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tundrainafrica · 4 years ago

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Title: A Tale of Two Slaves (16/17)

Summary: “Soulmates don’t exist. Fate doesn’t exist. Everything is a choice.” At that moment, Levi could only watch as she made the choice for him.“

Reincarnation AU. Levi remembers everything from their past life. Hange doesn’t.

Other Chapters: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

Link to cross-postings: AO3

Note:

I know I said on tumblr I was planning on ending the story today and apologies for dragging this out longer.

The final chapter is already written out but editing is gonna take me an extra hour or so. Also, this week has been hectic, work especially has been very hectic since I'm covering a job for 3 people now while they hire. I ended up getting a little sick today so I decided to put off a lot of the asks and postings until Sunday.

I could post the final chapter earliest, tomorrow night. Latest, I'll be posting the final chapter is Wednesday. I wanna get it out soon but there are still a lot of stuff I'm hoping to fix up so, apologies for not meeting the expectations.

Thank you so much for reading though. It really means a lot to me.

As always, feedback is very much appreciated.

“You can take a seat Hange.” Shela’s voice was gentle. She had taken her time pronouncing every syllable.

Still, something jumped inside Hange as she heard it. She gathered herself together and willed herself to make eye contact. “Sorry about that...I got a little distracted,” she said. She was starting to get a little self conscious. Did she actually jump? Was her tone too jittery? Were her eyes too wide?

The woman in front of her seemed unfazed as if she was watching Hange do something so normal as to just stare at the room in front of her for a long few seconds. Still, Hange avoided her gaze and looked around as she made her way towards the sofa.

Levi had only ever talked about how much of a hassle and how much of a pain the whole process of going to therapy was. Over time, he had started ditching the sessions altogether. Consequently, Hange had expected an atmosphere that would make her feel a little more restrained than what she had felt then.

It turned out just entering the room made her feel the complete opposite of what she had expected.

Shela’s office was more spacious than Hange had imagined it to be. Or more full of life.

Filled with too much life in a way that Hange couldn’t understand. But it seemed to hold more than the average doctor’s office she’d been to. Maybe it was the paintings on the wall or the wooden bookshelf that stood so tall and wide it was an omnipresent in the room.

Either way, it was comfortable and Hange chalked it to the rustic feel of the room. The ambiance was just too strange, the shades of the wallpaper, the rustic carpeted floor was too indulgent of her senses and she could have been taking a little more time than necessary to get to her seat.

It looked like Shela followed suit. By the time Hange had settled on the chair, Shela had still been on her way.

Shela leaned forward from her seat and reached out a hand in greeting. She seemed excited, too excited. “It’s nice to finally be able to talk to you like this, Hange Zoe,” she said.

That excitement in her voice was enough at least to pull Hange’s focus away from the ambiance of the room and towards the woman in front of her. A clear reminder that she was there for a reason.

Or two reasons. Hange corrected herself as she pulled out her file. “Thank you so much for agreeing to go through this with me,” she said. “Since Levi started having sessions with you, we kept in touch so at least we had some history beforehand… And given your background, I thought you might be the best person to give me some extra content on my thesis.”

“For your review of related literature?”

Hange nodded. “It’s not yet done. I did research already on the biological aspect but I thought you might have information on the psychological aspects of it…” She pulled out a folder from her bag and slid the file towards Shela.

Shela was quick to scan through the title. “Looks interesting. What made you pick this topic?”

“Many things...” Hange said. “I thought I would be able to help more people doing this type of thesis. And maybe I can take further studies and---”

“Does this have anything to do with Levi?” . Shela raised one eyebrow at her.

“Oh? Was it obvious?” Hange asked. She deemed it futile to have even denied it then.

Shela started to flip through the pages of the draft a little quicker. “It’s been a while since I’ve heard from him. He never replied to any of my texts.” She stood up, gesturing for Hange to continue talking as she made her way to the shelf at the back of the room.

“He went home,” Hange said. There was an awkward pause for a few seconds and she felt some inclination to fill it herself. “Back to his hometown,” she added. “He probably wanted to spend his birthday with them, or maybe Christmas. I guess this is a good time for him to go home… He---”

“So Hange, do you wanna talk about Levi? Or would you like to talk about your thesis?” The way Shela said it was far from abrasive.

From her position, Hange couldn’t even tell what face Shela was making. Yet she found herself a little shaken, particularly self conscious she was taking up precious office time. And for a few seconds longer, Hange struggled to find the right words. “There are things I wanted to ask about… Like definitely, I told you I need to discuss the psychological aspect and…”

“Well, from what I’m seeing, this didn’t need a session. I could have emailed you the pdf file of my thesis and just answered if you had any questions.”

Hange only noticed then as Shela walked back to her seat that she had pulled out two binders from one of the bookshelves.

“If you need any more sources for your thesis, you can read through this.” Shela placed the binders on the table and flipped to the last page of the thicker one. “And you can check through my bibliography for any more sources and I’m sure you’ll figure the rest out on your own. Levi told me you were a pretty good researcher growing up…”

Hange felt the blood rush to her face. That only made it harder to grasp for the right words. “When was your last session with Levi?” There were many other things Hange would have wanted to ask then. Her mouth just wouldn’t cooperate.

“A little more than a month ago. A few weeks before your finals. “ Shela answered. She rested her elbows on her lap, her chin on her hands.

“Finals ended more than two weeks ago. I was hoping he talked to you before he left.”

Shela shook her head. “No word from him.” She must have sensed the disappointment in Hange’s face because only a second later, she continued. “But maybe going home would be good for him. He might find someone to talk to there.” Her tone was cold, disconnected and it didn’t look like she believed it herself though.

“I know you would tell him to write, he told me that much about your sessions. But did he ever tell you about his stories?”

“Commander Zoe and Captain Levi?”

Hange nodded. “Oh, he did. You see, I wanted to talk to you about that. But I don’t know either whether or not I should be talking to his therapist about this...But I’m worried.”

“Why?”

“He deleted the file.”

If Shela was shocked, she didn’t show it. The only hint to any emotion in the room had been the short silence that followed. “I suspected he’d do that much,” she said.

“Suspect that much? Did he tell you something? Was there something wrong with his writing? Is he okay?”

Shela shook her head. “ I’m not in a place to tell.”

“Why did he get so attached to his stories? Why did it affect him so much that he couldn’t even accept a death?”

“I’m sorry Hange, I don’t wanna waste your time here so I’ll be upfront with you. What Levi and I talk about here stays between us.”

“I respect that.” Hange expected the answer, still she kept her tone long and drawn. She still found herself clinging to some hope that there was something Shela could share.. “I want to know though… Is this because of the injury? He lost a lot because of that and I know I was somehow involved with it but I just can’t shake off this feeling of guilt. ”

Shela sighed. “You know, I may not be able to tell you what we talked about. But I’m sure you know more about this than I do. You might even be able to contribute more insights to this discussion than I can,” she said. “Tell me Hange, what went on after our last therapy session. Did he really have finals?”

“Yes we did. I was busy too so I didn’t think too much of it then but the weeks leading up to finals are usually more hectic for any student….”

“Would you know if he still continued to write after the finals?”

“He did.”

“You seem sure.”

“He shared the document.” Hange started. She unlocked her phone and opened her drive document. It wouldn’t be there, she was sure of that but she could have saved it and it would have still been there. She forced a smile as her mouth threatened to curl down. Hange was still scolding herself for wasting such an opportunity. She let her phone fall carelessly on the coffee table in front of her and leaned back on the sofa. “So I got to read it.”

“Did Captain Levi really die?” Shela asked.

“No. Commander Hange did.”

“So before he deleted it, Commander Hange died?”

“That was the last chapter I read. Then an hour or so later, I confronted him about it, he asked me to leave me alone, then the next thing I know he deleted the file.” Hange leaned her head back on the backrest and stared up at the ceiling. “But you know, he didn’t want to believe that Hange died. She burned alive, he described it so vividly in his writing but he kept telling me, she didn’t die.

“Oh?”

“If someone burned alive, they should be dead right? Maybe there was a sequel to it that he just didn’t write yet.”

“But if Hange were alive, wouldn’t Levi have seen it through instead of doing something so rash as to delete the whole thing? Levi has a tendency of…”

Running away? Not processing things? Hange looked back at Shela and nodded slowly.

Shela seemed distracted. She was staring at something upward, mumbling to herself as if finding the right words to say. “Trying not to regret things,” she added a few seconds later.

“Regret… I noticed that. With the jumping and the injury but I wanted to ask you, if you think the story is somehow connected to how he’s processing his injury.”

“I have theories but they’re not mine to tell. Have you asked Levi yourself?”

Hange was almost tempted to laugh. That seemed like the only way her body knew how to process the last week alone in the dorm. She had sent three texts, a question about when he had gone home, a birthday greeting and a New Year’s greeting. “I don’t think he wants to talk to me anymore,” Hange said. She avoided Shela’s gaze. Somehow, her heart was racing then, her blood was rushing to her face much faster than usual and she found herself curling her fists into a ball, finding some semblance of control in them. Was she ashamed that Levi wasn’t talking to her? She shook her head. “But you know, I can try to talk to Levi.”

“What about this… I’ll contact Levi when he comes back. I’ll try to get his side of what’s been happening. Maybe I can even get him to reply.”

“Are you sure you can’t tell me anything now? Maybe even something vague. I can try to figure the rest out for myself,” Hange said. She couldn’t tell then if she had raised her voice.

Shela didn’t seem shaken at all. She shook her head again. “This is between me and my patients.”

Hange had integrity, she understood confidentiality clauses. She had been researching all her life though, and that side of her still continued to fight. Maybe if the hints weren’t all there, poking at her, just provoking, she would have given up much more easily “I just wanna understand it, I wanna understand him. Even if we don’t talk after this. Even if Levi wants to end this, you know I’m fine. I just wanna figure out for myself why he acted that way. I’m worried.”

Shela cocked her head to the side, her expression unchanging. “Believe me, I’m worried too but I can’t say much. Levi’s my patient and whatever we talk about in this room is between us.” She pushed the two binders on the table towards Hange and continued. “But I don’t want to leave you empty handed. I wrote two pieces for my dissertation which you might find useful, something personal and something professional, I can send over a copy of both of them to you over email. Or if you want a hard copy, you could have this photocopied in the library nearby. What do you think works for you?”

The digression had Hange’s lips trembling then. Shela knew things she didn’t for sure and Hange found herself tempted to even curse silently at that confidentiality clause.

She opened the cover to find the title page in black ink, in one of the most readable fonts.

Signs that suggest the reality of reincarnation and its manifestations in patients.

You got what you wanted. Hange thought to herself as she scanned the title page of the document in front of her. It was a cold and professional title. The researcher inside her should have been satisfied. But she wasn’t. She wasn’t ungrateful either. “Thank you, I’ll make sure to read it,” she said. It was still help anyway.

Another, much thinner book was pushed next to it.

Musings on a Past Life: Written by Kuchel Ackerman

“This is my own personal copy,” Shela explained. “It’s not something you should be emulating when doing research but… I thought it could give you some insight to your thesis.

“Okay, if I have some extra time, I’ll---”

No actually, let’s make this your little homework. I want you to read both pieces. And if you get a chance to talk to Levi again…”

Shela probably said something after that. At that point though, Hange was somewhere else. She had pulled the thinner document towards her and propped it on her lap, and scanned through it. She only had to read through the first paragraph on one of the final pages to understand why it wouldn’t have passed up as anything academic.

She wasn’t rattling off procedures, scientific speculations or statistical procedures. She was painting pictures of dark streets, cramped streets and a shabby one bedroom alone with a baby. She spoke of soft skin, a baby scent that never faded and illness. She reflected on loss, regret all manifesting in that last face she saw before she fell asleep for the final time.

A teary eyed face. A shaken voice begging at her not to fall asleep. And then nothing.

Maybe there was darkness, darker than the ceiling of the underground, darker than the room that had been hers and her child.

That was left to mercy of Hange’s speculation.

It was only when she was alone in the dorm, two days after, did she reopen it. It had taken her more time than necessary to finish it and maybe it had been because she had ended up rereading whole paragraphs, flipping pages back more times than she could count.

And it was only then, after finishing that personal file did she feel compelled enough to read the official output.

She opened a page, towards an introduction, a foreword or a message. Possibly all of those at once. But it connected so seamlessly to Kuchel’s own musings.

A False Bottom.

All humans feel. Even when they say they don’t, they feel something.

Human psyche is an endless blackhole of emotions, knowledge and experiences….

There are still things psychologists cannot comprehend about the human psyche. All we can do is endeavor to make sense of it…

With this thesis, the researcher proposes that one possible explanation for unpredictable bouts of emotion, out-of-character decisions, the phenomena of irrationality is the phenomena of reincarnation…

Manifestations of our past life.

“And maybe there are emotions that transcend our worldly experiences. Maybe there are emotions that transcend the constraints of time, place and life.. It’s just a matter of believing that false bottom exists and embracing it when it manifests itself.”

And how many times did Hange allow those words to echo inside her as she sifted through page after page. Enough times at least to have her open a blank document.

As she soon found out, it wasn’t easy at all to embrace the blank document. She was completely aware she didn’t have to open the blank document, she had a half filled one already, having started on her own thesis a while back.

But something had willed her to do just that. Something inside her that wanted answers to questions, and it begged for them, clamored for them and Hange was starting to forget who even asked it. She? Or Kuchel?

Musings of a Past Life. Hange had typed out the title days ago already. Maybe it wasn’t easy because it wasn’t her past life to write. It was Levi’s past.

Or so that was what Levi claimed when he wrote it. “Ugh…. What the hell am I doing?” Hange removed her headphones, closed her eyes tight, inhaled then exhaled. “Okay Hange. You wanted to write this thesis for Levi right? You read his whole story. This should be easy.”

She just needed to write enough to remember his story. Enough to at least shoehorn him into her own thesis.

“And after that, you never have to think about him again,” Hange said. She opened her phone again and stared at the last sent message.

January 3 6:21 AM

Wanna talk when you get back?

“I wonder…. Did you talk to Shela?” Hange asked quietly, almost to herself. But Shela would have told her right? But what if Levi told her not to tell? What if he just wanted to cut it off already?

It was an idea Hange didn’t want to entertain just yet. Thesis was looming, graduation was hanging over her head like some sort of dark cloud. She didn’t have time to deal with heartbreak.

So in the wee hours of morning, Hange composed a quick last message to Levi.

January 5 2:23 AM

Hey, I’m sorry about everything. I should have been more sensitive to your needs. Even if you don’t wanna meet after this, it’s fine. I had a great time working with you and I’ll remember these past few months :D. I’m just sorry I couldn’t be more helpful.

Just assure me please. Did you get to talk to someone? I hope you did. I was just concerned. But it doesn’t matter too much now. As long as you’re okay.

And the next few actions after that were automatic.

Settings. Profile. Ignore Messages.

She had more important things to think about then. She had to admit, her inbox was starting to look a bit better without that thread she was constantly checking that had a string of messages that had been so pathetically ignored.

That last decision and the last few actions leading up to it had sapped more energy from Hange than she had expected it to. Or maybe it was the dim light of the early morning and the small yet strong light of her lamp that had her realizing how exhausted she had been then.

She switched off the lamp and fell back on the bed. The impact had shaken her to the bone and Hange found herself sinking into the mattress. She was happy to let it swallow her then.

The night was surprisingly bright. Yet, at the same time it had been a dark night, she was sure. She traced the sources of the light on the ceiling above. The light painted triangles, squares and straight cut angles. There were spots from other sources, maybe where the moon bounced on some glass objects.

Hange was too exhausted to sit up to see those refractions for herself.

She may have been too exhausted then to type in front of a computer or even sit up in bed so instead, she continued to count spots, trace the dim weak rays in the ceiling of her room, as she traced them back to the wide window, all the way to the point where she would have to crane her head to see what lay beyond. She soon realized, she still wasn’t tired enough to doze off.

The gears in her brain continued to turn. And they had only started to turn faster with all the intricate patterns the moonlight had created as it shone through the wide window of her dormitory room.

Should she close the curtains so she could get a good night's sleep? That question only occupied her for a second or so before she thought of something else.

And maybe there are sensations that transcend our worldly experiences. Maybe there are emotions that transcend the constraints of time, place and life. It’s just a matter of believing that false bottom exists and embracing it when it breaks open.

But if these emotions transcended worldly experiences, if they transcended life, then they should be unfathomable, not worth the effort of understanding.

Hange though, had been a researcher for as long as she could remember. She had mottos. She had habits. She had unshakable ways of thinking.

Turning to her side was easy. It was a quick, comfortable movement and maybe she had done it to sleep better. Or maybe she had done it to just get a better angle of the stream of moonlight that entered through the window.

Her desk sat on a familiar angle. Her laptop was open but turned off. Her bag slung over the chair.

The stream from the moonlight shone over her canvas bag and down to the floor. It created a web of intricate patterns, patterns that had Hange hypnotized at that moment. They were angular yet they were round and it would have taken hours for Hange to trace them in her exhausted state.

Yet they were hypnotizing enough for her not to want to look away. So in an effort to keep up with the challenge the moonlight had given her at that moment, she continued to reflect as she traced at it with her eyes.

False bottoms. Sensations that transcend worldly experiences, Emotions that transcend the constraints of time and space.

“But if they are things that transcend human comprehension, then how do we make sense of them?”

Ironically, it had been in the most intricate of patterns that Hange saw the answer. It had been in something so mundane that Hange had to blink twice and question it for a second longer.

“Dreams?” Hange asked, barely a whisper.

If there’s something you don’t understand, go out and learn to understand it.

She didn’t understand Levi’s dreams. She didn’t understand how his mind worked. She didn’t understand the stories he had written out.

There were things she didn’t understand for sure but there were things she remembered.

And maybe all she needed to understand something, was the right amount of hints, the right amount of crumbs to make sense of it herself. Maybe all she needed was the review of related literature, the observations and her own analysis to write a conclusion.

