesn't like him. I hate this trope so much. It seriously reminds me of Revenge of the Nerds, and the whole nice guy 'just let me show you how much smarter/better/faster/stronger I am and you'll suddenly care about me' thing...eugh..

°The exception being one of the main cast wanted to be an actor, it was his whole being, but his father wouldn't have it, and forced him to drop anything that would distract from becoming a doctor, including any leadership roles he was already in. This eventually led to the character lying to his father about being the lead in a play and being found out, which his father orders him to drop out of the play, even though tomorrow is opening night.."I don't care if the world ends tomorrow..." He also lies to his poetry teacher, and others, about talking to his father. Halfway into the play, dear old dad shows up, thankfully waits til the end, then rips him out of school, informing him he'll be enrolled in military school. This leads to the character killing himself in his father's study and launches an inquiry into why this could possibly happen, because surely this boy's home life was immaculate. No question of abuse from the father. None.

After one student flops and tells the administration everything, the rest are forced to sign a document stating that everything that happened was because of the teacher, who is immediately fired. The final scene involves the headmaster showing up to teach the english class, and RW's character drops in to grab the last of his things. As he's on the way out the door, students start standing on their desks, saying 'O captain, my captain' in a show of solidarity, defying the headmaster literally shouting them down.

Aand credits.

So while it has an "overall good message", the 'target audience' severely lacks diversity, and the tropes used are disturbing, at best. The comraderie between every student, save for the snitch at the end, is almost unrealistic. Almost. There was no real hierarchy save for parent/authority vs student. Everyone supported each other unconditionally which feels surreal in our current day, until we remember that these kids are part of the white owning class.

So really, just another day.

[forlorn-crows]

hey! i'm really not a writer but i have to take a class on it next year and i'm really scared by it, so i'm trying to get opinions and whatnot from people who do write. (that's why you might see this ask in a lot of authors' inboxes heh) i'm wondering if there's anything that helps you get in the mood to write, if there's anything that causes/makes worse a writer's block, if you find it easier to write when given a prompt or if you prefer to make things up completely, if you prefer writing a story or more of an essay, how long does it take you to finish something and how do you know it's finished? and i know a lot of these could be answered with "it depends" but please avoid saying that if you can! thank you for helping me!

there's two perspectives i have here: one is writing in the context of college courses, and two is writing for pleasure.

when i wrote essays in college, i would always need a quiet place to go, or a place where conversations wouldn't be distracting. the 3rd floor of the library. a study cubby. starbucks at 4pm. but i would ALWAYS have instrumental music in my headphones. lofi. writing music playlists on youtube. classical. whatever made me feel 'scholarly' and didn't have words. that was my go to. and i think doing that same routine, getting my little drinks and always AFTER i had eaten was key to at least having some semblance of motivation to get my shit done. cause i had to write a LOT. all the time. different lengths of things too; 500 words to full length papers.

with school, the motivation was "i have to get it done by x date". and im a perfectionist, so it took me a looooong time to write the hard stuff. especially since i had to research as well. loooong time to gather sources before i actually did any writing, loooong time sorting and culling those sources, looooong time stringing them together to make them 'perfect'. i self inflict a lot of struggle, but thats how my brain functions to get the outcomes i did (and the grades I did).

I did do some creative writing in college, mostly poetry. for that, there were certainly deadlines motivating me, but the projects got my creative side flowing a bit more. often times, i would have to stop to jot something down while i was going about my day, because i knew i would forget it later. but, a lot of the same things can be said about my college creative writing; i slaved over the things until they were perfect, until they finally looked 'right' to me. and that takes a lot of time, personally. i hated procrastinating but sometimes you really do write better under pressure.

in school, i needed clear cut prompts/requirements for my long form work. i couldn't function without them, because i always outlined like crazy. it helped organize and cull my crazy thoughts.

now, with personal writing (which i 99% fanfiction currently), it can be hit or miss. sometimes, i need someone else's ideas to get me going. other times, im plagued by horny visions during work and i have to jot them down in my phone until i can write them out later. and sometimes i lose motivation by then, which sucks.

sometimes, it takes me a long time to finish stories. whether that be due to length, or simply because i took my time writing it little by little. I can crank out a full length fic in 2 days if im really feeling it, or it make take an entire week to write 1k words. it just depends on how into writing and into the idea i am.

lately, i have to go with whatever sparks my interest in order to write. i find its no fun to try and force yourself to write for pleasure, bc it just becomes a chore then. writing as a hobby is supposed to be fun, it is not supposed to consume you (wise words that crow does not follow a lot of times).

my advice for school is to keep track of your deadlines. start earlier than you need to for big projects, especially if you have an idea you really want to role with. dont be afraid to brainstorm with your teachers, they're your resource for stuff like that. they can help steer you in the right direction if you're stuck. carve out time to write and double down on it. take breaks when you need to, of course, but try to stay on task whenever possible.

my advice for personal writing is DO NOT FORCE IT. if you get inspired by something, and feel the need to write, and you can write at that moment, do it. those words will come like no other. second best thing is to write it down to visit later. i also think its important to remember you do not have to write every idea you ever think of, even if its a really good idea! its okay to have ideas that you dont do anything with.

overall advice, dont feel like you have to edit as you go. if you're unsure of your skills as a writer, just get down the ideas onto paper. thats the first step. write it how you might tell a story to a friend. all the fancy word choice and formatting can be done later. and know that you dont have to be the most seasoned writer to be a good writer. skills take time to develop. and the class may be boring at times. but its to help you learn, so dont fret! its okay to be scared at first.

let me know if you have any other questions, i have a lot under my belt, believe me!

[theroundbartable]

It is such a wild feeling when you're in class and make a claim, that to you has always just been a fact, that then makes everyone start to talk against you. But you still win the argument 30:1.

I had this discussion with my German teacher about the difference of "hauen" (punching) and "schlagen". There is a small, semantic difference between those two words that I picked on at the age of 12 years old while my teacher, a man who studied this field, did not. "Hauen" is less Impactful. It's when you would hit someone lightly without intention of seriously harming them. You can use it in the sense of "verhauen" (actually hurting someone) but its more of a phrasing that children would use. Or someone who was the victim of such bullying and wants to lessen the impact of what really happened to them. You would say "verprügeln", if it's really bad.

"schlagen" is much harsher than that. You cannot "verschlagen" someone because that word does not exist. But you can "erschlagen" someone, which is killing them. The sound to the word is much sharper too and I always treated the words separately. There is a semantic and phonological difference that I just ... Knew, i guess.

My teacher disagreed. We argued about this for several weeks. In the end, he had to make a class wide announcement that he thought about it and confirmed that I was right.

I didn't like the discussion. I didn't like winning the discussion either. I felt like shit about it and I hated how everyone made fun of me for my very logical argument.

The reason for that is that the whole thing started, because I hit someone with a book. I had been sick the week before and when I got back, I was told I had to hold a presentation that week... It was 10 minutes before that very lesson and I - someone who was so stressed by school work that to memorize poetry lines, I would physically harm myself by pulling at my own hair until I cried at every mistake- panicked. I hit her... And I regretted it the moment it was happening and I knew I had slowed down the book to avert harming her, but I couldn't fully stop it. I lost control and there was nothing I could do. (i later learned what the fear actually was. But I didn't know at the time, because I already had repressed some memories that made it all as bad as it was.) Needless to say, I ran away, frozen and unsure what I even did.

Someone told our German teacher. And he made it an immediate public affair.

He asked me what happened, why I did it and, because I didn't actually have to hold that presentation... Ever... Basically called it ridiculous. It wasn't even mentioned by our biology teacher. That's when he said I had "geschlagen" her.

I wanted to argue that it was not my Intention to hurt her. That I managed to stop myself from it going that bad. That's what started the discussion and I have been mad about it since.

A) he put the entire thing on public display. In front of all my classmates, asking me to explain myself, when really this publicity forced me to justify myself. Or try and deflect, which had not been my Intention. I just wanted to make clear what I really did. I couldn't explain why, because I didn't understand my own fear.

B) he got distracted by word choices he didn't get. And the topic was dropped and never picked up again, as he claimed "hauen" and "schlagen" were synonyms.

What was I supposed to learn from that? All your mistakes are a public affair? Mistakes get you humiliated? You cannot trust your teacher, because they don't care who know your problems and have no regard for privacy or whatever you may feel? Also your real issues don't matter, because the wording is more important?

