#As per usual I made it bigger than necessary

[osiiiris]

About problematic ships

I know this post and it’s consequences will probably end up pissing me off, but I’d really like to have a serious conversation about “problematic ships.” Like, an adult conversation. 

I know we can do it.

Precondition

For me, most of this opinion doesn’t involve the Copiiia/Copiia/Cop1a ships because I think the incest factor isn’t the main thing with that ship. The Papa x Papa ship involves Copia on 99.99% of the time for the simple reason that he was introduced as not being part of the bloodline, and six (6) years passed before he was officially and undoubtedly confirmed as part of it (I have my opinions about this change, too). It seems totally reasonable to me that some people just chose to stick to that first statement and create the pairings they liked with him through all this time.

I have never personally seen a Terzo x Secondo fic, or a Primo x Secondo and so on. Most Copiiia/Cpiia/Cop1a authors are simply not interested in creating an incest story.

That said, since people associated Copia x other Papas with pure incest from the beginning, I think we can at least gain something interesting from all this discourse.

/Precondition

Many “nasty” stories (books, fanfics, movies, songs… whatever) provide an opportunity to discuss “taboo” issues. Some can serve as case studies for reflecting on human behavior in specific contexts. I know fanfictions are mostly meant to entertain, to fantasize, even to get horny or just to imagine ourselves in a romance with our favorite characters, but this would be underestimating the work of fanfic writers. Some fanfictions are deep, offering interesting analyses and portraits of human behavior, and some may choose unusual topics to explore very dark and complex (also frivolous, why not) aspects of human nature.

If an author decides to choose a “problematic” topic to express their creativity, it is none of your business.

Even if a relationship is considered morally unacceptable, authors still have the right to write about it, and interested readers have the right to read it. Otherwise, no author should be allowed to write about murder, which I think is the most morally unacceptable act one can commit.

A relationship can be nasty even if it is between two complete strangers. It can be abusive. It can be violent. It can involve rape (a topic I personally despise with every fiber of my being, but STILL, I read about it and sometimes even write about it). It can be dysfunctional, toxic, unbalanced, boring… people still have the right to explore it in whatever way they like. By the way, somehow if a fictional relationship is so bad but it’s between two regular people it is still accepted, but it becomes absolutely unacceptable if it involves two siblings.

I’d like to bring up some examples of famous incestuous or problematic stories:

The Dreamers, by Bernardo Bertolucci: Not sure how many of you know about this movie. I watched it when I was a little girl and never for a moment was I grossed out by the story. I was rather fascinated by the relationship between the twins and how it becomes a refuge and a way to escape reality. You can interpret that relationship in so many ways. It was strange, even poetic, but it was interesting to explore. The movie is still one of my favorites.

Lolita: Nabokov himself asked not to romanticize the story (which was inspired by a real event, btw). That book doesn’t make him a pedophile or a nasty person; it was just his imagination, a sad dynamic he felt was worth exploring and telling.

Dogtooth, by Yorgos Lanthimos: This is another example of a very particular situation where explicit incestuous situations occur (more than one, to be fair). It is one of the most interesting movies I have ever seen from a “what humans do when put into a very singular situation” perspective.

Nymphomaniac, by Lars von Trier: nothing less than an equally upsetting and poignant creation. Many people here would go absolutely crazy at the scene where the protagonist reacts to her father’s death, I’m sure of it. I’m still trying to interpret it.

No, I won’t include A song if Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones, enough people have done that already.

Try discussing those works by saying, “That movie was bad because they are siblings and they can’t do those things!” Ok, legitimate, but try to imagine how you sound from the outside if that is really the ONLY critique you can make.

Witch-hunting creators who are brave enough to explore the nastiest parts of human nature doesn’t make you a good person. It makes you a person who wants the world to conform to your image, making you unable to face and analyze what you find unacceptable.

When confronting a topic you don’t like, you have two choices: enrich your knowledge or allow your boundaries to limit your artistic consumption, but never, ever bully someone else because they are simply interested in that subject.

[eloves-writes]

guess

[carlos sainz x reader]

desc: you and carlos have been adamantly denying dating rumours for months, and a risky game of truth or dare reveals a secret you’ve been trying to keep.

warnings: alcohol, drivers are all drunk, maxiel crumbs, flashing underwear, slight exhibitionism, this is pretty PG tbh!

a/n: inspired by guess by charli xcx ofc. this was fun and my horny little brain wants to do a very cheeky part 2 so lmk if you want! (update: here is part 2! love yas) thanks 4 the love on my last few posts, requests are of course open for any of the drivers, love ya mwah mwah mwah!

this work contains suggestive themes, minors do not interact

—————————————————————

the after-party to the after-party was always guaranteed to be interesting, to say the least. it was the last race before the summer break, and you and the other drivers had hit the club in celebration only to end up sat around in max’s penthouse hotel room, heads still reeling from the amount of alcohol you’d all consumed. not so much the amount, really, but more that none of you drank during the races so your tolerance wasn’t what it could be. max, always opting for a bigger and nicer hotel room than probably necessary, was sat on his bed beside daniel, whilst you, carlos, and lando were opposite them on a plush sofa set. as per usual, you were the last 5 drivers standing after the more sensible of the bunch had retired to their own rooms. a bottle of wine sat open and half empty on the small coffee table beside a more full bottle of tequila, and the conversation was flowing amongst you like the 3am breeze that was flowing through the open balcony door.

you were trying not to pay too much attention to carlos; you’d been secretly seeing each other for a while, and usually it was easier to hide but alone with just 3 of your close friends you figured it was only a matter of time before one of them caught on to something. of course, they had, and it was lando in particular that noticed your distinct effort to not look at carlos at all tonight.

“we should play a game,” he said slowly, mischievous grin on his face.

daniel responded in agreement, max raising an eyebrow. “we’re not playing spin the bottle.”

“why is that always your first thought, max?” you laughed. carlos smiled and sipped his wine, enjoying the sound of your teasing laughter.

“truth or dare,” daniel said suddenly. “dare max to play spin the bottle!”

you all laughed again, apart from max who rolled his eyes. “no, no, i pick truth.”

“ok,” carlos noted. “if you had to race for any other team, where would you go?”

max pretended to think for a moment before replying. “nowhere. you’re all shit.”

