CW: violence, harassment
Internet history of Luz Moreno: April 30, 2019
10:01 pm: Sparknotes.com/Macbeth
10:18 pm: http://shakespeare.mit.edu/macbeth/full.html
10:25 pm: What is the theme of Macbeth?
10:30 pm: Untitled Document—Google Drive
10:47 pm: Gmail.com/inbox
10:48 pm: Female anatomy
10:48 pm: Female anatomy abnormal
10:49 pm: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vagina
10:51 pm: Is my vagina weird?
10:51 pm: Is my vagina depressed?
10:51 pm: How to tell if you have a weird vagina
10:53 pm: Gynecologist near me
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Disciplinary Referral—Juno High School
Date: May 2, 2019
Student name: Luz Moreno
Teacher name: Mrs. Samova
Time: 2:36 pm
Period: 7
Reason for submission: Student left classroom without permission (punitive)
Description of problem: Luz was working alone during project time and refused to sit with her group (this is not the first time this has happened). She has been really quiet the last few days, and I figured she was just having a bad day so I gave her some space. In the middle of work time I heard her telling off Finn and Geo using inappropriate language, and the two boys were saying something about a picture—teasing her. I asked them to quiet down as I was trying to help another student, but I could hear them whispering about it still. Before I could talk to them, Luz got up and left without signing out or even taking the pass. She had her hood up, but I think she was crying. I get that she was upset, but that kind of behavior is unacceptable.
Would you like a phone call to be placed? Yes
Perceived reason for submission: Avoiding peers/others
Additional comments: [blank]
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Excerpt: Coroner’s Report of Finn Johnson
EXTERNAL EXAMINATION: EXTREMITIES
Both calves were measured and found to be similar in circumference. Both arms were of relatively the same length. Victim had distinct scar on right thigh, possibly from an old sports injury. Victim was also missing the tip of his left middle finger from earlier accident. Wound was healing at time of death.
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Interview with Geovany Castaneda: May 15, 2019
GC: Yeah, me and Finn have been friends since elementary. We both went to Robinson and played soccer on the same team. Our dads were both coaches.
GC: Not really, she was more Finn’s friend.
GC: I guess they were messing around on and off for the last… six months?
GC: Yes, sir.
GC: The picture? We were just kidding. There wasn’t—
GC: I don’t want to get in trouble.
GC: If my mom found out…
GC: Yeah, fine, there was a picture. She sent it to Finn a few months ago. It wasn’t a big deal, but you know how females are. Everything’s drama. She got mad at Finn last week and broke up with him—prom is next week and he already bought all the shit—the limo, the tux, everything. What was he supposed to do? You can’t get the deposits back.
GC: I don’t know. Some shit with Clarissa Lopez. Someone said they saw them messing around by the healthy food vending machine before gym.
GC: I don’t know. I guess. I didn’t really ask.
GC: Look, Finn is a good guy. He was just pissed that she would pull that shit on him. She’s a fucking princess and had him running around carrying her purse around the mall while she went dress shopping or whatever, and then she was gonna ditch him for one fuck up? He just wanted to scare her.
GC: I mean, I guess so. He said he would give her the picture if she just went with him. Otherwise he’d look like a fucking idiot. He already got a bunch of shit from the team for being such a pussy.
GC: Like, doing whatever she said. On Halloween, he missed a rager to go trick-or-treating with her little brother. I mean, come on.
GC: I swear he didn’t say anything about that. He wouldn’t hurt her. He just wanted his, like, dignity.
GC: No. He didn’t show me. He’s… he wasn’t a bad guy.
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Student Work Sample: Luz Moreno
Luz Moreno
Mrs. Samova
English 12
May 5, 2019
Maneater: Daisy Buchanan as Murderer
In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Daisy Buchanan plays the part of beguiling charmer, the object of Gatsby’s desire—the court as well as the trophy on which and for which Tom and Jay compete. Daisy, having murdered her husband’s lover, is whisked off of the scene and allows Jay to suffer the consequences of her actions. It may seem, upon first reading, that Daisy is an unwitting pawn who lacks the narrative importance of true will, that all of her actions are driven by whim and coincidence, but that is not the case. In this essay I will show that Daisy drives the plot of Gatsby, and that she orchestrates the tragic events in her favor.
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Text message from F. Johnson to L. Moreno, May 3, 8:18–8:28 pm
FJ: u up?
LM: Fuck you.
FJ: we were kidding
LM: Fuck off.
FJ: im sorry i just miss u
FJ: im serious i miss u
FJ: babe i wouldnt really show anyone i just told him about it
FJ: pls text me i know ur up
LM: I have nothing to say to you.
FJ: u know i’m not the only one who fucked up here
LM: That was an accident. What you did was on purpose.
FJ: look, i’m sorry
FJ: i’m really sorry
FJ: babe, ill delete it
LM: ?
FJ: i will delete it i swear
LM: Meet me in person. I want to see you do it.
FJ: you can check my laptop and everything
LM: How do I know you’re not lying?
FJ: im trying to make things up to u
FJ: its senior yr i dont want things to end bad
LM: It’s your fault if things are bad.
