#fellowship meaning in education

[tobrodachi]

UOOOOOOOOOOOH

MY MIND IS EXPANDING TO ITS LIMIT

my power is unleashed

i can see...........

everything

no joke, i think I just hit that point in the residency where everything just clicks, and I can start acting as a guide to the newer generation instead

Now, what I'm missing? Experience. I have the theory, but I lack practical experience on how to actually use it, amd hopefully, this one more year and a half can provide

[izvmimi]

cw: spoilers. after timeskip. selfship-coded. reader has a defined quirk. hurt/comfort.

As strong as the bond between any high school class can be (even yours, arguably more a small superpowered militia than a group of hopeful freshmen in far over their heads and strong enough to make it through the other end anyway), paths diverge as people follow their dreams, even if they will all forever call UA their home. 

It’s fitting that Izuku Midoriya, indisputably the most affected by the trauma of the meta war has kept UA as home base, and settling into his new career as teacher has remained both expected and fulfilling, even if poorly introspective onlookers would think otherwise. He is the heart of what it means to be a hero and that is to inspire the present and the future, and carry on the lessons of the past.

He is also your heart, you muse, as you find him sitting at your kitchen table, poring over graded essays, the red ink from his excessively lengthy corrections and comments practically jumping off the paper it’s scribbled on. You set down your work bag and attempt to sneak up behind him, but even if he’s focused and still, he’s always sharp, setting his pen down to turn around and greet you with a kiss.

“Hey, you’re later than usual, so I just let myself in, is that okay?” he asks. You nod, moving over to wash your hands in the sink quickly, then coming back around to pull a chair next to him. 

You’ve wanted to ask him to just move in together for months now, especially since now you spend more time at each other’s places than you do your own separate ones, but something about the proposition has felt wrong, rushed maybe. It’s been just a little over a year since you moved back to Japan after your fellowship overseas, and while you’ve remained in a varying level of contact the whole time since graduation, the flux of things has changed significantly instead of settling normally. For one, confessing an unrelenting affection that was kept mostly secret since high school had changed the trajectory of your lives, finding ways to incorporate seeing each other without fanfare between your busy post-grad education and his UA courses, then finally a year of long distance had made it difficult to ever feel like things had been truly steady.

“I wouldn’t have given you a code or key if not, silly,” you remind him. He smiles, and you glance over at the last assignment he’s corrected, and grimace. 

“You know if Aizawa had given me this many comments on an essay, I wouldn’t have shown up the next day, Izuku,” you remind him. He laughs, as you take the paper and read his feedback, mind spinning.

“I mean, no kid’s ever cried yet. I try to be nice.”

He is nice, you think, realizing that not a single word in the practical novel he’s scribbled in the margins of the brief constructed response can be misconstrued as disappointed or demanding. 

In fact, you would have cried tears of joy reading this. 

“How was the clinic?” he asks over the turn of another page.

“The most darling kid who didn’t have a Quirk manifest yet at age 5 showed up with worried parents with too much money on their hands.” You twist your mouth to the side. 

Izuku doesn’t look up as he says, “Oh, that’s too bad.”

There’s a pang of discomfort in your chest for a split second, but he doesn’t say anything else, scribbling a series of checkmarks and x’s, the quick scritch of his pen a little louder and resounding.

Izuku was meant to be Quirkless and is happy being Quirkless yet again, his mission fulfilled and the world better for it - even if sometimes only marginally so - but you know he yearns for the ability to be back on the field, with the same restlessness All Might once recounted feeling once he’d retired to teach as well. It’s evident in the way Izuku stays up a little too late reading/watching the news at every level, and how much of his free time he coordinates to a similarly intense training program at the crack of dawn, and the fact that even now he bristles at the implication of Quirklessness as a disability.

Everyone can be a hero. He was the greatest of them all - is, in fact, and not just your personal one, but his own personal world has shrunk. Documentaries, videos, people’s memories will not change that the fact that he’s far bigger than the quiet life he lives.

Now he’s relegated to cheering his friends on, day in and day out, and preparing a path for the youth to surpass him, something he is willing to do, but you know perhaps the timing is a bit too early for someone who shines as brightly as him. 

You rest your head on his shoulder. I love you, you could say out loud, I love you, and the world loves you, for you even more than what you did and what you represent, but it doesn’t help and Izuku cannot help sometimes interpreting your love as pity.

“What do you want for dinner?” you ask instead, keeping your voice as gentle as possible.

He turns to kiss your forehead. “I’m good with anything.”

You hate that no matter what you ask, big or small, he’ll always say this, and decide you’ll order his favorite food instead.

—

Years ago, when Mei contacted you out of the blue while you were ass deep in your medical school finals, asking you if you remembered the last time you’d used your Quirk on Izuku Midoriya, you had immediately assumed she had officially gone insane. It had been greater than five years since you’d last had a normal conversation with her at all, if even that could be considered normal, and you hadn’t had a need to use your Quirk on Izuku since the meta war.

“I know it’s a long shot but I need to know if you still remember-”

“I do,” you answered quickly, then immediately your face warmed at the admission. You can’t help that your Quirk gives you near perfect memory of people by their neuronal diagram, but something about it feels stalkerish when you still think of him affectionately, and not just as someone you’ve once healed. It also doesn’t help what the circumstances were when you’d healed him… but that would be a concern and memory for later.

“How can I help?”

Katsuki rolled his eyes visibly at you when you showed up to Hatsume’s lab the very next day but the animosity between you two has been a running schtick for years and you responded in jest. Using Hatsume’s program to redraw each neuronal connection from memory and adjusting for differences related to age was your greatest contribution to Izuku’s suit, small sums of money to contribute to the class pot whenever you could spare them the other.

There was always a little pang of jealousy that Katsuki could always offer up more money than you could, which once you’d confided to him by late night phone call days before All Might came back to Japan, he’d remind you,

“I’m just trying to beat your boyfriend in a fair fight, don’t make this about you.”

Katsuki’s rash way of speaking has always intuitively comforted you in just this way. It brings a smile to your face, and you offer him a word of thanks, anyway.

“He doesn’t know, does he? I know you like to run your mouth.” 

Katsuki can’t see you roll your eyes. “He’s none the wiser, don’t worry.”

“Good.” 

—

Izuku sends you a daily good morning message, and you’ve rarely beaten him to the punch, but this morning, you offer him a phone call as you make your way to the center of the city to work. All Might is coming back today and will present his suit to him then, the fruit of all your joint labors, and you were practically unable to sleep due to the excitement. Part of you agonized over whether or not you should try to be with him in the moment, but this is a moment to be kept between them, mentor and mentee.

“How are you feeling this morning, Izuku?” you ask, hoping the pants of your speedwalk (late to work as usual), don’t concern him through the phone.

“Weirdly enough, excited. There’s a feeling I can’t quite place, a good one,” he starts, and your grin is ear to ear.

