yeah i like to give my blessing to the most pathetic looking weak little knight at the tournament. she can’t even look me in the eye when i give her my flower and she stutters out that she’ll do her best or something of the like. i think its funny when she has to cry and beg my forgiveness and i get to say “such a shame, i suppose my hand in marriage will have to go to someone else…” and then i get to hear her whimper like a dog. ive done this like 6 times alrea-
First time doing something like this, no idea what I'm doing but as soon as I saw @regonym (x) edit I knew I wanted to try to cover it. Original lyrics by @mumblesplash (x)
dmsp was like those old movies that were absolutely stunning and had a really captivating sense of magic and color that we cant really capture today and then you google it and the wikipedia reads out how the filming killed like 30 people and permanently wounded 6 others
when i was a kid i had moments of being so fucking diabolical because i realized at some point the best way to leverage power over my family was to do shit that would make everybody late
our house was in the middle of nowhere surrounded by woods so when i decided i didnt want to wear dresses anymore if we were going to some event & my parents insisted i had to wear a dress i would just go hide in the woods. was so committed i almost made us miss a flight once bc my mom packed a dress in my suitcase
i only promised to stop doing this if my parents got me formal boys clothes to wear which eventually they did. i don't feel bad about resorting to violence bc i asked politely and they said no. proud of 10 yr old me for evil annoying lesbian behavior
5th grade was the last time I wore a dress for school pictures. When my parents attempted to force the issue for 6th grade, I climbed onto our roof and pulled the ladder up after me. My dad borrowed the neighbors ladder. As soon as it touched the roof I pulled it up too. By the time I had 3 ladders they were willing to negotiate, and 2 hours late for work.
[Image ID: a tumblr tag reading "problems that can be avoided if you simply treat your child as a human being with the right to make decisions on what they wear". End ID]
I wish the pjo fandom just accepted that Rick Riordan is a bad writer sometimes or at the very least inconsistent. Maybe then they'd recognize that a lot of characterization problems are retcons and bad writing instead of taking it as fact. It's why half the fandom is convinced that Percy hates Nico/does not care about him or that Nico's relationship with Percy only brought him pain. Why Jason, Hazel, Reyna and Will are considered Nico's support system but Percy isn't.
Nico and Percy's relationship does not exist in a vacuum and you need to understand the doylist problems in heroes of Olympus.
1- Rick very much repeats Nico's arc from pjo but worse. Nico's arc in pjo dealt with grief and being ostracized due to being a son of Hades. The second problem was established since the very FIRST book. Hades is not considered an Olympian he does not have a throne and his kids don't get cabins because otherwise "it would be terrible" according to Grover(we never learn what the terrible thing is I mean Zeus and Poseidon's kids are equally destructive soooo) PERCY very much calls this out in Botl when Hera insinuates that Nico doesn't belong. HE calls her out which causes Annabeth to do the same. People talk about Hera's beef with Annabeth but they leave Percy out of it. Then in TLO Percy calls out Nico's heroism and uses it as a reason why Hades deserves a recognition. Nico gets a cabin(which he designs) and the implication is that he will be accepted. In fact Hades' kids being accepted is why the position of the Oracle is not cursed anymore
Then HoO comes along and people STILL think that Nico/hades kids are creepy? It would have been fine if it was just CJ since they didn't have the development CHB had but no apparently camp half-blood went back to treating Nico the same after like 2 weeks. And Rick cannot for the life of him decide if this ostracization is in Nico's head or not. Frank is fine with Nico in SoN and then in their next meeting he's terrified. And then the rest of the 7... I don't even have a problem with the scene with Hazel where they talk about him being untrustworthy(that's fandom exaggeration they did not want to leave him behind Y'all they just said that he might be untrustworthy and then like 3 lines later it's dismissesed hell the conversation literally begins with PERCY telling Hazel they're saving Nico. Also let's be honest with ourselves Nico IS shady sometimes and any true Nico fan would love him for it) but their general attitude is like "ooooh so creepy." and Nico doesn't even do anything to cause that he just exists and idk is a little bit sneaky? As in he can move quietly? Leo makes a joke at his expense and him and piper are surprised that Jason defends him implying he wouldn't have done so before? Percy and Annabeth find him unsettling (even though they were FINE with him in PJO I'll DIE on that Hill. Even his SISTER is like "oooh Nico is not easy to be around thank you Frank for talking to him he needs practice talking to people." bruh who IS this guy 😭 pjo Nico wasn't like that! He could hold a conversation with people he could work in a group setting even though he preferred to do things alone. He doesn't hiss at social interactions 😬 Rick uses Iapetus/Bob from sword of Hades but apparently forgets that this was the same story where Nico went on a quest with Thalia and Percy and he was FINE. In fact Hazel's very presence relies on Rick retconning the lesson Nico learned in tBotl because he apparently only found Hazel while looking for Bianca. Which is really unnecessary I mean he could have just found her in the underworld while investigating the whole Thanatos problem.
