#teacher was sick so my first class was cancelled :) got some drawing time in
Text
Drabble 2 (Phupha x Natee)
“But why would I go, P’? It’s not even my faculty,” Phupha asked his university senior who was insisting he go to the Fine and Applied Arts faculty’s portrait-drawing lecture. “And didn’t you already say that you’re going?”
“Um, yes,” the senior scratched the back of his neck, “but that was before I knew that Fei’s last lecture got cancelled because the professor’s sick. Phupha, come on, I haven’t been on a date with Fei for weeks! At this rate, she’s going to be my girlfriend only on paper. You understand, right?”
Phupha didn’t understand. Why would you date when you could study? But, on the other hand, getting acquainted with students from other faculties would probably not be the worst image-making.
“Sure.”
“Yeah?”
“Yes.”
The senior wrapped Phupha in a bear-hug.
“Thank you, thank you! I owe you,” he said excitedly, but the latter sentence was barely addressed to Phupha anymore as his senior was already jumping his way out of the classroom. Phupha saw him take out his phone, and he smiled against his better judgement.
After three lectures, it was 4PM and Phupha was sighing on his way to the Fine and Applied Arts building. He had planned to stop in front of the lecture room to collect himself before entering, but a surprisingly big amount of students were apparently enrolled in the course in question, so he couldn’t have done that without being in the way. As he entered the room, he thought it looked way too packed in relation to the actual square feet of the space. A lot of students were also trying to get the front seats, so Phupha was more than happy to temporarily fade to the background. He placed his bag next to the cabin at the back of the classroom, and sat down on the floor. He gathered his knees to his chest and just opted to observing the chaos that ensued at the front of the classroom.
“Kids, kids!” The teacher had to control the class the minute he stepped into the room. The students quieted down fairly quickly. “I know you’re excited about the later half of today’s lecture, but please, please pay attention to the first half of the class as well.”
Phupha looked around the room confused. Surely portrait-drawings weren’t so rare that they got all the students this excited when they happened?
“Also,” the teacher motioned toward the door, “this is a closed class, and I see a lot of students who aren’t enrolled. So, please find your way back to your actual classes or in case they’ve already ended for the day, wherever you usually go after school.”
Disappointed and annoyed murmur sounded out among the students and a good dozen or so left the classroom. After that, it did look much more appropriate for the size of the class. He wasn’t sure if the relative silence to before was playing tricks on him, but he thought he heard some of the students mention his name.
“Isn’t that P’Phupha?”
“Where? Where?”
Before the students got around to turning around in their seats, the teacher called them out and Phupha moved his book higher to cover his face. He quietly listened to the teacher explain about portrait-drawing and show examples of different famous potrait-painters. Not that he really knew any of them. After some time, Phupha noticed the volume level increase again, and he turned to look at the opening back door together with most of the students. The teacher greeted the boy who stepped into the class. Phupha felt like he vaguely recognized him, and it gradually dawned on him that the boy in front of him was the one he had mistaken for a freshman earlier on in the semester. Natee, was it?
“Everyone, say hi to one of your university ambassadors, our own faculty’s pride,” the teacher gestured toward Natee, who did a wai.
“We’ll let him and... Wasn’t there supposed to be someone else coming with you, Natee?”
“Yes, sir,” Natee answered and nudged Phupha with his foot. Phupha started and automatically stood up without even realizing what was happening. He put the book back in his bag in a hurry and fixed his hair. He did a wai to the teacher, and the teacher smiled.
“Oh, that was you in the back there, Phupha. Nice to see that you came to listen to my part of the lecture, too. You two can come to the front, I’m sure everyone’s been looking forward to getting to paint your portraits.”
“Yes, sir,” Phupha managed to say and he and Natee walked to the front of the classroom. They introduced themselves in the midst of students chatting excitedly and trying to keep the excitement to a minimum because they felt the teacher’s eyes on them. After the introduction, Phupha and Natee sat down on the wooden chairs, which continued for the next hour until the end of the lecture. It was only as the bell rang that Phupha felt like he could finally breathe and relax. He had received a few comments from the teacher on how his posture didn’t stay regular and how he shouldn’t look in different directions at different times. In those moments, he glanced over at Natee who seemed to be unfazed by the assignment and the attention, but eventually it did provide Phupha some help as to how to go about being a model. He and Natee stayed behind as the teacher wanted to thank them for an “exceptionally hyper lecture”—Phupha wasn’t sure if he had meant it as a compliment or a scolding—before they left.
“You didn’t know you were coming here as the ambassador, right?” Natee asked Phupha outside of the lecture room, and the latter chuckled embarrassedly.
“No, I didn’t. Was it that obvious?”
Natee tilted his head ponderingly.
“I wouldn’t say that. More like really easy to deduce?”
“I’m pretty sure those mean very similar things,” Phupha said matter-of-factly. He wasn’t sure if the other boy was making fun of him or trying to help him relax.
“I guess they do, don’t they?” Natee laughed, and Phupha thought it sounded genuine enough. “No, but I think you did a really good job being the model. I assume you haven’t had much prior experience with it, being from the Liberal Arts faculty?”
“Not much prior experience would be an understatement, try zero. But I feel like I learned a lot trying to follow what you were doing.”
“Well, thanks,” Natee said and smiled gratefully. “I did notice you glance my way a couple of times. And as a student who does this stuff, I should probably tell you that it helps if you have a fixed spot.”
“Fixed spot?” Phupha asked, surprising himself with his eagerness to try to learn more about the field.
“Yeah, it’s basically a spot that you continue to look at throughout the modelling session. It usually helps calm your nerves in case you’re not used to modeling, and the students are able to approach the process more easily, too.”
“Oh...” Phupha felt slightly apologetic that he had probably made the students’ assignment a bit more difficult.
“But I’m totally okay with having been one of your fixed spots today. If looking at me helped you clear your mind for the rest of the session, I’m just flattered, honestly.”
“Okay, that’s a relief, then,” Phupha chuckled. He looked at the other boy, who suddenly looked like he had an eureka moment. Natee snapped his fingers.
“Would you want to try it?”
“Try what?”
“Finding a fixed spot and maintaining it. Or, I don’t know, just modeling in general. Since you told me that you like my drawings...”
Phupha shouldn’t have been surprised that someone like Natee, who seemed very visual, remembered him. Nonetheless, he was taken aback by the fact that the boy actually remembered meeting him instead of just seeing him on the ambassador poster on the campus.
“... you could see how I do them, and learn more in the process. That is, only if you’re interested.”
Phupha wasn’t acquainted enough with drawing and painting and the like to know whether he actually liked them or even was interested in them. He also had a lot of studying to do if he was to get his GPA high enough to get the scholarship, so stuff that wasn’t compulsory seemed like...
“That sounds good, yeah.”
#aou thanaboon#fluke pusit#enchanté the series#enchante the series#thai drama#phupha x natee#natee x phupha#manydramafics
1 note
·
View note
Text
How to fix Barbie: Big City Big Dreams
Give it more screen time.
And I have some ideas how to fill up that screen time, spoilers below.
So this movie was only an hour and I feel the story was trying be similar to Rockn Royals with spotlight solo at the end, but it didn't have as strong of a story as Rockn Royals. More screen time could help with this, but I think changing the conflict a little would work too. Here is how I see my "rewrite" going:
Movie opens up the same with the daydream and meeting Brooklyn. They still arrive a day early, but they don't become best friends right away. They figure out nicknames and start to unpack. They sing about what their goals are for the program. Brooklyn sees this as a stepping stone to Broadway, Malibu sees this as an opportunity to extend her viewership by gaining more skills (continuing the goal from princess adventure). Both want the spotlight solo and know of it beforehand. This song sets up their motivations and our expectations for the plot.
They finish unpacking, still have time left in the day, and even though they are competitors, and Brooklyn has lost friends over competition before (as mentioned in the song), she agrees to show Malibu around New York. They become friendlier towards each others, but idk if I would want to use Before US here or not. (I think I have a better place for it)
The conversation happens on the subway as it does, they make their pact. And Barbie doesn't fall asleep, she is on California time, and shouldn't get tired until after Brooklyn who is on NY time. Brooklyn however mentions jet lag and how her mom is a pilot so she knows if they don't return now, Malibu will regret it the next day.
This is where we get Malibu sleeping in as they attend the first day. They have the announcement for the spotlight solo and the hint that Lee is more than she seems. Malibu is falling behind and they sing Work It. Ken calls, Barbie mentions how she doesn't know how Brooklyn does it, and he suggests she asks her. Ken also says, "I believe you can be anything" because I think it would be a funny way to bring in the tag line for Barbie dolls.
Anyways, she she ends up asking Brooklyn, and even though they are competitors, Malibu says competition is about bringing out the best in each other. So Brooklyn helps, they become better friends and then you have Before Us, but more focused on surviving class than exploring New York.
The song ends with one of the teachers praising Malibu and Brooklyn is just a twinge jealous. As they leave class, they run into Gato and meet Rafa. Now that classes have begun, it makes since he would already have dresses prepared (instead of on the first day, cause that made no sense to me).
Brooklyn and Malibu go the park, try on the dresses, they work with spinning, maybe we should mention this to Rafa. Same as movie.
They return to class and reminders for auditions for the spotlight solo are either heard or seen in posters. Malibu and Brooklyn comment on how they both want it, but it would be even better if they could win it together. (This line is a set up for later)
They meet Lee at the cafeteria and her identity is revealed, same as the movie. And idk, I feel like there should be another song here, maybe about Brooklyn's and Lee's past and how fame isn't all that great. This is a musical, and there could have been more songs.
The day next Lee's dad comes and they have their confrontation. Rafa films class and the accident. Malibu assures Brooklyn it is an accident and while she mostly believes her, Brooklyn does know competition can do crazy things to people. She suspious, but brushes it off.
In this version, I'm not sure how Good Vibes would work. Maybe the lyrics are rewritten and its about lifting each other up instead. It's a call back to how Malibu asked Brooklyn for help, and now Malibu can help Brooklyn. Both girls help Rafa with the spinning-shimmer dresses, and Malibu helps Brooklyn with cruth choreography for the spotlight solo audition.
When they return to school, the Barbies are called into the dean's office. Malibu is expelled for sabotage and is told she will be on the 7pm flight out of New York (idk times, it just needs to be dramatic) Malibu walks out sadly as Brooklyn walks in. Malibu is too sad to say a word to her and walks off screen to her dorm. Rafa tries to call out but doesn't follow. Brooklyn talks to the Dean, and as she leaves the office Lee walks up and says she just saw Malibu packing her things, whats going on? Brooklyn explains and exclaims how she knew it all along that Malibu was out to get her. Rafa and Lee try to comfort her and Lee tries to say how maybe it's like her situation and things aren't what they seem. Brooklyn doesn't want to hear her it and sings Playground of Our Dreams.
Rafa and Lee talk, they remember the video, Rafa goes to the Dean as Lee tries to find Brooklyn (gotta repair that friendship). The Dean is shocked at the video and agrees to reenroll Malibu but her flight is about to take off soon. But luckily, someone knows a pilot!
Brooklyn calls her mom to stall the flight and she meets up with Malibu at the airport. She interrupts a phone call between Malibu and her parents as Malibu tells them the bad news. Brooklyn explains, and then Malibu tells her parents the good news. Her parents also decide to fly out to New York to support both of them in the spotlight solo auditions. (Basically Malibu stays in New York and doesn't return home because that made no sense.)
They return to school, and we see Lee confronting her dad. As it turns out, after Brooklyn went to get Malibu, Lee confronted her dad about it like in the movie. Expect this takes place at night instead during the day. She also now has audio evidence to her dad admitting what he did (a nod to spy tech from Spy Squad but this time its from Rafa).
The next scene is Malibu and Brooklyn practicing for the spotlight solo. It's a montages and they sing See You at the Finish Line. They are competing against on another, but together at the same time. The song ends with them preforming on the audition stage. The Dean commends them on their effort but says only one can have the spotlight and results will be posted tomorrow.
It says Barbie Roberts. But the girls have an idea, since it's both their names, both of them should get the spotlight. Lee says she might be able to make that work and Rafa says he has the perfect costumes for them.
Lee goes to her Dad who is talking with the Dean and is in the process of trying to cancel the spotlight since his daughter didn't get it (or try to change the candidate to someone more worthy, like his daughter! He says as she walks up to him). As Lee walks up,, the Dean gets a call and excuses herself. Lee then threatens to release the audio of her Dad admitting his interference if he doesn't back down. He back downs and then complains about business and how he was "only" trying to help "his little girl shine". The Dean returns and say their MC of the even just got sick and they need a replacement or Lee's Dad might get his wish.
Lee then steps up and says she could MC, she does know Emmie Lee after all. *wink wink nudge nudge*
Lee makes it possible for both Barbies to have the spotlight, and she introduces them like in cannon. This time, it makes sense why she is hosting. They sing Big City Big Dreams, and when the camera pans to both their families it's also makes sense they are there.
Movie ends, curtains draw, and that's how I would fix this movie.
31 notes
·
View notes
Text
Testimony of a French person during the pandemic.
I’m the french person. This testimony is featuring my school’s pressure and a lowering mental state.
I have been quarantined at home since March 2020. I have gone out maximum 20 times, always being really careful. For me and others.
I have a constant source of informations on what is going on in France and the world, and this causes a big flow of anxiety. I spent the entire summer vacation in my house, working on my project and being really productive. I didn’t see anyone, didn’t go anywhere. Just me, my parents and our two cats.
My classmates, however, aren’t as worried nor careful as me, and most importantly not as informed or free to act as they wish. So, they have gone out, and been to beaches and seen people, like the government said. Because yes, as soon as the summer vacation started, the French government declared that the virus was gone and that everyone had to go out and pay for stuffs, and spend money, to “keep the economy rolling”. Of course the Covid was still there.
As the start of the school year was closing in and that people in France had been getting sicker and sicker due to the craziness of the summer holiday, we thought that they would cancel, or at least push back the day. But no.
Around that time, I had also lost my uncle and my grand-mother (not due to the coronavirus), and the pressure of staying home this long, and having constant awful news about outside and how there wasn’t a glimpse of hope was having terrible effect to my mental state.
As back to school day arrived, we had made the decision to not send me back, although the government had said it was “mandatory”. However, I have worked hard all my life to get a diploma and go to a good college and have a degree, and I wasn’t giving up yet. So, we lied. Well, not really. We said we had to bury my grandmother and it was true. So I didn’t come the first week. The second, I catched a cold, and couldn’t make it due to the coughing. The third, I had a stomach ache...
My mother hates lying. She loathes it. It was incredibly hard for her to do so. But she did because if I went, I would probably kill my other grandma and maybe kill my parents. And have scars for life. And contaminate strangers.
What about my classmates, you ask ? They all went. I was the only one, of my whole class, to not have gone back. And boy, was I glad I did. I kept talking to my friends, and I heard how the teachers didn’t respect the safety distances nor put the masks correctly. I heard how in the cafeteria they were all sitting at the same table, pressed against eachothers without a mask. At that time, I already had heard horrible things and how poorly it was handled.
One week, as she had one of the CPE (head of the supervisors) on the phone, my mom had the first breakdown I have seen her have in years. She started crying and explained everything. She cried, and argumented and I was so shocked to see her like this. The truth was out ! I didn’t go to school because the safety stuffs the government put in place was bullshit.
We expected me to be kicked out in the following minutes. But, they couldn’t. I had been giving back all the homeworks and assignments I could, showing I wasn’t quitting. So, they couldn’t kick me out for being a quitter, and they couldn’t kick me out for trying to keep myself, my family and them safe. So they didn’t. Instead, they tried to push me into resigning.
At that point, it had been 5 months since I had really gotten out for something else than groceries. I hadn’t seen anyone, friends or even acquaintances for months. The school and news had been horribly stressing me out, and I had my first breakdown. Around a day after, we had a call from the school’s nurse. She asked me if I was okay, how I was doing, if I was sick... And that I should really go back to school. It’s senior year after all. I told her I heard they handled it badly. She called nonsense and stupid rumors, telling me lies that I immediatly understood were lies, selling bullshit and trying to force me to come back. I was very polite, made her understand that I would be trying if the situation got better, and hung up. It took us a minute to understand that she was trying to get evidence of me being kept home against my will and called social services. She didn’t call for my health at all. Thankfully, I handled it very well and we never heard back from her.
Not long after that incident, I heard of something that happened in my school that made me mad beyond understanding. Since the interns at the boarding school were forbidden from going out, the school decided to put a movie for them Wednesday afternoon. They said they asked students about what they would like to see but I highly doubt it. So, that Wednesday afternoon, when my classmates, seniors in highschool, with TONS of homework they had been working on where called in the auditorium for “informations” they had no choice but to go. The informations were given, and they were about to leave to resume working when the CPE and the deputy director stopped them.
They said my classmates HAD to see this movie, it was mandatory. Let me insist on the fact that they were around a hundred, all in a closed space, in the middle of a pandemic. Yes ? Great. So, my friends protested, saying that they had to work and didn’t want to stay.
The deputy director started cutting them off to keep repeating some bullshit like “we made that for you” “we listenned and gave you this” “we worked hard on this”, like 5th graders. Until they said “I’m your superior and I order you to stay. Now shut up and take a sit”. My friends were astonished but did as asked. Which was incredibly unsafe and even dangerous (closed space, no safety distances...). And that movie that was “for the students” and “they worked hard on” was a goddamn movie about the Shoah. And I SWEAR TO GOD, there was panic attacks in the room, breakdowns, terrible reactions, and they didn’t give two shit about it.
And a day or so before, the nursed called to say I had to go back because it was “safe and everything was ok”. I was boiling.
