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snowdice · 4 years

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Logan’s 25 Step Plan to Ask a Boy Out (Relabeled; Refiled Series)

Fandom: Sanders Sides

Relationships: Logan/Patton

Characters: Logan, Patton, my self insert again, oops Lia(OC)

Summary:

“No! Logan look,” she said. “He likes you and you like him. You don’t need a list or a plan or schematics for this. Just walk up to him and ask him out before you hesitate so much that he thinks you don’t like him anymore.”

Logan’s eyes widened. “Is that something that can happen.”

“Oh god, this is hopeless.”

How is Logan so good at, but simultaneously so bad at this?

This is a one-shot dealing with events set before my story Sometimes Labels Fail set a few months after The Things We Never Mentioned.

Notes: Superhero AU (doesn’t matter for this one... again), Logan being dumb but it the sweetest way possible.

This was supposed to come out later this week, but the mini fic I was writing to release today ended up... not being a mini fic. So, I shuffled around my release plans a bit and you get this now!

It was almost 3am and Logan was still in his office. He really should just go home. There was no way he and Lia were going to be able to solve this problem tonight. Lia wasn’t even looking at the problem on the chalkboard anymore, instead she had pressed the chalk against the board longways and was turning it slowly to make a fan shape on the board.

Logan took a drink of his room temperature coffee. “We could try integrating it.”

“No.”

“You’re probably right.” Logan tilted his head back and closed his eyes pretending to be deep in thought, but really he just let his brain drift. “Lia,” he said.

“Hmm?”

“Can I ask your advice on something not related to math.”

“Fucking please do.”

“It’s about Patton.”

She didn’t even pause. “My advice is, ask him out.”

Logan paused and opened his eyes to look at her. “Er well… Yes.”

She suddenly looked more awake than she had in hours. “No really? Yes! It’s about time!”

Logan rolled his eyes. “Your enthusiasm about my romantic interests is absurd… but useful in this specific case.”

She sat up straight and folded her hands in her lap like a particularly interested school child during story time. “Please continue.”

“I have decided that I would like to pursue a romantic relationship with Patton, and I am currently researching the best strategy to convince him of my adequacy as a prospective partner.”

“Research?” Lia asked. “Oh god, please tell me you didn’t made a list.”

“I am simply inquiring after your advice concerning rather you believe Patton would be more inclined to understand love language in poetry or flowers.”

“Logan you don’t need to prove your ‘adequacy’ or whatever. Just ask him out.”

“Certainly,” Logan said. “Flowers or poetry.”

“Logan you’re not listening,” Lia complained.

“I assure you I am. I’m even taking notes.” He turned the paper around for her to see.

“‘Lia does not seem to have an opinion on flowers or poetry. Seems to suggest a bold approach,’ Logan you’ve got to be kidding me.”

He sat back and flipped back a few pages in the notebook. “I have interviewed many people on the topic but seeing as you have actually met Patton in person, I thought your perspective would be useful despite the certain ridicule that would come from the question.”

“Logan please, please tell me you didn’t make a list.”

Logan didn’t reply. He had. He had made a list. He’d done more than just make a list. He’d created a whole new file designation specifically for Patton and Patton related things. He now had a light blue binder which contained the list as well as the drafts and research notes on matching light blue paper as well as a picture Patton had doodled on a napkin to give to him. What else was he supposed to do?

Over the past couple of months, he’d done research in the form of interviews as well as non-fiction and fiction reading, drafted the list, done more research, and edited the list. It still wasn’t good enough. He was missing something. He knew he was missing something, but he couldn’t figure it out. He was hoping Lia would be more helpful.

Clearly, he was mistaken as she just groaned. “Logan…”

“Never mind.”

Logan’s eyes widened. “Is that something that can happen.”

“Oh god, this is hopeless.”

“I was unaware of the possibility of a time limit on this assignment.”

“That’s not. No. That’s not what I’m saying Logan. Please don’t freak out. This isn’t homework!”

“I’m not freaking out Lia,” he said calmly even though his mind was racing.

“Logan, I know that look,” Lia said, “that’s the Logan’s pretending he’s okay, but he’s actually about to go and break down in a closet look.”

Logan waved her off and gathered up his bag. “Thank you for your input; you have given me a lot to think about.”

“No, please stop thinking!”

“I must go.”

Logan had meant to finish editing his list the night before but had fallen asleep almost immediately after getting home from the office. He woke at around 10am with a sore neck. He looked at the list. He should switch task 7 and 8 he decided. He wrote out one more copy of the list with the edit and then stared at the list again. There were 25 list items the last one being to ask Patton on a date. It wasn’t perfect, but… perhaps it was good enough. He bit his lip. Some of the tasks would take more effort, but luckily Logan had already started working on preparations for the third step which was to express interests in things the subject found important. The first two steps were to express a desire to spend time with the subject and demonstrate an ability to notice the subject’s likes and dislikes. With the preparation he had done, he was certain he could get through the first three steps today.

Decided, he jumped to his feet. Patton often came to ‘The Hideout’ at around 11:30am for lunch on these days. If he moved fast, he might be able to catch him before-hand and ask him if he’d like to have lunch with him.

…

He should go take a shower and brush his teeth first.

After cleaning himself up and picking out one of his nicer casual outfits, he headed to the hospital. He wasn’t sure where to go, so he just headed to the admission area for the hospital emergency room. “Hello,” Logan said to the receptionist. “I was wondering if Patton Sanders has left for lunch yet.” The man behind the counter blinked at him. “He’s a surgeon here.”

“I know who he is,” he replied slowly. “I’ll um, go get someone to check.”

Logan nodded and stepped away from the counter. The receptionist walked away and then returned after a moment.

A few minutes later, Patton walked up to the reception desk from the other side looking rather confused. He spoke briefly to the receptionist who gestured to him. Patton turned, lighting up a bit when his eyes fell on him, though he still looked a bit confused. “Logan,” he said. “What are you doing here?”

Logan stepped back up to the reception desk. “I was wondering if you would like to have lunch. I know you usually go to ‘The Hideout’ and we end up eating together anyway, but you don’t always, and I wanted to intentionally make plans with you. It doesn’t have to be at ‘The Hideout’ either. Of course, only if you aren’t busy and you want to.”