Do you see the problem Here? For Rick to repeat Nico's "people find me creepy and Because of that I self isolate until I find support" plot. Nico needs to be isolated again. Camp half-blood needs to go back to isolating him(also Rick retcons who designed Nico's cabin) we need Jason and Reyna to be Nico's first real friends so we need to scrap Nico's friendship with Percy and how much Percy cared about Nico. Hell let's mischarachterize Nico and make him even more anti social to create drama.
And perhaps the WORST thing in this whole debacle: Rick retcons this whole thing AGAIN by going "oh no the ostracization was in Nico's head he's the one pushing people away 🤪" Which like it CAN'T be in Nico's head because I was in other characters' heads and they are weird about him too is Nico supposed to be blind as to not notice that? And the fact that this author gaslighting comes out of Nico's love interest is really part of why I could never get into Solangelo. Hell the Solangelo books BOTH have a moment where Nico is talking about his experiences and Will is like " um actually 🤓☝️ non of that happened people wanted to be your friend you just were rude and sarcastic to us." And we're supposed to take his words for it. This isn't Will being unreliable this is supposed to be objective reality. And once again for the people in the back: Nico IS NOT like that. He is not constantly sarcastic and rude to people. He can very much carry conversations He can be polite. One wonders if that really was the case why didn't Will name some of those who wanted to be Nico's friends. I mean if Rick wanted to make Nico's pov sound unreliable that was his way but BoO makes it seem like this is Nico and Will's first notable interaction(which tSatS later retcons again but I expect nothing from that book).
2- Now let's get to Percy. As I've said Nico's problems with Percy does not exist in a vacuum there's a doylist reason that goes back to Nico but there's also a problem with Percy's character arc as well. Rick has like 2 arcs for Percy and they're both ass. One is about his fatal flaw which goes nowhere and the other is that Percy apparently needs to learn to be a better Friend. You hear that? PERCY Loyalty Is My Fatal Flaw JACKSON needs to be a better friend. The culmination of that Arc is basically that scene is Tartarus where Percy realizes that he's been a shitty friend and needs to do better and the examples used here are: Calypso, Bob, and Nico.
For that to work the narrative needs to bend over backwards to either blame Percy for things that are not his fault or retcon Percy's whole ass personality.
A- Percy is in NO WAY responsible for the gods not freeing Calypso. They swore an OATH to make Percy's request come true and if Rick Riordan actually allowed oaths to the River Styx to matter this would not be a problem but again doylist problem. Rick wants Calypso in the plot for Leo's arc so Calypso needs to be in her island so uhhh apparently the gods didn't free her and it's Percy's fault even though he was kidnapped. Calypso needs to fall in love with Leo so Leo needs to succeed where other heroes have failed. Caleo can only work if Leo proves himself different/better than Percy.
B-Iapetus/Bob. Idk if this is unpopular or not but Percy does not owe Bob SHIT. I know that Rick doesn't really remember Sword of hades so let me remind all of you that the only reason why Percy erased his memory was that this TITAN(practically impossible to defeat) was trying to KILL him, Thalia and Nico. He was very much gung ho on murdering them (it's why I roll my eyes at HoH trying to make him somehow different than the other Titans like oh Iapetus was always softer/morally better than the other Titans. No the fuck he wasn't. If we go by personality Prometheus and Krios had a much more nonviolent and calm personality in PJO). If Nico wants to befriend Bob in spite of the murder attempt good for him, it's very much in character but Percy is not a bad person for not thinking of Iapetus more. My brother in Christ they had to deal with the aftermath of a WAR and Percy was kidnapped and had his memories erased and right after that he had to deal with ANOTHER WAR 😭 plus Percy isn't Nico. His relationship with Hades is rocky at best last time he went there he was imprisoned He can't just stroll down the underworld and visit Bob whenever he wants.