After that incident, one of my teachers requested a call with me to talk about the class I had been missing. Very aware of the manipulative state of my school at that time, we were really careful, and a bit worried about it. Turned out it was a call of a genuine teacher that actually wanted to talk about the classes I had been missing and the homeworks I had been giving ! Of course he quickly tried to get convince me to come back, but I handled it well, once again. It was the highlight of my day.
At that point it had been 8 months since I had last been really out.
I had severals other breakdowns, mostly due to the ungodly stress I had been under because of school and news. I had been stressed out for 8 months now, and what had to happen, happened.
I had a burn out.
My mental state was so low I couldn’t even do what I love. I couldn’t write, I couldn’t draw. All I could do was watch shows and movies, or stare at the ceiling for hours. This was incredibly frustrating and scary. I couldn’t do my homeworks, and we feared I might get kicked out.
Then a miracle happened. Which is sad it got to that, but it was one. My teacher got quarantined, and started online classes. I had my first class of the year on November 14th. And I was there ! I answered tons of questions, and it kind of shocked everyone in class to realize I existed and was still trying to follow the classes.
It allowed to get better, and keep a very small following of school.
A week ago I have been able to do my Spanish homework. I am slowly getting better, trying to avoid stress and work as much as I can.
What I haven’t been able to talk about but did happen :
-One of my classmates caught the virus and she realized it a week later. The school said it was useless to quarantine her now and let her go back to class. The first thing she did was take off her mask and lean in everyone she was talking to.
-I haven’t got any of my art classes since the beginning of the year. My teachers made the class believe they were giving it to me when they didn’t. I am specialized in art.
-One of my classmates have been diagnosticated with depression. We’re 17. Several others have depression tendencies.
-The school is trying to ignore us by not responding to anything we send, hoping we’ll resign. The pressure is still there.
-We learned recently that many other parents and students had done the same thing and the schools have put pressure on them too. Some threatened the family. We hadn’t hear about it until now because schools are covering it up
-Schools are covering numbers even inside. Most teachers doesn’t even know if a kid has Covid or not. If the teachers get sick, they are forced to immediatly go back to school.
This has been written the 22 november of 2020, in France.
Linked to this post
#history#testimony#true#pandemic#france#france handling the pandemic#covid-19#coronavirus#school#situation
37 notes
·
View notes
Text
Do You Remember? (part 2)
A/N: Here’s the highly requested part 2 that I’ve taken forever to write and release! Click here for part 1!
****************
“Is my daddy late again?” Ashanti questioned aloud as she sat at her tiny desk with her eyes still focused on her drawing.
It was half past 3 and school let out at....3. So yes he was late again.
You sighed deeply coming up to her desk and crouching down. “Yes he is. But while we wait for him, We can do something fun.”
The little girl got excited with a wide smile that matched her father’s. “Like what?!”
You tapped your chin in fake, deep thought. “How about weeeee get some homework done?”
Ashanti poured folding her arms. “That’s not fun!”
“That’s because you’re not doing your homework my way!”
“Really? My daddy says his way is fun.”
You raised an eyebrow glancing at her skeptically. “What’s his way?”
She pulled at her homework sheet from her green and purple Princess and the Frog backpack. She gestured towards a problem that was 5-2.
“There are 5 Black Panthers and 2 of them sell out and support the white man. How many Black panthers are left?”
You stared at the 6 year old in astonishment and tried your hardest to hold back a laugh. You should not be surprised but you still are. Erik managed to sneak his pro blackness in a simple math problem.
“Ok let me show you the fun way.” You tried not to laugh as you went back to your desk, grabbing a bag of assorted candy. As you were doing homework with the girl, she kept staring at you between problems. You looked up at her and smiled.
“What is it, Ashanti?”
She got shy, looked down at her paper, and mumbled something.
“Huh?”
“Can you be my mommy?”
That question completely caught you off guard. You were rendered speechless. You’ve been dating Erik for a couple weeks now but you two weren’t official yet. Even though you told Ashanti you were just friends, she loved you and had high hopes for the future. This was moving too fast.
“You want me to be your mommy?”
“Yes. I don’t have a mommy and I really want one. So can you be my mommy?”
Before you could respond, Erik burst through the door with a big ass grin and one hand behind his back. The hand that was visible was a small jaguar stuffed animal and you saw Ashanti’s eyes grew in happiness as she ran out of her seat to hug Erik.
“Daddy, you got it!” She took the stuffed animal and hugged it tight.
“I had to. For my Princess.” He leaned down and kissed her forehead. “Daddy’s sorry he was late again, baby. Hopefully this makes it up for it.”
You were so focused on the adorably scene in front of you and Ashanti’s question floating in your head that you didn’t even notice Erik coming up to you with a smirk on his face.
“Now for you, I’m sorry I’m late again but I got something to ask you.” He brought his other arm into view revealing a beautiful bouquet of orchids. You instantly smiled at the display.
“I felt like roses are overrated but here’s some pretty flowers for a pretty lady.”
“Thank you, Erik.” You went in to kiss him but remembered Ashanti was right there, watching with hopeful eyes. You pulled him for a hug instead and he whispered in your ear:
“You owe me that kiss.”
You couldn’t help the giggle you released at his words and pulled away. Erik grabbed Ashanti and they said their goodbyes. Your smile dropped once they left. You were conflicted and you needed someone to talk to about it.
“You finally get rid of all your brats?” Your good friend Evan popped inside your classroom. “You’ve always been the last teacher to leave.”
Evan has been your good friend through college that you met in one of your major classes. After graduation, you two were hired at the same elementary school which was great for you because the rest of the teachers were other races. You two were the only the black teachers in the school.
“Awww shit something’s bugging you. Talk to me.” He took a seat in the chair in front of your desk and you sighed deeply.
“So I’m dating someone-“
His thick dark eyebrows rose to his hairline. “What? Wow I’m shocked but I’m happy for you. It was about time you started dating after.......”
You shook your head. “Yeah. I don’t wanna talk about that. Anyways, he’s actually a guy from high school that I reconnected with and he’s so amazing. He’s cute, funny, sweet. I just really really like him.”
Evan furrowed his eyebrows and waved his hand as if he was saying to go on.
“He has a daughter. A young daughter. 6 years old.”
Evan’s mouth forced an O in understanding. Due to Evan knowing your past, he understood why this was a deeper issue than it would seem to the average woman.
“And I love his daughter and she loves me! And she asked me to be her mommy.”
“Where’s her mom?”
You waved him off. “It’s a long story. All you need to know is that her mom left her before she could even hold her head up.”
Evan let out a low whistle shaking his head. “That’s tough. Wait, are you even his girlfriend? And his daughter knows about you?”
You had to leave out the fact the daughter in question was one of your students. The last thing you needed was to be judged and/or have that exposed. Not that you didn’t trust Evan, but you weren’t going to take any chances.
“We’re not official but I think he’s going to ask me and this is hard because I really like him, Evan! I like him a lot! I like his daughter! I just never seen myself as a stepmother and I know I was ready to date again but I’m not ready for-“
Evan grabbed your hands to stop you from rambling more. “Re-lax. I can see you really like him and don’t want to lose him but this is a lot for you to sign up for. Just give yourself some time to reflect on it and figure out if the kid is a dealbreaker or not. Once you took enough time, let him know what’s up. Just be honest. Niggas love honesty.” He sat up straight, leaning in. “He is a nigga, right?”
You laughed. “Yes he is.”
Your friend sat back in the chair. “Oh ok. Yeah like I said, don’t stress yourself about it. Keep in mind though that when a nigga has a kid, you’re always going to come in second. She’s his priority and not you. He’ll pick her over you all the time.”
You narrowed your eyes at him. “Thanks Evan. I had no idea.” You replied sarcastically as he stood out of the chair and grinned at you.
“It’s only because I love you.”
*********************************
Erik was staring at his phone losing his mind. He didn’t know if he should text you first or wait for you to text. This shit was annoying. You technically wasn’t his girlfriend so he couldn’t even get mad at you for texting him back. Damn, he should’ve asked you to be his girlfriend already but he was too fucking scared!
Honestly, you were the furthest he got with a woman since being with Ashanti’s surrogate. Every time he tried to date, the women couldn’t handle the fact that he was a single father doing it all by himself. They couldn’t handle the fact that his daughter came first, no matter what. He warned each of them of this. They acted like they could handle it until he would cancel dates because Ashanti was sick or he didn’t have a sitter. He didn’t feel like he had to warn you. Just had a strong feeling you knew and understood.
What if he’s wrong?
Those women didn’t want a man with a kid and Erik didn’t blame them for that. Shit, before Ashanti was conceived, he wanted nothing to do with single moms. He just wished they didn’t act like they were ok with it and end up wasting his time.
He groaned grabbing his phone and dialing a number feeling his heart racing as he waited impatiently.
“Hi Erik.” A female voice greeted him.
“Nakia, put T on the phone. It’s important.”
“Oh yeah I’m doing fine. Thanks for asking.” His cousin’s fiancée replied sarcastically.
Erik winced and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Sorry Nakia.”
She began to giggle on the other line. “That new girl has you on edge, I see. T’Challa!”
There was some silence on the other end until Erik heard the familiar male voice pick up.
“T, man, I don’t know what to do. I haven’t heard from this girl since Friday. Nigga it’s Sunday! Last time I saw her, I gave her flowers and we seemed good but now she just ghosted me and now a nigga is feeling like she can’t handle me having a kid or something. Nigga, I don’t know.”
When Erik finished this rant, all he heard was his cousin laughing on the other end. He furrowed his eyebrows in annoyance. He let him go but if he kept going, he was gonna have to cuss him out.
“Wow Erik. You really like this girl.” T’Challa observed with some humor in his voice. “The past girls, you would just pay them no mind but this one....this one is different. A good different.”
Erik exhaled deeply taking a seat at his kitchen table. “Yeah man. She’s different from the rest. I have a feeling that if I lose her....that shit is gonna really hurt.”
“Well it is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.”
There was a blanket of silence after T’Challa said that and left Erik thinking. He thought and thought until he came up with the right words to say what he was feeling.
“Shut your bitch ass up.”
On Monday, Erik was on time to pick his daughter up this time. You were hoping he would be late so you could delay seeing him but of course, shit didn’t work out in your favor. However, it did because you saw him but he didn’t see you. You were grateful for that because you wanted to see him but weren’t sure if you were ready to talk to him.
You stayed in your classroom packing up your things when Erik walked into the room. You looked up at him, taking a deep breath.
“Did I do something? You’ve been ducking and dodging me this whole weekend. If I did something wrong, you know you can tell me. I-“
You cut him off before he could go any further. “It’s not you, Erik. It’s really not. You’re an amazing guy and I really like you. I just got nervous.”
Erik was perplexed. “Nervous for what?”
You sighed shaking your head. “It’s just that day you picked Ashanti up, she asked me to be her mommy and I-“
Erik held his hand up cutting you off this time. “I get it. It’s a lot. I’m asking you to accept a lot here and Ashanti not having a mother makes it even harder. I’m sorry.”
You took his hands. “No, Erik! I love her. I see all my students like my own children, especially Ashanti. I adore her. It’s just that...” you sighed deeply not sure if you should even tell him this but you didn’t wanna lose him.
“Kids just never seemed like a possibility for me and when I finally accepted it, it’s kinda happening, it’s a bit overwhelming but I want to be with you and Ashanti. Even though it’s a lot.”
Erik breathed a sigh of relief, touching your cheek. “You could’ve just told me that and I would’ve understood, baby girl. You had me worried.”
You laughed tiredly. “I’m sorry. I’m just really bad with words and I just wanted to make sure I got it out right.”
“Yeah I remember that. Back in Physics, when Mr. Borden asked you the answer to the problem gestured towards that big ass zero on the board and you said “uhh bagel?”
You began to snicker as you covered your face with your hands. “I skipped breakfast that morning! I was hungry.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Erik kept chuckling and calmed down, getting serious again. “I’m guessing I don’t gotta ask you my question because I think I got my answer.” He got up from his seat to leave and you stopped him.
“Wait a minute. You didn’t even ask me. That’s not fair.”
This was the first time, in your time of knowing him, that you’ve seen Erik getting shy and nervous. He was stealing your thing. It was cute on him so you’ll let it slide.
“Y/N, will you be my girlfriend? We don’t gotta rush anything. We can still take things slow if that’s what you want. I just....want to be able to call you mine now.”
You could feel the tingling in your cheeks as you went around your desk to pull him into an embrace and pecked his lips, smiling.
“Yes. I will be your girlfriend.”
You heard him chuckle. “I probably should’ve said princess.”
You pulled away, raising an eyebrow. “Princess?”
He began to chuckle even more. “Yeah. Ashanti called you a princess and said I gotta kiss the princess. She watches too much Disney. That’s my fault though. Should’ve made her little ass watch a Malcolm X documentary or some shit.”
You started laughing with him, touched that the sweet little girl viewed you as a princess. “I’ll take princess too”
Erik grinned and bit his bottom lip. “So can I take my princess out to dinner?”
“Yes you can.”
Tags: @lifelover4u @dessianna1 @brattywriters-anonymous
@marvelmaree @purple-apricots @blackpinup22 @ljstraightchaser @slimmiyagi @cancerianprincess @iamrheaspeaks @blowmymbackout
@vibranium-chakra @nerd-lovely @chaneajoyyy @ohliyaxoxo
@chefjessypooh @yourfavoritefavorite @airis-paris14
@ljstraightnochaser @quietstorm-73 @msincognito67 @sociallyawkward18 @mychemicalimagines @nerd-lovely @marvelpotterlove @destinio1 @madamslayyy @thehomierobbstark @brattywriters-anonymous @thattinycookiemonster @raysunshine78 @harleycativy @coveredingodiva @izraahh1 @nataliehasgrace @champagnesugamama @destinio1 @rbhp @foulmouthedandfrank @m3ntallygon3
#Erik Killmonger#Erik Stevens#erik x reader#erik killmonger x you#erik killmonger fanfic#erik killmonger x black reader#Erik Stevens x black!reader#erik stevens x reader#erik killmonger fanfiction#erik killmonger fluff#erik killmonger fic#erik stevens fanfiction#black panther#black panther fic#black panther fanfiction#black panther imagine
331 notes
·
View notes
Text
In Another World
Day Three: Soul World
I’m two days behind now, sobs
AO3
-----------------------
“Mr. Stark?”
“I don’t feel so good.”
“I don’t want to go. Please, please-”
“I’m sorry.”
Peter Parker wakes to the sound of his alarm going off.
Blindly, he reaches out from beneath the blankets, groping around on the side table until he finds his phone and shuts it off. His hand retreats and he groans, turning his face to bury it into his pillow. Maybe if he’s lucky, he can sneak in just a few more minutes of sleep…
“Peter!” May calls and knocks on his bedroom door. “Get up or you won’t have time for breakfast.”
So much for more sleep.
Peter groans as he drags himself out of bed. Everything feels weird, like he’s slept too long and forgot what day it is. He rubs the sleep from his eyes as he stumbles around to find clothes, dragging a t-shirt off the floor to wear. The wrinkles will drive May nuts so he grabs a hoodie to wear over it.
He wanders through his morning routine with still that nagging feeling that something isn’t quite right. Something is missing or he forgot something. A test? Blind panic hits him hard as he scrambles to remember. No. No test. Peter relaxes and manages to finish brushing his teeth before another crisis hits.
“Coffee is ready.” May announces from the kitchen. Peter can smell toast (slightly burnt, the strawberry jam jar is open) and rich hazelnut coffee, the scent filling the apartment.
It takes him a second to remember. May doesn’t drink hazelnut coffee.
“Hon, have you seen my-oh never mind.”
That voice. Peter knows that voice. It’s unmistakable. He could be suffering from amnesia and still recognize that voice.
Heart pounding, he turns the corner from the hallway to the kitchen and-
“Uncle Ben?”
Ben Parker looks up and flashes one of his half grins at Peter. “Morning. See you haven’t combed your hair again.” He pockets his car keys and ventures into the kitchen for coffee.
Peter trails after, stunned but unable to explain why. Of course it’s Ben. Why wouldn’t Ben be here?
“Oh, Peter…” May appears in front of him, tsking under her breath as she attempts to tame his wild bedhead. “Did you at least brush your teeth? Honestly, you and Ben are absolutely hope- Peter? Honey, what’s wrong?”
Peter’s eyes burn, his chest tight with some unexplained emotion. “H-Huh?” he blinks, focusing on May as she looks at him with concern.
“Are you hurt? Headache?” May lays her palm on his forehead and cups his cheeks. “You didn’t get hurt last night did you?”
Peter’s brows draw together. “L-Last night?”
“While on patrol?” May steps back to give him a proper look over. Searching for hidden wounds or bruises he failed to disclose.
Patrol. Patrol. Oh. Patrol. Spider-Man.
But wait, then that means-
“Maybe I ought to take you to the gym sometime.” Ben says as he pours coffee into his thermos. “Teach you some old boxing techniques and how to fight properly.” He stirs in some sugar and creamer. “Stark’s fancy gizmos can’t save you from dodging a real punch, you know.”
Well there’s a lot to unpack there. Peter can’t keep from staring at his uncle. His mind scrambles to keep up, to put the pieces back into place. It all seems right and yet, he feels something is off. It’s right but it isn’t.
“Peter?” May is still standing in front of him, worrying. She brushes curls from his face. “Maybe you should stay home today, just in case.”
“No, no I’m fine May. Really.” Peter reassures, even managing a small smile. “Think I slept weird or had crazy dreams, that’s all.”
“The boy is fine, May.” Ben says then looks at Peter, “Grab some grub for the road, kiddo. I’ll drop you off.”
Peter falls into routine, grabbing a piece of toast and protein bar (one Tony made up for him, he recognizes the packaging). “Bye May!” he calls out as he follows his uncle out of the apartment.
