Book of Sparrows

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The library is on the right hand-side of the main hallway and is a large, two-story room containing many bookshelves lined with a large collection of books covering different topics.The ground floor contains mainly fiction while the second floor contains mostly non-fiction works. In order to try and keep the noise levels to an acceptable degree, the ground floor is used for group work or solo study with headphones playing music allowed, while the second floor is a quiet zone purely reserved for studying without any distractions. So far this system seems to have been working fairly well and the library has proven to be a genuinely productive place.
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ifnotwinter†
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Book of Sparrows

#1

Post by ifnotwinter† »

Sebastian Conway wasn't procrastinating. His math homework was laid out neatly on the desk in front of him, a calculator and three sharpened pencils were ready and waiting by his right side, and the textbook was open to the relevant pages, propped up on a makeshift stand of a crumpled lunchbag and the first two volumes of some fantasy series where the author's name took up more of the cover than the title. He was ready. He was prepared. He was...

...listening to his iPod through one earbud and casually sketching on the scrap paper that sadly boasted only a single half-completed equation before being taken over by wing studies. It was kind of math related, right? Airflow and lift and...and proportion, and things like that. It was close enough. Anyhow, he had the whole rest of the free period. The math would get done.

Well, probably anyway.

Tongue tucked between his teeth and eyebrows drawn together, Seb hummed softly along to Tracy Grammer and added another swooping feather in the long wing of a whippoorwill.
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Frozen Smoke
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#2

Post by Frozen Smoke »

((>tracert ParkerGreen.Pregame
1 | 2 ms 1 ms 1 ms life observes itself█))

Parker was currently looking for somewhere he could properly sit down and concentrate. The library was normally a good place for that, its more traditional construction style meant that the computer section would serve as a nucleation point of interaction for the people who wanted to 'hang out', segregating them from those attempting to use the facility as a quiet space. He had wondered a few weeks ago if that had been intentional. Probably not, but if he ever had to design a library, he would have to remember this. Not that that was likely.

There were a few tables and desks strewn around here, neatly arranged into two grids. Two pairs of 1x2 tables spaced with an aisle between them. There was only one other person in the room, at the far left of this seating arrangement. He was dressed in a dark green button up shirt, and had khaki slacks on. Parker wasn't a fan, personally. Thought it made him look like he was 18 going on 80, but then again he was wearing a Northlane Astral Pyramid shirt and black skinny jeans right now so he wasn't exactly rocking some sort of underused aesthetic. If it wasn't for the glasses and the fact that his hair was done in the most half-assed manner possible, he could have passed for a scene kid.

Still, he didn't really know green shirt boy. Maybe they'd talked before, but he'd probably just called him mate and never actually asked for his name and then it had been too late to ask, so he'd just hoped someone else would say his name. That had happened a few times before, and eventually having to ask had been very awkward.

No time to waste getting distracted however. He had set aside this free period to finish off his math homework, not that he really needed to. The hand in was next week, not this one. He just wanted to hand it in this week so he could focus on other things before then. Looming deadlines were great for motivation, but not so much for just getting routine things finished. You just did them when you had spare time.

Parker judged where to sit down for a moment. He had no desire to talk to green shirt right about now, but equally he didn't want to look like he consciously avoiding him in particular because that would be rude. He just wanted to get this thing done, so he could spend the rest of the free period doing something a little more rewarding. He still hadn't watched Mew2King's Summit 6 run and he was really looking forwards to that.

He set himself in one seat to left of the position diametrically opposed to green shirt in the matrix of desks that had been created by whatever architect had designed the room, deliberately not making eye contact with him as he pulled his laptop bag up and took out all the equipment he needed. A calculator, pen, pencil & formula sheet. As well as a notepad to write it all down on. He also pulled out his portable battery, and quickly plugged his phone in. If he wanted to watch videos on his crappy iPhone that was 3 generations past its planned obsolescence timing, it was going to eat battery like anything else.

With that taken care of, he looked down, simply taking note of the question, and trying to elucidate himself and turn the abstractions of the question into the task at hand.

He tried for just a second, before green shirt's humming filtered into his thought process, and his eyes flicked up to glance at him merely out of reaction to the noise, his concentration momentarily shattered. There was a hint of annoyance in the look, but it was quickly doused and he forced himself to look away, and back to the task at hand. He didn't wish to be distracted from this, any as annoying as that was probably going to be, he'd rather just ignore it for now.
[+] V7
Relationship Thread!

