Lisa Imai ♫ (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
traceofeffort) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
yumemigaoka2023-05-03 06:42 pm
traceofeffort) wrote in yumemigaoka2023-05-03 06:42 pm
Entry tags:
open ♪ early may catch-all
⭐ Who: Lisa and YOU! Probably!
⭐ When: First half of May, leading up to the anniversary
⭐ Where: Tsubaki Department Store, Kihada, Promised Morning
⭐ What: An assortment of things: Golden Week shopping, failing at grocery shopping, studying
⭐ Warnings: Lisa is on the verge of a panic attack in the second prompt but I doubt she'll slide any further. Will warn in threads if that changes.
[A | shop until your wallet drops | open | department store, May 2nd-5th]
[Lisa has rather a long list of things she'd like to find space for, both in the kitchen and in her craft kit. Gig bag, not so much, but she'll come back to that. So she finds herself spending some time shopping while the Golden Week sales are on, with money she'd set aside for the purpose. Over several days, she swings by the department store, which is the lion's share of her list. One trip is for needles, thread, and a while making Hard Choices about what colors and thicknesses of yarn to buy, and her shopping cart gets more full than she expected with all the rolls of fluffy stuff she chucks in. She looks up from the racks on occasion for opinions, holding up two rolls that seem to have completely different dyes:] Hey, real quick. Which of these colors seems more positive to you? Maybe more optimistic?
[One trip is into the kitchen section: she's had her eye on a couple spatulas (cross-contamination is serious business!) and maybe a grater, and who knows what else she'll find while she's there. That first item takes longer than expected - it's easy to find her staring at half a dozen silicone-tipped wooden sticks for minutes at a time, as if trying to divine the meaning of life from them.
And one's into clothing, but that trip isn't for shopping - it's for information gathering. Who knows what kinds of fun stuff she can find and take inspiration from? For that trip she'll be looking at what kinds of things are popular with other people, but also just what catches her own eye, as she murmurs to herself about the merits of this blouse or that dress. Occasionally such a find results in her running back over to the yarn in a bit of a rush before she forgets whatever she had in mind; she limits herself to a small shopping basket this time as she goes back and forth.]
[B | paint it black(out) | open | Kihada, May 6th, early afternoon]
[Lisa knows the storm is coming in. She's known for a while. She was just going out for a little while to pick up some last-minute stuff for dinner at her usual odds-and-ends place over in Kihada. It's not even a long trip, and the lines are usually short. It's fine. It's fine! She definitely, absolutely will not get caught in the rain, she says to herself as she hops on the train to Kihada. Even if she gets drizzled on, dinner will be worth it.
Lisa, in a light rainjacket, sneakers, and scarf, is caught in the rain and miserable.
They had to dig up an ingredient she absolutely needed for the chicken dish she'd been planning from out of the storeroom. The line was atrocious. Traffic was a nightmare and the train was slow to arrive in the first place. And now-]
Shit-!
[-thunder roars what seems right over Lisa's head, and the bright bolt in the sky seems to cause the district to, as one, flicker and falter, as she flinches hard and comes to a complete stop from her run for the station. The hand-sewn tote bag over her shoulder feels like a lead weight as she tries to figure out what to do and also not hyperventilate; this is pushing her buttons a little more than she was expecting. Does she try to run for it still, and risk her nerves fraying more in the weather, if the train back to Koubai is even still running? Or try to hide out in... what's even by here? Is that a coffee shop?
The second bolt she's caught under freezes her to the spot; the third decides her, and she runs for the coffee shop, heart pounding. She orders whatever hot thing they can manage without power, digs a few hundred yen out of her pocketbook absently with shaking hands, and sits down in a chair that her soaked raincoat won't ruin. Over the next short while, she wraps both hands around a steaming mug of cocoa and wills her hands to still, even as she jolts at each glass-rattling boom. Hopefully someone else is out in the storm, or she's going to drive this poor barista nuts.]
