wip

hi hello. look at stratt and how expressive she is even without words. are you looking? look at her. theres so much emotion in every detail of her face.

Lesson #5 cell growth/ re-growth

Rocky is supposed to be that one Toby Maguire meme btw

Again sorry for any (past/now) grammar errors. ALSO huge thanks for the people giving me ideas and correcting me!! I do truly love learning about biology facts so if you have any always fell free to share!!

For the fourth year in a row now, it's time for Small Fandom Summer! Join me for Small Fandom Summer! It's real easy to play:

Make a fanwork for something that has fewer than 1000 English-language works on AO3

Post it to AO3

And then you've done it! You've made a thing and you've diversified the fandom ecosystem! You're basically a hero.

Q: The fandom I want to create for has more than 1000 English-language works on AO3, but the specific pairing I want to write for has fewer than that. Does that count? A: Yes! Q: What if it has more than 1000 English-language works on AO3, but, like, just barely? A: Okay! Q: What if it actually has a lot more than 1000 English-language works on AO3, but it still feels small? A: Sure! Q: What if I don't want to post it to AO3? What if I don't even have an AO3 account? Can I post it somewhere else? A: Wherever! Q: What if-- A: Just do a thing, friend. Make a thing. Share the thing. This is not meant to be restrictive; this is meant to be inspirational. Create the fanworks you want to see in the world. Make a stranger happy by appealing to their niche interests. Bring joy.

And if you want to give yourself some silly little Steam-like achievement badges to commemorate your accomplishments, well, you're in luck! I've made a bunch of them right here! You can grab the ones that apply to your work and paste them wherever you like and feel good about what you've done. Here's a few of my favorites:

So you see? This is meant to be silly and fun.

There's nowhere to sign up. There's nothing to commit to. There's zero pressure. You just do it if you do it, and don't if you don't. But if you do want to play (yay!), tag your stuff with #small fandom summer so we can all swoop in and appreciate everyone else's efforts.

And since some other people have asked: There's no start date for this, nor is this an end date. "Summer" in this context is an extremely arbitrary unit of measurement. I'm starting now because my personal summer runs from about mid-May to mid-August. Yours may vary.

rites of passage

closeups:

1. academia

2. teaching

“"We have a serious problem here. There's this virus, or a fungus-" "Right on the second one. I know all about it. Are you somewhere safe right now?" "We're locked in a storage unit." "Okay. Could be worse. Stay in there." "No kidding. For how long? Are you sending people?" "Has anyone come into direct physical contact with it? You'd know if they had because they'd have- "Yes." Roberto mouthed shit silently. Trini looked at him as often as she dared while driving at seventy miles per hour over Centennial Bridge." "Hello?" Naomi asked. "Yes, I was just calling something up on my screen," he lied. "How many people have been infected?" "Just one, I think." "And is that person still inside the facility?" "Yes. He keeps trying to get in here. Where we are." In the background, he heard more shouting- the ranting guy was at it again. Naomi conferred with him quickly, said, "Okay, okay, okay," and came back on the line. "Also, there was a deer. A deer was infected." "Where is the deer now?" "It blew up." "Outside or inside?" "Did you hear me? I said it blew up." "Yes, I heard. Can you tell me where it blew up?" "In the hallway." Her tone said like that matters, but Roberto breathed a sigh of relief that it was still inside the building.”

“She smiled at him. It was hard not to find Teacake moderately charming. She noticed the badly inked snake wrapped around his right biceps, but let it pass without comment. His ink was his business, and she’d seen enough to know where that kind of sloppy tattoo probably came from. He noticed her noticing, and he saw the slight change in the way she looked at him. A tiny lowering of her shoulders, the minutest tilt of the head away from him. It was always the same. If women were smart enough to know him, they were smart enough to not get to know him any better. Shit. Why did he bother? (...) He looked at her for a long moment, and the voice in the back of Teacake’s brain that had been trying to get a hold of his attention finally broke through. See?! the voice said. I told you there was a beep! Teacake looked at Naomi, his eyes lighting up with the realization. "Your side too?"”

“There was a second there where Teacake could look into her eyes from up close without coming off as creepy, a second where it was just gratitude and connection. The first half of that second was thrilling- her eyes were home, they were the only place he ever wanted to be, and the last lines of the only poem he knew flitted through his mind- A mind at peace with all below, A heart whose love is innocent. But then came the other half second, and his mind was no longer at peace, it felt only sorrow. Because he knew no matter how she felt tonight, no matter the thrill or danger or exhilaration of discovery, inevitably tomorrow morning would come, those feelings would fade, and she would realize they couldn't possibly be together.”

I haven’t seen this comparison made yet—we talk about Ryland walking toward himself on the beach as a type of foreshadowing—BUT LOOK the figure Rocky makes of Grace in the beginning of the movie is the EXACT POSE Grace makes when he comes back to save Rocky in the end and is banging on the glass!!!!