#it really relates to the experience you have as a high schooler and you feel like you really just can’t do it anymore you physically can’t

[lehrven]

K-12 is just the goth version of the Barbie movie

it has all the same intelligence and conviction as the barbie movie it’s just more macabre and repulsive in some scenes (in a good way)

it’s kind of like what monster high dolls were to barbie dolls

Here’s the movie free to watch on YouTube because Melanie is cool like that

[slamdunk-headcanons]

Fights, haircut and basketball - Imagine Mitsui Hisashi

Hello guys! So I decided to bring my SD imagines to this blog. They were originally written in Portuguese, and I used AI to do the most part of translation and revised it after to do some corrections and adaptations. So this is the very first one I wrote for SD, in 2016, for my favorite character, Mitsui Hisashi. My writing style is in third person, not second person. I hope you all like it!

Posted on Spirit Fanfictions, Wattpad and Nyah!Fanfiction (all Portuguese version) Word count: 3.6k Warnings: fem!reader, mention of gang fights, a bit of cursing, angst Cover by @ezrealsicons

Synopsis: Mitsui and [Name] were unseparable friends. But when their feelings became something more than just friendship, everthing caved in. With the Mitsui's injurey and his subsequent withdrawal from basketball, his personality began to be dominated by resentment and anger. The boy started to despise everything related to the sport, including [Name]. However, two years later, a fight and and old dream would finally make him remember how important she was for him.

“You did what!?"

[Name] looked at Mitsui with wide, horrified eyes. The boy had shown up at her mother's beauty salon that late afternoon without warning, his face covered in bruises and dried blood. The girl had quickly pulled him to the back of the establishment so he wouldn't draw attention in case a client arrive. The last thing she wanted was for Mitsui's problems to spill over into her mother's business. Now they were talking in the break room, which was fortunately empty.

The boy still had the same intimidating appearance that [Name] had seen the last time they met. The face that had once been marked by the features of adolescence was now almost entirely covered by his blackish-blue hair that cascaded down to his shoulders. His navy-blue eyes, once so bright and full of energy, were now dark and heavy. And to top it off, [Name] couldn’t even remember the last time she had seen Mitsui smile.

Faced with his friend's accusatory question, the senior kept his head down and his hands buried in his pockets. The shame he had felt earlier, in front of the man who had given him the determination to win the regional championship, now seemed to weigh ten tons on his broad shoulders. He could endure the accusing looks from everyone, even from Kogure and Akagi, but from [Name]...

"Hey! Answer me, Hisashi!"

He hunched his shoulders even more. It was hard enough to confess what he had done, let alone repeat it. Besides, didn’t [Name] already have enough reasons to despise him?

"I decided to get revenge on Miyagi... I wanted to do it by disqualifying Shohoku from the Nationals through a fight. If the rumor that the players were involved in a gang fight at their own school spread, they would surely be banned from the championship. So I gathered the judo team members and asked for help from a friend of mine, Tetsu-"

Mitsui didn’t get a chance to finish. A sharp, resounding slap stung his already bruised face, causing him to stagger back two steps. His hands instinctively covered the spot where he had been hit, and his navy-blue eyes rose in shock to meet the girl in front of him.

"Are you serious!?" she shouted angrily. "Didn’t I tell you to never speak to me again? And you, not only you disrespect that, but you also come and tell me something like this!?"

The high schooler lowered his gaze again and returned to his previous dejected posture.

[Name] had been his friend for years, and they had met because of basketball. She always played on the neighborhood’s public court, and it was there that he saw her for the first time. He clearly remembered being captivated by how she smiled while playing, and that made him interested in the game. He really wanted to experience the joy that made that girl seem so happy.

Mitsui then asked [Name] to introduce him to basketball. Reluctantly at first, the girl agreed to be his tutor. She taught him everything she could, from basic movements to the tricks of faking and three-point shots, which were her pride and joy. It was on that quaint basketball court that their friendship flourished.

Over the years, Mitsui and [Name] became inseparable, and their friendship began to take on new dimensions. However, neither of them had the courage to make a move, as neither was sure of their own feelings.

And that’s when everything caved in.

After Mitsui’s accident and his subsequent withdrawal from basketball, his personality started to be consumed by resentment and anger. The boy began to despise everything related to the sport, including [Name].

One day, the girl invited him to watch a street basketball game that was going to take place on the same court where they had first met. With disdain, he laughed in [Name]’s face and said he had better things to do.

"I'm not going to waste any more time with stupid things like basketball," he said with a mocking smile.

The girl looked at him in horror, unable to believe that those words had come out of Mitsui's mouth.

“What!?” she shouted, shocked.

“That’s exactly what you heard,” he spat. “I’m not wasting another second on basketball.”

And without giving [Name] a chance to ask any more questions, he spun on his heels and walked away.

After this episode, the high schooler began getting more involved with gangs and street fights, and the chasm that had formed between him and [Name] grew ever wider. Finally, one incident in particular completely ruined their friendship.

Angry after the beating they took from Mitsui’s gang, some troublemakers from Kainan High investigated Mitsui’s connections and discovered [Name]. After obtaining her address, they observed her routine for a few days. After a week, they ambushed her as she was heading home in the late afternoon. Meanwhile, one of them was tasked with delivering the message to Mitsui.

As soon as he found out, the boy was overcomed with an intense feeling of guilt and rage. He never imagined he would end up involving his friend in his fights, let alone as a hostage. Blinded by anger, he ran without hesitation to the agreed location, making a decision along the way: he would distance himself from gangs once and for all so that she would never be at risk because of him again.

When he finally reached them, he realized the true extent of the trap he had fallen into. [Name] was at the back of the alley, held by two burly high schoolers with contemptuous expressions. As soon as they spotted Mitsui, the other gang members blocked both exits of the alley, giving the boy no chance to escape.

“I knew he would come,” their leader sneered. “Let the girl go. We’ve got what we wanted.”

A momentary sense of relief washed over the student, and he searched for [Name] with his eyes. The girl was rubbing her forearms, marked by the strong grip of the thugs, and as soon as she processed that she was free, she looked for Mitsui among the figures present. When her eyes locked on his face, distorted by a mask of conflicting emotions, she marched toward him with determined steps, tears welling up in the corners of her eyes.

How? How had it come to this? How had he let something like this happen? And to her, of all people!?

Everyone turned to look at the slender back of the girl, who was walking forward with clenched fists. As soon as her childhood friend's face was within reach, she raised her right fist and delivered a solid punch to his left cheek.

"Bastard!" she shouted, tears streaming down her cheeks. "How did you get to this point? When did you stoop so low as to drag me into these stupid fights!?"

Mitsui kept his face turned away, his dark blue eyes vacant and empty from the shock.

"Never again..." she said through gritted teeth. "Never speak to me again."

Those words from [Name] hurt more than any punch or kick he'd ever taken in a fight. They hurt more than his knee injury. They hurt more than giving up basketball.

Even when he had given up on everything, she hadn’t. She believed that one day, the bitterness from what had happened in his first year would fade, and Mitsui's passion for basketball would resurface. And even as he sank deeper and deeper, she tried to support him, tending to his wounds so that he wouldn’t have to hear so much from his parents.

And he had simply dismissed all of it.

That day, the beating he took after being insulted and humiliated by the Kainan thugs didn’t compare to the pain of losing [Name] completely. He had deluded himself into thinking she would stand by him despite the stupid mistakes he’d been making. What else would he lose?

Since then, [Name] had never spoken to him again, and Mitsui had no choice but to respect her decision. In her absence, he continued to get involved in more and more trouble and fights, and the little hope hidden in his heart of returning to basketball disappeared completely.

However, the incident in Shohoku’s gym that day awakened old memories of basketball for Mitsui. The feeling of sinking the ball with a simple flick of the wrist, the euphoria filling his chest as he drove past opponents toward the basket... Remembering all of this, Hisashi Mitsui finally realized just how much he missed basketball and, most of all, how much he missed the person who had brought that wonderful sport into his life.

God! How he wanted to play basketball again! How he wanted to play with [Name] and see her smile in that unique and captivating way...

It was because of all this that he swallowed his pride and ran to see the girl he had dismissed out of pure arrogance and selfishness. He had to make things right. He would never forgive himself if he didn’t try.

Mitsui lifted his melancholic dark eyes to [Name] and took a deep breath.

"I know what I did was unforgivable. I really was a selfish idiot, only thinking about my whim of becoming Shohoku’s ace... and it ruined everything." He squeezed his eyes shut tightly and then reopened them, this time with a determined look. "But I need to tell you something."

The girl straightened where she stood and crossed her arms. Her eyes shifted to the floor, filled with pain and anger. She wanted so badly to believe Mitsui’s words. She wanted so badly for him to have truly recognized his mistakes and turned things around... But what he had done wasn't that simple.

With a furrowed brow, she bit her lip and lowered her head.

"I'm going back to playing basketball," Mitsui blurted out, as if the words were forcing their way out of his mouth. "I don’t want to keep pretending that I don’t want to."

[Name]'s eyes widened, and she immediately locked them onto her friend’s face.

"I know it might be a little late since I’m in my third year. But I still want to make the most of the time I have left in high school. I’m going to...

The sentence weighed heavily on his tongue, and he had to press his lips together to prevent the words from spilling out awkwardly. He wanted to show [Name] that this was once again his dream.

Taking a deep breath, he closed his eyes, then opened them to look at his friend with a crease of determination on his forehead.