ImageFaith Clementine Marshal-Mackenzie
[+] Pregame
Memories: Making old enemies
Present Day: Making new friends - Playing childish games - Acting like an adult
Oneshots: Tidying up - Coming home
ImageParker Green
[+] Pregame
Memories: Cheaters never prosper - Except when they do - Keeping promises
Present Day: Getting informed - Playing nice - Keeping up appearances - Playing Games - Talking too much
Oneshots: Preparing for battle
Luca Thomas
[+] Pregame
Present Day: Being a team player
Prom: Trying her best
Memories:
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#3

Post by ifnotwinter† »

Seb only half-noticed the other boy sitting down at the tables, occupied as he was in the smooth contours of the wing he was working on. Another feather extended just far enough to brush the edges of the formula he'd been working on and triggered a little bubble of guilt to come bursting up, given slightly more of a sting when he realized that the other student was definitely actually working on math homework, if the calculator and formula sheet were anything to go by.

Reluctantly, he turned himself back to the textbook. Bird pictures, he had to admit, were unlikely to be accepted by Mr. Terrance in lieu of calculus. But that didn't change the fact that sketching wings and feathers came so much easier to him than the math.

Several minutes passed in semi-silence, Seb still occasionally humming a bar or two of a particular favorite song accompanied by the skritch of pencil on paper. It wasn't going well. Eraser-marks were starting to pile up and make it harder and harder to Seb to actually see his own equations, while the start black-and-white print of the textbook seemed to swim in front of his eyes every time he tried to figure out the answers. He'd started sneaking glances at the other student, hoping vaguely that some kind of learning-by-osmosis would result in him somehow suddenly understanding everything. So far it hadn't worked. Bummer.

What was the other boy's name, anyway? He looked vaguely familiar, in that 'gone to school with you for years without ever actually interacting' way. Phillip? Peter? Peter sounded right in a weird way but he was almost positive that wasn't it. Well, crap. Still, maybe this was the time for introductions. Final year, about to make their own way in the world...and almost positive he was headed for an F on this assignment if he didn't take some kind of action.

"Hey, uh, buddy? Are you getting like...any of this? Because I'm really not."
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#4

Post by Frozen Smoke »

Parker wasn't listening to music as he worked, for once. He wasn't sure quite why, but something about being in a library made nodding one's head to the beat of whatever he was listening to as he normally did feel noticeably more awkward and wrong. At least he'd have the courtesy to not just assume "Headphones" meant "No-one else can hear this" though, unlike a few other people who preferred the over-ear headphones that were as ludicrously large as their grossly inflated price-tags allowed, who seemed to have the volume settings of "off" and "obnoxious". Much like the people who tended to wear them, in fact.

Noticeably judgemental tangent aside, however, he had begun to settle into a nice working rhythm though. The questions were just simple trigonometry, all one had to do was draw a quick triangle, fill in the information you had, run through soc-cah-toa and bam - You had the computation ready to complete on the calculator and then put in the correct box. He would have just started doing them in his head, but he wanted to make sure that no-one accused him of cheating, so he made sure to detail the workings as thoroughly as he could.

This rhythm didn't break for something as simple as a question from Seb though.

"Just a sec." he said, quietly, to indicate this to him.

He continued to draw the triangle, carefully. A right angle, scanning from one point to one point, then travelling down, following the instructions indicated by the question. A quick partial circle and a theta indicating the point from which the angle was calculated. The theta was then brought out of the triangle, and annotated. Theta = 23°.

He had all the facts, now he simply needed to make them whole. He had the Sin(θ) and Hypotenuse, so all he needed to do was multiply the two together because SOH-CAH-TOA was actually a series of triangle-arrangements, like Distance, Speed & Time - As they'd learnt in science, and that was just how these little math triangles worked. He pondered if there was a name for them, before deciding that it didn't matter, and moving on to solving the problem with one instead.

It took a few moments for his hand to tap into the calculator the numbers in question, and give him an answer that seemed reasonable. He noted down the answer given exactly where he was instructed to put it, to three significant figures.

There. Done.

He looked up and up at green shirt, blinking as he realised he hadn't heard what he'd said at all. Just observed that he was making noise and decided to not ignore him because that would have been sort of rude, and now he wasn't sure what he'd asked him at all.

"Sorry, uh, what was that?" he asked, trying his best to sound like he wasn't simply asking out of general social courtesy that one was expected to observe.
[+] V7
Relationship Thread!

