#youre all really lucky my computer is being taken to the repair store soon or i would make like 30 poststhat are just whining | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

angelicspaceprince · 4 years

Text

Dewey x Crafter Reader Headcanons

Ive fallen down a rabbit hole of crafting and I can't get up. Help me. I write hcs to help save my soul

I'll also edit when I have computer access so then there is a read more button or whatever they're called, I can't find it on mobile

Wrote directly onto the tumblr app so if there are any mistakes that's why. No betas, we die by our spelling and grammar mistakes here

You were a crafter before you met Dewey, having taken up most crafts by the time you were 17

Sewing, needlepoint, embroidery, cross stitch, knitting, crocheting

You'd experimented with them all and even though each one had its merits, you definitely had your favourites

Then life happened. You had to start working, unable to attend college, and soon you had no time to craft. If you were awake, you were working

Mostly low paying jobs to cover rent, bills etc, taking on as many shifts as possible

It was actually during one of your shifts you met Dewey

You started working at a local music shop, mostly serving and organising CDs when a very excited Dewey rocked up, wanting to find the newest release for one of his favourite bands

You got to talking and realised that you had similar music tastes and, even though you really wanted to get to know him more, you had to remain professional. You were still on the clock

Luckily for you, however, you were invited to go see a group of local bands performing to celebrate your friend's birthday

You recognized Dewey the moment he stepped on stage and was in awe at his musical skill

You figured it'd be weird to go up to him and start talking because a) if he didn't recognize you then having a stranger come up to you and say that you remembered him from work would be odd and b) if he DID recognize you from work that'd be even odder

You didn't want to give off stalker vibes, so you stayed at the bar, content just to leave it

Dewey, however, saw you in the crowd and had a different plan in mind

Still riding the adrenaline high from being on stage, he walked straight up to you

"I don't know if you remember me, bu-"

"I remember you."

"Oh."

You both blushed heavily as you shift in your seat. "Drink?" You offered. "I....I liked talking to you earlier, I'd like to talk some more."

Dewey positively beamed at that, sitting down next to you as you effectively start ignoring your friend's birthday party celebrations in favour of talking to the man in front of you

The rest, as they say, was history

You ended up dating pretty quickly after you first met, moving in with each other after only dating for 6 months

It was an accident, you had your power cut off (again) and it was the middle of winter. Dewey offered you a warm place to stay temporarily and after 4 weeks of looking for a new apartment, he just said "you're already living here, just move in with me."

It made things easier, now there were two people contributing to bills

Rent was never paid in full, but something was always sent in

Patty wasn't impressed by that but Ned wasn't as fussed, just happy to have something coming in

It helped that he really liked you and felt that you were a good fit for Dewey

Even though things still remained tough, you were happy just to have a roof over your head and someone who loved you

When Dewey started working for Horace Green, things became easier

Bills were paid with his paycheck, yours became groceries and fuel money

Even then, for the first time in a long time, you had spare cash

Most went into savings but being able to afford your own Netflix account? Felt amazing

Despite having a bit of extra money, some habits were hard to break.

You rarely bought clothing from anywhere but thrift stores and Walmart, Dewey prefering Walmart but essentially doing the same thing

Unfortunately, that meant the clothing you had bought wasn't always the best of quaility, especially when Dewey was the one wearing it

Just the nature of his jumpy, clutzy, accident prone and slightly messy self meant you were constantly buying him new shirts and mending his sweater vests

To be honest, it was getting old

You'd also been missing crafting for a while so. Two birds, one stone

The next time you were in Walmart alone, you grabbed yarn and knitting needles and on the few days a week you were home alone, slowly you started to knit him some new sweater vests, using an old one that was beyond repair as the template to make sure each one fit

The first one was just a plain, fadded red to get yourself back into practice before slowly beginning to add simple designs similar to the few he owned now

Then a couple of weird themed ones, a couple of his favourite bands, one with music notes in the design, one that was birthday themed, one with mini guitars, whatever amused you and you thought would amuse him, you knitted onto the sweater

Each vest took three weeks to make. By the time his birthday came around, you had made him ten new vests, having kept it a secret the entire time

You were super nervous when he opened up his present, but the giant smile on his face was worth it, excited with the concert tickets you managed to get for the two of you (in the pit, of course) and with each new sweater, he got more and more excited

"These are amazing babe! Where did you get them?" He asked as he got up to try his favourite (the one with a replica of his Gibson knitted around the bottom) on

You go quiet. "I....uh.....I made them."