C- Nico. I can't believe this needs to be said but Percy was NOT a bad friend to Nico. "Not giving people a second thought" is NOT a problem Percy and Nico had. Percy took on the prophecy because he did not want Nico to shoulder this burden. Annabeth points out that he could be the prophecy kid and Percy actively CHOOSES for it to be him so that Nico doesn't get noticed by Luke/Kronos. He hides Nico's parentage from Chiron. He(+Annabeth) look for Nico for months in between TTC and BotL. When he has a vision of Nico with Minos he's so freaked out by it that he destroys his cabin's fountain and states at it for hours until Tyson checks up on him. He RUSHES to The labyrinth. He RUNS to the dangerous as fuck labyrinth because Nico might be in there and he does so while convinced that Nico wants him DEAD. When Gerion allows him and his friends to go on with their quest but not Nico, Percy gambles his and EVERYONE ELSE' freedom to free Nico. PERCY is the one who calls out Hera because he learned that Hera paid for Gerion to let them leave but not Nico.
It's because of Nico that Percy is so pissed off that he calls out Hera's toxicity when it comes to people like Nico or Hephaestus. Hera dismisses this and turns to Annabeth and Annabeth's response is basically: "Percy is right you DO suck." (This is very significant because it highlights Percy's role as an agent of change in his friends and his role as a cycle breaker because of his empathy. Which makes him a new type of hero. Percy constantly stands up for those who are outcasts. He stands up for Tyson in book 2. In book 3 he is the one person that tries to remind Bianca that Nico would be alone if she joins the hunters. He gives grace to both Bianca and Nico and later finds empathy for Zoe as well. In book 4 he constantly tries to help Nico and he dismisses the prejudices people have against mortals with Rachel. Both Chiron and Annabeth(due to Chiron's teachings most likely) view mortals as stupid and helpless but Percy trusts Rachel's competency and abilities. It is very much a pattern. One can even say it's a parallel between Percy and Nico. Percy stands up for outcasts while Nico takes notice of those in the shadows, those other people wouldn't think about. Like Hestia or Bob).
The fandom compares Jason/Will' reaction to Nico wanting to leave CHB with Percy's to somehow dunk on him because "Oh Percy let Nico leave. Nico said he didn't belong to camp half-blood and Percy didn't contradict him that means-" lemme stop you right there. The conversation literally began with Percy trying to invite Nico to his table for dinner because he worries about Nico missing meals. Percy tells Nico that it's dangerous outside of camp half-blood. Both Percy and Nico are RIGHT. Nico WOULDN'T belong to camp half-blood if he'd stayed there. There was no cabin for him. Percy himself had to take people's distrust due to being Poseidon's child he'd know that things are even worse for a Hades kid, Hera literally proved how little Olympians cared about Nico. He trusts Nico's capabilities because Nico has proven that he can survive on his own, and tells him to keep in touch and then actually DOES something productive and asks the gods for a cabin basically giving Nico a home. Do I even need to talk about the birthday cake scene? Even when Percy is mad at Nico in TLO, he still Carries him through the underworld he does not leave him behind. He calls Nico a Friend by the end and uses him as an example of why Hades' kids deserved recognition.
So what the hell gives in HoO? I mean even in HoO' inconsistent ass writing, Percy still has in Character moments of worry over Nico. He dreams about Nico in the jar, and tells him they'll free him. The controversial conversation about saving him literally begins with him telling Hazel that they're saving him(Leo and Jason only comment after that) when they're saving him he's so worried he forgets about Annabeth for a while and feels guilty about it afterwards. And no Percy isn't being mean when he thinks about wanting to throw bread at Nico, he also thinks about doing the same to Grover in book 1 when he's fighting the minotaur. It's just a Percy thing. Are we going to argue that Percy doesn't care about Grover?