ImageFaith Clementine Marshal-Mackenzie
[+] Pregame
Memories: Making old enemies
Present Day: Making new friends - Playing childish games - Acting like an adult
Oneshots: Tidying up - Coming home
ImageParker Green
[+] Pregame
Memories: Cheaters never prosper - Except when they do - Keeping promises
Present Day: Getting informed - Playing nice - Keeping up appearances - Playing Games - Talking too much
Oneshots: Preparing for battle
Luca Thomas
[+] Pregame
Present Day: Being a team player
Prom: Trying her best
Memories:
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#5

Post by ifnotwinter† »

Wow. Seb couldn't say that he'd ever actually watched someone else do math with any kind of interest -- sure, he'd done homework with his sisters before but they generally were either all doing their own thing or actively trying to teach him -- but there was something kind of hypnotizing about seeing the other boy work quickly, efficiently, and although Seb couldn't exactly be sure, he figured probably correctly. It was weirdly intimidating.

He tried to console himself with the reminder that maybe other people felt the same way when they saw him draw. It was just all about what you were good at, right? Watching anyone do something they were really good at felt the same. That was why there were all those Facebook videos of calligraphy and glassblowing and shit like that. An art form was an art form, whether it was actual art or trigonometry.

Probably-not-Peter finished his last neat digit and then asked Seb to repeat himself. Augh, really? It had been embarrassing enough the first time, admitting that he had no clue what he was doing. Now he had to do it again?

"I just...uhm, asked if you were getting this. Because I'm kind of not? But," he laughed awkwardly, one hand coming up to rub at the back of his neck, "I guess, I feel like you probably are?"

He supposed there was always the possibility that possibly-Phillip was just bullshitting his way through, but the likelihood of that seemed slim.
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#6

Post by Frozen Smoke »

Oh, he was asking for help.

There was a brief moment as Parker tried to figure out if he could get away from this quicker if he said no here, hesitating as he wondered how upset green shirt would be, and if he'd make a scene out of it. He decided that he probably wouldn't considering how nervous he was, but that the risk of it was enough that he should do it anyway. He let the little burst of pride twist the corners of his mouth up into something resembling a wry smile at how he said he looked like he knew what he was doing though.

Parker guessed that as long as he didn't actually put any real effort into it, he could probably just vaguely explain the methodology to the last few questions and the both of them could count that as "good enough". Shit, if he didn't get it this late in the class he was probably just going to accept failure like he'd seen a lot of kids do lately - People who slipped from firm A's to occasional B's and then just barely keeping their heads above C level - so it wasn't as if he was sabotaging his education either. And he was pretty sure green shirt was smart enough to not go to the board and be like "After I asked Parker to help me with some questions he did that" without a strong enough incentive that couldn't be used to convince Tyrell to feed him his own left foot, which would be much more efficient and probably effective if they wanted to gain his ire.

The pause was uncomfortably long, as Parker pondered this. A few seconds of thoughtfulness as Parker looked in his direction, considering the options. He tried to cover for it with a forced smile, trying to look the excited teacher and not how he felt - trapped by social obligation. It was a good enough facsimile of that expression, he hoped, as he shuffled his equipment onto his notepad, preparing to move his work-space closer to him.

"Yeah, absolutely." he said, trying to add an air of reserved enthusiasm to his voice. He didn't want to sound too eager.  That might lead to the wrong signals being sent and - he caught a few more glances as he moved to sit down next to him - yeah he wasn't his type. He didn't quite know what his type was yet, but he was pretty sure he'd find it soon.

Parker faux-discreetly looked at his watch as he stood there in front of a pulled out chair and about to sit down next to him, habitually brushing a non-existent jacket away from the black coated metal on wrist. Trying to make just enough motion that he was sure green shirt noticed it, as him checking it added credence to what he was about to say. It was 11:13. The next roughly round number was 11:30, but that left only 17 minutes, after that was 11:45.

"Just so you know, I've got to nip off at 11:45 - I have to do something in the computer labs before class." He said, trying to add a little note of worry to his voice so he'd understand that this was something he valued. Implicitly, valuing it more than helping him, although it was unlikely he'd take it as a slight. Green shirt didn't strike Parker as the Madison or Ivy sort, to whom any compromise equated betrayal and earned eternal animosity. At least, that was their reputations. He'd never actually spoken to either of them, he was pretty sure. He'd seen them at parties, for sure, but interacting with them seemed like a lose-lose. Maybe he'd try it just before he left to Virginia Tech, find out who they really were, before leaving their lives forever.