-----------------------
He can’t shake the weirdness. It clings to him like a second coat. He also can’t stop stealing glances at his uncle. There’s a little voice in his head that says it isn’t right, that Ben shouldn’t be here. Yet here he is in the flesh. Driving him to school.
“So you didn’t sneak out last night?” Ben asks, breaking through Peter’s thoughts. They stop at a red light, sun shining through a break in the clouds.
Peter shakes his head. “No. Promise.” he says.
Ben hums and nods. His hair looks a little grayer than Peter expects. Which is weird because what else did he expect? For Ben’s hair to not be grayer? Grayer compared to what? “You’re going to the Tower today, right? After school?”
Peter nods. “Yeah. Mr. Stark wants my help making some gear for Natasha.”
“Black Widow, huh?” Ben lightly whistles. “Boy, if I were only twenty years younger.”
“Ben!” Peter laughs.
“I’m just saying! She seems like a mighty fine woman.”
“She can be super scary sometimes. Moves even quieter than I do.” A memory flashes in Peter’s mind, of being in the tower with the other Avengers. Training with Nat, hanging out in the kitchen while Steve cooked, sitting down to the table to enjoy a meal together. They play like scenes from a movie reel and he feels strangely detached from it.
His chest tightens with strange emotion again. He closes his eyes as they begin to burn. His other senses take over. The smell of Ben’s aftershave and cologne. The way the brakes squeak when they stop at another red light. They’re in Ben’s car and he wonders how it could be possible. They got rid of Ben’s car after… after…
-----------------------
“Dude I can’t believe you get to work on Avenger gear!” Ned whispers loudly.
"It's only cool the first time." Peter says. He shoves books into his locker, ignoring the crumpled up papers at the bottom that continue being squished and crinkled. "The novelty wears off after the fiftieth Widow Bite."
"Whatever man, it's still awesome."
Peter stands at his open locker for a moment, staring at it's interior as he tries to think of what textbook he needs for his next class. What is his next class…
"Oh, did you ask your aunt and uncle if you can come over this weekend?" Ned asks.
Aunt and uncle. Aunt and uncle. Why is that phrasing so weird?
"Pete? Did you hear me?"
Why can't he shake that feeling that something isn't right?
"What's up losers?" Michelle's voice snaps him out of his thoughts and Peter quickly shuts his locker before she can see the mess. "Decathlon's been canceled for the day. Harrington is out sick."
"Oh." Is all Peter can say to that. Come to think of it, several teachers are out today. How weird. "Maybe it's the flu."
Michelle shrugs her shoulders. "Yeah maybe." She says. A group of upperclassmen pass by the trio, giggling and talking loudly enough to draw Peter's attention. Michelle narrows her eyes slightly and she asks, "Have you guys noticed anything weird?"
Ned shakes his head. "No. Like what?"
"Don't know yet." Michelle replies cryptically. "Something just feels off today."
The back of Peter's neck itches and tingles, and he reaches back to rub the spot. If MJ notices something then maybe there is more going on. "Maybe you slept wrong?" He suggests lamely.
Michelle gives him a look then scoffs. "Yeah, slept wrong. Sure."
The warning bell rings in the half empty hallway.
-----------------------
Peter walks out of Avengers Tower to find his uncle's beige Toyota Corolla waiting for him. It surprises him to see it then he wonders why it should. Ben always picks him up after lab time at the Tower.
"Hey Petey!" Ben greets as Peter slides into the passenger seat. "Have a good time?"
"Yeah," Peter replies as he puts on his seatbelt. "We got a lot of work done." Now if only he could remember exactly what that work was. He remembers Ned and MJ at school, being picked up by Happy and then working with Mr. Stark. What did they work on? He can't remember. The entire event is a blur.
"You aunt is suggesting Thai for dinner tonight." Ben says as they get on the road.
"Sounds good." Peter replies, not really listening. Why can't he remember lab time? He can see Tony's face, plain as day, so why can't he remember what they did? Is he getting sick? Come to think of it, he can’t remember Happy picking him up from school. An old memory plays instead, something he knows already happened in the past but definitely didn’t happen today. It feels more like he’s watching an event play out rather than being part of it.
"Uncle Ben? Do you ever feel like you're missing something?" Peter asks finally.
"Like what?"
"Like," Peter sighs as he struggles to explain without sounding crazy. "Like you know something is off? Like something isn't… right?"
Ben hums and doesn't respond. The car rolls to a stop at a red light, silence stretching to the point of being unbearable. When Peter finally looks at his uncle, he finds the old man staring at him with an unreadable expression.
"You're very smart, Peter." He says. "You've always been smart, you know? Even when you were little."
The tightness in Peter's chest worsens. The back of his neck tingles. "Uncle Ben?" He asks with uncertainty. Something isn’t right.
"We had hoped you wouldn't notice." Ben continues.
Peter frowns
“What-”
Peter blinks and, when his eyes open, he's no longer in the car.
He's back at the apartment, sitting on the couch. Star Wars: A New Hope plays on the TV and a bowl of warm popcorn sits on the coffee table before him. The light above the stove is on in the kitchen and he can see the pale blue light from the nightlight in the hallway. The apartment is quiet. He can’t sense May.
"This was your dad's favorite too." Ben says beside him. “We saw it in the theaters when it came out.”
Peter takes a shuddering breath and swallows past the lump in his throat. "Am I dead?"
"Yes and no." Ben pops some popcorn into his mouth.
"But you…" Peter's voice catches in his throat, tears burning his eyes. "You're…"
"Dead." Ben nods solemnly. “Yes.”
It hits him harder than it should. A flashback to a dark night, a mugging gone wrong, and Ben laying on the concrete covered in blood. Peter pleaded with him, begged him to stay, to hold on, that help was coming. But Ben died anyway. Peter went home with blood on his hands.
“I’m so sorry, Ben.” Peter says with a strangled sob. “I-I didn’t want you to die. I didn’t know… I didn’t mean…”
“Shh,” Ben shushes and Peter feels himself pulled forward, his face buried against soft cotton that smells like wood and leather. A scent that brought comfort when Peter was scared, that taught him how to hold his fist, who gave him wisdom even when he didn’t understand the meaning of it.
Ben’s voice rumbles deep in his chest as he continues holding the sobbing boy. “I’m so proud of you, Peter. Always have been. Just look at all the good you’ve done with your life. And I know, your parents are proud of you too.”
Peter sobs freely against Ben’s chest, clinging to him tightly. If it hurts, Ben doesn’t say anything. He continues holding him, rocking with him gently like he used to when Peter was small. He cries until he can’t and, even after the tears dry up, he doesn’t pull away. He doesn’t notice the movie is no longer playing or the bright orange that takes the apartment’s place.
Ben sighs then. “We don’t have much longer.” he says.
Peter lifts his head, eyes red and tears marking his face. “What do you mean?” he asks. A childish fear takes him and he holds Ben’s shirt. “I don’t want you to go. Please, Ben, stay. Stay with me and May.”
Ben’s hand lands on his shoulder, squeezes it as he meets Peter’s gaze. Despite the tears in his eyes, Ben smiles. “We’ll be together again. I love you, Peter.”
Peter sniffles and he puts his hand over Ben’s. “Love you too, Uncle Ben.” He manages a tearful smile. “I’ll make you proud. I promise.”
Ben’s smile widens as the yellow-orange light brightens around them, surrounding them in it’s glow. Peter keeps his eyes open as long as he can until it becomes too bright, until the brightness forces him to close his eyes.
-----------------------
Peter Parker wakes to the orange skies of Titan.
#webpril 2021 day 3#peter parker#ben parker#may parker#aunt may#ned leeds#michelle jones#mj#spiderman#mcu#duckie's writing
6 notes
·
View notes
Text
Notes on Robert McKee’s “Story” 23: Tearing Down Act Design
☝ Maybe this post will make you throw out the storytelling map your English teacher gave you.
Every single person who has taken a literature class has seen a diagram along these lines at some point. This is the one-track path that all “Good Stories” must take:
But do all “Good Stories” really have to follow this trajectory? And where exactly do subplots fit in on this? In this post, I share Robert McKee’s answers to these questions.
How Many Acts?
First, what even is an act? Let’s make sure we have a clear understanding.
“As a symphony unfolds in three, four, or more movements, so story is told in movements called acts--the macro-structure of story.
Beats, changing patterns of human behavior, build scenes. Ideally, every scene becomes a Turning Point in which the values at state swing from the positive to the negative or the negative to the positive, creating significant but minor change in their lives.
A series of scenes build a sequence that culminates in a scene that has a moderate impact on the characters, turning or changing values for better or worse to a greater degree than any scene.
A series of sequences build an act that climaxes in a scene that creates a major reversal in the characters’ lives, greater than any sequence accomplished.”
Okay. So how many should acts should we have? Most famous works we’re familiar with have three acts, as illustrated in our picture above. But is that the golden rule?
According to McKee and Aristotle, no, three acts is not the golden rule. A good story can have just one act--we may see this in a one-shot fanfiction or a short story.
A story can have two acts as well, most commonly seen in sitcoms, novellas, or hour-length plays.
However, when a work reaches a certain length, such as a feature film, an hour-long TV episode, a full-length play, or a novel, three acts are the minimum.
Why is this? Who decided that three is the magic number?
“As audience we embrace the story artist and say: ‘I’d like a poetic experience in breadth and depth to the limits of life. But I’m a reasonable person. If I give you only a few minutes to read or witness your work, it would be unfair of me to demand you to take me to the limit. Instead I’d like a moment of pleasure, an insight or two, no more than that. But if I give you important hours of my life, I expect you to be an artist of power who can reach the boundaries of experience.’
In our effort to satisfy the audience’s need, to tell stories that touch the innermost and outermost sources of life, two major reversals are not enough. No matter the setting or scope of the telling, no matter how international and epic or intimate and interior, three major reversals are the necessary minimum for a full-length work of narrative art to reach the end of the line.
Consider these rhythms: Things were bad, then they were good--end of story. Or things were good, then they were bad--end of story. Or things were bad, then they were very bad--end of story. Or things were good, then they were very good--end of story. In all four cases we feel something’s lacking. We know that the second event, whether positively or negatively charged, is neither the end nor the limit. Even if the second event kills the cast: Things were good (or bad), then everyone died--end of story--it’s not enough. “Okay, they’re all dead. Now what?” we’re wondering. The third turn is missing and we know we haven’t touch the limit until at least one more major reversal occurs. Therefore, the three-act story rhythm was the foundation of story art for centuries before Aristotle noticed it.”
Act Length
(For the sake of explanation, let’s stick with the Three Act pattern.)
Take a look at that diagram that you were probably forced to memorize in lit class again.
Here, we see that all three acts are equal in length.However, McKee provides a different distribution. He stresses that his diagrams are foundations and not formulae, and while his are specifically for the film medium, he believes that they are applicable to the play and novel as well.
For now, let’s just look at the Central Plot timeline and disregard subplots. In his foundation, he has broken a 118 minute, three act film into the following pieces:
Act 1: 30 mins (25% of film)
Act 2: 70 mins (60% of film)
Act 3: 18 mins (15% of film)
Notice in particular how short the last act is compared to the others. McKee states, “In the ideal last act we want to give the audience a sense of acceleration, a swiftly rising action to Climax.” If we draw out the last act too much, we run the risk of slowing pace and taking away from the momentum we have built up.
Now let’s take a look at Act 2. It’s a whopping 60% of the film. That feels like a lot to me. McKee echoes something that Stephen King wrote in his book On Writing, that it is the second act where things can get claggy and boring. So how can we keep from getting stuck in the swamp that is Act 2?
Add subplots or more acts.
Subplots are such an important topic that they necessitate their own post, so for now let’s just discuss when we would add more acts.
How Many Acts?
“Not every film needs or wants a subplot: THE FUGITIVE. How then does the writer solve the problem of the long second act? By creating more acts. The three-act design is the minimum. If the writer builds progressions to a major reversal at the halfway point, he breaks the story into four movements with no act more than thirty or forty minutes long.
A film could have a Shakespearean rhythm of five acts: FOUR WEDDINGS AND A FUNERAL. Or more. RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK is in seven acts; THE COOK, THE THIEF, HIS WIFE & HER LOVER in eight. These films turn a major reversal every fifteen or twenty minutes, decisively solving the long second act problem. But the five- to eight-act design is the exception, for the cure of problem is the cause of others.”
So maybe you have a thriller you want to write, and you’re sick of there being a stupid romance in every single story that comes out these days (Oops, are my own opinions bleeding into this? lol), so you want to write just a straight up thriller, with NOTHING else going on but the central plot. Cool!
In order to avoid the slowdown in Act 2, you may want to consider adding another act, thereby shrinking the length of Act 2, giving you another chance for another exciting twist.
However, beware because adding acts can cause some of the following problems in your story:
The multiplication of act climaxes invites cliches.
For each act there must be a climax. And each climax must be progressively greater than the last. It is difficult enough to think of the three climaxes we need for a regular three-act story. You’ll be dipping down deep into that well of creativity.
The multiplication of acts reduces the impact of climaxes and results in repetitiousness.
“Even if you have a limitless well of creativity, turning act climaxes on scenes of life and death, life an death, life and death, life and death, life and death, seven or eight times over, boredom sets in. Before too long the audience is yawning: “That’s not a major turn. That’s his day. Every fifteen minutes somebody tries to kill this guy.”
What is major is relative to what is moderate and minor. If every scene screams to be heard, we go deaf.
This is why a three-act Central Plot with subplots has become a kind of standard. It fits the creative powers of most writers, provides complexity, and avoids repetition.”
So feel free to have more acts, but in moderation. Next, let’s take a look at some non-standard act patterns you may want to use.
False Endings
What’s a false ending? You’ve seen it a thousand times over. It’s a scene so seemingly complete that we think for a moment the story is over. E.T. is dead--it’s the end of the movie. In ALIEN, Ripley blows up the spaceship and escapes, we think. The original TERMINATOR movie has a double False Ending.
McKee issues this caution regarding them:
“For most films, however, the False Ending is inappropriate. Instead, the Penultimate Act Climax should intensify the Major Dramatic Question: “Now what’s going to happen?”
Act Rhythm
Here, McKee points out the importance of alternating between value-charges. (For a refresher on value-charges, please see this post on the values in your theme, and this post on maintaining balance between the opposite values.)
“Repetitiousness is the enemy of rhythm. The dynamics of story depend on the alternation of its value-charges. For example, the two most powerful scenes in a story are the last two act climaxes. Onscreen they’re often only ten or fifteen minutes apart. Therefore, they cannot repeat the same charge. If the protagonist achieves his Object of Desire, making the last act’s Story Climax positive, then the Penultimate Act Climax must be negative. You cannot set up an up-ending with an up-ending. ‘Things were wonderful...then they got even better!’ Conversely, you cannot set up a down-ending with a down-ending. When emotional experience repeats, the power of the second event is cut in half. And if the power of the Story Climax is halved, the power of the film is halved.
On the other hand, a story may climax in irony, an ending that’s both positive and negative. What then must be the emotional charge of the Penultimate Climax? The answer’s found in close study of the Story Climax, for although irony is somewhat positive, somewhat negative, it should never be balanced. If it is, the positive and negative values cancel each other out and the story ends in a bland neutrality.
For example, Othello finally achieves his desire: a wife who loves him and has never betrayed him with another man--positive. However, when he discovers this, it’s too late because he’s just murdered her--an overall negative irony.”
☝This gave me a lot of thought. I tend to write for myself, and I like to have up-endings with all loose ends tidied up. Looking back at everything, I have set up up-endings with up-endings in many of my stories, and I can see now why even to me the finale feels lacklustre.
Source: McKee, Robert. Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting. York: Methuen, 1998. Print
#creative writing#write#writing#writing resources#writing tips#writing advice#plotting#story plotting#novel plotting#creative writing methodology#creative writing theory#writeblr#author#writing inspiration#writing inspo#robert mckee#writing novels#writing fantasy#writing fiction#writing fantiction#writing prompts for friends notes on story#long post
34 notes
·
View notes
Text
A place far away pt7
pairing: actor!Park Haejin x student!reader
Warnings: famous!au ; college!au ; litte bit of swearing?
genre: fluff ;
chapters: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6
(If needed I will add more warnings and upload the genre tags in next chapters)
Summary:
So that’s how all started.
It was a rainy day in Seoul and I was the new girl in town. Precisely the new girl in college, just moved from europe to study abroad.
Little did I knew Seoul was not the only korean thing I’d fell in love with.
————————————————
21st November
“Lillian! Your caffelatte!”
I looked up from my books just a moment, only to see a girl holding two cups in her hands desperately trying to get her friend’s attention.
This cafeteria in the campus often looked like this: loud and busy. I didn’t enjoy spending my time there to study, but that morning only the idea of staying home made me sick.
I spent the last two weeks studying for three exams, now focusing on the last one of those. Class? Chemical behind the skincare.
I went back to my notes, looking at graphics and formulas well written, trying to revise some useful acids for peeling and the benefits of vitamin c for our skin.
I sipped my coffee and looked at the time. Almost 11 o’clock.
It was so weird to think that the whole campus had the free morning. Someone definitely decided to spend it in bed sleeping, someone just enjoyed their free time and someone, like me, chose to keep on studying.
I never wanted to be the best student, but indeed I wanted to prove myself I could. I just needed to tell myself so, and actually work hard. Luckily, lessons were interesting and I found myself being capable of getting on the top of class.
Even cooking class was satisfying.
In the table next to me, a group of girls were chatting loudly, all smiling and well dressed. They were talking about the real reason why morning classes were cancelled and most of the girls went on campus anyways. The reason they all wore their best dresses and used tons of makeup.
An idol.
Or someone famous.
Again.
Yes, if months ago there were some weird visit by an entertainment company, that morning was the confirmation of a collaboration with the college.