If I was supposed to apologize to her, which I was already planning, as I was reflecting and dealing with my guilt, why the fuck did he get distracted by it? Why would he change the entire subject to that useless discussion?

If he wanted a bunch of friends to make up, why make it a public thing, where both parties are put on full display? Why make it in a setting, where one is forced to apologize and the other forced to accept it? She deserved to make that choice. She deserved to ignore me for a week before she were ready to trust me again. That choice was taken from her. My apology, which was supposed to be honest and a little painful, was taken from me.

I don't think he cared. I think he wanted to demonstrate his power over us. And he failed spectacularly.

Not only did he get distracted by phrasing. He was wrong about it. And lost against a 12 year old who then, one year later, when we were discussing onomatopoesie ("Lautmalerei"), brought it up again in spite. He spent three weeks thinking about it. He spent three weeks with it and forgot that he did it to humiliate me. And he lost. And it's a bit satisfying, but it's also so frustrating, because he fucked up my perception of teachers in the process.

Mistakes, to me, had been a potential thing that could already get you physically harmed. (My parents didn't ever physically harm me. But it had been threatened here and again and some of my siblings were not as lucky as I and I heard them cry and sometimes scream through the thick walls. And as I said, I harmed myself, because I thought I was stupid and stupidity deserved punishment) I now learned that if anyone finds out about your Problems, your choices would be taken from you. You would not be listened to. You would be placed into public display where everyone would, for years to come, make fun of you. You would force anyone involved with you in the same position and hurt them in the process.

That is, dear teacher, if you ever get to read this, what you put me through. I know I sound bitter about it and I am. It's been 12 years and I still look back on it sometimes. I still remember where I sat at that time, in the first row right in front of your table, where I thankfully didn't have to see my classmate's reaction. I remember that my friend sat two desks over to my right and only had to turn my head to see her. I didn't. Hoping that if I didn't look, she wouldn't say anything. And despairing because all eyes were on me, as I tried to explain things that took me 10 years to figure out.

If you are a teacher, pull your students aside. Talk with them outside. Pretend you have a Task for them, whatever. But give them room to explain themselves. And if they can't, help them to work it out or give them room to do it on their own. Don't argue their word choices. Listen to what they mean. They will be distressed and confused. Don't make it about articulation. Pull both parties aside separately and then together and work it out at their own pace. Don't force frienships to mend. You're not mending anything. You're sticking glue on an infected wound. And these children are human who have every right to be upset when they've been hurt.

Be someone that child can trust.

[crmsnmth-journal]

3/8/2024 10:23 PM

I hate getting to the end of a TV series that I enjoy. I always drag out the last few episodes, because for a week or two, the characters became my comfort. A weird friendship and kinship develops, and when the shows over, it feels like I'm saying goodbye to someone, and I hate goodbyes. Tonight, I said see you later to Raising Hope and am now watching Scrubs. Because I'm problematic in my humor. I can see my aging with what's in my list. It's all crappy comedies from the same era. And with the same kind of humor in each one. My one predictable trait.

Work sucked tonight. But I guess it sucks most nights. Sherry was on her game of not listening to a word I said. So it was constant waste on almost every call. If she'd just call back, we wouldn't have the problem, but she hears me rattle off a ticket, and just immediately grabs for stuff. You'd think that'd be a great idea, but when you do that, you forget what you need. Especially when we're straddling being in the weeds and service going down. I have too much pride in what I do. I've been doing it a very long time, a very long time. I've only had two jobs that weren't kitchen, and neither of those lasted for every long. But the kitchen is home. I may hate the place I work right now and that's mostly because of coworkers, and maybe that's just my cynical attitude. I don't know. If it is because of that, then I need to recognize the problem and not be such an asshole. Something about old dogs learning new tricks.

Sunday I'm bleaching half my head again. The inch-long new growth looks really grungy right now. Shauna's hopefully actually going to come. She was supposed to on Thursday, but my paster meeting ran long and she just didn't seem like she wanted to drive all the way out to my place. I don't blame her. It's a pretty good distance. So Sunday.

I'm still trying to figure out the point of this, and my other two projects. I mean, the book, i know why I'm writing that. It has to be done. I need to share my life, and to take my responsibility. And since I'll never get closure on so much of it, this is my forced way to get it. The poetry I've been writing every day all day since high school. It's the reason I failed so many classes. I preferred to write. I want to know why I suddenly woke up and just decided to start sharing again. Same with this odd little journal. Which I will say, since I've turned it to this, and not a traditional paper/pen (i mean I still write in that, but that's for very private things), I've been pretty good at writing in it everyday. I'm kind of leaning that the reason is I need to actually re-find myself. After ***** led to me fully destroying everything about myself, followed right after with ******* destroying anything that was left, it's time I reached in. It's been almost four years since ******* pulled her final card and took down my entire life. I think that's long enough to wallow in self-pity.

[starweed]

eventually i’m gonna go through the depths of my school google docs and read all the poems i wrote for a creative writing class. i remember being really proud of a lot of them, so much so that i actually did art for some of them.

i did one about apollo and hyacinthus for my final and my teacher loved it. it was one of the first times that i’d ever gotten positive feedback about my writing that was from somebody who’s writing i really admired.

i remember that i’d been reading a lot of emily dickinson during the unit because it reminded me that i owned a copy of a book that had quite a few of her poems. so lots of my poems read similarly to how i’d read hers, shell silverstein’s poems also influenced the cadence of my poems.

this was also the class that sparked my love of poetry, prior to then my experiences had been shell silverstein’s works, a book that i had to read during primary school, the emily dickinson book, and classes that i didn’t like. ela has always been my best subject and i love learning more about the english language, but i hated poetry with a passion. nothing about really made sense to me before, and the exercises that i’d been forced into participating in didn’t help. the class really sparked a love for poetry that i don’t think i’ll ever truly grow out of.

all this is to say, thank you ms. lewis. i’m so glad that i got to have you as a teacher for two years in a row. if you’re somehow seeing this i’m mortified already and i beg of you not to mention it if we ever see each other again. you truly sparked joy about writing in me again, and i cannot thank you enough. i had a pleasure learning from you, and i wish you the best.

[mimicofmodes]

“The Ladies Waldegrave” by Joshua Reynolds, 1780 (NGS NG2171)

I’ve complained before about two very big pet peeves of mine - corset stuff and Regency women being dressed in 1770s-1780s clothes - but one that may dwarf them because of how frequently it comes up in historical and fantasy fiction is the oppression of embroidery.

That’s probably putting it a bit too strongly. It’s more like ... the annoyance of embroidery. Every character worth reading about knows instinctively that sewing is a) boring, b) difficult, c) mindless, and d) pointless. The author doesn’t have to say anything more than “Belinda threw down her needlework and looked out the window, sighing,” to signal that this is an independent woman whose values align with the modern reader, who’s probably not really understood by her mother or mother figure, and who probably will find an extraordinary man to “match” her rather than settling for someone ordinary. To look at an example from fantasy, GRRM uses embroidery in the very beginning of A Game of Thrones to show that the Stark sister who dislikes it is sympathetic and interesting, while the Stark sister who is competent at it is boring and conventional and obviously not deserving of a PoV (until later books, when her attention gets turned to higher matters); further into the book, of course, the pro-needlework sister proves to be weak-willed and naïve.

Rozsika Parker, in the groundbreaking 1996 work The Subversive Stitch, noted that “embroidery has become indelibly associated with stereotypes of femininity,” which is the core of the issue. "Instead embroidery and a stereotype of femininity have become collapsed into one another, characterised as mindless, decorative and delicate; like the icing on the cake, good to look at, adding taste and status, but devoid of significant content.” 

Parker also points out that the stereotype isn’t just one that was invented in the present day by feminists who hated the idea of being forced to do a certain craft. “The association between women and embroidery, craft and femininity, has meant that writers concerned with the status of women have often turned their attention towards this tangled, puzzling relationship. Feminists who have scorned embroidery tend to blame it for whatever constraint on women's lives they are committed to combat. Thus, for example, eighteenth-century critical commentators held embroidery responsible for the ill health which was claimed as evidence of women's natural weakness and inferiority.”

There are two basic problems I have with the trope, beyond the issue of it being incredibly cliché:

First: needlework was not just busywork

A big part of what drives the stereotype is the impression that what women were embroidering was either a sampler:

sampler embroidered by Jane Wilson, 14, in 1791 (MMA 2010.47)

or a picture:

unfinished embroidery of David and Abigail, British, 1640s-50s (MMA 64.101.1325)

That is, something meant to hang on the wall for no real purpose.