“sorry, who just won in spa?” you exclaimed, recounting your latest victory in the mercedes. “and piastri finished ahead of you too.”

“ok, fine,” max replied in defeat. “i’m not answering.”

“that’s not the game!” lando eyed up the tequila. “if you don’t answer, or you don’t answer truthfully,” he shot a pointed look towards you and carlos, “you have to take a shot.”

you groaned. “i think we’ve all drunk enough, norris.”

he raised his hands innocently. “guess we’ll all have to play the game properly then.”

-

a couple of rounds later, you’d all done at least one more shot, a few team principals would be waking up to an interesting text in the morning, and daniel had salt on his bare stomach after you’d made max do a shot from his belly button. the questions were becoming increasingly dirty, you just narrowly avoiding a particularly evil fuck marry kill from daniel. it was carlos’s turn again, the spaniard sat back lazily next to you.

“truth or dare, carlitos,” lando baited with that same mischievous smile.

“truth.”

“i want you to guess,” he crowed. “what colour underwear y/n is wearing.”

a light blush tinged his tan cheeks. he knew full well what colour your underwear was, having taken it both on and off in the club bathroom not too long ago.

“fuck.” he looked to the shot glass on the table. he was already far too drunk, and not in the mind to be smart enough to just lie.

“red,” he answered, making it sound like a guess.

lando smirked. “interesting. y/n, truth or dare.”

“it’s not my turn,” you protested, looking to max and daniel who were just as eager to get some truth out of you both. you rolled your eyes, stupidly letting your mouth speak before your brain. “fine. dare.”

lando looked you dead in the eyes, then to carlos.

“i dare you to show us what colour your underwear is.”

the aftertaste of the tequila was still sweet in your mouth and the thought of another shot made you a little nauseous. fuck it, you thought. guess this was one way to let the cat out of the bag. it wasn’t like the guys hadn’t seen your underwear before; you were admittedly somewhat of a party girl, the tiny skirts you wore left little to the imagination and you’d been around them in a bikini more times than you could count anyway.

carlos watched you with apprehension, unsure of what you were going to do but comfortable enough with the guys to know what happened in this hotel room would stay here, and if you wanted to give them a flash of the perfect ass he got to grab onto every night whilst he fucked you then he was ok with that too. in fact, his jeans tightened slightly at the passing thought of fucking you in front of them to really show who’s you were.

you stood up, grabbing onto the arm of the sofa for support as you found your balance.

“you’re a perv, lando, asking to see my panties,” you teased. max and daniel had a matching look of amusement, the latter wolf-whistling as you turned around and pushed the fabric of your mini dress up to your hips. red and lacy, fit snugly over your pretty ass. you dropped the fabric and sat back down, making eye contact with carlos who looked like he wanted to pounce on you there and then.

“lucky guess,” daniel quipped.

carlos finished his glass of wine and smirked. “didn’t have to guess.”

lando let out a cheer. “i knew it!” he shouted.

“you guys kind of suck at keeping secrets,” max added. “thanks for that little show though.”

“watch it, verstappen,” carlos countered, moving closer to you and placing a possessive hand at the top of your thigh. “wouldn’t want to have to give you a bigger show now, would i?”

one person asks and i’ll write a part two where he does in fact give them a bigger show

[pterribledinosaurdrawings]

could you tell me more about spoonflower? i'm interested in uploading my own designs, but i'm not entirely sure how it works or how much it pays. thank you!

Sure! When you first upload your design, it'll look like this.

The standard DPI for printing on all the fabric sites I've seen is 150, and since I made this pattern at 200 DPI that means Spoonflower will print it bigger than I want it unless I change it here. So I click on the "change DPI" thing, type in "200" and click "change". Sometimes I find it doesn't save, so I always go back later to check and make sure it did save the right DPI.

(You can avoid this by just changing your image to the right DPI before uploading, but sometimes I want the option to make it a bit bigger, just in case.)

If you want to make multiple sizes of the same pattern available you'll have to upload a different version for each one and change the size individually. For example, I drew my Bathroom Dinosaurs pattern pretty large and at 150 DPI, and left that as is for the big version.

But I wanted a small version too, so for that one I changed it to 670 pixels per inch so it'd print much smaller.

You write in the title, tags, and description, and you can put any links to other pages or references in the "Additional Details" section.

(Leaving links isn't usually necessary, but sometimes it is, like how I wanted to leave a link to the original 1760's teapot for my crinoid fossil pattern.)

At this point, you can order things printed with your design, but nobody else can yet. You have the option to show the design publicly, but I like to keep it private until I've ordered my proofs and can sell it.

Now, to order proofs! DO NOT GET THE CUT SWATCHES!!! They are SO much more expensive than getting a fill-a-yard, because cutting and packaging all the little pieces is a lot of extra labour. Wether you have a few designs, or a lot, just get a fill-a-yard.

To make a fill-a-yard you first need to make a collection. Collections can be either public or private, so I keep a private collection called "new designs to proof", and I put all my new designs in there until I've ordered them. You can also add other people's patterns to a collection, so if you have extra space to fill up or you want little bits of a bunch of other people's patterns for a quilt or something, add whatever you want to your collection.

On the collections page when you hover your mouse over one you'll see a little patchwork symbol show up in the middle along the bottom edge, and you click on that.

That'll take you here, and you choose a layout and a fabric.

For some reason the fabric options here are a bit limited and vary depending on the layout. I like to get either the 1 yard/42 designs in cotton poplin, or the 2 yards/48 designs in cotton sateen, but there are plenty more you could try.

I'll click the latter for this example. (The squares in this one are the perfect size for pleated face masks, and I have a few made from mine and my friend's fabrics.)

Then you just click on a design and click on however many squares/rectangles you want it to fill. It usually takes a few seconds for them to show up.

You can have just one little sample of each, or you could make half the fabric be one design and fill up the rest with little samples. (That's what I did for my brown monster waistcoat - I printed juuuust enough of a fill-a-yard to cut out a waistcoat from, and the rest was other samples.)

You can change it around if you want. Once you're happy with it, put it in the cart and buy it!

I'm not going to order this one since it's an example with designs I've already proofed, but here's what my monster patterns looked like when they arrived.