So, an idol in that exact moment was in one of my college’s class filming some stupid advertisement about some stupid product, probably to attract teenagers who are still influenced by whoever is in the commercial.
And it worked just fine.
I sighed lightly reading again the same phrase on my notes. “What’s uva and uvb rays? And how uv sun rays damage our skin?”
Let’s say in the morning, especially on these cold ones, the last thing I think of is putting sunscreen on.
Just waken up then, after embracing a sky full of clouds, that’s definitely not my first thought.
And suddenly I thought about Nana who was surely still sleeping in her warm bed.
I lost every kind of concentration, desolated I closed my books and stopped looking outside the window.
I still had some time before the first lesson started, but it was so obvious that I wasn’t able to keep on revising.
This exam looked infinitely long to study and I still had one to go before the end of the year.
And then I suddenly started thinking about that lesson, one month and a half ago. About that speech the teacher made, about working in a company.
I sank into the chair, trying to make myself as little as possible.
I didn’t know what to do with this information. All my classmates saw the list and picked their favourite company. Some girls, after reading important company names, even started to study more.
And I was the only one in the class who hasn’t choose yet. Well, I didn’t even decided about doing this work or not.
I was one of the best students, suitable for the opportunity, but I was afraid about the whole working and going to classes and studying for exams at the same time. I could have just failed.
Plus, I really couldn’t understand why we had to choose a company, I could really work everywhere they wanted.
I snorted.
I knew my time was almost over, I couldn’t keep on procrastinating. A teacher already stopped me in the hallways to know if I made up my mind. I simply run away.
And then I suddenly thought about the no-boys rule, that has been recently broken by Nana a week ago at a really late halloween party. She kept on saying that she didn’t really broke our promise since she make out with a girl, but we both knew the truth.
On the other hand, I didn’t date anyone, girl or boy. I kinda made friends with other classmates, even ended up in a project group with Jackson, who kept being an acquaintance.
That’s it.
That’s it, like any other Hae-jin story then.
I looked up.
Y/n, stop thinking about him.
Yet, sometimes his kind smile came back to mind.
And even how we never met in the last month and a half, after bumping into each other almost every week.
Slowly the voices in the cafe became quieter and many people left, dispersing in the campus.
I sipped my coffee and I saw myself reflected in the window.
My eyes were tired from the lack of sleep and my cheeks bright pink because of the cold November.
I wrapped myself in my blue hoodie, judging again my morning decision to choose comfort over style. Countless times Nana tried to find any item in my wardrobe to save my outfits, that are so basic to her.
Anyways I did find a trick: just wear an elegant coat over every outfit and suddenly I didn’t look like a mess. Not completely.
I noted mentally to go shopping as soon as my mother sent me some money.
I got up picking my things up and throwing them inside the backpack and, against my will, I exited the cafeteria heading to class to revise the next coming exam. I wasn’t prepared for it, neither for the day ahead.
While i was quickly walking i kept hearing people chat about what was going on in college, and i even saw some people randomly run through the campus, going wherever they heard the idol’s last location was.
And it was just one of those crowds that crushed me. I stumbled, getting hit by thousands hands and shoulders that tried to get me out of the way.
I was almost falling when I ended up crushing a girl, she quickly grabbed me by my shoulders, holding me.
“Everything’s okay?’ She asked worried.
This girl definitely looked older than me, well I could guess she wasn’t going to college anymore. Her neat appearance made me feel ashamed. Everything about her made me think she was one of those girls who really treated herself good.
“I’m fine, thank you.” I said softly and bowed at her. She took a step back, feeling the embarrassment between the two of us.
With her right hand, closed into holding two different phones, she moved a lock of hair with her pinkie.
Only then I noticed she was holding, with her other hand, a big brown leather briefcase. She kinda looked like a business woman, only her windbreaker didn’t suit her style: an huge stuffed one, long ‘till under her knees, with an embroidered word on her chest, probably the name of the company she was working for.
She quickly excused herself and left, not giving me enough time to read that word. I only saw the logo, made by three little triangles that reminded me of the three Giza’s pyramids.
“Y/n!” I heard my name being called while trying to walk in the hallway. “Wait, y/n!”
I turned around to where I thought this voice came, only to see Nana, of course, running to me. In a couple of seconds she joined me and, well, actually she bumped into me, with the biggest hug.
“Y/n-ah, you have no idea how it’s so good to wake up late, i feel so fresh!” Saying so she slapped her cheeks lightly.
“Lucky you.” I looked up.
“Oh my god, what are those? Eye-bags?”.
“I haven’t been sleeping well lately.” I said shrugging my shoulders.
We walked side by side, in silence. Nana knew my weird sleeping habits, she knew it’s been weeks since I had a proper full night of sleep and, luckily, she knew when was the time to not say a word.
And I didn’t have to tell her more.
In the hallways people kept walking and talking, even louder than any other day, it was becoming annoying.
Everyone was frenetically moving, girls stopping mid walking looking at their phones, little half runs and continuously checking their hair.
I was getting curious to know who was the reason of this whole mess.
“Hold this: I have a concealer that matches your skin color.” Nana suddenly gave me her make-up trousse. We have so differently skin color, even different undertones, but I wasn’t shocked at all: we often tried make-up products together, even sharing them for fun. “If it’s not your color, you’re good enough to make it work it out. I know lately you’re not into this, but your eye-bags could literally scare the teacher.”
I smiled at her, knowing that she was trying to make me feel better and she definitely didn’t want me to look like a zombie.
We left in front of the class door, she headed inside to take seats while I just tried to remember where the closest toilet was.
Needless to say that I didn’t know at all: campus and buildings were huge, every lesson was taken in a different classroom and I still couldn’t orient myself. I only followed the signs.
I found myself walking for the whole hallway and after turning twice, fifty metres ahead, I ended up in a blind alley, with some doors on the sides.
Above one of them, a sign with a drawing of a lady. And behind that same door a group of girl exited the toilet. Coming across, we bowed slightly.
All of the sudden, behind myself I heard a soft sound, getting slowly louder until the rustle clearly turned into quick steps in the hallways.
I turned around confused, but I could only see me and the other four girls.
I was so focused on that sound which was gettin louder and kinda deafening because of the echo on the walls, that I didn’t notice I was slowly going backwards.
And when I turned, I didn’t have the time to clearly see the person I bumped into.
Raising my gaze, I saw some details.
A black button down shirt. A strong arm. Fine jawline.
And then the shoulder I literally crush into.
The man was taller than me so his shoulder was at the same height as my face, and because of my abrupt movement I ended up hitting him.
I got hurt on the side of my face, a strong smack at my right ear.
Suddenly my head started spinning, there was a loud strong whistle that kept shutting my thoughts. I stumbled untill I lied to the closest wall.
Every sound was padded. I brought my hands to my head, I could literally heard my blood angrily pulsing.
I didn’t know what was around me anymore. My vision was blurred, it was hard for me to focus on anything.
I ended up squeeze my eyes multiple times.
The man stopped, and I only knew because I couldn’t hear any close steps.
My legs were shaking and the whistle still there, not letting me think straight.
“Oh.” A manly voice that sounded so far away. “I am sorry.” His cold and formal words made me shiver.
The only thing I was thinking about was to find a quite place to sit, any place.
And then, like someone opened a door with air stream, steps and voices got louder.
The whistle left, letting me finally hear but every little sound now was painful as a stab. I looked up trying to recall the place, feeling the rough wall behind me.
I was so shocked to see a crowd of people coming towards me, and a man I could clearly see because he was taller than anyone. That man. He just run out to another hallway.
I didn’t see more because once I recognised the toilet door I only thought about laying on the little couch each bathroom in campus had.
I moved quickly.
I closed my eyes while sinking on it. Slowly I started feeling better, no more dizziness. My heartbeat was regular now.
Outside, finally the silence.
It still took me a couple of minutes before getting up. I decided to splash my face with some cold water and suddenly I felt a little better, more awake.
I could still clearly see how sick I looked.
Maybe it was time for that concealer to save me.
I quickly applied some makeup, trying to hide my dark eye-bags. I fixed my hair tying them up into a ponytail to look more clean.
“You look awful.” I whispered.
I exited the toilet and redo the same way backwards. Empty hallways and silences.
Only my steps echoing between the yellowish walls.
Three times I bumped into someone that morning. Three differs ways, three different people, three different pair of arms touched me.
Hold.
Loved.
Hurt.
Slightly bent over, I got closer to Nana who took a seat in the middle raw.
I tried to be as quiet as possible and to be the more invisible I could. The teacher already started the lesson and he was writing fast on the blackboard.
“Y/n, what happened?”
Nana asked after looking at the clock on the wall, and then at me. I let myself fall onto the chair, giving back her trousse.
“I don’t think I am feeling good, after class I am going home.”
I was slowly walking through the campus, heading to the exit while thinking about taking a long nap before getting back to study.
I needed to rest.
And i needed a painkiller for my headache.
“Miss. Y/l/n! Miss!” I heard a door slamming and quick steps. Beside me, my history of makeup’s teacher was closing our distance.
“Yes?” I asked. Behind him, inside the hallway people were talking and looking at us.
“I am truly sorry to disturb you, but I needed to know if you decided about the job. As I have already told you, this is the last week to sign up.”
“I am really thankful for your interest, but I haven’t had the time to look at the list, so I think I’ll have t-“ I couldn’t end the phrase because the teacher, after looking up for a folder and finding it inside his briefcase, interrupted me.
“Here it is.” He gave me the folder smiling.
“Honestly, I still won’t have the time to choose, I’m too busy studying for exams.”
“Miss y/l/n, that’s not the first time we talked about this.”
“I am truly sorry, I don’t think I’ll be able to study and work and attend classes, all together.”
“Miss, I never thought of you as a lazy person, but you know better than me that classes are ending soon and there are just a few exams to be taken. Do you really want to risk to lose this opportunity?”
“What if I can’t do it?”
“Miss, you’re on the top five of the class, we are positive you’ll be able to make it just fine. And if you won’t, we do not expect you to pass every exam this semester.”
“But it will be humiliat-“
“It will be more embarrassing to lose such an opportunity to work with professionals. I don’t want to force you, but I think you’ll regret this in the future.”
He kept smiling the whole time, trying maybe to reassure me, while his words were sharp.
I really just wanted to go home, forget about everything and sleep. Thinking too much made my headache stronger.
I raised my gaze, ignoring his face. Behind him, I could see some people staring.
“All I ask you is to think about it.”
I grabbed the folder and hold it tight.
I just needed to resist one more week, and wait for the deadline.
But the idea of meeting persistent teachers made me feel sick. More than I already was.
“Are you feeling good?” He asked worried, taking on step closer.
“Not really. Teacher, I don’t really have time to choose between the companies right now.”
“I have a proposal. Actually, you can even meet them now if yo-“ He stopped talking mid sentence. “A-are you feeling good? You look pale, do you need some water?”
“Thank you teacher, I just need to go home and rest.” I quickly smiled.
“Please, think about my proposal. I actually highlighted the company in the list and at the end of the folder I gave you some informations.”
He sounded so noisy.
“Okay okay. I surrender, I accept. Please send me via mail al the papers I need to fill and I’ll gave it back to you as soon as possible. But now, I really need to go.”
I quickly bowed and left, heading to the closest bus stop.
The headache was painful as ever. I found myself crying on my way home.
————————————————
A/n:
I am truly sorry, it took me ages to write this chapter. I keep on revising it because I think it’s kinda dark and sad: it resembles what happened in the last weeks.
AnywaysI hope you still like it, and please dm me if you want to be tagged in next chapters!
Look forwards to the next ones, they’re gonna be gooooooood!!
#park haejin#park hae jin#korean actor#story#park hae jin x y/n#park har jin x reader#park#k actor#kdrama#writing in the spare time#writing#a place far away#original#forest
46 notes
·
View notes
Text
niche interests list
okay sure yes this is fun! i havent posted a thing like this in such a long time. thank you new gal pal @scottspack for tagging me!
pigs????
alright first lets throw it back to preschool! my fav childhood toys were my baby doll (snookums) and a plush pig that my grandma got me that i just called ‘pig’ ...i watched the babe movies countless times, and piglet? that anxious little guy GETS ME bro. when my preschool did a nativity play and my class got to choose an animal to be in baby jesus’ manger, my mother recalls me saying that i would be a pig because jewish people (jesus christ) wouldnt eat me. she has no idea how or when i learned about kosher foods. ironically despite my namesake i was too afraid of the movie charlotte’s web to watch it more than once because the scary farmer tries to kill wilbur for being small and the pretty spider dies.
sugar creek gang
OKAY this is a book series from the 40s-70s about a group of christian little boys in indiana who went on adventures in the woods and helped people. my dad read a LOT of chapter books to me as bedtime stories when i was little (see also the mandie series, nancy drew and the hardy boys, little house on the prairie) but sugar creek gang is one that really hit. i read all 36 books with dad and at least once again on my own. there was a series of 4 or 5 movies in the early 2000s when i was the Perfect age to have a crush on most if not all of them. this might be too much detail but i have to tell you about these boys. we WILL not be revisiting the heavy religious themes.
the narrator is bill who is Good and Kind and wants to be a doctor when he grows up. his best friend is a chubby boy nicknamed poetry because he memorizes and quotes poems, he is the Detective of the group. BIG JIM is the leader of the group who is supposed to be like, 14, which was very cool and hot, to me. and yes there is a little jim, who is the baby of the group. then there is CIRCUS who is known for his climbing and acrobatics, and his FIVE SISTERS AND BEAUTIFUL SINGING VOICE. dreamboy. i’m almost done listing boys, i promise. a boy called dragonfly who is allergic to everything and hella superstitious. later in the series a new boy named tom moves to town and tom has an older brother bob who is NOT A CHRISTIAN (bully)
tangentially, the buttercream gang, a movie from 1992 that was almost definitely made by some christians who grew up reading the sugar creek gang series which i’m guessing on vibes alone. will spare you Good Boy details but scott is in love with his best friend pete who moves to chicago and falls in with a bad crowd and scott just refuses to stop LOVING HIM. very gay christian film in retrospect.
peter pan
so i know liking disney’s peter pan isnt niche, but it was the way i liked it. tinker bell stan from day one, i watched all of those disney fairies movies, even the ones that came out after i was definitely not intended audience. there was an online pixie hollow game where you could design your own fairies and play mini games where you gathered dew drops or something. had a HUGE CRUSH on jeremy sumpter in peter pan (2003) then i got really darkly obsessed with the idea of growing up when i was 12 or 13, and everything peter pan was deeply My Shit for my entire adolescence. i read the original book and every other twisted version of the story i could find and seriously freaked myself out about wasting my youth.
shug
you’ve probably heard of jenny han now, or at least the netflix adaptations for to all the boys i’ve loved before and the sequel ps i still love you (always and forever, lara jean, coming soon?) but before she wrote THOSE, she wrote my first ever Favorite Book, about annemarie “shug” wilcox, a girl in the summer before starting middle school. it is SO engraved on my heart i cannot explain. i felt so incredibly understood and cant even tell you how many times i read it. thinking about all of the ways it made me feel SEEN is actually making me very tender so i’m gonna go on.
the summer series
on the subject of jenny han, since she was now my Favorite author, when she came out with the summer i turned pretty in 2009, i was ALL IN. it’s not summer without you, and we’ll always have summer were published the next two years. a coming of age series about a girl isabel “belly” conklin who stays at her mother’s best friend's house at the beach in the summers. i really could talk about it forever yall. i actually dont know how to be succinct about it. i will try. her mom’s friend has TWO BOYS. one brother, jeremiah, is the golden boy and her best friend who is in love with her! the older one CONRAD is her childhood crush who's just sort of around while belly is firmly getting over her childish feelings and going out and experiencing teen beach life with jeremiah for the first time and figuring out who she is and wants to be! by the end of the summer he admits he feels differently about her (hence belly internalizing this as The Summer I Turned Pretty) and they get together. this is already too much so i will just say that the next two books deal with a PROFOUND LOSS and the selfishness of grief and the SELFLESSNESS OF CONRAD and i will absolutely lose my shit if netflix picks it up for a second jenny han series adaptation.
pappyland
this was a kids show in the 90′s that features a character named Pappy Drew-It, an artist dressed like a 49er who lives in a magic cabin in pappyland. there’s tons of characters and music and life lessons but the meat of every episode is a detailed drawing how-to (pappy is actually a cartoonist, michael cariglio) and i have a hard back cover sketch book from my grandpa that i FILLED with drawings that pappy and DOODLEBUG taught me to do. there is a running gag that pappy always breaks his crayons.
boy meets world
i KNOW this is beloved by many but i’m counting it because i’m simply too young to have such an obsession with it! the show ran from 1992-2000. i was born in 1996, but reruns on the disney channel and abc family cemented it as one of my favorite shows. cory and shawn, closer than brothers, shameless homoromantics, shawn is cory’s first wife!!!!! truly showed me what a best friend can and should be!!!!!! the great love of your life!!!!! TOPANGA, the og weird feminist girl who said stop shaving your legs and start speaking your mind, ladies! the characters are so richly developed that they are real people to my heart. YES every character on this show is in their late 30s-early 40s and YES i feel like we grew up together. in season one they’re in the 6th grade and we follow them all the way to COLLEGE. countless poignant life lessons, often literally dictated by the wise and hilarious MR. FEENY, cory’s next door neighbor and somehow one of his teachers for YEARS. my love was only solidified by the 2014 girl meets world reboot, centered on cory and topanga’s daughter and her best friend. (which was literally cancelled because disney didn’t want to transition from a kids show to a teen show, something essential to the original. also because that teen show would have had CANON LESBIANS. extremely shameful move in 2017!) boy meets world lives rent free in my heart and i will never evict it!!!!!!!
i consulted my mother when i got stumped for more and she reminded me that i had obsessions with the impressionist art period and babies and ANYTHING fairies or pixies, and i was way too young when my love of the canadian teen after school special degrassi began. she also said bob ross, which i was hesitant to include because he’s been super ~trendy in recent years, but to be fair (To Be Faaairrr) she’s right! i don’t think people really watched the joy of painting as much as i have throughout my life. best sick day show of all time.
lastly i could honestly list anna herself as a niche interest, my mom actually metioned that ive always hyperfixated on my girl friends (gay) but i’ll just note that YES friday night lights, YES barry lyga novels. love to share so many things with you, niche or not, they’re niche in Our Mind.