These are forms of schoolwork, basically. Samplers were made by young girls up to their early teens, and needlework pictures were usually something done while at school or under a governess as a showpiece of what was being learned - not just the stitching itself, but also often watercolors (which could be worked into the design), artistic sensibility, and the literature, history, or art that might be alluded to. And many needlework pictures made in schools were also done as mourning pieces, sometimes blank, for future use, and sometimes to commemorate a recent death in the family. A lot of them are awkward, clearly just done to pass the class, but others are really artwork.

Many schools for middle- and upper-class girls taught the making of these objects (and other “ornamental” subjects) alongside a more rigorous curriculum - geography, Latin, chemistry, etc. At some, sewing was also always accompanied by serious reading and discussion. (And it would often be done while someone read aloud or made conversation later in life, too.)

Once done with their education, women generally didn’t bother with purely decorative work. Some things that fabric could be embroidered for included:

Jackets 

Bed coverings and bedcurtains

Collars and undersleeves 

Pelerines 

Neck handkerchiefs and sleeve ruffles 

Screens

Upholstery

Handkerchiefs

Purses, wallets, and reticules

Boxes

Book covers

Plus other articles of clothing like waistcoats, caps, slippers, gown hems, chemises, etc. Women’s magazines of the nineteenth century often gave patterns and alphabets for personal use.

(Not to mention late nineteenth century female artists who worked in embroidery, but that’s something else.)

You could purchase all of these pre-embroidered, but many, many women chose to do it themselves. There are a number of reasons why: maybe they wanted something to do, maybe they felt like they should be doing needlework for moral/gender reasons, maybe they couldn’t afford to buy anything - and maybe they enjoyed it or wanted to give something they made to a person they loved. That firescreen above was embroidered by Marie Antoinette, someone who had any number of other activities to choose from. It’s no different than people today who like to knit their own hats and gloves or bake their own bread, except that it was way more mainstream.

embroidery patterns from Ackermann’s Repository in 1827 - they could be used on dresses, collars, handkerchiefs, etc.

Second: needlework wasn’t the only “useless” thing women were expected to do

Ignoring the bulk of point one for now and the value of embroidery - I mentioned “ornamental subjects” above. As many people know, young women of the upper and middle classes were expected to be “accomplished” in order to be seen as marriageable. This could include skills like embroidery, drawing, painting, singing, playing the piano (as well as other instruments, like the harp or the mandolin), speaking French (if not also Italian and/or German), as well as broader knowledge and abilities like being well-versed in music, literature, and poetry, dancing and walking gracefully, writing good letters in an elegant hand, and being able to read out loud expressively and smoothly.

This wasn’t a checklist. As the famous discussion in Pride and Prejudice shows, individuals could have different views on what actually made a woman accomplished:

“How I long to see her again! I never met with anybody who delighted me so much. Such a countenance, such manners! And so extremely accomplished for her age! Her performance on the pianoforte is exquisite.”

“It is amazing to me,” said Bingley, “how young ladies can have patience to be so very accomplished as they all are.”

“All young ladies accomplished! My dear Charles, what do you mean?”

“Yes, all of them, I think. They all paint tables, cover screens, and net purses. I scarcely know anyone who cannot do all this, and I am sure I never heard a young lady spoken of for the first time, without being informed that she was very accomplished.”

“Your list of the common extent of accomplishments,” said Darcy, “has too much truth. The word is applied to many a woman who deserves it no otherwise than by netting a purse or covering a screen. But I am very far from agreeing with you in your estimation of ladies in general. I cannot boast of knowing more than half-a-dozen, in the whole range of my acquaintance, that are really accomplished.”

“Nor I, I am sure,” said Miss Bingley.

“Then,” observed Elizabeth, “you must comprehend a great deal in your idea of an accomplished woman.”

“Yes, I do comprehend a great deal in it.”

“Oh! certainly,” cried his faithful assistant, “no one can be really esteemed accomplished who does not greatly surpass what is usually met with. A woman must have a thorough knowledge of music, singing, drawing, dancing, and the modern languages, to deserve the word; and besides all this, she must possess a certain something in her air and manner of walking, the tone of her voice, her address and expressions, or the word will be but half-deserved.”

“All this she must possess,” added Darcy, “and to all this she must yet add something more substantial, in the improvement of her mind by extensive reading.”

Mr. Bingley feels that a woman is accomplished if she has the ability to do a number of different arts and crafts. Miss Bingley feels (or says she feels) that it goes beyond specific skills and into branches of artistic attainment, plus broader personal qualities that could be imparted by well-bred governesses or mothers. And Mr. Darcy, of course, agrees with that but adds an academic angle as well.

But what ties all of these accomplishments together is their lack of value on the labor market. A woman could earn a living with any one accomplishment, if she worked hard enough at it to become a professional, but young ladies weren’t supposed to be professional-level good because they by definition weren’t going to earn a living. All together, they trained a woman for the social and domestic role of a married woman of the upper middle or upper class, or, if she couldn’t get married, a governess or teacher who would share her accomplishments with the next generation.

(To be fair, almost none of the trappings of an upper-middle/upper class male education had anything to do with the kind of career training that college frequently is today, either. Men were educated to know the cultural touchpoints of their class and fit in with their peers.)

There are reasons that an individual person/character might specifically object to embroidery, but it was far from the only “useless” thing that an unconventional heroine would be required to do against her inclination by her conventional mother/grandmother/aunt/chaperone. Embroidery stands out to modern audiences because most of the other accomplishments are now valued as gender-neutral arts and skills.

“The Embroidery Frame”, by Mathilde Weil, ca. 1900 (LOC 98501309)

So, some thoughts for writers of historical fiction (or fantasy that’s supposed to be just like the 19th/18th/17th/etc century):

- If your heroine doesn’t like embroidery, she probably doesn’t like a number of other things she’s expected to do. Don’t pull out embroidery as either more expected or more onerous than them. Does she hate to sit still? I’d imagine she also dislikes drawing and practicing the piano. Would she prefer to do academic subjects? She probably also resents learning French instead of Latin, and music and dancing. Does she hate enforced femininity? Then she’d most likely have a problem with all of the accomplishments.

- If your heroine just and specifically doesn’t like embroidery, try to show in the narrative that that’s not because it’s objectively bad, and only able to be liked by the boring. Have another sympathetic character do it while talking to the heroine. Note that the hero carries a flame-stitched wallet that’s his sister’s work. Emphasize the heroine’s emotional connection to her deceased or absent mother through her affection for clothing or upholstery that her mother embroidered - or through a mourning picture commemorating her. There are all kinds of things you can do to show that it’s a personal preference rather than a stupid craft that doesn’t take talent and skill!

mourning picture for Daniel Goodman, probably embroidered by a Miss Goodman, 1803 (MMA 56.66)

[petalsmooth]

Ok.

Let’s talk Lili.

First off we only know what stars put out about themselves or other people say about them. We are not friends with these people. We are not in their homes. We don’t usually hear what they say in unguarded conversation. What we know is what is out on social media with some highly distorted soundbites from chats or DM’s with her mother that were exposed.

We were initially presented a portrait pushed by her and her family no less of a middle class family with the standard girl next door hit it big narrative. Down to earth, relatable, somewhat quirky. Strong two parent supportive household. All that was missing were the apron and pearls.

This girl came out of the gates talking about a modernized Riverdale with two girls who would be actually close and not vying for the same redhead. Feel free to add/or correct along the way of course...especially early on when not following as closely.

We got very little in the way of insight into Cole and Lili because they were trying to keep it quiet even if there were hints together. Mostly during this period what fans were fed was that she was slightly awkward socially, maybe not the most intellectual but nice and harmless. She spoke of empowering women, independence, she constantly shut down the idea of Barchie and praised Bughead. Along through the year’s she would speak to social bullying or bullying in general. She would openly talk about struggles with mental health. She’d talk and show her cystic acne and share photos not all airbrushed in ode to body positivity. She’d talk about not having an hourglass figure, and cellulite and often go out in ratty shorts and a bun sans makeup. You see she’d talk about it then follow through by showing lived the walk or calling out photoshops done of her.

Again this is “relatable girl next door quirky Lili” we told was the REAL Lili.

She would frequently talk and post about her family and dogs at home and how much she loved and missed them...though oddly not so much her older sister.

At a certain point it became undeniable Cole and Lili were together to even the hardest deniers. Of course also the Met gala eventually made official for media.