Still, the time length of the session had been established. If green shirt started asking questions about what exactly he had to do, well, most people didn't question things like that and he felt fairly sure green shirt was likely to follow those conventions. Now, to sell him on his teaching plan, going back into the tone of a vaguely enthusiastic but reserved tutor.

"So, I'd rather just walk you through the last few if that's OK? - Should give you enough of an idea to go back up to the first three and finish them off on your own anyway!"

He even added a touch of optimism, just to try and get him invested in the idea. Maybe Parker could teach him. That probably counted as a good deed or something.
[+] V7
Relationship Thread!

ImageFaith Clementine Marshal-Mackenzie
[+] Pregame
Memories: Making old enemies
Present Day: Making new friends - Playing childish games - Acting like an adult
Oneshots: Tidying up - Coming home
ImageParker Green
[+] Pregame
Memories: Cheaters never prosper - Except when they do - Keeping promises
Present Day: Getting informed - Playing nice - Keeping up appearances - Playing Games - Talking too much
Oneshots: Preparing for battle
Luca Thomas
[+] Pregame
Present Day: Being a team player
Prom: Trying her best
Memories:
Criticism or thoughts on my writing are welcome and appreciated - always looking to improve! Feel free to poke me on Discord or via PM.
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#7

Post by ifnotwinter† »

The pause was long enough that Seb was seriously regretting his decision to ask for help. After all, it couldn't be that hard, right? He just had to buckle down and concentrate. Nose to the grindstone. Actually try to read the textbook instead of just staring at it and hoping that it would somehow directly dump its knowledge into his brain.

But then almost-certainly-not-Patrick smiled -- even if it did look just a little bit strained to Seb's untrained eye -- and not only agreed to help, but actually moved to sit down next to him. Sure, he said that he had to leave at 11:45, but that was like at least an hour away (okay so not really but close enough, right, long enough to at least hopefully get some of this crap through his brain) and anyway just the fact that he was willing to do this was enough to make him awesome in Seb's books.

"Yeah, that sounds awesome." Awesome was maybe a little strong for anything having to do with math but, hey. "Thanks so much, man, I really appreciate it. I'm pretty sure I've almost got it," whoops little white lie nothing wrong with that right? "but I just kind of need...I dunno, like a little push in the right direction?" He laughed ruefully, scratching at the back of his neck with one hand. "I swear I'm not as dumb as I look."

Pulling his textbook closer towards the two of them and trying to as discretely as possible flip over his sheet of scratch slash sketch paper to the untouched side, Seb was struck with the thought that if they were going to be working together, however briefly, he should probably try to figure out maybe-Paul's name sooner rather than later.

Hey. Senior year, right? No time like the present to get to know people you might never see again in your life.

"It's Sebastian, by the way." He stuck out a hand before he could stop himself, was left wondering if that was embarrassingly formal. Welp. Too late now. "Uhm, but most people call me Seb."
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#8

Post by Frozen Smoke »

Green shirt thanked him for his time, which was nice, he supposed. He also added a reassurance that he wasn't as dumb as he looked. He doubted that, if he was honest, but decided that saying that would probably not be the ideal course of action. His eyes caught the little motion off to the side though as he hid what he'd been procrastinating on. Sketching by the looks of it, which was a fairly good thing to procrastinate on, especially if maths wasn't going to be your thing in life. He wished he could draw, but unfortunately he could never figure out how to get what he saw in his head into his hands moving right, and he'd given up pretty quickly.

Perhaps it was a spectrum, between creativity and fact retention? The better you were at coming up with things, the worse you were at learning systems like mathematics or science.

A second passed and he struck down that thought as he tested it against Da Vinci, who used the science of the time to produce art, which used both to a great extent. The two abilities were most likely independent, which was the default assumption.

Green shirt introduced himself as Sebastian, before adding a nickname, and offered his hand out to him, before adding his nickname of Seb to the list of title. Parker instinctively reached out his hand and grasped Seb's hand firmly. Not quite enough to be painful, but enough to be confident in his own strength.