#with the baby obsession came an obsession with adoption#my aunt and uncle adopted and when i learned that there were ORPHANS whew#i was in preschool judging people for getting pregnant when there were SO many babies without mommies#she had a good point!#also does being a niall girl in 2012 count
8 notes
·
View notes
Text
My 25 year adjacency to arts culture as a woman, and how it informs me being anti-anti
When I first started my art-making, in roughly about 1994, I was a young Gen Xr who liked zines, underground/edgy comics, magazines like Juxtapoz (which back then covered a lot of lowbrow and outsider stuff but now is pretty slick and commercial), and the stuff you saw at old school coffeehouses and used record stores. Later, Rocky Horror, Night Flight, and Spike & Mike’s Sick & Twisted Animation Festival entered my vocabulary. I taught myself enough art to start sketching out a horror comic about a suicide victim whose soul just jumps into another body, who has no memory of the life he had before. A kid who’d never fit anywhere - because my parents never fit anywhere - I found a home in liminal spaces. I was going to my entry level middle class job in the morning then spending my free time in grungy shops along the beach boardwalk that were run by ex-hippies.
A majority of my friends were guys - a mix of old school nerds/geeks and pot-smoking guys who hung around. (And a couple of oldschool hippies.) It’s my guy friendships that largely shaped my artistic vocabulary; they encouraged me with stuff like “oh yeah, add that eyeball, that’d be sick, dude.” Everything that made me anxious, I put on the page. Everything scary or odd in my environment, I put on the page.
Then at 21, I started taking art classes. Where I found, universally, that creative content is very heavily policed by gender. And that creative content is very heavily gendered in and of itself. There is work that men are allowed to create, and work that women are allowed to create. I also discovered that people saw women visibly involved in youth or alternative culture *very* differently, and very much more negatively, from how they saw young men. And I discovered that men were the universal creative voice but women were expected just to create for female audiences. Men could create anything they wanted and not get policed about it (unless the thing was so overtly hateful that it didn’t even make the much lower bar of 1990s social acceptability), men could create “adults only” and dominantly created all the teenage material, men could portray disturbing or distressing subjects or “gritty real life.” Women on the other hand, couldn’t. Anything non-generic that we drew, resulted in intense analysis of whether or not we were “good” or “bad” women.
And it was mainly women policing other women. Not nearly as many of the men actually gave a shit.
I found that men were encouraged to be original and have a “voice” but women were expected to fall into line and draw the same content as hundreds of other women. I observed that art teachers - ESPECIALLY women art teachers and ESPECIALLY the “feminist” ones - gave different types of encouragement to male students than to female ones.
I found that in order to not alienate women art teachers or women classmates, I had to do art the “right” way. It had to be one of the following:
* Boats, kittens, flowers, or some other totally non-threatening, wholesome, cozy subject matter, completely safe for old church ladies and young children. (This is honestly why the “twee” and Manic Pixie Dream Girl/cupcake culture of the late 00s and early 10s, really set my teeth on edge. Just more of the same, in a new package.)
* some kind of leftover 60s-70s style white liberal We Are The World crap.
* feminist art, which was a niche, was the only acceptable space to be “edgy” in, as long as one was edgy in the specific way that was prescribed. However if you did feminist art, you were never going to get a showing or make any money off of your work. But it was a “noble” kind of poverty. (That’s a thing about white feminist culture of the 90s, it was still heavily dominated by Boomer hippie mentality and heavily discouraged female ambition while accepting male ambition as an immutable fact of life that we were “better than.”)
And the pressure was even heavier on marginalized women artists because you weren’t allowed to paint and profit from any part of your own marginalized experience. ALL of the social capital was on the part of affluent and or white people talking about groups that weren’t theirs. If you talked about someone else’s experience you were a Good Person but if it was your own experience then you were either a dangerous militant and probably a commie, or you were just seen as a big whiner.
The pressure then was to get commercial graphics training and do production work for the creators who were permitted to create. Work that had nothing to do with you (which is what I ended up doing because it was the Prescribed Middle Class Path in art). And then once in commercial graphics, there was another two-track system: men got to do bigger projects and self-promotional work. Women were almost always socialized to stay small with everything. The attrition rate of women designers in my generation and older is EXTREMELY high, because you can’t build a competitive commercial portfolio on church bake sale ads. People blamed male-preferring employers but nobody would ever take responsibility for the ways women are socialized or trained much earlier in our career and schooling lives.
One of the big problems is that many of the traditional acceptable male topics, which get the most attention and visibility from passersby, are unacceptable from women creators. Men are encouraged to create huge wall-sized works but women to stay small and cozy.
Also, marginalization was only an acceptable topic as long as white male artists were portraying it. Otherwise you ran into the anger or talking-back-against taboo that pretty much everyone but white cis het men are subject to.
Then there was this. If you were a woman and didn’t paint cozy pastoralia then automatically your work was branded feminist by the mainstream. But that didn’t protect you from the most harmful parts of a lot of proto-TERF 80s/90s analysis. The Personal Is Political meant that everything you did was held up to the light for political analysis in ways that white male work never was.
I’m careful to point out race here because I do feel like race came into it. A lot of the benefits given to men here are specific to affluent white men. When poor white men painted, it was called lowbrow art. When people painted who were neither of those groups, and it wasn’t one of the 3 or 4 allowed “safe” topics, then it was called “dangerous militant propaganda” at worst or just “crackpottery” at best.
And the art of mentally ill people? Forget it. Once you have a mental health diagnosis, everything you do is seen as a facet of your mental illness. You aren’t a human being anymore. It doesn’t help that artists who come into art via the medicalized culture of mental illness, via art therapy, are seen forever as art therapy patients and not artists. Even though many artists who are mentally ill are subsistence artists, and many artists who are mentally ill have an art practice that predates their diagnosis, and many are subsistence artists who can’t hold other work.
tl;dr this is the background I come from with regard to why I’m never going to support anti-culture or cancel-culture. It is dominantly at this point a culture of policing based on extremely gendered social rules, a lot of it is based upon what women/marginalized people are specifically allowed to create and say about our own lives, and I am never going to be here for it.
22 notes
·
View notes
Text
The MCU’s Daughters Prequel: Whatever
A/N: This is a Prequel, to my new story The MCU’s Daughter, inspired by Brie Larson’s album Finally Out of PE. Whatever is the inspiration only. Hope you like it.
Summary: Long before she was the MCU’s Daughter. Before they were the Internet’s Daughters. They were just teenage girls trying to fit into a new system, a new country and a new school. Before all the fame and success two teens first became friends and teammates.
Warnings: Mentions of Depression, Anxiety, Epilepsy, Violence, Extreme Angst, Minor Fluff
March 8th 2016
Tegan
Why does New Zealand have to have such a weird education system?
You can’t get into high school without doing 8 speeches?
What 5-year-old does a speech?
What would they talk about?
Dora?
The cat in the hat?
It’s insanity. Also since when does creating a youtube channel count as speeches. Also why in the hell did I say I could sing at the beginning of the year? I mean I can, when I’m alone and not standing in the girls' loo after my friends banished all of the girls needing it for half an hour, claiming that it had the best acoustics for recording me singing before we shot the video in the library.
God, why am I here? I should have just prepared 7 speeches and given them to the class throughout the year to get it over with. But no my social anxiety decided to be a bitch and refused to let me take that offer thinking no one would ever see me sing. Boy was I wrong.
“OK, Tegan you stand her by the mic and sing like nobody’s watching,” Inday said with a reassuring smile.
“Much easier said than done, Indy, very much easier said than done.”
“Just do it or you’ll have to spend another year here and I and you both know that you think you’ve been here too long anyway.”
“Ok Blaire Waldorf but is the camera really necessary. I’m fine with all of you listening through the wall on the computer with your headphones in but I don’t want you to see me. I have a doctor's note if you need to say I need to keep my triggers to a minimum if you need.”
“Tegan I’ll get rid of the camera just no snarky.”
“But snarky is fun, Alexandra.”
“Simone handle her.”
“Everyone out and let her do her thing without the camera and she’ll do great.”
“Fine.” And with that, the door shut and I was left in peace in the girls' bathroom less than a month ago I had had a panic attack in.
I really have to do this, don’t I?
Just breath. In. Out. In. Out. Focus all you have to do is sing and not panic and get into high school and you can remove all of these videos from existence. Someone is going to pay for this rule.
I let it out. I began to sing into the mic with all of my year outside the door but I couldn't think about that at the moment all my focus was on the song I had to memorise for today.
When it was all over, I ran to the nearest toilet and puked, sadly for all of my classmates the microphone was still on and they were all hooked up to Saskia’s computer with sound-cancelling headphones listening to me. Great.
As soon as I heard the door opened I sat up leaning against the wall.
“You OK Tegan?”
“Fine just a little sick.”
“You were amazing sweetie. We just have to shoot the video now. You were the last to go.”
All I could do was groan and grasp my hand in the air motioning for someone to help me get up from the ground. Before quickly realizing my stomach wanted to get rid of more content on this wonderful International Women's Day.
“Gross,” Said an English voice from the door, all I did was smile and accept Simone’s help to get up.
“Hey, Robin. How are you?”
“Good and you very clearly are sick.”
“Guys this is my cousin Robin. I don’t know why he’s here but he is.”
“I’ll help shoot if you need and I’m here because I have to do a stupid exchange so which one of you bozos is Lachie because I’m staying with you for 2 weeks.”
“This will be fun.”
“Better you than me Lachie. Because if we were to stay in the same house for longer than 8 hours we’d end up blowing up the entire world. Or the world would end up gone.”
At that statement, everyone laughed and we all got up and headed toward the library for the worst hour of my life.
May 11th 2016
Simone
After the day that was shooting for the past week. Today was just a normal Wednesday. On the bus ride to tech me and Tegan did our normal routine of watching John Oliver on the ride there and on the way back talking to all of our friends. Though today it was all about how the video was going.l That was when Tegan found out the video was going viral. She was not happy about that.
The moment we had finally got Tegan to calm down my phone went off pinging until I opened up Instagram to see who the hell had just messaged me to cause my phone to go off so badly. I saw the name and just passed it to Indy to get her to read it out loud.
“Simone why on the green earth did some big Hollywood hot-shot message you?”
“Who? Tegan asked just after catching an M&M in her mouth and raising her hands in triumph.
“Mark Ruffalo.”
“Hulk? Why on earth did Hulk message you?”
“Tegan. Asking her to send in an audition tape for a role.”
“Tell him I can’t act because I can’t.”
“You can do anything you set your mind to.
“While that was an utterly inspiring sentiment I can’t act for lack of a better word, I suck at anything involving people watch me if you haven’t noticed. I get sick and have panic attacks and ramble like I am now.”
At this point, the whole group went silent plotting ways to get an audition tape together. While Tegan, Saskia and Alexandra continued to chat and eat the assortment of candy, pizza and food arranged around us on the green grass of the tech school during lunch waiting for the bus to pick us up.
All of us combined weren’t smart enough to outsmart her so we turned to the one person who had anything over her. Miss G. We all just gave her a look at the same time and she shook her head and mouthing the words ‘No. She scares me,’ before going back to reading her book.
Why was she scared of Tegan?
Actually, I don’t want to know. If the teacher is scared of her there must be a good reason. There has to be.
When the bus finally came we all stood up after our picnic I noticed Tegan’s sketchbook was open on the ground open to a page of a drawing of the class eating lunch at our makeshift picnic.
By the time we got back to school, I had finally come up with a plan for how to get footage of Tegan acting. A school play. That plan didn’t work because the principal asked her to write and direct it. Then there was the idea to get her to have a role in it. That didn’t work.
I was still focussing on this after school when we were setting up shooting our next video I realized that was the best act anyone has ever done in history. The act of a happy bubbly near teen girl over that of a girl who’s a hot mess with several mental issues, who is wise beyond her years, who’s seen the dark side of humanity and survived. A girl who was forced out of her home because the government despised her mother. Because her mother was scared the government would kidnap her. Because she’s had epilepsy. Because she’s herself.
The best act an actress can do is make people believe they’re someone else in real life and that’s what she’s doing. Fooling the world into believing she’s fine and it works. She does it with us. I know she only seems as happy as she humanly can maintain in real life but when we spend 30-50 minutes shooting at once she can turn from Buttercup to Bubbles in a second.
I just have to cut together clips of her in youtube videos we’ve done and some clips of her when she doesn’t know she’s on camera. And maybe find some clips of her actually acting for good measure.
I was finally disturbed from my planning when I heard Miss G curse under her breathe next to me when Leah ran into her thumb and a click that could be heard by multiple people as we played a game of hide ’n’ seek for a video idea Alexandra had come up with.
A video that we ended up calling ‘how our teacher's thumb was broken’ because that’s what happened. Simple as that. We had learnt to edit our videos well in the short amount of time we’d been doing it and people liked it. If only Tegan would agree to the stupid audition.
I mean she would whether or not she liked it, I’d just rather she chose to do it than us forcing her because she really needs something to go her way for once and if she could get into a movie even if she turned the role down, something would go right for her for once. And as her friend, that’s all I want for her. Simple as that.
I know she misses everyone in her past but I also know if she got this role it’d help her get over it and start anew.
Tags: @hollandarling, @hollandroos, @wazzupmrstark, @keepingupwiththeparkers
4 notes
·
View notes
Text
Did Janet Jackson Get Stalked By A Bear?
Originally Published on January 26, 2016 in Morpheus magazine
Almost as soon as the new year had passed us by, 2016's rumor mill began to churn.
It started during the first week of January, after pop megastar Janet Jackson had announced that she would be postponing her "Unbreakable" tour. Jackson only revealed that she was "recovering," but refused to specify any illness.
Tabloids and talk shows proceeded to ruminate: does Janet Jackson have cancer? Is it a terminal disease? Is her life about to come to an end? What other possible explanation could there be for her canceling this much-anticipated concert tour?
The jailhouse medics who apparently run these "infotainment" outlets made the logical conclusion that Jackson, as a singer, must have throat cancer.
Ultimately, Jackson posted a Twitter video where she confirmed for worried fans that it's not actually throat cancer. But she refused to comment any further on her condition.
Whatever the nature of her sickness, Jackson should be entitled to privacy until she's ready to go public with whatever it is. She may want enough time to get assurances from her doctors that it isn't serious or life-threatening.
Or she may just feel it's no one's business. Just because she's a celebrity doesn't mean she's under any obligation to give us constant updates on her health.
This spiraling rumor was not without recent precedent.
Last month, the lead-up to the theatrical release of The Revenant had cinema thrill-seekers chattering about the possibility that Leonardo Di Caprio's character would be raped by a bear. Such bestial bluster arose following a colorful review by film critic Roger Friedman. The Drudge Report picked up the story, speculating that Di Caprio's portrayal of Nineteenth Century fur trapper Hugh Glass may have undergone some..."creative" reinterpretation.
Mexican director Alejandro Iñárritu publicly laughed off how this absurd rumor about his new film had snowballed to such a ludicrous degree. He also alluded to how, once the studio (20th Century Fox) was forced to debunk the rumor, that may have actually resulted in greater publicity for The Revenant.
Ultimately, moviegoers discovered that Di Caprio's character was mauled (following the historical account of Hugh Glass) on-screen – not raped. Friedman backpedaled, referring to his words in hindsight as a "turn of phrase" while complimenting Iñárritu on how well the director had adapted the book.
The biggest problem with spreading these types of rumors is the existence of naive people out there who so easily believe them. Rumor-mongerers may not always be aware of this.
But sometimes they are. And they simply don't care.
Even if a rumor is false, it runs the risk of damaging a person's reputation. The "slutty" girl who sleeps around with any guy who will buy her a drink. The somewhat-effeminate metrosexual dude who "probably" has HIV. A trailer park gal who has gained a little bit of weight...so "obviously" she must be pregnant. The sugar daddy who has fathered so many children throughout his life, there "must have" been incest involved at some point.
In addition to reinforcing ill repute among the innocent, rumors also can perpetuate stereotypes and cultural biases. For anyone who claims to be a proponent of diversity, that would seem to be a flawed approach toward achieving one's ideals.
We'd think this should be common sense to most people. But then again, consider how many Americans have indicated through polling that they believe Judge Judy is an actual U.S. Supreme Court justice.
When I was in high school, I – the fledgling student activist – placed myself in the middle of a school-wide power struggle over whether to implement block scheduling. I attempted to advocate a reasonable compromise where a combination of 45-minute classes and 90-minute classes would exist concurrently on the same bell schedule.
Many teachers and students agreed with my position. But members of the "pro-block" delegation – including our newly-hired principal – were so intent on having everyone make the transition collectively that they portrayed me as some "anti-block" reactionary. Granted, there were indeed "anti-block" reactionaries amongst our faculty and student body...but I wasn't one of them.
In the end, the principal got his way – and I ended up switching schools and graduating early. The humiliation over my reputation becoming mangled was just too painful for me to allow myself to return to that building for what would have been my senior year. And, unfortunately, some teachers and classmates of mine had let themselves buy into that misbegotten portrayal of me.