"I'm going to help Shohoku conquer Japan."

[Name]’s lips parted in a small “o,” but not in horror or anger, but rather in surprise. Before her eyes, she finally recognized the determined expression of the Mitsui she had known on the court in their old neighborhood. The boy she had taught to play basketball, who had become much more than just a good friend, was once again standing in front of her.

"Hisashi..." she murmured, her eyes widening further.

Mitsui straightened his shoulders, pulling his hands out of his pockets. He raised a hand to his neck and scratched it, looking down at the floor as shyness took over his gaze.

"So... [Name]-chan... I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to say or do all those stupid things to you. I know it’s not something that can be fixed with just an apology... But today, I really need you."

As soon as the last sentence left Mitsui’s lips, both felt a rush of heat rising to their faces. [Name] averted her eyes to the floor and began rubbing her fingers together with her thumb. The teenager scratched his neck even more quickly and continued:

"It’s-it’s just..." He blinked and, with great effort, looked back at the girl standing in front of him. "Since you helped me take the first step in basketball, I want you to do it again. I want you to help me take the first step back into basketball."

[Name] shifted her weight to her left leg and looked at her friend with a mix of insecurity and suppressed hope. She wanted so much to say yes. She had dreamed so many times of this moment—the moment when Mitsui would tell her that he was going back to basketball, returning to being the boy who had won her admiration in such a simple, genuine way...

But [Name] was fully aware that Mitsui's mistake was almost unforgivable, and she wasn’t going to let him think it would be easy to make everything right.

"I'm not going to play basketball with you, Hisashi," she said in the sternest voice she could muster.

The high schooler flinched as if he'd been punched in the gut. My God! How those words hurt. [Name]’s disdain was worse than any beating he had ever taken. But he deserved it; after all, he had also treated her with disdain... and in the worst possible way.

"I know," he said sadly. "But I need something only you can do."

[Name] furrowed her brows and waited. Mitsui raised his left hand until his fingers reached a lock of his dark hair.

"Could you... cut my hair?" He paused, trying not to stumble over his words, and laughed nervously. "Don’t worry. I’ll pay."

[Name]’s eyes widened so much that Mitsui thought they might pop out of their sockets.

Since girls tended to do this more often, she knew the significance of a haircut at a moment like this. Mitsui really wanted to change and wanted to leave a physical reminder of his new goal: to conquer Japan wearing Shohoku’s jersey.

After a few seconds, [Name] lowered her head and, turning on her heels, said, "Come here."

Surprised that he hadn’t received a harsh response from the girl, Mitsui promptly followed her with an astonished expression. She led him to the bathroom used by the staff and opened a cabinet containing a stack of white, fluffy towels. Grabbing one, she pushed it against the broad chest of the teenager and said, "Wipe off that blood so you don’t scare the other customers. When you’re done, go to the salon. I’ll be waiting there."

Mitsui nodded promptly and quickly cleaned himself up. When his face finally lost the most alarming signs of the fight, he folded the towel, leaving it in a corner, and headed to where [Name] was waiting. The girl was already dressed in a smock, with a cape draped over the same arm holding a pair of scissors.

"Have a seat," she said, her face wearing an indecipherable neutral expression.

Mitsui obeyed and sat down. [Name] adjusted the chair’s height and looked into the mirror to meet the boy’s blue eyes reflected there.

"So, what will it be?" she asked, running her fingers through the teenager's overgrown hair. Her touch sent involuntary shivers down Mitsui’s spine, and a slight blush spread across his cheeks.

"Ahm..." he muttered, glancing at the countertop cluttered with beauty tools. "You can cut it all off."

"All of it!?" she replied, her expression once again showing shock.

"Yeah. I mean, really short. It’s more comfortable for playing..."

The girl ran her fingers through Mitsui’s hair once more, taking a few measurements, and nodded.

"I’ll cut it little by little, and you can tell me if it’s okay, alright?"

"Uh-huh," he murmured, trying to stay still as he heard the first snips of the scissors cutting through his hair.

[Name] worked in silence, avoiding Mitsui’s deep blue eyes whenever she checked the cut in the mirror. However, it was impossible for her not to notice his features as the long hair stopped covering his face. Now that the black curtain had disappeared, [Name] could finally see the changes puberty had brought to her friend’s face. His jawline had become well-defined, but in a gentle way. Dark circles under his eyes marked the edges of his cheeks, which were covered in bruises and scratches, yet this detail still gave him a certain maturity. His straight nose had the same effect. His thick, black eyebrows perfectly crowned his pair of navy blue eyes, which had always captivated [Name] in a way she would never admit. Now they were much more visible, and this pleased her deeply.

In the end, Mitsui’s new haircut suited him very well, giving his face a more playful and determined look.

Yes... This was the Mitsui she had known.

"So?" she asked after making the final touch on the left side. "What do you think?"

He turned his head from side to side to see the new hairstyle from different angles and then smiled, satisfied. [Name] went to the counter and grabbed a square mirror so Mitsui could check the back of his hair too.

"Oh!" he said, smiling even more. "It really looks good! Thank you so much, [Name]-chan!"

While the teenager admired his friend’s work, [Name] couldn’t help but notice his features again. Mitsui had turned out much more handsome than she had anticipated.

Realizing this, her cheeks involuntarily heated up, and she lowered her face, afraid he would see her embarrassed expression.

"You’re welcome," she murmured, moving to the counter to put away the mirror and the brush she had used to remove the excess hair.

As soon as she removed the cape that had covered him, he stood up and quickly reached into his pocket, pulling out some green bills.

"How much do I owe you?" he asked, checking the amount he had.

[Name] had her back to him, organizing the counter and sweeping some leftover hair onto the floor. She bit her lip at Mitsui’s question, and the phrase he had said earlier echoed in her mind:

"I know. But I need something only you can do."

"Could you... cut my hair?"

Now that she could finally see Mitsui's eyes without his long black hair in the way, she was certain that he wasn’t just talking for the sake of it. She recognized his stubborn determination in the navy blue of his eyes. The haircut was his way of telling himself that he wanted to, and would, become who he once was. If she charged him for it, Mitsui's request would lose all its meaning.

"Nothing," she said, reaching out for the broom that was leaning nearby. "It's on me."

"But...!" he blinked, stunned as he stared at the back of her head. "I said I’d pay!"

"Shut up and accept it, idiot," she replied, too afraid to turn around and meet his eyes.

A whirlwind of emotions tore through her chest. Her head was spinning with confusion. She wanted so badly to celebrate this, to support him at his games, and to train with him... But at the same time, she couldn’t forget what he had done. And that stopped her from showing what she truly felt.

The teenager remained silent for a few moments before saying, "[Name]-chan... Please, let me pay for the haircut. I'll feel really bad i—"

"I already told you it’s on me!" she exclaimed too loudly as she turned her body and began sweeping with her eyes fixed on the floor. She walked past Mitsui and bumped into his shoulder hard. "I’m done here. You can go."

Mitsui didn’t move. His eyes went blank, staring into nothing as he digested [Name]'s harsh words. He had known from the start that he wouldn’t win her trust right away, but that didn’t lessen the weight of being treated like this by her.

However, even though she was clearly resentful, [Name] had granted his request. And if she didn’t charge for the service... it meant that, deep down, she wanted to do it for him and was happy that he had come back.

A slight smile curved Mitsui's lips as he realized this, and he quietly approached [Name] until he stood just behind her.

"[Name]-chan," he called, letting the gratitude he felt fill her name.

Hearing his voice so close, [Name] tensed up, feeling her cheeks flush once more. Trying to sound as harsh as possible, she turned sharply and growled, "Hisashi, I already told you to—"

But she couldn’t finish the sentence. As soon as she turned around, a soft, warm touch on her left cheek silenced her instantly. Mitsui was leaning in, his hand gently resting on her left shoulder as his lips placed a very sweet kiss on her blushing face.

The touch lasted only a few seconds, but it was enough to make all the hairs on [Name]'s body stand on end. Internally, she wished Mitsui’s touch had lasted a little longer. Pulling back slightly, he whispered, "Thank you."

He then straightened up, running his hand through his hair in a slightly awkward manner.

"Well, I’ll be going. See you later, [Name]-chan."

He turned on his heels and headed toward the exit of the salon. The girl remained frozen, staring at the back of her childhood friend. She hated herself for being so affected by his gesture, and even more for knowing that deep down, she really wanted Mitsui back... for herself.

Maybe it wasn’t the right time for them to reconnect, but they could start, right?

She went back to sweeping, and just as he stopped to open the door, she raised her voice: “Hey, idiot.”

Startled, the teenager turned his torso enough to look at [Name] with a questioning expression. “If you don’t make Shohoku rise to the top of Japan, I swear I’ll beat you to death".

Mitsui's eyes widened, and gradually, a smile replaced his shocked expression. He chuckled quietly as he remembered the countless times he had said he would conquer the nation. There was no turning back. This time, he had to succeed.

Widening his smile even further, he looked at [Name] defiantly and said, “I’m on it.”