“I do,” Patton said. “I do want to, uh, but,” he glanced behind himself back into the ER. “We’ve been pretty busy, and I don’t think I’ll be able to take a long enough lunch to go out. I was just going to grab a sandwich in the cafeteria.”

“That’s fine,” Logan said. “We can make plans for another day.”

Patton bit his lip. “You can join me in the cafeteria if you want,” he offered. “I’ll um, only have 15 minutes though and the food isn’t great.”

“15 minutes is fine,” Logan replied.

He smiled brightly at that. “Give me five minutes,” he requested.

“Of course,” Logan said. “I’ll just sit over there.” Patton dashed off. It was closer to 10 minutes, but Logan didn’t mind even when the receptionist kept giving him looks he couldn’t understand or when a few nurses stopped by to peer at him curiously from over the counter.

Patton was still wearing the doctor’s coat when he came back to the waiting room area. He smiled when he saw Logan and grabbed his arm to guide him to the elevator. The cafeteria was on the top floor of the hospital. Patton warned him off of getting the spaghetti and he ended up with a grilled cheese sandwich and soup while Patton just purchased a premade cold cut sandwich from one of the refrigerators.

The cafeteria was crowded at this time of day, but Patton directed him to a more secluded part of it. His eyes kept flashing at the clock, but he still smiled at Logan.

“It bought you a brownie,” Logan said pushing it at him. “I’m not sure of its quality compared to the ones at “The Hideout,” but I know it is your favorite dessert so hopefully it suffices.

He took the saran wrapped dessert with an almost startled expression. “Thank you,” he said and then looked back up at Logan. “It’s good to see you. I-I’ve had a stressful morning and was sad I wouldn’t be able to go out for lunch today. Thanks for being willing to eat down here with me.”

“I’m glad I decided to come today then. Thanks, are not necessary. I enjoy talking with you no matter the environment.”

A bit of a blush bloomed on Patton’s cheeks and he cleared his throat. “What would you like to talk about then?” he asked.

“How about,” Logan began, “antibody diversity and histocompatibility systems.”

A strange look crossed Patton’s face. “Did... Logan did you look up my research papers?”

“I,” he didn’t know why he felt compelled to blush. “Yes, I did. You don’t have a background in mathematics or physics so I thought I would investigate your interests so we could have something to talk about. They were very well written.”

A pause. “You read my research papers.”

“Yes,” he said. “There was a lot of terminology I had to look up, but I believe I have enough of a working knowledge to hold a conversation.”

“You,” he stopped and looked at Logan with an intense but achingly tender expression that figuratively stole Logan’s breath. It lasted for a long moment and Logan felt trapped by his gaze in the best way possible. “Would you like to go on a date with me?”

“Yes,” Logan replied breathlessly without even a thought. Patton gave him a dazzling smile and bit his lip, looking away slightly. Logan’s brain restarted once he wasn’t held captive by that strange look in Patton’s eye. Wait, wait, he’d had a plan! He’d just ruined the plan!

“So then,” Patton said somewhat bashful, “what would you want to do on the date.”

Logan scrambled to mentally scratch off 22 list items until he found the ideas he’d come up with for once he’d procured a date. It wasn’t an edited list yet, but at least it was something. He was glad he planned so far in advance. “Midtown park perhaps,” Logan suggested. “There is a small place that serves pasta and an ice cream shop nearby. We could have dinner and then walk through the park. You’ve mentioned that you enjoy ravioli and the restaurant I’m suggesting is well known for the dish according to three articles in two different newspapers in the last 18 months.”

Patton titled his head with a small smile. “You’ve put some thought into this haven’t you?” he asked.

“I…” Logan said, “tend to be a planner.”

Patton reached over to place his hand on Logan’s. “I’m glad,” he said. Logan turned his hand over so their fingers could lace together. They only had 7 minutes to eat once they remembered their food and it was quite bland, but Logan would surely never regret it.

Thanks for reading!

And with that, we are done with the prequel fics that had to come out before multi-chapter prequel! The fic Gaps in His Files will start releasing next week. It’s 14 chapters.

#sanders sides #logan sanders #patton sanders #logicality #sanders sides fic #relabeled; refiled #labeled universe #adriana writes

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insanityclause · 5 years

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Just months ago, following a critically acclaimed run at London's Harold Pinter Theatre, the four-person cast of Betrayal all made their Broadway debuts. One of the four was Eddie Arnold.

With poetic precision, rich humor, and an extraordinary emotional force, Betrayal charts a compelling seven-year romance, thrillingly captured in reverse chronological order. Arnold brings humor to the revered Pinter play, not only starring as the Waiter, but also understudying 'Jerry' and 'Robert'- roles played by stage and screen stars Charlie Cox and Tom Hiddleston.

Before Betrayal, Eddie starred in stage productions of Hamlet, The Vote, Journey's End, Jumpy, Saki. His film credits include: Mary Queen of Scots, Dead in October, Guardians, The List. Television credits include: "People Just Do Nothing," "Sticks and Stones," "De Infiltrant," "Man in an Orange Shirt," "The Vote."

As the play begins its final weeks on Broadway (closing on December 8, 2019), Eddie checked in with BroadwayWorld to reflect on the show's journey so far and how he is preparing to say goodbye to Broadway.

I know that a lot has happened in the past year, from opening in London to coming here... has it all hit you yet that you're really on Broadway?

I don't think it will hit me until it's too late and I get back home and say, "Oh no, it's over!" [Laughs] I feel like I'm living in this hyper-reality of the world that I used to be in. London was so incredible and such a lucky experience to get to share the stage with these three geniuses, and to be directed by Jamie [Lloyd], and to speak Harold Pinter's lines. But to then have the opportunity to come to New York, which I've only been on holiday to, and be able to come and offer it up to a new set of eyes is incredible. The American audience gets to experience it in a different way now. It was all so incredibly lucky. I feel like i've been floating on this bubble of happiness the whole five months I've been here. I've fallen in love with this city.

You're now a few months into the run. How has it been going at the Jacobs since opening night?

We are definitely all counting our lucky stars every night that we got this lovely, beautiful theatre that we've been invited to perform in. The audiences have been so receptive and so responsive. The funny thing is that the play has so many different threads that you can follow throughout, that an audience can be laughing hysterically one night and almost silent the next night... and yet they are just as into it at the end. They end up getting lost in the words and liking or disliking one of the characters for whatever reason. Or the next night someone else becomes vilified or loved or pitied. Each time it is so different.