He looked over at you like you just admitted you had found a cure for cancer

You'd neglected to tell him of your crafting past, it never came up so you never said

Now, however, he was keen to see you craft

He never even dared to try it out for himself, but enjoyed watching you knit or crochet without looking at your work, watching TV or chatting to Dewey as you just continued to work

Every year, he got at least two sweaters from you, and you made sure to knit a sensible one and a silly one

What amazed you was the fact that Dewey seemed to have fewer accidents

He took extra special care of all of the stuff you make him, never spilling so much as a drop of coffee on them and tried his best not to get them snagged on the one sharp part of the doorway into his office

One day he came home, nearly in tears

You were folding up laundry but you dropped everything and came rushing over, thinking the absolute worst but instead he simply pushed something into your hands and said "I'm so sorry"

Turns out, he took off his vest when he came in to play a song with the kindergartners, something he now does daily as part of his role as music teacher

He didn't notice one of the kids grabbing it and wandering off with it

It was covered in paint, one of the Gibsons were cut out and the yarn was beginning to unravel, despite clear attempts to keep it from doing so

It was ruined

You hush Dewey as you pull him close and reassure him it's ok, you can make him another one

It took a while to settle him, he treasured everything you made him and he allowed one to get ruined

But once you assured him it was fine and you knew it was an accident, you ended up spooning in the couch as you mentally start planning the new sweater

A month passed when he found a wrapped up parcel on his desk

He was running late, didn't have time to grab a coffee and accidentally grabbed his vest with a massive hole in the back rather than one of your handcrafted ones

Still, he made it to the classroom before any students arrived, so he quickly opened it up and a huge smile plastered its way onto his face

A new sweater vest that was near identicle to his ruined one, a bit cleaner and better designed than the old one

You'd also made him a pair of socks, something you'd been experimenting with, with the AC/DC logos on the side

He found the note at the bottom 'Hope you have a good day. I love you. Y/N. P.S. These are not allowed near the kindergartners ❤'

He quickly changed into the sweater, feeling so much better than he did 5 minutes ago

The socks became his lucky socks and he'd wear them to his gigs, stating that it was like you were up there with him

He shushed you when you pointed out that it meant he was technically stepping on you, telling you "you know what I mean" before giving you a kiss

He'd give you requests for scarves, beanies, the lot. Socks were for bed or performances only, apparently, but everything else was worn whenever

You even made beanies and scarves for members of the band who wanted them, each having the School of Rock logo on it plus the kid's name

Dewey loves wearing and telling everyone about the stuff you make because he thinks it's absolutely incredible you're able to create something like this

And he treasures everything you make him

Most importantly, he's there to listen when you rant that the yarn isn't working like it should, or just about crafting problems in general, and be an ear as you problem solve an issue and is there to celebrate the victories when it finally works

Gets really good at yarn shopping too, picks up the brands you prefer and learns to read the packaging labels

Just

He loves the fact you can create something just like he can

#school of rock musical headcanons #school of rock headcanons #school of rock the musical #school of rock musical #school of rock #dewey finn headcanons #dewey finn/reader #dewey finn #dewey finn x reader #ama writes #amas stuff

114 notes · View notes

emperorsfoot · 4 years

Link

In which the Princess Alliance realizes maybe they probably should have sent out a memo about Horde Prime.

...

“What in the ever loving high holy heck does Adora think she’s doing now!?” Lonnie demanded of the open sky.

She, Kyle, and Rogelio were inspecting construction of the new supply storage bunkers when the sky suddenly and inexplicably cracked open with a light so bright it cut though the perpetual smog layer that blanketed the Fright Zone. Lonnie glared at it, the shape slightly distorted by the haze. But it looked like a cut across the sky. A cut like with a magic sword. So, of course, it had to be Adora and her new friends. After all, what else could it be?

“We do have a way of communicating with Brightmoon, right?” She asked of her companions. “That wasn’t destroyed when Catra and Hordak decided it was a fun idea to blow-up central command, right?”

Both human and reptilian only shrugged. They honestly had no idea. After the portal fiasco when all of the Horde’s upper leadership disappeared, the trio’s focus had been on damage control and reestablishing some kind of infrastructure. Lonnie –whom took over the vacant position as Leader of the Horde- was more concerned with maintaining supply lines that brought grain and rice into the Fright Zone, the things their ration bars were made from. Their food. The stuff they needed to survive. None of them really gave much thought to the equipment that would allow them to put in a call to their enemies.

“I, uh, I can check.” Kyle volunteered.

He rushed off to do exactly what he said he could do.

Rogelio growled something that Lonnie didn’t quite understand. But when the reptilian dashed off after Kyle, she assumed he said that he was going to make sure Kyle didn’t hurt himself in the –still destroyed- Sanctum.

Though neither man could see the action, Lonnie nodded. Kyle was well-meaning and always eager to help. But he was also clumsy and not very mindful. Rogelio would keep him from carelessly injuring himself. Which was good. One less injury meant fewer medical supplies that had to be used. And now that she found herself in command, Lonnie was all about cutting down on needless supply usage and waste.

She turned her attention back to the bunkers she was inspecting.

“Well, show me the new vacuum seals that are supposed to keep vermin out of the food stores.” She commanded the soldier that had been showing her and the other two around the newly constructed bunkers. “We can’t just drop everything we’re doing every time there’s a big light in the sky, or a rainbow knocks over a tank, or a Princess seduces your boss’ boss, or the central command blows up.” She reminded them. “We all still have jobs to do!”