((Coffee-shop AU in your AU notwithstanding, feel free to intercept Lisa earlier, or maybe to find her in the grocery store and persuade her not to actually try to go home in the mess about to occur in the first place.))
[C | how not to fail (1st movement) | open | Promised Morning High: library? | May 8th, after school]
[Lisa is more or less confident that, while she probably won't ace the midterms, she'll get a score she can be happy with, even if she's still a little off-balance after her weekend. Her classmates are, of course, probbaly not as confident. So she offered to run a short tutoring session after school in the library just in case anyone wanted an extra chance to review. It'd have been better to do this more than a single day before, of course, but, well... Golden Week happened, and good luck wrangling teenagers to study on vacation. She certainly didn't do a lot of it. Yet, here she is, teaching her fellow third-years whatever they need to help fill in the gaps. A first- or second-year might even be able to ask for a bit of help, too, if they were polite about it. Indeed, she's got at least one or two people, and she's patiently doing her best to help.]
Here, and then... right. So it comes out to five. Yes, five... How did you get eighteen and two-thirds? Let me- no, no, see, look, you didn't carry this two, and that threw the whole rest of it off. Here's a sheet of paper, try working it again from that point and see if it comes out right this time.
[It's going... fine? Please, if you need help, it'll probably be better than this.]
⭐ When: First half of May, leading up to the anniversary
⭐ Where: Tsubaki Department Store, Kihada, Promised Morning
⭐ What: An assortment of things: Golden Week shopping, failing at grocery shopping, studying
⭐ Warnings: Lisa is on the verge of a panic attack in the second prompt but I doubt she'll slide any further. Will warn in threads if that changes.
[A | shop until your wallet drops | open | department store, May 2nd-5th]
[Lisa has rather a long list of things she'd like to find space for, both in the kitchen and in her craft kit. Gig bag, not so much, but she'll come back to that. So she finds herself spending some time shopping while the Golden Week sales are on, with money she'd set aside for the purpose. Over several days, she swings by the department store, which is the lion's share of her list. One trip is for needles, thread, and a while making Hard Choices about what colors and thicknesses of yarn to buy, and her shopping cart gets more full than she expected with all the rolls of fluffy stuff she chucks in. She looks up from the racks on occasion for opinions, holding up two rolls that seem to have completely different dyes:] Hey, real quick. Which of these colors seems more positive to you? Maybe more optimistic?
[One trip is into the kitchen section: she's had her eye on a couple spatulas (cross-contamination is serious business!) and maybe a grater, and who knows what else she'll find while she's there. That first item takes longer than expected - it's easy to find her staring at half a dozen silicone-tipped wooden sticks for minutes at a time, as if trying to divine the meaning of life from them.
And one's into clothing, but that trip isn't for shopping - it's for information gathering. Who knows what kinds of fun stuff she can find and take inspiration from? For that trip she'll be looking at what kinds of things are popular with other people, but also just what catches her own eye, as she murmurs to herself about the merits of this blouse or that dress. Occasionally such a find results in her running back over to the yarn in a bit of a rush before she forgets whatever she had in mind; she limits herself to a small shopping basket this time as she goes back and forth.]
[B | paint it black(out) | open | Kihada, May 6th, early afternoon]
[Lisa knows the storm is coming in. She's known for a while. She was just going out for a little while to pick up some last-minute stuff for dinner at her usual odds-and-ends place over in Kihada. It's not even a long trip, and the lines are usually short. It's fine. It's fine! She definitely, absolutely will not get caught in the rain, she says to herself as she hops on the train to Kihada. Even if she gets drizzled on, dinner will be worth it.
Lisa, in a light rainjacket, sneakers, and scarf, is caught in the rain and miserable.
They had to dig up an ingredient she absolutely needed for the chicken dish she'd been planning from out of the storeroom. The line was atrocious. Traffic was a nightmare and the train was slow to arrive in the first place. And now-]
Shit-!