But then you got these weird things like "He had a rocky history with Nico di Angelo. The guy had once tricked him into visiting Hades’s palace, and Percy had ended up in a cell. But most of the time, Nico sided with the good guys." Yeah okay it's Completely in character for Percy to be pissed at Nico for hiding the truth/lying to him AGAIN. But Nico always sides with the good guys or whatever. He was completely neutral in tBotl. He didn't care about the war only reviving Bianca but after that plot is done, Nico rushes to save Percy because Minos told him Nico is in danger Percy even takes note of this. He reveals his heritage and helps them escape from the TA. from then on he's on Olympus' side. Even with the trick with Hades. Percy is pissed about Nico LYING to him. He knows that Nico's goal was always to give him the Achilles curse. Percy knows this. Which is why he sends him back to convince Hades to join the fight. I hate the idea that the new books/fandom perpetuate that "Percy only remembers Nico when he needs something." It's NICO who approaches Percy trying to prove himself with the Achilles curse plan. Percy invites him in simply because he wanted to give Nico a good experience. NICO assumes that Percy doesn't trust him anymore. Percy himself doesn't even know how he's feeling. "Not giving people a second thought-" If there's a distance between Percy and Nico it's NICO who pulls away.
And again, while it is in character for Percy to be angry at Nico, I'd argue that an in character Percy would have also spoken up during the scene with Leo and Jason. Percy wanted to save Nico when he thought Nico wanted to sacrifice his soul for Bianca's. He didn't leave Nico behind even in TLO. I'd argue that it would make Jason and Percy's bullshit conflict into something actually meaningful if we turned it into Percy's Greek individualistic thinking and loyalty VS Jason's collective view and non trusting nature due to his upbringing.
And "Percy had shared some disturbing stories about Nico. His loyalties weren’t always clear. He spent more time with the dead than the living. Once, he’d lured Percy into a trap in the palace of Hades. Maybe Nico had made up for that by helping the Greeks against the Titans, but still-"
And bfr right now. Percy is not the type to gossip about people/talk behind their backs like that to someone he'd recently met. He doesn't tell Chiron about Nico's parentage, He doesn't Annabeth and co about his visions in tBotL. I'm pretty sure he doesn't talk about what happened with Hades in TLO. He refuses to let anyone call Silena anything but a traitor but you expect me to believe he'd be trading stories with Jason of all people? Jason Could have simply distrusted Nico because of his secret keeping. It would have still worked. I mean let's be real what else could Percy say about Nico? Nico's loyalties are not the question here. But sometimes Nico has his own agenda also and he hides things. And it wouldn't be slander, it's the truth. Sometimes Nico is a liar. Jason could have just taken that and become suspicious and it would highlight his personality even more.
And yes Nico finds some aspects of Nico's power creepy but he also finds some aspects of them cool. They're friends. Annabeth also cared about him. The three of them joke around with each other in one of the side book interviews. But we know that Rick is inconsistent. Wether it's with Nico both in personality, or lore(I count 4 birthdays for Nico according to the timeline) and so I don't know why people just accept these new versions of Percy and Annabeth.
There's this wired clusterfuck of Nico, Percy and Annabeth being flamderized by both the fandom and the text. Percy and Annabeth have long since stopped being themselves so that they could neatly fit into the "dumb BF x Smart girlboss GF" trope. It's either Annabeth suddenly being way less emotional than she was before so we could make her "cold and logical and needs Piper's help to face her feelings." Or Percy being dumbed down. Compare Percy's speech to the campers in TLO to the one he makes in BoO. His humor becomes more juvenile. The moment Annabeth shows up they become each other's whole personalities, to hell with Percy's connection to Frank, Hazel and the ones he had in PJO. Oh Percy is a troublemaker who needs Annabeth to keep on a leash. He needs Annabeth to help him out of a paperback. She is the brains. Percy's own strategic mind? Never heard of it. It's also Rick's "girlboss not like other girls feminism" that circle backs to misogyny. Because the girls need to all be mature and emotionally competent so they can roll their eyes at the immature, dumb boys. 🙄 Percy just gets it the worst here. Is it really a surprise that the senior year trilogy have basically turned Percy into a complete dumbass who needs his mom- sorry girlfriend to carry all the braincells? Annabeth is basically the mom Friend whose job it is to be perfect and smart and sigh at the boys' stupidity. Hell even the other boys get some of it Jason is somehow a dumbass oblivious Boy for wanting to involve Reyna or trusting her in front of Piper even though they never dated. Frank and Leo get to have teen bickering while the girlies all get along and roll their eyes at the boys bring immature and therefore don't get to have any conflict or any relationship with each other.