It's really beautiful to see that every night, because I get to listen to it through the relays for about two thirds of the show. I get to watch how the audience is gauging it and how the actors are honing in on parts of each scene and working it in a different way. It really pumps me up. Like a football team has "Eye of the Tiger," I get to listen to Tom Hiddleston, Charlie Cox and Zawe Ashton perform scenes 1-6.

The magic of live theatre! Every time is something different...

Coming into the show in a later scene, in a production where the other characters don't leave the stage, I always get this beautiful feeling as the audience turns and watches me walk on. They're going, "Who the heck is that guy and why is he on stage?" And then it moves to, "Oh, ok! Here is a new dynamic that we haven't seen that will spice things up." They warm very quickly. I think Pinter has written it in a really great spot, where all of these characters that have been onstage before have been firing at each other constantly. Now suddenly, they have this new person who they can direct all of their anger and sadness and annoyance at. He's not going to beaten down that easily though!

This being a drama, with some comedic moments, you're the biggest moment of comic relief in the play. Is there pressure in that?

There's never any pressure going on because you've got to live in the reality of the moment- there are these very angry, posh men in front of you, who are trying their best to conceal their feelings for each other, especially with the information and power they hold over each other. So I've been caught up in this very awkward conversation and how do I talk my way out of it as quickly and effectively as possible? And of course they keep going in berating me. The comedy is really written into it already. So I just try to go into it as naturally as possible. Sometimes people laugh! At the end of the day you just have to be truthful to what you're playing and hopefully the writing and direction will help you out when you're not firing on all cylinders.

Were you intimidated at all at the beginning of the rehearsal process in London?

I had seen a lot of Jamie's work before. Three Days of Rain was such an incredible production and I had seen lots of the Pinter stuff as well. Obviously he is very big director who has done a lot of acclaimed work in London. Then the other guys, if you don't know who they are, you've been living with your head in the sand. At the end of the day I just wanted to nail the part as much as possible.

And luckily for someone like myself and others in this industry, between jobs, you serve at bars or restaurants. It's part of being a gigging actor. I made sure that I brought all of that experience- how many times I've bitten my lip at someone dropping their food and looking to me to pick it up... I thought, I can do this. I've done it before. It's actually a lot more pleasant this way because I can do it with lovely people and we can have a laugh about it in the end.

So intimidated wasn't it... more like honored. I'm so happy to have been allowed to perform and learn. You learn so much just from watching actors of this much talent and ability. Hopefully some of it will seep in and I'll be able to take it to my next job.

Have the four of you become close?

Oh yes, we've had a lovely time!

Your Halloween costumes were incredible.

Oh! They were great, weren't they? Captain America fit the bill for me. And I had to come out first as the leader of the Avengers. But we had so much fun dressed up like that. It was pure laughs backstage.

You've got a lot of time offstage throughout the course of the play. How do you occupy yourself?

I've read quite a few books! Right now I'm halfway through Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace. It is about 800 pages and people call it the most remarkable achievement of the modern era of novel-writing. Then I've got another called A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara. That one is about 700 pages long! So I'm trying to eat my way through both of those.

Then Dylan [S. Wallach] and Jesmille [Darbouze] are right above me. We get to hang out and catch up, which is lovely. We watch the show and run lines once or twice a week. Then I get to chill in pants and wait for my turn to go on.

So you have your own dressing room?

Yes! I bought a couple of plants to zhuzh it up, but I'm going to be really sad to leave it. It's been home for the last five months and it feels very much a part of me. I have very quickly adapted to life here.

What have you enjoyed the most about being a New Yorker?

Everyone is so incredibly welcoming. Also, New York has the best Italian food ever- I love Italian food. I still haven't bee to the Bronx, where I'm told the proper, old-school Italian restaurants are. That is definitely on my list of things to do before we finish.

Also, there are all these sports that don't even exist in England, like basketball and American football, baseball, ice hockey. I've been to see the Knicks and the Mets! I'm really trying to soak up every but of this American lifestyle before it gets taken away from me. [Laughs]

Have you gotten to see any other shows?

Oh goodness, yes! We saw Sea Wall/A Life, with Jake Gyllenhaal and Tom Sturridge. That was incredible. In the same way as our play, it felt so natural and timeless. It was so beautifully acted. I went to see Dear Evan Hansen as well. That was phenomenal. Tom and I went to see it and then we've been singing the songs ever since. We're backstage singing our hearts out! That kind of acting, where you come on and sing for two and a half hours... it seems like an alien thing to me. I cannot imagine ever being to do that. How do they do that?

So doing a musical is not on your bucket list?

It might be on my bucket list, but I don't think that anyone would come to see it! [Laughs]

With just a few weeks until the end of the show's run, what are you most looking forward to in the time you have left?

I want to eat as much American food as I can! [Laughs] No, it's about not taking anything for granted. Everything becomes so happy and easy until these last few weeks and now I have to start saying goodbye to people. I need to make sure I've said thank you to about 500 people who have made this experience what it is. I need to seek them out and tell them personally. Any of my free time will be spent hunting people down to show my appreciation.

#Eddie Arnold #Betrayal #interview #i hope Eddie gets lots of work out of this

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sennokami · 5 years

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♛ (here u go u goblin)

Soul Mates AU - accepting !!

Word count: 1944Summary: Uchiha Madara is a poor kid with a full ride to one of the most prestigious schools in Tokyo. Hashirama is already there. (In which reincarnated soul mates remember their past lives the first time they touch.)

The first time Madara set foot in Azabu, home of the very rich and very upper-class, was also his first day of school. Oujo Senior Private High School lived up to its pretentious name; the campus was a massive white steel-glass complex that he spotted before he even got off the train and had a long brick wall that separated it from the rest of the district.

What for, he wondered. To keep the slightly less rich out? He already felt out of place here – if it weren’t for his pressed uniform, he probably would’ve been arrested three streets earlier. He spotted other students in the same white-and-blue uniform walking towards the entrance. Unlike him, they walked like they belonged here.

Madara had been ecstatic when he got this scholarship. Now, he wasn’t sure what to make of it.