[-thunder roars what seems right over Lisa's head, and the bright bolt in the sky seems to cause the district to, as one, flicker and falter, as she flinches hard and comes to a complete stop from her run for the station. The hand-sewn tote bag over her shoulder feels like a lead weight as she tries to figure out what to do and also not hyperventilate; this is pushing her buttons a little more than she was expecting. Does she try to run for it still, and risk her nerves fraying more in the weather, if the train back to Koubai is even still running? Or try to hide out in... what's even by here? Is that a coffee shop?
The second bolt she's caught under freezes her to the spot; the third decides her, and she runs for the coffee shop, heart pounding. She orders whatever hot thing they can manage without power, digs a few hundred yen out of her pocketbook absently with shaking hands, and sits down in a chair that her soaked raincoat won't ruin. Over the next short while, she wraps both hands around a steaming mug of cocoa and wills her hands to still, even as she jolts at each glass-rattling boom. Hopefully someone else is out in the storm, or she's going to drive this poor barista nuts.]
((Coffee-shop AU in your AU notwithstanding, feel free to intercept Lisa earlier, or maybe to find her in the grocery store and persuade her not to actually try to go home in the mess about to occur in the first place.))
[C | how not to fail (1st movement) | open | Promised Morning High: library? | May 8th, after school]
[Lisa is more or less confident that, while she probably won't ace the midterms, she'll get a score she can be happy with, even if she's still a little off-balance after her weekend. Her classmates are, of course, probbaly not as confident. So she offered to run a short tutoring session after school in the library just in case anyone wanted an extra chance to review. It'd have been better to do this more than a single day before, of course, but, well... Golden Week happened, and good luck wrangling teenagers to study on vacation. She certainly didn't do a lot of it. Yet, here she is, teaching her fellow third-years whatever they need to help fill in the gaps. A first- or second-year might even be able to ask for a bit of help, too, if they were polite about it. Indeed, she's got at least one or two people, and she's patiently doing her best to help.]
Here, and then... right. So it comes out to five. Yes, five... How did you get eighteen and two-thirds? Let me- no, no, see, look, you didn't carry this two, and that threw the whole rest of it off. Here's a sheet of paper, try working it again from that point and see if it comes out right this time.
[It's going... fine? Please, if you need help, it'll probably be better than this.]
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If you'd like, I can help you a little bit! We can figure out where you're at, and if I can't get you where you want to be, I can find someone else that can handle it better. Um, probably. [That would have worked at her old school, but she hasn't really made the connections she needs for that at Promised Morning quite yet. It'll come with time.] Here, come take a seat, if you want.
[.....she squints at their classmate's second sheet of paper.] Hey, hold on, how did you fix the first mistake and still get eighteen? Flip it over and try to work it again from scratch. No, don't look at your work from the first time. I'm gonna come back to you in a few minutes, and I expect to see a single-digit number! [Then she looks back up at Jeannette, smile slightly less wide.] Math, yeah? I'll be happy to take a break from numbers for a bit.
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[ How someone is having trouble with math, which is so simple as to always have the one answer, Jeannette cannot fathom.....But there's something ELSE unfathomable that concerns her more at present. ]
It is the written exercises, in Japanese class. [ She pulls out a worksheet from a few weeks ago, one of those "read a passage and answer questions about its interpretation" short-answer deals. ]
How am I supposed to know what the author meant? I do not have them here to ask. It is a very nice story, but there is no point to supposing anything more.
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[Lisa does look suitably apologetic, at least. She feels bad that she offered and then can't do anything.]
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[ Jeannette honestly feels a lot better knowing she isn't the only one who thinks the questions are silly. Many of her friends at her old school were more language-arts oriented and could see the answers to these naturally, the way she can for math. It made helping each other difficult. ]
--But please, do not prioritize me, if you can be of more assistance elsewhere.