Making their way through the Fright Zone, back to the central command building, Kyle was still getting used to people stopping and saluting him.

Just a few months ago, he, Rogelio, and Lonnie were all still just ‘cadets’. But, dang!, did a lot happen in those few months! Catra set off a portal in Hordak’s Sanctum, then disappeared along with Lord Hordak himself, there was a short disagreement between the remaining Force Captains and Lonnie about who should fill the newly vacated leadership position, and –somehow- Lonnie ended up on top. The Commander of the Horde. And as her best friends and teammates since forever, Kyle and Rogelio became her lieutenants.

Where Kyle used to have to be the one to stand to the side and salute if another soldier was walking in the opposite direction than him, now it was the other soldiers that would move out of his way. Flattening themselves against a wall, standing at attention, offering a well-practiced salute. Sometimes even going so far as to say ‘Morning, Lieutenant.’

This had been going on for months now and Kyle still wasn’t used to it. He didn’t know if he’d ever really get used to it. He spent so much of his life so far as metaphorical dirt. He was used to being walked on. He didn’t know if he could ever be the one doing the walking.

Rogelio took his hand and Kyle’s heart jumped for an entirely different reason.

But all the reptilian was doing was bringing to the other man’s attention that they passed the entrance to Hordak’s Sanctum. Kyle was so caught up in reflecting on his new elevation in the Horde, he hadn’t been paying attention to where he was going and passed their destination.

“Right. Sorry.” He demurred. He had to remind himself that he might be a Lieutenant working directly under the new leader of the Horde now, but he was still just the same old Kyle. Absentminded and probably useless. Lonnie only made him a Lieutenant because they were friends.

Inside the Sanctum was mostly bare.

After the initial explosion, the lab and surrounding chambers had been searched for bodies. But the actual clean-up of the Sanctum hadn’t happened until much later. Cleaning up Hordak’s mess wasn’t really a priority. But Lonnie was also practical and not in the habit of leaving usable resources to collect dust just to spite the guy they used to belong to. The Sanctum was cleared out and cleaned up. Anything that wasn’t bolted down got taken out, sorted and repurposed. Scrap metal was melted down, tech that still worked and served a function was repaired and placed back into circulation, tech that was beyond repair and unusable was taken apart and its pieces cannibalized for other machines. The floor was swept and the area was closed off.

Lonnie, Kyle, and Rogelio were the only three in the Fright Zone who knew the new passcodes to get in.

Anything that wasn’t bolted down was cleared out, but there were still a lot of things bolted down. Chief among them, the main monitor display and corresponding computer terminal. If anything had a feature that could get a call through to Brightmoon, it would be this computer array.

Kyle switched it on.

There was a loud humming sound as it booted up, and an uncomfortable scraping sound that implied the inner workers of the computer might not be in as good condition as the exterior would imply.

Kyle chanced a glance at Rogelio to see if the other man might somehow blame him if the device failed.

But reptilian only shrugged his shoulders. Who knew how well any of the crap in Hordak’s Sanctum ever worked in the first place? The guy never really let anyone else in here except his pet Princess, and look how that turned out.

Once the computer was finally booted up and the homescreen appeared –with a few lines going through it to indicate the screen was damaged- Kyle found the communications application easily enough. There was a short delay as the computer dialed Brightmoon. The tech the Rebellion used was not from the same origin as Horde tech and the two were not perfectly compatible. It took a moment for the devices to connect to one another.

The image of Bow appeared on the screen. The device they connected with must have been his Tracker Pad which scanned for incoming signals anyone. He was talking to someone off screen, his head turned so that Kyle and Rogelio only saw him in profile.

“…hang on, my Tracker Pad is picking something up.” He was saying. Then turned to actually look at the screen, and saw that it was just Kyle and Rogelio from the Horde. “Oh! It’s you guys. Now’s not really a good time. Can we put off any new declarations of war for a while?”

Rogelio growled something that nobody understood but Kyle got the distinct impression that the reptilian was commenting on the other man’s assumption that this was a war declaration.

“No-no, it’s nothing like that!” Kyle assured him. “Lonnie just wanted us to call and see what it was Adora was doing this time. Ya see, this bright light just appeared in the sky, and it looks kinda like a cut, like with a magic sword. And Adora’s the only one we know of with a magic sword so… you see where I’m going with this?”

Why did Kyle feel so awkward? Was it because had hadn’t been in a command position long and didn’t know how to talk to people and command respect? Or was it because he was unfit for a command position at all? At least when he was a grunt cadet, he knew his place and where he stood –with enemies as well as allies. Now, as a Lieutenant with responsibilities, he felt so out of place he wasn’t sure he even had a place anymore. He certainly had no idea how he was supposed to talk to the Rebellion’s Tech Master.

“Don’t worry about that.” Bow tried to assure them, sounding much more like he was trying to assure himself. “We’ve got it handled.”