The dreamcatcher hung aimlessly from her canvas bag like it always did. It had been something almost unnoticeable before. Only in the night when the moon shined on it, when it had etched a large shadow on the floor, possibly even a hundred times larger than the small keychain in her bag did Hange think about it again.

And she thought about it hard enough to reach for it from the side off her bed. She stretched her hand farther and farther and in the dark, her sense of distance may have been a little worse.

She thought she had been almost there and she was pulled back into that cruel reality in a single moment, with a loud painful thud.

“Ow!” Hange quickly got up, a result of that adrenaline rush from the harrowing experience of a painful fall from her bed. She unfastened the dream catcher from her bag, on the way back to the bed, she grabbed her phone, her earphones and sat on her bed.

That time, she eased herself onto the bed and under the covers.

She held the dreamcatcher above her, tracing the purple, the green. She knew they were purple and green but under the moonlight they seemed almost blue, and maybe she could have even mistaken the purple and green for one another.

Her only hint to the shades after all were the way they reflected the moonlight on themselves.

Eventually, her arms got tired, still aching from that painful fall. She slipped the dream catcher under her pillow and turned on her side. She put one earphone on her left ear, another on her right and she turned on her phone and shuffled her music.

The dormitory was silent with everyone gone for the holidays.

Eerily silent. She was used to living alone, it wasn’t anything new. But recently, she had frequently found herself missing him, maybe missing her parents, she started to realize the silence, the isolation that came with it was almost unbearable.

So maybe she had been listening to music, maybe she had been talking to herself a little more.

And those dreams, they probably would help. Hange thought to herself as she set her phone to her side, a good distance from the edge of the bed.

She had dreamt enough to know, she couldn’t control dreams. But if they did come, they would come in hints, puzzle pieces and maybe something she could easily write down in the morning.

So she willed them to come in that silent night. She whispered to Commander Zoe. She pressed that dream catcher one more time.

Hange closed her eyes, adjusted the volume of the music and evened her breathing.

The dreams would choose when to come, if they chose to come at all. All she could do was trust in them.

***

Levi would have liked to blame the snow for his inability to concentrate.

It was fucking loud. The patter came too randomly, Levi struggled to find patterns in it. For a few seconds at a time, the snow would patter on the window in big loud waves. Other times, the snow came in plip plops reminiscent of a rainy spring day. A few times, it shifted to something slow and gentle Levi could have used it to lull himself to sleep.

It was a piece of music on rubato, and the musician was just a little too keen on leaving his audience unhinged.

And just that quick thought at least absolved Levi of any blame. He didn’t feel too much self loathing then. Just utter frustration and maybe a pinch of sadness.

The document in front of him was just a mish mash black words on white paper and for the life of him, he couldn’t imagine they could be anything else. The top section was descriptive, very descriptive that he should have been able to do so much as to smell the whore house. He should have been able to grieve the loss of a mother.

But it was just black on white.

So Levi scrolled down three pages to find a source of investment elsewhere. He found vivid descriptions of life on a wheelchair, a frequented grave but for the life of him, he couldn’t even imagine the large tree above, or the vivid descriptions of airplanes on the blue sky.

But it was just words on paper.

“What do you think?” Hange asked. She looked at him expectantly. “It’s not a lot… I’ve just been working on this in between my thesis and I don’t have much going for me but my own memories… But I rewrote some bullet points while I was trying to remember it and I just thought you know if I put my own writings in between what you have so far...maybe it could help you process it.”

“Process... it?”

“But if you don’t wanna think about it, it’s fine.”

Remember? Levi wanted to remember. Those weren’t black pixels on white pixels, conveniently strung together to make symbols. They were vivid descriptions of another world, another life for sure. But why couldn’t he bring himself to invest in it… Anymore?

“Maybe I just need a break,” Levi set aside the laptop on the side table and leaned back on the bed.

“You’re tired, injured. You could even get sick,” Hange said. “I don’t expect you to think too much of it, I just thought it would help pass the time.” She looked away guiltily.

“I’m not angry about you forcing me to get my knee checked again. Jumping in the dead of winter with a sprained knee was a stupid move.”

“I know it was. But I also know you’re probably tired of hospitals already.”

“I am tired of hospitals. But you were right. When they tested my knee, it didn’t feel right. I’m pretty sure I tore something again.”

“It was swelling… And I knew we could have just iced it but, you know you jumped pretty high, you ran pretty fast, it’s kinda scary you did that with your knee... In the middle of winter of all times of the year? God---Levi, What were you thinking? Armin told me he’d stop by the field to pick up Mikasa’s things so you know if I didn’t go out to meet him just in case he got lost, I probably wouldn’t have made it. At least Armin had half the mind to text me when you wouldn’t listen to him…” Hange trailed off. “But I wish I had arrived earlier, maybe I could have stopped you.”

“You wouldn’t have convinced me not to jump,” Levi said.

“Why do you say that?”

“No one would have convinced me. I was dead set on jumping that one last time.”

“Why did you wanna jump?”

“Closure.” It was a simple answer to a simple question. But as Levi enunciated each syllable, he became a little self conscious about how pretentiously short that answer had been. It was closure, he was sure but there were layers to that answer he couldn’t comprehend for himself in that moment.

Hange seemed to sense it too. She narrowed her eyes at him and opened her mouth ready to speak before she closed it again and let her eyes fall on the hospital bed. “Couldn’t you find closure elsewhere? Did you have to risk your knee for it?”

“What do you know? ” Levi ran his eyes over his thighs and up to his knee propped on a few pillows. He started to feel the beginnings of guilt a second later. His intention never was to offend.

What do you know? That question had been for him.

You didn’t live your whole college life jumping only to end up in a state where you can barely walk. Was that what Hange heard? Maybe. She looked like she did. After all, she was blushing then. As if she had been aware of that slight vulnerability, she bit her lip, looked away and stretched out over the side of the bed to get back her laptop.

Levi felt obligated to reassure her. “You know I don’t intend to jump again. I wish I could. But I think that last jump helped me accept that that part of my life is over.”

“So, what next?” Hange asked. “Erwin mentioned you could get surgery to fix the partial tear.”

Levi shook his head. “And skip more school then hope I can jump again? The surgery isn't necessary. The knee can heal on its own.”

“But what about other---”

“Jumping opportunities? Other athletic opportunities? I said, that part of my life is over.”

“You had a lot of talent you know.”

“You’re not the first person to say that.”

Hange managed a smile, a smile that was far from happy. But at the least, it could be contagious. “Then it was an honor to see you fly that one last time Captain Levi.”

Levi could have sworn he saw something glisten as she crinkled her eyes, a supplement to her wry smile. “I was never the captain of my team. You know that,” he said.

“That wasn’t what I meant---” Hange had been meaning to finish, or at least she looked like it. The knock on the door though had been loud and it tore through that soft conversation.

Hange stood up from her seat and opened the door slowly.

“Erwin told me you too would be here. I finished up early today so I thought I’d pop in.”

Levi nodded in greeting. He had been too ashamed to say anything else. But he was determined at least to show some respect.

“It looks like you two are talking again. Doctor Erwin told me what happened and I thought…” The moment Kuchel made eye contact with Levi, her eyes widened. “Levi… You…”

Levi found himself particularly self conscious then, he looked down at his thick sweater, at his knee. “I sprained my knee again.”

Kuchel was quick to recover. “I noticed that much,” she said. “I was talking about…” She gave him a long awkward onceover. She shook her head.

She wasn’t the only one who seemed uncomfortable then. Hange hadn’t looked back at him since Kuchel had entered the room. Her whole disposition had somehow changed in that few seconds.

“You okay?” Levi asked.

Hange didn’t answer. She booted her laptop again and angled it towards Kuchel who had approached them and set a chair next to his bed.

“It looks like you managed to let go already Captain Levi.” Kuchel said, as she cocked her head to the side and smiled.

Captain Levi. The words whispered once again inside him, too softly Levi found it easy to brush it away. “You know, you were right. The emotions would leave on their own. It still hurts but I don’t see any reason to fight it if I know it’s gonna heal eventually. That’s how closure is supposed to feel like right?”

Shela shook her head. “Closure manifests differently for each person. But it’s normal to forget when you accept. Sometimes we find ourselves forgetting why we were ever sad at all. Or sometimes we just forget the details. Or sometimes it just feels like everything was all just a bad dream.”

“These past few months since the injury, they’re starting to blur together like some dream.” He turned to Hange who was starting to seem more and more uncomfortable. He chose that moment to reflects and he started to wonder why he had even avoided her in the first place. His next few words came out automatically “ I’m sorry what I did, and about our fight last month, I wasn’t angry about the injury if that’s what you think,” Levi said. The apology came out of nowhere, it felt misplaced. He started realize that maybe he should have given that apology much earlier.

Why then?

Hange had heard the apology for sure, but maybe she had just chosen to ignore it. “But Levi, you wrote these right? These dreams?” Hange said, as if she had taken his stare then as some cue to speak. She turned to Kuchel and to Levi, her movements seemed desperate then. She had at least kept some composure in her expression.

“I wrote them out,” Levi said. “But to be honest... I’m starting to forget why I did.”

"Emotions and dreams fickle things. They come and go when they please but sometimes we wanna keep them on record so we could relive it and process it. That’s why if you wanna grasp it and preserve it before it leaves... If you wanna be able to relive it, you have to write it down. This is why I ask all my patients to write things out. "

"Levi did." Hange turned to Levi. You wrote everything down right? You showed me a while ago, you wrote this and this… Shela, if they were his dreams, his emotions...he was writing it"

Shela’s expression was unmoving. "Those dreams weren’t supposed to be his. Maybe that's why they had been just a little more fickle. Who knows? Maybe Captain Levi just took it back already.”

“Why take it back?” Hange asked

“Maybe he fulfilled his unfinished business. Maybe he found closure.”

“But Levi you should have remembered writing it? You’ve been on it for months. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten these last three months right?”

“I haven’t,” Levi said reassuringly.

“Then why aren’t you thinking about it anymore. Why am I the one thinking about it for you?” Hange pressed. There was a crack in her voice and Hange looked ready to slam her laptop on the floor.

“I remember writing it. I’m just wondering for myself why I wrote it out in the first place. Maybe because I didn’t have much to do. I got injured, I was stuck at home and you know, those days in your apartment, those days stuck in the dorm, they just blended together.”

“But you weren’t just indoors… We went out to the mountains. You were telling me these stories and you were telling me how Commander Hange was like. Levi, I felt things. I remembered all of it. You can’t just leave me hanging like this---”

Shela cleared her throat, uncharacteristically louder than usual. “You know, you seem more relaxed now. How does it feel Levi? Does it feel like a weight has been lifted off of your shoulders? Like you walk up from a bad dream?"

Levi nodded. "I'm just wondering why I'm exhausted."

“Of course you’re exhausted, you jumped while injured in the middle of winter. But relaxed is still a different feeling altogether, particularly compared to you the past few months. When I look at you now, you seem… freer?”

Freer? Levi shrugged. When had he ever been trapped?

For a while the room had been silent and it was Hange who broke it. "Levi, I wrote everything out, about what happened to Captain Levi in the survey corps. You may have deleted the file but I remembered them. These were your stories. These were the dreams you had. Hell, if Kuchel’s theory is correct, these are memories from your past life."

To humor Hange more than anything, Levi reread the bullet points and the effort quickly proved futile. They were bullet points of events, they could have been a timeline that Levi couldn’t for the life of him make sense of it. And he found himself a little annoyed at her tenacity.

“You still have a lot to write Hange, even I can’t make sense of it,” Kuchel said from behind. She gave Hange a reassuring pat.

The pout on Hange’s face, the way it had darkened into something similar to disappointment, had Levi almost guilty. Her emotions ran deeper than disappointment, he was sure. And for a second or so, Hange seemed crestfallen, ready to leave the room. The only thing tying her to the room then could have been her own strong penchant for seeking answers,

“You think you’ll be able to write again?” Hange asked. She looked like she could have said more. It was as if squeezing out that one sentence had sapped all energy out of her.

Levi shrugged. “Maybe I will.”

“When?”

“When the inspiration comes again.”

***

When will the inspiration come again? Hange always asked good questions and if she asked a question that couldn’t be answered, she always had an explanation to follow. Or at the least, she knew how to phrase questions in a way that could get answers.

Levi couldn’t answer and Hange wasn't helping him either. The tense silence that followed, loomed exclusively over the two of them. Although the conversation had shifted to a dialogue between Levi and Kuchel, even when Hange had kept quiet, pulling her focus back on her laptop in front of her, or her phone, the tension never left.

Levi had attempted to cut at it by focusing on Kuchel. He had provided a long drawn out explanation of his own emotions for Kuchel and in return, Kuchel had provided a long drawn out interpretation of his explanations.

Maybe drawing the conversation out longer than expected was unnecessary. In the end, the only take home Levi had for himself then was that the past few months were a blur and any effort to make sense of it would be completely futile.

Kuchel left them both in the silence, mentioning something about another meeting. Alone in the room, in the tense silence continued to haunt. It was Hange who spoke up again asking that same question. “When will inspiration come again?”

“You sound pretty fixated on my inspiration. Maybe you should write the end for yourself then.” The sudden acceptance had Levi relaxing on the bed soon after Kuchel had left the room.

“It’s not about writing… This story in particular, it meant a lot to me too.”

“I’m sure it meant a lot. It meant a lot to me too but weirdly, I just don’t care about it as much as I used to.”

“What about us?”

“What do you mean ‘about us?’”

“About us… The past few things you were writing the story and you were talking about Commander Hange and Captain Levi. That was about us right?”

“You heard my answer to Kuchel, it was a blur.”

“No, I meant about us in the past few months. Are you angry with me? Do you want me out of your life?”

“You wanna leave?.”

“No it’s not that. It’s just…” Hange breathed out, shaking her head in disbelief. “You didn’t talk to me for weeks.”

Levi looked away, hiding the wince in his face. “I told you, I’m sorry I don’t even remember why I did it.”

“So do you want me here?”

“Yes, I don't want you to leave, I thought it was obvious.”

“Well it looks like it wasn’t so obvious, I thought you’d want me to leave. You didn’t reply to any of my messages and I remembered, we’ve only known each other for months.”

“I think 'months' are more than enough for me to realize that I want you here. For a long time. Maybe longer than that.” Maybe even forever.

Did he say that ‘forever’ part out loud? He didn’t expect Hange’s smile then.

Her eyes were wide open, her lips curled up into a big smile. The overall expression on her face had seemed unreadable. She could have been mocking him, she could have been freaked out or she could have been that good balance between surprised and happy “So what are you saying? We’re soulmates?” She asked.

“You don’t believe in soulmates,” Levi said. The facade of disconnect was hurriedly done, consequently, it felt almost shoddy.

“Fate?”

“You told me yourself, you don’t believe in fate either.

“I don’t.”

“It was a choice right? Everything that brought us to this point was all just borne of choice. You made the choice to work for me, I made the choice to cooperate and here we are.” Levi felt a hand slip under his and it grabbed him from underneath. Levi didn’t have to look down to comprehend it, Hange’s face had said it all.

“But you know, I’m starting to believe in this abstract thing called soulmates. And this other abstract thing called fate,” she said

“Aren’t you a researcher?”

“I have the evidence, Levi. Someone has been coming into my dreams too and she’s been telling me about you.”

“You know, they must have been some really good dreams if they convinced you to believe in them.

“They were. They really were. And you know what, they only keep coming.”

Levi had closed his eyes long before then. And the patter on the window had mellowed to something rhythmic and along the way it had softened altogether. Whether it had been due to the even patter or through her own volition, Hange had stopped talking, her breath had evened out.

And when Levi started to dream again, the shift had been too gradual, too kind. The dreams weren’t loud, they didn't demand attention. They didn’t make themselves known. When Levi opened his eyes again, the idea that he had fallen asleep had seemed almost surreal, unbelievable.

“You can go back to sleep,” Hange said. She seemed focused on something on her laptop again.

Levi looked out the window, the sky was dark but the snow continued to fall.

“Erwin told us we could stay another night.”

“Why?”

“We’re completely snowed in.”

“Okay,” Levi said. He had attempted to go back to sleep and it had only proved frustratingly unsuccessful. The confusion at having the view by the window so suddenly shift from sky blue to complete black still had him disoriented.

So he found orientation in Hange’s concentrated look then and the white of the screen reflected in her glasses. Even behind the glare, her long lashes were noticeable, her hazel brown eyes could still be traced, the shades of brown discerned. So he continued to looked, and he had managed to pass the time much more quickly.

“How are you feeling?” Hange asked as she looked up at him. The glare of the screen disappeared from her glasses and Levi found himself unable to respond for a second longer as he appreciated the unmarred view of her eyes then.

It was a lucid view of her then that sent a pang of regret through him. It was quick and if Levi didn’t let it wash through him then, if he didn’t give it full control over him in that moment, maybe he would have never remembered it happened, maybe he would have never remembered to appreciate Hange then.

“I feel like I just had one long dream,” Levi said. maybe the dreams could have explained the slight pang of regret then. But they were too far off already for Levi to look back on. So he surrendered quickly and kept silent.

Hange didn’t hesitate to take the reins of the conversation. “I was writing.”

“About what?”

“About your dreams. I'm trying to remember what else you wrote.”

“Oh?”

“I don’t think you ever gave names to the two titans you caught for me."

Titans? Levi couldn't follow the conversation. With nothing else much to contribute, he nodded.

Hange continued. “So I named them myself.”

“What did you name them?” Levi asked, an attempt to humor her more than anything.

Hange’s face had curled to a smile as she spoke and she opened her mouth a little bit, exposing her teeth underneath. She seemed to be enjoying it. “Their names are Sonny and Bean"

Somehow, Levi was starting to get invested too. “Hey Hange, since we’re gonna be stuck here for a while, maybe you can tell me what a titan is.”

#levihan #levihan fanfiction

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lanuvolanera · 3 years ago

Text

Sept 19th - Cofession

Chapter 1

My first ever fanfic, lads, be nice and enjoy.

---------

Coming out of Casper High mid afternoon, Danny and Tucker made their way down the school steps. Students trickled out the front doors in small groups and split their own ways as the duo began their trek to Fenton works.