[nihilistem]

Hey! I read your study tips both posts regarding adhd . (Feel free to ignore )

I am still undiagnosed and I think it's adhd but i do not have the resources nor the environment or support system to do anything about it .I am a high schooler preparing for entrance exams and i really need to like get my shit together and i feel like i have wasted sm time already but i really do want to get better. When i sit to study i just can't focus if I keep my phone in some other room then also i would just sit and stare at my books without accomplishing something. I am trying really but it's feels like my brain is frozen and my body is moving .my brain keep screaming guilty and ashamed but i can't seem to do anything about it.your study post actually i related to a lot because pomodro kind of seems to be working for everyone but me and the you described the exact same things I do

I know this is a lot to ask for please feel free to ignore but how do I stop Letting my emotions take over and study consistently because I only have one chance at the exams

Oh my, first of all I’d like to say that, as cliché as it is, I know exactly how you feel. I was undiagnosed for so long (I was only diagnosed a few months ago) and I didn’t even know that the adhd things I experience on a regular basis wasn’t normal or neurotypical for so long.

first up : I know this is difficult, but please do not say such things about yourself. I’m not gonna get into the whole thing, (cuz I have done a post on that already) but it’s true that the more you drill that bad stuff into your brain, the more it’s gonna stick. We need our brains to be in the best condition possible to study efficiently and saying bad stuff about yourself that isn’t even true is just going to hinder your performance. You got this. I promise you’re not lazy. Your brain just isn’t motivated by the same things others are, but we can work with that simple difference.

I’ll make a separate post on how not to let your emotions take over, but for now …

adhd study tips for those trying to get into the habit.

— by a stem student with adhd.

here’s my first post on adhd study tips.

— don’t put your phone in a different room. Instead, download an app that prevents you from using other apps on your phone.

there’s plenty of apps that do this but the one I prefer is ypt because all its features are completely free and it stops your timer when you exit the app unless you enter ‘allowed app mode.’ I don’t know about you, but if I find that I’m just zoning out on my textbook then I end up stopping my timer and deleting the record because I know I didn’t actually study, and this motivates me to actually get some work done. The timer also gets me motivated to keep going for longer so I have physical proof of my focus time and studies. It will feel good to even have just 1 hour of study time on it, I promise.

— even if you’re not interested in your studies, try your best to find even one thing that interests you.

novelty, challenge and interest are some of the best motivators of the adhd brain, so use it. I know that sparking your curiosity for a subject you hate seems impossible, but hear me out.

ever since I was young, I was exposed to books and I drew everyday. This caused me to become very passionate about the arts, but since I had adhd and didn’t know, I failed all my classes and specifically hated chemistry because it was specifically designed to be everything that I can’t be good at due to my poor memory and the need to memorize a TON of concepts. Then during class one day, I was doing chemistry work with my friends and felt frustrated that they could easily balance equations and work out which compounds were acids or bases purely by its chemical formula. And that’s what sparked me to start reading my textbook to see what the big deal was. How was it possible for one to just know when something is a acid solely from looking at a bunch of letters? This started a chain reaction; I found my answer, and found that the process of finding my answer and learning this new information was fulfilling. So I looked at all the other chemistry topics, and it turns out chemistry was fun. I was supposed to be an art student but now I’m majoring in chemistry and biology, all because of that sense of challenge and curiosity I was given that day.

tdlr; I was bad at chemistry but I’m now majoring in it because I felt challenged by a friend and was curious to know how they could solve chem equations easily.

All it took was a bit of curiosity. It’s a very powerful thing to the adhd brain. And if you use this as a motivator for your studies it might even cause you to hyper-fixate on your work, which means you’ll naturally spend more time studying just to find all the answers you’re now dying to know.

— use the pomodoro timer, but think about the things that you have to do that seems a little impossible to do under 25 minutes.

This fulfills the ‘challenge’ category I mentioned in the previous tip.

Let me explain; I subconsciously started doing this to myself without anyone telling me this and it’s helped me a LOT. Here’s an example;

“This chapter’s too long, it’s impossible to read through everything and understand the key concepts in just twenty five minutes.”

is it, though?

So I was off to the races, genuinely reading through every page and taking note of every single heading or bold or italicized word so I will be able to summarize the entire topic by the time the twenty five minutes is up.

And it doesn’t even matter if you don’t make that twenty five minute mark, because you’ll feel a sense of defeat and try it again with another chapter/topic.

this accomplishes two things; one, the work you’ve been putting off or zoning out on is now probably 20% - 50% completed and now you feel motivated to continue. Two, this method will train you to be faster in learning or studying new material or even just completing work in general, depending on what you’re challenging yourself to do.

— dress up, do your hair, study at a library or cafe you love (and possibly make pretty notes.)

I’ve talked about interest, I’ve talked about challenge, and now I’m gonna talk about novelty.

Do this with purpose! But what do I mean by that?

I’m sure you’ve come across studious girls in media or even people on social media making videos and taking pretty photos of their day out to study. Usually they’re dressed the part and even if they’re not, there’s a certain vibe, aesthetic or aura about them that is just so desirable that it makes you wish you were doing what they were doing. And if you don’t feel this way, find content creators or media that do make you feel this way.

How will this help me? Well, there are actually a few reasons but the first one that comes to mind is that this is also an adhd tip used outside of studying. Combining a task you don’t want to do with a task you’d like to do is a faster and more efficient way of convincing yourself to do long, difficult or even tiring tasks. Another is that doing this would also mean you’ve technically gotten yourself to desire studying, something more commonly known as romanticizing studying. If you make studying look fun, glamorous or even desirable for yourself then you’re sure to get to the hideous parts of it. Think about being a straight A student, someone who’s always wearing nice clothes with great hair and such a focused work ethic. Once you desire to be that person and you dress like that person, you’ll start to do the things that person will do.

— use the pomodoro timer but set it to even shorter bursts instead. (e.g. 15 minutes work, 5 minutes break.)

Or hell, on my worst days I set it to 5 minutes work, 5 minutes break.

The whole point of this exercise is to just start, because that’s arguably the hardest part about studying, you can’t get yourself to actually start or to actually focus. So promise yourself a five minute break after a very short amount of time of reading.

— skip straight to the questions of a topic, try to do them and identify the information you need to get the answer right.

For example, I came across a bio question that was rather simple but I didn’t know the answer to because I haven’t revised the topic for a while, and the question was, what is needed in the body for anaerobic respiration to take place? And the answer was simple, but I didn’t know because again, I didn’t study the material before answering the paper.

one’s brain can have the habit of being complacent especially when you don’t wanna do work, so diving head first into the questions and realizing that you don’t know jack shit would be a good wake up call for you and your brain—and this can connect to the second point that I made because you might find that you’d be eager to get the answer right all on your own, and become curious as to what the answer is.

important to remember …

erase everything bad that you were told or led to believe about studying. I promise that if you look for ways to make it engaging for you and form a habit, studying can be something you don’t dread or worry about everyday. You are capable. This is the start of your journey. Yes, the question of ‘what if I get distracted again’ will always be there but think about what could happen if today is the first day you’re not distracted. If you don’t at least try to start now, you will have zero chance of being able to actually focus and study. But if you try, the worst that will happen is that you tried. If you keep trying, it will happen. I promise.

If you need any more tips regarding adhd, (or being undiagnosed,) please do let me know. I’ll do my best to help.

[pinknipszz]

modern headcanons | highschool edition

⋆✮↪ neteyam, lo’ak, kiri, ao’nung, and tsireya

neteyam

he always walks you to class. he loves company, especially yours. neteyam would go the extra mile by carrying your bag or holding your stuff. and he’s so humble about it! he doesn’t even think that it’s something you should thank him for. to neteyam, it’s just the standard. he once told you that most of his childhood was spent with his mother and grandmother, two women in his life who really care about manners.

he packs extra lunch for you. neteyam is the type of guy to bring an extra lunch box just for you. if you’re not hungry or you brought your own lunch, he’ll insist you take it home. you don’t know what you did to deserve him. he would experiment with different cuisines and sneak in little notes that make you swoon. sometimes, you return the favor. when you pack his favorites, like steamed fish or grilled meat, he loses his mind. everyone finds your relationship sickeningly sweet.

lo’ak 

he probably vaped at least once. he’s the type of guy to give into peer pressure. if someone offered him a blue razz ice elfbar at a party, he would try it without thinking twice. much to your surprise, lo’ak didn’t really get into it. he likes to brag about it though, especially to ao’nung. you scold him when he does. part of the reason why he tries to stay away from that stuff is because of you. he knows that you don’t like it when he jeopardizes his health, so he makes an honest effort to be mindful of his decisions.

he skips class. a lot. honestly, you’ve lost count of how many times he’s offered to “walk you to class” and lead you in the opposite direction. you guys usually stay on campus, like maybe in the janitor’s closet or under the gym bleachers. when you guys aren’t, though, you’re usually running off to a local gas station or even the mall. it really just depends on the class period. lo’ak isn’t exactly the best influence on you.

kiri

her favorite class is biology. it’s just the closest thing she could get to botany as a high schooler. kiri is interested in all things related to plants, to the extent that she started a club dedicated to maintaining the school garden. she doesn’t have any leadership positions like tsireya, though, but she likes it that way. kiri doesn’t want to feel the pressure of dealing with other people. she also doesn’t have the mental strength to be constantly reminded of the fact that global warming exists.

she skips class occasionally. you’re always surprised at how rebellious she’s capable of being. unlike lo’ak, she doesn’t stay on campus. she’s out the door when she gets the chance. instead of staying at places like the mall, though, kiri stays at the local park. it’s where she gets most of her work done. she usually doesn’t drag you with her against your will, because she understands that the risk isn’t always worth it. you’ve never said no to her, though.

ao’nung

he plays close-contact and collision sports. remember when he tackled lo’ak in that one fight scene? yeah. ao’nung would channel that energy into sports like basketball, rugby, and even wrestling. ao’nung isn’t a team captain or anything. that’s way too much commitment, but he does have the most influence. because he earns titles like “player of the game” or “star player,” ao’nung knows how to get sponsors for trips. you hate how it gets in his big head.

he sits behind you in every single class you have together. ao’nung finds it more convenient to talk to you this way. if there’s assigned seating, he’ll bribe, beg, or do literally anything else to sit behind you. it gets him in trouble most of the time, but it’s worth the effort. if it does work, though, ao’nung likes to braid small pieces of your hair or pass notes during class. your classmates give you two funny looks, but they never say anything about it. courtesy of ao’nung.

tsireya

she’s the captain of the swim team. she’s a natural in the water. she’s also very good at raising team morale, so there’s really no other person fit for captain. you always attend her swim meets and cheer her on as much as possible. if you’re being honest, she doesn’t really need it since she crushes the competition every single time. she literally brings home gold every single year. your school will literally never find another swimmer as talented as her.

she’s the head of the house and grounds committee. tsireya would be an environmental activist. she’s got a big heart. she spearheads all activities related to the environment in your school and even started a conservation charity. you have no idea how this girl manages all of that on top of sports and school work. it does get in the way of your quality time with her, but it makes her happy so you don’t complain.