We get have her liking posts such as Miley’s about how lucky she was to have a man who checked off all the boxes. But at times there were glimpses all wasn’t kosher. People have mentioned various cons where she’d be caught flirting somewhere else, or she’d be in a bad mood giving Cole a cold shoulder. We recently saw an old video of them walking and her basically demanding he drop the fans and attend her. We have the con were Camilla is sexually harassing Cole everywhere and Lili doesn’t shut it down until Camilla tries to grind on him. It was so bad even Mads intervened. We have the interview where she is talking over him or rolling her eyes and basically being the unprofessional brat her fans claim she is not. Even though it’s ON CAMERA. Snapping at your co worker/boyfriend and rolling your eyes during a professional interview is not deniable.

Flashforward to the trip to Italy because for me there was always something off about that. That trip was obviously planned far in advance. Clearly Lili was supposed to be there. Her fans quickly blamed Cole because Lili was working. Lili didn’t have to work. It wasn’t a career changing move to do that film. It did not do well. I’m not entirely sure what was happening around that time but I have the sense Cole was disappointed/a  little angry she prioritized it over him accepting very likely the offer AFTER the trip was planned.

Lili spirals during this time. Cole comes back to clean up mess. They are quiet on social media for a long time then slowly emerge again and eventually get the photo booth shots, the wedding and her mingling with NY friends for once. Turns out close to the end for them.

I don’t want to make this a Sprousehart post though although some relevance to bring part of it up. The point is Lili put her career over her relationship. It was a calculated decision. It was also the wrong decision. Her fans talk about her being this warm giving person but that was a cynical call and a pretty lousy thing to do to your boyfriend of several year’s. I’m all for supportive partners but there are time’s where you make sacrifices if you really care for someone and this was a special trip planned long in advance. She blew it off. If I’m the partner she does this too, I question why I’m putting in the effort if it doesn’t mean to them what it means to me. 

TBH I think the bad choices she made there is why tried to make it up by meeting with his friends, the wedding etc...

Something than clearly happened because by January they were done. Not sure we’ll ever know but it looked like they were trying to fix things given the happiness hadn’t seen on Cole’s faces in a long time in those booth pics and then...it was done. We didn’t know at the time, but this is timeline Cole gave. There was a brief attempt at reconciliation where she babysits him at a photo shoot and posts a photo of them in bed and then shortly after...Cole calls it off. 

He heads to LA, she follows him there but not without making sure to shove Casey’s face into her chest to post and rent a place close to where he is staying. She posts weepy messages about the world ending etc....and weird new photos mimicking old shoots with him so naturally people think this means whatever happened they worked through. Around same time she and hers manipulated her fans to try to cancel him earlier because she misunderstood a picture of Kaia....although flat out if he had been with Kaia he was SINGLE and it was no longer her business.

She tries to walk back the firestorm she unleashed on him by “defending” him from a lesser twitter trend after realizing misconstrued the Kaia picture, All summer she weirdly seems to be trying to avoid the topic if they are together or not despite saying once if they weren’t she’d tell people. She finally puts her foot in her mouth one two many times' and Cole confirms they broke up which she doesn’t acknowledge. Because she doesn’t want to be broken up.

As we know know it wasn’t all rainbows on the set even before all this happened as in the musical she’d launched an object at him hard enough to have the crew concerned. Lili fans keep saying Cole is abusive but the only evidence we have of abuse is her towards him. We also had her suddenly doing a 180 from past 4 year’s and excusing cheating with Archie and promoting everyone in her live recaps except Cole/Jughead.

Back to the events following Cole’s post....then we get a sudden string of interviews taking shots at Cole, doxxing him, implying he could have strayed (just to resurrect hate against him) but can’t say he actually did because she has no proof. We know this because in those chats admit it was just suspicion and paranoia and never did have any names.

We learn that Lili has been funneling news and gossip and photos to keep her mother’s hold on the fandom in check and her mother in turn has been bullying people who would stand on Cole’s side. They sought to ruin him. This is not debatable.

For year’s people had made fun and called Bree out for being an obsessive stalker unable to let a relationship go, then Lili starts doing the same. We know she has tried to copy Ari’s style, her mother made a snide comment about breast size, Lili tried to taunt Ari from on set and Ari shut her down. A girl who almost never was in the line of sight of paps suddenly is snapped everyday following break up even before the public new. That doesn’t just happen. She wanted the attention.

I’m not going to go into all of it, you all know it. Suffice to say revealing she has a bitter vindictive attitude she has submersed herself in ever since Cole made it clear no reunion. She won’t even broach the topic of Bughead/Jughead unless forced. You can spin all you like but the split screens was not an artistic choice by RD. It was spurred by need to keep them apart.

Lili last summer was doing precious little other than a post or two of Black Lives matter and then when Cole gets arrested suddenly she jumps on the me too and sets up impulsive lives. Maybe she meant well but a part of me thinks she did it to attract his attention. Notice once she got praise for it and the initial protests faded she more or less doesn’t bring it up anymore. Cole never intended to get attention, it just happened because he’s a star and got taken in to a jail cell. He never put himself on camera for notice. 

Lili also co-opts the murder of a girl to flaunt she thinks she looks good naked. Completely tone deaf. 

Lili very rarely is seen in fan photos, only usually when she’s getting flack for it online. She, a girl who talks about bullying, went on a  midnight tirade against a guy who dares to critique or poetry setting her fans on him. Then deleted it probably because publicist in her ear.

She first said poems not about Cole, than said you could read into what you wanted to sell them. Now she doesn’t want to talk poetry or sequels because it flopped and was critically panned.

There are constant rumors about Lili on sets of productions to point they even had someone on her newer movie try to downplay. Yet we see in a video the cast barely talking and looking tense on a boat. 

The girl who used to talk about body positivity now lets them airbrush abs onto her.

The girl who used to talk of therapy and mental illness now promotes OTC supplements for $ and cults.

If she mentions cellulite she uses other tik toks of people showing not her own. 

She said she would never be on tik tok, yet now has her own and post old videos that aren’t funny.

Lili once tired to attack Cole by talking about losing yourself in drugs or alcohol or sex yet we’ve seen her drug paraphernalia because she advertises. Her friends post and laugh over her being drunk. She was in an off and on relationship with Wallis that doesn’t seem to be about anything but sex.

We were told Coles friends are bad influences but Taylor is out there solicitating questionable clients and making videos slamming LILI’S COWORKER as a bad actor and his brother,

The majority of Lili’s posts no longer feature Sunny or her family/Addy. 

She insulted Vancouver, compared to a prison, and made it clear her creature comforts were of more importance than a pandemic. Not quite the attitude of an empath. Which she claims she is with intention to be a master which require sucking more gullible people into the cult.

She brags about being a “rich man” without understand the context. She went from artistic photos to modeling pinups to fuel her lack of self esteem.

She’s in her mid 20′s, claims she had grown and matured in the last year but there is no evidence of it. Still can’t work with her ex without buffers which still influences show direction though her fans deny.. Still lives off junk food and hangovers. Those glasses aren’t just for sun. Her timeline is mostly an ode to her vanity with pictures of herself and then her dog. She doesn’t seem to have any causes she’s deeply involved in on the side apart from her cult. She’s still stalking Cole as her impulsive makeup tutorial showed. She said she cut out of her life anyone who doesn’t service her. I highly doubt she is receiving quality therapy on the regular right now. She still does not seem to possess the ability to own her mistakes and apologize when warranted, rather deflects or erases when heat becomes too hot.

The content she puts out about herself post break up is very different than the bill of goods fans were sold before. She is a far cry from that quirky girl next door that stood FOR something more than vanity and shallow affirmation. So no, I don’t see what you see in her stans. Everything that once seemed to distinguish her from other spoilt princesses has long faded. 

[hopeless-strawbmantic]

This may contain sensitive content such as physical harm and severe bullying. Please read with caution.

A set of prompts of the stereotypical Jock x Nerd that I am an utter fool for, with a handful of twists to keep this blog relevant. And now without further ado:

Unconventional!Jock x Nerd Prompts and Dialogue

-The Nerd absolutely hates the new Jock that transferred to their school recently. In an attempt to get away from them, they go to a cafe/library/study hall only to find out Jock works there now. Everyone loves them there, so Nerd either has to give up their favorite studying place or bear talking to Jock, who wants their number for some reason.