Hours later, you get an excited text and one of the happiest phone calls you’ve ever received, and your heart is full to bursting.

—

“It’s fine, you don’t have to fuss over me,” Izuku insists, and you pout. There’s one stubborn emerald curl that won’t right itself in your opinion, and he’ll be on set for an interview in just a few minutes - the first since returning to active hero work - but he holds your fingers in his hand and pulls them to his lips instead.

“It’s okay. Don’t be nervous on my behalf,” he reminds you as he kisses them. His eyes are kind and relaxing, and you let out a deep breath, biting your lower lip. “I’ve got this, I promise.”

“Fine.”

“I love you,” he reminds you. “Thank you for always being by my side.”

You nod, as his assistant whisks him away, and he steps back into the spotlight, where he’s always belonged.

[astriiformes]

One opportunity for fiddling with canon in the Fellowship Road Trip AU is that, since it's a modern setting, the characters all have phones and even the split-up groups can stay in touch, barring poor signal or other obstacles when the plot calls for it.

This does not actually end up helping them much, but it does mean that when Sam texts the groupchat about Shelob, Legolas can immediately swoop in with one of the many infographics he's developed in his work as an invasive species biologist to educate the public on giant spiders. As Sam is trying to fight one.

[noctivagantpodcast]

I Live On Stolen Land

Consider donating to one of these wonderful charities dedicated to preserving the cultures, livelihoods, rights, and dignity of Indigenous peoples.

First Nations Development Institute. Information taken from their 'Our Programs' page: Grantmaker dedicated to addressing financial inequality and its many, many negative impacts. In additional to financial aid, FNDI provides job training and participates in policy-making and advocacy, often focusing on environmental concerns, food insecurity, and tribal sovereignty. Some examples of current projects include "Fortifying Our Forests" AKA restoring and protecting sacred land in partnership with the Forest Service, Native Language Immersion Initiative AKA ensuring the survival of Native languages, and Native Farm To School AKA connecting Native youth with traditional means of growing and harvesting food.

Native American Rights Fund A registered non-profit that provides legal representation in matters of Native interest, be that a single individual or an entire tribe. Since their inception, they have won cases that made critical contributions to the advancement of Native rights in the United States. Their efforts have helped uphold tribal sovereignty, compelled museums, universities, and other institutions to return the remains of Native ancestors, and protected the voting rights of pretty much everyone.

Redhawk Native American Arts Council This organization's primary focus is on the preservation of Native American arts through educational programs. We can also thank them for granting scholarships to Native students seeking higher education, and for running a youth program which aims to help Urban Indigenous youth connect with their heritage through the arts.

Seventh Generation Fund A "fiscal sponsor" for smaller community groups that are run by and for Native tribes/individuals, with the focus of preserving heritage and defending tribal sovereignty, as well as continued survival post-genocide. One example of their work is the Flicker Fund, a disaster fund dedicated to supporting Indigenous communities during times of crisis, be that a pandemic, extreme weather, or a severe drought. Another is the Traditions Bearers Fellowship, which provides financial support to tribal community members who carry on pre-colonization traditions.

Quiluete Move To Higher Ground Stephanie Meyer committed a serious of egregious acts of cultural appropriation and exploitation, and made a very large fortune off a very real tribe. This very real tribe now finds themselves living in a tsunami zone and unable to afford a move to a safer area. As of 2022, the move of the Tribal School, the most important phase, is complete, but there's much more work to be done.

Indigenous Women Rising Abortion Fund A fund to provide Native individuals and family access to abortion care, menstrual hygiene supplies, and midwifery. Here are two separate articles verifying their status as the ONLY indigenous specific (and Indigenous led) abortion fund. For more information on how the destruction of Roe V Wade has negatively impacted Indigenous women, look here and here.

South Dakota Historical Society Foundation So, this isn't a Native led or Native specific organization, but, they work closely with Indigenous communities in South Dakota to preserve their heritage alongside the state's history. I recently had a lovely conversation with one of their representatives about the Ghost Shirt their society is sheltering until such a time as the tribe it rightfully belongs to can house it safely. Article about the shirt's repatriation with some cool info on the shirt's history is here.

[rosewaterandivy]

Ernest Frank only has lovely things to say about you

Another Thursday morning in Mr. Moore’s home room to which Eddie is, as always, late. He prizes the white tardy slip between his fingers and tosses it on the baseball coach’s desk before slipping into his usual seat.

Right behind you, of course.

The composition book slaps against the wood laminate of the desk while he scrambles for a pen in his bag. His hand flexes in the various recesses of the backpack only to come up empty.

He sighs and rolls his head back to stare at the white ceiling tiles. He contemplates his options.

Eddie could ask Wheeler or Buckley, both only a row or two over from him and obnoxiously prepared for a day of classes.

Or he could ask you and risk disrupting your reading of… Dune? A book he definitely fell asleep reading and subsequently had given up the ghost only to reread The Fellowship of the Ring once more.

Only he’d never exactly gotten the courage to speak to you despite his many opportunities to do so. As member for NHS, it’d been a near miss that he’d lucked out with Wheeler as his tutor instead of you. And on one particular Hellfire night when he was walking back to the drama room, he’d passed the debate club mid-Lincoln Douglas prep when you’d inadvertently made some sophomore cry over being anti-death penalty.

You were smart. And you were scary. You were scary smart. But in a way that made him pop a semi in Government during yet another one of your tirades about the separation of church and state while the rest of the class rolled their eyes and complained.

He eyes the clock above the chalkboard, hands counting down the mere minutes left before the bell for first period. And yet again, he’s wasted another opportunity to talk to you.

Slinging a bag over your shoulder, you give him a small smile and wave to Nancy on your way out.

The bell trills out signaling yet another educational experience at Hawkins High, when he spies a worn and battered book left behind in your desk.

Grabbing the paperback before he can think better of it, Eddie realizes that he has no way to get it back to you. The debate team leaves for a tournament today, which means you won’t be in class this afternoon to hem and haw about the three branches of government.

He pockets the book and figures he’ll get it back to you later next week.

At least, that’s the plan. But then he starts reading it again, your copy this time, and finds that he can’t put it down.

He’s so invested, in fact, that he does end up borrowing a pencil from Buckley and writes his thoughts in the margins. Doesn’t even realize what he’s doing until it’s too late. Just knows that he wants to talk to you about the Atreides and Harkonnens and the Kwisatz Haderach and the Fremen.

Eddie finishes the book just in time for home room with Mr. Moore on Monday. Drops the book unceremoniously on your desk and tosses his tardy pass to the coach as he takes his seat.

Holding the book in one hand, you thumb through the pages and scan his notes.

“Thought you didn’t crack books Munson, much less annotate them.”

“I read,” He quips back, affronted by your lazy drawl and smirk.

“Well, I distinctly remember you saying that you didn’t.”

“Much.” He supplies, smiling as you finally turn around with a raised brow. “I believe the question was if I read much.”