The interior of Oujo was as grand as its exterior. He walked through the bright corridors in a daze, his shoes squeaking on the million dollar tiles, until he found his classroom. 1-A. It was half full already, students clumped around the room in small groups as they chatted, waiting for class to start. Several eyes turned to him when he entered the room and Madara immediately got a sense of his situation.

This school was an institution for the children of the ultra-rich. All of them had probably gone to Oujo Private Primary before and thus knew each other for years. Madara, on the other hand, was a new face with a last name no one recognized.

He’d gone to schools with rigid hierarchies before. It’d never ended well.

Madara found a seat that was secluded from everyone else. He probably should be going around the room to introduce himself and feel out these waters… but he didn’t want to. He didn’t care to rub shoulders with these spoiled brats. He was here to learn.

More kids came in. The room steadily rose in volume but no one approached him. He was fine with that. Ten minutes passed before a bell rang and everyone shuffled to their seats. Except for one guy. He stood in front of the (pretentious) smart board like he was getting ready for a martial reveille. His back was straight, his uniform was crisp, and he was very, very good-looking. Madara disliked him immediately.

“Good morning everyone!” the guy said. “I’m happy to welcome everyone back to Oujo. Our class composition hasn’t actually changed that much, which is great, and I heard our homeroom teacher is going to be Bashira-sensei. So we’re lucky! Ahh, I just wanted to say some things before class started –”

“Ne, Senju-san, sit down! You’re not even the class rep anymore!” one of the students called out. There was laughter, but it was good-natured.

“Don’t worry, we’ll elect you again this year!”

“Haah, you don’t need to do that,” the guy – Hashirama – said. He rubbed the back of his neck, grinning. Even his smile was good-looking. Madara really didn’t like him. “I’m just very glad we’re all back together again. Things haven’t been the same since Hyuuga-san left last year.”

Jeez. How sickening. It seemed like everyone in the class knew each other and Madara was the lone man out. No one called on him and he didn’t stand up – thi was fine. He could fly under the radar. After Senju was done talking, their teacher – Bashira-sensei – came in. She was a tall, broad woman with a wide, perfect smile, and her voice swelled to fill the room.

“We have a new student this year, everyone! I want you all to give Uchiha-kun a warm welcome. Will you please introduce yourself to the class?”

Madara sighed inwardly. There it was. The thing he’d been dreading this whole time. He got up and trudged to the front of the classroom so everyone could gawk at him to their satisfaction.

“My name is Uchiha Madara,” he said blandly. He had it rehearsed now. “I’m sixteen years old. I’m from Deimon High School, I transferred here on a scholarship. Please take care of me.”

Look over the room. Bow. Done. Sit down. That’d been his plan, until someone raised their arm.

Tch! Who the hell do you think you are…? Madara glared at the culprit. Senju. He’d known he had good reason for disliking him.

“Yes, Senju-kun?”

“I think it’s very impressive you got a scholarship, Uchiha-san!” Senju immediately said. “Please don’t be worried, we would all like to be your friend.”

Madara almost saw the flowers shooting out of his ass. He blinked dully and grunted acknowledgement. “Thanks.” Glancing at Bashira-sensei, he went back to his seat.

Thirty minutes into class, a little scrap of paper flipped onto his desk. Madara stopped halfway through the math problem he was working on. He looked up to see if the sender was looking at him, but everyone looked like they were working on the problems.

Curious despite himself, he unfolded the note under his desk.

Hey, Uchiha-san! Would you like to eat together during our lunch period? I know first days can be tough :^) - Senju Hashirama

What the hell? Who did this guy think he was? Madara had half a mind to tear the note up and throw it at him two seats over, but he had better things to do. He shoved the note into his pocket and went back to his worksheet.

Ten minutes later, another note flipped onto his desk. He looked up faster this time and caught sight of Hashirama. He grinned at him and gave him a thumb’s up. Madara rolled his eyes and opened the note.

You don’t have to write back anything, we can eat together, okay? OwO

If he got another fucking note, he was going to find Senju after school and shove them in his mouth. Madara put this one in his pocket too and went back to his work.

He avoided Hashirama in between the class breaks. He wasn’t interested in whatever aggressive kind of friendship he was offering, especially if it was because he felt, like, pity for him or something. Madara didn’t care. He wasn’t going to be a do-gooder’s charity project.

When come lunch period, however, he was cornered in the hallway. Madara had been counting on Senju buying his food like everyone else, but he had a bento.

“There you are, Uchiha-san!” he gushed. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere!”

Godammit, leave me alone…

“Are you eating on the roof? Great, I’ll join you!”

Somehow, Madara ended up with a tag-along that dogged his heels all the way up the four flights of stairs to the roof. He avoided the elevators pointedly despite Senju’s repeated overtures and by the time they found the roof access, Senju was puffing softly.

“Wow, Uchiha-san,” Senju huffed, “you’re pretty fit, huh? You’re not even breathing hard!”

“I exercise,” he replied shortly. He sat down on the metal stairs and unpacked i bento. If he ate quickly, maybe he could get the slip on him –

“It’s a nice day today, you know!” Senju said as he parked his ass right next to him. “I think it’s gonna be a great – oh!”

His hand knocked into Madara’s hand right as he was opening his thermos. Warm tea immediately spilled all over him. It wasn’t hot enough to hurt but his uniform, once pristine and snowy-white, had a long streak of pale brown down his chest.

Dammit, Hashirama, how can you be so strong and this clumsy?

Madara blinked. Somewhere inside him, something old and big and very scary woke up.

Hashirama made a wheezing noise. Madara gurgled until he found his voice.

“You…” he said slowly. The words in his mouth felt strange to him now. Familiar and unfamiliar at the same time, a part of him that was very old remembering something much different. “Hashirama, you…?”

Hashirama looked at him. His handsome face was very pale and his eyes were very wide. Madara saw himself reflected in them and he was already a little bit in love.

“Ma… da… ra?” Hashirama said slowly, like he was saying a new word for the first time in his life. “Did you just…?”

“I felt that,” Madara confirmed. An old, buried instinct compelled him to put his hand on Hashirama’s cheek. It was an intensely intimate gesture beyond the scope of his sixteen years. He blushed as soon as he did it. “I’m here. You’re here.”