"Man, I'm glad Sam didn't come today." Danny said, grasping his backpack strap slung over his shoulder.

"I know, right? She would've been miserable." Tucker replied, pocketing his PDA with a light frown on his face.

The day went well. Steady, in fact. They seemed to have kept off of Dash's radar and stayed on Mr Lancer's good side with the English assignment. Not to mention that it was pizza day at the cafeteria, the only good thing that the cooks knew how to make. Yeah, today wasn't so bad, it just felt empty without Sam by their side.

"She should be feeling better by tomorrow, right?"

"Honestly, I think she'll take the rest of the week off. If it wasn't for that ghost..."

"Oh god, don't remind me, I still feel awful." Danny said with a look of mild horror, still traumatised from the night before.

A pause in their conversation prompted more memories from last night.

Phantom, two feet above the ground, felt paralysed as he looked on and watched as Tucker ducked undercover from the ectoblasts firing in all directions from what looked like a regular bedsheet type ghost, only this one was different, this one screeched and wailed and gnawed it's black teeth, blood dripping from its mouth, staining its torso.

"We'll give her a call tonight, see how she's doing." Tucker said, dragging Danny out of his thoughts.

"Or we could head over, see how she's doing in person?"

"Or we could leave her be and let her rest."

Danny didn't like that idea, he was worried and felt guilty and ashamed that he couldn't prevent her injury. As minor as it was, she couldn't find the strength to come to school the next day, when he'd hoped to apologise again and ask how she's doing again and to offer her anything she needs again. He made his mind up right then.

"I'll fly over tonight then, when everyone's gone to bed."

"Sure, don't forget to bring her homework and tell her you love her."

"What?" Danny gasped in shock, a deep red blush covering his cheeks.

"Nothing." Tucker looked away with a sheepish grin and quickly changed the topic.

"We still need to do some research about last night's ghost, I've downloaded some pdf's which I'll send to you and Sam to see if there are other ways to dispell it if the thermos didn't work."

They turn the corner and can see the large Fenton works sign in the distance, two blocks away.

"Race you." Danny smirked, and sprinted off before Tucker had a chance to realise what was happening.

With a loud "hey!" from Tucker in the background, Danny slowed as he neared the steps to his front door and tried the handle, locked. Hmm, his parents are out, Jazz would still be at school studying in the library, looks like he and Tucker have the house to themselves. Danny pulls out his keys and unlocks the door just as Tucker catches up out of breath.

"That's cheating, you had a head start." He pants.

"Come on, the computer in the lab is free, go down and fire it up while I get some coffee brewing."

"Sounds like a plan."

-------------‐-------------------------------------------------

Later that night, Danny flew Tucker back to his house.

They soared through the night sky, clear and full of stars, street lamps illuminating the buildings below them, his best friends arm slung over phantoms shoulders.

"Look, all I'm saying is if we go back tomorrow, what if we make things worse, pissed it off even more. If its trapped there like we think, what harm will it do if we leave it alone?"

"It's different though, what if when we found it there, we let it loose?"

"If we did then don't you think we would've seen it again by now?"

"I don't want to chance it, we need to find a way to deal with it permanently."

"Don't tell me you're going back there by yourself."

"No, I'm going to Sam's, like I said."

"You'd better."

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

Once he'd said his goodbyes to Tucker, and reassured him he wasn't going to do something wreckless, Danny took off into the air once more and set course for Sam's House.

With a backpack full with his thermos, his laptop, his phone, both his and Sam's maths homework, a couple of pens, pencils, markers and 2 cans of Sam's favorite soda, Danny sped across the rooftops when a blue puff of cold air burst it's way past his lips.

"Of course, I thought it was too quiet tonight."

Taking a quick glance of his surroundings, there was nothing to be seen in the empty streets. A brief pause, his breath held in his lungs, then glass crashing from a shop window a few blocks down caught Danny's attention.

Cackling laughter and bursts of light flashed from the window, Danny wasted no time reaching the building, turning himself intangible and flew through the ceiling.

"Oh, come on! What the hell are you doing here? In a pet store of all places?"

....

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

Danny finally arrived at his destination. Peaking through the window to find Sam laying on her bed, light from her laptop illuminating her face, in her black pyjamas and a cast on her leg.

He knocked on the glass, and smiled as Sam startled.

Waving him in, he floated through the glass and landed with a soft thump on the plush carpet, and settled on the edge of her bed.

"Hey, how're you feeling?" Danny said with concern in his voice.

"Fine. Hey, you need to sign my cast." Sam says with a playful smirk. Danny half expected her to be more upset about being injured, or at least, as upset as he is.

After the escape from the warehouse the night before, with Sam cradled in his arms and Tucker following not too far behind, all Danny could think was this was all his fault. Sam got injured because of him, because he was too late, too late to swoop in and protect her from the falling scaffolding from the ghost fight, that cost her her ability to run to safety. He's the hero, isn't he? And he couldn't save her from something as simple as falling debris? What kind of hero-

"Danny-"

Sam could see the distraught look on Danny's face and he caught himself looking down at her cast. It could've been a lot worse, but still.

Danny looks up at her, he needs to confess.

"I'm sorry, Sam, I'm sorry you got hurt, I should've been more careful-"

"Hey, don't worry about it, these things happen, right? It could've been a lot worse."

"I know, I keep telling myself that, but still-"

"But still, we need to figure out a way to get rid of that ghost, I've been doing some research on this specific type of ghost and I've read through the files Tucker sent me, and I think I have a good idea on what we're working with."

Sam brings the laptop closer and turns it around for Danny to see pages upon the screen filled with information from different historic and religious sites.

"Does it say anything about why the thermos didn't work?" He asked playfully. Of course, the Fenton thermos only being a recent invention, there wouldn't be any information that hasn't been put online by the Fentons themselves indicating its presence in the ghost hunting community across the globe. Sure, there have been other containment methods but for this particular ghost, the best method would be to remove it from this plane entirely instead of just bottling it up.

Other pages on the screen suggest cleansing treatments of the haunted area using a mixture of herbs, minerals and rituals, witchcraft. If that could work, maybe the Fentons have other means of ghost study to pursue, if they believed in that sort of thing, of course.

"Hoestly, this stuff is giving me a headache, I need a break."

"Good thing I have just what you need." Danny says, reaching for his backpack.

He pulls out his own laptop, the 2 cans of soda and their homework, which Sam gives a mild look of disgust.

"Great."

"You don't look at all enthused." Danny says with a cheeky smile, and pops open his can, passing the other one over to Sam who takes it gratefully.

A small awkward pause later and Sam has to snap Danny back to reality again.

"Look, I know you think this is your fault, so here's my obligatory I'm-not-a-damsel-in-distress talk, we're a team, we'll sort this out, and we can forget about it."

"It's not just that, I don't know, it's just that- I don't think I'll be able to forget about it. There's something about this ghost, it's terrifying." Danny says, setting his can aside.

"I know, ugly too." Sam smiles as Danny looks up, he remembers what Tucker said to him earlier.

Tell her you love her.

"I don't think I'd be able to live with myself if something happened to you, I couldn't imagine my life without you."

At this, Sam sits up and puts her can on her bedside table. They're face to face with each other now.

"I couldn't imagine my life without you either, and you're right, that ghost is terrifying, even more of a reason to fight it."

Tell her.

"This ghost fight seems to be putting things into perspective."

You love her.

"I know what you mean."

They don't know when they got closer, or when they started leaning in.

Danny lightly brushes his fingers across her cheek, tilting her head just so, and presses his lips to hers.

It's a little awkward at first, spending a few seconds in that position. Then someone, or maybe both, adjust their lips, and oh.

Oh wow.

The sensation is amazing, sparks running down their spines and they readjust again, and again.

Their arms begin to wrap around each other and oh god, they're actually making out, kissing. They don't even realise they've fallen onto their sides on the bed, eyes squeezed shut applying and reapplying firm presses of their lips together.

They stay that way for a few moments, or is it lifetimes, when a tune came from the bedside table.

They pull apart, dazed red faces inches from each other, before Sam sits up and grabs her phone.

"It's Tucker."

She answers.

"Hey, Sam, I know you're busy recovering and all and I know it's late but I think I have a lead."

"That's great, what've you got?"

"I've found a review online about a book at the town hall library, if we can get it checked out tomorrow we might be able to find a way to exorcise this ghost."

Sam and Danny look at each other with hope.

"What's the title?"

"Ghost hunting for dummies."

"Be serious."

"I'll make you laugh one day, I swear."

"Tucker."

"It's called 'witchcraft untold', there are only 2 copies in town, the other is at the 'Skulk and Lurke'. The review made it sound like a work of fiction, and maybe it is, who knows? But I think it's worth checking out."

Sam makes a mental note of the title. There are a few books she's planning on checking out, some including cultural and religious beliefs on the undead, magic and pagan rituals, and scientific findings surrounding ghosts. If this book Tucker mentioned is as promising as it sounds, things could be looking up.

"I've been meaning to go to the 'Skulk and Lurke' tomorrow anyway, so I'll keep an eye out for it."

"Thats great, we'll talk more later, get some rest."

" I will do, see you later, Tuck."

"See you, and say hi to Danny for me!"

Click.

They glance at each other, and Danny moves to stand up.

"I should get going, um..."

"Yeah, you're gonna need some rest too if we're gonna face this ghost tomorrow night."

"We?"

"Yeah?"

"No."

"What?"

Danny couldn't believe he had to say this.

"Sam, you're injured, there's no way I'm letting you come along..."

"You're not 'letting' me do anything, I'm going. We still need to figure out a plan before then anyway, when I get a chance to check out that book."

The air surrounding them starts to tense.

"How am I supposed to fight this ghost and protect you at the same time? Or have you already forgotten about last night?"

"Excuse me? Have you forgotten what I said only ten minutes ago? I'm not letting you go off and play hero all by yourself!"

"That is not-"

"Save it. I can take care of myself."

"Fine, I'll call you in the morning."

"Fine."

And with that, Danny turns towards the window and lifts off, phases through, and rises into the night sky.

#dp shiptember 2021 #danny phantom #sam manson #tucker foley #amethyst ocean

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stargazetheseries · 3 years ago

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OPEN CASTING CALL FOR STARGAZE: “THE PILOT” EPISODE & TRAILER VISIT: https://stargazetheseries.com/casting-call/ FOR DETAILS OR READ BELOW: A Borken Creative Production Sept 27, 2021 STARGAZE is a queer campy sci-fi adventure short-form adventure series intended for OTT. Executive Producers: Jill Golick, Carrie Cutforth Director: Regan Latimer Writer: Carrie Cutforth Union: ACTRA TORONTO (NEW MEDIA) Shoot: The pilot will begin shooting for 5 to 6 days between October 25-Nov 17th, 2021 Location: Toronto STORYLINE: A disparate group of rookie oddballs join an elite squad commissioned to save the Queerverse (from itself) only to discover the STARGAZE program is a sham make-work initiative to keep the crew from rocking the boat by sending them out on a fool’s quest (led by two elder queer chaperones who despise each other). Think: A 2SLGBTQIA+ The Facts Of Life meets The Breakfast Club in space! *BIPOC STRONGLY ENCOURAGED TO APPLY **MUST BE 18+ TO SUBMIT EVEN IF CHARACTER IS LISTED AS YOUNGER THE STARTGAZE RECRUITS: SAF RON (she/her): Character is 20, cisgender woman, lesbian, open to all ethnicities; some physical comedy required. LEAD. Mad as hell and not going to take it anymore, Saf joins STARGAZE with high expectations. If the adults won’t save the day, she will… and finally get the credit she deserves! But can this lone wolf learn to connect with others, stop being a control freak, relax her unreasonably high expectations of others (and herself), and step into the leadership role for which she is destined? First, she’ll have to stop seeing anyone getting in her way as a mustache-twirling villain, learn to see her crewmates’ value, accept help, and open herself up vulnerably. Gets apoplectic when mad; Has a knack for creating very convoluted protest chants that no one can follow. WHIT SPRINKLES (he/him): Character is 19, cisgender man, gay, open to all ethnicities. Must be able to walk elegantly in high heels. LEAD. A social media influencer famous for his snarky and bitter ’reads,’ charismatic Whit has developed a parasocial relationship with his stans. Living life performing in the spotlight from a very young age, Whit has no idea who he really is, what his real interests are, or his beliefs outside of what his analytics tell him: “My fans are gonna love this!” Only joining STARGAZE under pressure from his stans, his inability to forge true intimate connections is exacerbated by his relationship with his mother/manager Mumsy Sprinkles, a talentless hack/narcissistic stage mother living her dreams through her kid. If Whit was a meme he would be: ‘Bitch, I dun give a fuck!’ But he does, indeed, give a fuck. ESSA T. HATCH (they/them): Character is 18, non-binary or agender, asexual, demiromantic, neurodivergent, open to all ethnicities. LEAD. Adorkable Essa is an introvert who doesn’t really ‘get’ people. The explorer among the crew with an engineering mind and a love of mapping places and spaces, they know every nook and cranny of the ship and are usually the first to forge ahead (i.e. wander off) on every expedition. Essa mostly wants to be left alone to their own devices because they actually prefer their own company (neurotypicals can be so exhausting!). This normally wouldn’t be such a problem except Essa was pressured to join STARGAZE to make friends and widen their social net out of parental concern (‘We won’t be around forever, Essa!’). Loves to knit, make Venn diagrams of relationships; speaks in emojis when emotionally drained. LEW D’SHUS (he/him): Character is 21, transgender man or transmasculine, pansexual, open to all ethnicities. LEAD. When babelicious Lew looks at you with his rapt attention and dreamy eyes, you feel like the only person in the ‘verse until his short attention span snaps away and he forgets you’re there. “Good vibes, only!” Lew will gladly give you your Tarot card reading, but not before taking the negative cards out first. With his strict ‘the universe is love, we are love,’ mantra, Lew never wants anyone to feel bad even when they are deadass wrong! His philosophy of

appeasement can cause conflict amongst the crew and his inability to take sides in crucial moments will often put them in danger. No, we cannot just hug everything out, Lew! CHRYSTRAH SNU (she/her): Character is 17 (must be 18+ to apply), cis-gender woman, identifies as ‘queer’ but just figuring it all out. LEAD. Chrystrah is a fresh-off-the-belt queer who has arrived with big expectations: ‘I’m here, I’m queer! Direct me to my spot on the rainbow carpet!’ The trauma of her homophobic upbringing has left Chrystrah without any real sense of self; her identity loosely held together like a fragile cracked egg. Any criticism, no matter how gentle, feels like an attack, causing Chrystrah to act abrasive, territorial, and defensive. She is always overcompensating in big bombastic ways because she feels so inadequate for not knowing the right words, behaviours, and codes. She is jealous of Saf (some might say obsessed) who does seem to get it all right. Fiercely loyal, Chrystrah is the first to run headlong into danger to save someone. She has a steep learning curve ahead. THE ELDER QUEER CHAPERONES: BAE TORGA (she/her): Character is late 30’s-early 40’s, cisgender woman, bisexual, bipolar, open to all ethnicities. PRINCIPAL. A war hero (or war criminal depending on who you ask), Bae sees STARGAZE as an opportunity to redeem herself in the eyes of former mentor and friend Oracle Cain. She is someone who struggles with self-loathing and self-doubt even though she’s spent her adulthood righting her past wrongs and reining in her bipolar disorder, which contributed to her past rash and reckless mistakes. Possessing a tough, gruff demeanor, Bae is outwardly sardonic but really a bleeding heart who holds back out of fear that any demonstration of affection and empathy will be seen as a commitment. ORACLE CAIN (she/her): Character is middle-aged or older, transgender woman, ambulatory wheelchair user or wheelchair user, open to all ethnicities. *Note, as this is sci-fi, younger than middle age may apply. PRINCIPAL. A founding figure of the Queerverse, Oracle has done her service, done her duty, and now she’s done. She wants a peaceful existence to guard her limited energy and manage her physical pain. Instead, she’s pulled out of retirement to command a ship full of bickering youths. She also has to contend with spoiled brat and former colleague Bae reminding her of the past that Oracle is trying hard to forget. But duty is duty and it’s not like complaining ever got her anywhere. Talking to Oracle can feel like playing a chess game where the aloof commander is always five steps ahead: you never quite know where you stand with her. ADDITIONAL CHARACTERS ELP WHIPP (they/them or xe/xem): Character is middle-aged or older, gender-fluid, open to all ethnicities. Leader of the coalition of non-profit planets (each with its own conflicting Gay Agenda) that rule the Queerverse, Elp Whipp is a career bureaucrat/bean-counter who often gets caught in the trappings of their own political web — meaning much of nothing ever gets accomplished and progress is never made. Elp will appear throughout the series in that ‘Dean of the school’ role, occasionally showing up to demand overdue reports, warn the crew that their funding is at risk, and generally throw a wrench in the works. CARDIGAN JACK (she/her): Character is 30s, cis-woman, lesbian, open to all ethnicities. Cardigan Jack is a ‘pussy-hat’ wearing neo-liberalist feminist with a pirate vibe. She is the ‘Live, Laugh, Love’ of TERFs, and Saf Ron’s nemesis. TO SUBMIT: Borken Creative is committed to diverse and inclusive casting. For every role, please submit qualified performers without regard to disability, race, age, colour, sexual orientation or gender identity, or any other basis prohibited by law, unless otherwise specifically indicated, subject to legitimate casting directives. DEADLINE: Oct 8, 2021 EMAIL: [email protected]. SUBJECT LINE: Character(s) Role, Performer’s First and Last Name, pronouns. BODY OF EMAIL: Please provide contact info including phone number.

Please confirm you are 18 or over in the body of email if applying for a Stargaze recruit character. Submit headshot and resume as attachments to [email protected]. Resume should be in a scannable text file format (such as .doc, .pdf, .txt). First round selects will be invited to submit either a video clip audition or zoom audition invite. Only successful candidates will be contacted.