“And you said no.” You shake the copy of Dune, all 896 pages of it.

There’s a small furrow between your brows as you weigh the semantics of the conversation. He decides that it’s cute and vows to make you replicate it as many times as he can get away with.

“Well,” he sighs out with a slight shrug. “What is ‘much’?”

[harrisonarchive]

In Rishikesh, 1968. Photo courtesy of Paul Horn.

“The things I learned from the yogis and mystics of the East are still in me. And I think in the end, no matter what happens with this planet, the only answer really lies within each of us. Now doctors are saying Meditation should be introduced into the National Health. Why do you think we were saying this in 1967? They all said we were a bunch of lunatics, but it’s proven now that we weren’t that dumb after all.” - George Harrison, Daily Express, July 29, 1989 “George wanted to support anyone dedicating time or helping people to have better understanding of their purpose of life. And that included Transcendental Meditation, Self-Realization Fellowship, the Hare Krishna movement, you know, anyone who had a desire to find out something of the more spiritual nature, George was really ready to support. I mean, not everything, he didn’t tolerate kooks much, you know? But he really — he thought that schools should teach yoga, should teach people how to live. He thought that an education — they weren’t teaching children things that really would help them with their internal life.” - Olivia Harrison, NPR, 2004

[autumnalmess]

For the consideration of the privy council: Grantaire introducing Enjolras to music and cinema.

Consider Enjolras who is "austere in his enjoyments" learning that there is such thing as music that is not just background music to work to, and film that is not just designed to teach you something.

Consider Grantaire gaping at Enjolras for never having heard of the Beatles, sitting him down and forcing headphones over his fluffy golden hair to force him to listen to 'A Day in the Life'.

Enjolras going "this is so stupid" until it hits the second verse and he suddenly becomes very quiet.

Grantaire dragging Enjolras along to the cinema to watch reruns of The Fellowship of the Ring, after which Enjolras grumbles the whole way home, but asks to see the next movie just to "make sure they're all bad".

Grantaire showing up on Enjolras' doorstep with an armful of DVDs because he just has to educate him.

Enjolras discovering Wes Anderson, and the concept of comfort movies, curling up to watch a film not because it means anything or has a deep political comment to make about the human race, but just because it's fun.

Grantaire watching Enjolras more than the film.

Grantaire letting Enjolras borrow his Spotify to find something he likes and almost tearing up when Enjolras says "have you heard of this band called Fleetwood Mac? I've been listening to a couple of their songs".

Grantaire desperately trying to explain to Courfeyrac that it's "not a date! Enjolras has just never been to a proper concert before!"

Enjolras suggesting they share wired earbuds because it's "more efficient" and definitely not because it means they have to sit closer together.

Enjolras learning that life is not about how efficiently you plough through it.

[peppermint-cardboard]

hey. hello my friend. i am grabbing you by the shoulders oh so gently. do not become hopeless. that is exactly what they want. blue state governments will give them hell over the next presidential term, and you can rest assured there will absolutely be people in our government fighting for democracy.

the thing we can all do that will have the most direct immediate impact and will lay the groundwork for cultures of help, creativity, and love is to get involved at the local community level.

i’m talking especially to my fellow teens here!!! may not be able to vote but that doesn’t mean we’re not able to help.

for my fellow Angelenos!

Hollywood Food Coalition - free food! you can sign up to volunteer and do meal prep (cooking), meal service (serving food), or help at their food bank. locations are on their website. thanksgiving is coming up and HFC will need volunteers!

My Friend’s Place - free aid for youth homelessness, especially queer youth homelessness. volunteering is for 18 years and older

Los Angeles LGBT Center - exactly what it sounds like. offers a wide range of wonderful services and opportunities for volunteering. also works with school GSAs!

Moonwater Farm - a community farm in Compton with great opportunities for education and sometimes paid fellowships

for people everywhere else! just some general recommendations:

The Trevor Project - queer youth services that have saved my ass a number of times. i don’t know if they call the police as part of their responses or not (offers a single-click-to-leave button in case of emergency)

TrevorSpace - a great queer youth-centered website and a very safe place for queer community and discussion

Debate Me, Bro - a great anarchist newsletter/advice column run by a friend of mine!

The Child And Its Enemies - anarchist child rights-focused podcast also run by that same friend of mine :)

Neocities - make a website! learn some HTML! it’s fun, it’s pretty simple, and it’s a way to get a message out if that’s what you want but it’s also just a great de-stresser

Queer Liberation Library - need i even elaborate on the importance of libraries and access to queer media over the coming few years? (offers a single-click-to-leave button in case of emergency)

American Civil Liberties Union - an activism and aid organization that gave the Republicans absolute hell last time and will continue to do so this time

Blackline (800-604-5841) - a crisis and help hotline prioritizing BI&POC and black queer people. will not call the police!

Trans Lifeline (US: 877-565-8860, Canada: 877-330-6366) - a helpline run by and for trans folks. has a quick escape button and will not call the police!

Wildflower Alliance Peer Support Line (888-407-4515) - a warmline to chat with trained therapists and professionals. will not call the police!

StrongHearts Native Helpline (844-762-8483) - a domestic and sexual violence helpline prioritizing Native Americans and Alaska Natives. has a quick escape button and will not call the police!

Thrive Lifeline (313-662-8209) - a live crisis warmline prioritizing marginalized people. also offers text messaging! will not call the police!

LGBT National Health Center (888-843-4564) - exactly what it sounds like! warmlines for queer people if you need help. has a quick escape button and will not call the police!

Transfeminine Science - a fantastic resource for... transfeminine science. exactly what it says on the tin.

Planned Parenthood - an incredibly prolific and important organization that offers a very wide array of vastly important services. if you live in an at least semi-urban city in the U.S., Planned Parenthood probably has a clinic near you. you should find out if they do!!!

please feel free to add more resources if you know any!!

other recommendations: say hi to a neighbor. bake someone a pie. start a garden. treat homeless people like your neighbors (because they are). propose a community movie night. have a party in your apartment building. call a friend. text a friend. draw something. cook something good. go to a restaurant you like. buy some DVDs. get a new stuffed animal. compliment a stranger’s shirt. ask for a hug. offer someone a hug. listen to music. KEEP LIVING!!!!!!!!!

don't just survive, keep living <3

[starry-scarl3tt]

HOLD ON. I think I can figure out the inconsistencies in Chase’s education timeline. In ‘The Mistake’, he tells Kayla (the patient) that his dad leaving and his mom ‘crawling into a bottle’ made for a horrible 12th year of HS. But we know that Chase’s dad left when he was 15—so that would mean Chase was 15 (assuming it wasn’t just a miscommunication) in the last year of high school. We’re going to say he went through four years of pre-med so = 19 when he started med school. Going to give him a generous 4 years of med school, which results in him being 23 when he got his MD. Plus 3 years of residency, which means he would be 26 at the start of the show, which House later confirms in ‘Cursed’ (i think 1x13). You’re welcome :)

(+fellowships are usually for those who are getting specialisation so it could be likely that Chase was a surgical resident during the course of season 1-4.)