(masterlist)

[rose-morose]

stop what you are doing right now and go watch Jentry Chau vs the Underworld immediately

I instantly fell in love with this show from the moment I saw the trailer, and when it finally got its full release, it did not disappoint

(season 1 spoilers under the cut and also probably the longest post I've ever made by far)

if you have any interest in Asian/Chinese mythology and culture, fantastic animation, soundtracks full of absolute bangers, Texas for some reason, stories that touch on the subject of being Asian American, or high schoolers fighting the supernatural/demonic, or if you just like things that are good, this is the show for you

I watched through the intro in every episode, despite the presence of the skip intro button, and I even often went back to rewatch it after it finished, it is so fucking exhilarating and exciting, I have never felt more hyped in my life

I personally love Chinese mythology, but I truly do not believe that proclivity is even remotely necessary to enjoy this show, it's just all around amazing

the writing is phenomenal

Gugu: "It's a jianshi thing, they can't help but count rice."

Ed: "Hey, I can quit anytime I want!"

this fucking killed me

referencing a jianshi's need to count grains of rice is one thing, that's pretty much expected, but the implication that doing math (counting) is an addiction is so ironically model minority racist Asian stereotype coded that it is genuinely hilarious and I love it so much I'm dying

no idea if that was intentional or if I'm just seeing things, but it made me laugh all the same, and maybe I've got rose tinted glasses on because of my love of Chinese mythology and being able to relate to the Asian American experience, but regardless I cannot praise this show enough

the cast is pretty stacked as well, with solid vocal performances by Ali Wong, Lucy Liu, SungWon Cho, Bowen Yang, Jimmy O Yang, and many more talented actors

the complexity of the relationships goes so much further below surface level than your typical supernatural teen action dramedy, for example Jentry and Kit

it's not just Jentry is initially afraid of Kit because he's actually a hideous monster but learns to love him in the end for who he truly is, Jentry, while admittedly initially shocked by his true appearance, makes it clear why she's really upset with him

it's not just because he was a demon or even just because he lied about being a demon, it's not just because he has killed people in the past, it's not even just because he is several centuries older than her, she's upset because he manipulated her, used seduction to lure her in, planted the pearl that used her (partially) dead parents to draw her into a trap, and sought to kill her, and the reason he did all of this was for his personal desire to get his very own human soul

Jentry didn't believe Kit's feelings for her were genuine, and who could blame her? regardless of the fact that his feeling were, or at least eventually became real, he did seduce her and manipulate her for his own selfish ends

and Jentry even recognizes his eventual genuine desire to be with her as entirely self serving and sought out solely for his own happiness, but in the end Jentry's rejection pushes Kit towards self reflection and growth and he realizes his own selfishness, and then he proves that he is capable of putting others first, by sacrificing his life for hers without anything to gain, a sacrifice made all the more meaningful by his permanent (tentatively) status as dead, especially in a show where ghosts and undead are common place

I have so much more to say about the relationships, and not just romantic ones, I could go on forever, but I'll just stick with the example of Jentry and Kit for now

the animation is beautiful and the color pallet is gorgeous, the music is great and could not be better suited to the show, a lot of passion was clearly put into the making of this show

though my favorite part may be the show's willingness to explore the darker horror-oriented side of Chinese folklore

the painted skin demon story, the actual torture of Diyu, the unheard nü gui, the gruesome deaths, Cheng's daughter's desperate want to return to the afterlife, the content can be a bit harrowing to say the least

while still maintaining a largely PG image, the show manages to put a good bit of horror into the story, but by far the most harrowing parts of the world of Jentry Chau vs the Underworld are the real world themes that it portrays

Jentry is surrounded by people that claim to love her and want to protect her, but many characters, whether on purpose or by accident, end up using Jentry for her powers to their own gain

she was cursed with a destructive power that she cannot control, a power that she does not understand, and she has no idea how or why, but everyone seems to want these powers except for her

in a break from the genre standard, whereas the chosen one teenager might have to hide their abilities and responsibilities to keep others safe, pretty much everyone knows about Jentry's predicament right off the bat, and better yet most of them have already formulated their own misconceptions and prejudices

if you thought it was hard fitting in while trying to hide your darkest secrets, imagine how hard it is to be accepted when everyone not only already knows your secrets, but has been given ample reason to fear you because of them

it suddenly makes more sense than ever why so many chosen one teens hide their peculiarities, it is truly a frightening prospect to exist in a world where everyone around you is both different from you, and keenly aware that you are different from them, there's no fitting in after that

it presents a metaphorical dramatization of a real world experience, something I myself have experienced, growing up in America when nobody else looks like you

I grew up in an almost completely white town, and there was no way of hiding the fact that I wasn't also white, though I was really lucky to live somewhere where racism was much less common place, or at the very least less overt than it is in many parts of the country, a lack of racism didn't mean I wasn't different

Jentry goes to a school that seems fairly diverse, though still mostly white, with many other kids who also aren't white, but race isn't what makes her stand out, it's something else that she was (allegedly) born with, something she (seemingly) has no control over, and something for which she is faced with prejudice much like race, though she later discovers that she can actually change and control these things, that's not how it starts

okay this is getting way too long so I'm gonna rap it up here, but I am hardly finished speaking on the topic, if you claim to have made this far into my rambling I will simply call you a liar, but if there are two things to take away from this mess, it's this:

a - I am desperately hoping for a second season

b - GO WATCH THE FUCKING SHOW

[mentauxx]

⚠️ Spoilers for Shinrei tantei Yakumo volume 11 - file 01 ⚠️

Part 1 starts with the first victim of the four supernatural phenomena/the nasty things that'll be occuring later on in this book.

Rereading this really makes me appreciate how good Kaminaga-sensei is at building up the tension and picking your curiosity.

Especially in this form since one chapter is translated per month (or two I think (?))

Waiting every two months for a chapter is WAY better than reading the whole thing in one sitting if you ask me.

The emptiness I felt after reading this in 2019 and that major cliff hanger was just too much to handle.

Part 2 jumps to Yakumo's POV A.K.A the best POV of the series.

Now I have a lot to say on this one, so I'll be making a separate post later.

But, omg the way he smiled just thinking about her? Boy is the standard FR

-

3

-

It's good to see Gotou doing well after his accident in volume 10. I do wonder how he'll handle the events that are about to occur in this volume tho.

The hug between Gotou and Nao is just too precious, and the fact that Atsuko referred to him as dad. Blood relation? Who needs that?

Unfortunately, Eishin just HAD to end his momentary happiness.

He'll never escape Eishin. Not even in Shin • Yakumo haha.

“I never wanted that”

This sure reminds me of when Ayaka was begging Kinoshita to “Stop already”.

Eishin is so unserious lmao.

-

4

-

Love the Ishii and Miyagawa duo. Ngl I do miss when Gotou and Ishii used to investigate together, but this duo isn't bad either.

You can tell Miyagawa's respect for Ishii definitely increased, ESPECIALLY since volume 9.

The head poke is so funny. Gotou could NEVER.

I don't blame Ishii for being scared. Not even one bit.

-

5

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Yaharu my beloveds~

I'm definitely making a another separate post about the drastic changes in their relationship.

But for now I'll try to focus on the plot.

If I gained enough credits and landed my dream job MONTHS before I graduate, you won't stop hearing me brag about it.

Lol Haruka acting like a proud mother when Yakumo told her HE was the one picking up trouble this time.

-

6

-

I love how it said This box shouldn't be opened and then they proceeded to open it lol

I mean, I would've done the same 😂

-

7

-

STOP THE WAY HE PUTS HIS HAND ON HER HEAD

Mission: Stop putting your hand on Haruka's head.

Difficulty level: impossible

”Spread… what are you saying?”

Oh my god Yakumo 😂

The way Haruka finds Yakumo's glare adorable is just so cute.

“What a boring era.”

Lol

-

8

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The Kumakichi joke will NEVER get old.

So Sana is a high schooler, huh.

I don't know why I imagined her a middle schooler while reading the prologue.

Maybe because the ghost she saw was a middle schooler I guess?

I feel bad Like how tf do you expect a human being to stay sane when a drenched ghost is approaching them every day?

Gotou and Ishii bumping into each other is hilarious.