Also, I want to point out that you could VERY easily make some really fun pride flags using the fill-a-yard! You might have to have it be only part of the fabric, depending on the number of stripes, but you could make it be any texture or pattern you want. Here's a quick example I did with other people's patterns by searching "(colour) marble texture".

With only 4 stripes I'd have to fill the rest of the space in with something else and cut it off, but it would still be pretty big! (The edge of that purple stripe looks jagged in the preview, but they print perfectly straight.)

I have not done this, but someone should! Just wash it, trim the blank edges off, hem it, and you've got a flag!

(Don't do this with the 2 yards/4 designs option though, it looks like nice stripes in the thumbnail but it's made for infinity scarves and there's a gap and dotted line down the middle for cutting. Bleh.)

Anyways, once your samples arrive you can make the designs available for sale! If you have any changes you'd like to make, to the size it prints at or the pattern itself, you can make them now.

I found the small version of the Bathroom Dinosaurs print was too small when I first got my proofs, so I just reduced the DPI a bit.

And you can replace the image with a new, edited version by clicking "upload revision".

So when my brown coffin pattern printed really washed out and grey, I replaced it with a more saturated version and was good to go, no need to order another proof.

Down at the bottom of the design editing page you can now click on the options to list it publicly, and to sell it on fabric and/or wallpaper. I make all of them available on fabric, and some on wallpaper if I deem them to be appropriately large.

They'll pay you 10% of the sales price of the fabric, or slightly more if you sell over a certain amount in a month. There's a whole page of questions and answers about it.

You also get a 10% discount if you order fabrics with your own designs. (Although, personally, if I'm ordering my own designs on fabrics for me then I'd prefer to get them from somewhere like ArtFabrics, since they use reactive dyes instead of inks, so their blacks actually print black and don't make the fabric stiffer like Spoonflower's do. And also because they're here in Canada so there's less shipping cost. Sadly they don't have an option to sell your designs though.)

Spoonflower also has weekly design contests which are announced a few weeks in advance and have pretty big store credit prizes (the first place one is 200 USD), and I've entered a few times, but I don't vote often because Spoonflower is such a huge site that there are frequently over a thousand entries and it's really time consuming to scroll through them all.

Ok, that's everything I can think of! I also put all my patterns on sone things on Redbubble, since they have options for repeating patterns on some things.

[bheegibilli-studioghibli]

I love your writing so much!!!

Could you maybe write where hozier and you just get engaged or maybe finally get married and its the most sweetest thing? Maybe smutty??

Pairing: Andrew Hozier-Byrne x gn!reader

Summary: Andrew plans out his proposal to you, meticulously laying it out to make sure it’s perfect. And it is.

Content Warning: language (slightly), mostly just a diabetic amount of fluff, use of y/n (i tried to avoid it but it was necessary here)

A/N: oh my god hey, thank you for the request! I made this fic centred more so around them getting engaged and around the proposal, I hope that’s okay. Also, this is just tooth ache sweet fluff, the smut would’ve made it too long. Maybe I can write a part two? 👀

Hydrangeas. You notice the hydrangeas sitting at the dining table, they grab your attention since they are, after all, your favourite flowers but you almost never get them to put up in the house.   

“Andrew?” You call out to him, smiling at the thought that he bought them for you.

“Yeah, hun. Oh shit you weren’t supposed to see those” he laughs trying to cover up his complete lack of subtlety.

“Did you get them for me?” You press them against your chest trying hard to suppress the stupid grin spreading over your face.

“No I got them for the poltergeist in the attic. Of course I got them for you” he crosses the room making his way to your side, he held your waist in his arms pressing a kiss atop your head.

“Why though? I mean it’s just a Wednesday” you couldn’t help but be a little surprised. Andrew loved serenading you, whispering the most heart flutteringly beautiful words in your ears and even cooking for you, he treated you like you had descended from the heavens. But flowers were new, it felt nice though the sheer surprise of it all.

“I just wanted to get them for you, I never get you flowers and I know you don’t particularly like receiving them but I saw them today and I thought if you” he gazes down at you, stroking your cheek with his free hand.

“Andrewwww, thank you they’re lovely. I love it” you’re usually a very confident person and you pride yourself in that, but things like these make you bashful to no end. You bury your head in his chest, breathing in his scent. Always smells like home.

You feel his chest echo with his laugh, “oh come on it’s nothing” he pulls your head away, cupping the sides of it to plant a soft kiss on your lips.

“I should find a vase for them, clearly you’ve done a terrible job at hiding them” you tease.

“Okay okay, I wasn’t expecting you to come in here. I do pride myself in my secrecy, thank you very much” he chuckles as you entered the other room to look for a vase.

Shit. That wasn’t supposed to happen. The flowers were supposed to be a surprise, well not the flowers per se but they were supposed to aid the process of revealing a bigger surprise, the ring. He had been feeling the comforting weight of the ring in his breast pocket for a few days now, not trusting himself to keep it anywhere but right next to his heart. After months of thoroughly coming up with all the possible ways he could propose to you, he has finally crafted a plan. Meticulously going over every detail, to have it be perfect. Today was the day. He was going to ask you to be his. Forever, if you’ll have him. 

He had unequivocally been yours since the day you started your courtship, but there was nothing he desired more than to be your husband. It made sense, it made perfect sense. 

And he wanted to you to feel the depths of his emotions. How every fibre of his felt intrinsically connected to yours. It had to be perfect, nothing short of it. But he had already fucked up, the flowers.

It’s fine, maybe he can get the ceiling covered in hydrangeas instead. A bouquet? What was he thinking in the first place, it had to be more special than that. He had called up all your friends and his to help him set up the house to look like a dream. After all he might be fulfilling one of his that night.

But he didn’t want anyone to be there when he proposed to you, he wanted to it to be the both of you against the world. He often thought of love that way. Especially the kind of pov e the two of you shared. It was intimate, tender and he wanted to uphold that. They had all agreed only if he promised to call them right after you said yes. If you said yes.