Sitting on this cold metal staircase, cold tea leaking into his pants, Madara remembered a time when skyscrapers didn’t exist and the phone in his bag could’ve been called magic. There were so many years in there that his head spun trying to comprehend it all, but he knew one thing very well. To-the-marrow-of-his-bones well.

He and Hashirama were always meant to do this.

Hashirama reached up and put his hand over his. The sixteen year old in Madara melted. The ageless killer just smiled knowingly.

“We found each other,” Hashirama breathed. His eyes were a rich brown that carried an inner light in them. He was young but big in way that said he’d keep on growing. He was everything that Madara recognized in this lifetime and the next.

“We did,” Madara sighed, curling his fingers against his skin. He didn’t know which one of them moved first, him or Hashirama, but they were kissing, their lunches forgotten. They had to pause to move them so they didn’t spill – and they both laughed at the mundanity of it all – before they went back to touching each other, fascinated and greedy. They only resurfaced when Hashirama’s digital watch beeped to signal the last ten minutes of lunch period.

“Let’s ditch,” Madara immediately said.

“We shouldn’t,” Hashirama replied as he began to eat quickly. “It’s our first day here! It wouldn’t look good, and you’re a scholarship student, so you can’t –”

“We can lie about it, who cares?” Madara laughed. “I’m not going to be able to concentrate now that I know you’re here.”

Math problems? Chemistry? Japanese? Who cared? What did it matter when he’d found his soul mate?

“There’s only four more periods left,” Hashirama insisted. “And then… maybe…” he grinned a little, not entirely sly but not fully innocent. “You could come over. I’ve had sleepovers before. You can take my spare uniform too since I messed up yours.”

“Oh – oh, yeah.” Madara glanced down at his stained jacket. He couldn’t care less about it. Hashirama buzzed in his senses like a drug. All he wanted to do was breathe him in and touch him, remember him, to feel him until he couldn’t tell their bodies apart anymore.

That’s not normal, whispered the young part of him. The older pieces from a forgotten age just laughed. What was the point of loving if you didn’t do it madly?

“We can go to class,” Madara murmured. He packed up his bento, appetite forgotten. All he wanted was for this school day to end so he and Hashirama could pick up where they left off. “Come on.”

“Don’t be so hasty,” Hashirama said, but he still hurried up to finish.

They walked back down together. They fell into step easily, making spaces for each other, as their bodies remembered truths older than the modern age.

#hashimada #hashirama #madara #soul mates au #drabble #kinokami #ask #answered meme #im feeling good about this i might continue it

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afreakingdork · 3 years

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Review Revisited: The Gentlemen's Alliance Cross

So after I posted my 2007 Manga Reviews I got to thinking about how those series formed my early manga opinions and how much I’ve grown as a person since reading them. In the spirit of that, I thought it would be a great idea to revisit those series of yore and update my reviews of them with my older, wiser perspective.

The first up is the first that was on the list and a series that was closer to my heart than I remembered: Shinkuro (Shinshi Doumei Kurosu or The Gentlemen's Alliance Cross). Here’s the 2007 review as a refresher:

ShinKuro: Or Gentlemen’s Alliance Cross for those that aren’t familar with it…Ok so I love this series and its awesome bottom line~ 1-3 are out currently, its one of those stories you gotta read over at least 4 times before you understand the plot, or maybe i have a focus problems who knows, all i know is you need to go out and read this, its got everything yo! Straight, yuri, yaoi…idk I’m not much of a gay fangirl, but hey ya gotta cover japanese basics~

Before I get into the veritable mountain of things I want to talk about (I mean, I have 14 years of feelings to sort through), I first want to tell a story of fate. When I decided to re-do these reviews, I went to look for my old manga. It’s not far, about 50 steps away to my bookshelf, but I didn’t see Shinkuro anywhere. Confused, I waited until the next time I visited my mom to look there and could not find it. I knew when I moved out of her house in 2017 I had sold some extra books to make the move easier, but couldn’t recall a specific memory of packing them up. I checked my email and the only clue was a listing on eBay, but there was no sold email attached. I’m usually really diligent with stuff like that, so I was totally stumped. Regardless, I had no manga, so I went ahead and started reading it on some pirating website. Now, I don’t condone these sites, but I couldn’t find the series anywhere else for whatever reason. I was only able to get a few chapters in before I just couldn’t take it anymore. The site I was using (one of the only sites to even have a pirated version. Seriously, why had this series totally disappeared from the US lexicon!?) only had a fan-scan of the series. Now, Shinkuro is something I’ve read many, many, many times and, while the fan-scan wasn’t unreadable, I kept getting really hung up on how different it was from what I remembered. I would read a line and my brain would make an error noise and respond with what the line should be. As I clicked through the pages, the errors piled up more and more and my brain was relentless about how the lines should have been translated.

Frustrated, I totally gave up and the next time I saw my mom I told her of my plight. I could see the lightbulb go off over her head and she asked me if ‘that wasn’t the manga that didn’t sell on eBay and I gave to her to give away?’ I was taken aback; I hadn’t told her about the eBay email I found and instead only told her I couldn’t find the series I didn’t think I had gotten rid of. She said it was stored in a guest bedroom with a bunch of junk we were going to sell just before the pandemic struck last year. I was still incredulous, but she went back there with me to look for it. Now, no one knows my mom like I do, but I will tell you she is absolute garbage at describing stuff. She gave me this crazy description about a box that was the size of a loaf of bread and it had a hinge on it and I had no idea how that worked with cardboard. It took a long time, moving a metric shitton of full-to-the-brim boxes around to no avail. Since we were getting to the bottom of boxes that were stacked high, we were tag teaming the project where one person would lift and the other would rummage. It was at the bottom of a box in a 3-box stack that mom deemed the box incorrect by only shoving her hand inside. She said she felt a box, but it didn’t feel right so she moved on. I felt a pull and tilted my head so that I could see into the only sliver on the box, a tiny crack. I told her ‘I saw a box that looked kinda like a shoe box and is that what she meant by a hinge?’ She said she wasn’t sure, but we made quick work taking down the stack to reveal the smaller box. Upon closer inspection she said this had to be it and as I opened it there lay the entire 11 volume series. I tell you, I almost sobbed right there on the spot. What are the chances that I would try to sell the series, it wouldn’t sell (I listed all 11 volumes for 40$!!!), I would give it to mom to give away, she wouldn’t do so (she wasn’t sure what the age range for the books were), and then years later we would happen across it and mom would dismiss it while I pressed to check, to find these books. They were meant to stay with me is the only conclusion I can make and after re-reading the series I can say this is totally true, so let’s get into my renewed feelings:

So, looking at my old review, I know exactly what my younger self meant by rereading the same bit 4 times to understand. Arina Tanemura has a penchant for putting 1000 screentones over every page and sometimes she swiftly moves through conversations and even locations between panels on the same page. It’s a breakneck speed to try to give every character of this ensemble class a time to shine. There’s also the hurdles of Tanemura’s style that can’t be ignored. When my partner saw the manga, he asked me if all the art really looked like that and I showed him that, yes indeed, and that was almost a pretty standard art style for shoujou manga from that time period. He was aghast and didn’t believe he could read something like that and I can totally see how that would be off-putting for the average reader (I’m not average in the sense that I’ve read it so many times I know all the ins and outs). For example, in middle school Haine cut her hair off and dyed it blond. She dyes it back when she goes to high school, but halfway through the series she cuts it and dyes it back to blond for Ushio’s sake. Tanemura doesn’t change ANY screentones during this time and you only find out that Haine dyes her her back ONCE AGAIN in a throw away line. I’ve held the pages up side-by-side and it’s totally indiscernible when Haine’s hair is blond vs. brown.

That being said, one of the greatest parts of this series is how it was translated. There was so much love and care put into these Notes on the Text that it was the perfect series to start shaping my understanding of Japanese culture and writing. Instead of just a glossary saying what ‘-san’ meant as a suffix, these sections go so far as to explain why certain phrases were translated as they were and explain what the original Japanese text said and how it was a joke or a play on words. That is so rare to see in manga and I feel like it should be more standard.

Now to face the elephant in the room head-on: let’s look into the LGBT+ themes in the series. 2007 Alex was quite afraid and prejudiced against queer culture. I can’t tell you where exactly it stemmed from because I don’t really remember feeling that way. I know it happened, I have evidence and my friends’ testimonies, but it doesn’t feel like I had that much hate in my heart. It’s systemic to our culture and that may be why, but regardless, I feel awful that I once felt that way. I was scared getting into this series that the LGBT+ themes would be handled so poorly as it often is in manga. Thankfully, that didn’t end up wholly being the case. In her author’s notes, Tanemura stated multiple times that she was not a fan of mlm or wlw content, but she wanted to use this series to push herself to do a lot of things she didn’t like otherwise. I want to put an excerpt on her final thoughts on those themes in the series here:

I don’t know how the readers feel, but I’ve never been very fond of reading guy x guy and girl x girl relationships. But that was another reason for me to have done this series. I thought the series would have a nice twist to it if I tried to draw something I didn’t like.

I regularly challenge myself to eat things I don’t like. I don’t like the idea of having dislikes, so it became an opportunity for me to get over that.

And the result was... I still couldn’t get myself to be interested in it. So it’ll probably be a topic I’ll never write about again. But I think it was still worth it that I found that out.

I won’t take the time to break down homophobia in Japanese society, but I find it interesting that Tanemura sees queer relationships not as a real thing in her stories, but instead as a commodity that she can compare to tastes in food. I found the story lines really compelling. Take Maora, for example. Tanemura refers to Maora as eccentric for cross dressing in her author notes, but in story Maora is actually characterized with a surprising amount of care on the subject. While some may view Maora as a ‘trap,’ I would instead posit that he’s genderfluid. Obviously he goes by he/him, but I think it’s so interesting that when told that boys couldn’t marry, Maora goes to great lengths to present as a female so Maguri and him could be together as they always wanted. When Maguri rejects this because he’s gay and prefers male presenting individuals, Maora holds on to his ‘femininity’ because it means something to him. All the work he put in is a representation of his love and later becomes something that he enjoys doing. There are, of course, a few pitfalls. I’m not a fan of the fact that when going to the Emperor’s Association meeting, Maora feels like he must dress more masculine because it’s a serious event (giving the connotation that dressing feminine is just a frivolous thing). I also really hate one of Maora’s final lines in the penultimate arc when the student council is breaking into Shuichiro’s house and he says “Don’t you blush! I’m a guy!” before kicking someone. I think Tanemura meant for that to be a cool one-liner, but instead it just undercuts who Maora is.

On the flip side, I really like how Ushio’s love of Haine is characterized. While Ushio’s means of capturing Haine aren’t the best, I think her love is a beautiful arc. Ushio fell in love with a blond yanki that happened to break into her house to hide when she was at the lowest point in her life. When Haine has her night with Shizumasa and decides to ‘move back into the light,’ time stops for Ushio as Haine leaves her. Ushio is left looking for that person who saw her when everything else in her life was filled with hate. There is a beautiful story there where she realizes her love for Haine isn’t romantic or sexual love, but instead the powerful love in friendship. This story always holds the different types of love in high regard. It is stated multiple times that Takanari and Haine both hold their best friends in their hearts higher than their romantic partners and I adore that. It’s such a healthier way to represent relationships. Your romantic partners shouldn’t just supersede your other loves just because.

The development of loves on the other hand can be a bit rocky. The bonus story between Kusame and Komaki is always one I held in such high regard because it’s characterization of changing love. Kusame, who’s been in love with Haine, starts dating her sister Komaki out of obligation and he ends up falling in love with her not because she’s similar to Haine, but instead because of how different she is and how those were things that he grew to appreciate and love about her instead. Can you say relationship goals?! Contrasting that, you have the relationships between Itsuki Otomiya, Kazuhito Kamiya, and Maika Rikyuu. Maika and Itsuki were secretly dating in high school and Kazuhito sweeps in, steals the position of emperor from Itsuki by underhanded means and ensnares Maika in a marriage due to obligation for her family’s failing company. Over time, Maika grows to love Kazuhito and the whole thing always left a bad taste in my mouth. Maybe if the pages had been given a little more time it could have worked, there’s small signifiers, like how Kazuhito and Maika met and were friends before he pulled his repulsive plot. There was a precedent that the two got along and could have fallen in love, but instead it went full Stockholm and that is painted as ok. I do want to take a moment to say that scene where Itsuki returns from visiting Maika for the first time since all that happened where his current wife Ryouka stayed up because she was afraid he was going to leave her and he reassures her that he would have never done so was downright incredible.