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#lgbtq #lbtqia #lgbtqplus #queer sci fi #casting call #auditions

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jazminebr6 · 3 years ago

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pynkhues · 4 years ago

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1/2 i've got some writing questions for you, if you're up for answering, because i’m curious and you seem like a Real Writer: 1) do you use betas? 2) what exactly are betas supposed to do? i always figured they just checked for like grammar and stuff. megan @foxmagpie is betaing for me and she's done her very best to help me with figuring out my outline and character motivations and i always figured that was a bonus because she's a sweetheart and can see i'm a baby who knows nothing about what

2/2 she’s doing, but the writing asks going around made me start thinking maybe that's actually more standard?? 3) also, i know you're being traditionally published (btw congrats!!), so how different is a fic beta from an editor? thank you in advance if you decide to answer!! :)

Thank you for the congratulations, and of course!

This got a little long, so I’m dropping it behind a cut.

1. Do you use betas?

I used to! I bounced around a few betas when I was a new writer, and then I met Melissa who I had a terrific creative relationship with for about five years? We’re still good friends, but she’s not in fandom anymore and decided she didn’t really have the time to beta anymore after she graduated from college and became a vet. It sort of worked out perfectly, because that was around the same time that I quit writing fic (something I’ve obviously come back to, haha).

I don’t use a beta currently, but I do sometimes talk plot / storyworld things through with @foxmagpie or share bits and ask for her opinion / if what I’m trying to get across comes across.

2) what exactly are betas supposed to do?

It’s entirely up to you and your beta! They can just do grammar and punctuation. I know some betas who just check for Americanisms, Australianisms, Europe-isms, I know some who are hands on with workshopping a story, some who predominantly cheerlead, some who provide very detailed feedback and suggestions, some who provide very little, it all just depends what you, the writer, want, and what the beta is prepared or able to give.

It’s why I think every writer-beta relationship – no matter how close you are as friends – should start with a conversation about parameters and expectations.

If you just want your fic proofread for grammar, that should absolutely be flagged by you, the writer. If you want feedback on plot, characterisation, etc. that should be flagged too.

I don’t tend to beta that much really, just because I’ve worked as a professional editor for many years and have been involved in a lot of writing workshops where you’re often workshopping multiple stories a week, and I find it really hard to turn off that part of my brain. As a result, when I do beta, I tend to do a condensed version of a full edit which includes a structural edit (broad story feedback and questions about world building, characters, etc), a copyedit (this is grammar plus sentence and paragraph structure, word repetition), fact checking (hence the glass bowl debate, hahaha), and write up a page or two on broader feedback for the author overall i.e. patterns in their writing, areas to improve, areas they do really well in, etc.

This is obviously incredibly vigorous (and will take me usually a whole day or even two days - which is something I have to signpost when beta’ing too as I’ll need to have a day free to do it), and not something most betas do (as it probably should be, haha, fanfic should be fun after all). This sort of edit though is (hopefully) really about growth and improvement and challenging the writer to level up, so to speak. The writer definitely needs to be ready for it, and Megan was, which is how I ended up doing this for chapter 7 and now chapter 8 of Delinquents.

Again though, this was something she and I negotiated and worked out that she wanted, and I was actually excited to do, because I love Megan’s writing, and if I could help her be more happy with it and grow and feel like she was growing, I’d be honoured to do that!

If that’s not what she’d wanted, I wouldn’t have done it the way that I did it.

As for Megan helping you with the outlining and character motivation, that is something that’s very sweet! Writing at that point can be really challenging, and while there are a lot of betas who talk through that sort of thing, there are a lot of betas too who only look at things after a draft is written as well. Having feedback and someone to talk to about a story in the early stages, particularly during outlining, can be really helpful and can save you a lot of issues down the track, because if you’re unsure of motivations and what’s propelling your characters through the story, it can often ground your writing to a halt.

One of the best bits of writing advice I ever got was to constantly be asking your story three questions.

1. What does my character want?

2. What (or who) is standing in their way stopping them from getting what they want?

3. What’s my character going to do to overcome it?

Take these as literally or as broadly as you like, but those questions are really helpful at identifying what the narrative thrust of your story is at both a broader and scene-based level. :-)

3) How different is a fic beta from an editor?

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, this also varies, haha. It depends on what the beta does and what that process looks like.

Like I said, I more or less do a condensed version of a full edit when I beta, but in traditional publishing (and what I’m going through at the moment with my publisher for my novel), the rounds of editing will usually be done by different people, so you get different opinions. So just to reiterate, a full edit involves:

Round 1: Structural Edit. This is done usually by a senior editor and involves broad feedback on the story and can include anything from scrapping characters to rearranging plots to changing settings. It usually includes a lot of questions which are designed to challenge the writer’s narrative choices or deepen understanding of story.

Round 2 & 3: Copy Edit. This is usually done by a junior editor (and they usually do it twice (or even more than twice if it’s a difficult manuscript or author) - so once, then the writer works on the changes and sends it back, then the editor does it again to the new draft), and is a closer look at the story. It rarely involves major story changes, and instead is focused on individual scenes, paragraph and sentence structure, and often character motivation or settings in specific scenes, as opposed to the broader story.

Round 4: Proofreader. At a big publisher, this will usually done by a contractor outside of the publishing house so that it’s a very fresh reader who’s unfamiliar with the story. At a smaller publishing house or a magazine / journal, this’ll be done by an editorial assistant, intern or even the junior editor again. This is strictly grammar and punctuation.

Round 5: Final proof. This goes back to everyone - the author, the structural editor, the copy editor and the proofreader, and is usually a PDF of the typeset pages, so everyone has one last chance to make minor changes before it goes to print.

So yes! A long process, haha.

I’d say most betas do a little bit of a structural and copy edit, but are predominantly proofreaders? Although, once again, it really just depends!

I hope this is a help, and feel free to ask if you have any other questions!

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swordarkeereon · 4 years ago

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Tech Review for Writers: reMarkable2

I got myself a piece of interesting tech this year in hopes it would get me from out in front of a computer screen more often. Meet the reMarkable2, a distraction free (i.e. it’s not connected to the entirety of the internet) e-ink tablet workhorse that’s easy on the eyes.

The reMarkable2 Tablet

First things first. The reMarkable2 tablet is not for everyone and your average person probably won’t find it the least bit useful. So let’s talk about why you don’t want this tablet first.

reMarkable 2 is not for you if:

– You want an eReader. eReaders have a VERY DIFFERENT function than the reMarkable2. Yes, you can read PDFs on a reMarkable, but it’s more for *marking up* a PDF and commenting in the margins of a PDF. Not just reading. eReaders like Kindles and Nooks often have built in dictionaries, ways to bookmark pages or passages of text, etc… that the reMarkable2 doesn’t have. You can search your documents for specific phrases and words and also highlight things in a light gray, but if you’re just looking for an eReader, I suggest a Kindle.

– You want a full functioning tablet that you can put apps on and surf the web with- If you’re looking for a full functioning tablet, you’ve missed the whole point of the reMarkable2. The main point behind reMarkable2 is so you can go to your creative place (wherever that may be) and brainstorm, free from ALL distractions. You can’t stop to surf FB or your Twitter feed on a reMarkable2, thus making it more likely you’ll stay on task and get more done.

– You want something with color so you can highlight because what you really want is a fully functioning ebook reader or tablet. This tablet is really more of a no frills brainstorming and note-taking tool for entrepreneurs, professionals, academics, and creatives (including engineers, writers, musicians, possibly artists if they like to sketch in black and white) who use a lot of black pens and plain paper.

I bought the tablet for the following reasons (which I wrote down BEFORE I received the device):

– I wanted an electronic notebook (not a tablet). I’m one of those people who goes through 3 packs of sticky notes every month, and countless notebooks every year. I am constantly jotting stuff down to keep myself focused and on track while running my own business and helping out at the family business. My notes can be anything from putting together presentations, classes, and meetings, to extensive to-do lists for the day. Sometimes it’s just me keeping track of sales figures. As a result, my desk is always filled with papers and notebooks and I’m constantly searching for shit. The electronic notebook cleans up all this clutter and helps me organize my brain. (Have you seen my brain!? It’s a mess in there.)

– I like to write freehand, especially when I’m plotting the next book or writing a blurb, or even writing a chapter – and it must be distraction free. This is something only fellow authors will understand. The fact that the reMarkable2 can convert handwritten notes to text sent via email has me excited because, if I’m lucky and it works, I won’t have to go through and transcribe all my handwritten notes. It basically saves me time by eliminating a step. I can copy/paste the note from my email into the appropriate file on my laptop. This will also save me the clutter and weight of carrying countless notebooks.

– I am involved with projects that require me to sketch out ideas for marketing and/or artwork. I do have tablets that can do this, but nothing that does it *well*. The closest is my Surface tablet, which can do a lot of things, but it still doesn’t feel like paper or allow me the fine detail paper allows. I’m hoping this tablet is a bit more responsive in this area. – I am forever printing out rough drafts of manuscripts for markup – wasting a ton of paper and toner in the process. All because I can’t edit on a backlit screen. My eyes get tired and I miss too many errors. If I can transfer my PDF drafts to the reMarkable and mark them up there with minimal errors left over, I could save some $$. I am actually estimating that I could easily save the cost of the reMarkable2 in 6 months to 1 year’s time by not having to purchase the paper, pens, and toner I usually go through in that time frame. Plus, these marked up manuscripts often end up in a stack on my office floor for 6 months to a year after publication.

– I am forever having to read PDFs of laws and regulations for the family business, and while I usually use them on the computer, I sit in front of a computer 8-13 hours a day. I need a non-backlit screen for reading in the evenings just to give my eyes a break. Yes, I imagine I could do the same with a Kindle paperwhite, but I may just want to jot some notes in the same way I’d mark up a paper copy. I’m still a pen and paper girl. I’m really hoping the reMarkable is my replacement for that (most of the time anyway).

reMarkable2 test to sample the pen styles.

Some considerations I took into account before purchasing:

A lot of customers complained that it took too long to receive the reMarkable or to get support. From all of the research I did, and in reading their website, it’s clear to me that this company caters to academia and businesses. I ordered my reMarkable2 on January 16, 2021, and had it in my hands by January 25, 2021. 9 days. I also ordered it and paid for it through my business. I don’t know if that’s actually why I got mine so fast, but I wouldn’t be surprised. That said, I do think the company should work a little harder to increase their customer service efficiency.

With regard to customer support – the website clearly states it can take up to 10 business days for support to get back to you. And a lot of the things people seem to be complaining about have troubleshooting instructions on the website. Clearly people weren’t going to the website to try to look up their issue through the support FAQs, which likely would have helped them out sooner. They were just contacting support immediately, and angry when they weren’t getting a response after 3 days, when it’s clearly stated on the website that it can take up to 10 days due to the fact that reMarkable is a small company. But like I said earlier – they would be smart to increase their customer service team.

reMarkable’s folios are a custom fit and really pretty, but a bit pricey. I made the tablet more affordable by skipping the upgrade on the pen, because a friend of mine got the eraser feature and she wasn’t digging it initially (she loves it now), and I purchased a relatively nice folio from Amazon for under $30 (with no magnets – research told me magnets can cause dead spots in the screen of the reMarkable2). You can also just buy a 10″-11″ tablet sleeve and it would work much the same. There are also universal tablet folios that will fit 10″-11″ tablets that are free of magnets and will likely work just fine. All for under $20 bucks — even a few in faux leather. Remember that a case should protect your investment, not just make it *look* sharp.

Right out of the Box.

Right out of the box I set the reMarkable up and started using it for brainstorming. Here were my first impressions:

1. It really is pretty damn close to writing on paper.

2. You can rest your damn hand on the screen and it won’t fuck things up or make it wobble as with traditional tablets.

3. My handwriting actually looks like my handwriting and you have almost the same control with this as you would with real pen and paper.

4. The interface is simple and intuitive and anyone who uses computers and tablets day and in day out will have no issues figuring this out.

Now some thoughts on the features:

Handwriting to Text: As an author who likes to occasionally spend time writing the old fashioned way, one of the things that attracted me to this tablet was its ability to translate handwriting to text. No writer wants to have to transcribe their written notes and waste all of that time. So of course I tested it with my horrific handwriting, vs purposefully trying to be neat, and the reMarkable2 was able to convert my chicken scratch into actual text that I could read. I was able to turn the handwritten notes into a PDF, but I was also able to send the handwriting converted to typed text as the body of an email, where I was able to cut and paste it into any program I wanted. I took it further and wrote 1000 words (about 8.2 pages) longhand. It converted all the pages to text in one swoop and I was able to copy/paste it into my manuscript. While there was a little formatting and editing involved — it was a lot faster than retyping handwritten notes. WIN!

Handwriting for conversion test.

Conversion successful

PDF Transfer, Markup, and Signature: Transferring PDFs to the reMarkable is easy. You simply download the app on your phone and your desktop, and you can take any pdf from either device and import it onto your reMarkable, which you can then markup. I sent myself a slew of PDFs that I had to read and markup. It’s amazing how much more focused I am on a screen like this. I really got the same experience with editing on a digital PDF as I did with editing on a paper copy. My only caveat is that I don’t have more space to make notes since the margins are a bit small on the screen and there’s no “back of the page” to carry notes over to. I can likely manage. Despite that – what a great experience. Goodbye manuscripts all over my office floor! Hello being able to drag editing work with me wherever I go!

You can also transfer your PDFs that don’t have an electronic signature option to the device, sign them, and send them back. Talk about HANDY since I do that a few times a month by default. This just eliminates the print/sign/scan. Now I just have to transfer it to the device, sign the document, and email it straight back to whoever sent it.

Digital Planners may be something I look into for 2022 because reMarkable actually makes them feasible. I tried a tester digital planner, courtesy a friend, on my reMarkable and I have to say – it offers just as much satisfaction as a paper planner. Plus, you can SEARCH large pdfs. It won’t find search terms in your handwriting, but it will find it in your PDF. That’s definitely a handy feature when you’re working with 500 page PDFs. That said, the tablet saves your place (last page you visited) as you’re navigating a PDF, so no need to search for the place you left off. However, there is no way to bookmark multiple pages.

ePub Reading: suppose I could sideload books as ePubs, but I really have no use for this feature. If I want to read ebooks, I use my kindle or the Kindle App on my tablet or phone. Unless I start doing editing of ePubs or want to check out an ePub format for something? I didn’t buy this as an eReader, and it is terribly lacking as an eReader. Where the reMarkable excels is as a tool for marking up documents. So my guess is it would be great for that if you have a lot of files in ePub format that you have to go over. You also can’t change font sizes for easier reading. You can zoom in and zoom back out to regular size. That’s it. (And this is another reason this is not an eReader.)

Storage: Storage is a little over 6GB (you do not pay for the reMarkable website cloud-sync). But even with about 15 PDFs (some of them really long) on my reMarkable at any given time, I was only at .38 GB.

reMarkable2 Storage

File System: Like I said earlier – the system is highly intuitive and easy to use. I made folders for my most common notebook uses, then I moved the appropriate PDFs to those folders, and created any notebooks I needed for those folders.

Exporting: You can export as .PNG, .SVG, and PDF. Handwriting to text can only be sent as text via the body of an email. This is actually great for writing because then you just have to copy/paste from your email into your Word Doc, Google Doc, or Scrivener.

Importing: Imports PDFs and ePubs.

Templates: The templates are great. I generally only use graph paper, plain, and lined paper myself. But I could see how a lot of these would be useful to people. The to-do list is a crappy template just because it requires you to hide your menu to use it (you can’t tick the the checkboxes until you do this). To hide the menu tap the circle in the upper left top of the menu bar. So if you want a partial page to-do list, you can easily make your own checkbox lists using the graph paper option. There are also dot pages for the folks into bullet journaling.

A small sampling of reMarkable2 Templates

Search Feature: You can search within a PDF, but not through your own handwritten text. You must be in the PDF to search it, otherwise you can only search for file names. You can not search across documents for a phrase or word. So if you’re looking for something with the same search capabilities as a laptop or possibly a tablet, you won’t find it here.

Zooming: You can zoom in on PDF documents and write on them while zoomed. However, you cannot change font sizes to make reading easier.

Battery Life: On days where I used it heavily (about 4-5 hours), I was using around 15% power in a day because I didn’t put it in airplane mode. Three days of 4-5 hours a day use drained my battery to 50%. So me, as a heavy user, not in airplane mode, will likely get 6-7 days out of a single charge. Possibly more since clearly not every day will be a heavy use day. The device does go to sleep after 10 minutes of inactivity.

Pen:The pens are a bit pricey. I did not buy the expensive pen with the eraser and I’m okay with that. But $60 for a pen is still a bit — ouch.

Pen Nib: I am expecting I will be one of those poor unfortunate souls who will be replacing pen tips every 3-4 weeks during heavy use. Luckily the pen itself doesn’t use batteries. The pen nibs seem reasonable in price, just be sure to order a new pack with your device and when you start that pack, order another as shipping times on those can take a week or two depending where you are and how efficient your mail service is. You don’t want to accidently run out and find yourself without a pen. Yikes.

Security: You can add a password to your reMarkable to keep prying eyes out. But if you’re like me and self-employed, that’s not really an issue. Your remarkable has Wi-Fi, yes, but you can put it in airplane mode to cut the connection. Plus, it only syncs to your cloud storage. There really aren’t any entry points for viruses or people hacking into your device. But then I’m also not a tech person. Let’s just say I highly doubt security will be a huge issue on this thing. Besides, anyone who wants to take a peek at my tablet would likely find themselves bored stiff, unless they like reading really rough first drafts of speculative fiction. LOL

Backup/Download: You can easily transfer your files back to your computer by opening the app and simply exporting your finished documents, etc… to your computer, backup drive or cloud drive. You can also just email yourself a copy to make it super easy.

My Wishlist:

1. I wish I could add or append new, handwritten pages to an existing PDF. That would definitely solve the space issue. Now, I just make notes in a different file and jog back and forth between the PDF and the notes, which is a little annoying, but doable. One way to solve this issue would be to save all your PDFs to double spaced. It might make markup a little easier. I’ll try that with the next books to go under the editorial knife.