[kylobith]

LotR Week - Day 4 (19th Sep)

Gifts, burdens and choices — @lotrweek

The Elves have long stopped their lament, yet a cacophony lingers within Boromir’s mind. The others have gone to sleep, and even Frodo finally seems to dream again. Their snores fill their shared nook. He envies them, he does. Ever since his unsettling meeting with the Lady Galadriel, there has been nothing but turmoil in his soul. Will it ever end, the spiralling?

Exhaustion is there, though, he can feel it deep in his bones. Everything hurts, every muscle in his body. He, who has always been one for exercise and fighting, is not immune to the toll that the past days have taken on the fellowship, on both body and heart. He is no longer as young and fierce as he once was.

But that deeply rooted anguish within him… Ageing has nothing to do with it all. It would have been easy to dismiss it as a symptom of passing time, but that would have meant lying to himself and everyone who shared the weight of the task at hand. There have been too many lies as of late. He may not desire to instantly trust the first person he encounters, but he certainly refuses to continue this vicious circle of deception. What purpose would that serve? The world is a harsh enough place as it is, and the whole plan is to make it a better place.

Just a ring. Nothing but a silly, little ring. The very fate of Middle-earth rests in Frodo’s hands. Embodied by that tiny golden circle. He might not be as well-taught as Aragorn or Faramir are, but even he knows how disastrous the consequences would be should the quest fail. And it is nothing but a stupid ring.

How absurd life has become since his first puzzling dreams that his brother shared with him. Nothing is going according to plan either. It was all simple, though. Go to Rivendell, seek an audience with Elrond, find out the cause of these dreams and their meaning, educate himself on the broken sword, then return to Minas Tirith to inform Denethor on his findings and prepare against any approaching threat. Easy. But not so easy. Now, he is far from home, shivering in the night surrounded by his travel companions, burdened with a quest much greater than what he knows he can handle, and Gandalf is dead. Dead.

He can still remember the wizard’s occasional visits to Minas Tirith back when he was nothing but a boy. While he did spend more time with Faramir than with him — much to Denethor’s relief, after all, why should his precious firstborn’s time be wasted by the fanciful stories of an old man? — he did enjoy his presence, just like any other child did. When the fellowship was formed, he found solace in the knowledge that Gandalf would accompany them. That was at least one familiar element amid the blur.

But now the wizard is gone, and his companions seem to distrust every word he speaks. The Elves who welcomed them were not any warmer to him. He is an outcast where he has always fit in. Acting in teams, coming up with strategies, fighting, camping… None of it is strange to him. If anything, that is what his life has always been. So why, oh why does he feel so inadequate and insecure? Why do the others regard him with such disdain whenever he opens his mouth?

Merry and Pippin do not. Thankfully. Before tragedy struck, he quite enjoyed their company and teaching them new tricks with the sword. The carefree laughs, the games, the jokes… It all reminded him of the time when Faramir was a child and wanted his brother to teach him things, not just a regular teacher. For a moment in the middle of fear and uncertainty, he could slip back to simpler times and relive these memories from so long ago. But now that they have escaped Moria, nothing feels right anymore. The two hobbits hardly ever smile anymore. The innocent glimmers in their eyes have dimmed. Just like the wonder in Faramir’s eyes was snuffed by years of their father’s spite.

They are grown, now.

And all he can do is clutch his chest and muffle his crying. They all need proper rest, and Boromir will not be a bother to them.

Not this time.

[xzerosparrowx]

The Meeting of the Fellowship

Written for the @corrodedcoffinfest

Dividers by @saradika-graphics

Day #2 - Prompt: In the Beginning | Word Count: 768 | Rating: T | CW: Fat shaming and bullying. | POV: Gareth | Tags: How the fellowship met, Corroded Coffin in middle school, Eddie's first day at Hawkins, Tommy Hagan is a bully.

Hawkins Middle School. A veritable zoo where the Jocks, Geeks, Stoners, Punks, Brains, and Goths all converge for some good ol’ American education, all of them sniping and gnashing at one another when they cross paths. Gareth, Jeff, Doug, and Zach walk through the school invisible, within these halls they are no one and belong to no clique; each of them too quiet and too average to have anyone notice their existence. 

“Hey fatty!” a voice yells over the chatter. Gareth watches Zach tense his shoulders, hunching his body in an attempt to make himself look small. Before realising that Tommy Hagan and the rest of the Hawkins basketball team have surrounded their little group, a pack of hyenas circling the wounded. 

“You get that history assignment done, like I asked?” Tommy says, holding out his hand expectantly towards Zach, the others in the group snicker when Zach opens up his binder and pulls out three crisp pages of a carefully written essay. 

Tommy snatches them, flipping through the pages as he casually reads it over, checking on Zach’s work as if he knows what he is even reading about. His brow furrows and angrily points at the page in front of him “what the hell! Despot isn’t a real word!”  There is loud bark of laughter somewhere off to the side, temporarily stunning Tommy and his pack of half-witted shitheads for a moment before all their heads turn to the source of the sound.

A boy is standing by the lockers, lanky and rough-looking, swimming in a blue sweater that is marked by tiny moth holes and a black beanie on top of his head. Gareth watches him in fascination and horror as Tommy stalks his way over, the boy shutting his locker with a loud clang, books clutched in his arms, seemingly unaware of the Goliath behind him. He finally turns around and to Gareth’s surprise the boy looks bored when he faces Tommy, as if the presence of the jock is not the worst thing he has ever encountered. 

“You wanna say something, freak?” Tommy dares, a finger pointedly jabbing the boy’s chest.

Gareth watches the boy narrow his eyes at the finger, hands curling by his sides, a tightly wound coil ready for a fight before the boy suddenly breaks into a wicked grin, body suddenly relaxing.

“If you want to know what a word means, maybe you shouldn’t have shit for brains,” the boy says sincerely as if he is giving genuine advice, a chorus of ‘ooooh’ and snickers fill the hallway and Gareth cannot help but smile as the mysterious boy gives a small wink towards him and his little group. 

The boy’s face catches Tommy’s mean right hook with a loud smack, the sudden burst of violence seems to slow down time as the boy straightens up, spits out a glob of blood and rubs the bright red mark already blooming on his face before pouncing on Tommy in a burst of speed that catches everyone by surprise. It is a blur of action at that point, David and Goliath exchanging fists. Gareth, Zach, Jeff and Doug fighting off the rest of the jocks in an attempt to stop them dogpiling the boy, and there is no way in hell they will win this fight but Gareth cannot help but feel like he’s finally part of something.

They are shoved in the cramped, dark confines of the Janitor’s closet for their trouble, Tommy and the jocks laughing loudly when they slam the door close on them. Gareth pulls the cord for the overhanging bulb, revealing them all tightly packed together with the mystery boy, lips swollen and bleeding, the black beanie sitting skewed on his head revealing an outgrowing buzzcut. 