His tone implied that they did not have it –whatever ‘it’ was- handled.

Bow ended the call.

Kyle and Rogelio looked at each other. Just as confused now as they were when the cut of light first appeared in the sky. Bow hadn’t actually given them an explanation as to what it was or what was really going on. That was all Lonnie wanted to know.

“Should we call them back and ask to speak to Adora this time?” He asked.

Rogelio only shrugged. He was also a little unsure as to what to do in his new leadership role.

…

Everyone in Brightmoon was in one stage or another of freaking out.

They all knew this was coming. They all knew Horde Prime was coming.

Entrapta had warned them. Catra had taunted them. Heck! Even Light Hope kinda alluded to this coming, no in so many words, but more in that cryptic and open to interpretation way she did. The fact of the matter was, no one should have been surprised.

Except that no one really believed it would happen this fast. This soon. It took Hordak years –decades, actually- to build a working portal. What reason did they have to assume that Horde Prime could get one working, open, and stable in just a few short months?

It was lucky that Entrapta already finished the weapons she promised. But she had only just finished the ones for Brightmoon. Salineas, Plumeria, and the Queendom of Snows were still unprotected. No to mention all the other territories and Queendoms on the planet.

Micah had met people from Fallen Star Mountain, the territory ruled by the Star Sisters and invited them to join the Alliance. They said that with Hordak defeated there wasn’t a reason to anymore. They were unprotected and unprepared. Sweet Bee and Peekablue sent their reply in the same message, one piece of paper bearing both their seals –apparently, the two Queens were together at the time- it was written in Peekablue’s handwriting and simply said ‘the timing isn’t right yet’. Well, was the timing right now? Now that the other Horde from outer space had ripped open their sky and was poised to drop down on them at any moment!

Needless to say, things in Brightmoon were a little anxious.

Perfuma was the first to show up at the palace. Plumeria sharing a border with Brightmoon on the opposite side from the mountains of Dryl, her’s was the closest Queendom to Brightmoon. She appeared, flower crown askew, pink dress rumpled, without her teal green shrug over her shoulders. As if she’d left in a rush.

“Is it the Horde?” She demanded. “I mean, of course it’s the Horde. But, like, the other Horde. The bigger one. The one we’ve been trying to prepare for.” She took a deep breath, attempting to force herself to calm down. “I mean, we’ve been prepared for this, so everything will be okay. We have the She-Ra on our side. I’m sure everything will come to a harmonious conclusion. There’s no need to give into negative energy.”

She said this. But Perfuma was definitely giving off negative energy. The negative energy of fear, anxiety, and doubt. She was giving off negative energy in buckets.

Speaking of buckets, not long after Perfuma arrived, a giant wave crashed through the Brightmoon harbor, nearly capsizing Sea Hawk’s ship. He was already bailing buckets of the excess water off the deck when the wave receded, revealing Mermista. She was holding her trident, and look more impatient and annoyed than fearful and concerned.

“Ugh… the Geek Princess hasn’t even been by to build my weapons yet.” She groaned at no one in particular, brushing an errant lock of hair out of her face. “Can’t the evil space emperor wait, like, six more month before coming to try and kill us all. So stupid.” Then she noticed the Dragon’s Daughter Five listing in the bay. “Oh. Hey, Sea Hawk.”

Sea Hawk gave a non-committal grunt in reply. They hadn’t exactly spoken socially since their breakup was official. He honestly didn’t know how to talk to her anymore. Certainly, he couldn’t talk to her like he used to.

Frosta was the farthest away and the last to arrive.

Everyone was already in the War Room when the youngest member of the Princess Alliance arrived.

Micah was arguing with Shadow Weavers. Adora was shouting warnings over the table. Spinnerella was holding Nettossa’s hand to try and calm the other woman. Bow was fiddling with his Tracker Pad trying to see if the device could analyze the sky rift. Perfuma was trying to perform a calming chant. Memista was groaning at how chaotic this was. And Sea Hawk was ringing saltwater out of his socks. Glimmer had no control over her War Room, or the meeting.

Then Frosta barged in. Doors banging open with a sound loud enough to make everyone pause. Stopping their squabbles or shouts to look across the room at the child-Princess.

“Alright! So, what’s the plan for kicking these bat-faced jerks butts!?”

The room exploded back into noise and chaos again. Everyone talking at once. Giving opinions of things they were not informed enough to give opinions on.

Bow’s Tracker Pad beeped with an alert just as someone asked him a question. Thinking the device had found some information for him about the rift, he turned his attention to it. “…hang on, my Tracker Pad is picking something up.”

Those seated closes to him quieted down to also see what the Tracker Pad had found.

But all that appeared on the screen were the faces of two Horde soldiers. The Etherian Horde. A human, Kyle, and a reptilian, Rogelio. People they knew. Not the new Horde from outer space. There were not bat-faced monsters that looked like Hordak giving them a call.