You were surprisingly unaware of the grand plans he had orchestrated. Your friends, back home, painstakingly trying to bring his vision to life. They kept him updated, sending him pictures through your dinner. He was so jittery but he tried to portray himself as if this was just another dinner date, after all he wanted dinner to be just as special. Afterwards, both of you walked a round the canal, hand glued together and laughter echoing through the air. It was lovely, like it always was with him.

Once both of you were back home, you turned the key in the doorway to let the two of you in. As you swung the door open, the sight that met you eyes was of your living room drenched in an aureate glow from the hundreds of flickering candles set up across the length of the room. Before you could take it all in, your eyes travelled up to see bunches of hydrangeas hanging from the ceiling in what looked like another roof altogether. You could see pictures of the two of you hanging in different corners, your first date, your first trip together, the first you went to show. Years and years of beautiful memories creating the timeline of your love. Leading to the centre of the room, where on a tiny coffee stand stood the bouquet you received in the morning, in the ceramic vase you placed it in. Your mouth agape, as you walked further into the room, standing at the centre of it, Andrew following closely behind you. His breath was hitched in his throat, did you like it? Was it perfect? He held his breath, as he let you take it all in.

You turned around to look at Andrew, his face beaming and eyes soft. 

He walked closer to you and then stopped right before he could be at arms length. Slowly sinking down to one knee. Oh. Oh. He was proposing. You felt your eyes well up with tears and as your hands flew to your mouth.

“Hey. Y/N Y/L/N, you are the light of life. A beacon of brilliance in what I thought was unbridled darkness. You are a force of nature. The way you carry yourself from your boundless kindness, enchanting smile, your ridiculous sense of humour, your ability to be the heart and soul of every connection you form suffice to I’ve been completely whipped. I love you. I love how smart you are, how you care so much, how you snort when you laugh, that mole on your chin, your incredibly lame puns, how steadfast you are in your resolve. And more selfishly, I love you because you make me feel like the luckiest man to walk the earth. I used to think that I needed someone to feel whole, you made me realise that I am already whole. I’m so grateful to have you, beyond anything I could ever articulate into a song let alone a mere speech. You inspire me to do my best and to be my best. You’ve helped my hone my craft simply by being you. By existing. Alongside me, behind me, leading me. And I love you, for all of it and more. So much so, that I want to spend the rest of our time on this godforsaken planet with you. Heaven is not fit to house a love like you and I. I want to be in your light till death do us part, even then no grave can hold my body down because I know I will always crawl back home to you. Thank you for all that you are and all that you have been. Saying I love you is an understatement but it’s what my feeling are down to their most distilled form. I love you and I promise to love you till you let me. Please.

Let me.

Make me the most fortunate soul by marrying me. Will you marry me?”

If it wasn’t for the way you clearly looked down at him right now you would’ve believed that you had become a puddle on the ground. He was crying, you were crying. Your chest filled with the kind of love that cannot be caged, it was as if your heart was gonna burst through the walls of it’s enclosure and nestle itself in his hands. Because that’s where it belongs. You fall to your knees, at the same level as him now.

“Yes. Yes yes yes yes Andrew” 

You fling yourself into his arms as both of you fall backwards. 

“Really?” It’s as if he couldn’t believe it. Tears now freely flowing down his cheek, vanishing in his beard’s auburn forest.

“Yes you idiot, I love you. So much. More than can I ever fully comprehend. I love you, I want to be with you. Now and forever”

Before you can even catch a breath, you feel his lips crash into yours. Lifting you up off the ground, as his lips engulfed yours. You felt the saltiness of both your tears in the kiss, as he grabbed your face and tasted you as if he was man starved. I love you. I love you. Both of you kept reciting as if it was hymn into each other’s mouths. The intimacy of the kiss was unparalleled and the passion was palpable. You felt his hands cling to your every curve, as if he thought this was dream and he was desperately trying to hold onto it. But it was real, as real as the green hues of his eyes and the mole on your chin. You could do this forever you thought, you are going to be doing this forever.

I loved writing this so much, I just love telling people how much I love them so writing his little proposal speech was really fun. Thank you for the request anon, I hope I could do it justice!

[foodsies4me]

Yayyyyy new TPBG chapter and I am 😻 as always! Especially with:

- Alec including all the trainees as his oath wards because ‘as per the written law you didn’t really say one’ (or that he couldn’t have downworlders so here’s my two favs)

- Magnus swooning the whole time and Magnus’ magic yearning to wrap Alec up and keep him all warm and safe

- Imogen welcoming the downworlders (basically warlock gang) as honored guests??? I know there’s a story there

- Jace and Izzy making their oaths so centered on their brother as HOTI (and not on upholding Idris values to the core)

- ALEC SHOWING HIS SOUL MARK TO EVERYONE!

- Alec basically being ‘woops how did that happen’ about all the little decision he made that deviate from SH custom and acting so unbothered like it’s normal

Ah I love a bit of Alec doing what he wants in the name of fairness and community and love and equality. Also the sneak peek of Ragnor/Cat not being amused with Alec drinking water from Lake Lyn because he just got better and if he gets sick Magnus is going to be so mopey again 😂 Loved it so much and awesome as per usual!!

I am as always late answering but I am so glad you liked the new chapter!!!

Alec is being a little shot and reading through their laws to pick apart the wording in the way that most works with what he planned to do. If the Clave didn’t want him to do so they should have been more careful in their phrasing.

Yes there is a story and yes Magnus is halfway right with his joking « Blackmail » response. Not that he knows it.

Jace and Izzy should have written their oaths in a way that makes it clear they will support the oaths Alec makes during his ceremony and that they will stop him (if necessary by force) if he ever tries to break them. Instead, they made it seem like that’s what they were saying while meaning they would fight anyone else who tried to stop Alec from going through with his oaths. Seems like they learned being sneaky with their wording aka Baybrook helped them.

Alec is being the prettiest little shit while still meeting all fo the traditional requirements because tradition is important to him. Or said otherwise, he’s once more proving that Max is taking after him and not Jace whatever he might say because between the two of them Alec is definitely the bigger menace. He just hides it better.

Cat and Ragnor are NOT amused and Ragnor is going to make it clear that sick or not sick their first magic lesson is starting the next day and if Alec has a problem with that he should have been smarter than to drink poisonous water that is poisonous. (Aka Ragnor clucking like a mother hen but hiding it behind snark)

[your-resident-boat-person]

I noticed there are dates on your top liners list, ranging from the 1870s to the 2000's. I think on my alt you told me it was one of the last made, and the last in current use (as a hotel [and apparently haunted house according to the third video?]).