The timeline of Maika losing her memories confounds me as a way to keep her away from Haine. I know Kazuhito didn’t give her much choice in the matter, but she had a whole other child before she started to lose her memories and there is quite an age difference (like 7+ or so years) between Komaki and Tachibana, where Maika had her memories (for a few years?) and just made no effort to contact Haine in any way. It just seems overly cruel and unnecessary when Maika wrote a letter to Haine saying she would continue to write even though she couldn’t see her. I know a maid was watching her, but she couldn’t send a letter? She already sent one letter! Kazuhito’s goal was to give Haine back to Itsuki so she could live freely without the burden of his influence because he knows he’s an asshole that only cares about Maika and clipped her wings. He wants to atone for still keeping Maika trapped by letting Haine soar, but keeping Haine from at least talking to her mother through letters is just erroneous. That didn’t keep her free from him, it only made her miserable from not being able to talk to her mom. Ugh, just writing about it makes me so mad.

It’s interesting to me that in her distaste for LGBT+ themes, Tanemura was about to have a polyamorous ending to the series. It’s disheartening that the only reason she didn’t do so was because she could only imagine there would be a power imbalance where Shizumasa would have been a pitiful party in such an arrangement. It’s not like I was rooting for a threesome (especially since two of them are twin brothers), but it’s an outdated view on what polyamorous relationships are actually like. Also, Takanari is the clear winner and I’m not sure why it’s ever a question for Haine. When you break it down, Haine really only spent one single night with Shizumasa while she actually had months and months of time built up with Takanari to build the foundation of a real relationship, but that’s neither here nor there.

Overall, I’m so glad I re-read this series and I will never try to resell it ever again. It means so much to me and even though it’s CW levels of dramatic happenings (I can’t believe Toya pulled a gun on and shot Haine), there is a market for those things and they’re enjoyable in how bizarre they are. There’s obviously some failing to the story, but as a whole I still love it, even nostalgia aside. I think it’s a great series for those new to shoujou drama’s to read!

Verdict:

Read Right < Left

#me #manga #manga review #review #The Gentlemen's Alliance Cross #Gentlemen's Alliance Cross #Shinshi Doumei Kurosu #shinkuro

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challengeandchangeinsociet-blog1 · 6 years

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Task 2: What has influenced me?

What different things are comprised to form myself? I would not say I am a complicated person, but I am a person of many different aspects. I am not a person that you could put under a certain category or label. Everybody is unique, and everybody is different. Everybody has different inspirations, and everybody has different motivations. Usually when you think of something that inspires you, you think of a certain person that may have helped guided your life, creating your likes and dislikes. When I explore the different things that make the flesh I live within, I think of Culture. I think of certain traditions and norms that have been started before I had ever entered this world as well as significant people. I look into the mirror and I see a mosaic of different things. I see a poet, I see an artist, I see an activist, I see a hip hop lover, I see an avid film seeker, I see someone who is religious, I see someone who admires his surroundings and explores them in greater detail. When I look in the mirror, I see a puzzle, created with different colored pieces.

First I am going to initialize my base. Something that started the beginning of my life. My christening. I am a Christian protestant male. I have remained this status a few months after I came out of the womb. Ever since I have prayed, went to Church, and have taken different opportunities to confess my sins (a way of asking for forgiveness from God). Now lets explore the base of christianity. Christianity started about 2000 years ago in present day Israel with Jesus Christ and his group of disciples. Jesus was a Jew, he would continue to preach and spread the Jewish way of life, the beautiful religion throughout Israel. Jesus continued to help people practice the faith while healing people and making miracles whither from his finger tips. Eventually the Jewish leader and the Romans felt threatened by Jesus strong faith and power. Therefore they captured him and crucified him. Three days later Jesus resurrected allaboutreligion.org states this evidence about the start of Christianity “Three days later, He would rise to life, having conquered death, to give hope to a hopeless world. Well, it happened just as Jesus taught, and His disciples were witnesses to an amazing miracle. Their teacher, Jesus of Nazareth, died and three days later rose again to become their Messiah. Compelled by a great commission to share the love that the God of this universe had imparted upon them, the disciples began to proclaim this gospel of hope throughout the territory. Thus, from a small group of ordinary men that lived in a small province in Judea about 2000 years ago, the history of the Christian Church began, and the Christian Faith has since spread to the rest of the world. Their gospel message was simple: "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life" (John 3:16).” Eventually the religion spread to great britain. Being west Indian, the British came to the west Indies to claim many of the Islands and brought the faith of Christianity with them. Thus creating Christianity within my family. Other than creating tradition, I believe what Jesus did to be art “the expression or application of human creative skill to be appreciated primarily for emotional power.” Yet that is not the only art that has influenced my life.

I am a poet. Poetry was a very early form of art, learning to express emotion and care through words. Personally I explored poetry through the famous poet, William Shakespeare. William Shakespeare was a writer, but most importantly a poet, who would write plays for many famous people in 16th century Britain. The first piece from Shakespeare I had ever explored was the play most famous today, Romeo And Juliet. The reason I fell in love with shakespeare’s writing was majorly the emotion that he would profess through his words from character to character. After hearing the story of Romeo And Juliet I began to write poems, instead of creating a scene for my poetry, I would connect the words to myself, Creating deep pieces that resinated with myself. Interestingly Shakespeare was not the first form of poetry. Yet he did receive his motivation from the first form of it. bookstellyouwhy.com stated “The Epic of Gilgamesh often is cited as one of the earliest works of epic poetry, dating back to the 18th century B.C. Consisting of Sumerian poems, it's a text that was discovered through many different Babylonian tablet versions during archaeological excavations.” Yet shakespeare inspired me to write, I have to thank the Sumerian for creating it. The Sumerian created something beautiful for me, but there are many other cultures that have created something I love.