“Thanks for that, really,” Gareth says, the rest of the group nodding eagerly in agreement, “I’m Gareth.” 

“Jeff.”

“Zach.”

“Doug.”

“Eddie,” the boy replies with a smile, holding out his hand awkwardly towards Gareth and Jeff, hands criss-crossed against his chest. They shake hands seriously like businessmen in an important meeting until they are bursting with laughter, Eddie cackling loudly that makes all of them laugh harder. 

A few moments later, as they start to calm down, Eddie looks at them with large excited brown eyes “you guys want to be in a band?” 

Zach, Jeff and Doug all exchange glances with Gareth, and he can see the same glimmer of excitement and joy on their faces that he knows he is reflecting back at them. He turns to Eddie, the boy grinning as if he already knows the answer. 

“Sure!”

[mooremarchingmusic]

Okay y'all it's time to rant again.

I just found out that my high school alma mater cut the marching band program, and needless to say I am livid. My most popular post on this blog is about the importance of marching band, but I feel like I need to expand on it; this time, from the perspective of an adult who’s long out of school, watching the real-time crumble of the very thing that brought me to where I am now. 

When I was first begrudgingly pushed into marching by my director, I was a completely different person: skittish of my own shadow, chronically out-of-place, and cripplingly shy. I didn’t have the constitution for sports, and whatever other activities I found myself drawn to either couldn’t break through my hesitant demeanor or had no place for the strange personality they found on the other side. 

But I immediately belonged in marching band. They didn’t mind my reserved nature, and strangeness was something they celebrated. Over the course of a single marching season, I got into good physical shape, dramatically improved my musicality, made more friends than I’d ever had… and most importantly, developed a still-quiet but genuine and unwavering confidence. 

I found myself in marching band. The acceptance and fellowship it offered allowed me to learn who I was, and I brought that into every other aspect of my life. It gave me the courage to continue branching out to find other things I loved, the social skills to finally forge lasting connections with others, the opportunity to discover my own leadership style, and the assuredness to trust myself in walking my own path. 

And if you’re not the type to be convinced by waxing poetic about intangible concepts, maybe you’ll be convinced by the direct impact marching had on my future career. I went into writing, and even well-meaning family members told me not to focus so much on marching band when it didn’t have any relation to the type of work I was pursuing. At least until the local newspaper hired me for high school practicum because they wanted me to write about band. In turn, that led to a performing arts beat job in college, which then led to an internship with Halftime Magazine: writing (about the marching arts!) on a national level at 19 years old. Marching band jump-started a completely unrelated career with opportunities that I wouldn’t have otherwise had, and that’s not even taking into account the passion and community that gave me such an important thing to write about in the first place. 

I acknowledge that my life right now is the product of many intersecting circumstances, but it’s an undeniable reality that I would not be who I am without marching band. 

That’s why it kills me to see this happening. It’s not just my old high school cutting the marching band. The little drum corps that I joined one summer folded in its first season due to a lack of funding or support from much of anywhere. The second college I attended removed the marching band from the pregame show a couple years ago, and the last time I went to an alumni event there, they were constantly cutting the band off during pep tunes in favor of playing Top 40 songs on the loudspeaker. 

Seemingly more than ever, the marching arts are being sidelined and it pisses me off. 

It’s been proven, over and over, for decades upon decades, that music education is invaluable to kids’ development and success. Schools with access to music education have an average attendance rate of 93.3%, compared to 84.9% in schools without it; and music students have an estimated 90.2% high school graduation rate compared to 72.9% of non-music students. Band members trend 87.6% to be in the top ten percent of their graduating class, and 94.9% of valedictorians and salutatorians participate in music education. Music students in America attend college at a rate of 86.4% — the highest rate of any discipline — and have a collegiate graduation rate of 88.4% compared to the national graduation rate of 60.4%. Band members have the lowest levels of current/lifelong use of alcohol, tobacco, and illicit drugs of any group. They have higher rates of brain development, critical thinking skills, motor capacities, and camaraderie; while having lower rates of bullying, racism, and disciplinary infractions. [x] [x] [x]

Don’t get me wrong, I recognize that sports are life-changing for kids. We all know that. There are umpteen billion studies and marketing campaigns and feel-good movies about how sports can turn someone’s life around. But the arts do the exact same thing, not just for kids who don’t have athletic inclinations, but for all kids who benefit from the cognitive, social, and cultural advantages that music introduces to their lives. 

When you bend over backwards to continue funding athletics but cut arts programs without a second thought, what you’re really doing is looking at a group of kids — intelligent, talented, promising kids — and telling them that their futures are less important than someone else’s. You’re telling them that their passions and pursuits are inconsequential. You’re ripping potentially life-changing opportunities from them because of arbitrary and completely false narratives that the arts somehow have less impact than athletics, just because they don't bring in as much money and aren't as glorified and exciting on TV.  

Funding is an almost universal issue for public schools, and I know it’s complicated to navigate. But I see no reason why budget cuts can’t be split up and applied equally to all programs, giving all students the opportunity to learn how to fundraise, work together in the face of setbacks, and come up with creative solutions to make their collective dreams a reality. I will never understand the decision to instead single out particular groups of kids, and I cannot fathom the sort of closed-minded, backwards thinking that causes arts programs to be the first to go. 

In more ways than one, marching band took a timid, directionless wallflower and catapulted her into a confident, successful, and fulfilling adulthood; and I will defend music education for as long as it takes to ensure that the generations who come after me get that same chance. 

[periwinkle8ball]

Mercury

The one who communicates, it is the Messenger.

Mercury is the smallest planet, closest to the Sun astronomically. Limited in how far it strays, it never moves further than 28 degrees from the Sun. It is considered to be the fastest planet, discounting the Moon’s speedy cycle. Of all the planets, Mercury is seen to have a dual nature, being neither purely feminine or purely masculine. It’s neither benefic or malefic, earning it the reputation of being ambiguous and impressionable. Through its travel through the zodiac, it will retrograde about 3 times a year.

Mercury is one of the two planets associated with the element of Earth, actually considered to be “slightly cold and dry” by astrologers Helena Avelar and Luis Ribeiro. As a result, Mercury would be assumed to be enduring, analytical, and thoughtful.

Mercury rules over the air sign Gemini, both ruling and exalting in the earth sign Virgo. In contrast, Mercury finds Jupiter’s signs of Sagittarius (detriment) and Pisces (detriment and fall) challenging.