-Jock takes a fine arts class (writing/poetry/art/theatre/music...) for a credit in school and meet Nerd, who is revered in the school as being the best in that field. They’re paired up (or sit next to each other) for a huge project due by the end of the semester. Nerd is stressed that they have to work with a newbie on such a big project. The Nerd gives up and eventually tries to teach Jock how to art. Hijinks and a very disgruntled Nerd ensues.

-Nerd had the biggest crush on the school Jock and is too afraid to admit it aloud. A group of known bullies catch wind and force Nerd to ask Jock for their number in front of the entire cafeteria/classroom or else they’ll publicly embarrass Nerd in front of the whole school. When Nerd does it and expects rejection, Jock actually says yes and is completely oblivious to Nerd being blackmailed into doing this.

-Nerd shows up to a martial arts practice that Jock teaches and asks them to teach them to fight. Jock thinks it’s for the discipline and exercise until they see Nerd get physically bullied by a group of kids with their own eyes. In a blind rage, they beat up the bullies and eventually get detention. Nerd feels like they need to thank them and sticks by their side to show their gratitude. In turn, Jock becomes their protector and falls hard for the gentle-hearted Nerd.

-Nerd hears a knock at their door and open it to reveal Jock, the most popular person in their shared school. They ask if they can stay since their parents had kicked them out of the house/are on a long vacation (for any reason you want). Nerd accepts and they spend the next few weeks together, maybe getting along, maybe not. But after a little too many heartfelt and deep conversations, they might not be just friends anymore.

-“How do you not get this? It’s the simplest part of how to solve these equations!”

-“Do you like, ever... y’know, go outside? Do you do things that are not studying?”

-“You’ve never been to a football game?! That’s it, you’re coming with me. I got good seats and everything!”

-“Did you... mean all of the stuff you said last night?”

“Every. Single. Word.”

Alternatively: “...The hell happened last night?”

-“That was my first kiss.”

“With me?”

“...Ever.”

“Can we do it again?”

-“Who did this to you.”

“It’s not that bad, it’s just a few scratch-”

“Who. Did this. To you.”

-“Why can’t you just do this for meeeeee?”

“Because if I did, you would be failing your class. You’re welcome.”

-“Do you know what personal space is?!”

“We’re playing (sport). That doesn’t apply here.”

[the-english-student-studyblr]

Writing a dissertation: topics

So one of the most important parts of the whole process is choosing a topic. There's like a million and one guides on the internet on how to do this (I know, because I looked) but the truth is, it has to be something you choose for yourself. Most guides will tell you what topics are easiest to research, or what ones are the most 'prestigious', but none of that's really useful if you don't find it interesting (yes, this is aimed at every advice column that told me to write about Dickens).

Ease of research, or how much research has already been done, is important, of course, but that shouldn't be the first thing you consider. And 'prestige' is a stupid concept anyway so ignore anyone who mentions it.

The first thing you should probably think about is what modules/classes you enjoyed most. These may give you an approximate idea of the area you want to explore. If, for example, you loved your module on Medieval poetry, this might be your field. If you really hated post-modernism, don't try and write about Virginia Woolf.

If that worked, then try and consider what specific topics piqued your interest. If you did a week in an American lit class about Native American literature and thought it was the coolest thing, take a closer look at that. If someone brought up an ancient folktale that inspired lots of writers and that's a topic you find fascinating, go do some reading.

If looking at your current academic journey hasn't helped, consider what you read for pleasure. (To clarify: this advice is for English lit students, unless you do outside research on your own field of study). If your favourite book of all time is a well-known and highly regarded fantasy or sci-fi novel you can write about that. I have read an article about Misty of Chincoteague. I have seen countless articles about Ursula K. le Guin. I have seen entire books about Tolkien and Lord of the Rings. The truth is, no topic is too obscure really, so long as the interest is there.

THAT BEING SAID, the amount of prior research is important. If you really want to write about a specific text, and there's very little research, don't let it stop you (certainly hasn't stopped my teachers setting texts published in 2019 for essay work) but do consider it when planning your dissertation topic. Is it something that can be worked around? Is there a grounding in literary theory that you could use to pad out your argument? Are there other relevant texts by that author with more academic interest that you could tie in?

As a counterpoint, if there's loads of research already, that actually can be quite limiting. If you're writing about Romeo and Juliet, for example, someone has probably written almost exactly what you wanted to say already. You have to be very original to write a good dissertation about a well-known text. It can be very hard to do something new with a text like that. Honestly, though, as long as it's something you're passionate about, you'll find a way to make it work.

As a final thing to consider, if you get the option to choose your own supervisor, think about what lecturers you like, or would enjoy working with. There's that joke about uni students imprinting on teachers like ducklings and following them around the department, but it's not baseless. If there's a teacher you really like, and share interests with, you can try and guide your research towards something they would be able to help you with, or that you could work together on. It's something you have to be careful with, and you can't force it, but it's something to consider when all else fails.

[stickyy]

Can I have a gn reader x Aizawa? Maybe a college AU where Aizawa doesn't know how to handle his crush because he was awkward when he was young and ended up a bully who was handsy. Thank you!

EEEE this is my first ask so i hope you like it anon! :D thanks so much for requesting!

DISCLAIMER: i do not condone or encourage any of the behavior outlined in the following text. this is a work of fiction, and should be treated as such. :)

wordcount: 2299

warnings: dubcon, verbal abuse, slight dumbification, forced oral sex, brief mentions of gagging/vomit (doesn’t actually happen), aizawa is an law student asshole, quirkless!AU, ooc? more likely than u think

notes: im not like a writer so when i put this in word count and saw it was 2k words i gasped-

MIDTERM

Without a doubt, Aizawa’s the smartest student in your Civil Procedure lecture. You admire him; you’re both first years, but he already has an incredible work ethic and results to show for it. He works two part-time jobs to help pay for school (alongside his impressive scholarship), studies into the late hours of the night (mostly due to his being kept awake very loud roommate), and, despite a bad habit of regularly showing up to your 8 am class slightly hungover, still manages to produce the top marks in the class. 

You’re envious of him, because you’re the exact opposite. Your tuition is paid in full by your parents, you have a wonderfully quiet apartment all to yourself, and you study as best you know how, only to practically fail every assignment. You wish you could be surprised, but the material is a dreadfully bland concoction of boring procedure and esoteric theory that you rarely get further than three or four pages into a chapter. You want to like law, you really do, but there’s something about the intricacies of drafting lawsuits that goes in one ear and out the other. It’s no surprise that you sought out Aizawa’s help, desperate to at least pass the class with a decent grade. 

You wish you hadn’t. 

You don’t understand what you do that bothers him so deeply, but something about you coaxes cruelty from somewhere dark inside of him. You always scurry towards the back of the lecture hall to grab a seat next to him, doing your best to be quiet and unassuming, but he shoots you a venomous glare or a soft flurry of harsh words. And you get it, to an extent- some days you walk into class chattering a little too loudly on the phone, and on others you loudly shuffle around in your book bag to try finding the notes that you attempted to start for this lecture (if you even brought them that day). You know it’s annoying, but you also know you don’t deserve the downright verbal abuse he throws at you for it.

“It’s hard to take notes if you forget your textbook. Try being prepared for once,” he’ll sigh as he slides his textbook to you. Like a good student, he took notes for lecture the night before, but it still took some convincing for him to spare you his textbook.

“Do you ever shut up?” He’ll interrupt you as you babble about your difficulties understanding the most recent lecture. You want to retort, tell him off for being rude, but the words die in your throat; he radiates an annoying apathy that makes you doubt the efficacy of anything you say to him.

“You wouldn’t fail every assignment if you actually studied. Or maybe, you’re actually just stupid?” He’ll quip as you clutch your paper, a red ‘47’ scrawled in the upper corner of the page littered with your professor's critiques and question marks. By contrast, Aizawa’s paper is pristine, donning a singular red mark of ‘98, nice work!’.

With a well placed glare and the sour baritone of his voice, laced with exhaustion, it’s always enough to make your stomach drop from shame and embarrassment. Under normal circumstances, you’d never allow anyone to speak to you that way, but your grade was a dire situation, and with the midterm upcoming, you forcefully swallow your pride and ask him for his help.

You have to beg, but Aizawa agrees to tutor you the day before the midterm. This grade is a make or break for the class- if you do poorly on this exam, you’ll have to drop the lecture to salvage your gpa, putting you half a semester behind your peers. It’s motivation enough to deal with his poor attitude, and the two of you end up reviewing in an empty studying room on the top floor of the library. You began the session alert and determined to catch up, but studying with him shows you just how far behind you are. The textbook sounds like foreign poetry coming from his mouth; Aizawa is nothing short of eloquent when explaining the complexities of something as boring as filing lawsuits, and you spend most of the two hours spent just zoning out, completely unable to focus.