2. I wish there were cheaper alternative covers. My $17 cover looks great and protects my tablet. reMarkable could easily come up with a few additional low-cost choices here. The ultra professionals are still going to buy nice leather folios.

(I may add to this list in the coming weeks, but right now these are the two main things jumping out at me.)

Overall Review Summary

For writers, reMarkable2 truly is a remarkable distraction free device that can help improve your concentration and organization, give you the freedom to write out longhand and convert it to text without the tedious re-typing, and help you mark up drafts with ease. This would probably serve prolific and professional writers more liberally than the writer who takes a few years to pen a book. Plus, it will probably save you a lot of printer paper, toner, pens and notebooks. For business owners/users – reMarkable will likely save you pounds of sticky notes and legal pads, and hours of time transcribing your notes. Plus, it’s a great on-the-go working tool for content creators and people who review a lot of PDFs.

Have some thoughts on the reMarkable2? Feel free to leave a comment below!

#distraction-free #not sponsored content #reMarkable2 #tablets #technology reviews

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kaylinpak · 4 years ago

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The ArtCenter Files

I was accepted for the Fall 2020 Illustration program at ArtCenter College of Design. Just like with the post I made after being accepted to Ringling, this one will also be a list of tips I gathered during my application process. This is not a guarantee of your acceptance, but just something to help inform those looking into ArtCenter, primarily for Illustration. (You can skip to number 3 if you just want help on your portfolio.)

1.) BEFORE WORKING ON THE APPLICATION:

Please schedule either an in-person or online meeting with an Admissions counselor first. This is important as no one knows the programs and curriculum better than they do. Just by talking to a counselor about my interests, she was able to help narrow down what major would be a good fit for me, as well as give insight as to what the coursework would look like. (Not to mention portfolio help!)

ArtCenter also has different terms: Fall, Spring, and Summer. You’d have to look for the exact starting dates to determine which term would work best for you, or speak to the counselor. You can schedule a meeting with a counselor by going to ArtCenter’s website; under the Admissions tab, you will see “Schedule an appointment.” If you can’t find it, there’s also the option to either email or call the Admissions desk (both contacts on their website.)

If you or your parents are at a loss on what to ask the counselor, consider these: Scholarships and how to get them, tuition + costs, terms, curriculum details, what the major is like, show examples of your work + get feedback, and how well-connected the school is (ie internship opportunities).

2.) WORKING ON THE APPLICATION:

If you decided ArtCenter is a good fit, make sure you don’t immediately jump into the portfolio. The Application is equally important; personally I prefer to complete it first. Under the Admissions tab, you will find the link to the Application Requirements page, which lays out all the steps like a checklist. Either bookmark it or write them down so you can keep track what of you’ve completed!

3.) (ILLUSTRATION) PORTFOLIO HELP:

You will be uploading your pieces to ArtCenter’s SlideRoom. There’s a page on ArtCenter’s website that details what the portfolio requires, but I’ll copy and paste it so I can refer to it for the rest of my post. I’m writing this in 2020, so please check the site yourself in case there are changes.

“Submit 10 to 15 figure drawings from a live model that include both gestural and more developed pieces. Other observational drawings from life are also required such as self-portraits or portraits of others, sketches of animals and scenes from nature and cityscapes. Include imaginative drawings that demonstrate your passion for and understanding of illustration in both color and black and white.

Submit three or more pieces that highlight drawing or painting skills, and show the development of a story or concept. Sketchbooks that display a range of interests and skills are welcome and we recommend a limit of 10 to 15 sketchbook pages submitted as one PDF.”

What if you don’t have any pieces that fit into this? Here are some of my ideas:

Figure Drawing: If you can, sign up for figure drawing classes. Speaking as someone who has some art school experience, please don’t just search up nude figures and draw those for your portfolio, especially if you’ve never drawn figures before, unless you have absolutely no choice. That’s what I had done in high school, but taking actual figure drawing classes in college made me realize that having a teacher to give you advice and look for your mistakes helps you so much more. Not to mention, you will be training yourself how to quickly capture the human figure, sometimes in 1 minute or less.

Life Drawings/Observations: These are basically “cafe sketches” or observational drawings. Still lives count as long as they are polished. Googling pictures for you to draw for your portfolio should be a last resort! You don’t have to visit any where fancy to make a good portfolio piece; with practice, you can make an interesting drawing out of any subject. Start locally, and then try working out of your comfort zone if needed. First draw your friends, family, pets, rooms, or garden. Then you can move onto parks, zoos, and other public places.

Sketchbook Pages: You can include less-polished life drawing sketches from your sketchbook in your portfolio. I also recommend sketching out your story ideas, any character designs, story boards, or comics. Be sure to include some color! Even if you think an idea is silly or dumb, sketch it anyways. You’ll then have a larger pool of sketches to choose for your portfolio.

Story Illustrations: Your illustrations do not all have to be paintings, but if you forgo the painting aspect, it should be a really strong drawing (ie with good line work and details.) Despite “illustration” being a broad term, what they are asking for aligns more with illustrations for books, and concept work for movies and games. To get inspiration, search up concept art for movies by Disney, Dreamworks, BlueSky, etc. Remember, don’t get caught too much in the scenery of your piece, your characters and their interactions in your illustration should be the main focus. Be sure to thumbnail your ideas (a rough drawing) and experiment with different composition, angles, and lighting before working on your final piece. If you are still not sure if your idea fits what ArtCenter wants, you can email an admissions counselor your work and ask for their feedback.

Tips I got from an admissions counselor:

- Slideroom only allows 10-15 upload spaces, but there is a way to work around this if you have more than 15 pieces. You can upload PDF files; SlideRoom acts as though 1 PDF is the same as uploading one “artwork,” therefore only taking up 1 submission space even if your PDF has 10 slides on it. (Great for your figures and sketchbook! Either organize your pieces on Google Slides or PowerPoint, then save it as a PDF file.)

- You should have a mixture of traditional and digital work.

- Your sketchbook pages should feature some color even if they aren’t polished drawings.

- Aside from your illustrations, not everything in your portfolio has to be a finished drawing or “polished.” In fact, if your sketchbook has sketches of animals, landscapes, interior environments etc. that counts as a life drawing submission.

- The presentation and order of your pieces on SlideRoom are important. Don’t have some random order like “sketchbook, paintings, animals, illustrations.” I don’t know if this is widely accepted at ArtCenter, but for my portfolio, I was told to order it like: Still life paintings, Illustrations, Sketchbook pages, Observation drawings, Figures. The only logic I gleaned from that was it was a gradual shift from the most polished work to the least. Ask a counselor if they have a preferred order.

- Despite the minimum requirement for story illustrations being three, I was actually asked to do 4, as they felt it would make my portfolio stronger.

4.) PORTFOLIO VIDEO ESSAY HELP:

Honestly, the site’s description couldn’t have said it any clearer. There is an entire page dedicated to its instructions, but I do have extra tips for this. SlideRoom will have its own page for you to directly upload your video file, but if the file is too big, the best solution is to upload your video essay to YouTube. Instead of submitting the video file directly, what I did was upload a PDF with the YouTube link to my video. (I made a Google Docs, copy and pasted the link, then saved it as a PDF. Yes it is allowed.) Just make sure your video is published publicly. If I can overcome my embarrassment, so can you.

5.) FINAL TIPS:

- Don’t try to study examples of accepted portfolios, as it may cause you to emulate their style or pieces in hopes of getting a higher chance of acceptance. Trust me when I say the reviewers can tell if your work lacks passion or your own creative input.

- Find out which medium works best for you; some new passion may be discovered just from experimentation. For example, I struggled with figure drawing until I tried using Prismacolor colored pencils, which then became my go-to medium for figures. If you’re feeling bored or uninspired with one medium, go and try something new.

- PLEASE always email the admissions team for help if you’re stuck. You can even send an email asking if there were steps you missed preventing them from reviewing your application. I did, and it saved my butt. Furthermore, keeping in contact with the school in this manner helps to attach a face to an application, and may demonstrate to them that you’re really passionate about getting into the school.

I hope this was helpful, but don’t be afraid to message me with more questions! <3

#art portfolio #portfolio help #artcenter #art tips #Art College #artcollege #art center #Illustration #illustration portfolio #art help #art school

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spine-buster · 6 years ago

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Alone, Together | Chapter 8 | Morgan Rielly

A/N: This is a little bit of filler / a little bit of insight into Bee, but I promise things are going to pick up a bit from here :) Thank you again for all your lovely asks, comments, reblogs, and more! A quick reminder that I respond to all messages and asks about my fics, so if you have any questions or comments, don’t be afraid to send them my way.

It was the Toronto Maple Leafs’ home opener.

Despite an essay being due that day at 5pm, and despite another assignment being due in two days, one worth a whopping 40% of her mark, Bee had promised Morgan she would be there. ‘It would mean a lot to me’ he had told her one night after they had finished a steamy round of sex at her place. ‘It would mean the world to me if you could be there.’

How could she say no to him as she was wrapped up in his arms and entangled with his body? How could she say no when his voice was so soft, his intentions so pure, his heart so full? How could she say no to watching him do what he loved? It was the easiest yes she ever told someone. The biting of his lip to suppress his earnest smile afterwards made her want to blow him for the entire fucking night if it meant the smile never left his face.

Bee always had five-year plans. They began when she was eleven years old and browsing the internet at her local public library about how to live apart from an alcoholic parent. Almost all of the websites she found talked about living with another relative, but she didn’t have any. Then the words ‘legal emancipation’ came up. This was Bee’s first five-year plan: document everything her mother did (or, in reality, didn’t do) to have a case in court that she should be withdrawn from her mother’s parental control. She was successful. Because Bee voluntarily withdrew parental support and left home, her mother wasn’t legally obligated to support her – which was exactly what she wanted. No more contact with a mother who would spend money on alcohol instead of food or decent shelter. No more obligations to a mother who, by her own inaction, forced Bee to start fending for herself at an age most kids were still playing with dolls or kitchen sets. No more vulnerability exposed to a woman whose severe alcoholism didn’t make her care at all about her own daughter, however wanted or unwanted she was. No more addiction. No more alcohol.

Once she was legally emancipated from her mother, Bee’s second five-year plan, which spanned ages 17-21, came into effect: get into university, then get into grad school. She got a job as a cashier at a grocery store and worked after school and weekends to earn enough money to rent out a room in the basement of a house near her school. She got letters of reference from her teachers for little-known scholarships not many people would be applying to. She maintained a high enough average that U of T gave her an academic scholarship to cover about half her tuition. When she won the other scholarships, she was safe in knowing her tuition would be covered and she wouldn’t have to incur debt or other loans.

She was currently in the middle of her third five-year plan: get into grad school, graduate with a job offer, and work. At 22 years old, she was on the right path to achieving it. If all went well – which it had to – her fourth five-year plan would come into effect: work hard to get at least one promotion, save enough money, and buy a place.

The plans were contingent on some things working out for her – like keeping her current apartment at the rent she was already paying and getting a job as soon as January when she didn’t have to attend classes anymore – but she knew she would be able to do it. She worked hard so that everything ‘worked out’ before. There was no reason it couldn’t work out again. And again.

What the plans were not contingent on was her meeting someone. They were not contingent meeting Morgan Rielly of West Vancouver, British Columbia, and actually becoming, as corny as it sounded, completely smitten with him. The plans did not include making out on his couch for hours, falling asleep in his bed while watching Netflix, or having a game on in the background while she marked. The plans did not include spending a good three hours researching everything to do with hockey and the Toronto Maple Leafs so she could, even just slightly, begin to understand his life.

But she was letting him in. Fast. He was quickly becoming a part of her life, an established part of her life. So established, apparently, that she agreed to go to his home opening game without so much as a second thought.

The energy inside Scotiabank Arena was palpable. Bee cheered and clapped along with the rest of the fans, family members, wives, and girlfriends in attendance as the announcer was introducing the team. She made sure to scream extra loud when Morgan’s name was called, and she noticed how loud the arena got when John Tavares was announced. From beside her, John’s wife Aryne couldn’t stop filming the reaction. They were opening their season against the Montreal Canadiens, and Bee knew she had to boo them because they were one of the team’s oldest rivals. A Canadiens player scored the first goal, but the energy wasn’t sucked out of the building at all. In fact, it came right back about three minutes later when Auston scored a goal to tie it. When Aryne pointed out that Morgan got an assist on the goal, Bee screamed even louder.

When the first period ended, Bee remembered that she had twenty minutes to spare before the second began. As she watched some of the other wives and family members get up to go to the washroom, she looked down at her messenger bag and then to Aryne. She wondered if it was appropriate to take out her laptop and work in between periods. Did anyone else ever do that? She was sure that in the entire history of hockey, there had to be one girl who took out a book or notebook or laptop and focused her attention on something other than hockey. Getting an education never looked bad, right? “Aryne…”

“Yeah babe?” she answered absent-mindedly while looking down at her phone.

“Do you think…I mean would it look bad…” Bee began.

Aryne finished typing her text before locking her phone and looking at Bee. “Would what look bad?”

“I…have…I have homework,” Bee said, completely embarrassed.

“Oh my God! Are you joking! Take that stuff out right now!” Aryne cried. “You have homework? What are you working on?”

“Richard Thaler’s theory of behavioural economics.”

“You take it out right now and start working,” Aryne demanded like a mother. “You’ll be setting a good example. Some of these girls need to be doing homework instead of filming themselves drinking wine for the Instagram stories.”

Bee snorted. “You’re something else, Aryne.”

“I’m being serious. I’m trying to be less judgemental as a whole, but I still can’t help but feel snippy about dropping out of school to be an Instagram model with a YouTube channel,” she said. “I went to McMaster and got a bachelor of science in kinesiology, then I got my Master’s from Queen’s in physiotherapy. All while John was playing hockey in New York. You don’t need to be shy about breaking out a laptop with a 100-page PDF because I know that feeling.”

Bee couldn’t help but think back to what Angie had expressed when she and Mason found out Bee was dating a hockey player. ‘All those girls wearing Aritzia on King West, all those Instagram model girls are looking for people like him.’ Yet she was the one here for Morgan, not an Instagram model. Were things changing? Was it still out of the realm of possibility in this day and age, where so many people went to university, that a hockey player could date a girl smarter than him, with two degrees? Aryne proved it wasn’t an anomaly. So did Alannah. She was sure other women did too. She wasn’t so out of place after all, was she?

“Okay, thanks Aryne,” Bee smiled, not feeling as bad about it anymore as she dug into her bag to get her laptop.

“I’m going to run to the washroom but I can grab you something if you want?” Aryne asked as she stood up from her seat. “Some wine, maybe? Behavioural economics sounds…tedious.”

“I’ll be okay. Thanks though.”

As Aryne left, Bee focused her attention on exactly what Aryne had predicted: a PDF about behavioural economics that was required reading for the assignment she was working on. Family members around her mixed and mingled with each other as she zoned in, conceptualizing the theory in her head and adding some notes to her assignment. She knew she wasn’t going to get the entire thing done within the two intermissions she would be given, but it helped. Anything helped.

During the second period, John Tavares scored his first goal as a Maple Leaf and the entire arena, including Aryne, went nuts. She couldn’t stop jumping and dancing around, and she even stood on her seat and stretched up to high-five John’s parents, who were sitting two rows above them. And though the game went into overtime, it was poetic justice when Auston Matthews scored the game winner. It couldn’t have been a more perfecting ending, a more perfect start to the season. The Leafs beat their rivals.

Bee could start to understand, at the most miniscule scale, how and why people loved hockey so much. If they got to feel like this because of the team on any given basis, she would be a die-hard fan too. She knew there were probably some not-so-great times, and she knew sports were a lot more complicated than this simple understanding she had right now, but it was interesting to see this side of things – this world she didn’t have privy too growing up, or even now. If she hadn’t have met Morgan, she didn’t think she would have ever been able to experience this. It was fun and exciting and confusing and daunting all at once – much like everything else in her life up until this point. After having to figure out life and survival on her own, having people like Morgan, Ashley, Alannah, and Aryne to guide her into this new foray was a welcome blessing.

When the game was finished, Bee followed everybody backstage where they patiently waited for the boys to be done with interviews and other post-game happenings. Bee was chatty with Ashley and Alannah when they boys started to file out. Like the pre-season game, when Morgan made his way through the doorway, his hair was a dishevelled mess. He looked so cute. He immediately found her in the crowd of people and made his way over.

“Hey,” he greeted her with a smile, bending down to kiss her quickly. She still had his jersey on and, stereotypically, it was his favourite look on her. The way her brown hair fell over the letters of his last name somehow drove him crazy.

“What a game!” she smiled excitedly. “Auston’s first goal! And you assisted!”

“I know, Bee.”

“And then John! First one as a Leaf! Then overtime! Auston again!” she recounted the game to him as if he wasn’t there.

He nodded his head and his smile got wider with every exclamation from her. “You’re buzzin’ right now,” he laughed. “Buzzin’ like a bumblebee.” Seeing her so giddy about a game of hockey made him ecstatic.

“It was a great game!” she adjusted her bag on her shoulder. “The crowd loved it too!”

“Did you bring homework?” he asked unexpectedly as he noticed her bag.

“Y…Yes?” she answered apprehensively. “Remember how I told you I have that assignment all about behavioural economics…” she tried to explain herself.

“Atta girl,” he whispered, dipping down to kiss her again. “You ready to go? Wanna come over mine?”

She shook her head at his request. “I’ve got class at nine in the morning tomorrow,” she explained. She thought about whether or not she should add the second part. “You want to…uh…come over mine instead?”

“See ya guys later,” Morgan announced to everyone, giving a big wave to everyone before grabbing Bee’s hand and pulling her along with him. She laughed, knowing this is the exact same exit strategy he took last time when they left during the pre-season game.

As they made their way to the Scotiabank Arena’s underground parking lot, Morgan continued to hold her hand until they got to his car. Ever the gentleman, he opened the door for her before walking around and getting into the driver’s seat. He started the car, but instead of backing out of his parking space, he just looked at Bee. When she noticed they weren’t moving, she looked over to see him staring. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

“C’mere,” he whispered. She leaned over the centre console and he kissed her gently, bringing his hand up underneath her shin. He gave her a few more kisses. “Thank you for being here,” he whispered.