-

9

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Do NOT listen to her. It won't end pretty for you.

I understand why he would tho. Humans will cling to their last hope even if their brains scream that it's a bad idea.

-

10

-

I just LOVE the friendship between Haruka and Makoto, and them having girls talk in front of Yakumo is just hilarious.

Haruka offered her seat and sat next to Yakumo. Happened many times. Will I stop screaming about it? No.

Haruka, Yakumo, and Makoto trio? I support.

-

11

-

Oh, fun fact: Meisei university is actually a real university.

Nooo Yakumo are you ok? I hope he doesn't experience what happened in Aokigahara's sea of trees again :(

I love how we're learning more about ghosts in this volume.

“Stop it. Don’t you dare go and confirm it even if unintentionally.”

There's a limit to how wholesome a couple be, is Kaminaga-sensei perhaps not aware of this?

THE HEAD PAT Y'ALL

Makoto is so me lol

When I first read this volume in 2019 I didn't find it odd that Yakumo made up a lie and tricked the student affairs to get a key to the warehouse, but now that I'm rereading it, will Mizukawa REALLY believe that Yakumo decided to help out voluntarily just like that? Not to mention that Mizukawa isn't the only student affairs member Yakumo was involved with.

I wonder if this little detail will change in the complete version?

-

12

-

Keiko did point that out before to which Haruka replied that she “doesn't understand how someone can act spoiled in front of the person they like.” I relate so bad.

Yakumo supporting Haruka when she was about to fall is so cute.

Human experimentation? Are you kidding me rn?

The chapter ends with them discovering Unkai's corpse. I think I'm starting to understand the direction Kaminaga-sensei is going for. I've ALWAYS been interested in the circumstances regarding Unkai's death.

Overall, an excellent intro to the tragic incident that shocked Japan.

[prettyboysdontlookatexplosions]

eleven weeks down, four to go… i am Really Feeling It ngl… but we are in fact in the home stretch and i will in fact make it through and then i will take twelve days allll the way off and it will rule. december historically has involved a pretty rapid winnowing of my schedule but this year i have a bunch of lil perfectionists who have pushed their test dates to right before winter break, including one who is switching to twice a week for this month -__- also not sure what’s going to be happening with my two high schoolers, one of whom will nearly definitely be retesting and the other of whom may or may not be…. but on the bright side the kid who truly nailed it is in fact no longer retaking (or pooooossibly retaking with minimal additional prep) because of other advice they’ve received. lol. (the mom asked me about my experience with retakes for kids in his position and i was like “tbh i’ve literally never had a kid do this well and choose to retake” and she thanked me for my “unimpeachable integrity” which was very sweet lol.)

this week i came in at just under 37 hours, which was more than i planned largely because today i was between locations for a while and just chilled and hung out with a practice test. i’m not sure how i feel about 35 hours as a more long term goal (it feels like it shouldn’t be an amount that makes it feel hard to do anything else, but that is how i felt this week…), which is a thing i’m contemplating because of various goals i have relating to continuing to digitize everything and making more short drill sets because i have a pathology about feeling like if i can imagine that something would be helpful to students i feel bad not doing it, but i feel like it feels doable for these four weeks where i don’t have a ton of mental energy anyway, and where also i’m now close enough to the end that i can actually wrap my brain around, like, ok, 3 more upper level tests, 3 more lower level, 3.5 more ACTs, such and such number of workbook pages/chapters…. etc. but i’m gonna try again not to stress out about it in general but especially this week because (1) i don’t have big thanksgiving plans but i do have family plans and i do want to at least spend the day relaxing and (2) i do in fact have another cold i am hoping to rest off in the next day or so. the last one retreated to just some post nasal drip very quickly!!!

i got four workouts in this week (+ my Steps) largely because i was so sore i needed an extra rest day and after actually SLEEPING OKAY last night i woke up the day after a pretty tough full body workout with minimal soreness! further data points re cottage cheese snooze helper. very upset that i likely need to wait on gathering more data because i am prooobably not going to be up to HIIT day tomorrow (although thus far this cold, like its predecessor, is Quite Mild, knock wood…). i am downing zinc and emergen-c as permitted and in accordance with my cold rituals which i think are scientifically valid because even if the concoctions are fake science the placebo effect is very well attested to in the literature. (do you know about zinc in the early stages of a cold to make it less bad? i got this tip from a first grade teacher i associate taught for and i swear it works. if you know science explaining it doesn’t please do NOT tell me and let my immune system continue reaping the benefits of my delusion this is the one thing on which i do NOT wish to be fact checked 🙏🏼)

today i woke up, did work, tutored, did more work chilling in a salad place, got dinner at a french restaurant with v. good salmon (i say like i know anything about fine dining beyond “i like salmon”), agreed to a reschedule of the sunday night zoom session, & watched the first half of gladiator because i’ve seen approximately 700 people on the internet this week say something to the effect of “gladiator ii really makes you appreciate russell crowe” (he is so far great as promised playing a guy literally named Best Guy). one month left! technically less! i will in fact have a day off this week although i will also need to spend some of it working a bit! onwards! (to bed)

[theriu]

River Reads Midnight Sun

Well met, traveler! This is the starting post for my experiment, wherein I, who have never read the Twilight books or seen the movies, read Midnight Sun (basically Twilight from Edward's perspective) and commentate for (hopefully) your entertainment! I decided it would be easiest to do this a chapter at a time, and my commentary will essentially be a summary of each chapter so people equally unfamiliar with the story can follow along. You can follow or block this experiment with the tag #river reads midnight sun.

I think that should do it! Let's get started with:

Chapter 1: First Sight

In which Edward finds high schoolers very Boring and Inane, and also nearly goes bonkers over a potential snack.

First things first: Can we talk about how gross pomegranates look? Is the cover art SUPPOSED to resemble an optical illusion between a halved pomegranate and a bleeding heart? Either way, EW.

Right, on to business!

Edward is bored, you guys. He is SO BORED. High school is so boring. Purgatory is mentioned, as well as “tedium” and “monotonous.” He really wants us to know how bored he is, even though the word “boredom” is not used until the sixth paragraph. But trust me, he’s very bored. One begins to wonder why the immortal 100+-year-old vampire is choosing to hang out daily in such a boring place, but I’m sure it will be explained.

Now we learn about his mindreading powers! This is also very boring because most of the minds he has to read are petty high school minds. By the way, the inane sheeple chatter in the school mindscape today is all about the new girl! I wonder who she could be! Ed sure doesn’t care! He can see every angle of her face via peoples’ thoughts, and he is NOT impressed. Half the “sheep-like males” are crushing on her. Edward’s disdain for them is palpable, almost as if it's not totally normal and fine for human teenagers to find new things like a new student exciting. We may be witnessing a smidge of superiority complex, which is shocking, no doubt.

Mind-reading as a way to introduce other relevant characters is handy, I will grant the author that! Of course, Ed tries not to mindread his fellow vampires out of courtesy, but he KNOWS what they are probably thinking, and boy is he ready to tell us!

Rosalie: Is either actually super hot or super thinks she is, and apparently this debate encompasses her every waking moment. She only compares herself to VAMPIRES, of course, because humans could never be comparably hot. Related to a stagnant pool. Wow, Ed.

Emmett: Hyper competitive guy who has no new thoughts because he says EVERYTHING he thinks. Compared to a glass-clear lake. I suppose that means Ed maybe thinks he has depth? Maybe? We'll err on the side of optimism.

Jasper: Suffering. That’s literally the entire description.

Alice (who can see the future) introduces herself by beaming thoughts at Ed asking how Jasper is doing. Jasper is not doing well. Apparently he is so ready to eat people that he has forgotten how to Human and is sitting in a corpse-like rigor, because it seems when you become a vampire you lose quirks like restless leg syndrome and blinking? This feels full of potential hilarity to me, but I fear such hilarity will not be realized in this Very Serious Book.

Anyway, back to Jasper, who is SUFFERING. Alice asks if there is any danger. Edward signals no. Half a page later, his exposition about Jasper's problem adds, “Jasper was very dangerous right now." Okay, so which is it?! PICK A LANE, ED

(On a genuine note, I already like Alice; she counters Jasper’s fantasies about eating a girl by telling him her name and a few personal facts in a way that shows Alice makes an effort to know her classmates as more than just The Humans. Yay empathy!)

Btw, Ed’s internal monologue indicates they’re hanging out at this school to build their strength and endurance by being around humans and not eating them, and to that I say REALLY??? You chose high school for that?! The one where you’re SUPER BORED?? GO HANG OUT AT A COFFEE SHOP OR SOMETHING

Ope, plot progression! Bella has entered the chat lunchroom. Literally everyone is thinking about Bella, including Jessica, no doubt the requisite catty high school rival who crushed on Edward previously. She has many disgruntled thoughts about Bella, Bella noticing the Cullens, everyone noticing Bella, etc. Ed, who has been doing a great job keeping us up to date on the general thought processes of the student body, takes this moment to assure us once again how much he finds all of this chatter inane AND petty AND trivial, and he’s definitely going to try harder to block them out (again).

Wait, oh my word, was that a line of HUMOROUS BANTER between the Cullens just now?! I have renewed hope for this Very Serious Book!

