fairytale hell asteroid | l.dh

one.

There was something weird about seeing your professor in real life after spending so long looking at her through your laptop screen. You knew they were the same person and, technically speaking, even with the alteration of room lighting and camera angles, her features should not change too much. But you still thought the resemblance to be uncanny when you first walked into the classroom of this (almost) strictly online class.

Your mind didn't dwell too much on the matter. For sure, it was all you could debate about in your head during the start of the class when she was still giving time for the classroom to be filled: how come she looks exactly the same on screen? Her hair is braided the same way as her last lecture video, how weird.

But those unnecessary thoughts immediately vanished when the PowerPoint displayed itself on the whiteboard, with the words "Final research paper and final presentation project" typed in the font Times New Roman at—you squinted your eyes at the screen before humming in approval, leaning back against your chair—approximately font size thirty with a one-point-five spacing.

The spacing was, frankly, unnecessary in your opinion. It spaced out the giant words too much, even though students could articulate that they were within the same sentence, they did not seem like they belonged together.

Not to mention the obscene color choice. The professor should have opted for a much more gloomy color to accommodate the topic at hand, which was the year-end final paper and the final exam project. What students would want to see bubblegum colors matched with such vile things? Those things do not correlate together at all.

However, given the possibility that the professor was perhaps trying to cheer the students up with some appealing visual stimuli, you would give her the benefit of the doubt that she wasn't so insensible as to make the header pastel, baby pink because she thought they'd look cute plastered on top of such fearsome words.

And you put a pause to your tedious inner-judgment because you have decided to believe the professor likely did not make that header with a conscious mind, and also because she had started to announce the content of the final paper, which would directly link to your first and final group project.

Your glasses refused to perch peacefully on the bridge of your nose, the oil invisibly bubbling on your skin causing a slippery slope that the black zylonite continuously glided to the tip of your nose.

As you pushed your glasses up for the twenty-fifth times for the past—your eyes shifted to your phone which lit up after you pressed a button to reveal the time—half an hour and possibly about forty seconds in, the professor finally made it to the last page of the PowerPoint.

You dropped your pen on your notebook and arched your back to do a small stretch on your seat. You rolled your head to the side, your eyes opened to pay attention to the professor as she made her way to the desk and pulled out a sheet of paper. It was an empty sheet, very likely prepared for students to write down their presentation pairs, and your gaze hardened at the thought of it.

You have never been very good with group projects, have you? Ever wondered if it was the introvert in you preventing you from creating real bonds with people or if people kept being warned about getting close to you because of your introvertism?

That would certainly be a good debate to have within yourself, but you should strongly advise against it, especially when it comes to someone who overthinks so much like you. You are good at a lot of things, (Name); you are calm and collected, smart, and detailed. Keep it all to the good things, let's not make self-sabotaging one of the many perks you have.

"Alright, listen up! Find yourself a partner for the presentation and come up here to put down when you plan to present your final project" the professor said calmly at the front of the class. "After that, you can feel free to spend the rest of the class time discussing what you plan to do. If you have any questions, you can take the chance to ask me now, or else I will be available through email."