“You’re just wasting my time at this point.” The break in his cadence snaps you out of your trance, unfocused eyes meeting his tired ones, slightly lidded in annoyance, “Are you even trying to remember the material? Or are you just expecting me to spoon-feed it to you?”

Your throat catches, forcing you to swallow a lump as you attempt to ignore his words. 

“I am trying! I just don’t understand why there are two approaches, is all,” You whine, flipping back through your sparse notes to find the section that contained the explanation. 

“I went over that almost 3 chapters ago. If you were paying attention, you would’ve stopped me by now. It’s hard to believe that you even got into this school, if this is how you studied in high school. Did your daddy pull some strings with his buddies in admissions?”

Your eyes narrow, searching harder for the correct section in your notes. That’s a pretty low blow, and even if he’s not completely wrong, it still stings. You now know for a fact you didn’t even read this part of the text, but you keep your eyes trained on the page. At this point, you’d do anything to avoid looking at Aizawa, lest you begin to cry.

“Don’t be an asshole,” is all you can muster, voice shaking with unshed tears, “Would it kill you to be a little nicer? It’s hard to focus when all you do is insult me.”

“It’s hard to focus?” He repeats, his tone a sickly sweet mockery of yours. “Sweetheart, I don’t think that’s my fault. You’re a lot dumber than you think, if you even think at all. The midterm is tomorrow, and we’re just now getting into chapter five. Don’t get mad at me for actually trying to study; if I was holding your hand through it all, we’d still be on chapter one.”

Your vision blurs and a single tear hits the lined paper of your notes, causing the ink to blur as the drop absorbs into the page. You clench your jaw and take a breath before standing up, opening your backpack to put you things away. You didn’t have to take this abuse, you could study on your own. Even if you did poorly, you’d have some of your dignity left.

“It’s pretty rude to just walk out on someone trying to help you,” Aizawa says after a moment, closing his notes shut. “Not only do you give me a headache every single morning, but I try to tutor you and you want to leave without even thanking me? I’m busy, you know? I take time that I don’t have to spare just help your sorry ass out, for free, and you’re not even capable of learning anything from it.”

You sling your bag over your shoulder and move to leave, but you find yourself face to face with Aizawa, his tall frame blocking the door, arms crossed over his chest, and a thoroughly disgusted expression plastered on his features. 

“I should charge you a fee, just for completely wasting an afternoon. Absolutely ridiculous,” His tone is a juxtaposition to his demeanor; he sounds more amused than annoyed, a jeer underlying the words. It makes you feel sick, and you’re suddenly grossly aware of the fact that you're alone with him, the only method of escape blocked. It feels dangerous, and you want nothing more than to be at home, alone and safe.

“H-how much?” You stutter meekly, eager to appease him. “I don’t really have any cash on me but if you have Venmo-”

“That’s not quite what I had in mind,” Your heart starts to jackhammer against your ribcage and panic sets in. You’re frozen in place, unwilling to ask him to elaborate. You may not be very bright, but you have a good idea of what he’s going to ask for, and you can think of a million things you’d rather do instead.

“I know your pretty little skull is practically an echo chamber, so listen closely, okay? We both know that no matter how hard you try, you won’t be ready for the exam by the end of tonight, and I have to work in an hour and a half. So, if you behave and do what I ask you, I’ll let you copy my exam answers tomorrow. Understand?”

You’re silent, paralyzed by fear. A part of you wants to run, desperately, but your mind drifts to the midterm. You know that without any help, you’ll surely fail.

That’s how you end up on your knees in front of him, tears finally streaming down your face from choking on his thick cock. 

“That’s it,” he groans breathlessly, eyes fluttering shut as his head presses back against the door, “I knew you were good for something. I bet this is how you convinced your other teachers to give you a passing grade, huh? A few cocks down your throat-fuck, to save your gpa, I wouldn’t put it past you, dumb slut.”

You hate this- hate being reduced to just a mouth for him to fuck. You hate how he sneers down at you, his eyes alight with sadistic pleasure. You especially hate the treacherous way your spine tingles and heat pools low in your stomach at his amused growls and degrading remarks. He’s just as cruel with the way he fucks into your mouth, disregarding your comfort entirely, hand in your hair roughly guiding your head over his length. He’s almost painfully thick, stretching your lips wide, tickling the recesses of your throat in a grotesque way. You try to wiggle away slightly, just to take a small breath; you’re beginning to feel dangerously lightheaded. You begin to pull your head away but he thrusts his hips upward, holding your head down and  forcing your lips to wrap around the base of his cock.

“S’okay, baby, just relax that empty little head of yours, no need to breathe right now,” he sighs, watching you struggle against him with a smirk, watching the fear bloom in your chest and your mind buzz with the lack of oxygen. Your thrashing shifts his cock in just the right way and you violently gag, eyes widening with the painful sensation. You’re almost convinced he’s going to let you pass out, right before he yanks you off of him. You cough violently, gagging a few more times, drool spilling out of your mouth.

“Throw up on me and a failing grade will be the least of your problems,” he growls, and the threat is a sobering reminder of how fucked up this is. You meet his expectant gaze, and reluctantly return to the task at hand. You can hold out just a little longer, you tell yourself; his hips are beginning to move on their own accord and you know he won’t last much longer. All you have to do is hang on and it will all be over soon.

You know that he’s just a bully, that you’re just doing what you have to do in order to pass this class, that you’re worth more than your grades, that you aren’t stupid- but the dark part of your mind questions if he’s right. Maybe you do belong on your knees, because what do you know? Maybe you are just a dumb slut; there’s no need to study if the only thing you’re good for is swallowing.

The shameful thought forces a new torrent of tears to pour from your eyes, gagging once more on both your tears and his cock, and the look of pure despair on your face pushes him over the edge. Aizawa yanks your head from his cock with a curse and you flinch as his hot cum hits your face. There’s a lot of it, the viscous seed slowly dripping down your face. The sensation is downright disgusting. You feel dirty and used, your throat sore, knees burning, lips swollen from his brutal assault. He presses the tip of his cock on your cheek, smearing his load all over your skin with a cruel laugh.

Through your panting, you keep your eyes closed for a little bit, hoping that maybe this is an awful nightmare and you’ll wake up in your dorm, with an extra day to study and a little more hope in your heart. 

The sound of a camera shutter rips you from your fantasy, opening your eyes to see Aizawa grinning at his phone. You’re too shocked to say anything, only staring at him incredulously from your position on the floor in front of him.

“You’re lucky you’re cute, you know?” He hums as he tidies himself up and grabs his bag. “So photogenic, I’ll be able to get off to this for weeks. Who knows what good you’d be if you were dumb and ugly.”

You didn’t notice that you had stopped crying, but the fresh tears and sound of your own sobs call your attention to fact.

“Try and clean up before you leave, alright? I know you’re a little too stupid to remember, but I don’t think it’d be a good look for you to walk around covered in cum.”

The door clicks closed, and through your sobs you look around at the room, only to notice that there aren’t any tissues left laying around. You hate him, you hate him, you hate him.

(But at least you get an A- on your midterm.)