“Oh! It’s you guys. Now’s not really a good time. Can we put off any new declarations of war for a while?” Bow asked, assuming that even under new leadership the Etherian Horde would want to continue the generations old feud.

Oh. Had no one read-in the new Horde leadership about what was coming? Did they honestly not know? Bow never even considered that! In a room full of chaos was not the time to debrief someone new. Especially not someone that Bow wasn’t sure which side they would choose. He didn’t want to be helping and clueing in a new enemy. While he did generally try to give people the benefit of the doubt and see the best in people, now was not the time to be the better man. Sometimes, the practical man had to be a bit rude.

“Don’t worry about that.” Bow tried to assure them, sounding much more like he was trying to assure himself. “We’ve got it handled.”

He ended the call.

“Who was that?” Asked Sea Hawk. He hung his still wet socks over the back of his seat and sat down next to Bow.

“That was… the Horde…” Bow answered truthfully. Then, when everyone looked horror stuck, he quickly rushed to explain. “I mean, our Horde. The Etherian Horde! The guys in the Fright Zone. Kyle, and Rogelio, I think are their names. Nobody ever told them what was going on, so they have no idea what’s coming. They saw the portal in the sky and freaked out.”

“Oh.” Said Glimmer.

There was a beat.

Then Perfuma suggested, “Should we… invite them to join us?” Even as she asked this, she did not seem very secure in the idea. “I mean, do you think they’d be willing to help? They live on Etheria too…”

“We have no reason to assume they won’t join Horde Prime the moment they learn of him.” Shadow Weaver informed the room. “Inviting them into the Alliance would be like inviting a wolf to your back.”

“I’m sure that was true when Hordak was in charge.” Micah argued. It was hard to tell if he was arguing for the Horde because he honestly and truly felt the Etherian Horde could be helpful, or just to take an opposing opinion from Shadow Weaver. “But Hordak has been removed from power and is under house arrest in Dryl. Command of the Etherian Horde is now in the hands of Etherians. As Princess Perfuma said, they live here too, why wouldn’t they want to defend the Home Ground?”

“Because they were raised by Hordak and Hordak does not teach altruism.” Shadow Weaver reminded everyone. Never mind the fact that Hordak didn’t raise any of the Fright Zone orphans, and that job was actually delegated to Shadow Weaver herself. A fact Adora could confirm for them all.

Adora might even have done so and called Shadow Weaver out on her misplacement of responsibility, had she not be lost in thought at that moment. Really considering the possibility of the Etherian Horde as allies. She grew up with them. She, better than anyone in the room, understood them. In a deeper and more intimate way than Shadow Weaver did.

“Lonnie’s in charge now.” She began, still considering and weighing outcomes as she spoke. “She’s very practical… If we can convince her that working with us is the better choice over siding with Horde Prime…”

She did not get to finish that thought, however, as Bow’s tracker pad beeped again with another message. This time, when he answered it, it wasn’t the nervous and unsure faces of Kyle and Rogelio. It was the exasperated and angry face of none other than Lonnie, Commander of the Horde, herself.

“Put. Adora. On. The. Line.” She commanded before any pleasantries could be exchanged.

Adora took the Tracker Pad from Bow. “Hey, Lonnie, we were just talking about-“

“What in the ever loving high holy heck are you doing this time!?” Lonnie cut the other woman off. “Haven’t you had enough of meddling with forces beyond mortal understanding and breaking the universe!? I am still trying to rebuild what Hordak and Catra ran into the ground and you’re cutting up the sky for fun! Now I have a panic to deal with on top of construction delays and lost supply shipments! I thought all you shimmering Princesses wanted was ‘peace’! Can’t I have a moment’s peace to work on my own territory!”

She paused for breath.

Adora looked back at the rest of the Princess Alliance to make sure they heard the Commander of the Etherian Horde’s rant. She wanted peace, and she wanted to repair the damage to the Fright Zone, the damage to ‘her Territory’. Lonnie might be ‘Commander of the Horde’, but she was thinking like a Princess.

“I’m sending Kyle over there to see what you’re all really up to!” Lonnie continued before anyone else could speak. “I’m sending Kyle because he is the least threatening person I know and hopefully that will keep you sparkleheads from shooting glitter at him on sight. Think of him as a sort of ‘emissary’. I don’t want to have to fight you guys again if I don’t have to! But, I swear, if you keep making things difficult for me, I will! So, let’s try and get along.”

She ended the call.

Adora passed the Tracker Pad back to Bow. “So… I guess that answers the question of which side she’ll be on if it comes to it.”

“How?” Frosta jumped up, standing on her seat to be better seen. “She said she didn’t wanna fight us because she’s still licking her wounds in the Fright Zone. We don’t know that the moment Prime shows up she won’t go running to him the moment she realizes he’s got bigger guns and more resources to share with her.”

“That’s assuming Horde Prime is the type to share.” Mermista countered. “There is another angle to this. Regardless of what Lonnie things of the bigger Horde, the bigger Horde might not think much of Lonnie and just sweep her away. They might get rid of her for us and then the question of what to do about the Etherian Horde becomes a non-issue.”