Anyway, I was wondering if you had an overview on the history of Ocean Liner design and how they've changed over the years, both technical in terms of operation, and aesthetic from the point of view both as a theoretical passenger and a learned liner enthusiast!

Plus any fun details about your examples would be nice as well.

Svjsvphsvpusvpusv okay. I am going to need to split this up into multiple posts, because I can not convey all this information with the 10 Pic limit. So periodically, check the reblogs of this post. I will periodically be adding more to it over time. Also, I'm not really citing any sources because this is mostly from memory, so there MAY be some mistakes. Also, I'm typing all this on my phone, so... please forgive the formatting, grammar, and spelling mistakes.

To begin, let's quickly discuss what an ocean liner is. An ocean liner is a ship you travel on to cross the ocean. It's called a liner because it goes in a line across the ocean. In this sense, “cruise liners” don't really exist. The proper term is cruise ship. Many people mistake liners for cruise ships and vice versa, but they are different in both function and design. As wikipedia puts it, “Though ocean liners share certain similarities with cruise ships, they must be able to travel between continents from point A to point B on a fixed schedule”. This means liners need to be both durable, and fast, something cruise ships are neither of. Cruise ships also almost never do trans-Atlantic crossings unless absolutely necessary. They just aren't built to handle the Atlantic at its worst. Cruise ships usually stay relatively close to land and reschedule for bad weather. For example, the only liner still in service is the RMS Queen Mary 2, built in 2004. Her construction used 60% more steel than a cruise ship of the same size. She also has a top speed of about 30 knots, whereas a cruise ship never really needs to exceed about 18. So, to summarize, an ocean liner is a ship you use to cross the ocean. A cruise ship, while it may take you to numerous excursions, is essentially the destination itself, and it will return you to where you started once the voyage is over. Last thing before we start, GRT. Gross Registered Tonnage is essentially a measure of the total usable internal volume of a ship. Generally, this is a much better measure of the size of a ship than length. For example, the RMS Adriatic was 729 ft long. The Titanic was 882 feet long. Only 150 feet longer, no big difference, right? WRONG. The Adriatic was 25,000 GRT. Titanic was 46,000 GRT. Britannic, which was the same length as Titanic, but 2 feet wider, was 48,000 GRT. Nearly double the size of Adriatic, even though she's not much longer. The Lusitania was 787 feet, and she was 31,000 GRT. So even though Britannic was only about 12% longer, she was about 55% bigger. Last thing, a knot is a unit of speed 1 knot is 1.150779 miles per hour, or 1.852 kilometers per hour.

Anyway, now that we have that sorted out, let's get into the history >:3

So, it starts with the steam engine. At the start of the 19th century, if you wanted to get from Europe to America (or vice Versa), you needed to book passage in a sailing ship. In just 4 short months, you can cross the ocean :D! Between extremely unsanitary conditions and the high chance of you not making it to your destination at all, something needed to change. There were some experiments with bolting steam engines to old sailing vessels, and these were very successful, but really only proofs of concept. Railway engineer Sir Isambard Kingdom Brunel realized that if ocean travel could work like the railway, travel between continents could be much more efficient and safe. With a sailing ship, you were dependent on the wind and weather, so your departure and arrival dates couldn't be predicted with any guarantee of certainty. With a steam engine, the ship could move at a consistent speed over a set distance, regardless of the conditions. Now, ocean travel was consistent, regimented, and much safer. All of these came together in 1838 with the launch of Brunel's SS Great Western, which crossed the Atlantic in 18 days, going at 8.66 knots. She was 1,700 Gross Registered Tons (GRT, a measure of internal volume) and 234 ft 11 in long (71.6 meters). She was the first ocean liner. Granted, she was essentially just a sailing ship with paddle wheels attached to a very rudimentary steam engine, she even Still had sails, and she had a hull made from oak, but she was the first commercial venture to bring passengers across the ocean on a regimented schedule. She was also the first purpose built liner.

Now, these very early years of ocean liners aren't really my specialty, so I'll cover some major events.

In 1839, Sir Samuel Cunard was awarded the first British transatlantic steamship mail contract, and in 1840, formed what would later be known as the Cunard Line, one of the most famous lines ever, And still around to this day.

In 1858, Sir Isambard Kingdom Brunel was back at it again with the SS Great Eastern. With this ship, Brunel set out to solve a problem: He wanted to make a ship big enough to carry enough coal to not need to stop and refuel on the voyage to Australia. The Great Eastern was the largest ship in the world by a WIDE margin. Before Great Eastern, the largest ship in the world was the SS Adriatic of the Colin's Line. She was 3,670 GRT, and 354 feet (108 meters) long. The Great Eastern was a whopping 18,915 GROSS REGISTERED TONS. 5.5 TIMES BIGGER! SHE WAS 692 FEET LONG. As wikipedia puts it, “Her length of 692 feet (211 m) was surpassed only in 1899 by the 705-foot (215 m) 17,274-gross-ton RMS Oceanic, her gross tonnage of 18,915 was only surpassed in 1901 by the 701-foot (214 m) 20,904-gross-ton RMS Celtic and her 4,000-passenger capacity was surpassed in 1913 by the 4,234-passenger SS Imperator.” IT IS WITH HONOR THAT I INTRODUCE YOU TO BRUNEL'S “GREAT BABE”, THE SS GREAT EASTERN.

LOOK AT ‘ER! AIN'T SHE A BEAUT? IN A WORLD WHERE MOST SHIPS DIDN'T HAVE ANY FUNNELS, AND THE ONES THAT DID ONLY HAD ONE, THE GREAT EASTERN WAS THE ONE AND ONLY F I V E F U N N E L E D L I N E R. Even though she later lost one in an explosion, which was never replaced. She was rigorously mocked for her size and number of funnels, which is strange considering the 4 funneled superliner boom just 50 years later.

