How Green Becomes Wood

Dark took Ivy and rubbed his face lightly with one hand, very much doubting Alec had tried all possible variations of exercises and was basically just ignoring all of his many years of knowledge and experience in the subject. Frankly, Dark was certain that if Alec allowed him to, he could set up a routine that the teen could at least tolerate that worked all of the muscles he needed worked. After all, the strength for the wheel would also come from working the wheel. It seemed, to him, Alec was making it more difficult than he needed to by refusing to accept any help.
 
Alec, for his part, couldn't see how someone like Dark - with gorgeous and massive muscles - could possibly understand the sheer dislike of actually working out. He'd listened to a lot of Dark's advice and tried to follow it as well as looking up hundreds of online tutorials, and he quite simply could not get away from the flat dislike of working out. A dedicated time just to build muscles, no matter the activity, was just so blah! Not to mention have a thousand different ideas was just making him distracted, and trying out a bunch of new things was just throwing off what little routine he did have. So, he gave up and stuck to what he knew would work whether he liked it or not. And speaking of liking or not, he headed to the basement to get in a quick workout before dinner.
 
"I can hear you brooding," Daizi commented, getting up to sit with Dark and Ivy in the arm chair.

"He is only making it more difficult for himself by refusing to accept advice," Dark replied, standing Ivy up in his lap.

"Who does that sound like?"

Rolling his eyes, Dark said, "He wants to improve at a thing he loves, he admits he needs to exercise to do it, but he is just presuming I do not know how to find different ways to work specific areas of the body."

"He never knew you when you were skinny," Daizi reminded him, snuggling in and resting her hand against his chest, "It's not the end of the world, Goose. If he doesn't figure it out, he'll be fine. You can stand down."

"I'd like to help him,"

"But you can't force him to want your help."
 
The twins soon reconvened downstairs to be with their parents and sister. Xander helped out in the kitchen while Alec had fun playing with Ivy and trying to teach her a counting song about ghosts. "One little, two little, three little ghosts! .... Ten little ghosts go BOO!" He wasn't sure if she actually got it or not, but he was having fun.
 
Being only ten months old, Ivy for not really understand the song, but it was definitely a lot of fun for her. Soon enough dinner was on the table and Dark was trying to coax Ivy into eating some of it, but she was not having it that night, and found it fun to fight against it.
 
The twins took care to stay out of Ivy's range of fire with her dinner while telling their parents more about their day and the poster assignment from their history teacher. Xander still stated it was a waste of time, but Alec thought it sounded like a grand time!
 
"Knowing how to create a poster and present information is genuinely an important skill to have, depending on what you want to do," Daizi commented, taking the baby spoon from Dark so she could try getting Ivy to open her stubborn mouth, "I've been to many conferences with halls of posters. They're pretty boring for me, as you can imagine, but I've had to make some, too. Even if you aren't in a career which uses them, I think it's good to know how to concisely provide necessary information about something to a wide audience."
 
"Plus, they can be really pretty and shiny," Alec said happily.

Xander pointed at Alec. "No glitter! If you use any glitter to make this poster, you are using it outside and possibly sleeping outside. No glitter!"

"Aw, Ba!" Alec protested. "Xander is stifling my creativity!"
 
Shifting slightly, Dark said, "I would check the rubric before adding glitter. It is certainly creative, but you are both upperclassmen, so if it were my assignment, I would expect professionalism rather than flair. But it depends on what your teacher's intentions for the project is: a poster designed to primarily convey information is different from a poster designed to be eye-catching and fun. At this stage, you are not only learning information, but you are, or should be, slowly acquiring the skills to be a college student or young professional."
 
"Aw," Alec pouted, slouching back in his seat. He folded his arm and complained, "Why can't information and learning be fun and eye-catching? Why can't professionalism also be glittery?"

"Ask that one Barbie lady who became a lawyer and always wore pink," Xander told him.

"I would, but I don't have a pipeline to fictional characters and/or toys," Alec huffed.
 
"They can be intertwined... depending on your audience. You can certainly have glitter if your audience is for children, but if your audience is for other professionals, when we think about what we want to include or leave out, it's important to consider the importance of readability."

"People making posters for conferences debate if it is better to have a white or off-white background, because white looks cleaner, apparently, but can also trigger migraines because of the background, and there's a big debate between horizontal and vertical poster designs," Daizi mentioned.

"The most important thing is the information, followed by the readability of the information," Dark concluded, "even if you only glitter the title, the result of that is a less readable title, which means viewers would need to stand closer to the poster, which means fewer people could see it at once. If you add a glitter border, the eye is drawn there, rather than to the information. That is why. Posters not designed to convey a bulk of academic information can look differently, if you were advertising a history club rather than expressing historical information, add as much glitter as you like. But again, talk to your teacher, her intentions and grading are likely different than mine."
 
Last edited:
Alec heaved a sigh. "I don't find glitter hard to read. Maybe academic people find it had to read because they've sterilized their lives from sparkly things."

"Or they really hate finding glitter everywhere," Xander muttered.
 
Dark looked sympathetically at Alec, "Read your rubric. If you have any questions, ask your teacher. I can only speak for how I would grade it."

"You wouldn't believe the debates I've heard about font sizes and drop shadows." Daizi commented, doing her best to make it seem like it is not a glitter-exclusive debate.
 
"That seems like a strange thing to debate considering not everyone sees things the same way, and some people can't see them very well no matter how they're designed," Alec commented.

Xander snorted. "People love to argue. It's their thing. It gives them power."
 
"No, but having larger font sizes makes it easier for people who are legally blind. It doesn't help me, obviously, but most people who are blind aren't my kind of blind. I think the drop shadows are just being dramatic, though, if I had to guess." Daizi replied.

"I think we have discussed posters enough for one evening, we are boring Ivy," Dark replied, "I stopped assigning them in my classes for a reason."
 
Xander stood and started cleaning off the empty dishes. "Thanks for dinner. It was real good."

Alec nodded and moved to help clean. "Yes, thank you! And sorry for boring you, Ivy. We'll try to have more interesting school days."
 
"I am glad you liked it," Dark said, trying one final time to give Ivy a bit more food and sighing as he watched it fall to the ground.

Standing to help clear the table, despite knowing she would be fussed at for the attempt, Daizi said, "I don't think it was boring. It was nice to feel like I'm back amongst graduate students stressing about preparing for a conference."
 
"Then do you want to help me design my poster?" Alec grinned. "And stop cleaning, Mama. You and Ba cooked, we clean. Next time Xander cooks, then you can clean."

Xander glanced at Dark. "Wanna help me with mine?"
 
"Do you want my help?" Daizi asked, confused, allowing herself to be forced to sit back down, "I'm not sure I can help you, habibi. I can listen to you stress about it, or help synthesize the information, but I don't know if I can help you design it."

"Is it cheating for me to help you?" Dark asked with a teasing glint in his eyes before saying, "I would be glad to help you."
 
"Sure you can! You just said you listened to your friends stressing over how to design theirs, so even if you can't 'see' it, you can give me advice on things like font sizes and to not do the drop shadow things," Alec said cheerfully as he put the dishes in the sink.

"You're not technically employed anymore, so I bet it's fine," Xander said. "I'm supposed to cover the Defenestrations of Prague."
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top