“That’s terrible!” Perfuma was horrified. “Sure, they’ve been our enemies for as long as I can remember. But they’re still people, and living things. All life is precious.”

“They’re still the ones who ruined Princess Prom!” Frosta shouted.

Everyone assumed she was trying to make a point about respecting truces, cease-fires, and safe spaces –all of which Princess Prom was supposed to be- and that if they couldn’t do that, what reason did they have to trust them in a truce now. But all it sounded like was that she was saying parties were just as important as leaving beings. For fear of derailing the conversation into an unnecessary ethical debate, everyone collectively agreed to ignore that comment.

“There’s no point debating this until the Horde’s emissary gets here.” Glimmer announced, taking control of the meeting. She was Queen, but most of the time she still felt like an inexperienced and frustrated rebel child.

“I know Kyle.” Adora added. “He won’t make trouble while he’s here.” A pause. “On purpose. He won’t make trouble on purpose.”

But ‘trouble’ did have a propensity to just happen around him. It wasn’t that Kyle was particularly clumsy, forgetful, or rude. No more than any other child soldier raised in the Horde. He just seemed… out of place no matter where he went. Almost like… almost like he wasn’t meant to be on Etheria. Of course, Etheria being trapped in an isolated shadow dimension, she couldn’t image where else he could belong. But then, she’d seen weirder things than just an out-of-place and accident-prone soldier.

The debate might have gone on longer, but a page entered the War Room, unannounced, and passed a letter to Glimmer. “Message from Fallen Star Mountain, my Queen.”

Taking the envelope, Glimmer ripped it open to read the contents. Then she sighed. “It’s from the Star Sisters. They also wanna know what the light in the sky is.”

No sooner had she read that, than another page came in with more messages from Elberon, Seaworthy, Erelandia… Heck! They even got a crumpled and dirty piece of paper from the Valley of the Lost in the Crimson Waste. Apparently, the whole planet saw the rift in the sky and wanted to know what the Princess Alliance was up to now…

Glimmer slumped in her seat, putting a hand to her head where she felt an on-coming stress headache. Who knew the worst part of Horde Prime’s attack would be the confusion before the storm?

5 notes · View notes

rhosinthorn · 7 years

Text

No Job is Worthless

Okay friends, this has nothing to do with writing and everything to do with me getting up on the proverbial soapbox, so if you’re here for the writing, feel free to move right on by.

Mkay, now that we’ve got everyone here, let’s begin.

‘Tis that time of year again: summer jobs/internships/co-ops, you name it. And some of you probably slunk off back home because (once again?) you didn’t land anything. You spent all year in classes, worked your butt off, applied to everything and anything that looked remotely related to those things you were learning in classes…

And you got nothing.

Nothing but form rejection letters from careers sites, interviews that never got back to you, and a whole bunch of disappointed hopes.

Or, potentially worse, you have that shiny new degree in your hands, fresh from the printers and not even framed yet, and you have nothing. No job prospects, no hopes other than maybe one of those applications you filled out might come back any day now. But in the meantime you have bills to pay, parents/family members to answer to, and potentially a mountain of student debt breathing down your neck.

Trust me, I’ve been there.

My major in college was chemical engineering. It was a pretty great school, does a lot of cutting edge research. Highly selective, the whole thing.

I worked for 3/3 summers in college, plus on campus during the year. (Career Center, just doing glorified cut/paste type things on a computer.)

Here’s my summer jobs:

Pool technician at a local amusement park (post Freshman/pre Sophomore)

Research at a lab on campus (post Sophomore/pre Junior)

Cashier at an arts & craft store (post Junior/pre Senior)

They sound really relevant to my field right? I was putting my degree to some use? Maybe?

Not really. Let’s break them down.

(Below the cut, for those who are scrolling by)

If I’ve still got you, let’s go over these jobs.

Pool Technician:

Fancy title, right? Sounds like I’m doing important things.

I sort of was. Behind the waterslides and lazy rivers, every waterpark has these guys lurking in the background. We’re the ones who make sure there’s nothing sharp on the slides to hurt you, picks up your lost change from the bottom of the pools because you left it in your pockets, and makes sure there’s nothing that will make you sick in the water.

Every morning, one of us would walk each and every slide to check that no repairs needed to be made. Rain or shine, we had to walk up or down the length of them. We would have to sweep or vacuum any pool that needed it, and scrub the scum lines off the walls. It was often cold, wet, or rainy because I lived in the NE USA. Only one pool had a vacuum, one of the smaller ones, so if the wave pool had to be swept? Yeah, I was going for a swim.

While one of us was out there shivering and probably swearing, the other was making the rounds of the pumphouses, changing filter baskets, checking on the chlorine levels, and getting things up to the right levels of chemicals in the water. Each state has their own minimum chlorine levels in public pools, and sometimes they vary depending on the type of attraction. It’s the technician’s job to make sure we meet those levels, and that we keep records if the state auditors come knocking.