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[From her bag, Lisa pulls out a carefully-packed box of frosted cookies, very clearly homemade, and sets it on the library table, in clear view of all of them.] And that would be a shame.
[Slumping back into her chair dramatically, she turns back to glance at the blonde girl, with a long-suffering grin; the sound of pencil scratching has rather significantly increased from the other side of the table.] And with that, we have at least ten minutes. I’m game to take a look at it if you are. I can’t promise we’ll get it right, but I promise to give it an honest try with you.
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Thank you very much!
[ Let's visit this exercise TO ITS VERY GREAT HARM!
....or jeannette's. either option is possible. ]
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[She picks it up, and reads through it, and looks at the questions, and reads the passage again...]
Oh, right, this one. Here, look at these couple of sentences. [Shiny new pencil out, lightly underlining little bits.] This person is disappointed. This one is crying. This one screams. But they're all looking at the same event, right? So they're probably feeling more or less the same way about it. But then you look at this... [She underlines something else, a little darker.] It's not just the people, even the description of the scene says it's a sad event. And if the story is telling you how you should feel, that's probably on purpose, right?
[Lisa hopes the explanation she's giving, which is being cut somewhat for time
and mun sanity, is making at least some sense. It kind of does in her head, at least.]At least this one's multiple choice... I don't remember what I put down, but I think this was the right answer. [Tap, tap.] If you disagree, though, I'm open to corrections.
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[ But she has to try! Jeannette scrunches up her face, as if squinting will bring things into focus for her brain, not just her eyes. ]
Why is that what the "story says"...? Because it says "gloomy"? And "pall"? Then the author should just say what happened was sad....there is no merit in not speaking one's mind....
[ A sigh. ]
Let us use your trick of looking for story words to see if that gets the other questions right. If so, you have figured it out; if not, we try again.
[ This next passage.....does it matter that the ball was "red"? But why would it? Plenty of balls are red....So the first trick is figuring out what the words are she should be looking for? How is anyone supposed to know that??
Oh, God, why does language arts exist?! Please help her! She is so limited, and cannot understand! ]
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...Still, there's a place for nuance and there's a place for making things easier to read. Let's see... oh, this one. I'll be honest, I didn't get this either. There were too many things to focus on, so I couldn't really... narrow it down? It's probably not the ball, and it's probably not the tree, and I don't think it's the sportscar. That's about as far as I got. If you made me guess, I would have said it's about money not being able to buy happiness. Ugh, maybe we need to talk to sensei on this one...
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[ Jeannette has listened with growing distress. Her tutor has no idea either....? Then there is only one thing left to do. When one reaches the end of one's comprehension, teetering on the edge of the unknown....
She laces her fingers together and closes her eyes. ]
Let us pray.
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I'm sorry I wasn't much help, Jeanne-chan. Do you want to try and find someone else that's better at this kind of thing? Or I can send a few messages and see if anyone is willing to join us? I promise, I won't feel put out at all - I'm here because I want to help, and if I can't help, I want to make sure you can get what you need.
[If anything she's mad at herself for offering to help and then striking out almost immediately; she's trying fairly hard not to broadcast it, though.]
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[ She's made Lisa feel bad and she feels wretched about that herself. Everyone at this table is too nice, that's the takeaway. ]
....if it's not a burden, would you like to pray with me? I find it a source of great comfort and clarity. Perhaps He shall send us a sign.
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[There's... a certain hesitancy in Lisa's posture. Shrine visits have always been A Thing for her. But it's something important to Jeanne, and maybe she does have a point, so-]
...okay. Walk me through, please? I'm more used to the whole... torii gates and clap your hands thing.
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[ But she has been taught to lace her fingers together, like this, so she does so slowly and deliberately in case Lisa would like to imitate her.
Then she bows her head. ]
Empty your mind of all but your need, to receive His wisdom.
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[She follows along, tentatively but trying to draw confidence from Jeannette. Her need... the easy answer is, how to answer the question before them. But that's not really what she needs, is it? She's in this position because she wants to be able to guide others to answers, so all of them can come out ahead. So she needs either a convenient resource to drop into her lap, or divine inspiration to help her explain.