Food!!! Everybody has a favorite food, a favorite dish, a favorite something that gets digested. Many people have favorite foods that resonate within their own culture, yet me, I abroad far out of my culture when it comes to my favorite food. Chicken Parm (a breaded chicken cutlet topped with parmesan cheese and tomato sauce with a side of pasta)! Chicken parm is my all time favorite dish to be served. Living in Toronto where we have a street nicknamed “little Italy” you will get the closest to authentic Italian food you could ever dream to imagine. Food inhibits lots of culture. Food is the basis of what is needed to survive, so when you eat just one meal outside of your culture, you are immediately adapting traits of another culture. When you indulge in a beautiful meal of chicken farm you are actually eating a dish created by two different cultures. wikipedia states “Parmigiana (parmesan and tomato sauce) made with a filling of eggplant is the earliest and still unique Italian version. The origin of the dish is claimed by both the Southern regions of Campania and Sicily. Other variations found outside Italy may include chicken, veal, or another type of meat cutlet or vegetable filling.” Yet the English were actually the ones who started making the dish with Chicken instead of eggplant. Some parts of me as you can see have a very foreign flavor, but others are more Americanized.

I am a hipster. Well at least my fashion sense is very “hip.” I have a different sense of fashion. You know, the ripped jeans, with the patterned button up shirt tied around my waist, with a distinctive T-shirt and stand out shoes. Yet the hipster style is growing and can be said to be somewhat popular today. The term “hipster” was actually derived from the year 1902. In 1902 the word un-hip was used to describe people who were unaware of their surroundings. As life progressed and fashion progressed people around the year 1940 began to have a very different sense of fashion. These people were then called hipsters as they would try to configure their fashion after their mindset which was the opposite of the word un-hip, being aware of your surroundings. This word was heavily used to describe a 1940’s American jazz group “Hot Jazz.” Who saw themselves on a higher mental level than the average person and dictated their fashion after it. Being a hipster, taking part in American culture, I also have a couple other aspects of myself that are Americanized.

There are two huge puzzle pieces of myself that have North American written all over them. That is hip hop, an entertainment platform, that is also football, a leisure activity that I more consider to be competitive than leisure. Talking about entertainment, there are many different aspects of it, there are plays, movies, TV shows, but my absolute favorite form of entertainment is music. I enjoy listening to music on the highest of pedestals. Music brings to me so many different emotions, shows me so many different aspects of life. When I listen to music I feel the words to my heart as deeply as if I were singing them. The music genre that has caught my attention heavily for 18 years of life would be hip hop. I love everything about hip hop, the lyrics, the flow and sound of the instrumental and voice on perfect rhythm. I find it beautiful, the perfect unison of self created beats with self created poetry is gorgeous. Just like everything else, hip hop was not created within thin air. There is a story behind it. www.britanica.com states hip hop to be stated as “Although widely considered a synonym for rap music, the term hip-hop refers to a complex culture comprising four elements: deejaying, or “turntabling”; rapping, also known as “MCing” or “rhyming”; graffiti painting, also known as “graf” or “writing”; and “B-boying,” which encompasses hip-hop dance, style, and attitude, along with the sort of virile body language that philosopher Cornel West described as “postural semantics.” (A fifth element, “knowledge of self/consciousness,” is sometimes added to the list of hip-hop elements, particularly by socially conscious hip-hop artists and scholars.) Hip-hop originated in the predominantly African American economically depressed South Bronx section of New York City in the late 1970s. As the hip-hop movement began at society’s margins, its origins are shrouded in myth, enigma, and obfuscation.” The first DJ that kicked off Hip Hop music was a DJ named DJ Clive "Kool Herc" Campbell. Kool Herc was born April 16th, 1955 in Kingston Jamaica. In 1967 he moved to the bronx and helped to engineer the first hip hop instrumental.

Exploring the rest of my North American lifestyle, is the grind hard game of football. Football has been a part of my life for a long time and will continue to be a pivotal part of my life. I have been playing football competitively for approximately 10 years. I started playing football at the age of eight, and now I am happy to say I have signed for a scholarship to continue my football career. Playing in America and also Canada, I always thought the game to be created in the U.S, as it is such a loved and passionate game to many of its residence. Doing research i found out that it was actually created in the great north, Canada. The rules and style most like the game of football we play today were created at McGill University in Quebec Canada. www.McGill.ca states the first game of football like this, “The very first modern football games were played in Cambridge, Massachusetts on May 13 and 14, 1874, between McGill University and a squad from Harvard. This “foot-ball” diversion, as Harvard’s Magenta newspaper called it, was still in its infancy, and the rules evolved even as the match progressed. In fact, the Harvard squad so enjoyed the Canadian innovations (running with the ball, downs and tackling) that they introduced them into a match with Yale the following year—and thus, college football took root in America. Although the Redmen and the Crimson no longer butt helmets on the gridiron, the McGill/Harvard rivalry lives on in an annual rugby match for the Peter Covo Memorial Cup, founded in 1974 in honour of the legendary McGill rugby coach and professor. Harvard may have won that first football game (3-0) back in 1874, but McGill leads the Covo series, having won 17 of 30 games.” Ever since the first games of football have been played, it has been one of the most popular sports throughout North America and continues to spread today. Even though this game is known as a leisure activity, to me it is far more, it is a game of heart, discipline, and values.

The concluding root of culture that is a major part of myself is Architecture. Yet it is not just architecture, it is a form of cleansing, relaxant, and exercise. The swimming pool. I am practically a fish when it comes to swimming, I could stay in the pool all day and have absolutely zero desire to get out. The swimming pool is a very interesting idea, i mean, who digs a hole in the ground puts water in it and decides to jump in. Not a very intriguing idea until it came to life a very very long time ago. Wikipedia explains the first pool to be built as “Roman emperors had private swimming pools in which fish were also kept, hence one of the Latin words for a pool was piscina. The first heated swimming pool was built by Gaius Maecenas of Rome in the 1st century BC.” Swimming pools were a sign of riches, but also a form for relaxing and refreshment after difficult days. These pools were built using hundreds and thousands of bricks creating a base and a wall, the water would then fill up the pool by man made pipes being attached to natural springs. It is quite interesting seeing the evolution of the first pool. The architecture of the pool has been such an inspiration to myself and my family that we decided to invest in one. For approximately 8 years, Roman culture has also been adapted by myself.

In a broad view, everybody has multiple counterparts of different cultures, it is not until you deeply invest time into figuring out the roots of culture in different parts of your life that you will realize how cultured you truly are. If I was to label myself with one word, the word I would use is Mosaic. The reason I would use this word is because I am a subject of my environment, I currently live in Canada and my interests seem to be somewhat of a cultural Mosaic.

All comprised to make me…

By: Elijah Blake

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