Sometime in the early afternoon, after the park’s been open and there are screaming children running everywhere, the afternoon person took over, and kept an eye on things all by themselves, since it was just monitoring chemicals and responding to incidents at this point. (Yeah, the lifeguards call us if someone has an “accident”. We get to clean it up & deal with the fallout.)

So, in short: sort of relevant to what a first year chemE would have learned that first year (I did mostly math & chemistry with a few gen ed type courses). All in all, not a bad summer job for the resume, right?

Summer Research

Now, I’m going to clarify this with the following statement: you get out of research what you put into it. Most people do not make money from research. Especially students on summer jobs.

This was a last minute panic job for me. I knew the professor, had done some stuff in his lab during HS (long story, ask me another time if interested), and was pretty much able to finagle myself into the internship with lots of sweet talk and splitting funding with some others who weren’t able to do a full time commitment to the lab that summer (one was taking classes, the other was TAing).

Now, this was theoretically a ChemE lab.

I knew this when I was getting in, but they do mostly bio research. Weekly updates were full of things about cells, PCR, gene expression, the whole nine yards.

The last time I took bio anything was junior year of high school, and it was generic AP Bio. So, vastly underqualified but willing to learn? Yeah, that was me.

My fellow lab-sufferers were more qualified due to classwork/experience, but I was already friends with one and grew to be close with the other out of shared misery. Together we got something done, though I don’t really see how what I worked on helped, since my greatest help to the lab was being an extra pair of hands. (And a neat freak- the PI seemed like a hoarder and the lab had junk everywhere. The three of us summer interns spent a whole week making the place presentable before summer safety inspections. And reorganizing the chemical cabinet.)

But I digress. I did a lot of bio things that I don’t really understood, was even more of a typical college student than I usually was (food was a scarce thing that summer due to several reasons, and the college-provided housing was terrible), and learned that a career in research was not a good option for me.

So, let’s see. Research is a respectable option, taught me that research is not a career path to pursue...not a bad summer experience. Decent resume material.

Cashier

This one was pure desperation. I got the call for an interview going into finals week, nearly cried with relief, and set the interview for the day after I moved back home.

Pulled into the parking lot, and there’s a big STORE LIQUIDATION SALE sign on the outside. Bodes real well for my summer job plans, right?

So, turns out, the store is closing, but they’re opening up across town. The staff is supposed to go with them, and I was being hired to help with the closing. However, if they liked me, and I wanted to, they might take me with them when they left. Oh, and could I start tomorrow or the next day?

I went with it. None of my managers had ever not liked me, and even if they didn’t take me, I had something and would deal with what comes when it came.

But they took me with them, and I spent half of my summer learning how stores are organized and set up. We walked into this new store and it had all of the fixtures (aisles & the unmovable stuff) set up, but nothing else. Five days a week, we’d all be there, putting up shelves/hooks, labeling everything, and then setting out stock. I set one aisle six times in three weeks because we had opened as soon as we had most of the store ready, but we couldn’t leave empty shelves, so the existing stock was arranged nicely to cover the empty holes. After we opened again, it was the usual retail humdrum. Stock, answer questions, work the register. Rinse and repeat.

At this point, I should have probably had a “real” job experience. Internship, co-op, something that looked pretty on my resume, so when I waved it at employers they would say “Yeah, this kid’s qualified.” My grades weren’t 4.0, but they were respectable, and I hadn’t just been sitting on my butt.

And thus, I went into my senior year, praying for the stars to align and a job to appear in time for graduation.

But guess what?

Life’s not a fairy tale, and I walked out of graduation with an expensive piece of paper, and a whole lot of worries.

My now fiance had taken a job in one city, and we were determined to go together, especially since it was critical that he be employed. Two days after graduation, he, his family (who are visiting), and I are all settled in our cozy new two bedroom apartment in a different state from the one I grew up with, and I still have no job.

Here’s where the craft store came through for me. I was able to get myself transferred (and a small promotion!) to a store about half an hour from where I now lived. It was going to pay the bills and keep me busy while I looked for a “real” job.

Turns out, the (non-manager) staff was terrible, they kept scheduling me for night shift which meant I was stuck in rush hour traffic for an hour instead of half an hour, and the customers were awful. My mental health was going down the drain because I’m in a strange city, know only my fiance and my coworkers (who I didn’t really like), and I never see him because I’m scheduled 5-9 and don’t get home before 10pm most nights. Plus, we were short staffed, so the chances of me getting called in some weeks were pretty high, even though I was only part time. Great for extra money, but not when it’s getting eaten by the gas stations so I can get there.

So, after the night where I spent my fifteen minute break crying in my car, I decided that I was done. And my job search, which had previously been focused on full-time with benefits, changed to anything to get me out of the hellhole.

Lucky me, I am a very desirable candidate in the minimum wage arena. I got a call, had an interview, and I was now a pharmacy technician.