Hell let's circle back to the Reyna thing because that's Rick's second problem. He can only resolve love triangles by erasing/downplaying the platonic connections that existed before. I mean Reyna and Jason do not have a SINGLE conversation that is one to one/not related to the plot. Reyna has more conversations with Annabeth and Piper. Rachel and Percy used to be good friends. He was very comfortable around her but then in HoH he gets nervous after her name gets mentioned and Annabeth is amused because oh they became friends off screen but she needs to keep her boyfriend on his toes(they're in Tartarus btw) Reyna? She believed that Percy was competent enough to be co-Praeor with her but then she meets Annabeth (and an in character Annabeth would have had a more interesting relationship/bigger conflict with her and not even because of romantic jealousy but as a proud daughter of a war goddess meeting another daughter of a war goddess who implied that CJ is better than CHB but god forbid Annabeth gets to be immature) and suddenly she's like "lol Yeah Percy can't find his way out of a paperbag without Annabeth" it's so jarring specially since Percy was complimenting Reyna prior to this. And then she gets to compliment him but bam! Annabeth arrives and suddenly Percy needs to be a dum dum in comparison. It happens with Calypso and Leo where Leo needs to succeed where Percy failed(hell even outside romantic relationships this still applies. Nico can't be Bob's friends him being Bob's friend needs to be highlighted by comparing what a shitty friend Percy is. Jason needs to be Nico's first buddy. We can't have Nico be the one to push Percy away because of his feelings no we gotta make Percy into the failure)
And is ANYONE surprised that the same principle applies to Nico as well? Nico can't move on from Percy after a conversation or some closure. Apparently he holds Percy on a pedestal, even after Percy "failed to save Bianca" and Nico realized that the world didn't work like his card game. No Nico STILL help Percy up on a pedestal and the only way he can move on from Percy is by diminishing how much Nico mattered to him by implying that Percy is a bad friend who failed Nico somehow. And Nico suddenly realizes that Percy is annoying and immature and sees how normal and unimpressive he is after he sees Percy... Right after Tartarus. Right after Tartarus when Annabeth and Percy are complete messes Nico looks at him and goes: wow he looks so normal/not heroic. That doesn't make Nico seem shallow not at all! What are you talking about? I mean in the same book Percy is called the person Nico cares for the most but we need to Speedrun this moving on shit so Nico finds belonging(times 2 but it will stick this time promise) and his new besties and his perfect boyfriend and him and Percy never have a moment to finish their ass conflict(same as Reyna and Jason) just a high five with Annabeth and into happily ever after we go.
I always say that the thing which sets Sargent apart as a portrait artist is that he draws/paints literally every subject - no matter their gender, social position, life vs representational drawing etc - like he is right that minute realising he's desperately in love with them. And it rules every single time.
Visiting family for the weekend, including my seven year old niece, who is obviously the most special and incredible child on the planet
Anyway, she really, really loves it when I tell her stories. She loves stories anyway, and at first this manifested as "stories about Tad-Cu Bryn", aka my father (her grandfather) who died before she was born. This has been a lovely way to keep his memory alive, and she adores every story - she has her favourites, which she will request.
Then it became apparent that she specifically loves me telling her stories. She'll happily ask others for them too, but from me she just wants any anecdote at all; which of course is wonderful and demonstrates that she is a child of impeccable taste and wisdom and brilliance, but also she has ADHD and the energy reserves of a seven year old and so this gets Tiring very quickly
Yesterday, in the car on the way back from the wildlife centre, she asked for one of my longer stories, and I was like hey, how about we try something different?