He'd watched a few documentaries about successful businesspeople in the past, and he'd always been surprised to hear every single one mention the importance of finding a solid handshake, although all of them had different advice. This had confused him for a while, as clearly there had to be an "optimal" handshake. However, he'd thought a little deeper and realised the implication hidden within the advice - or at least, what he felt he had to take from it all - which was that you had to pay keen attention to how you presented yourself to other people at all times in order to project the image you wanted them to see in you.

"Parker." he responded instinctually, almost robotically as he shook his hand up and down, before giving making eye contact with him for a moment and giving him a warmer smile and adding "Nice to meet you man" to the introduction.

With that done, he returned to the task at hand, tapping on Question 6 as he read it. He'd done a fair bit of tutoring in his time, and he had a method for it now - what he did was simply explain every step of the process, and write it all out, so they could see it. It had helped a lot with Desiree, who he was tutoring in Chemistry, she seemed like so much more of a visual learner than the school system here really seemed to be designed to help with. His pen moved with his voice, circling things in the text to note them as important, then sketching out a diagram in the workings out section as he spoke, numbers and symbols appearing to annotate it as he went through the process.

"So, this is another basic trig question - But rather than giving us the angle here, they instead have given us two sides of the triangle. Specifically the Opposite and Adjacent. We can actually use Pythagoras Theorem here to find out the Hypotenuse if we wanted to, but that's not what we're asked for - We need to know the... Angle of the skateboard ramp."

Parker sighed. Whoever wrote this question was trying too hard to be down with the kids and it was very annoying. It made the exercise feel exactly as pointless as it was.

"So for now I'll use the two given pieces of information - 5.2 metres long by 1.8 metres high. We have to use SOH CAH TOA to find out which trig function to use, with us looking for the one that has both Opposite and Adjacent, which is TOA. This means Tan open brackets theta close brackets equals Opposite divided by Adjacent."

There was a pause as he tapped the numbers into the calculator

"Tan-theta equals 0.34615. In order to get theta - Which is the angle we want in degrees - we have to remove the Tan, which we do by multiplying it by Tan to the power of negative one, which - due to the laws of indicies - gives us Tan to the power of 0, which equals 1. 1 times Theta = Theta."

His hand moved to the calculator again

"Theta equals 19.9 degrees."

He looked over at Seb from his paper since starting the question.

"That make any sense?" He queried, with a bit of a joking edge to his voice, as if he understood that it was hard to follow, even though it really wasn't for him. Everything just sort of.. Worked for him, fell into place naturally. Made sense.
[+] V7
Relationship Thread!

ImageFaith Clementine Marshal-Mackenzie
[+] Pregame
Memories: Making old enemies
Present Day: Making new friends - Playing childish games - Acting like an adult
Oneshots: Tidying up - Coming home
ImageParker Green
[+] Pregame
Memories: Cheaters never prosper - Except when they do - Keeping promises
Present Day: Getting informed - Playing nice - Keeping up appearances - Playing Games - Talking too much
Oneshots: Preparing for battle
Luca Thomas
[+] Pregame
Present Day: Being a team player
Prom: Trying her best
Memories:
Criticism or thoughts on my writing are welcome and appreciated - always looking to improve! Feel free to poke me on Discord or via PM.
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ifnotwinter†
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#9

Post by ifnotwinter† »

Parker, right. Seb thought he might have known that already. At least the other boy didn't seem weirded out by the handshake at all, returning it firmly and with a warm smile. Aw. Sweet. There weren't that many people Seb didn't get along with these days, and it was always nice to add another name to that list.

But then, of course, they had to buckle down to the math. Ugh. He had to admit, as Parker led him through the steps of the question with pencil scratching and calculator tapping, that it wasn't actually that bad. SOHCAHTOA was something they'd reviewed over and over in various classes and watching Parker navigate the pitfalls of imaginary skateboard ramps (skateboard ramps, seriously, who wrote these questions? Clearly someone who'd spent too much time authoring mathematics textbooks and way not enough time in the real world) was actually pretty helpful.

When Parker asked him if he understood, Seb was surprised to find that he actually did. "Uh -- yeah, actually. That was really helpful." It didn't exactly make him want to do the remainder of the homework, but at least it didn't feel totally impossible anymore. He tapped at question seven with his own pencil, glancing up at Parker with his lip caught between his teeth. "So here, right, we've got the opposite and the hypotenuse, so it would be...sin theta equals opposite over hypotenuse, right? And then just go from there to find the angle."