“It was a lot of fun,” she reiterated her sentiments from earlier.

“I know, but I really mean it,” he said. “I get how you like to be alone so I know it’s a lot for you to come to these things. I know it takes a lot of like, energy or whatever, especially for introverts, to be around big groups of people…so thank you,” he whispered.

With every kiss and with every comment like that he made to her, it was getting harder and harder for her to ‘take things slow’ and ‘not put a label on it’. Her words. She was humbly aware that they had only met in late July. She was humbly aware that since then, in all of their interactions and dates and adult-themed sleepovers, they hadn’t fought once. She was humbly aware that with each passing day, he was carving out a place in her life she hadn’t made room for; one that he nestled into comfortably, without disruption, without fanfare. Like he was always meant to be there.

She was also humbly aware that with each passing day, now that the season had started, it was going to get harder. She would miss him when he was gone. She wouldn’t be able to see him as often because of traveling, or because of practice, or because of the schedule of game days.

“I’ll always come and support you,” she said. “I know you’d do the same if I played hockey too or whatever. Plus most of the girls are great. They’re very warm and welcoming and it doesn’t feel…I don’t know, tiring to be there, or be with them. I might have to ask you for some extra tickets sometime though so I can bring Angie and Mason.”

“You just tell me when,” he gave her one last quick kiss before finally reversing out of the spot.

When they finally arrived back at Bee’s apartment, Morgan undressed while she washed her face and brushed her hair in the washroom. He stripped down to only his boxers before getting into her bed, lying down with the covers half-draped over his body.

“I thought your backcheck was good tonight,” she said from the washroom.

Morgan couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Did the word ‘backcheck’ just leave her mouth? In the right way? In the appropriate context? “Um, excuse me?”

“You heard me,” she said as she appeared in the doorway, brushing her hair and sweeping it over one shoulder. “Your backcheck was good. Like, I know you’re a defenseman, so that’s kind of your job…I think…but I looked for it tonight and thought it looked good. Better than the pre-season game I went to.”

“Who are you and what have you done with Briony McTavish?”

“Shut up!” she giggled, throwing her hairbrush back into the washroom before making her way towards the bed.

When she climbed in, Morgan’s grabby-hands went into full effect, guiding her body towards his. He only meant to cuddle and be close to her, but Bee took it as an invitation to climb on top of him. He wasn’t exactly complaining. “Where’d you learn all that?” he asked. Despite being genuinely curious, he couldn’t help but be more interested in the feeling of her straddling him on her bed. His hands caressed her exposed thighs and squeezed at the flesh. Her pajama shorts were riding high. Morgan licked his lips at the thought of what they could get up to. He wondered if she could feel him getting hard beneath her.

“I studied,” she grazed her fingertips lightly over his chest.

“You what?”

“Mhm,” she giggled slightly. “It’s what I do best, Morgan. I researched and I studied. I even know who Mike Babcock is now.”

“Well you know what…” he said, his hands wandering from her thighs to her hips, grabbing at the flesh there, too. If it were up to him he would grow extra arms to be able to touch every inch of her body. “I studied too.”

“You did?”

“Mhm.”

“And what did you learn?”

He gave her a look. “Macroeconomics.”

She giggled at the tone he used, how nefarious the look on his face was. “Oh.”

“I have something even better,” he winked. He propped himself up so he could get even closer to her. He gave her a quick peck on the lips before continuing. “Microeconomics.”

She snorted, unable to hold in her giggles. “Talk dirty to me, baby.”

“Be careful what you wish for,” he mumbled as he began kissing her, leaving a trail along her jawline to her ear. His hands traveled to her thighs again, but this time slipped in between the gaps of her shorts. “Karl Marx,” he continued, biting down on her skin.

“You know how to make a girl horny, don’t you?” she tried her hardest to stop laughing, but her attempt was futile.

“The proletariat and the bourgeoisie,” Morgan continued.

“Oh my God Morgan,” she chastised him. He was beginning to sound like a first-year economics student who thought they already knew everything. He bit down on the skin of her neck while simultaneously slipping his hands underneath her shirt, pulling it up. “Morgan.”

He kissed his way back up to her ear. “Alan Greenspan.”

“NO!” she exclaimed immediately. The mention of Alan Greenspan definitely did not get her off. She broke out into a fit of laughter. “ABORT MISSION!”

“AH!” the look on Morgan’s face was one of pure fear. “Oh, um, KEYNESIAN ECONOMICS!”

“Yes! That’s better!”

“Social safety net!” he exclaimed again.

She began to cackle from laughing so hard at the absurdity of it all. She fell beside him, giggling like a man woman. She could feel her eyes well with tears for how hard she was laughing. “There’s something wrong with you,” she managed to giggle out.

“Stop trying to get me to lose my momentum!” he accused her. His large body hovered over hers as his hand found her hips again. He began kissing her again; light feathery kisses along her jawline and neck as his fingertips traced their way along the elastic band of her shorts. “I’m trying to seduce you here.”

“It works when you mention Karl Marx and the proletariat.”

“Oh yeah?” he smirked at her response. She nodded her head. “I gotta brush up on my reading of the Communist Manifesto then.”

“I’m more of a Das Kapital girl myself.”

Morgan rolled his eyes. “Okay, who’s getting the economics degree here again?” he posed the question, garnering another laugh from her. “Should I start signing up for classes? Don’t start treating me like one of your first-year students.”

“I don’t know,” Bee rolled her eyes playfully. “Might get to boss you around a little bit.”

Morgan’s eyes lit up. “I like the sound of that. Gives me an uprising in my pants.”

Bee cackled again, pushing his body off her. Morgan collapsed onto her side, laughing at the silliness of it all. The mood was ruined but her heart was full. She couldn’t believe it. “You’re something else, Morgan Rielly.”

#morgan rielly #morgan rielly imagine #morgan rielly fic #toronto maple leafs #toronto maple leafs imagine #toronto maple leafs fic #alone together series

167 notes · View notes

surejo · 5 years ago

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( victoria pedretti, cis woman ) hey ! have you seen JOSEPHINE “JO” CORMAC around ? SHE works at the HOT COCOA STAND at big bear resort, but they must be off their shift by now. well, if you do see them can you let me know ? they’re 24 years old & they’ve been working here for TWO YEARS. they tend to be +OPTIMISTIC & +EMPATHETIC, but can also be -IMPRACTICAL & -PASSIVE. the other employees have labeled them THE IDEALIST. thanks a lot ! ( the few nights the stars can be seen, books worn down by dog-ears and marks left throughout the years, the first crisp breeze of autumn, the duality… of t.s. eliot )

OK. a few notes before i get started:

1) i hope everyone loves how i literally j copied my ivan stuff. url format? ‘sure jan’ lives on. theme? too lazy to find a different one that’s easy to work with. luv that for me. 2) speaking of this theme i forget if i addressed this on ivan’s blog but tabbed bullets don’t appear tabbed.... so if anything seems like it doesn’t make total sense.... it is supposed to be tabbed™. 3) get ready for drama!!!!! you may ask yourself “but the app looks so tame! there will be no drama!” but you are wrong........ because she loves cats. the t.s. eliot book......... the musical........ even the movie.

ok jo,, is also a resurrected character,,, hence how i already kno,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, that she loves cats. anyway ! let’s begin ! (listen,,,, the intro format will at least be a little different from ivan’s ok im evolving)

QUICK FACTS:

full name: josephine “jo” rose cormac

date of birth: march 6, 1995

*does not perfectly reflect the below big three zodiac chart because that’s too much math

zodiac big three: pisces sun, gemini moon, cancer rising

gender & pronouns: cis woman & she/her

sexual orientation: bisexual ( preference for women bc we luv that for her but we also luv leaving things open to chemistry )

education: bachelor in english - literature that she is doing nothing with

enneagram: 2w1

mbti: infp

various inspirations: eleanor crain ( the haunting of hill house ), dolores price *as a child and towards the end of the book ( she’s come undone ), fox 8 ( fox 8: a story ), “why try to change me now?” - fiona apple (cover), “be still” - the killers

BACKGROUND INFO:

triggers: verbal/mental/emotional abuse/gaslighting, very slight implication of spousal abuse, brief mention of car accident/death & drowning

( ivan and jo’s breakout pop-punk single: “fuck happy backstories!” stream it on spotify ! )

jo......... was born into the wrong family, let’s get that out of the way.

it was pretty clear she was a ploy to save the marriage of her parents ( who have names: lucy and benjamin, luv that for them ). it didn’t seem like they’d ever picked up a parenting book, gone to a parenting class, rly prepped for being a parent at all...... in their entire lives.

that being said, her mom was actually decent at parenting. her major flaw, though? ok, so you know how kids usually have that one bedtime story that they love and want it to be read to them over and over? well lucy complied ! but y’all wanna know what that book was ?

t.s. eliot’s “old possum’s book of practical cats” whfeiuldjkn

anyway ! when jo was seven, after many failed attempts and simple threats, her mom was finally divorcing benjamin for realz. due to his volatile nature, it was becoming very clear that she was the more fit parent and she almost got sole custody ( the only reason benjamin was motivated for it in the first place was the power so?? )! how exciting!

but the keyword is ‘almost’!

alexa, play ‘my heart will go on’ but the off-tune flute version

just as the proceedings were going through, jo’s mother was hit by a drunk driver on new year’s eve. the car skidded onto some ice, minimal damage done... then the ice broke.

jo and benjamin both devolved after that. jo withdrew more into herself and pretty much coped by..... just reading old possum’s a LOT (hate that for her). all mopey, benjamin became much less outwardly violent. the keyword is ‘outwardly.’

ya, instead of j bein like “i will just chill” he was like “i will just make my rage more subtle because in this house, we love intimidation, manipulation, hostility, the blame game, and gaslighting! uwu” managed to convince jo that her mother’s death was somehow her fault, that he was the only person she could trust, that she will never be able to live without someone else, etc., etc.

a few years in and a cycle of many impromptu sleepovers began. luv that for her. hate that for her, but luv that for her.

there is a lot i cld talk abt here, but it all seems like it cld j be tl;dr’d as: “basically became the surrogate daughter of a bunch of other people”

as for things that r not tragique™, jo was v much a drifter when it came to friends. managed to make a fair amount bc she does not seem like she will put a tadpole in ur hand like ivan. also j a people-pleaser but that’s starting to get into her personality which is another section.

did go to college. luv that for her. has NO CLUE what she’s going to do with her degree, but she can make some really sick niche william faulkner jokes.

began seasonally working at big bear during the winter break of her last year in college because bitch needed some money!! wound up loving it and was like “i think,,,, i will continue to do this,,,, the people here,,,, r cul,,,,”

still visits benjamin every once in a while. not a way to say that uwu you should forgive ur abusive parent(s) uwu rather that jo.... still has slight belief in him. just to end on something emo.

THE REST IS HISTORY!!!!

TL;DR:

started life out as a saddie, not a baddie. still not a baddie, but no longer as much of a saddie. loves “cats” and there is no irony to that statement. can make good niche literary jokes, but that’s about it.

PERSONALITY/MISCELLANEOUS INFO:

a child. a literal child. a child to the point that she should have supervision when she goes on grocery trips because she falls for marketing ploys so easily. can’t believe she hasn’t fallen into a pyramid scheme yet.

an absolute dumbass. again, can make some great niche william faulkner jokes, but ask her the order of the planets? “...well mars is somewhere in there.”

unironically LOVES cats - both the musical and movie. thinks jennifer hudson’s grizabella is the best. will start sharing random facts about it or old possum’s book of practical cats if she runs out of things to talk about but feels pressured to keep talking. was broken when she first read a different t.s. eliot poem and realized he was actually super dark. the only thing that got her through it was a comparison to batman :\ bruce wayne is old possum’s, batman is everything else.

to take a brief break from fun personality facts, v down on herself bc benjamin’s words rly!! stuck with her!! convinced she is an absolute idiot and does not trust her own memory. v indecisive bc of this and always longs for someone to help her figure things out. tries to distance herself from memories of her mother because, again, benjamin got to her. her love of cats doesn’t help that, but... can you believe that’s her coping mechanism? makes up for it by giving all of her love 2 everyone else!! we love tragedy!! and needing to go to therapy!!

secretly knows her love of cats is weird and dumb. a part of her knows why it’s considered one of the worst musicals ever. but LISTEN. we luv rly weird coping mechanisms!

big dreamer. will develop the most impractical goals. she usually knows they are impractical, but still..... uwu

has decided everyone is good until proven bad! except for,,,, like,,, murderers and rapists,,,,

is #StraightEdge for the most part,,,, literally has a drink maybe three times per year

says “like” a whole lot for someone who majored in english with a concentration in literature and should therefore be more eloquent.

i am not great at these sections!! feel free 2 j refer to her zodiac, personality tests, and character influences!!

literally fox 8. i put the others there bc she’s similar but wow,,,, if u read fox 8 (it’s a short story i recommend it i luv george saunders u can find a pdf online),,,, she is fox 8.

here u go here is a sample that doesnt need context: "Fox 4 woslike: No ofense, Fox 8? Your ideas are not super praktikal. Dreem, dreem, dreem, said Fox 11. Fox 41 woslike: Fox 8, does this honestly never get old for you?"

OH ALSO. she has a slet. a cat,,,,, named asparagus,,,, whom she calls “gus”,,,,, and y’all know WHY.

recent development: has downloaded tor so she can get on the dark web. why? because she thinks there will be more funny animal videos on there. is shockingly good at navigating it.

CONNECTION IDEAS:

close friends bc we luv that –– roman (nuanced), aylie (nuanced), hazel (nuanced), cleo (nuanced), vic (nuanced), marco (nuanced)

childhood friends whom she possibly had impromptu sleepovers with bc that is v soft and,,,,, y’all i left the city blank for a reason. –– hazel, marco,

on that note, the person who was like “wait,,,,,,, u know that book was turned into a musical right,,,,,, like,,,,, a musical literally everyone knows” and shook jo’s world

good influence / bad influence –– cleo, vic,

~*confidant*~

roommate

exes –– ian,

reciprocated pining

unreciprocated pining

someone..... who has accepted..... that she likes cats.... in a way that is not ironic. will see the movie with her. –– aylie,

an enemy,,,,,, aka this person was like “cats is literally the worst thing in the entire world” and now they r on jo’s very short hit list –– riley

idk!!! im also obvs up for brainstorming!!! luv that!!!

** descriptive connections page is here ( only people who i’m messaging are on it, but i ?? would love to plot w everyone ?? so don’t make the short list make u think i’m trying 2 limit it 2 these ppl auhfoeidla )

LIKE THIS OR HMU TO PLOT !

#bigbearintro #y'all my intro style evolved!#there's a tl;dr beneath the bg info bc i!! rambled!!#i feel like i went back and forth b/t proper grammar/punctuation and.... not.... caring.#also i am. dumb 2night. it j took me a hot while to figure out how to spell punctuation and it still doesnt look right the english language #is so weird????#we post this before we have many followers we die like men.

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diariesof-kg · 3 years ago

Text

Listen Linda!

08_15_21

I am excited!! My VH1 credit should be on my IMDB page real soon. Pause why Black Panther is filming in ATL and I never knew when they started filming. I definitely need an agent in ATL, I have the financial ability to fly back and forth. I just don’t know if I am willing to shave my head. Even if they offered me 500k, I’d still be hesitant. Lol. And they are filming in the middle of fall and winter and I can’t stand being cold. God is good! I am unsure what to do with my health though. Again, I’ve come to terms years ago, about what could possibly happen. I bet ol girl would be happy if I perished, she wished it on me anyway. Lol, But that besides the point at hand. Something is definitely wrong with my body and I am beyond over it. Thank God for life insurance I guess. I barely have debts except for my school loans. I wrote out my goals, I just need to make a vision board at this point. I am definitely hoping everything manifests. I’ll be debt free by December of this year. And then my credit score should be above average and then I figured out how to get a Tesla without spending 40k. The most I am willing to spend is 30k but that’s where negotiating comes in. Unless the car goes over 300 miles per charge, I am not spending that much. I’ve driven a Tesla. Model S and the charge goes down quick with all the usage. I want a model S so bad, but Ill take the Model 3 or Y.

My child got out twice now. I told her the outside is for the street cats and she’s not about that life, of course she responds. Lol. I am definitely blessed for her. Who would have thought I’d have a cat that responds and talks to me. Understands commands. It’s beyond crazy sometimes but I am grateful. I remember after the incident I was crying so bad and Zena was trying to get in my lap but I kept putting her on the floor. I feel so bad she waned to comfort me and I rejected it. But I truly love her to death. I bought her a leash to train her to go outside but she isn’t having it, but then yells at me to put it on. I guess she runs everything. She also loves helping the clients. Lol. Whether that’s talking while I’m on the phone or typing random shit from the keyboard.

I finally broke my silence. Not entirely. I’m still hesitant about reaching out to my community about what happened to me. I told one person in the industry and I said, it’s not about exploiting or exposing but it’s about safety. If I was attacked I am sure it’ll happen to someone else and that’s the point of speaking on it. I would be in the wrong if it was lies and I made up this whole story for revenge, but unfortunately it really happened. I have the court documents saved as PDF and people can look it up with my name or the case number. This is why I am blessed my record is clean. Because on my IMDB, it shows if the industry is googling you or reviewing your page. And if I had a criminal or something as a restraining order on my record, I could lose out on bookings. Reputation matters. Producers always call me back for a gig. And no one wants to work with someone who can’t control their anger. Thank God that isn’t me. I can be upset, but I’d NEVER put my hands let alone bite someone. I am hesitant about posting pictures of the bite, but I feel like that’s my finally closure. Closure and forgiveness is a beautiful thing. I think that’s how I am able to receive all these blessings. I always forgive people in order to set myself free. The misery I would feel if I didn’t.