And she was like, no, tell me a story about Tad-Cu Bryn
And I was like, this will be a brand new story and you get to play it and help me tell it
And she was like, explain
So I gave her three characters to choose from. The first was a warrior with a sword she could name, who was nonetheless dyspraxic. The second was a gymnastic elf who could commune with trees but was afraid of heights. The third was a dyslexic witch whose spells sometimes go wrong when she spells the words wrong.
She picked the witch. I pulled up an online d20 on my phone. I went to start, and she insisted my mother had to play as the elf.
So I told them that the new queen of the kingdom had called for them, because their palace treasury had been robbed - specifically, a single enchanted coin that brings luck and wealth to a ruler's reign had been stolen. And tales of enchanted coins were suddenly emanating from across the land, so each one needed investigating until the right coin was found.
It turns out kids who like stories will absolutely lap this shit up. She was enthralled. It was the simplest story - they had to get into a bank, revive some unconscious gnomes, then enter the vault, find the coin that had been deposited into it, then get back to the queen. Enough to fill a half hour car ride, basically, but she managed to fill it with all the wacky hijinks you get from a ttrpg, particularly when she tried to smash a door down with a hammer but rolled a 1.
We finished with the queen saying it wasn't the right coin, and then my niece demanded we go again, this time with her playing as a sapient reticulated python. That time we made it all the way to the final boss fight, which was a sorcerer who created a big coin monster out of loads of coins; I asked my niece what she wanted to do, and she described graphically how she wanted to constrict and eat the sorcerer and immediately rolled a 19. So, sure! Okay. The sorcerer is now very dead. The coin monster, though, was still there, and as my niece tried to say she would do the same thing, I was like, no, you're a snake and you just ate. You're now immobile.
At this point, my sister advised her to regurgitate the sorcerer.
Great! said my niece. I'm going to do it at the coin monster.
And rolled a 20.
So she projectile vomited a dead sorcerer into the coin monster, and won the day.
Anyway, today she immediately demanded we play "the game with the story where we choose", and my brother in law is now asking me how he can do this with her ("Are you making it all up as you go along??"). But yeah, turns out, this is a fantastic way to entertain a seven year old. Vague ongoing quest, then three steps: get into (place), resolve (minor puzzle), boss fight to finish. Boom. Easy.
So far I've done a bank, a tavern, and an art gallery (it featured an exhibit that was just a room full of slippery banana skins). I'm going to do a pirate ship next
The aforementioned snake regurgitation bit. What I didn't mention was that at first, when I said she now needed to lie down and digest, her attempt to resolve it was "Nana, you need to find me a heat lamp" and I had to be like, "Nana has bigger problems right now because she is fighting the coin monster, and also you're both trapped down here." Why were they both trapped? Because rather than finding the stairs down to the basement, they chose to hack a hole in the floor and drop through
When they found their first enchanted coin, Niece picked it up with her bare hand. This made her hand swell up to five times the size and turn blue with orange polka dots. Her response? To immediately pick up the coin with the other hand so they could match
Niece decided very suddenly and randomly that slipping on banana skins was funny, and periodically she would competently enter a new room and she'd interrupt me to say "And then I stand on a banana skin!" This is why I made the banana skin modern art installation. Purely for her to enjoy getting through the room
At one point as the witch they decided to jointly fly on the broom to a new location. "You don't need to roll for that," I said, but Niece was enjoying rolling by then, and so did anyway, and somehow rolled a 20. It was the world's greatest broom ride. They had in-flight entertainment, free snacks each, they napped, and they landed 20 seconds before they took off
The morning I left, she saw me and asked if we could play "Dungeons and Dragons", so her father has definitely been discussing playing with her because I never used that name. Delighted to have offered this new past time into their lives, and next time I'll try and write a little detective campaign, I think
Today my co-worker had to bring his nine-year-old daughter to work, and she did great for Many Hours, but at 2pm she definitely was flagging and bored. She started wandering the office and playing with the standing desks and throwing a ball around, as nine-year-olds do, and I thought. Hang on. Hang the fuck on. I have the cheat code now. I can fix this.
She picked the elf, and assigned the witch to her father. Our other co-worker Ian became the clumsy ninja. I sent them to the tavern.