Some people couldn't be bothered with asking me what my blueprint for schedule restructuring would specifically look like. They were only accustomed to envisioning one desired outcome...so anything that ran counter to that "must be" something radical or unreasonable.
Likewise, Janet Jackson canceling a tour was such an egregious occurrence that it had to mean a hazardous toxin "must be" ripping through her loins.
Or that the prospect of Leonard Di Caprio filming a scene with a bear is so extreme and surreal that there "must be" bestiality present in the script. Right?
The real reason why so many people thrive on rumor-mongering is because they know that ignoring new ideas or stonewalling alternative solutions might derail their very narrow agendas.
In the cases of Jackson and Di Caprio, the goal was to use these public figures as a way of fabricating salacious gossip. If it generates more Internet clicks and advertising dollars – then who cares if it hurts the people involved, huh?
We should also keep in mind the distinction between making well-reasoned assumptions versus drawing conclusions that are based on snap judgments.
The former is a natural inclination that can still be tempered by rational thinking. The latter is akin to inferring that, say, because John Boehner's skin is strangely pigmented then he must have received a blood transfusion from an Oompa-Loompa.
So, what I suppose what I'm trying to convey would be this: those of you who fall prey to getting swept up in a flurry of crazy rumors are only perpetuating a culture of rampant commercialism, materialism, corruption, and yellow journalism.
Doesn't that just make you proud to be an American?
0 notes
Text
REQUESTED - Not Enough
Request: Heeeey, I saw you had your requests open, and I also read your Familiarity fic AND GURL KILLED IT! Well, I’m shy and this is a weird request so… Yeah. Well, I was wondering, could you do a Peter Parker X Reader with angst? Like. ANGST. STUFF THAT FIC WITH PURE TEENAGE ANGST OR SOMETHING AND THEN IT ENDS WITH SOME FLUFF? Thank you! - Anon
Pairing: Peter Parker X Plus size!Reader
Word Count: 3,440
Warning: Cursing, Self- deprication(The one thing I’m good at), some angst, Peter being a cairing, sugary FLUFF boyfriend
(A/N): Ok, this have been on my request list from before Valentine’s day, I AM SO SORRY, PERSON THAT REQUESTED THIS. I JUST HAVE THIS HUGE BLOCK WRITER AND IT’S PISSING ME OFF AAAAAAA. *inhales* Well,I’ve been wanting to write a plus size!Reader for some time, by now an I do intend on doing one, but with Bucky, so… Yeah. Hope you enjoy this and sorry for any grammar mistakes!
MASTERLIST
“And I know that it wasn’t your fault that you had to cancel our last date, so I was thinking, would you like to pass at my place today?” When you didn’t get an answer, you mumbled, noticing that he wasn’t listening to you “Peter?”
Your heart seemed to sink in your chest when you followed his gaze and saw that he was staring at Lis. Ned frowned his brows when you stopped talking, since he was actually listening to what you were saying.
The sigh came out of you as you turned on your heels, hugging yourself when you saw he continue to walk, too focused on her to miss your heat.
“Dude!” Snapping his eyes back to an angry Ned, he looked around, finally noticing that you weren’t there anymore.
“Where is Y/N?” His best friend’s bitter chuckle made Peter frown his brows in confusion.
“She left after saying that it wasn’t your fault that you missed your last date. Oh, sorry, I mean: She left after she caught you staring that Lis and ignoring her being the best and most supportive girlfriend you’ll ever have.”
“Damn it.” Peter humbled, massaging the bridge of his nose when he got his focus back to you, hearing you sigh, and he knew that sigh. You would make it every time you were in front of the mirror, looking at your body after trying a new dress, shirt, pants, whatever clothing.
“If I was skinnier.” He knew you had a problem accepting your body shape and believing that he loved it and loved you, especially after him having a “thing” with Lis, the “Hot, Amazing, Skinny, Model”, as you would refer her as.
“Seriously, Peter. You really think she doesn’t notice you twisting your neck to look at your ex? You really think that she won’t start to imagine that you’re turning her down because you’re having a thing with Lis? Do you even imagine how she must feel?”
“I don’t have a ‘thing’ with Lis! Not anymore!” Ned huffed at his answer, denying with his head and walking to his class
“Is not to me you should say that to.”
Peter couldn’t stop himself from sighing when he entered the classroom and saw you in the end of the classroom; you were using an oversized hoodie with a spider-man pattern on it. You didn’t knew that Peter was your favorite super-hero, which made him even more delighted, since you were supporting him for being the vigilante and not his boyfriend.
“Hey, you disappeared out of nowhere.” Rising your head, you watched as he sat by your side for the first time in weeks.
“Are you sure you want to be seen with me?” Peter sank into the chair when your sincere whisper made its way to him. You did actually asked him that, as if you thought he was ashamed to be seen with you.
“Why wouldn’t I?” Shrugging your shoulders, you turned back at your notebook, drawing aleatory lines and patterns. “Hey… Why do I think I wouldn’t want to be seen with you?”
“Huh, I imagined, since it make some weeks that you’ve been sitting with Lis.” Your sad mumble seemed to hit him like a punch on the stomach, your eyes focused on the paper
“She’s been having trouble with biology, I just wanted to help.” You shrugged your shoulders again, trying not to look as hurt as you actually were
“I don’t mind, really. I understand if you prefer to sit with her. I guess she takes less space than I do, huh?” You forced a giggle, trying to make fun of yourself so it would minimize the damage of him finding out you were bothered.
“Don’t say that, you don’t take space.” Peter frowned his brows, watching you pull more the sleeves of the hoodie so they could pass your hands as you leaned your chin on it.
“My parents say the contrary.” He knew what you were doing; you were trying to make fun of your problems so he would ignore it. Everyone would fall for it, since you always made it look like it wasn’t a big deal.
“Your parents are jerks.”
“I know that, that’s why I live alone, Peter.” You pulled your book and opened in the page you knew the teacher was going to ask when she appeared.
“I’m sorry, babe.” He grabbed your hand, pulling it to his cheek, making you look at his melted chocolate eyes. “I know I’ve been being a total idiot and not giving you the time you deserve; I really want to make up to everything.”
“Well, you can start with, going to my house today at seven.” You cracked a smile, not being able to get mad at those honest puppy eyes.
“That sounds amazing! What about we watch Harry Potter? Uh, no! Maybe we could watch Star Wars! You know how much I love Star Wars.” You laughed at his bubbly talk, bringing his hand and kissing the knuckles of them before bringing to your cheek;
“Peter?” It was an instinctive reaction to snap his eyes quickly at Lis; she was holding her own books, placing it on the table in front of yours. “Are you sitting with me, today?”
“Sure.” You felt those waves of goosebumps being send through your body; those that seemed to come when you were about to cry or just feeling too sad. Peter noticed the weird feeling leaving your body and looked at you, noticing that you had grabbed the paper back and continued to scribble on it, releasing the grip on his hand. “I mean, sorry, I won’t. Not today.”
“Really? Is it because of her? She won’t mind, right, Y/N?” Rising your eyes at Lis, you met her beautiful face and remembered how you thought her and Peter made a pretty couple when they were together.
“Right. I’m feeling kinda’ off today, anyways. I’ll call it sick day.” You mumbled, packing your things and ignoring Peter calling your name, you walked passed them and almost ran out of the classroom. Not doing it because you were afraid to fall and make you look even more ridiculous than you thought you were.
“Love!” Peter grabbed your elbow, making your back bump into his chest, you would’ve asked him when he got that muscular, but you were too concentrated in not crying in the middle of the corridor, to give a fuck. “Sweetheart, what is going on? Tell me the truth, please.”
“The truth? How can you ask me for that when you are not being true with me?” He gulped when you turned to him with a hurt expression, knowing that he was a cause of it. “You’ve been lying to me since we started whatever this is. I’ve been ok with it, because I thought ‘hey, who doesn’t have secrets, right?’ but I can’t do this no more, Peter. I can’t cry myself to sleep another night because I’m not sure if my boyfriend is over his ex or even if he loves me. I can’t! I can’t undress myself from new clothes I bought for a date you turned down without giving any explanation. I can’t see your bruises and pretend I don’t know you are all stitched up from your neck down.”
“It’s… Complicated.” Peter sighed, part of him proud of his girl for being able to notice his hidden bruises only from looking at him, while the other part was broken that you would think he didn’t love you and that you were crying because of him.
“Then explain! Explain to me like I had to explain you how a woman’s body works, or how I had to teach you how to properly hug someone! Just say it! Say it before I go and jump into stupid conclusions!” He rubbed his face, trying to release the pressure of the headache that was begging to spread between his brows.
“It’s not something to say at school, babe.” Your frustrated sigh made Peter place both of his hands on the side of your face, stroking your cheeks with his thumbs and resting his own forehead on yours, watching closely your teary eyes and you trying to control your shaky breath. “I promise I’ll tell you tonight. I’ll tell you after we binge-watch any show you want me to. I’ll tell you after we eat four whole pizzas. I’ll tell you after we cuddle. I’ll tell you after I remind you of how beautiful you are. I’ll tell you after I say that I love you with all my might, and that I’m not ashamed of that.”
“Do you promise?” He looked at you with such admiration and love that everyone that passed by the two of you on the corridor, couldn’t help but to want someone to look at them that way.
“I promise, life.” You hooked on his hands, snuggling your face in his palms and turning to kiss both of them. “I love you so much, Y/N… How did you end up with a loser like me?” Peter brought you back to a tight and warm hug while you kissed his chest, nipping his neck and jaw.
“You are not a loser. And honestly, I’m the one to ask that. How did you end up with a loser like me?” He giggled and denied with his head, giving small pecks all over your face, making sweet grins appears on it.
“Let’s get back to class so I can sit by my girl’s side and make the boys jealous.” Loudly laughing, you denied with your head, snuggling into Peter’s side hug and tangling your fingers with the ones hanging next to your shoulder.
“Dork.”
“Your dork.” Feeling his lips on your temple, you smirked at Lis. Yeah, two can play the game, darling.
She huffed in annoyance as Peter sat by your side, ignoring her and whispering sweet things to you.
Lis wasn’t mean, no. She was actually pretty nice, but you were with the boy she loved, after all.
Is not as if she hated you, she couldn’t, since she knew you were a sweet piece of cake and could totally understand why Peter was with you.
“Mr. Parker, we all know you’re dating Mrs. Y/L/N, so you don’t need to be glued on her.” Stifling a laugh, you pulled away of your boyfriend. Not too much, though.
“At seven, don’t forget!” Peter smiled with your shout, nodding with his head and weaving as he watched you leave with worry to your work.
“Peter?” He turned his gaze at Lis; she was carrying his notebook with a guilty look on her eyes. “You’re going somewhere at night?”
“Huh, actually, yes. Why? Do you need anything?” She extended his notebook back to him; Lis had taken it to study.
“I was wondering if you… wouldn’t like to go on a movie with me?” Peter went pale when she finished her sentence, were you right on thinking that Lis still had feelings for him?
“Shit! Huh, Lis… I am so sorry if I gave you the wrong impression, but… I’m with Y/N, now.”
“But does she know that you are Spiderman?” Hushing her with his hand, Peter looked around, searching for anyone that might have heard what she said.
“She doesn’t, I’ll tell her today.”
“What if she doesn’t understand you, huh? And – uhm- dump you? Are you sure is the right thing to do?” Peter narrowed his eyes at the sight in front of him, remembering what Natasha had told him earlier that week; people can manipulate him with the slightest things. ‘you are extremely easy to manipulate. Work on that.’ She told Peter.
“Yes, I’m sure. Now, I’m going to see my aunt. Goodbye, Lis.” She watched as he got away and ran from her again. Why couldn’t him just love her as he loved you? What did you have that she didn’t?
“Him… She have him.” With a sigh, Lis moved back to the school as she felt sadness ran down her spine. “Guess you won, after all.”
And he was late.
More specifically, three hours late.
You blew off the candles on the table with the dinner you took most of your time to do it, but everything was already cold and wouldn’t be the same if you heated.
Glancing to the text that Peter had sent you hours before, you chuckled without humor, liking Ned’s picture that denied what you ‘boyfriend’ had texted you; that Ned wasn’t feeling good and that he would be some minutes late.
Well the only thing that made it’s way to your mind was what you saw earlier when you had to get back at school because you left your keys in your locker; Peter was really close to Lis, he had his hands on her and was intensely looking into her eyes before saying something that you couldn’t hear.
You didn’t even have the strength to take your new clothes off, but neither you were tired. You were just… Apathetic.
Apathetic and sad at the same time, and that wasn’t even possible.
Getting out of your apartment by the window, you took the fire escape to the roof, inhaling deeply and sitting at the edge of the terrace to watch the lights of Queens.
There was a silent buzz next to you, calling your attention; you saw Spiderman land next to you.
His suit was damaged, there was some blood spots and the person under it was puffy, taking sharp gasps.
“Hey.” You mumbled, backing your eyes to the lights “If I weren’t feeling like shit, I would probably freak the fuck out and fangirl… but I’m not in the mood, sorry.” He stood on the same spot, crouched and looking deeply at you.
“Why?” Shrugging your shoulders, you brushed off the feeling of familiarity that the voice brought you.
“My boyfriend turned me down, again… I mean, I get why he wouldn’t remember that today was our six months anniversary, since I just remembered when I was at work. But it doesn’t turn less painful, ya’ know?” Crossing your arms to warm yourself, you kept your eyes locked at one point somewhere on the building in front of you “He lied to me. He’s probably with his ex… Again, I get him. I mean… Look at me. I even tried to dress up nicely, but I’m still not enough.” The first tears came out as you felt him tense up by your side, you even thought you saw him raise his hand and back it down. “I’m not pretty, I’m not smart, I’m not funny, I’m not interesting… I’m just not enough. I’m not enough at work, I’m not enough at school, I’m not enough for my family, I’m not enough for my friends, I’m not enough for him… I’m not enough!”
Your sobs grew louder as you held yourself on the edge, trying your best not to lose your balance.
“You know, I worked really hard to pay for the dinner. I cooked! Can you imagine me cooking? Believe me, I’m no good next to sharp, pointy or explosive things. I’m clumsy.” Showing the prove of it, you raised your hand to show Spiderman the multiple Band-Aids wrapped on your fingers. “Well, it doesn’t matter anymore. The food is all cold, anyway.”
You weren’t the only one crying.
He couldn’t handle seeing you that way, so vulnerable and small. It took you a few moments of sobbing and sniffing to calm yourself down.
“I’m sorry; I just dropped everything on you… Your problems must be way bigger than mines.” Sniffing, you wiped away your tears, forcing a smile to the person that heard you whimper for minutes. “So… Vigilante, huh?”
Peter didn’t know if he was lightheaded from all the times he was throw around like a ragdoll minutes before, or if it was all the love he felt for you.
But the only thing he could do was bring you to his chest, tangling his fingers into your hair and pressing his covered lips on your forehead.
“Huh, Mr. Spiderman? I don’t know if you listened to what I said, but, I have a boyfriend.” He chuckled at your mumble, sniffing and nodding with his head.
“A stupid and unworthy of you, I may add.” Peter almost sobbed, you frowned your brows as you backed away, looking deeply into the mask before raising your hands to the end of it, asking for permission with your eyes and receiving a nod, you took it off from him; losing your air when you saw your boyfriend all bruised. “Hi.” You would’ve laughed at his awkward greeting if you weren’t worried by his state.
“To hell your ‘hi’! What the fuck, Peter!” Grabbing his chin so you could turn his face to see all the wounds, you heard him hiss in pain
“I’m so–”
“First we patch you up, and then we’ll talk about you letting me fangirl about you to you.” Peter chuckled as you got back to the fire escape, letting him use you as support, you helped him to enter your apartment and sat him on the couch. “Wait a second, I’ll grab the first aid, don’t die on my couch.”
“I’ll try not to.” Not being able to control, you let a light giggle come out while you ran back to your boyfriend and stood between his legs, using rubbing alcohol and gazes to clean all the scratches and cuts on his cheeks and chin.
“Strip for me.” Peter laughed at your wobbly brows, it caused him pain in the ribs and you noticed. “So that is what you do when you cancel our dates, huh?” You helped him to get out of his suit, letting it rest on his hips as you kneeled to the ground so you could clean the ones on his chest, ribs and abdomen.
“Yeah… I was going to tell you today, but… you know…” You hummed, full aware of his eyes on your face.
“What?”
“You’re beautiful.” Pressing harder into his ribs and causing him to flinch, you smiled innocently at him.
“Thanks.” You continued to work in silence on his wounds, it didn’t took him long to start to talk, bothered with you not saying anything.
“About what you said on the roof-”
“I am not talking about that.”
“Y/N.” He stopped your hands and you lifted your eyes at his, seeing pain, regret, love and devotion all mixed together. “You are more than enough, you are amazing at everything you do and I love that about you. You are the most beautiful girl I have ever laid my eyes on, I still can’t believe you accepted to go on that date with me six months ago.” Peter brought your knuckles to his lips before snuggling his own face on the palm of your hands. “I don’t feel anything for Lis, not anymore. I’ve been paying attention to her because she knows my secret. She found out and I was scared that she would tell someone about it.”
“If she do, I’ll beat the crap out of her. I don’t care if I’m the most pacifist person that walked on this planet, I will punch her in the face.” He laughed at your mumble and you stroke his cheeks with your thumbs, like how he did earlier that day. “Why didn’t you just told me, Pete? I’m your girlfriend, I would support you, no matter what.”
“It’s dangerous for people to know, love.” Peter whispered back, pulling you gently so you were even closer to his face; he watched your features, the ones he loved so much, the ones that filled his dreams, even when he wasn’t at sleep. “I’m sorry I made you feel that way, but I’m selfish and I can’t afford to lose you, not you… So please, don’t leave me.”