Frick, he hoped so. Otherwise he was still pretty lost. "Honestly, I do kind of know this stuff. I'm just a little more of an artsy person than a math-y person, y'know?" Well, Parker probably knew that already if he'd seen his sheet of wing studies. "And I'm pretty sure last period math on a Friday should be some kind of human rights violation." He's fairly certain that he spent the entirety of last class gazing out the window and dreaming of a weekend spent at Lookout Mountain.

"Not that there's anything wrong with being into math! Just, not my style," he added hastily. It seemed like this Parker kid really knew his stuff, probably he was one of those people that actually liked math class.
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Frozen Smoke
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#10

Post by Frozen Smoke »

Parker was trying his best to hide it externally, but the fact that he had been able to impart on Seb in 2 minutes what the school system had failed to do in 3 months filled him with a sense of self satisfaction. Not that that was really Seb's fault, even - GHHS wasn't exactly a star school, the teachers tried their best, but it wasn't like they were at the far positive end of the bell curve. Just kinda at the peak of the normal distribution. He doubted Seb had ever had a one-on-one tutoring session as well, or at least, for more than 30 seconds at a time. Such was the nature of public education, he supposed.

He quickly tapped his own way through question 8, drawing out a triangle form of Sin/Opposite/Hypotenuse with precise penstrokes to draw Seb's attention to it, then covering up the one he wanted to find with his thumb, wordlessly showing him a technique he'd found useful when learning the topic. The ink smudged a little as he moved his thumb away and the corner of his mouth turned down in distaste as he saw that, the mistake irking him somewhat, even though it wouldn't be penalised.

"Yup, that's right." he confirmed for him in a quick interjection, as he wrote his own answer down. He then looked over at him and listened as he spoke some more. It sounded roughly similar to what he was thinking about earlier, just less thought out, so he kind of got it. And, he honestly didn't mind Math class. It wasn't fun, sure - being good at something does not automatically make it incredibly enjoyable - but he normally just finished all the problems they had to work out and then listened to a podcast or read through the forums or whatever he wanted to really. It wasn't like the teachers cared any more. He could probably fail every last test now and still hit like a 3.5 or something, and that was A-Ok as far as they were concerned.

Parker wasn't going to do that, of course. Nothing less than the best would be enough, he was pretty sure, if he wanted the best in life. You had to work hard to make it, that's what everyone said, especially his parents.

Parker forced out a little chuckle at his last thing, as if he found it funny, hoping to put him at ease, as he was obviously concerned he'd upset him, and he wanted to show he hadn't. Because, well, he got it. If you didn't "get" maths, then he imagined it would be pretty lame having to try and concentrate on that when you just want to be at home really. He hated having Gym class on Monday morning for the same reason, because he always ended up staying up too late on Sunday and would end up being exhausted before it even started, and felt dead for the rest of the day.

Ah well, that was the reason consumerism gave society $0.99 energy drinks.

"Nah, it's fine man. I get yah." He added, with a smile.

There was a pause. Parker felt like Seb probably expected him to respond with an explanation of how he felt personally, but his eyes were already drawing down to the next question. He probably could have asked him about his art, maybe? Talked about how much he liked birds, maybe? Birds were his favourite animals, honestly. He just loved the idea of flying in general, if he was being honest, and birds were iconic of that. But he didn't see the point of it. He was going to be out of Tennessee in a few more months, and he'd probably see... maybe four or five people from here in the future willingly. The utility of making another "actual friend" was at this point non-existent against the costs of the promise of support and openness that that implied.

"The next one is trying to make you think it's way more complicated than it is - It's two triangles stacked on top of one another - So you just need to sum the opposites of the two triangles to get the total height." he explained as he walked his way through the next question, neatly dismantling the overcomplex word question as his fountain pen neatly circled the various numbers, isolating them from the near meaningless text that surrounded them.
[+] V7
Relationship Thread!

ImageFaith Clementine Marshal-Mackenzie
[+] Pregame
Memories: Making old enemies
Present Day: Making new friends - Playing childish games - Acting like an adult
Oneshots: Tidying up - Coming home
ImageParker Green
[+] Pregame
Memories: Cheaters never prosper - Except when they do - Keeping promises
Present Day: Getting informed - Playing nice - Keeping up appearances - Playing Games - Talking too much
Oneshots: Preparing for battle
Luca Thomas
[+] Pregame
Present Day: Being a team player
Prom: Trying her best
Memories:
Criticism or thoughts on my writing are welcome and appreciated - always looking to improve! Feel free to poke me on Discord or via PM.
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ifnotwinter†
Posts: 295
Joined: Sat Sep 01, 2018 5:22 am

#11

Post by ifnotwinter† »

Seb relaxed as Parker confirmed for him that he wasn't totally off-base for the question, idly tapping his pencil against the paper in a meaningless rhythm. This trig stuff didn't actually seem so bad when he had someone else working with him one-on-one; somehow it just made sense in a way it never seemed to in the classroom setting. Or maybe it was just because he was being forced to pay attention and actually directly interact with his 'teacher'.