Things I have learned:
No one who isn't already a player of ttrpgs is very good at remembering the quest; they tend to only think as far as the immediate puzzle (get the door open) and not as far as the overall goal (find the coin)
No one who isn't already a player of ttrpgs is very good at asking the NPCs for useful information
Young girls really love the opportunity to beat the shit out of monsters
Kids love a bit of slapstick detail added in
People who are not already players of ttrpgs are astounded when they suddenly realise you're making it all up for them as you go along
Parents of bored young kids are so insanely grateful to you for spontaneously GMing their kids they will offer you many favours vis a vis getting your marking done like 10 out of 10 strategy
Memo to all college writers. If you’re going to write a paper on country music for a born-and-raised Texan professor, make sure you’ve got your facts straight.
And with this, I conclude my first round of freshman grading. Hallelujah. In general, I’m quite proud of the work they turned in. Importantly: not a single person failed.
My best was the essay critiquing a paper about marks on bone during the Neolithic where the student had managed to imply that dogs could use knives and I wrote that unfortunately dogs do not have opposable thumbs.
My favourite comment I’ve received was from one of my PhD examiners who highlighted an Error! where word had decided to fuck up a reference and just wrote ‘Oops!’.
I think the reader's response to this post is probably going to either be "That's incredibly minor" or "Holy shit YES I'M ALSO PROUD", depending on people's personal experiences with academia, but:
Today I am incredibly proud of one of my students.
In the interests of disguising identities, let's call them Ceri. Ceri is one of my third year undergrads (meaning their final year, for anyone unfamiliar with UK uni systems.) They transferred to us last year, and within two weeks I was giving them the contact info to get to Student Services and get themself screened for ADHD; they have some mental health struggles, but I clocked pretty quickly that they STRUGGLE with procrastination, and punctuality, and attending 9am lectures in particular. Naturally, as is the way of my people, it took them a further four months to remember to go to the screening. Lol. Lmao. Rofl, in fact.
But, they did it eventually! Their screening lit up like a Christmas tree at the ADHD section, and they got a free laptop and optional one week extensions and a study support worker named Claire. This has helped tremendously, and although mental health + until-then-unsupported ADHD meant their academic profile had slid sideways somewhat, with the new tools available and a couple of resits they passed the year and hit this year running.
Until, that is, the last fortnight.
Now, I take them for a Habitat Management module that has two assessments: an academic poster presentation before Christmas, and a site-specific management plan in May. Naturally this means we are at that happy point in the year for the poster presentations. I give out the briefs at the start of the year, so they've had them since October; I've also been periodically checking in with them all for weeks, to make sure they don't have any major burning questions. The poster presentation was to pick a species reintroduction project, pull the habitat feasibility study out of it, and then critique that study; Ceri chose to look at the hen harrier reintroductions proposed for the southern UK. All good.
Which brings us nicely to today! Ceri's presentation is scheduled for 2.30. At 11am-1pm, I am lecturing the first years on Biodiversity, while Ceri is learning about environmental impact assessment with a colleague I shall call Aeron. This means we are separately occupied during those same hours.
Nevertheless, Aeron messages me at about 12.
"I think Ceri needs to see you after your lecture," he writes. "They're panicking, I genuinely think they might cry. I'm worried. Are you free at 1?"
I say I am. At 1, I get lunch and sit in the common area; Ceri comes to see me. To my personal shame, imagine all of the following takes place while I stuff my face with potato.
Now: this part is going to be uncomfortably familiar to anyone who has ever tried higher education with ADHD, especially unmedicated. It certainly was for me. All I can say is, I never had the courage to take the step here that Ceri did.
"I have to confess," they said quietly, and Aeron was right, they were fighting back tears. "My mental health has been so, so bad for the last fortnight. I've left it way, way too late. I don't have anything to present."
"Nothing at all?" I asked.
"I've been researching," they said helplessly. "I found loads on the decline of the hen harrier. But it wasn't until last night that I finally found a habitat feasibility study to critique. Generally... I've been burying my head about it, and it just got later and later. I thought I should come in for Aeron's lecture, and I should at least tell you."