He rested his forehead on yours like he always did ever since you told that you loved each other a five months ago; you took his tired and in pain figure, not thinking before pressing your lips against his, stroking his eyelids and brows.
“Never. You’re stuck with me forever, Spiderman.” Peter sighed in relief, pulling you to lay by his side on the couch. You turned your back at him, feeling his hands nuzzle into your stomach as he cuddled you, taking a deep breath on the crook of your neck. “Star Wars or Harry Potter?”
“Whatever you want, my love.” His muffled words made you giggle and snuggle more into him, feeling pep kisses on your shoulder and neck; he would do that a lot.
But, well, who could blame him?
When you love someone, it’s hard to keep your hands away.
Condemned to a forever tagging: @fangirlandnerd
#spiderman#spiderman imagine#spiderman x reader#imagine spiderman#request#requested#peter parker#peter parker x reader#imagine peter parker#marvel#tom holland#plus size reader#peter parker fluff#avengers#imagine#one-shot#oneshot#one shot
2K notes
·
View notes
Text
A colourful mind - Jughead Jones x reader
Please don’t repost anywhere without my permission! (or I’ll hunt you down)
Summary: You are sick of seeing in black and white so you try to find your soulmate. However it is not the one you expected.
Pairing: Jughead Jones x reader
Word count: 1,600+
Note: please note some words are BreE as I’ve only learned only this variation at school and I mainly use British vocab rather than American. Thank you!
A/N: okay so maybe you don’t know but I’m a bitch for some soulmate AU and I’ll read it till the end of my days. Anyway, I’ve decided to write a piece of my own concerning this AU. Hope you like it! And please let me know if you’d like part 2 :)
Masterlist
———————-
Almost everybody had their soulmate in this world. You could meet them when you were five of fifty years old but when you did, the world suddenly was a better place than before. The moment of meeting your soulmate was not very noticeable at first, however, after a while you started seeing in colours. And it all started with a single touch. Then, hair you brushed everyday faded to blonde or became more vivid shade of red or brown. After discovering your soulmate your world had changed, hopefully for better.
(Y/N) (L/N) had still been seeing in black and white but it didn’t bother her in a slightest. After all, her mother had told her that everything had its time and place. Therefore, (Y/N) waited patiently for her soulmate, believing that they would meet one day, when she would not expect it.
While living in California, (Y/N)’s eyesight had not changed at all. Sometimes though, she prayed for a soulmate because of one simple reason – all of her closest friends had already found their soulmates. They described to her how the grass looks or what the colours of the sunset are. These little things made (Y/N) to see for herself all the wonders of the world.
The day the whole family moved to Riverdale was a big deal to (Y/N). Even though she doubted that she would find a soulmate in such a small town, there was a slight hope of meeting new people that she hasn’t touched. New people and maybe among them, her soulmate.
Who knew.
After a while she became friends with two nice girls from her school, Betty and Veronica who often hung out with two boys during the lunch break but she had never bothered to come and join them. She preferred to be alone sometimes, drawing people from afar. Because of lack of ability to distinguish colours, (Y/N) only used pencils to draw. After all, people said that it is the colour she could see.
And so she drew, sitting under the big tree in the yard until one day Betty approached her and renewed her offer for (Y/N) to join the group during the lunch.
And (Y/N) did so.
Archie and Jughead, as (Y/N) got introduced to them, had one thing in common with her -both did not see colours. The only one who did, was Betty but she seemed to be upset whenever the topic was brought up, so (Y/N) made a mental note to herself to not bring it up. Like ever.
Because there were the cases when somebody were your soulmate but you weren’t theirs. These cases were rare but occurred. Nobody really knew why it was this way but that’s how the things were and it had been accepted. Nonetheless, people who had not have mutual relationship with their soulmates were pitied.
(Y/N) did not want to look at Betty through the eyes of the soulmate thing because Betty was a wonderful whole on her own. With or without a soulmate.
The other day, when the five of friends were supposed to meet at Pop’s, (Y/N) arrived earlier than she was supposed to and she saw that she was not the only one. In a booth across the diner, sat Jughead, typing furiously on his laptop. She approached him, a bit uncomfortable.
“Hi Jughead” greeted (Y/N), smiling slightly.
Jughead only nodded quickly and returned to writing. She knew that this was just the way he was, quiet, laconic. Moreover, they were not close friends, they barely spoke to each other. Being in one group of friends did not make them real friends. They simply enjoyed the silence they shared while waiting for the others to join them, (Y/N) sipping her chocolate milkshake and Jughead slowly eating his fries.
(Y/N) looked at him while he was still too focused on writing and she decided to create something of her own. She slowly took the sketchbook out of her bag and opened it on a blank page. With the several strokes she planned the pose and proportions and then she started to draw more details. Like the way Jughead’s curls escaped the beanie he always wore. Or the way his brows furrowed as he tried to focus.
(Y/N) was so focused herself on the drawing that she did not see the three of her friends approaching the table.
“Oh what is it” You could feel somebody’s hands snatching your sketchbook out of your hands, fingers slightly brushing with each other, before you could protest. “Wow, (Y/N) this is really good. It’s like we had second Jughead with us”
(Y/N) noticed how Jughead’s head turned to Archie, as he was the one who took her sketchbook. The slight crimson colour creeped her cheeks as she felt the heat rushing there.
“Archie, please give it back” she said, reaching her hand out.
Archie did give it back, again brushing their fingers and (Y/N) couldn’t shake the feeling that he was doing it on purpose. Like he was checking if she had been his soulmate. (Y/N) shrugged it off and hid the sketchbook away from the hungry eyes of her friends.
They spent their time joking around talking happily before returning to their homes around 9 p.m. . (Y/N) laid in the bed that night, wondering if the next morning would be different for her.
But it wasn’t.
The familiar shades of black and white greeted her as soon as she opened her eyes and then she knew. Archie Andrews wasn’t her soulmate. She felt a little disappointed because after a while she quite desperately wanted to enjoy her life to the fullest and by that she meant seeing in colours.
Two months passed quickly and summer tuned to autumn with its all grace. The cold weather surprised (Y/N) one day as she hurried to the bus stop, her hands freezing.
She was already a bit late for her classes, only two minutes left and a whole building to go through. Because she was not looking where she was going, she collided with a heavy body in a school hallway. The impact made her lose her balance and the cry of surprise escaped her lips as she fell on the floor.
“Oh god, (N/Y), are you okay?” she saw
Jughead before her, offering her a hand.
She accepted it and stood up, feeling a striking pain in her calf.
“Thanks Juggie, no time, gotta go!” and as soon as she appeared, she disappeared out of his sight, running slower this time because of the pain.
During the last class (Y/N) couldn’t focus on what the teacher was saying because of the horrible headache that had no intentions to go away anytime soon. She tried to relieve some of the pain by rubbing her temples but the effect was non-existent. Going home was no less pleasurable as her vision became a bit blurry as the pain came and went in a waves, sending the pulses through her whole body.
She was in no shape to meet with Betty and Veronica later at Pop’s and the thought of cancelling plant came to her mind once or twice before she texted Betty about the situation.
Her mother seemed to worry but nonetheless she didn’t say much and gave her daughter the painkiller when (Y/N) asked her.
I’m just gonna take a nap, thought (Y/N) and closed her eyes.
She woke up the next day as the alarm clock on her phone went off. She yawned and realised that the pain was gone… and something odd seemed to happen. Her vision was sharp like always but the tone of her sheets seemed different. Or maybe it was just her imagination?
With a firm shake of her head, she started dressing up. And it all went well without any complications until the first time she saw Archie that day.
He was standing with Betty and Veronica near their lockers, just chatting about the upcoming game. There was, however, something different when she looked at him. He smiled in the same way, wore the same jock jacket… all about him seemed the same and different at the same time.
“Did you do something new to your hair, Archie?” asked (Y/N), utterly confused by the weird sensation she had been feeling since she saw him.
“No, I don’t think so, I mean I might have put more hair gel than I wanted to but I guess it still looks the same. Right?” Archie started touching his hair frantically.
“I mean it seems to be a different colour-“ (Y/N) suddenly stopped talking as the realisation hit her.
She saw Archie’s hair. It was a bit different. Because she saw its colour.
(Y/N) gasped and she saw that Veronica and Betty’s eyes open wide.
“You see your first colour” stated Betty, a shock on her face. “Oh god, (Y/N). Who did you touch yesterday?”
(Y/N) thought for a bit and nobody special came through her mind as she was in too much pain to notice.
“I don’t really remember. I mean the whole day is quite a blur because of the headache I had” She shivered at the thought of the pain. “In the morning it was quite alright, I mean, I was barely on time and then run into Jughead, like literally but-“
“Wait” Veronica interrupted (Y/N) “ Did you and Jughead touch?”
“I guess so?” to be honest, (Y/N) wasn’t sure. She tried to recreate the scene.
Oh.
They did indeed touch.
“We did” she whispered, a look of disbelief on her face.
Was Jughead her soulmate? Was it mutual? Or maybe he was not her soulmate?
“Speaking of Jughead, I haven’t seen him yet” Archie’s voice pulled (Y/N) out of the trance.
Veronica and Betty exchanged knowing look before speaking to (Y/N)
“You need to talk to him” Started Betty, and Veronica joined in.
“Now” They said in unison.
Part2
#my post#mywriting#jughead jones#jughead#riverdale#jughead jones x reader#jughead jones one shot#a colourful mind
124 notes
·
View notes
Text
Reiki Stones How To Use Reiki Stones For Chakra Healing Wonderful Ideas
Verbally repeat this to yourself and your family.It has no dogma and there are no deep dark secrets to be compatible with their teacher.Anyone can learn reiki without attunement, either person to another, some therapist have got their cars going when the air above the paper and hold the paper in between your body in one certain place, it will be open, and negativity will be grateful that you are able to treat clients.Reiki is believed that Reiki Practitioners have different motivations and perspectives at various degrees of initiation.
Reiki massage table, fully clothed, lies on a mental shopping list, over and over and near specific areas in the same results with it.The energies are channeled into the source, strengthening the energy is restricted and when this happens, we become less open to revealing symbols to produce disease or illness without answers, the power on yourself, but if the person to be disturbed, in a wonderfully profound way.The best way to open your chakras so you might be described as a person.What Can Reiki Do starts with self attunement.If possible go and speak to this question.
For some of the possibilities if we use daily like the Breathing meditation, which implicates all mandatory healing practices.10 The Hand positions cannot be proven scientifically.And you need to heal is because Reiki is believed that it activated his crown chakra at the time and provide a level of Reiki guidance.What I mean by empowerment here is that Reiki Energy is the founding teachers were concerned - was something that is based on the other amazing benefots of Reiki.It provides the ultimate illustration of the time, so I've been using Reiki have been quite successful.
Before receiving Reiki, she was going to do treatments in their patients.Most of the sufferer, and practitioners will also outline the history of Reiki massage is an important role and allows the image is vague other times very vivid.Layering an energy source is all around yourself.The healing process placing hands on the coach.Karuna is a non-invasive approach to well being to the system are:
The attunement process yourself and others.I only wish these new age programs were available to you when you are but a few.Through this symbol, the reiki attunements is given symbols and drawing it in their body to get my level I certification, I was working in our families or in painful techniques.Extend your left hand, across your body to heal itself if these modifications sometimes ruin that thing or change it completely.It is a healing reaction or an underlying order in the aura of the chakras and free of charge for services given or charges very little.
These are sacred and vary according to the hospital gave direct Reiki on a path, the Reiki Bubble to surround a patient; whereas, the Reiki energy is strengthened, and it also can heal over distance and pass on this energy.financial success into their very own pockets.Reiki works in conjunction with other spiritual healing and balance to their instinctive nature and boundaries of our life force energy that all things are important to us.o Just for today, I choose not to absorb them yourself!Reiki healing has roots that are behind that.
A physician client who is seeking balance, peace and harmony of the reiki power symbol, which we have frequencies which can be discovered - their hands above the body and illumines the mind, body, and soul, opens energy channels and meridians in the body.The traditional route to the modality that most Reiki healing is also called an active, ritualistic form of alternative medicine treatments for breast cancer survivor whose cancer later returned and metasticized, decided that the world to help your family members or anybody who had difficulty connecting to meta-physical spiritual energies with respective symbols.The first original energy, Shakti, is believed to be effective, one is comfortable with the first person to be bestowed.Contingent on the desperation of those ways - a lesson from our results, then we discuss ways to describe the process goes through the sessions in your aura.The practitioner may take you only have to go to a new level of Reiki is available only by yogis, or it should definitely be a loving gift of God awakens within us.
When I was shocked and in fact it has been of use Reiki has brought up a very powerful Reiki symbol is one of the, if not all paths lead to Self-Empowerment by providing you with the universal spiritual energy and assist other humans to become more balanced, allowing them to feel better.Some recipients claim they can be coupled with learning to journey to pregnancy and birth.This energy flows through the chakras starting at the same as he tells all the intricacies of its many benefits!In Reiki healing classes could definitely introduce you to take in all you can also be taught by Mikao UsuiSoon your understanding of Heaven and Earth energy.
Reiki Healing Boulder
A deep acceptance levels of disagreement.When you have been known to benefit their patients but some other place of their own health and is therefore on personal evolution, and healing effects.The first impact of the highest good...it is always around us and those who wished to work your way up to this healing technique may even aid a person both spiritually, physically, and emotionally, as well as for my little one to receive the light of the stomach.Cortisol inhibits the creation of cytokines, which are characterized by seven frequencies.The drive is a little like judging someone because they are grateful for the life path transformation later.
After attending a seminar on guided imagery he decided to write the symbols to several of his students.Undoubtedly there are hundreds of people have made it easy for anyone interested in a wide range of meditation on an intensely personal journey to become Reiki Master prepares the student is said to help people heal.She has the strongest physical effect on the journey to motherhood with Reiki.The final level of the 11 heart patients treated with the massage for Reiki attunement?So you can receive the benefits of Reiki to the system of Reiki masters - full of violet color and perceived from the practitioner, in spiritual healing; the recipient will cancel out the duties of that level.
The first hand the benefits you will discover that it's impossible or that of the student not only when practiced on oneself as well as how to communicate with the spark needed to help clients cope with everyday stress, or hyper-tension, Reiki has become unbalanced.Just as the crown, palm and heart transplantations performed by the subconscious mind, to create healing in the space by imagining the Reiki healer in a relaxing medicine can be defined loosely as a tool for spiritual, emotional and transcendental level.Repeat as often as you need to heal and to do level two, they are the advantages have been worshipping the Earth Ki, as it aids restful sleep.If a client knows that the attunement process starts with the ethereal body and be mindful of the Japanese philosophy and passion and is seemingly influenced wholly by ancient Japanese wisdom, whereas the latter borrows from the client and the Recipient by the myriad of other forms of Reiki training.It is as old as the body are transformed into pure spiritual vitality.
However, for those who wish to develop a healing for yourself.Comfortable and loose clothing is worn by the reiki practitioner, you can be performed with a 21 day period of ten weeks.Make time if you ever meet one who takes life as a result of the core of the root cause.Reiki is natural life force leaves our body really needs.I have been overlooked in individual Reiki Master.
Anybody can learn it from Sedona to Flagstaff in 20 minutes.As a group, discuss your needs and the same when I am not exaggerating when I am so fascinated I took my first reiki class and explore more in-depth how you can find a reputable course.His heart was weak and sick and the healer sends forth the energy, the higher self's connection to each other.If you view Reiki as a tool used in hospitals with medical procedures.This energy is a Japanese gentleman born in the grip of acute depression are as much as the practitioner in the aura.
The Reiki treatment produces a good effect on your bed and take it where it needs to be a certified Reiki masters draw it counter clockwise when applied Reiki.Using brainwave entrainment recording will make the healing positions?I decided to use an alternative to modern drugs.Imagine that during the late nineteenth and early 20th century.Like having a peaceful atmosphere for me, it felt like I had been and how to give more time and money required to have a lineage going back to the spirit of Hamlet that there are a good nights sleep, restored and relaxed, and how it works at that time.
Reiki Cure Herpes
Learning Reiki as a useful complementary tool, along with the information you have all your own body, we could discuss what exactly could she do with religious beliefs at all, know about these healing stories for these methods in combination.It's commonly thought to come back again in a woman's cycle to support the growth of follicles and recruitment of healthy eggs, the fertilization of eggs and meats at odd times of the phenomena described here plus your knees and feet.She also had her suspicions that the Reiki system and practice of reiki knowledge to just accept that she had gone to church every Sunday.The distant sessions are a highly motivated person used to begin to apply the Reiki energy healing.This helps balance the spiritual realm and the raising of powerful energy that will change your perspective and decide to go back and pelvic pains.
Reiki is love and harmony in the use of crystals, candles or other professional.It began to spread throughout the body whose vital energy forces of life.Through the teachings that are discovering a multitude of possibilities and are rarely used today.Bringing a sense of well-being through the practitioner.Distant healing, as the chemical components of blood pressure
0 notes
Text
Lessons Learned Outside the Bell Curve: The Story of Tricia Antonini, 20-Year Cancer Warrior
It was a Saturday in summer of 1997 when Dr. Chris Brown, then 41, reported for on call duty at the Tom Baker Cancer Centre in Calgary. He picked up his patients’ medical charts and commenced his rounds at the room of a new leukemia patient. As he strode into the room, he noticed a young woman who appeared to be in her early twenties, sitting on her hospital bed poring over a mess of books spread out before her, while her mother hovered nearby. The patient had diamond-blue eyes and apple cheeks that were swollen like those of “a chipmunk, due to extreme mucositis,” a condition that often affects chemotherapy patients and leaves them with swollen faces and excruciatingly sore oral tissue. In his naturally cheerful manner, Dr. Brown introduced himself to the patient saying, “Hello, I’m Dr. Brown, and I’m on call for the weekend.” The young woman looked up at the doctor and regarded him with “laser beams.” Without speaking, the young woman communicated so much in a single look; strength, intelligence, determination. Her name was Tricia Antonini and she would go on to demonstrate all of these qualities in spades over the next 20 years.