*side note; I am craving Prank’s Egg white omelette and potatoes. ; with some syrup. I am not sure when I’ll make it over there but it’ll be soon. Most places don’t even do egg white omelette which too me isn’t as dry as a regular omelette. It’s like being in love with the first bite, it’s so good.

Imagine on my birthday a Tesla arrives. Yall I’d pass out. Lol. I definitely want that car and then I’ll get a townhouse. The way they check your credit though itll be tricky I suppose. And of course mom can rent out my room. This room is beyond 600 sq ft. Its a whole ass studio. Matter fact if she takes the entertainment room, where my sister sleeps and my room and the bathroom, that’s a steal. I have been looking for townhouses to rent but some are two bedrooms and are tiny. And I am spoiled to be honest. I refuse to live in a box. Which means paying over 2k a month. But that’s the whole point of upgrading your life. I will never forget when I met my brother for the first time and he said I was boujie because I had a Champion jacket on. Lol, SMH! What’s so wrong with upgrading your life. Phew, black people never can just say something is cute or looks good without the extras. The Champion jacket was hella expensive and I bought it on my credit card, because I was broke. I like the color and how it looked. Lol, never knew it would categorize me as boujie.

That’s why lowkey I am scared to get the Tesla. Because when next year comes around and I FINALLY heal and get myself right to date. I don’t want to go out on a date and they think, because I have a Tesla I got monies. I was ignorant for that too. My ex has a big ass house and a Mercedes and I quickly learned it wasn’t even like that. Plus a Mercedes is really an expensive Chrysler, both vehicles share the same interior, but who gon tell them? Can we just clap for people who upgrade their lives. Can we do that starting 2022. My plan is at the end of this year to finish doing overtime and then grab my savings and get a loan, hopefully at least 20k and I pay the rest like 10-15k. And BOOM a Tesla is born. I am always planning, I created a whole financial excel sheet to predict how much I need to make to reach my goals. Then I have my Godson and his future. I may go ahead and put 5k in his savings just to set him in stone for the next two years. I am waiting for my credit card to say zero! If I have extra I might send my friends a couple racks. When I am blessed I have to pass the blessings to the next.

I love the BUFFINS!!! I just can’t over how beautiful their lives are. Sevyn wanted Annie and she got her. They proposed and got married and three years later had their first child and I am just so happy for them. I am like this, let me re-manifest someone from the ATL. Because my homeboy literally is moving to be with his fiance after meeting her a short time and he’s a Capricorn. Listen, I was so close but I ended up getting violated violently, so lets start over. Caps are so loyal and faithful. But I am not ready to find someone yet. I kind of want to establish a few things first. I want to HEAL. This was definitely a traumatizing experience. Adding more to my PTSD. I want to be comfortable speaking about it if asked. There is a lot to work on at this time. Plus, I want to get this car and this townhouse. Also, I don’t want to be afraid to jump into the deep end. Like when I fall in love again, I dont want to be hesitant to make someone my girlfriend, even if it’s a short period of time. I don’t want to rush but I don’t want to hold back my emotions either. I pray I can fall in love again. I honestly do. I thought I couldn’t and then I did to a person who attacked me. Feels wasted. I want to take chances. I should have taken that second date with this other girl. Lol, fuck ! And I wouldn’t have been in this mess.

To end this, I know relationships are not easy, I was in one for five years. I have the strength but also, I don’t have to tolerate shit. If the universe sends me a damn Taurus, we going straight to counseling, because I refuse. Lol, they are literally all abusive asf. In the meantime, I am waiting for the victims group to get back to me about my case. If they agree, somebody going to jail and it’s not me. I mean literally what happened to my bff ex, lordt. we call her crazy bish, but she was mad she was arrested for the DV. Like how can people be upset about their own actions that they chose. Now you see why, when my bff asked if she was a Taurus and she said yes, why they were scared for me. Lol, because them May Taurus are real life abusers. Someone prove me wrong and Ill give them 10k. But on a good note. God is good!!!!!

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chromalogue · 7 years ago

Text

I'm in Mississauga--the city that Toronto just sort of bleeds into on the west--apartment-sitting and cat-sitting for a friend. I'd agreed to spend two and a half weeks here while she's in England and Italy. (The pictures she's sending back are GORGEOUS.) Then I got accepted to a conference that I thought was the 16-17th--it turned out to be the 18-19th--and thought since it's just a few days later I should just see if I can couch-surf for a few days after she gets back. I know she'd have me, but I also remember what it's like to get back from a long trip and just want to settle back into your own skin, so I'm not doing that to her.

Anyway, everything just changed as of a couple of days ago, because it looks like in the next few weeks I'll be going back to work. A commission was appointed to take a look at the university's offer, and the union's offer, and Will said they're going to be making their recommendations to the province soon. I really hope we get a fair deal out of it. And to be honest I want to go back. For one thing, I want to get paid. I'm supposed to graduate in June, and I have to have my student account paid down. For another, working this term, shuttling back and forth the way I was, was really hard, but I miss my students, and I'm down here already anyway. I might be back teaching as early as next week, and that would be sweet.

Thing is, if my gig here ends on the tenth or eleventh, and I teach on the 15th, and the conference is on the 18th-19th, and I teach again on the 22nd, there's no point at which it makes sense to go home before May 23rd. That's a whole month down here. Two extra WEEKS of couch-surfing. I've got the clothes, and I know some friends and family I can hit up, and I even brought all of the books and most of the files I figured I'd need if the strike ended. But to cover things like transportation and host gifts I'm going to have to be a lot more frugal than I'd expected. And I'm going to miss the Victoria Day weekend with my family and my beloved.

The other thing that's happening is I need to get all my paperwork done and in to graduate. One of my bugbears has been this massive appendix, 1.5 GIGS of photos arranged with Microsoft Publisher. Back when I was putting it together in 2014, I couldn't have it as one document; I had to break it into three parts to edit it at all. When I figured I was done, I poured the three files into one gargantuan megafile--I was in the campus library, and I went down and got coffee while I was doing it, and when I came back it was still chugging away--that I saved as a PDF file. Except I never did add page numbers. For the past few months I've been trying to work out how I can do page numbers without crossing the picket line. Then, tonight, I hit on the most ridiculous of solutions: take a screenshot of each page of the PDF, crop it in MS Paint, and paste it into the main body of my dissertation. The quality isn't quite as high, but I wouldn't call it terrible, and it doesn't involve the kind of technogymnastics I was contemplating.

I'm working too hard, though. I can feel it. I woke up at noon today, showered, put on an audiobook relevant to my conference presentation as I made breakfast, and then spent the rest of the day working. Eleven and a half hours, because I took half an hour out to walk to the trattoria down the street and grab some cake for Beltane. And I'm nowhere near done for the day. It's going to catch up with me. Probably on the 23rd. :) I think I'll deserve the week off after that, probably.

I don't like Espanola very much. It's tiny and smelly and I'm an alien there. And Jen does have this ridiculously comfortable mattress. IKEA, I'm told. And I'm seeing a friend tomorrow, and last week I went to the art gallery and ate Indian food and walked around my city in the rain. But I miss my family, and I miss Will, and I miss being able to sit at a computer without being bombarded by a furry water-spilling pen-stealing toe-chomping missile, and a lot of the things I have loved about Toronto are still out of my reach. I am so grateful to be down here again, but it'll be a relief to get back.

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tundrainafrica · 4 years ago

Text

Title: Division of Labor (3/?)

Summary:

“The past years, we have noticed a lot of our fresh high school graduates knew nothing about responsibilities that await them outside high school and even college. Many students do not master budgeting, taxes, household planning, loans and we hope to raise a generation who can navigate the adult world without the consequences of bad decisions they are bound to make going in blindly…”

Paradis High school starts a program incorporating adulting into their curriculum and Hange and Levi are paired together.

Note: From request of @a-golden-hearted-snk-fan. See this link for the request

Other Chapters: 1 2

Link to cross-postings: AO3

It turned out Hange did think the housing plan through.

"It's a rent to own contract...so after paying this certain amount of rent… within a number of years… we can own the house basically," Hange explained. Her preparation was evident in the wad of papers she had carelessly spread out on the table in front of Levi.

At first glance, Levi could not make sense of what those papers were. Eventually, by carefully scanning through the therefore, herewiths, in the events, the interest rates and percentages, Levi figured out they were contracts and manuals full of buying and renting policies of one particular real estate company.

Levi looked out the glass window of the booth of the quiet diner they had chosen to work in. He had tried to use the mechanical movements of the crowds on a commute home to at least help clear his mind enough to make sense of how exactly a rent-to-own contract worked. Levi was sure Hange was at least attempting to explain everything about the buying policies of the real estate company in layman's terms. Although Levi was somewhat impressed by the dedication Hange put into it, as soon as she started to talk about the policies and agreements beyond ‘we get to own the house after a while,’ Levi ended up spacing out. The prospect of spending, even if it was fake money, caused him enough unnecessary stress.

He turned his attention to the two flour sacks who were propped by the window of the diner booth they occupied. He had purposefully turned their ugly faces towards the window at the small possibility that Shadis, Erwin or even Zeke were amongst the crowds of people walking through the crowds and into the subway station. A testament to their determination not to waste any unnecessary funds or worse, flunk the program

"If we catch you in public not holding your baby, you pay babysitting dues or you fail." Shadis had said in homeroom class that morning.

After some discussion as a class and with some confirmation from Erwin, the whole class came to the understanding that if they went out separately, they were in no obligation to take their babies with them. It could always be assumed after all, that their partner had their baby with them. Being in public with their partner meant someone had to have the baby with them or they risk pay necessary dues. At any rate, they found solace in the fact that if they were going to look like idiots holding brown sacks with shabbily drawn faces on them, they at least had someone to look like an idiot with.

Levi looked back at Hange to see that she had not stopped talking. Levi was not too surprised, having the disinterested equivalent of a resting bitch face, he had to master the art of looking like he cared to get past most classes.

“Where did you get these anyway?” Levi asked, interrupting the tirade of his partner. The answer to that question would at least be something he would be able to understand.

“The procedures manual and their company policies are available online.” Hange answered matter-of-factly. Levi noted how quickly she recovered from having her explanation of policy and business jargon interrupted.

As Levi looked once again through highlighted lines and messy scrawls, he felt embarrassed that he was not even halfway done with the design they had discussed the night before. He slowly brought out his folder where he had at least begun to draw the floor plan from the link Hange had sent him the night before.

“How has the floor plan been Levi?” Hange cocked her head to one side. Levi could not tell if she was provoking him or if she was genuinely curious about the progress of his work. Regardless, the way that she sifted through the papers under her, while looking pointedly at the roughly drawn floor plan on his hands had Levi self conscious.

It was Tuesday afternoon, less than 24 hours since she had bombarded him with messages. Less than 24 hours since she dropped a pdf file of the floor plan and went MIA, Levi guessed it was to prepare all the documents which Hange had just laid out in front of him that morning. As he compared his own progress to hers, he also became aware of one more reality, their first outputs were due tomorrow. Begrudgingly Levi had to admit, despite her naivete and overenthusiasm, Hange had a better sense of urgency than he did.

“I planned everything out already. I just need to outline it.” Levi said, trying at least not to sound as defensive as he felt.

“But can you do it alone? I didn’t sleep at all last night to get this done.” Hange looked more concerned than anything else.”

As Levi looked back at a skeleton of a housing plan that lay in front of him, he started to understand her concern. The house they had selected was huge and designing would take hours if he actually wanted to put thought into it.

“I mean even if we take out the 1800 from our budget of 3600 dollars a month, we still have to consider furniture and it might take you a while to come out with the pricing right? I guess we could leave out 1000 dollars for that….”

Furniture? Levi had stopped listening at ‘furniture.’ Somehow Levi had assumed that it would have been fully furnished when they bought it and they just had to rearrange furniture. “We’re buying an unfurnished house?” Levi had hoped Hange was pulling his leg.

Hange knitted her brows in confusion. “Did I say anything about a furnished house?”

Division of Labor

“There are two methods of accounting used in modern day society: cost accounting and accrual accounting or as I’d like to call them: an idiot’s sorry excuse for accounting and actual accounting.” Zeke wrote the two terms on the board and plopped himself on the teacher’s desk. “Really though, why the hell do people still use cost accounting in modern society, it’s fucking stupid, barbaric, might as well go back to bartering…”

Levi had no idea what either of them were. As he looked around at his classmates, they looked as lost as he was about the mini rant that Zeke gave about the two accounting methods he had failed to define.

After a few minutes of ranting, Zeke finally noticed the blank faces of his students. “Okay Social Experiment.” Zeke cocked his head to the side. “Actually, let’s call it an IQ Test. Jean stand up.”

“Yes sir!” Jean followed way too enthusiastically.

“You got the investment banker occupation so ideally you should be the most knowledgeable on money among everyone in the room,” Zeke continued. “You have zero dollars and I gave you 100 dollars right now. How much do you have?”

“100 dollars sir,” Jean answered.

“That’s a smart boy.” Zeke slapped his desk so hard, Armin and Eren jumped, having sat so close to the teacher’s desk. “Okay, so if I lent you 100 dollars, how much do you have?”

“100 dollars.”

“So, you’re gonna run away with my money? No plans of paying me back?”

Jean tensed up in confusion. “No sir. I’ll be paying you back.”

“Then is it your money?"

“It’s with me sir… So I think…” Jean paused for a second. “So it’s your money sir?”

“Tell me. The money is with you after all. Is it your money or my money?”

“It’s my money sir!” Jean answered too quickly, probably without even thinking.

“I lent you the money. I expect it back so it’s mine. Calling my money your money is practically stealing Kirschtein. I can call a lawyer on you.” Zeke narrowed his eyes at Jean for a few seconds before shrugging in defeat. “But you’re not a criminal. You’re just an idiot who relies on outdated accounting methods. Don’t take that with you when you become an actual financial advisor. Sit down. I’m calling someone else.” Zeke turned back to the class list on the teacher’s table. “Okay, anyone in this list with a finance related position...” Zeke’s eyes widened in surprise as he looked through the list. He looked at the class with a cat-like grin, his eyes focusing on one boy in the front row. “In my almost sixteen years of knowing you, I did not expect you to be suitable but it looks like you’re the only one in this list other than Jean with an accounting related occupation.”

“Really? It’s accounting related?” Eren had never been one to be good at Math. Everyone in the class agreed and as their professor hinted at his assigned occupation, many began to whisper, possibly theorizing as to what Eren had gotten.

They did not have to theorize for long though, within seconds, Zeke continued to discuss. “Okay Eren, let’s discuss your field of expertise --- insurance.”

Eren slowly nodded in return. It was a nod which everyone in the room had understood at first glance. Insurance was not Eren’s field of expertise.

Zeke did not seem to care though. “Case study time! I have 3000 dollars. Eren the insurance salesman sells me $200 dollars a month worth of insurance and I buy one years worth of prepaid insurance. By the end of this month, how much worth of assets do I have left?”

“By assets, you mean money?”

“Check a fucking dictionary.”

Eren sat down for a second. From his seat, Levi could hear some whispers from Mikasa and some clicks of a digital keyboard, or possibly a calculator.

“600 dollars.”

“Final answer?”

“Yes. Final Answer.” Eren seemed so sure of his answer.

From seeing Zeke’s face at the answer, Levi could not help but think, maybe phrasing it as a question was the better option for Eren.

“This is why your generation is so shit at saving. With this type of attitude, you‘re all gonna get into some shity Ponzi scheme with yourself and some sad saps who actually pitied you enough to lend you money without assessing your credit rating that’s just gonna continue riding on some endless cycle until you all go to jail or declare bankruptcy.” Zeke ranted again as he punched the buttons of the projector, turning it on. “ Scratch that. At this rate, none of you would probably even know how to declare bankruptcy.”

Accounting 101 . Those two words flashed on the screen, the contrast of black words in a default font to the white background of a hastily made powerpoint only getting clearer as the projector whirred to life.

“The amount of debt you can get into in the real world will fuck up your life. So to simulate the real world consequences of unpaid debt, we decided to make your fake debt by the end of the year one of the main determinants of your final grade. And we will be using real accounting to determine your debt. Any questions before we start?”

It was Sasha who raised her hand from the back of the classroom.

“Yes?” Zeke asked with shoddily hidden annoyance.

“So which one is cost and which one is accrual again, Sir?”

Division of Labor

"I told you. I'll handle the accounting," Hange said. "We can make this work." Her words were not at all assuring.

It was Wednesday afternoon. They had submitted their selection for their house that afternoon in class so that meant no more takebacks. Their house plans were due midnight and Levi was not even halfway done. To add insult to injury, Levi was still reeling from Zeke’s lecture just a few hours ago.

Initially, Hange had suggested they buy the furniture in installments. The prospect of buying in installments though became all the more terrifying with the accounting system Zeke had introduced to them that day and the weight of a negative balance sheet on their grades.

As soon as you buy something and enter into debt, the money owed is not yours anymore. Levi shuddered as those words echoed in his head. He narrowed his eyes at Hange. "Really Hange? Can we? After deciding to spend half your salary each month on an unfinished 3 bedroom house?" Levi asked as he gestured to their next tall order that stretched over two aisles. They were in the baby's section in the supermarket.

It was their third round around that aisle, trying to look for a brand of diaper and a brand of formula that would not cost them a total of 400 dollars a month.

“I mean, we still have 800 dollars on groceries if we put our furniture installments budget at 1000 dollars a month,” Hange explained. “So if we spend 400 dollars on baby stuff, we should have 400 left.”

“400 dollars for a month’s worth of meals for a family of four.” Levi clarified. “There must be something here we could choose not to spend on.” Or maybe we could find a cheaper place to buy things in. Levi thought back to the supermarket nearer to his house and made a mental note to check it. The output was due on Friday anyway.

"Hey, Armin and Annie are here too!" Hange said enthusiastically.

Too enthusiastically. Levi clarified to himself. That was not at all good news. If other groups were going to that supermarket, that must mean they think they have the financial leeway to spend there, That could also possibly mean he and Hange had somehow fucked up financially as a pair, struggling to make ends meet. Armin was a studious student with a good head on his shoulders and he chose to shop in a more expensive supermarket. Are we spending too much?