So Edward is the vampires' mental scout who checks for people suspecting he and his family are inhumanly weird (as opposed to acceptably weird), and naturally he does a brain scan on Bella. Oooo but he’s not hearing anything! And now they have locked eyes! Her eyes are very odd, because of the DEPTH of them! Already, Bella is very Frail and immune to mindreading and somehow has “deeper” eyes than I guess any other human Edward has met in his 100+ years? Ed, I think you need to make eye contact more.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled torrent of inane high schooler thoughts! Amazingly, they are all still focused on Bella and being attracted to or jealous of her, because of course real high schoolers are all Inane and Tedious. (The one exception is Angela, who is busy thinking about homework. I like her, she seems normal.) Jessica is being catty again, and what’s this?! Ed suddenly has this STRANGE URGE to SHIELD Bella from this nasty girl! How very odd and unusual! Especially from a guy who very clearly finds all human teenagers Inane/Petty/Trivial! Bella must be special, except she is also “very unexceptional." Also, Ed is highly frustrated that he can’t read this girl’s mind, despite him constantly reading her like a book and her having “deceptively communicative” eyes.

Rosalie breaks Ed out of his frustration-driven contradictory spiral, and they all go to class, Ed casually mentioning his two medical degrees in an internal dig at his biology teacher (again, why are you hanging out at high school???) Naturally, Bella shows up and the only seat available is the one next to Edward, because Plot everyone is subliminally terrified of him. Ed has a moment of panic wondering if not hearing one girl’s thoughts means he has a vampire disease and is gonna lose all his mindreading, and then he has another moment of empathy for Bella having to sit next to the Scary Vampire.

Then she walks in front of an air duct, and Edward is suddenly overcome with INTENSE BLOODLUST THE LIKES OF WHICH HE HAS NEVER EXPERIENCED BEFORE!!! He wants to eat her SO BAD, you guys! He spends roughly EIGHT PAGES brooding on how badly he wants to eat her, noticing how delicious she smells, crushing the underside of a desk with his intense self-control grip (but having the presence of mind to “destroy the evidence” by rounding out the finger-shaped hole he just made), analyzing the logistics of eliminating a roomful of witnesses and whether to do so before or after eating her, seeing his monstrous reflection in her eyeballs, angsting over how bad he will feel when he murders a bunch of people, plotting ways of murdering her that WON’T result in collateral damage, questioning Bella’s sanity for daring to SHAKE HER HAIR IN HIS VICINITY, angsting about how disappointed his wonderful adoptive dad Carlisle will be (aww, that’s actually sweet), stubbornly deciding “she can’t make me,” hating Bella with the fury of a thousand suns for daring to smell so delicious, and shutting off his breathing so he has at least some self-control, which does sound uncomfortable but I applaud the effort.

Then class finally ends (for him and for us), and he goes and hides in his car. Which, honestly, relatable.

The car timeout helps restore his sanity, and he determines he does in fact not need to kill her and that hating her guts for smelling like an eight-course dinner probably isn’t fair! He just needs to avoid her as much as possible. Bless your heart for your optimism, Male Lead of a Paranormal Romance Novel.

The solution he comes up with is to charm the poor secretary (who keeps having to remind herself mentally that he’s too young for her, which, augh) into switching him to a different sixth-period course. Bella chooses this opportune moment to walk in, which he doesn’t notice until her DELICIOUS SMELL is blown over him (I question why someone with such advanced senses can only notice powerful smells when he is downwind of them). Edward’s Amazing Vampire Vision kicks in, allowing him to once again see his Monstrous Face in the reflection of her eyes, despite her being over against the wall. He briefly contemplates double homicide, then . . . uh . . . gives up on changing classes so he can walk away. This doesn’t feel like a long-term solution, Ed, but Kudos for the self-control.

The chapter wraps up with him jumping into his car (it’s the end of the day, so the others are waiting for him) and breaking the speed limit out of the parking lot. Alice uses Future Sight (it’s super effective!) to see that Ed is either going to book it out of Forks (the town) or go and murder Bella in her house. I once again have reason to like Alice, who orders him not to do it, adding that it would metaphorically kill Bella’s dad. He drops them off and races away again, not yet sure if he’s going to tell Dad Carlisle that he’s leaving or going to go eat the delicious new girl. And Scene!

Well, that wasn’t as painful as I feared, so huzzah! I kind of appreciate the internal look at his thoughts and how his mindreading lets us see other characters even when they can’t talk. Got a bit long at times, especially with how Inane and Petty and Trivial high schoolers are to Edward! LOTS OF DETAIL about how badly he wanted to eat Bella and possibly murder all bystanders, which I guess does go to show how bad the bloodlust is, because dang! (But why do none of the others have this reaction to her yet? Maybe they just don’t have classes with her. You must be this close to the Bella to ride the maniac vampire train!)

And with that, I have earned a much-deserved break before delving into CHAPTER TWO: OPEN BOOK! I’m sure Edward will totally succeed in his plan to skedaddle out of Forks and never see Bella again! Stay positive, Ed! =Dd

Chapter 2->

[our-transgender-experiences]

Hi Alex. Is it ok to vent a little bit a lot? It's completely fine if you don't post any response, I completely understand. This is a HUGE experience prompt to respond to.

I was birthed with the male sex (he/him) so you can call me that.

Over the past year and two months, I've been feeling just a little off. I keep a journal, and have since before that moment, so I have my experience written down carefully. In short form, I don't know who I am. In a longer form, I'm a weird, cringey high schooler who doesn't know who they are, who wears a galaxy backpack to school, who is agnostic (Christian, but can't prove it right or wrong), aromantic, and asexual. My experience isn't special by any means, in fact, I think I fit literally every queer stereotype known to mankind? Here's the best part: I live in Oklahoma, the famous place of Nex Benedict's horrific death.

About a month ago, I saw "Celeste" in a YouTube video about some of the hardest, but most enjoyable, games of all time. I looked it over, it's on sale for $5, and I'm fortunate enough to be able to afford that. So I got it and finished it within 3 days. I instantly recommended it to my brother, who also happens to be a little queer. He loved it too, but I STILL didn't know the backstory behind that game. Then, I saw the video. It was an amazing reading of Celeste, down to every minor detail of the game. One thing that stood out, was the fact that the both the creator, and the protagonist, were trans women. Even better: it was known for being a wonderful story of the trans experience, and I RELATED TO IT. EVEN BETTER: I had now recommended it to practically my entire friend group, including some incredibly religious people. So what was I gonna do about it? Not care, and continue onto the B-sides.

I want to say 5 days ago was when it really kicked in that "wait a minute, I related to Madeline in a very deep way, and she's a trans..." Now this is the climax, get ready. Because I had been journaling for so long, I had already written about my experience since those early days where I had that so-called dysphoria. And after I realized that could be because I'm trans, I immediately asked my parents what my girl names were before I was born. (doctors didn't know my sex until about two weeks before I was due) "Eden" is a pretty cool name, I guess I'll try it. I walk into my dad's office (works from home) that same day after school, and he immediately turns to me and asks: "So why did you need to know your girl names?" I immediately respond with "... idk?" Very convincing, well done. I text him after I flee to my room, "I'm experimenting, don't take that too seriously" He understands, and I'm at peace. Mom also takes it well, and we're good to actually begin the experiments I was "planning".

First up, change the online bios, like Discord. See how it actually looks on me. AAAAND my best friend sees it within a few hours. Not even prompted, we were talking, playing rocket league, and he just "hey why's your bio say you're experimenting with 'Eden' as your new name?" Explained, but he was in a weird spot. "I'm happy and will support you with whatever you **choose**." Key word there, I'm not choosing anything. I'm actually going with the flow so much more than he could imagine. But okay, we've got a pretty good ally on our side! Going great.

Except here comes "Part of Me" with the anxiety of what could happen, why I shouldn't do anything different around peers, and more importantly why I shouldn't experiment with myself. And to be honest, I believe that part of me. There's so many questions that I ask like "but what if it's all for attention?" or "but you always acted like a boy, why are you changing now? or "maybe the other Christians were right. you are a sinner after all, you're a bad person and you DO deserve to die." You know those.

And with those come the questioning part of it. Am I ACTUALLY just doing what I'm doing for attention? Like I said, I'm a high schooler. I'm a future aerospace engineer for SpaceX, I love computers, and I have top 1% test scores as a sophomore. I'm doing good with school, but that's exactly why I basically have one friend who is also up there with me. I'm not here to brag, I'm here to show that I don't get a lot of attention at school, it's basically all family members who care about me. So again, am I just trying this for attention? I don't think so, but that seems like what my brain would want me to say.

And to be honest, I needed this. I vent every day, but to nobody except Google advertisement algorithms out of Google Docs (my journal). I vent and cry into empty space, but maybe this is finally not just to my phone. This is to another human who I think has had a close experience to mine.

And of course I'm not going to ask you "who am I, who do I like, and what's my gender?" But I am going to ask you one thing: What's your take? I mean this is the trans experiences blog, but I'm not sure if I am a trans. I figured this was the best place to get a good use out of my time. Thank you so much for letting people like me do this, it seriously means a lot.

i'm glad that you feel that this is a space where you can comfortably talk about your experience, and question your gender. My advice, is to keep experimenting,and see where it takes you find out what you're comfortable with, it might take time, and it might change. It took me a while to get to where i am now, and even now i'm not 100% sure. i tried different labels that felt right at the time, but they changed later, and thats okay.