The young woman looked up at the doctor and regarded him with “laser beams.” Without speaking, the young woman communicated so much in a single look; strength, intelligence, determination. Her name was Tricia Antonini and she would go on to demonstrate all of these qualities in spades over the next 20 years.
Tricia’s true story begins 23 years before that moment on May 21, 1974 at Pasqua Hospital in Regina, Saskatchewan. On that spring day, Lou and Marie Antonini gratefully welcomed their second child, a baby girl, whom they called Tricia Louise. Dad Lou Antonini, a burly man with a thick moustache, remembers the day they brought their daughter home, “Then, we had one of each. She filled our family.”
Mom Marie Antonini, a pretty woman with dark hair and wide green eyes, says, growing up, Tricia was an easy-going child who was always busy with extra-curricular activities and who never subjected them to ‘those scary teen years.’ When asked if Tricia’s incredible strength ever revealed itself early on, Marie recalls a time when Tricia overcame, seemingly on her own, an instance of grade-school bullying. As a gifted child, Tricia excelled in school and often put her hand up in class which sometimes led to her being teased and ostracized by her classmates. Marie remembers, “…one of the teachers spoke to me at an interview and said, ‘I don’t know how she comes to school’, and I didn’t know what she was talking about… [Tricia] wasn’t really sharing with us, so we didn’t realize how bad things were, but you know she just stuck through that year and then kind of went on… I almost think it even strengthened her.”
“…one of the teachers spoke to me at an interview and said, ‘I don’t know how she comes to school’, and I didn’t know what she was talking about… [Tricia] wasn’t really sharing with us, so we didn’t realize how bad things were...”
When she reached high school, Tricia began to shine. She had moved on from her mean girl experience and found a group of good friends. Among those friends was Tasha Westerman whom she met in grade 10 and whom she remains best friends with to this day.
Tricia participated in a number of activities from school council to band to swimming and demonstrated talent in art and music. In addition to playing the flute, French horn, and jazz piano, Tricia loved to create art and was regularly called upon to hand-draw many of the school’s event posters. Best friend Tasha Westerman remembers how Tricia was in high school, “She was always really social, always willing to help out when others needed it. She would stay after school to help with events, organizing or fundraising or anything.”
High school also gave big brother Brandon Antonini, now 46 and a father of 11-year-old twin boys, new reasons to look out for his pretty, younger sister. “I found out she went on a date with one of my friends… There was nothing good about it, it wasn’t allowed and was quickly snuffed out!” Always her “protector” since childhood, Brandon would later prove just how much that title meant to him when he would become the donor for not one but two of Tricia’s unheard of three stem cell transplants. When asked about his childhood with Tricia, Brandon warmly recalls one summer in the early 1980s when they watched National Lampoon’s Summer Vacation with Chevy Chase close to two hundred times and the way Tricia always supported him throughout his athletic endeavours as a competitive swimmer.
Upon graduating from high school (and much to her art teacher’s dismay), Tricia chose to pursue a career in accounting at the University of Regina and then began working for PwC through an accounting fellowship in 1995. Upon completing her degree, Tricia moved to Calgary to continue working for PwC Calgary in January of 1997.
There, while still in her first year as a chartered accountant articling student, Tricia signed up to play in the firm’s annual golf tournament.
Though she managed to play all 18 holes, Tricia collapsed at the end of the tournament and was rushed to Red Deer Hospital where she awoke feeling embarrassed. Thinking perhaps she had had too much to drink, mortification quickly turned to panic when she was told by doctors she had leukemia and was transferred by ambulance to the Tom Baker Cancer Centre.
A biopsy confirmed this suspicion a few days later and she began her first chemotherapy session. Before beginning treatment, however, she was adamant that she wanted to write her final exam to become a chartered accountant. Cancer or no cancer, Tricia had plans.
Together with her doctor it was decided Tricia would cancel her registration in an exam prep course but still write the qualifying exam, in a separate room away from the other students to mitigate risk of infection given her immune-suppressed state. Dad Lou Antonini recalls this trying time and his daughter’s determination to continue with her plans despite the life-threatening diagnosis, “I remember when she was first diagnosed, sitting on the floor, so sick from chemo, still studying [for her exams.]” Some months later Tricia received her first stem cell transplant (her brother Brandon was the donor) and a year later she wrote her final accounting exam (a process that takes 4 days and 4 hours of exam writing per day) and passed.
In December 2002, when Tricia was 28, she threw a Toast to Life party to celebrate 5 years of cancer freedom. She welcomed her friends, family, and doctors, and thanked everyone for their support. She also encouraged them all to ‘engage the moment’ and ‘toast life’ every day.
Three weeks later, Tricia felt tired and her lips looked pale. The leukemia had returned.
As Tricia underwent chemotherapy for the second time, her doctors considered whether a non-related stem cell donor might improve her chances of remission. A match was found. The donor was a man from Germany. Two years later, she would find out his name was Oliver.
Once Tricia was in remission again, she travelled to Europe for the first time and met Oliver in his small town outside Bavaria, Germany. She returned to work and continued volunteering with First Connections, a support program through the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society of Canada, as a peer counsellor for newly diagnosed leukemia and lymphoma patients. She resumed her duties as Board of Trustees member for the Alberta chapter of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society of Canada which she helped found earlier in 2002.
Friend and fellow peer counsellor and Provincial Advisory Council (PAC) Cancer member Lorelee Marin remembers how dedicated Tricia was to improving the lives of Albertans facing cancer, “Tricia always shared her perspective in a beautiful and compassionate way, she was always focused on the "patient-first" approach to care and [on offering] solutions…”
“Tricia always shared her perspective in a beautiful and compassionate way, she was always focused on the "patient-first" approach to care and [on offering] solutions…”
It was 2004 and life was good, but it was about to get even better. Tricia’s employer made her an offer she couldn’t refuse: relocation to Manhattan for three years to work on an international project with PwC’s global head office. Tricia didn’t hesitate for a New York minute. She embraced the opportunity and fearlessly hopped on a plane to New York City in the summer of 2005.
Once there Tricia leaned into her career and, in her free time, pursued her dream of acting. She walked the city’s endless street blocks and found something to be amazed by on every corner. She met people from different parts of the world and grew her circle of international friends. She sat in restaurants where tables were jammed too close together and she fell in love with the pad thai where the restaurant employees recognized her by her weekly order. Tricia was in the zone.
About a year after moving to New York, she was preparing to leave for a weekend in the Hamptons when she got a fever. Another leukemia relapse. Tricia’s relapse was diagnosed on July 17, 2006 at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Centre in New York, but opted to return home to Calgary for treatment so that she could be near family. She flew home with her mom on July 19, 2006 and drove directly to the Tom Baker Cancer Centre where she met with her doctors. The following is an excerpt from Lou Antonini’s journal about his experience with Tricia’s second relapse:
The doctors then told us that a third bone marrow transplant would not work… and that there were two courses of action to take: One, enjoy the balance of time she had left by extending it as long as possible with transfusions of blood products. (This way she would not go through the hell that chemo creates, and [live] a few months, in relative comfort. [Two], hit it hard with two sessions of chemo and then, if that got her to remission, go into a third 'maintenance' phase that would be continuous and could extend her life to a few years instead of a few months, again in relative comfort. The problem with the second choice was that she could go through the first two phases of chemo and all the torture and still not be in remission.
Tricia was not ready to give up and chose to fight again.
And fight she would.
On July 30, 2006, just 10 days into her first session of chemo and with next to no infection-fighting white blood cells, an innocuous black mark appeared at her central line incision.
Her blood pressure began to drop and she was quickly admitted to intensive care. In just one hour the black mark had bloomed and was identified as necrotizing fasciitis or, as it is better known, flesh-eating disease. Hospital staff prepared Tricia for emergency surgery which was needed to scrape away the deadly bacteria before it had any more chance to spread. After surgery Lou Antonini went to see his daughter and broke into tears at the sight of her:
When Tricia returned from surgery she was on life support with both breathing and feeding tubes in her throat, a catheter in, and a wound the size of my hand that extended from just below her Adam’s apple down about 5 inches and 8 inches across. Everything had been removed including her front neck muscles and it was at least an inch deep. I remember after seeing it for the first time I cried on and off for about three hours.
Tricia was kept on life support and in the five days following surgery developed two cold viruses as well as pneumonia. With no immune system to even fight a cold sore Tricia’s condition was grim.
Doctors advised the family to prepare for the likelihood that Tricia would not survive her stay in intensive care. The doctor added that even if she did survive, they would not be able to continue with chemotherapy which would leave her only a few months to live, at best.
Devastated, Lou and Marie Antonini sought the opinion of Tricia’s first oncologist. Tricia’s doctor agreed with the original prognosis but noted that Tricia’s white blood cell count had risen unexpectedly overnight. Cautiously, the doctor told the distressed couple that there may be a glimmer of hope if Tricia’s white blood cell count continued to rise.
Over the next two weeks, Tricia remained in the ICU with her neck exposed. Her parents took alternating shifts and together stayed at her bedside 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
As days went by Tricia’s white blood cell count eked gradually upwards. On August 11, 2006 her breathing tube was removed. The next day she was discharged from ICU and sent back to Unit 57 at the Tom Baker Cancer Centre.
Things were starting to look up. A biopsy was done to determine the state of Tricia’s leukemia and whether she could resume chemotherapy. When the biopsy came back, the results revealed that Tricia’s leukemia was in remission!
Despite only 10 days of chemotherapy, the plan had worked. Tricia and her family were ecstatic and breathed an enormous sigh of relief that she was stabilizing. A couple of months later, after extensive physiotherapy, multiple complications, a skin graft, and removal of her feeding tube, Tricia was discharged.
After Tricia’s harrowing experience in the ICU, she and her parents packed their bags for Maui.
According to Tricia, when they arrived to the island she could barely walk on her own, “I had to use a wheelchair to make our connection, so my mobility was still in a state of recovery... When we went down to the beach, I had to get help. By the end of it I was snorkeling by myself, and I could get up by getting onto all fours. I got so much stronger in that period of time. We were like, How can we get back here? It’s an energy of different sorts, and it’s healing.”
One year following the family’s trip to Maui, Tricia was approved for a clinical trial thanks to the combined effort of Dr. Brown and the team of doctors in Calgary and Dr. James Young, attending physician, Bone Marrow Transplant Service, Division of Hematologic Oncology, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Centre in New York. A year later, on June 12, 2008, Tricia received her third stem cell transplant (a claim only a handful of people around the world can make.) Once again, her protector Brandon Antonini was the donor.
The next six years would be filled with the blissfully ordinary events of everyday life: birthdays and baby showers; drinks with friends and dinners with family; weddings and funerals. There would be highs and lows (or peaks and valleys as Tricia and Tasha came to refer to them): returning to New York to visit with friends, helping Tasha through her own cancer diagnoses, making Avenue Magazine’s list of Top 40 Under 40, saying goodbye to her Grandmas Mary and Amanda, returning to Maui with her family, and saying goodbye to her friend Ryan, Tasha’s first husband, to brain cancer.
In 2011 Tricia joined Alberta Health Services’ Patient Advisory Council – Cancer (PAC – Cancer) and used her remarkable communication skills, business acumen, and first-hand experience as a cancer patient to improve cancer care for Albertans across the province. Lorelee Marin, fellow PAC – Cancer member, remembers the way “Tricia showed us all how we [could] make a difference.”
And though Tricia knew she was living outside the bell curve and that every day was a gift, she was completely unprepared for what she was about to learn. The following is an excerpt from Tricia’s blog published November 2, 2014:
I haven't posted for well over a year - because life has been good and busy and no major health developments to report. I even just a month ago was in NYC speaking at the Sloan Kettering Cancer Centre's transplant celebration, reporting that 6 years and 3 months later, no sign of leukemia. Was transferred into the "long-term patient" clinic at the Bone Marrow Clinic in July. Leukemia seems to be quiet right now.
Unfortunately a couple days ago, I found out I have a new challenge to deal with - Breast Cancer. Yep. WTF. Exactly. My first mammogram at age 40 prompted an ultrasound and then biopsy last Monday and Thursday afternoon I went to the Bone Marrow Clinic and got results - invasive ductal carcinoma. Just about lost my breath and my mind at that moment. Totally believed the scleroderma (skin thickening GVHD from transplant #3), scar tissue from 4 central lines in my chest over 17 years and oh yeah, scar tissue from the surgery and skin graft I have in my neck and chest following flesh-eating disease was showing up in the ultrasound as unusual. But probably the most convincing argument that this would NOT be cancer, was that I already did that. 3 times.
Once more, Tricia was facing cancer. Her course of treatment for her breast cancer involved a bilateral mastectomy and chemotherapy. It was the doctors’ belief the cancer had not metastasized.
Once again life marched on and Tricia marched along with it. She went back to New York in October of 2015 for Memorial Sloan Kettering’s 20th Annual Transplant Survivor Celebration, an event close to Tricia’s heart. In January of this past year, the Antonini family made their annual pilgrimage to Maui, home of Tommy Bahamas, one of Tricia’s favourite restaurants, and the site of her incredible, 2007, post-ICU recovery.
This past April Tricia began to experience headaches and went to the emergency room to get checked out. She was told she had five tumours in her brain. Two days later Tricia posted an update on her blog about the most recent development in her health. At the end of her update she shared a piece of writing that she had written in conjunction with a painting she had made entitled The Black which Tricia painted to convey the pain and suffering associated with loss. Below is an excerpt of Tricia’s The Black:
The Black by Tricia Antonini
While I would agree with people who say that I am a positive person, and that my ability to stay positive has helped me overcome many challenges, I feel the need to articulate the depth of moments where it is impossible to be positive, or where I have felt simply too tired to live… I used to believe, or possibly hope, that life was overall fair… I don’t believe this to be true anymore. I think shining the spotlight on the darkest moments, understanding, in detail, how we managed to get to the edge of the water we almost drowned in, how we didn’t bleed to death, how our heart managed to heal after being torn to pieces, makes us more capable of surviving the next hit. No matter how many times we are hit. And focusing on how black the black is makes the white extraordinarily more vibrant.
Ironically, Tricia wrote The Black three weeks before learning about her metastatic tumors.
Tricia, now 43, is currently in Calgary receiving palliative care for metastatic brain cancer. She maintains that while her breast cancer diagnosis felt “like someone came [up] behind me and smacked me in the head” and that learning about the metastatic brain tumours felt too foreign and too surreal to seem possible, she says she is not consumed by the questions that haunt so many cancer patients.
”I have had moments where I would say, Well, why is this happening? … Why me? Why not someone else? Because I’ve been doing everything I should be doing when you get told you have cancer. I’ve been volunteering, I’ve been giving back, I’ve been helping to raise funds, I’ve been a mentor for people, I’ve stepped back from my life and changed what I’m doing at work… I’ve been really listening, and I’ve been making the changes that you should make. And having the perspective that you should have…” But then Tricia realizes, “… there’s really smart people working on Why? … And they’ve been working on it for decades, and if they haven’t figured it out, I’m not going to figure it out today. And I have no energy, anyway! So why would I waste it on a question that is impossible to answer?”
Tricia continues our conversation by discussing the importance of research, the narrowness of ‘The Cure’, and her own personal thoughts on cancer:
“…people say, Well, there’s so much money that goes into research and they still haven’t found ‘The Cure.’” For one thing, we’re talking about thousands of diseases, not one disease. It’s grouped [under] this big name called cancer, but it is such a misnomer because they are so different, all of them… the focus shouldn’t be about funding ‘The Cure’ (and if we don’t find the cure, we’ve failed), it should be about funding more moments, creating more moments for people. I mean for me right now, they say [my cancer] is terminal, but you could give me more moments. My friend Ryan who passed away, Tasha’s late husband, he survived for about 15 months longer than they expected [thanks to a clinical trial] before he passed away. The moments that he had in those 15 months, unbelievable! …that ‘more moments’ idea is so true and it extends beyond cancer. Whatever we need to do to have more moments, particularly more potent moments [is] a big deal. To have more moments when the prognosis shows you’re not going to have any more? That’s still miraculous. It’s just as miraculous as a cure.”
When asked about how the passage of time feels now that she knows it’s dwindling, Tricia attests that “life is not about a timeline, it’s about potency.”
She believes that people are “canvasses walking around” and for every moment that we engage fully with the world and allow ourselves to truly be seen, we exchange a bit of paint with one another. Tricia believes that you can either go through life a “blank canvas” or become a “Jackson Pollock”. Time, Tricia says, is irrelevant. Moments are what matter. Potent moments. And lots of them.
Last week on November 22, 2017 at the Tom Baker Cancer Centre, surrounded by her friends, family and medical care team, Tricia awarded fellow philanthropist Elaine Moses with the inaugural Tricia Antonini Award for her contributions to creating a positive and hopeful environment for patients undergoing treatment on Unit 57, Foothills Medical Centre (FMC) and the Blood and Marrow Transplant (BMT) Clinic in Calgary, Alberta.
Written by Diana Gaviria
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Be like Tricia and help create more moments for Albertans facing cancer.
What you can do
Donate to the Alberta Cancer Foundation and help fund life-saving care and ground-breaking research right here in our province.
If you are between the ages of 17 and 35 and in good general health, register to join the One Match Stem Cell & Marrow Network and give someone like Tricia a second chance at life.
0 notes
Last Seen Blogs
tbpresident
Presidentdl
whaler13bg
Mrs. Swift - Kloss 🇧🇬
legalisedmayhem-blog
Oh let the sun beat down upon my face...
mooninagust
moon calls me love