"Let's ask Armin…" Levi did not need to finish his sentence. By the time, he looked to his side, where Hange stood or at least was supposed to be standing, the latter was already on her way to the blond boy..

Levi did not waste anytime. As Hange chatted up Armin, Levi made a few rounds through the two aisles again, his phone calculator on hand.

Just in case. Levi told himself. Just in case they had miscalculated the minimum expense of 400 dollars.

Division of Labor

Hange had a long talk with Armin. By that point, Levi had lost count of the number of rounds he had made around the aisle. He had stopped counting at five. He had done his research on discounts and made some fake accounts and the expense still clocked at $390 dollars.

By the time he and Hange called it quits, the sun was setting. Hange seemed lost in thought and she had been that way since she had finished her conversation with Armin. Levi decided to take over keeping both sacks for the night. He made a small detour to the grocery store nearest to his flat. It was smaller, a little dirtier but it meant a little more room for spending and a bigger chance of saving his grade and graduating. Begrudgingly, sanitation became the least of Levi's issues.

He wrote out all the prices of the important items they had seen in the grocery store. When he got home, he made sure to write them all on a google sheet complete with weight, quantity and prices and sent the link to Hange through an instant message. For some reason, he felt a twinge of disappointment when all he received was a heart react in return.

Of course, Hange still had a lot of things to calculate. Even as they separated less than an hour ago, she had seemed distracted. Levi guessed Armin had told her something game breaking about the accounting process.

What did Armin tell you? You need any help?

Will explain soon. Send the meal plan and house design by 9 pls.

Levi managed to submit the meal plan by nine. He had copied and pasted from some random family cooking website, changing a few ingredients to fit what he thought would be cheaper options. He did not need to think too much of it either. He lived a life many would consider the complete opposite of excess and as a result, had mastered the art of improvisation when it came to food.

His main problem lay with the floor plan of the house. Hange had agreed to handle worrying about the expenses. That was one problem out of his plate.

Even with the money problem out of his hands, Levi found himself working until late anyway. Or not working… Levi was only reminded of his lack of productivity when his phone lit up with a notification.

11:00pm

Hange Zoe

Where??????

Levi only realized then that he had gotten a little carried away with the problem of where to put the washing machine.

Division of Labor

It was a genius idea.

That Wednesday night, only a few hours before the house plan was due, Levi had had fifty tabs open from German and Japanese house designers showing bathrooms and laundry room designs highlighting the novelty and practicality of putting the washing machine in the bathroom. Levi had spent hours pondering the logistics of making it work for the house design Hange had sent him only for her to shoot down the idea an hour before the housing plan was due.

They rented an American style house with a bathroom in every bedroom and the impracticality had dawned on him particularly when it was fifteen minutes to 12am and they were still arguing in chat over how to design the house. In the end, Hange had gotten her way, having brought up the issue of accounting furniture and the fact that they probably did not even have the financial leeway to pay for a washing machine anyway.

Having to deal with the disappointment of losing the opportunity to design the house the way he wanted to and having his unfinished design shipped off to Erwin’s email, with little regard for the effort he had put into the intricacy of both the toilets and the laundry room, Levi was a little pissed. He also considered the fact that he had respected the effort and detail Hange had put into choosing a house and had allowed her to submit a potentially overpriced and unfurnished house as their final product.

And she could not even reciprocate the respect for his whims.

Levi decided then to take a break from it all. It was a silent agreement on both ends. Or there was no need for an agreement anyway. They had finished their deliverables for the week by Thursday.

Everyone had ended up cramming theirs anyway and Levi found himself walking home alone and spending his time outside school hours bingeing whatever was new on Netflix.

By Monday, Levi had not expected to do much. Their breakdown of responsibilities was due Friday, 12am on Thursday to be exact according to the file that Erwin had sent. It was a one page paper with a few questions that just needed answering. They could easily start on Tuesday or Wednesday.

Levi wanted to spend at least just his Monday, peacefully, not considering the program which has been plaguing the start of their junior year since Shadis’ announcement just a week ago. He allowed himself to clear his mind, making sure to just note on his phone to start on the next output by Wednesday. Hange would probably remind him anyway.

He had deluded himself well into thinking the adulting program was limited to those once a week outputs. An announcement was made to meet in the kitchen after lunch for home economics class. His mood that Monday had him living in complete denial of what could actually go on in a school kitchen and for some reason, Levi imagined having a lecture in the kitchen was a completely normal expectation, even with the reminder to bring aprons and gloves. Maybe we just need to put them in lockers or something.

As the students filed in though, some of them panicked and that was when Levi figured out that something was not right. The counters were all lined up with ingredients. Some of the students had recognized the ingredients. Levi looked to Hange to see that she was blank on what the hell the pattern was behind the types of ingredients set out.

There were the essentials--- flour, sugar, eggs. There were exotic ingredients Levi could not even name or pronounce.

“Cardamom, Star Anise, Rose water. What the hell?” It was Jean speaking from behind Levi.

“I’m glad you see the pattern. I’m assuming that means you’ll all do well?” Erwin waited while the rest of the class filed into the room before he raised his voice loud enough for everyone to hear. “Today we’ll be having a pop quiz just to make sure you all know what you’re writing when you make the meal plans. In the tables assigned to you, you will see the ingredients for one of the meals you put in your meal plan. Please use them accordingly to make a full course meal from what you had submitted.”

Levi could not remember for the life of him what the hell he had put in that meal plan a week back

#levihan #levi ackerman #hange zoe #levi x hange #fanfic

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elyssebeeart · 7 years ago

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Save the Last Dance For Me

A writing commission for @spottedwings-psychicdreams (PDF on dA)

Series: Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go Pairing: FandomxCanon (MhairixGibson) Word count: ~2.6k Rating: G

“What is that noise?”

A faint musical rhythm could be heard echoing through the Super Robot. Gibson tilted his head, his audio receivers calibrating to pinpoint the source of the noise. Identifying which direction the music was coming from the robotic blue monkey made his way towards it, curious as to who was playing such a beat.

He followed the noise down the corridors, passing each member’s quarters that apparently were not the source. The music was growing louder as he continued his way down, finally locating the room where the sound seemed to be emitting from. Reaching up he pressed the button that caused the doors to slide back.

In the room was a yellow furred biped creature covered in black spots with feathers on its arms and a long cat like tail tipped in black that wore a light teal dress and brown leggings. Its clawed black hands were posed as if holding onto something, someone as the creature moved back and forth in the room to the music’s slow beat.

It seemed like the team’s resident archeologist, Mhairi, was dancing.

“I didn’t know you could dance.”

“Wha-?” Mhairi uttered in a half shriek that was very bird like, a red color spreading over her yellow features as she spun around to see who was addressing her. Immediately she sputtered, “O-of course I can dance!”

“To be precise I didn’t know you would dance.” He corrected, as the Grypherian was a rather private person who seemed more into pastimes such as reading or going out exploring for an archeological find. “Sorry to startle you.”

“You didn’t startle me, you just broke my concentration.” She hastily tried to cover her obvious startling, folding her arms. “What are you doing here?”

“I heard the music and wondered who was playing it.”

“If it’s too loud I can turn it down, you just had to ask.”

“No, no it’s okay. This was purely an inquisitive venture, not one of complaint.” The simian assured, holding up a hand and smiling. “I honestly thought it was perhaps Otto trying out a new, what does he call it…. ‘Inspirational fantastical grooving beats of mental and energy stimulation.’”

“You mean a playlist of motivational catchy songs?” Mhairi translated, raising an eyebrow, not sure if she caught the lingo correctly.

“Ah yes, I suppose that was it.”

Mhairi suppressed a laugh though the corners of her beak turned upwards. She was still a bit flustered and her feathers literally ruffled as she hadn’t expected anyone to come walking in on her while she was practicing—a soft blush began to form in place of the red embarrassment—especially not Gibson.

“Might I ask the occasion?”

“Occasion?” She was called back to reality, “Why do you think there is an occasion?”

“For you to be listening to such music purposely composed to be a slow dance in the company of another. Plus you were acting like there was another person with you rather than solo dancing.”

“Oh… Well, see back home there’s this event that I have to attend…” She began, twiddling her talons, “And it’s this big fancy thing that will be food and dance and I’ll be expected to attend and take part since I’m a representative of the museum.”

“Sounds like a rather immense and significant event. Congratulations.”

Mhairi nodded as she moved across the room to get a drink, needing refreshment after all her private dancing and to cool her nerves over Gibson walking in on her. “Yeah, so there’s going to be all this dancing and I figured I’d best practice so I don’t make a fool out of myself when I attend. It’s awkward enough; I don’t want to look bad while having to dance with people I barely know or rather keep at a professional arms length.”

Gibson bobbed his head with understanding, watching from across the room. He was rubbing his chin now, clearly thinking about something, which wasn’t odd given his high intellect.

“Would you like me to dance with you?”

Mhairi just about spat out her drink, choking. “Wha-what?” She quickly wiped her beak as the liquid dribbled out of her mouth, her blue eyes wide. She had half a mind to stick a talon in her ear to make sure it wasn’t physically filled with desires of her heart or her mind simply playing tricks on her.

“To practice. I assure you I can dance better than a mere shadow partner.” He defended, mistaking her reaction as one of disbelief at his abilities. “If you’d rather decline it’s no trouble, I won’t impose on you any longer. I just wanted to offer my assistance since your invisible partner seemed to be a tad flatfooted.”

“No, no. I… You can dance and you want to with me?” That fact coupled with the unexpected joke had her reeling even more, confusion crossing her face. Gibson had made a joke and suggested being her partner? Her heart was thundering in her chest as she stared at him, speechless.

“Why not? Besides at its core it is based on theory and understanding of the fundamentals of body movement that relies on atmospheric rhythm and one’s brain relaying that information for your body to respond. Besides you dance rather nicely and-”

“Okay, okay, just stop. Come over here and show me what you can do.” She gestured, shaking her head with mild amusement over the scientific babble. The last part of his statement however had her heart pounding in her ears and a fresh wave of blush threatened to surface. The music was still playing on loop in the background, having never been turned off since Gibson had arrived and ready to be performed to.

He complied, taking her talon as she extended it, slipping the other on his arm to complete the hold. He shifted his hands to their proper placements, holding her talon in one and his other hand against her back; the contact on her back made the fur on the back of her neck stick up as a tingle went up her spine, threatening to cause her to blush at the intimate touch.

But this was dance and she was going to suck it up and not freak out for once.

“Okay on the count of three as the next beat comes; one, two…. Three.”

As they stepped Mhairi expected Gibson to follow her smoothly, her taking the lead in the dance as was per custom on her planet. But instead there was tension in her partner’s arms and suddenly he scooted towards her in a stiff step that brought him much too close, almost colliding.

Surprised she dismissed it as him getting his bearings, not expecting her to be leading. She took a step back again, gently pulling her partner with her, but once again the movement was stiff, almost mechanical.

Just because Gibson was a cybernetic monkey didn’t mean he had to act robotic; did he perhaps have a few tight gears needing to be oiled? Was it her?

“Are you okay with me leading?” She pressed, halting for a moment, wondering if she was giving wrong signals than what he was used to. She could hear him mumbling something, probably counting out loud rather than in his head.

“Certainly, carry on.”

As they moved forward and backwards and then side to side Mhairi found it was almost like dancing with a heavy cardboard box with no flexibility. She frowned slightly, glancing at their hand positions and at their footwork, wondering what was wrong; no way should the smooth slow dance feel like she was dragging a safe around, each movement jerky. Gibson said he knew how to dance, were they not on the same page?

“Now for maximum velocity to gain proper momentum I must apply…”

Though it was rather low she caught part of Gibson’s mumbling, realizing what she’d been hearing had not been counting at all; suddenly everything made sense. She placed her foot on top on his, pressing it down to keep him from sliding it and get his attention. “Stop.”

“What?”

“That’s not how you dance. Not this dance at all… or any other.”

“What ever am I doing wrong? I’ve calculated and formulated the right combo and timing for-“

“Shh.” She hushed him, placing a talon against his lips. “Just feel the music. Let the music guide you—carry you. With dance it’s about emotion. To do the right steps you have to know the music, feel it and your body will follow. Getting the correct footwork comes after you are able to know the beats, the rhythm. Your feet will follow once they catch up to your body and brain’s communication; or sometimes your feet simply carry you before your mind does.”

She released her hold on him for a moment, resuming her shadow partner dancing, showing how she moved as the music varied its notes, stepping back and forth depending on the tempo.

“When with a partner you have to feel their moments, become one with their moments so you’re dancing as one, not as a pair. Dance with a partner isn’t about being a pair; it’s about dancing as one. Being one with each other, with the music, the moment.” She let out a sigh at the romantic notion, her blue eyes shinning with admiration as she stopped.

“You certainly are well verse in the subject. I guess you are the expert with actual field experience and application of the art.” Gibson surmised, watching with an analytical but appreciative gaze.

“I, ah…” She let out a nervous cough as she collected herself, “have read up a lot on it. Also when I was younger my auntie enrolled me in some dance classes for a while until I showed I rather be in the dirt digging for treasure than tearing up a dance floor as a performer or rubbing elbows with important persons.”

“See you do have practical experience. When I implied I could dance I should have clarified I have the capacity to dance; I understand the science of dance and theories of such formulas though my actual application is rather diminutive.”

“How diminutive?”

“I gather only a few occasions, in private of course. The technique is perfect just the application… I need more trial runs. I assure you I am quite the dancer.”

“Well, I guess the only way to get better is practice.” Mhairi sighed taking note of the work they had to do. “Better get started.” She held out a talon, ready to take dancing positions again. “This time let me carry you and match you to my movements rather than you trying to follow my lead.”

Gibson gave a nod, getting back into position as the music continued its beats. “I appreciate it as I gather you don’t really need the practice. I’m certain many will be demanding a turn with you. They’ll come in droves for a chance.”

“Oh sure I’ll be beating them off with an irreplaceable vase because I’ll simply be the bell of the ball.” Mhairi rolled her eyes though the thought did please her at the complement of her abilities. “Every dance will have me switching partners at least five times.”

"Well, be sure to save the last dance for me." He joked, letting a playful smirk slip out. He had no doubt Mhairi would be attending the party alone or with one of her colleagues as it seemed like a rather big affair of an inner circle.

She seemed caught off guard, tensing as she held onto him, seeming as though she almost let go. "Of course! Though..." Her blue gaze shifted, unable to look him in the eyes, stuck in a dance hold she initiated.

"What? Afraid of my dancing abilities not being up to par to those of your Grypherian kin? I assure you with studying and practiced application of scientific method I-" He began to tease, not offended in the least.

"I was actually thinking of saving all my dances for you..." She interrupted, her talons gripping his metal arm tighter subconsciously.

“Bwha-?”

“I was going to ask if you wanted to be my plus one to the event.” Her face grew a deeper shade of red as she shifted her blue gaze towards the floor. She broke the hold and took a step back, looking rather self-conscious. “I wanted to practice a bit before though…”

“Your plus one?” He repeated slowly, his brilliant mind uncharacteristically processing the info slowly. Was there something on the fritz with his hardwiring?

“My date!” Mhairi blurted, her face an impossible shade of red now. “You know, because we’re…” She fidgeted a moment, touching the bell that hung around her neck. “Together.”

“Oh.”

Mhairi took a deep breath as Gibson stood there blinking bewildered, his processors whirling on overdrive to decipher what she’d said so plainly yet his mind demanded a complex explanation.

“After all the time we spent apart and finally are reunited again, I don’t really want to be apart when doing things when I’d rather…” She stopped, her heart thudding in her chest, “be doing those things with you than anyone else. I rather spend that time with you.”

“And I.” He spoke after a few moments, stepping forward and placing a hand on top of her talon that was over her bell. “I’m sorry I was just too caught up to get the hint.”

A laugh of relief escaped the Grypherian, all anxiety seeming to be washed away with those mere words. “You are one smart monkey, but I guess you can’t be perfect. I certainly am not.”

“No one is, though I like to think of us as getting better over time.” The simian smiled back at her. He then leaned forward and kissed her gently, catching her by surprise. However she relaxed and the two stood there for what seemed like forever as time stopped but only a few minutes went by, the music still in a loop.

Gibson was the one to break the kiss, but he took both Mhairi’s talons into his hands. He grinned at her still red face, something that never ceased to amuse or amaze him. She seemed less frazzled but still somewhat shy, but pleased. “So when is this dance?”

“Three days from now.”

“Three days!? Why such short notice?” He gawked, his mouth hanging open as his brain instantly began a countdown of how many hours and minutes they had.

“Because I was trying to practice ahead of time and impress you when I asked you!” Mhairi fussed, twiddling her talons bashfully, momentarily breaking Gibson’s hold. “It’s just… been taking me longer to get the courage to ask you, afraid you’d say no.”

“Now what in the universe makes you think I’d decline?”

She seemed to stall for a few moments, looking away before confessing, “Because you can’t dance.”

Awkward silence would have surely enveloped the room if not for the music playing in the background. The fact of her fear turning out to be true about Gibson’s dancing abilities despite his assurance was amusingly ironic at this point.

“Well now! We’ve got a lot of work to do until that party!” Gibson announced, smirking as he took a step forward, lightly grasping her talons once again. “Shall we dance?”

“Yes.” She smiled back, fixing her dancing position once again. The two were situated for the first steps of the song once more when she added with hesitation in her voice, “Just one more problem.”

“What is it?”

“I still have to get my dress.”

“Egad! That should have been first on the list! We have to remedy that at once!”

“Alright, but first let’s get through this dance. After all it is our first.”

“Right you are.”

“And Gibson?” “Yeah?”

“Just because you’re part robot doesn’t mean you have to dance like one.”

“Fair enough.”

#writing commission #commission #fandom #OC #commissioned #ElysseBee Writing #ElysseB writing #spottedwings-psychicdreams #srmthfg #Hal Gibson #Gibson #fandom writing #fanfic #fan fic #Mhairi

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