[zalrb]

i literally just saw a tweet re: challengers that basically said that it’s kind of hard to achieve the type of eroticism and sensuality that movies like that are supposed to have without life experience and zendaya doesn’t have that yet. i think there’s merit to that argument because i feel like zendaya either gets these roles for these huge franchises where she’s just meant to be The Girl like in spider man and dune or she gets these roles that seem too mature for her??? not that she’s immature just that it seems obvious that these films are supposed to establish her grown woman era but are just edgy in the most toothless way possible? i really think she did a great job with rue and euphoria but her film career kinda confuses me.

I think there's merit to that argument but not in relation to the eroticism but in relation to elevating a character.

“I’ve been playing 16-year-olds since I was 16,” Zendaya said, having launched her career on Disney Channel before moving on to projects such as HBO’s “Euphoria” and the most recent “Spider-Man” franchise, both centering on high schoolers. “So it was nice to play a character that was not a child anymore. It was also interesting playing parts of my life that I haven’t experienced yet: I’ve not gotten married. I’ve not had a child. Those milestones, I don’t necessarily have a direct reference point for. That was different to feel. Ultimately, it felt like the right time for a character like this.”

And I get that, but also I don't think she really pulls this off. Because as I keep saying, Tashi was underwritten but in the hands of a more mature actress, she would've been imbued with a lot more emotional nuance which would've been illustrated her complexity more.

I'm just going to repost what I said about Malcolm and Marie:

That being said, there was a review that I think succinctly and accurately summarized my feelings about Zendaya’s acting in it:

Zendaya makes a worthwhile case study, a Disney kid turned Hollywood powerhouse on the come-up. After years of playing teenagers, she is transitioning to more wholly developed, adult roles. But while I mostly enjoy her quiet, mumbling heartbreak on Euphoria — the wild, glittering teen HBO drama Levinson also spearheads — Malcolm & Marie puts into an unforgiving spotlight her weaknesses. Her decisions are obvious enough to feel them coming on. A furrowed brow. Jutted chin. She smokes cigarettes like the parody of French actors you’d expect in a midcentury Looney Tunes sketch. There’s an air just before crucial lines like she’s clearing her throat before a big speech. She doesn’t carry the weight of real emotion and complication — whether she’s quietly crying, stripped down in a bath, or shouting obscenities.

So for a movie like this, micro expressions are everything and like, when I think of micro expressions I always go to Sonequa because she’s masterful at them

so like, something like this

vs something like this:

Sonequa’s quiver doesn’t feel like she’s putting on a quiver, it feels like she’s really trying to gather herself.

This pout is a little more petulant than intended

And this isn’t to suggest that she’s bad in the movie more that I think she’s still growing as an actress and she needs to do roles like this to get better and command the screen the way she needs to because it’s not that I didn’t see her try, it’s that I saw her try.

So I absolutely agree with the assessment that she's either The Girl in the movies or she's supposed to be in her Grown Woman Era (although frankly I thought she was written as The Woman in this movie as well) but for where she needed to be/go in the present day scenes, I watched it like you have presence but you don't have the gravitas necessary for this.

[emsytocine]

LOVE ATTACK BOOK CLUB, tonight's reading #1 : She wasn't a guy.

I'm so glad I could buy a copy when it just went out. I was looking forward to it! I first had an absolute crush on a mini chapter available on Sumiko Arai's twitter (X : agu_knzm), at that time I didn't know it was going to be published! Love a good surprise ✨

My honest review 💌 : Cool high schoolers, with an open minded way of thinking and a better way to communicate. I feel close to them in mentality which is a good point for the reading experience!

For sure, I absolutely had a blast reading the first volume. The characters are endearing and funny in their own way, I love the subtle details and the way each one of them has a little spotlight at some point. I'm not an highschool student anymore but I really appreciated (and related on a deeper level) the unstoppable youth questioning, feeling different or else) brought in a very light way.

For my first review, I have to introduce myself a bit: I'm a huge fan of romance, I have many romance tropes fighting for the first place in my heart but there's nothing quite like a slow burn mixed with a friends to lovers trope. I feel like the first volume is exactly that!

I can't wait to read more 🤩. If you are curious about it, please don't hesitate to give a try.

[velvetvexations]

Hell yeah late 90s and early 2000s kids things!! Literally cannot relate to older and younger people at all lmao. And the things we grew up with entering the Nostalgic Stuff™ makes me have mixed emotions nowadays haha

There's this Family Guy bit where they go to the Teen Choice Awards and the celebrities are people with names like Chad Chaddinson and Grace McLady and it's exactly how I feel learning about each new variation of the Brothers Paul.

It's funny because I almost politely disagreed with my things being kid's things in particular - there ARE kid's things I love from that era, some of which I think are spectacularly amazing - but then I remembered that teenagers are technically kids as well. It's funny that I want to be so much younger but the age range I identify with is also the one where you most want to be seen as an adult.

The idea of a teenager, regardless of the reality, is that it's all the fun of youth with much less of the drawbacks. It's probably no coincidence that the age I feel most specifically is 16, when you get you theoretically get your driver's license. There's a perceived balance. Also probably why I'm really interested in college life, which despite knowing the many plights of college students I still can't help but painfully weep at how I didn't get that experience, which is perceived as the fun of youth with practically none of the drawbacks.

None of it is rational or actually accurate. High schoolers and college students alike do not have it easy at all. But I had built up a perception of what being a teenager was like...it would have had to have been around when I was four.

I've been deeply obsessed with being a teenager since I was a toddler and just haven't stopped lol.

It adds to my fear of pedojacketing, which I had a really bad and damaging time with many years ago, because, like. Someone once said in all seriousness that me using slang from the 60s and 70s was trying to get close to The Youths, and someone who was older than me at one point claimed I "lost all interest" in them after they turned 18.

Anyway, my point is, it's even worse optics to go around talking about identifying with being a teen, so that's another reason I can get nervous sometimes being anywhere near minors, on the internet or IRL. But I've been making efforts to try not to let anxieties like that fuck me up, and talk about what I want while continuing to avoid minors.

[she-said-hello]

Honest question. Do you not feel a little weird engaging with Emma knowing she’s 18 (legal yes) but still have a year left in HS (assuming from her asks responses) and that you’re 24? I know we all have different perspectives but I’m 20 and I honestly can’t imagine myself talking or nevertheless be in a relationship with someone younger than me, let alone someone that’s still in HS 😬 I hope you’re not taking advantage… I’ve seen and read so many wlw relationships that have experiences like that and it’s heartbreaking… it’s about the maturity level too so idk

i've answered asks like this multiple times and it's been really difficult every time. seeing people explicitly accuse me of taking advantage of someone who i care so deeply about and who i have made sure to always treat fairly and as an equal to me is so disappointing. emma is an adult and capable of making decisions for herself. i can guarantee if she felt as if i were mistreating her or taking advantage of her, she wouldn't still be talking to me. i have never forced her or manipulated her into doing anything, she has made all of her own decisions and judgments about me on her own.

if you had asked me before i met emma if i would prefer/choose to be romantically involved with someone 6 years younger than me, i would have told you no. but i've found lately that i don't feel like age means shit anymore. i have been hurt tremendously by extremely immature adults in my life. i have friends in their late 20's-30's who still act like children and have never dealt with any hardships in their lives whatsoever. i know people my age who i can't even slightly relate with because they don't have any similar experiences and their outlook on life is so different from mine. age has had nothing to do with how much i have connected with people in the past. emma isn't some little kid with no life experience and no thought processes of her own. and i don't see her for her age but for her experiences, personality, heart, wisdom, etc.

it wasn't until a few days ago that i found out that she is still in school, it's something that was kept from me but that we're working through. however, it doesn't change the way i feel about her as a person or her maturity level or anything like that. but i also don't feel it's fair to say i'm weird for "engaging with a high schooler" when i had been under the impression that she was out of school since 16. regardless, it doesn't matter. the fact that she had some setbacks in her childhood that led to her still being in school is not a negative to me. i'm very proud of her for continuing her education despite all she has been through. she is very strong and incredibly smart and determined and i admire her for that. if that makes me a "creep" then okay, but i am not taking advantage of her. i never have and never will.

i guess this is what i get for putting myself and my relationships online for people to judge, but man, the judgement never hurts any less no matter how many times i receive it. people are entitled to their own opinions but you also have to realize you never know the full story and it's hard to have a fully educated opinion when all you see is surface level stuff that we have allowed the internet to be a part of. there is so much more that will only ever stay between emma and i because we are the only two people who genuinely matter in this situation. but i think i'm realizing i can't handle putting myself out there like i initially thought i could. maybe this isn't the place for me to express myself anymore.

[cheerfulmelancholies]

Masterlist

Profile pic by @annama-art

About me: I love reading/writing and at any given moment I have too many projects circling through my head. I've loved to read for as long as I can remember and I've enjoyed writing things for that same amount of time. I also love video games and motorcycling, so if I'm not working on a wip I'm usually doing one of those two.

I'm not currently published, but I have a handful of original stuff I've been working on as well as fanfic. Some of my favorite tropes to read are found family, action/suspense, angst, horror/supernatural and slice-of-life. I tend to write very light sci-fi, action, supernatural, angst (though usually with a happy, if not bittersweet, ending) and occasionally somewhat comedic stuff. Sometimes, sometimes, I make shit get dark. I struggle with writing mystery and heavy romance, though I've been experimenting with the latter. A lot of my characters have somewhat sad backstories because apparently that's just what I do.

Tag game friendly!

I also love hearing about other people's wips so anyone is welcome to ramble in my inbox about their ocs and stories.

Side blogs: @purefandomonium: my blog for anything fandom-related. @artspace1001: for any art or photography.