Life was better. My schedule was manageable, I didn’t hate everyone I dealt with. I had found a church to attend, my fiance and I had adopted a kitty, and there was hope. Not a great life, but a tolerable one for the time being.

I was there for about a month and a half when I got The Call.

Around the same time as I was looking to leave the hellhole, I had interviewed with a temp agency that specialized in scientific staffing. Nothing ever came of that interview because the company decided not to fill the position that they had advertised, but apparently they kept me on file.

Which was great, because when another company came asking for a similar position, they called me. I did a phone interview a day later, and would have started immediately if I wasn’t already scheduled at the other place.

Because it was a temp job, I decided to keep my part time job, but limit it to weekends only. They were quoting me 1-3 months of work, just to lighten the load during a busy spurt. Fine, I said. Keeps me connected with my field, just another line on the resume. It’s close to my field and a great experience.

That was December 15th.

In February, the manager of the connected department who we worked closely with sends me an email summoning me to his office. I am (rightfully?) terrified, and arrive. As soon as I am seated, he informs me that his underling is moving several states away and he wishes to steal me from my manager, who is okay with this move. This would be a full time, permanent position, with benefits.

Due to some complicated agreement between the company and the staffing firm, I’m still temporary, but will go full time within the month hopefully. But in these six months I have been fully refreshed in my job search, gained a ton of experience in two different areas of work, and made contacts that could help me.

So, where am I going with all of this?

Two things.

One: Don’t lose hope. It’s scary and disheartening to be without relevant jobs. It makes you doubt your self worth, your education, and a whole lot of things. But things work out. Keep putting in applications, keep going to interviews, and keep on believing that you will get there someday.

But the thing that triggered this post (which was not supposed to be this long, sorry!) is thing number two. Which comes in a part a and a part b.

Part a: Don’t. Stop. Working.

I have two friends, one who graduated with me, and one who I only know from online. Friend #1 was pretty much my male counterpart in my field. He, unlike me, scored a six month internship that ended in December and chose not to go full time, and is now living at home. From what he tells me when we manage to chat about things non-anime/manga related, he’s still looking for full time/benefits positions, if a little half-heartedly. (I can’t judge, because my job search was fairly half-hearted at times.) He’s living at home with his family and doesn’t work even part time right now.

My second friend is still in school. She’s looking for a summer job and mentioned that she might throw in her towel for a relevant job and look more towards a job that will pay bills but not get you experience.

I’m going to tell you what I told both of them. And now I’m telling it to you, as part b.

All jobs are useful in some way.

Take the pool technician job. I learned in a hands on setting about sanitization in a public place, kept detailed records for state audit purposes, and even did a nifty little side project about measuring flow rate in the pipes.

Or the research job. There, the skills were things like, collaboration with team members, literature research, and laboratory skills.

Craft store? Operations and logistics, customer service skills, defusing difficult situations, teamwork...and then at the other store, the one with the bad staff, I learned about some basic personnel management (it was a very, very tiny bit of supervising- just managing everyone’s break schedules and who was at the register when), and prioritizing which battles to fight.

Pharmacy. I learned meticulous accuracy (you do not want to be giving the wrong person the wrong pills, and heaven help you if you miscount), more customer service skills, and a bunch of stuff about how that side of the healthcare industry really works.

Those things I just listed? They’re what I call soft skills. Soft skills are the ones you learn on the job, just by being there. Everyone expects you to work a cash register. That’s why those jobs look bad on a resume if you’re going for a “professional” job. But when I go into an interview and they ask me all of those weird questions about problem solving and past experiences, I can tell them that I learned how to respond quickly and calmly in a trying situation because when 50+% of your registers go down, it’s a Sunday shopping crowd, and EVERYONE has a coupon they want to use, you have to think on your feet and reroute the crowds & cashiers onto non-affected registers and come up with workarounds that minimize customer experience as much as possible. If we’re talking about teamwork and collaboration, I can say that I had an experience with what a previous manager referred to as “the most hostile staff she’s ever worked with” (we were both new to the store at the time) and did my best to preserve the peace while not compromising on my job performance or customer services.

So, to sum it up all jobs are important and don’t give up. Take whatever job you can find, and be the best damn employee you can be. I’m reasonably certain that any of my past managers would give me a good reference if they were called because I did my best and didn’t just show up and do what was needed to get by. Use every opportunity that you can grasp and turn it into something that makes a good talking point. Volunteer, minimum wage, full time job...by working/assisting, you show that you can be a good employee. You show that you have survived a work environment and absorbed what skills can be taught there.

If you’re working at McDonalds, it’s a lot more than flipping burgers and asking “do you want fries with that”. Think of all those fancy buzzwords and put them on your resume and talk about them in your interviews.

I’m no expert. I don’t have it made. This is just my way of making the best of the situations I’ve been given, and it seems to be working thus far. We’ll see.

#long post #rant #life skills

47 notes · View notes