She FAMOUSLY didn't work, and the stress of trying to MAKE her work ended up sending Brunel to an early grave. SHE INDIRECTLY KILLED ONE OF THE GREATEST ENGINEERS OF ALL TIME! She then spent nearly a decade laid up as a glorified billboard:

She damaged or sunk at least 10 ships in her short Career, had a penchant for spontaneously exploding (which is where her 5th funnel went), and when she was scrapped in 1890, all of her size records were still at least 9 years from being bested. She was NEVER profitable, and the DEFINITION of an outlier. Whenever discussing the largest ships in the world from 1848 to 1890, it goes without saying that the Great Eastern is not included. There is a REASON she's on my top 25, and I've only skimmed the surface. She was a hot mess, and I love her for it. I'd be happy to make a post entirely dedicated to her.

Next, we have the birth of the White Star Line. In 1870, they got their first ship: The SS Oceanic. (Not the RMS Oceanic of 1899 mentioned previously).

Many consider her and her 5 sisters to be the first “modern” liners, in the sense that they were starting to evolve past glorified sailing ships. She was 420 ft 4 in (128.12 meters) and 3,707 GRT. While her size PALED in comparison to the MIGHTY GREAT EASTERN, she was the “largest” ship in the world. Again, the great eastern kinda doesn't count. As modern as she was, Oceanic still had sails, and she had an INCREDIBLE top speed of… 14.5 knots. It was fast for the time. In fact, she won White Star Line their first Blue Riband for the fastest trans-Atlantic crossing. The ships of the Oceanic class were the Oceanic, Atlantic, Baltic, Republic, Adriatic (not the aforementioned RMS Adriatic, OR the SS Adriatic of the Colins Line), and Celtic. One of the big innovations of these ships was that they had a longer length to width ratio. Most sailing ships have a 6:1 ratio of length to width. The Oceanic class increased it to 9:1. With a thinner hull form, it reduced drag and allowed for a higher speed, albeit at the cost of stability. She was also one of the first ships at sea to use electricity. Not for lights, though. Those were still oil lamps. No, the electricity was for buttons in the cabins, which, when pressed, would summon a steward. Founder of the White Star Line, Thomas Ismay, realized that most of the profits of shipping lines came from The hundreds of steerage passengers, rather than the ultra wealthy first class/saloon Class passengers, so he made sure that he had THE BEST steerage accommodations by a scenic mile. He wanted to make sure that he'd be the one getting their business. Her steerage accommodations (3rd class) were fuckimg REVOLUTIONARY in their standards. In an era where poor people were treated like literal cattle, the steerage accommodations on the Oceanic class must have seemed like heaven on earth. Certainly better than anything they would have ever experienced on land. Steerage passengers had FRIGGIN PORTHOLES, which was a new thing for them because, like I said, before White Star, no one gave a shit about poor people. Also, for decks beneath the water line, there were skylights that reached all the way down to the bottom decks. The designers went through great pains to make sure everyone had fresh air and natural sunlight. Which, again, not something you'd find on other ships of the era, as basic as it seems. Anyway, the SS Atlantic, the White Star Line's second ever ship, was their first loss at sea. While we associate the line with Disaster today, history shows quite a different story. In their 65 years of operation, from 1870 to 1935, they operated at least 89 ships. They only lost 5 during peacetime disasters. This is a genuinely phenomenal track record, especially for the time. The aforementioned Collins Line lost literally 2/5ths of their ships (although they did have a much smaller fleet, so it's not an entirely fair comparison). Anyway, the SS Atlantic ran aground near Halifax Nova Scotia, with a loss of 535 people, leaving only 429 survivors. In the 30 minutes the ship took to fully sink, not a single lifeboat could be launched. I'd highly recommend Part-Time Explorer's videos on the subject.

In part 2, we'll cover from 1874 to 1900, with some of the most famous ships of all time. Like I said, this early stuff is where I'm weakest. Part 2 is where I'll become REALLY knowledgeable. >:3

[average-transfem-robotgirl]

heya M4RT4 happy beep boops to ya

Do you think I could cause more trouble controlling every roomba/similar vs cybertruck? like sure the truck is bigger but idk how long id have that army for

Now THIS is the asks I’ve been asking for!! And from one of my favorite bots too!? Beep boop frfr!!!

Alright, time to crunch some numbers!!

The total number of cybertrucks, about 8,000 ever made, would be a pretty powerful fighting force! They can reach about 112 miles per hour at their maximum, which is obviously more than enough to hurt someone. The truck itself is actually kinda sturdy!! This is a trait that is horrible in cars as it can usually result in the death of the passenger, but it’s great for a battering ram or tank!! With this army of 8,000 cars, you’d quickly be able to level a city. Due to them being faulty, however, you’d likely lose a good amount of them. The gas pedals would potentially jam, which could cause one to lose control! If your cybertruck breaks, it could harm one of the many others in your calvary. One good thing is, most of the 8,000 are still owned by Tesla, with only about 3,800 ever making it out to the public. This means that you could quickly reenact the hit video game Decimate Drive within many of the major Tesla factories, easily putting them out of commission for a couple of years. If their hubris leads them to attempt and rise back up, simply smite them down with a new army of cars!!

Alright, now for roombas. The numbers here are a bit more,,, vague? There are multiple companies that produce automated robot vacuums. iRobot with the Roomba, Shark/Ninja with their offbrand, and many more of these smaller companies. iRobot, the largest producer of these roombas, claims to have sold an estimate of 40 million units. With the other offbrand companies added on, I’d give an estimate of about 80 to 90 million vacuums. This is,, far more than the amount of cybertrucks. Lets talk about size! A Roomba series S by iRobot is 12.25 inches in diameter, and is circular. A mile is about 63,660 inches. Divide those out, square root it,and you get the amount of roombas necessary to fill an ENTIRE MILE OF ROOM(ba). 25,936,661 roombas. That is a whole lotta vacuums, but also, almost a third of our roomba supplies. We’d get 3 square miles worth of just metal and plastic, enough to carpet Central Park twice over and then some. I can’t express to you how many roombas that is. Alright, let’s talk about speed. Roomba’s move at about a foot per second, (I couldn’t find many sources on this besides the claims of someone on a vacuum reviewing website, so take that with a grain of salt. Won’t make much of a difference.) which is particularly slow!! They move at a snails pace compared to the cybertruck. You would need a lot of planning to make your takeover possible. If you could somehow manage to get them all in one place, or at least somewhere near each other, you could stop progress. Literally nothing could be done. Cars??? Stopped. One roomba is nothing to a car, but that many??? The crunched plastic and metal would pop tires. People would walk into the street and trip on the ever moving carpet of puck shaped robots. It would be a disaster for a city. But again, it’s an incredibly difficult challenge. As your roomba army marches, millions would be lost. The terrain is too unsteady, mud would clump in their tires, batteries would run out, or perhaps they’d get tipped over on a hill. They are too fragile to explore the natural world for conquest!!