.....Probably. But it's as close to an answer as she's getting at the moment. She fixes the thought in her mind, and nods minutely, whether or not her companion will see it.] Mm.
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[ Jeannette bows her head and offers a verbal prayer. ] O Lord our God, we humble ourselves before You. We know the need, as good and dutiful children, to succeed in school; but the question before us is so strange we wonder why it is on the test at all.
[ It seems one must be perfectly honest with God. ]
Please grant us revelation, so that we may answer in the way most pleasing to You, for all we do well, we do by Your grace and command. Thank you very much.
[ She opens her eyes and, if it looks like Lisa needs the prompting to do the same, nudges her. ]
Now this.
[ And she shows Lisa how to cross herself. ] In the name of the Father - and of the Son - and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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When Jeannette stops, Lisa opens her eyes and looks over to her, before following along, tracing the cross across herself and reciting the words. This part, at least, makes some sense to her - symbols are Important.] Amen.
[There's a pause, while Lisa figures out how to phrase the emotion in her heart; the expression isn't of discomfort, but more like someone just slightly out of her depth.] Um, thank you, before I forget. And sorry again. You came to me for help and now you're teaching me.
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We said we would solve these together. I may only be able to offer prayers, but I'm glad to assist in some small way.
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[No, Lisa definitely didn't forget about their other classmate working what should have been a simple enough math problem. She takes a second to look over the fresh sheet of paper, now with rather a lot more markings, and...]
Mm! Yes, this is perfect. Good work. And, uh, full disclosure? I wasn't going to hold out on snacks. I'm not that mean. So! Let's take a break for a minute, if nobody minds. I need sugar before I keep going.
[Perhaps fearing her wrath, the box of cookies has remained untouched until now. Lisa pops it open, reaches into her bag and- was she really carrying a stack of napkins this whole time? Regardless, she serves one to everyone at the table with a smile. It looks like they're leftovers from her Golden Week baking, so they're in the shape of delicate sakura petals, if slightly bigger than the genuine article, and lightly frosted a pale pink. They're also still fairly soft. And so, she grabs another with a napkin and holds it out.] Cookie, Jeanne-chan?
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[ Blink. Cookies? Today?
oh no is it some saint's feast day and she forgot--
no, that's the sort of thing that was celebrated at her last school
and she was the one reminding everyone/bringing cookies]Is this a holiday?
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[ Jeannette's usual exception to Christian restraint is clothing - she loves clothes, and feels that looking nice is also practical - but one cookie, especially to support someone's hobby, is not an indulgence worthy of considering a "sin". She accepts with a smile and breathes a silent grace over the cookie before taking a nibble.
Usually if she's having baked goods, they're French, from a bakery with a name she....has a fondness for.....How are Lisa-san's? ]
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One, though, I can justify. [And she serves herself last, quietly adds her own prayer, and then happily noms on it, grinning.] Mm, perfect, I knew the good plasticware was the right idea. [There isn't anything terribly unique in these, flavor-wise - strong basics perhaps, but nothing way out there; it's a sugar cookie, there's really only so much to do before it turns into something else entirely. But the frosting has a fine sweetness, the vanilla is present without being overpowering, and the cookie is soft without being fragile. They're no fine confection, but they're good cookies, and Lisa's at least a little proud of them.]
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Thank you for sharing.
[ In fact....
She thinks about a conversation she'd had over Golden Week, at the Dreamer Union headquarters. About her mission here, about what her angel believes she can do. About the steps needed to achieve it.
Go boldly, Jeannette! ]
Um....may I ask you a question that isn't about school?
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[Lisa smiles at her; she's glad everyone's enjoying her baking, truly. A productive study session! Although...]
Um, sure? Did something happen? [Does Lisa need to glare disapprovingly at someone?]
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