Well, either way, it was useful. He should probably do this more often.

And at least Parker didn't seem offended at all by his accidental social faux pas, considering he was now in Seb's mind officially one of those people who actually liked math. He had to admit, he was a little jealous. But then -- who knew, maybe Parker was a total dud in English or bio or another class. That was how it went, right? Everyone had their strengths and weaknesses. It was one of the main bonuses of friendship, in Seb's opinion -- chances were good that you'd be forced to discover something new or get the chance to learn from someone else. Not that Parker could be considered a friend just yet, given that they'd only really met about twenty minutes ago, but you never knew what chance meetings could develop into.

...eugh. That sounded like the tagline for a cheesy romcom. Seb mentally shook himself and bent back over the textbook, frowning at the ninth question and its stupid 'two triangles on top of each other' plot twist. At least when Parker explained it, it didn't sound too bad. His own pencil scritched busily on the paper as he worked it out, calculator tapping away through the intricacies of angles, angles he quietly suspected he would never need to know or have to deal with post-high school.

"Listen, man, thanks again for all your help." There were still a couple of questions to go but they really didn't look too bad and to be totally honest, Seb was rapidly hitting the end of his rope when it came to concentration, especially when outside the library windows the sky was blue, the sun was shining, and there were trails just waiting to be explored and wildlife waiting to be sketched. "I really appreciate it. I know you've gotta go, do you want to call it here? I'm pretty sure I can fumble my way through the rest of these without too much agony."
This is an archival account used by staff to port posts belonging to the handler ifnotwinter. While this handler hasn't been around in quite a while, should they return and wish to take custody of this account and/or its posts, they are welcome to do so by contacting staff.
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Frozen Smoke
Posts: 533
Joined: Mon Aug 13, 2018 3:50 pm
Location: Where I need to be

#12

Post by Frozen Smoke »

"Listen, man, thanks again for all your help. I really appreciate it. I know you've gotta go, do you want to call it here? I'm pretty sure I can fumble my way through the rest of these without too much agony."

Parker's hand -and thus his pen- paused for the briefest moment as he started talking, before coming away from the page, as to prevent the ink from bleeding into an unsightly blotch on the page. His other reaction as his speaking continued and the point became clear was to ponder what he had done wrong to cause Seb to want to leave. Not that he minded a huge amount, it wasn't like he'd wanted to do this or else he'd have approached him in the first place.

He looked up at him as he began to respond to the question, his attention drawn from the question to the person asking it, and suddenly everything became quite clear as Sebs eyes lingered for a moment on the window before meeting his. He wanted to go do something else.

"No worries man, like I said, I gotta be out of here soon anyway - Glad I could give you some help though." there was a conscious omission of anything that would indicate a desire to teach him again, which he felt like was the natural addition to the expression. He didn't say it though, because he knew he wouldn't mean it. He maintained his calm, understated smile as he carried on. "Good luck with the rest of them man, I'm gonna chill here and finish the rest of these before heading out myself."

He was going to add something about hoping this would help in his exams, but Seb struck him as the kind of person who habitually ate shit at exams. He seemed to have the attention span of about 10 minutes, so a 2 hour exam probably wasn't the best way to get the best out of him. Which was the intent of exams, he suppose - To make sure only the people who could sit down and do the hard work without getting distracted got the best marks, so they stood out in college applications.

Still, he couldn't help but feel a little bit of pity for Seb as he quietly worked his way through the next question, his workings out more discrete and simple without the pressure of explaining them to his partner.
[+] V7
Relationship Thread!