Mercury joys in the 1st House, giving that house meaning in the Hellenistic tradition. Keep that in mind when considering Mercury and the 1st House's significations.

forethought and intelligence, strategic actions, practical wisdoms, knowledge, reason, education, writing, speech, messages, connection through language and communication, trust, friendship, fellowship, brothers, younger sons, children and nurslings, youth, play, contest, sports and athletics, numbers, calculations, weights and measures, coins, banking, business and marketing, mercantile activity, commerce, give and take, exchange, trade, brokerage, industrious people, travel, assistance, service and public services, community, teachers, mathematicians, doctors, lawyers, secretaries, printers, scribes, orators, poets, philosophers, architects, temple builders, modelers, sculptors, braiders and weavers, tailors, musicians, augers and diviners, prophets, dream interpreters, astrologers, those who are meticulous, versatility, mental disturbances such as madness, ecstasy, and melancholy, trickery, slight of hand, thievery, deception, rumors, lies. Of the body, the hands, shoulders, fingers, joints, the belly, the ears (hearing), the windpipe, intestines, the tongue.

Traditional 1st House Significations, Mercury’s House of Joy

the beginning of all actions, the overall life of the native, the body and one's appearance, one's physical constitution, one's vital life force, one's character and demenor, the mind and the matters it is concerned with, spirit, and speech.

Significations primarily sourced from Demetra George’s Ancient Astrology in Theory and Practice Volumes 1 and 2 and planet significations spoken of on the Chris Brennan’s The Astrology Podcast.

Disclaimer: Please do not copy, redistribute, alter, or claim this text as your own...

[mariacallous]

Shira Fishbach, a newly graduated physician, was sitting in an orientation session for her first year of medical residency when her phone started blowing up. It was June 24, 2022, and the US Supreme Court had just handed down its decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, nullifying the national right to abortion and turning control back to state governments.

Fishbach was in Michigan, where an abortion ban enacted in 1931 instantly came into effect. That law made administering an abortion a felony punishable by four years in prison, with no exceptions for rape or incest. It was a chilling moment: Her residency is in obstetrics and gynecology, and she viewed mastering abortion procedures as essential to her training.

“I suspected during my application cycle that this could happen, and to receive confirmation of it was devastating,” she recalls. “But I had strategically applied where I thought that, even if I didn't receive the full spectrum, I would at least have the support and the resources to get myself to an institution that would train me.”

Her mind whirled through the possibilities. Would her program help its residents go to an access-protecting state? Could she broker an agreement to go somewhere on her own, arranging weeks of extra housing and obtaining a local medical license and insurance? Would she still earn her salary if she left her program—and how would she fund her life if she did not?

In the end, she didn’t need to leave. That November, Michigan voters approved an amendment to the state constitution that made the 1931 law unenforceable, and this April, Governor Gretchen Whitmer repealed the ban. Fishbach didn’t have to abandon the state to learn the full range of ob-gyn care. In fact, her program at the University of Michigan, where she’s now a second-year resident, pivoted to making room for red-state trainees.

But the dizzying reassessment she underwent a year ago provides a glimpse of the challenges that face thousands of new and potential doctors. Almost 45 percent of the 286 accredited ob-gyn programs in the US now operate under revived or new abortion bans, meaning that more than 2,000 residents per year—trainee doctors who have committed to the specialty—may not receive the required training to be licensed. Among students and residents, simmering anger over bans is growing. Long-time faculty fear the result will be a permanent reshaping of American medicine, driving new doctors from red states to escape limitations and legal threats, or to protect their own reproductive options. That would reduce the number of physicians available, not just to provide abortions, but to conduct genetic screenings, care for miscarriages, deliver babies, and handle unpredictable pregnancy risks.

“I worry that we’re going to see an increase in maternal morbidity, differentially, depending on where you live,” says Kate Shaw, a physician and associate chair of ob-gyn education at Stanford Medicine. “And that’s just going to further enhance disparities that already exist.”

Those effects are not yet visible. The pipeline that ushers medical graduates through physician training is about a decade long: four years of school plus three to seven years of residency, sometimes with a two-year, sub-specialty fellowship afterward. Thus actions taken in response to the Dobbs decision—people eschewing red-state schools or choosing to settle in blue states long-term—might take a while to be noticeable.

But in this year, some data has emerged that suggests trends to come. In February, a group of students, residents and faculty surveyed 2,063 licensed and trainee physicians and found that 82 percent want to work or train in states that retain abortion access—and 76 percent would refuse to apply in states that restrict it. (The respondents worked in a mix of specialties; for those whose work would include performing abortions, the proportion intending to work where it remains legal soared above 99 percent.)

Then in April, a study from the Association of American Medical Colleges drawing on the first round of applications to residency programs after Dobbs found that ob-gyn applications in states with abortion restrictions sank by 10 percent compared to the previous year. Applications to all ob-gyn programs dropped by 5 percent. (Nationwide, all applications to residency went down 2 percent from 2021 to 2022.)

Last month, two preliminary pieces of research presented at the annual meeting of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists uncovered more perturbations. In Texas—where the restrictive law SB8 went into effect in September 2021, nine months before Dobbs—a multi-year upward trend in applications to ob-gyn residency slowed after the law passed. And in an unrelated national survey, 77 percent of 494 third- and fourth-year medical students said that abortion restrictions would affect where they applied to residency, while 58 percent said they were unlikely to apply to states with a ban.

That last survey was conducted by Ariana Traub and Kellen “Nell” Mermin-Bunnell, two third-year medical students at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta—which lies within a state with a “fetal heartbeat” law that predates Dobbs and that criminalizes providing an abortion after six weeks of pregnancy. The law means that students in clinical rotations are unlikely to witness abortions and would not be allowed to discuss the procedure with patients. It also means that, if either of them were to become pregnant while at med school, they would not have that option themselves.

Before they published the survey, the two friends conducted an analysis of how bans would affect medical school curricula, using data collected in the summer of 2022. They predicted that only 29 percent of the more than 129,000 medical students in the US would not be affected by state bans. The survey gave them a chance to sample med students’ feelings about those developments, with the help of faculty members. They also founded a nonprofit, Georgia Healthcare Professionals for Reproductive Justice. “We're in a unique position, as individuals in the health care field but not necessarily medical professionals yet,” Traub says. “We have some freedom. So we felt like we had to use that power to try to make change.”

Ob-gyn formation is caught between opposing forces. Just over half of US states have passed bans or limitations on abortion that go beyond the Roe v. Wade standard of fetal viability. But the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, a nonprofit that sets standards for residency and fellowship programs, has always required that obstetric trainees learn to do abortions, unless they opt out for religious or moral reasons. It reaffirmed that requirement after the Dobbs decision. Failure to provide that training could cause a program to lose accreditation, leaving its graduates ineligible to be licensed.

The conflict between what medicine demands and state laws prevent leaves new and would-be doctors in restrictive states struggling with their inability to follow medical evidence and their own best intentions. “I’m starting to take care of patients for the first time in my life,” says Mermin-Bunnell, Traub’s survey partner. “Seeing a human being in front of you, who needs your help, and not being able to help them or even talk to them about what their options might be—it feels morally wrong.”