Other places to find me: I currently lurk on FFN and AO3 under the username ThisPerson1.

Info about my wips below the cut.

All of my works are primarily tagged under their full titles, the fandom name if it's a fic, "creative writing," "writers on tumblr," "fanfic" and "my writing." Anything extra will be listed.

Original WIPS:

Medical Mechanical: A story about a couple of friends who set out to uncover the truth behind the mysterious mega-corporation that has infested their town and done strange things to their parents. Sci-fi, young adult, and I guess it also sort of falls under action, although nothing major really happens until much later. Additional tag(s): "mm" and "sci fi."

It's the first original thing I began posting about and also my favorite original project. I actually do have tons more than what I've posted thus far, but I got caught up in perfecting it and then sidetracked and kind of just stopped talking about it.

The Set Up: A sort of enemies-to-lovers* story involving two old acquaintances meeting years later and being reminded of how much they piss each other off. After they end up stuck together on a camping trip that was nothing more than a mischievous plan by their respective friends, they're forced to deal with each other until the trip ends. (Very light) Romance*, slice-of-life, humor/comedy, and angst—mostly due to their past trauma.

It's the second original project I'm working on, although this one has taken a backseat to my other works because I'm still going through the process of reformulating it. I thought I had it figured out, and was originally going to have it take place in college and be a forced-by-friends camping trip gone wrong, but I just wasn't feeling it. I don't know, but the way it was coming along just... didn't feel right. So I decided to essentially start over rather than force myself through something I wasn't enjoying and that wasn't getting anywhere. The main theme is that the two MCs initially can't stand each other and butt heads, however, they eventually learn more about themselves and each other and start making amends.

*I'm also at a point where I don't think I'm going to keep it as romance, but instead have their relationship be platonic. We'll see.

Fanfic:

Connection: Pokepasta/Glitchy Red fic about a girl who manages to befriend the embittered glitch. In other words, hermit high-schooler gets ahold of the titular Red cart and gets a new friend, and local depressed kids' game may not think life is so miserable anymore. Sci-fi/supernatural (because my version of Red is somehow both just a bunch of code and some digitalized cryptid entity,) very mild angst in the form of bullying, and found family/friendship. Additional tag(s): "glitchy red" and "pokepasta".

I got the brainrot and just wanted something to write with no worries. I write a chapter and as long as it holds up the story it gets published. That's it. I'm taking a break from serious writing/editing with this one. I've already let it get too out of hand as is. It was supposed to be a two-parter. Now look at it.

Mysterious New Member: Fic about the BF5 gaining a new member under mysterious circumstances. Due to the secrets she seems to be hiding, and the rising tensions of the war, Vert and the others find themselves on edge and at odds over what to do. Takes place during Fused. Sci-fi, action/adventure, humor. Additional tag(s): "bf5," and "hot wheels battle force 5."

Fun fact: This is a fic I started when I was like 13. I recently began rewriting it because now I am not 13 and I was rereading it one day and went, "The fuck did I write it like this for???" So began my tedious work of redoing the whole thing. The original is actually still up on FFN under the exact same name, for the new one I only added rewrite to the title 😅 I'm not mad at myself for the way it came out or anything, as I was literally a kid, but I can safely say my writing has improved immensely and I just couldn't fight the urge revamp it. I'm quite proud of how this new one is coming along, being both an improvement of my original version and also a slightly daker and more interesting take on BF5. I'm actually close to done, I'd say about 75-ish percent. I really just have two more major plot points to go through and the rest is just tying up loose ends as I go along. That said, if you'd like to check out the abandoned original, feel free. Just be prepared for a bit of whiplash when comparing the two.

It's The Thought That Counts: Dead Plate AU fic I started on a whim and, like a lot of things, it got out of hand and became a fun little side project. Rody isn't hopelessly pining after Manon, who's still alive but not relevant to the story, and Vincent isn't a psycho cannibal killer. Essentially gay panic meets bi-denial, Rody attempts to impress Vincent by learning how to bake lemon-themed desserts after he discovers it's the only thing that gives him any semblance of taste. After a shaky start, Vince decides to start giving Rody lessons and they eventually come to terms with their feelings. Romance, humor, angst, slice-of-life.

I've actually never written proper romance before this and am absolutely shocked that it's coming along as well as it is. It's the most fluff I've ever written. For whatever reason, these two dorks are super easy for me to write. I also recommend checking out the game, it's super fun.

There is so much more, but I'm going to stop for now.

If it wasn't already obvious, writing is my biggest passion and I hope to keep improving and expanding what I do. I'm also always open to advice and constructive criticism, and I hope to inspire and help others with their writing. Also, if you write anything with the tropes or genres that I listed, don't hesitate to tag me and I'll check them out! I really enjoy reading other people's works.

So yeah, that's me. If you made it this far, thank you for checking out my blog (and my long ass intro post) and I hope you'll stick around and see what I have to offer. Be on the lookout for more and more to come!

[niahq]

Holy f shit I watched A Whisker Away. The storytelling was… lacking, for a better word. Literally. It was so… lacking.

Like, it was trying to do a lot but couldn’t handle it. The whole narrative felt kind of fumbling, like an outlined script that didn’t quite get cleaned up.

Not only that, but the protagonist is…. Troublesome doesn’t cover it. She’s a red flag. She stalks Hinode, enjoys being touched by him even though there is no consent there and does the same to him, doesn’t really consider his feelings when acting, etc etc.

Some scenes really really IrKEd me, or rather, disturbed me. There’s a particular scene where Hinode touches between her legs (as a cat). And the expression they give her is just … I have no words. The protagonist is a literal child!! A CHILD! Wtf script writers????!!!

They end up painting her as this really stalkerish, kind of nuts female high schooler obsessed with a boy she only knows because she stalks him.

….

Not only her as a character, but the whole story’s writing and pacing was waaaaaaY off. What were they trying to do? Say ‘oh even if you have it bad, you gotta appreciate the human experience’????? I don’t even know where to begin with that….

They say that her mother abandoned her, but no actually no, because later they show she didn’t. Sort of??? It seems like they werenmt even sure what to do with the other characters to make her struggles seem genuine. She has a stepmother who she has lived with for years and has always tried to care for her and communicate with her, but Muge hates her for no reason apparently????? She also hates her father even though he is barely in the f movie and is barely mentioned??? What even are her struggles that she wants to be a cat so badly???

None. None really, because the writing did a terrible job of actually trying to portray them. She ends up coming across not as a relatable young girl who has a deep crush and wants the boy to like her and has trouble at home but she tries to be happy anyways; she comes across as entitled, stalker, obsessed girl who’s detached from reality and willing to do anything (even knowing the consequences) to get what she wants.

Wow. I could go waaay deeper into this. But in summary: this. Is. Not. A. Good. Movie.

Good animation doesn’t compensate for bad writing.

[kylejsugarman]

hi syd! you mentioned that you’ve won several writing contests (as if that isn’t already obvious from your fics) and i was wondering if you have any tips? finding a good contest, meeting the deadline, catering your submission to the contest and judges, etc? i’m a young writer hoping to win some contests, for scholarship money, college apps, and just. yknow for fun. but i also have adhd, and i have a really hard time finishing projects and meeting deadlines and i guess i was wondering if you have advice for that as another writer with adhd

hey!! so in terms of finding contests, even just researching "writing contests for high schoolers" (im guessing ur in high school based on u saying "college apps", i do not mean high schooler in like a derogatory sense) can usually take u to some helpful directories!! there are a lot of sites these days that will compile contests and applications that u can navigate by deadline/rules. looking to see if institutions in ur city, county, or state offer writing contests is also super helpful: a lot of colleges, professional schools, hospitals, organizations, etc. have these contests and it always looks good if u engage with institutions that are (somewhat) local!! im a really bad source of advice for reaching deadlines because writing is actually the one thing that i dont have trouble meeting deadlines for, but only because when i write something, i write it all at once. this usually means i only write that first draft (which isn't my Advice dfghdfgh), but it also means getting the Hard part over. ur going to feel compelled to like line-by-line write something perfect that everyone will love, but its important to write down Something as soon as possible because there is always time to go back and change things. dont write it with the judges in mind, don't think about like someone hyper-analyzing every word when ur writing things down.

speaking of judges, u do not have to cater ur writing specifically to them, but there are key things to drop in that can improve ur chances. if u are writing for a contest sponsored by a specific entity or associated with a specific institution, u need to do some research and weft some acknowledgement and appreciation into ur writing even if u do not give a fuck about it. try to flip ur prompt on its head. question the prompt in the first line. get meta about it. write about u contemplating the prompt, contemplating ur essay. writing from a different perspective, questioning the prompt, drawing from ur experiences and being vulnerable (people LOVE when u say shit like "i learned that i did not have all the answers. my strength came from asking others for help") will catch their attention and make u stand out. don't be afraid to put a personal flourish in it just because u might not sound Super Professional And Academic. ur trying to make urself stand out and u need to show that through self reflection, dissection of what ur being asked, interrogating ur own experience and bringing that to the table.

so this is kind of vague and basic but my main pieces of advice are find competitions that relate back to ur identity or location or future aspirations, literally just write down whatever comes to mind and do not worry about it being judged when ur working on it, and put urself in ur writing. i know this isnt super helpful, so if u ever want to come off anon and dm me for more help, editing, etc., please dont hesitate!! writing is a really powerful tool and a REALLY good skill to have