[chvrliesapcet]

ever since olivia rodrigo released her debut album, SOUR, i have been listening to it on repeat (totally not kidding). so, after seeing a girl on tiktok do something like this, but with the avengers, i was inspired to make this post. there you go:

the poets as olivia rodrigo’s songs.

trigger warning: mention of su*c*de and mental health issues.

brutal: all of them. they’re teenagers, insecure sometimes, trying their best, but sadly not living the teenage dream (what is it, that fucking teenage dream, anyway?). “if someone tells me one more time "enjoy your youth, " i’m gonna cry” and they can’t quit what they’re doing, because their parents would most likely be hurt. “and they'd all be so disappointed 'cause who am if, if not exploited?” they once recited the lyrics of this song as a poem, during one of their meetings, and they were all laughing their asses off. life at hell-ton is brutal, what can i say?

traitor: knox, of course. “god i wish that you had thought this through, before i went and fell in love with you” or “guess you didn’t cheat, but you’re still a traitor” just hit different for him. he thinks about chris when he listens to this song, that’s for sure..! we can’t really blame chris for knox falling in love with her though,, sorry buddy.

drivers license: knox, again. poor boy listens to this song while riding his bike, crying his eyes out. “but today i drove through the suburbs, crying 'cause you weren't around” chris isn’t with that blonde girl, she is that blonde girl. knox has never felt this way for no one, and it’s hard for him to imagine that chris is, well, doing okay without him. he thinks and talks about her all the time. “and all my friends are tired of hearing how much i miss you, but i kinda feel sorry for them 'cause they'll never know you the way that i do”

1 step forward, 3 steps back: todd. like many people (including me!) when he listens to this song, he doesn’t necessarily think of a past relationship (mostly because he has never dated anyone before neil). he thinks of his mental health struggles, such as his anxiety, instead. it’s hard, sometimes. he thinks he’s getting better, but then realizes he isn’t.. “got me fucked up in the head, boy. never doubted myself so much. like am i pretty, am i fun boy? i hate that i gave you power over that kinda stuff” need i say more? this song is as soft, but as sad, as he is.

deja vu: keating. this is.. kind of a joke, but only because i didn’t know who to pair this song with. john was an original member of the dead poets society, and knowing that now, other teenage boys are taking turns reading poetry, in the old indian cave, reminds him of his teenage years. “so when you gonna tell her that we did that, too? she thinks it's special, but it's all reused. that was our place, i found it first” olivia’s music isn’t the type of music he normally listens to, but after hearing students (the poets) talk about her album, during his class, he decided he’d give it a try. he likes it. he loves the lyrics, mostly.

good 4 u: CHARLIE. he loves screaming the lyrics to this song. especially the bridge and the last chorus. “LIKE A DAMN SOCIOPATH!” cameron has to beg him to turn the volume down,, he doesn’t listen to him, obviously, and instead turns the volume up. his argument? ‘this song is meant to be played loud!’ to which cameron responds ‘but not that loud! i’m trying to study!’ he thinks looking at his roommate directly in the eye when singing “baby, what the fuck is up with that?” exactly the way olivia does is funny. cameron just rolls his eyes every time, but it’s hard for him to hide the smile taking place on his lips.

enough for you: pitts. although he and stev/phen are both super, super smart, i think meeks is the ‘genius’ of the group. and that, can, sometimes, make pitts feel like he might not be good enough for his boyfriend, whom he loves very much. “and i knew how you took your coffee, and your favorite songs by heart. i read all of your self-help books so you'd think that i was smart” whenever he doubts himself, meeks is the first to reassure him and tell him he’s more than enough, but still.. “'cause all i ever wanted was to be enough for you” he listens to this song with his earphones, always, so no one knows he listens to it on repeat.

happier: meeks. ever since charlie got expelled, he can’t stop listening to this song. these two were pretty close, (“he flatters me, that’s why i help him with latin”) and stev/phen doesn’t like thinking about his friend being in a new school, and spending time with other people. “so find someone great but don't find no one better. i hope you're happy, but don't be happier” he wishes charlie would still be with them, at welton, even if he hated it. “your friends aren't mine, you know, i know. you’ve moved on, found someone new” or “does she mean you forgot about me?” he’s being a bit overdramatic, considering charlie comes to see the poets at least once a week, and still attends the dps meetings.. but anyway.

jealousy, jealousy: cameron, because, yes, he’s smart and everything, but he’s still jealous of other people, and wishes he were different. he thinks he should be like the other guys. “all i see, is what i should be, happier, prettier, jealousy, jealousy” he also thinks that, maybe then, people would like him more </3. he knows no one really hates him, but feels like no one really likes him, either. and in his opinion, it’s because he’s.. him. “I'm so sick of myself, i’d rather be, rather be, anyone, anyone else” just like mr. k, this type of music isn’t what he usually listens to, but he relates to this song so much, he can’t help but listen to it at least once a day.

favorite crime: neil. just like todd, he doesn’t associate this song with a relationship he had in the past. actually, he thinks of his father (and his mom, a bit, too) and all of the things his dad forces him to do, even if it upsets him. “those things i did, just so i could call you mine. the things you did, well, i hope i was your favorite crime” i know we don’t usually talk about the canon ending, but i have to. mr. perry didn’t want his son to pursue his dreams, and planned neil’s life for him, which made him feel so miserable, he sadly committed su*c*de.. but then, his dad wasn’t blamed for it, to preserve his reputation. “and i watched as you fled the scene, doe-eyed as you buried me, one heart broke, four hands bloody” todd knows this was neil’s favorite song. he listens to it once in a while, in their room, alone, and cries.

hope ur ok: all of them. do they know how proud i am they were created? after all they’ve been through, especially their family problems, i’m glad they found each other. “she was tired 'cause she was brought into a world where family was merely blood” and even when life throws bad things at them, they always stay strong, and support each other through everything. they’re very brave. “well, i hope you know how proud i am you were created, with the courage to unlearn all of their hatred” i love them, my beautiful poets <33

[mst3kproject]

The Giant of Marathon

For some reason, probably because I've seen them all so many times, I thought I'd already done all four Film Crew episodes.  Evidently this is not true.  Here's one, and if you haven't seen it... wow, Mr. Honcho was not exaggerating about the thousands of sweaty men.

Philippides of Athens is the greatest athlete there is, having won the entire Olympics. With the games over, he returns to his day job as commander of the Athenian city guard.  Followers of Hippias the exiled tyrant are plotting to take control of the city with help from the invading Persians, and they try to seduce Philippides to their cause by offering him wine, women, and homoerotic wrestling (it was ancient Greece, after all).  Philippides refuses to be seduced, and sets off to secure the help of Athens' old enemy Sparta in opposing the Persians.  His mission is a success, but upon his return a spy tells him that the Persians are planning a sneak attack on the harbour of Piraeus.  Can even Philippides get there in time to deliver the warning?

I don't actually know if it were possible to win the entire Olympics in ancient Greece.  I know there were several events and at least one of them involved reciting poetry.  The Battle of Marathon was in 490 BC and a table on Wikipedia suggests that there could have been up to twelve different sports, but some of them were only for children.

The Giant of Marathon touts itself as a tale of epic battles, daring deeds, and political machinations.  I'll get back to the epic battles and daring deeds, but what stands in for the political machinations is mostly a bunch of people pining.  Unimpressive villain Theocritus is pining for the beautiful Andromeda, whose father has promised her to him but she thinks he's a dick.  She's pining for Philippides, who is also pining for her but thinks she's one of Hippias' followers, so refuses to speak to her.  Meanwhile Theocritus' concubine Charis is also pining for Philippides because he's the only man who ever refused to fuck her, I think.

These relationships are important to the plot, too.  Andromeda's love for Philippides is one of the reasons her father refuses to join the traitors, and when Theocritus realizes he cannot have her, he ties her to the prow of his ship to force Philippides to watch her die.  Charis' crush on Philippides leads her to her death, as she is executed for spying.  Yet none of it is ever developed beyond 'these two pretty people saw each other and now they want to bone'.  Philippides declares his love for Andromeda after a single five-minute interaction.  Charis has seen Philippides twice, and both times it went badly, when she decides to betray Theocritus.

Why do the writers hang such important plot points on the 'love' between people who have barely spoken to each other?  I can't decide if it's because they're lazy, or because they're hacks, and I lean towards a combination of the two.  There is absolutely no subtlety to the writing in The Giant of Marathon at all.  Everything is told, not shown.  We know that Theocritus and Creusus are traitors because they talk about it, in dialogue that's clearly written for the audience, not as anything that sounds like a natural conversation. We know that Charis and Andromeda are both in love with Philippides because they say so.  The only thing we're really shown is that Andromeda hates Theocritus, which comes through in her body language (though we are also very much told), so props to actress Mylène Demongeot for that much.

The movie doesn't care about any of this character stuff, anyway.  It just wants to get straight to those epic battle scenes, and it's very obvious how much work and time went into those as opposed to everything else.  The battles are lengthy and elaborate, full of impressive stunts and props and miniatures being destroyed all over the place.  We get to see Persian chariots run down Greek infantry, and while I'm pretty sure this would have been orchestrated so the stuntmen didn't get hurt, I'm not nearly so confident about the unfortunate horses (and neither was Bill).  There are ships in flames and injured men screaming as they fall overboard.  There are even some pretty good deaths, like the guy who was hit in the eye with an arrow.  The desperate last stand of the city guard against the entire Persian fleet, with the Spartans arriving just in time to save the day, is very tense indeed.