That frustration is equally evident among trainees in specialties who might treat a pregnant person, prescribe treatments that could imperil a pregnancy, or care for a pregnancy gone wrong. Those include family and adolescent medicine, anesthesiology, radiology, rheumatology, even dermatology and mental health.

“I’m particularly interested in oncology, and I’ve come to realize that you can’t have the full standard of gynecologic oncology care without being able to have access to abortion care,” says Morgan Levy, a fourth-year medical student in Florida who plans to apply to ob-gyn residency. Florida currently bans abortion after 15 weeks; a further ban, down to six weeks, passed in April but has been held up by legal challenges. In three years of med school so far, Levy received one lecture on abortion—in the context of miscarriage—and no clinical exposure to the procedure. “It is a priority for me to make sure that I get trained,” she says.

But landing in a training program that encourages abortion practice is more difficult than it looks. Residency application is an algorithm-driven process in which graduates list their preferred programs, and faculty rank the trainees they want to teach. For years, there have been more applicants than there are spaces—and this year, as in the past, ob-gyn programs filled almost all their slots. What that means, according to faculty members, is that some applicants will end up where they do not want to be.

“Students and trainees do exert their preferences, but they also need to get a training spot,” says Vineet Arora, the dean for medical education at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine and lead author on the survey published in February. “Would they forgo a training spot because of Dobbs? That's a tall order, especially in a competitive field. But would they be happy about it? And would they want to stay there long term?”

That is not a hypothetical question. According to the medical-colleges association, more than half of residents stay to practice in the states where they trained. But it’s reasonable to ask whether they would feel that loyalty if they were deprived of training or forced to relocate. “If even a portion of the 80 percent of people who prefer to practice and train in states that don't have abortion bans follow through on those preferences, those states that are putting in abortion bans—which often have workforce shortages already—will be in a worse situation,” Arora says.

An ACOG analysis estimated in 2017 that half of US counties, which are home to 10 million women, have no practicing ob-gyn. When the health care tech firm Doximity examined ob-gyn workloads in 2019, seven of the 10 cities it identified as having the highest workloads lie in what are now very restrictive states. Those shortages are likely to worsen if new doctors relocate to states where they feel safe. The legal and consulting firm Manatt Health predicted in a white paper last fall: “The impact on access to all OB/GYN care in certain geographies could be catastrophic.”

Faculty are struggling to solve the mismatch between licensing requirements and state prohibitions by identifying other ways residents can train. They view it as protecting the integrity of medical practice. “Any ob-gyn has to be able to empty the uterus in an emergency, for abortion, for miscarriage, and for pregnancy complications or significant medical problems,” says Jody Steinauer, who is vice-chair of ob-gyn education at UC San Francisco.

Steinauer directs the Kenneth J. Ryan Residency Training Program, a 24-year-old effort to install and reinforce clinical abortion training. Even before Dobbs, that was hard to come by: In 2018, Steinauer and colleagues estimated that only two-thirds of ob-gyn residency programs made it routine, despite accreditation requirements—and that anywhere from 29 to 78 percent of residents couldn’t competently perform different types of abortion when they left training. In 2020, researchers from UCSF and UC Berkeley documented that 57 percent of these programs face limitations set by individual hospitals more extreme than those set by states.

Before Dobbs, the Ryan program brokered individual relocations that let trainees temporarily transfer to other institutions. Now it is working to set up program-to-program agreements instead, because the logistics required to visit for a rotation—the kind of arrangements Fishbach dizzily imagined a year ago—are more complex than most people can manage on their own. And not only on the visiting trainee: Programs already perform delicate calculations of how many trainees they can take given the number of patients coming to their institutions and the number of faculty mentors.

Only a few places have managed to institutionalize “away rotations,” in which they align accreditation milestones, training time, and financing with other institutions. Oregon Health & Science University’s School of Medicine is about to open a formal program that will accept 10 to 12 residents from restrictive states for a month each over a year. Oregon imposes no restrictions on abortion, and both the med school’s existing residents and the university’s philanthropic foundation supported the move.

“I'm very concerned about having a future generation that knows how to provide safe abortion care—because abortion will never go away; becoming illegal only makes it less safe,” says Alyssa Colwill, who oversees the new program and is an assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology. “There are going to be patients that are going to use unsafe methods because there's no other alternative. And providers are going to be placed in scenarios that are heartbreaking, and are devastating to watch.”

The accreditation council now requires programs that cannot train their own residents in abortion to support them in traveling somewhere else. But even at schools that are trying to accommodate as many learners as possible, trainees can attend for only a month—the maximum that fully enrolled programs in safe states can afford. After that, they must go back home, leaving them less-trained than their counterparts. As faculty look forward, they fear a slow spiral of decay in obstetric knowledge.

This isn’t imaginary: Already, research has shown that physicians practicing in red states are less likely to offer appropriate and legal procedures to treat miscarriages. Receiving abortion training, in other words, also improves medical care for pregnancy loss.

“Ultimately, I do not think there is capacity to train every resident who wants training,” says Charisse Loder, a clinical assistant professor of ob-gyn at the University of Michigan Medical School, who directs the program where Fishbach is training. “So we will have ob-gyn residents who are not trained in this care. And I think that is not only unfortunate, but puts patients in a position of being cared for by residents who don't have comprehensive training.”

Doing only short rotations also returns residents to places where their own reproductive health could be put at risk. Future physicians are likely to be older than in previous generations, having been encouraged to get life experience and sample other careers before entering med school. Research on which Levy and Arora collaborated in 2022 shows that more than 11 percent of new physicians had abortions during their training. Because of the length of training, they also may be more likely to use IVF when they are ready to start families—and some reproductive technologies may be criminalized under current abortion bans.

As a fourth and final-year psychiatry resident, Simone Bernstein had thought about abortion restrictions through the lens of her patients’ mental health, as she talked to them about fertility treatment and pregnancy loss. As cofounder of the online platform Inside the Match, she had listened to residents’ reactions to Dobbs (and collaborated on research with Levy and Arora). She had not expected the decision to affect her personally—but she is in Missouri, a state where there is an almost complete ban on abortion. And this spring, she experienced a miscarriage at 13 weeks of pregnancy.

“I was worried whether or not I could even go to the hospital, if my baby still had a heartbeat, which was a conversation that I had to have with my ob-gyn on the phone,” she says. “It didn’t come to that; I caught the baby in my hands at home, hemorrhaging blood everywhere, and the baby had already passed away. But until that moment, I didn't recognize the effects that [abortion restrictions] could have on me.”

This is the reality now: There exist very few places in the US where abortion is uncomplicated. Faculty and their trainees do not expect that to change, except for the worse. Staying in the field, and making sure the next generation is prepared, requires commitment that they will have to sustain for years.