ImageFaith Clementine Marshal-Mackenzie
[+] Pregame
Memories: Making old enemies
Present Day: Making new friends - Playing childish games - Acting like an adult
Oneshots: Tidying up - Coming home
ImageParker Green
[+] Pregame
Memories: Cheaters never prosper - Except when they do - Keeping promises
Present Day: Getting informed - Playing nice - Keeping up appearances - Playing Games - Talking too much
Oneshots: Preparing for battle
Luca Thomas
[+] Pregame
Present Day: Being a team player
Prom: Trying her best
Memories:
Criticism or thoughts on my writing are welcome and appreciated - always looking to improve! Feel free to poke me on Discord or via PM.
User avatar
ifnotwinter†
Posts: 295
Joined: Sat Sep 01, 2018 5:22 am

#13

Post by ifnotwinter† »

"No, yeah, that was super helpful." Seb shoved textbook, papers, and calculator alike haphazardly into his bag, quickly clearing his section of the table. It felt like the second he'd turned his mind to leaving instead of trig the idea of staying a second longer was stiflingly unbearable. There was a whole world outside! Sun! Trees! Who in their right mind would want to stay in the library working out angles when they could be outdoors exploring or even just taking it all in from a patio chair?

...present company excepted, of course. Oh well. Parker seemed happy enough in himself, in a quiet, bookish way. Maybe he truly was happier in here, on his own, pecking his way through the homework. That was cool. Different strokes, as they said. But Seb? Seb was getting the heck out while he still had the chance. His next period was free and the cool blue sky was calling his name.

"Have a great day, man." He clapped Parker convivially on the arm as he slung his backpack over his shoulder and headed towards the door. Tossed over his shoulder just before he hit the exit -- to the frustration of the librarian, who shot him a sour look -- "Hope you get the chance  to get out and enjoy it!"

[Sebastian Conway continued elsewhere]
This is an archival account used by staff to port posts belonging to the handler ifnotwinter. While this handler hasn't been around in quite a while, should they return and wish to take custody of this account and/or its posts, they are welcome to do so by contacting staff.
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Frozen Smoke
Posts: 533
Joined: Mon Aug 13, 2018 3:50 pm
Location: Where I need to be

#14

Post by Frozen Smoke »

Parker replied with something that attempted to add an air of sincerity to a contemplation on doing just that in the near future, despite having no intent of doing so. It was only polite to humour the advice of others, after all.

With Seb gone, his attention returned to his work, and he methodically worked his way through it. The second to last one gave him some gripes, the questions applying the constituent triangles in a way that was difficult for him to visualise. After 10 minutes of failed attempts, he picked his phone out of his pocket and with some conspicuous Boolean and quotation usage managed to find a similar question on Google, which put the whole question in a context that made sense to him. This technically wasn't cheating, as the intent of homework was to encourage self learning, and finding a step-by-step guide was a type of self learning.

He worked his way through the question, and then checked it as much as he could, looking for the inconsistency he was sure was there somehow. He didn't expect to be able to do a question like this right on his first try, but it also wasn't the kind of thing he could find a calculator for online to check with, so he was going to have to just go with what he had. He had done enough work to ensure he could lose a few marks without sweating, he supposed.

Obstacle overcome, he finished off the last question with significantly less challenge, it being a more complex version of an earlier question, but merely in adding an extra step - not in introducing a new mechanic. With that done, however, he was already out of time to watch Smash like he'd hoped to. He'd probably just do it in the next lesson anyway, chances were the teacher was just going to coach the class on this piece of homework because she didn't want the people who were "just about competent" to fail, as that looked bad on her. So, her attention was going to be focused on people like Seb, who needed all the help they could get to reach a pass.

He supposed that wasn't too disimillar from what he'd just done as he packed his own things up, placing one piece of his equipment up and putting it in the correct spot in his bag, before slinging it over his shoulder and walking off to Maths to hand his newly completed homework in.

((Parker Green - GOTO thread/Sisyphean Self-Maintenance█))
[+] V7
Relationship Thread!

ImageFaith Clementine Marshal-Mackenzie
[+] Pregame
Memories: Making old enemies
Present Day: Making new friends - Playing childish games - Acting like an adult
Oneshots: Tidying up - Coming home
ImageParker Green
[+] Pregame
Memories: Cheaters never prosper - Except when they do - Keeping promises
Present Day: Getting informed - Playing nice - Keeping up appearances - Playing Games - Talking too much
Oneshots: Preparing for battle
Luca Thomas
[+] Pregame
Present Day: Being a team player
Prom: Trying her best
Memories:
Criticism or thoughts on my writing are welcome and appreciated - always looking to improve! Feel free to poke me on Discord or via PM.
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