I get the impression that this is what somebody really wanted to put on screen, and they did a decent job of it, but pretty much the entire rest of what ought to be the story is just an accessory to the fighting stuff.  It's as if the film-makers wanted so badly for their fight sequences to be epic that they forgot what makes epic-ness – which is the characters and their stake in the events. We don't know any of these people, none of them have anything we might call a personality trait, and so we don't care.

The focus on how epic it all is makes I seem a little strange that the battle ends on a shot of dead Persian guys floating in the water. You'd think they'd want to end with something that more decisively shows the Athenian victory, maybe the men cheering as the Persian ships turn around and flee.  Or perhaps some kind of victory celebration, which could mirror the celebration of Philippides winning the Olympics in the opening and call back to the scene where Philippides asks the goddess Athena to protect her city.

Instead, we cut to a shot of Philippides and Andromeda walking across the farmland together.  This feels a little too sudden, and is also a poor fit with the rest of the movie.  The only time we've seen Philippides on his farm is when he's gotten disgusted with the politics of Athens and returned to the countryside to sulk.  If the farm is supposed to be a place where he's happy and at peace, the movie never establishes it.

So that's political machinations and epic battle sequences, let's talk about some daring deeds.

Unlike the Hercules and Maciste movies we've seen in the past, The Giant of Marathon wants to be grounded in real-life history.  This means that while the script does reference gods and mythical heroes, none of them ever appear and there is no hint of them working behind the scenes to bring events about.  Likewise, Philippides is not a demigod, so we avoid several of the tropes associated with the genre.  Nothing important ever happens (or fails to happen) because the hero was asleep, and he never bends prison bars or drinks a love potion – although a love potion is mentioned, as if to draw attention to this.

This doesn't leave Philippides a whole lot of scope for daring deeds, and when they try the results are a little lackluster.  His main feat is, of course, running all the way from Marathon to Athens (the proverbial forty-two kilometres) to let them know of the impending attack, but while this ought to be the highlight of the movie it's shot in terrible day-for-night and we have nothing to suggest how far this is... I think the writers just assumed everybody knows the length of a marathon.  If we'd seen the army tired from making the march earlier, we would have a better sense of it being a long and tiring journey even at a walk or with horses, and it would seem that much more formidable as a distance for one man to cover before sunrise.  Of course, showing us these things is apparently beyond the scope of The Giant of Marathon's writers, but you'd think they could at least have a character say something like, “it's twenty-six miles!  He'll never make it!”

His other major daring deed is when he pushes giant boulders down a hill onto the attacking Persians.  This is kind of weird because Philippides is not Hercules or Maciste.  He's good at track and field, but we haven't seen any evidence of him having godlike strength, and this is a universe where gods don't seem to do much anyway, so it comes out of nowhere.  The rocks are huge – there are similarly-sized ones at the park near my house and I know one guy couldn't move them no matter how buff he might be.  Did somebody just forget that they weren't making a Hercules movie?

Between the battles and the various plot twists, The Giant of Marathon could have been a pretty fun sword-and-sandal movie, but it's like a tower without a foundation.  The fights have nothing to hold them up, so we just can't get into it. Also, what the Underworld happened to Hippias? We see him once, chatting with the king of Persia, and then he vanishes and the movie decides weaselly little Theocritus is the big bad instead. I'm sorry, but if you've got a character with a name as cool as 'Hippias the Tyrant', you really can't just drop him like that.

The Best Brains liked to complain about the tinyness of the costumes in these movies but honestly, nothing here is as off-putting as actual ancient Greek sports would have been to the modern viewer.  When I was in university I TA'd for a course called Introduction to Greco-Roman Civilization. It was an adventure in several ways – the students were mostly dumb freshmen who spent the lectures playing Farmville, and the professor didn't give a shit because she'd just been denied tenure.  I don't know how much anybody learned in that class, but I'm sure they all recall how, after the professor told us that Greek athletes stripped naked and covered themselves in olive oil before wrestling, somebody raised a hand and asked if they removed their body hair.  The professor cheerfully told him that they did not, so next time we see a Greek vase we ought to remember that these guys were much sweatier, oilier, and hairier than terra cotta can possibly convey.

[sniigura-archive]

why can't you see me (4)

chapter one

I deleted chapter 4&5 because I thought they were trash 😔

_______________

it all started with vocaloid covers. yes, you're also cringing right now. you were how old? 12? 13? it doesn't really matter, to make it short: a few years ago you posted a shitty cover, of an edgy song.

you went viral. thousands of likes and comments were made on your YouTube video, which was recorded with your laptop microphone.

not going to lie, you were shocked. holy fuck? people liked you? your content? that's new.

well, not really. your best friend at the time told you to upload it. he supported you! how nice of him.

one cover caused 2 to be made, then 3, then 4 and after 10 covers you posted your first original song. you didn't actually think that your fans would support it, but they did.

that all happend in the span of a year, or two.

you weren't so sure, you lost your feeling for time a while ago.

after that original song record labels wanted you (you were easy to take advantage of after all). problem was, or still is, you're a minor.

you can't sign anything, you don't have an accutal agent, or manager, you don't have shit. to be honest, you also aren't sure how you're doing it. well, it's easier now because of streaming platforms and your best friend likes to play manager.

it's less stressful at least, you publish whatever you want, when you want it. nobody controls your social media account.

you accutally make money, a lot of it. but to keep yourself humble you donate a huge part, and put the other one in a savings account.

you're so smart! so mature! an old soul! not like the others! a delight to have in class!

you're absolutely burned out.

companies constantly messaging you for you to promote this! newest product! so good! the best thing on the market! when it's trash, a way to get money.

but everything is like that, isn't it? you're also selling trash. making trash music and poetry. wow, you're so special. an artist! royalty, you drew all the album covers yourself? no wonder they look like that.

your age is a mystery, so is your face and real name. people were able to figure out your height by a simple picture of you besides a dresser.

they know you live in japan, you were forced to publish that as you got nearly cancelled for wearing a kimono. life is great!

constant comments and messages of "you changed" were flooding you. of course you changed? bro? you were only 13?

it's called character development.

your fame is basically a secret, besides your best friend and school nobody knows.

you didn't bother telling your father because he didn't want to listen, pretty sad. you tried, you really did but he was busy, as always.

now it's too awkward to tell him.

"hey, papa, by the way im like a prodigy in the music business and i have more instagram followers then you."

yeah, as if (even tho you have to check if you accutally finally got more followers then him).

the older you get, the more followers you get, the less you post.

you're arrogant, they scream.

you're so so tired. constant spotlight. constant critism and people who think you're god. it's so much.

sometimes you're thinking about deleting it all, but you like the attention.

but if you see one more newspaper saying you died or that you're accutally a villain, on god you're going to go crazy.

"Top 10 face claims for faceless celebrities!"

murder on your mind.

______________

toshinori is embarrassed. as he's sitting with his co workers, he feels just straight up bad that he accutally has to think hard about his kid hobby.

"well.. they like cats? and.. ah! they play the guitar."

"acoustic or electric?"

"...there is more then one guitar type?"

his three coworker sighed. well, earserhead would, if he wasn't asleep.

midnight looked at the clock and quickly stood up, "well, i have to go! the kids don't teach themselves."

the two others also quickly realised the time, toshinori stood up, while present mic woke earserhead up.

god, he has to think of a bonding activity. concerts? no, it wouldn't work out for different reasons.

what did you talk about last time he saw you?

when was the last time he saw you?

shacking his head, he quickly remembered an email from your school.

your school was hosting an internship! that's the solution! you work here for a few weeks, he works here! perfect! what could go wrong?

__________

"no."

"why not?"

"because i said no?" with that you turned back to your computer.

"well, i think it would be a great learning experience!"

"and i think it would be very useless for me. i'm not interested in hero's. besides that, i already got a place at a company which I'm accutally interested in." you don't.

"it's not about hero's, it's about teaching."

"I hate children."

"you are also a child?"

"yes, and have you ever seen me get along with somebody my age?"

silence. he feels defeated. maybe he needs to put his foot down?

"you're going to work at UA during your internship, this is finally." thinking about it, he wasn't even sure if UA does internships.

"no, nice try though! appricate the effort. now get out, it's not halloween yet so i don't need any skeletons in my room."

toshinori has to take a deep breath to remind himself that you're just a kid. he can fight you physically once you're 18.

using your full name to get your attention, he used his last card, "please do the internship with me. see it as an bonding experience."

"..okay whatever, but if it sucks i can get another cat."

toshinori felt like a winner, but he needs to ask nezu first. the internship is still a few months away, who knows what will happen during these months.