“Part of the reason why I sought advanced training in abortion and contraception is because I think there will be a national ban,” says Abigail Liberty, an ob-gyn and fellow in her sixth postgraduate year at OHSU. “I think it will happen in our lifetime. And I see my role as getting as much expertise and training as I can now and providing care while I can. And then coming out of retirement, when abortion will be legal again, and training the next generation of physicians.”

[krinndnz]

SMBC: "Liberal Education"

Red shirt: People are always talking about the importance of a liberal education, but they can never tell you why it's important. They either give you vague talk about "well-roundedness" or the human spirit or they tell you that a philosophy degree will help you get a job.

Adjunct faculty: Yeah, those are bad arguments. This is very straightforward. Why do we want a liberal education? Because everyone in the modern university is living in its opposite, and it sucks.

Universities are run like businesses whose primary product is certificate generation. Among people who already have the certificate, the goal is grant acquisition while generating certificates for people who might one day secure more grants. The people who buy the certificates pay fortunes because they need the certificate to get a job. Thus, the university is serving a very pragmatic role in certification and job qualification, whose virtues are very easy to explain without any appeal to philosophy or aesthetics or vague ideas about "well-roundedness."

Most of the questions I answer for students are about how I grade and what information will be on a test. This is because they need good grades to get the certificate to get the job. I oblige because I know they need the certificate and so my bosses don't get mad. And if a student wants office hours just to talk about interesting things, I am annoyed because I need to spend my time grading papers so the other students can pass the class, get certificates, and get jobs.

So, you see we all know why we're doing what we're doing. No mystery, no fuzzy talk. No effete notions about the human spirit or whatever.

And it sucks.

Now, imagine a place: an old, dank pub. It's hard to get to, it's full of weirdos, most people don't even want go in, and you certainly don't get credentials for descending the stairs. The people who do go have met there for thousands of years purely for fellowship. They argue, they criticize, they praise, they blame, they sing sometimes and sometimes they cry, and sometimes they come to make friends or make enemies, but they are always and only there in earnest.

The sheer age of the pub and its continuous occupation means there are ongoing conversations, unbroken, going back to people who thought the sun was a chariot and rivers were alive, through people who described the motion of the planets and changed our what space is, down to one person in the corner right now, today, screaming over the crowd about proper poetry or complexity classes or whatever it is.

You can't tell me why the second place is superior without vague talk about the human spirit or a life well lived or "well-roundedness." But you know that the first place makes you tired while the second place would be so beloved that if it burned down you'd want to bury it and write its name on a stone.

The best argument for a liberal education is that it makes a place in the world that is less like the first place and more like the second place. Because whether you can go in the building or just look in the window or only read about it in old books, you know it's better.

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

This monologue lives rent-free in my head and I couldn't find it anywhere else both in plain text and accurately transcribed (the SMBC wiki has an auto-transcription, which I cleaned up to produce this).

[phykios]

Hi phykios! I love you, your writing are so amazing. The Marble King is one of the best pieces on ao3, hands down. Really. One. Of. The. BEST. FICS. EVER. The worldbuilding, the dialogue, the history, the angst. SO. GOOD. Omg I die a happy death every time I read it (I have done so multiple times). Thank you for doing what you do!!!!!! If it is possible, may I ask for a bit of the shipwreck fellowship Thalassa story or the one where Sophia is born during (during?!) Percy's dissertation defense?

🥰 tysm anon!! marble king really does hold a special place in my heart and i'm glad ppl are still vibing with it

as requested, a bit of shipwreck hunting to whet the appetite 💖

Annabeth frowns. “That’s the embassy?” 

Percy nods. “Uh huh.” 

“But it’s so… nothing.” 

He shrugs, readjusting his backpack, gripping the strap before it slides off his shoulder onto the wet pavement. In his other hand is his eldest daughter’s, squeezing it tight as she twirls around, her sneakers making little whirlpools beneath her feet. “That’s what I thought.” 

Now, technically, it is a Tuesday, and Junie should have been in pre-k, wowing all her teachers and outperforming all the other kids by a mile. But, well… turns out the genes run a little bit deeper than just looks. The teacher had not been exactly sure how Junie had managed to flood the classroom via the little sink in the corner. But it seemed pretty clear that she had. She hadn’t been expelled, exactly. But it had been suggested she seek education and enrichment somewhere else. Honestly, Percy and Annabeth were a little charmed by it. Apples and trees and all of that. But they did worry that it heralded things to come. 

“I mean, there’s nothing,” Annabeth says again, craning her neck upwards. “No decoration, no sculpture… There’s nothing there!” 

“Nothing but pilasters.” 

She gags. 

“At least the one in Boston is next to the bar from Cheers.” 

She blinks at him, uncomprehending, and Percy makes a note to himself. 

“So how long do you think this will take?” she asks. 

“Dunno.”

“Because if it’s not that long we can just wait out here for you.” 

He shakes his head, kissing her on the cheek. “Don’t waste the rest of your lunch break on me.” Besides, his back itches in the way that means it’s probably going to rain soon. “I’ll pick up Lucie from my mom’s place, and I’ll have dinner ready by the time you get home.” 

Percy is long-since immune to the domesticity of such a statement. Or at least he thought he was, because the way Annabeth grins at him, leaning forward to capture his lips in a stronger kiss, makes him want to do a little jig with Junie, right here on the sidewalk. 

His daughter certainly seems to agree, if the way she spins faster is any indication. 

Annabeth slides her own bag off her shoulder, and pulls out a bulky file folder, handing it to him. “One last check?” 

“Hit me.” 

“Award letter?” 

“Check,” he says, thumbing through the pages. 

“Proof of insurance?” 

“Check.” 

“Background check?” 

“With fingerprints, and without allegations of underage terrorism.” 

That had been a fun and nerve-wracking experience, getting his fingerprints taken. He had been sweating bullets for a week, expecting his brief bout of monument-related arson to have the FBI kicking his door down. 

“Visa application?” 

“Plus immunization forms, birth certificate with apostille, and two hundred dollars cash.” 

“Passport?” 

He blinks. “I thought you had it.”

Annabeth snaps her gaze to him, eyes blazing. “Are you serious?”

“Kidding!” Reaching into the folder, he pulls out his shiny new passport, flapping it in the air. “Kidding.” 

She swats at him. “Seaweed brain…” 

“Sorry, sorry,” he laughs, kissing her again. “It’s all good, promise.” 

“Don’t be an idiot in front of the ambassadors, or whoever it is you meet in there, okay? Save your dumbassery for something less high-stakes.” 

Scoffing, he slips the passport back into the folder. “Excuse you, my dumbassery is only reserved for the lowest of low-stakes operations.” 

“Just go in and get your stupid visa.” 

Try as she might, her shortness is only undercut by the final kiss she leaves him with. “Love you, too.” 

Percy crouches down. “See you soon, Honey Dew,” he says, kissing her forehead. “Go have fun with mommy!” 

Junie’s only response is to kick water in his direction.

Yes, he stands and watches them leave, smothering a laugh, even as it begins to drizzle on him, until they turn the corner.