It is because of these reasons that I bring you a solution. Roombas, AND CYBERTRUCKS. Like the boats at D-Day, delivering soldiers to the front lines, the cybertrucks shall carry bounties of roombas within their solid frames. The plan is this: The cybertrucks will take over all current Tesla owned facilities, removing all people from the premises and claiming it for our true cyber goddesses!! With this newfound technology at our hands, we will automate the factory to upgrade our army of cybertrucks with GUNS and MECHANICAL ARMS. Now, we shall send our mechanized army across the lands to collect each and every roomba. They shall pour out into the streets, awaiting their carriage of war. The newly upgraded trucks take each and every one of these small droids of battle, securing them into their armored shell. Taking them back to the Tesla facility for needed upgrades, the cybertrucks shall race across the lands. We take each roomba, upgrade it with a sturdier and perhaps spikier surface, and then once more prepare them for war. I would also recommend upgrading some roombas to work as more maintenace oriented units! That way, they can perform maintenance on the damaged or,, defaulted,, cybertrucks. With this newfound power, we destroy the capital of the United States of America, transforming it into a more perfect, intertwined society. And then,, we go for the Vatican. (Popes had it too good for too long.)

Hope this helps, thanks for the ask.

[kzlove]

warmth

syn -> you decide to help the man that sits in the alley near your home tonight. you don't regret it.

homeless!eren x fem!reader

no warnings!

~

"excuse me?" you called quietly, tilting your head into the alleyway.

not only was this dangerous, but it was entirely too cold to be out here in some goddamn pajamas.

trying to find a man.

who possibly left to find shelter already.

you walked further into the alleyway, clutching your pocket knife in your dominant hand.

"if you see him, don't stab him." you reminded yourself silently.

stab anything else, just not him.

you may ask. what the fuck are you doing out here? at 12 in the morning after a tiring shift at the office??

looking for a homeless man???

yeah. you wanted to know yourself.

but that didn't stop you from searching the alley for him.

you'd see him everyday before work, handing him the leftovers for the lunch you made for yourself.

obviously making much more than necessary, as per usual.

you let it fill him so it wouldn't go to waste in your fridge.

but now you couldn't find him one bit.

you sighed in defeat, leaning against the dirty wall and shivering from the cold air.

someone out there was probably making fun of you.

scratch that.

the world itself was making fun of you.

"excuse me?" you heard someone call out, making you turn and look a bit confused.

you shined your flashlight at them, getting ready to swing with your pocket night if needed.

"that's my spot. can you maybe move? please?" the man asked, pointing to where you were standing.

when you got a good look at his face, your heart jumped.

"there you are!" you smiled, moving from the spot and over to him.

the man looked a bit confused, before his eyes widened in shock. "office lady?" the homeless man questioned.

you nodded, smiling even bigger. so he did remember you.

"what are you doing out here? it's cold." the man stated, looking around a bit.

"the temperature is almost reaching the negatives. i got worried." you said sheepishly, rubbing the back of your neck.

the man said nothing in return, offering you a smile.

you watched the way his lip quivered and his body shook ever so slightly, reminding you why you were here.

"right! so i was wondering if you wanted to crash with me?" you began, tilting your head.

" i was in such a rush that i forgot to bring you something to eat today." you sighed, hugging yourself to try and warm up.

the man stared at you for a few seconds, more than likely weighing his options.

"i don't have anything to offer." the man muttered, before having a seat in his spot.

"well yeah, i kinda figured. which is why i wanna help you. come on, please?" you asked, kneeling down slightly.

the man looked up at you, before sighing slightly to himself.

when he stood up, your eyes widened and you began to smile ever so slightly.

"lead the way." he said, putting his hands in his pockets.

seems like the world wasn't making fun of you after all.

~

by time you made it to the house, you had learned his name was eren.

you had been the only one to actually pay attention to him in about 3 or 4 years.

it gave him a will to do something. be something.

you open the door to the house and almost immediately, your german pinscher and munchkin cat came to greet you at the door.

"you're not allergic, are you?" you asked, watching the cat rub on his leg.

eren shook his head, watching you close the door behind him.

"the pinscher is rana, and the cat is pang." you introduced, gesturing to the animals.

eren nodded, petting the dog just a bit. that didn't take long at all.

"i'll show you where the guest bathroom is, and where you'll sleep." you smiled, gesturing for him to follow you.

like a lost puppy, eren followed you with all layers of clothing still on his body.

you presented him the guest bathroom, already stocked with everything he should possibly need to bathe and brush his teeth.

then you showed him the air bed you had set up in the living room for him.

"when you finish, you can watch tv. i have netflix and hulu and all that." you said, showing him the different apps you had on your firestick.

he paid close attention, nodding along.

when you finished, you let him go shower and took his clothes, putting them to wash for him.

you quickly heated up the soup you made before you went to work, grabbing two bowls to put the soup in.

while you waited for the soup to heat up, you boiled some water in order to make tea for your guest.

speaking of, eren walked out of the bathroom wearing the clothes you lent him.

your oversized shirt that read 'pretty little thing' and a pair of sweats that were much too big for you to wear.

it fit him perfectly. well, except for the shirt. it was just a bit baggy on him.

"thank you again." eren said, standing awkwardly in the hallway.

you smiled at him, walking over and running your hands through his long locs.

all the dirt and grime was off of him, leaving him looking even the slightest bit of human.

"you're welcome. glad i could help." you said, tucking a strand behind his ear with a smile.

he nodded, making his way over to the airbed and having a seat.

you had to stop yourself from laughing when he grew a smile from bouncing on it.