This part is a minor thing, right? But honestly, I remember being in the grip of that particular shame spiral. I never did manage to tell my lecturers to their faces. I just avoided. I honestly can't imagine having the courage it took them to come in and tell me this, rather than just staying home and avoiding me.
"I think..." they said hesitantly, "I know I can submit up to a week late, for a capped mark. I think I need to do that, and apply for extenuating circumstances. But then I'll have both Aeron's assignment and yours due at the same time."
Which meant they would crumble under the pressure and likely struggle to pass both; so me, being as noble and heroic as I unarguably am, stopped eating potato and said, "Let's make that plan B."
(It was good potato. I am a hero.)
So, we made plan A: I moved their timeslot to 4.30, giving them three and a half hours. The shining piece of luck in this whole thing was that this was the crunch time assignment - if it had been Aeron's, they'd have had to try and write a 3000 report in that time. But for me, all they had to write was an academic poster, and those things are light on words by design. We found them a Canva template, and then we quickly sketched out a recommended structure based on the brief: if it's habitat feasibility, look at food availability, nesting site availability, and mortality risks in the target release site. Bullet point each. Bullet point how well the study assessed each. Write a quick intro and conclusion. Take notes as you go, and present the poster itself at 4.30.
"You think I should try?" they asked doubtfully, looking like I'd just asked them to go mano-a-mano with a feral badger.
"If you run out of time, so be it," I said. "But your brain is trying to protect you from a non-existent tiger. That's why you've procrastinated - it's been horrible, and you've been shame spiralling, and your brain is trying to shield you from the negative experience; but it's the wrong type of help for this situation! So while you're sitting there working on it, hating life, every time your brain goes 'This is hopeless, I can't do it', you think right back 'Yes I can, it just sucks.' And you carry on. Good?"
"Good," they said. "I'm going to mainline coffee and hole up in the library. Enjoy your potato."
And then, of course, I had to go and watch the other students' presentations, so that was the end of me being any help at all. I spent all afternoon wondering if they were going to manage it, or if I would be getting a message at 4.25 telling me they'd failed, and would have to submit late and hope for an EC.
And Tumblrs
Tumblrs
Let me FUCKING tell you
They turned up at 4.15, fifteen minutes early, wearing a mask of grim, harrowed determination and fuelled by spite and coffee, and they pulled up that poster and started presenting and yes, okay, I'll admit their actual delivery was dramatically unpolished and yes, they forgot to include the taxanomic name for the hen harrier on the poster and yes, fine, I admit that there were more than a few awkward moments where they lost their place in their hastily scribbled notebook but LET ME FUCKING TELL YOU -
They smashed it. It was well-critiqued, it had a map, it had full citations, it had a section on the hen harrier's specific ecology and role in the ecosystem, it had notes on their specific conservation measures. They described case studies they'd read about elsewhere. They answered the questions we threw at them with competence and depth. There was analysis. All that background research they'd done came right to the fore. They were even within the time limit by 15 seconds.
You would never have known they'd produced it in three hours, from a quivering and terrified mess fighting the bodily urge to dehydrate via tear ducts. After they left, the second marker and I looked at each other and went "So that was a 2:1, right?"
I caught up with Aeron downstairs and he was beaming. Apparently Ceri had seen him on their way out, and had gone over to talk to him. Aeron said the difference between the Ceri of this morning and the Ceri of then was like two different people; in four hours, they'd gone from their voice literally breaking as they admitted the problem, ashamed and broken, to being relaxed and happy and smiling.
"I reckon I've passed," they apparently told Aeron, pleased. "Maybe even a 2:2. There's things I wish I'd had the time to do better, but I'll be happy if I passed."
They won't know until late January what they got, because we're not allowed to release marks until 20 term days after hand-in, and the Christmas holidays are about to hit. But I'm really hoping I can be there when they're released.
But mostly, I'm just... insanely proud of them. I cannot tell you how happy I am. And I know, I know, obviously this is not a practice I would want to see them do regularly, or indeed ever again, and it only worked because they were fucking lucky with the assignment format, but like... when life is just punching you in the face, and you hit a breaking point... isn't it nice? That just this once, you pull off a miracle, and it's fixed? The disaster you thought was about to ruin you is gone? To get that relief?