FJ: i know that just come over and ill make it right
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Excerpt: Coroner’s Report of Finn Johnson
SUMMARY OF CLINICAL HISTORY
The patient was an 18-year-old Caucasian male with no significant medical history. The patient’s mother called EMS upon finding him in a pool of his own blood in his car. The patient was declared dead at 11:05 pm, June 3, 2019. Evidence puts the death between 9 and 10:30 pm that evening. The cause of death was exsanguination via castration. The castration looks to have been completed with a jagged tool, though it is possibly a bite wound. The member was not present at the scene.
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Student Work Sample: Luz Moreno
Daisy is described as intentionally alluring, her low voice “was only to make people lean toward her; an irrelevant criticism that made it no less charming,” (Fitzgerald 11). This comes from Nick, the narrator and her own cousin, who we assume knows her best. But Nick is far from an unbiased narrator, despite the novel’s famous opening lines. He clearly judges Tom for his affairs and Daisy for the way she strings Gatsby along, and the audience is meant to believe Nick and his moral judgments: Daisy is a beautiful woman who can’t be trusted. She’s fickle and whimsical and doesn’t care about the lives she ruins. But doesn’t this idea of a constructed persona go against the very idea Nick has of Daisy? How can she be both completely unaware of the pain she causes and completely intentional concerning the effect she has on others?
Later in the book, Daisy admits that she was happy she was having a girl: “And I hope she’ll be a fool—that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool” (20). This line so clearly communicates that Daisy knows exactly how the world works—the best thing a girl can be is a beautiful fool, because if she’s beautiful they’ll still call her a fool. Nick and Gatsby believe that Daisy has almost no control over her own life because she’s trapped in her circumstances by a bunch of men vying for her attention and affection like preening peacocks, trying to charm and belittle her in equal turns, but Daisy knows exactly what she’s doing.
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Interview with Joseph Conte, shop teacher at Juno High School: May 15, 2019
JC: Yeah, Finn was in my class the last three semesters. His dad’s a craftsman and he’s got it in his blood. Well, he was an excellent craftsman…damn shame.
JC: He could have gotten away with making shadow boxes and maybe a table or something. But he had fun and really challenged himself in the class: He made a pair of rocking chairs, had to learn to use a lathe for that one, a desk, and he even made one hell of a miniature grandfather clock last quarter.
JC: I did see it. His middle finger. Happened a few weeks ago. I remember it started to bleed through once, during class.
JC: No, sir, not in my class. Finn was a smart kid and way too careful. Plus I would have filed an incident report. It happens from time to time, but I can assure you it didn’t happen here.
JC: Huh. No, I have no idea why he would say that.
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Search history of L. Moreno: May 2, 2019
12:39 a.m.: What does the end of great gatsby mean?
12:42 a.m.: wikipedia.com/zeldafitzgerald
12:46 a.m.: weird vaginas
12:48 a.m.: Folklore on vaginas
12:56 a.m.: Vagina Dentata
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Vagina Dentata
The vagina dentata (“vagina teeth”) is an ancient story which crops up in lore from cultures all over the world including the peoples of New Zealand, South Africa, and Japan. The vagina dentata are described as sharp teeth which are capable of destroying the phallus. In Sexual Personae Camille Paglia writes, “The toothed vagina is no sexist hallucination: every penis is made less in every vagina, just as mankind, male and female, is devoured by mother nature.” The legend of the vagina dentata may come from the fear of the unknown which the yonic represents, as well as revenge for unwanted sexual advances.
According to one myth, the dentata represented a demon which hid in the vagina of a young woman about to be sexually victimized or married to brutes. At the right time, the jaws of the demon would snap shut, bleeding out or otherwise taming the antagonizer.
See also: Teeth (film), Vagina Dentata (band), Sheela na gig, castration anxiety
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Text message from F. Johnson to G. Casteneda, May 3, 9:20 pm
FJ: score! she’s coming over
GC: She’s actually talking to you?
FJ: i promised id delete it. she’ll forgive me and we’ll have make up sex.
FJ: you know how she is
GC: Haha nice.
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Student Work Sample: Luz Moreno
When Myrtle calls Tom during dinner, Daisy rises from the table, clearly upset. “I thought everyone knew…Tom’s got some woman in New York,” Jordan confides in Nick by way of explanation. Of course Daisy knows Tom’s cheating on her, and of course Tom isn’t discreet enough to hide the location of his mistress. When Tom dimisses Daisy in the hotel room, insisting she ride with Gatsby, he says, “Go on. He won’t annoy you. I think he realizes that his presumptuous little flirtation is over,” (Fitzgerald 102). Little does he know his own affair is over: Daisy sees Myrtle Wilson on the road and takes the opportunity to murder her. Even when Gatsby insists, she doesn’t slow down and allows him to take the blame. In one fell swoop Daisy gets everything she wants: security, money, and exclusivity. Daisy doesn’t love Tom, but she clearly doesn’t love Gatsby either. How could she when all she’ll ever be to him is a prize: an untouchable dream of green light through the fog? Daisy is taken advantage of throughout the book: humiliated by her husband’s affair and cajoled by her lover with the help of her own cousin. Of course she takes the first opportunity she has to get even and get out.
Mireya Higuera is a short story writer obsessed with all things gothic, vampiric, and crepuscular. She is a Californian by birth and fortune.