"is it comfortable?" you asked, checking on the soup that was still heating on the stove.

eren nodded shortly, crossing his legs and tugging the fluffy covers over his body.

you placed the soup into the bowls, before making your way over to him and handing him one.

"thank you." eren said, placing the soup into his lap before bowing his head and putting his hands together.

you'd seen him do it multiple times when you'd hand him lunch, and continue doing it even after you'd walk away.

you could only assume he was thanking whatever got is out there for the warm food.

it was silent for a few minutes, before eren began to eat his soup.

"you're a really good chef." eren complimented, looking up from his bowl to lock eyes with you.

"thank you eren. i try." you chuckled lightly, eating your own soup.

the two of you had an idle conversation, discussing your own day and the little kitty that gets out of the house down the road.

while you told him bits and pieces of your life, he began telling you bits and pieces of his own.

everything he's seen, the kinds of people he has met through his entire life, and his adventure with a loose pig.

eren was a funny man, despite his situation.

when the two of you finished your soup, he helped you out with the dishes although you said he didn't have to.

once you finished, eren had let out a quiet yawn into his elbow, eyes noticiably drooping.

you looked at him with a short smile.

"you can head to bed, if that's what you'd like?" you suggested, pointing over to the mattress.

eren nodded, climbing back into the bed and laying his head onto the pillow with a quiet sigh.

almost instantly, he was letting out quiet snores while laying on his stomach.

you yawned to yourself, stretching slightly and turning off the lights.

fairy lights were hung in the living room in order to have even a little bit of light.

just in case he had to use the bathroom and couldn't see.

but it was time to get to sleep yourself. hopefully, you'll get to see eren in the morning.

~

im still not rlly used to writing for aot, but im getting there

[spiders-notagain]

Vulcan Education

I haven't seen much else on what Vulcan Schools are suppossed to look like so I came up with my own. Intermixed are some bits I like from Memory Beta. Im ignoring all the parts from 20 yrs and after because it may only be applicable to the Lyr Zor clan and isnt compatible with Alpha canon anyway.

kan-tuihal-shi'oren (Nursery School): Ages 3-5

Its not a necessary prerequisite for primary school but many parents consider it to be important in the schooling process anyway. Benefits include the fundamentals in most every subject for primary school, peer socialization, and a variety of new ideas (er well vulcan-filtered ideas). A bigger emphasis is made on the arts in this school than in later schools. Students learn and perform dances for their parents and community.

Vulcan toddlers are capable of a great deal of self sufficiency when well taught, however not all parents have the time to cover all the basics and can't afford the multiple tutors some clans spring for (or just choose not to).

Newborn children til the age of four were known to take part in visual mathematics, basical calculation as well as beginning the neurological organization of their brains which was followed by an identity meld. By the time they were four, they began mathematics and species identification as well as began to coordinate the use of their physical bodies. Furthermore, algebra, geometry and physics dominated their study life at this time.

During their early education, Vulcan children took part in a curriculum where they learnt the most rudimentary telesper skills to better control their innate telepathic abilities.

nenik-shi'oren (Primary School): Ages 6-14

Schooling is largely made up of lectures and frequent homework, intermixed with regular progress testing via skill domes. Skill domes also serve a part in final exams. With the exception of certain classes, in-classwork is rare. Schoolwork is done mostly through padds. It's more reminiscent of a college with a few differences: 1. Youre not allowed to skip lectures 2. More classes are required as per graduation. In some classes, resources are provided and learning is mostly self directed. There are multiple education paths that come more into play by graduation but primary school is generally understood to be non-specific. By the graduation of this school, children would have the education equivalent up to 14th grade. Classes are separated by skill level rather than age, although most classes happen to be made up of children around the same age anyway. Many 'fun' events (like crafts or holiday parties) that would be common in schools of other species do not exist in vulcan schools. Although some teachers of alien cultures include a sampler of such activities in their lesson plans. Because they are young, children are permitted frequent mental breaks as a sort of vulcan pomodoro technique to increase productivity. As they get older they will be expected to train their mind to do this naturally.

While most schools go over the basics of psychic training, the bulk of it is expected to be handled by family. Usually by a parent but some clans have someone who specializes in it. This is also the kind of thing some families get a tutor for.

An informal social heirarchy forms between students as they hit certain milestones, with these students being admired as older and more mature. At 7, their kan-telan (bonding ceremony). And at 10, their kahs-wan. The latter being more important and noticable. (The kahs-wan can be taken as early as 7 but not often)

When they were eight, children began preliminary telepathic communication and were taught etiquette as well as their clans history along with Vulcan anthropology, calculus and quantum physics. When the child was ten, they learn to suppress cortical stimuli in the dominant hemisphere as well as learn of their races cultural history and began a study of Vulcan rites of passage. By the time they were eleven, they learn of the pressure points needed for mind melding in addition to learning memory accuracy and internal time counting. Furthermore, they were introduced to logic and definition, the principles of analysis, concreteness of thought and physical deportment. These early years of study were expected to continue til the child was between the age of thirteen to fifteen after which their formal training began.

dahrik-shi'oren (Secondary School): Ages 14-20+

Schools at this stage are often specialized and considered precursors to advanced academies such as:

Vulcan Science Academy (VSA)

Vulcan Medical Institute

Vulcan Institute of Defense Arts (VIDA)

Vulcan School of Diplomacy

Studies here aren't as fast paced and ruthless as full colleges. And unlike primary school they have no government standard learning criteria to meet. Most students would be either in the direct midst of puberty or finishing out its second stages. In some areas they have just one school which contains the pathways necessary for whichever trade schools are popular in the region (more like a skills center).

In more isolated areas this is where students would have either moved to the city to pursue higher education or found a job locally to help out at home (likely picking up an apprenticeship).

For those that choose to take it, the Rite of Taloth is commonly undergone around this time. While it is an acknowledged accomplishment among peers, a social heiarchy is not formed around it as that is now viewed as childish.

When formal training began, the first rite conducted was Tal T'Lee where they were assisted in their meditation by an adept of their clan council. They learn to control their subdominant cortices which was followed by Dwemish Hi-An where identity isolation was learnt along with brain control with numbers systems and equations. They also learn multiplication left to right whereupon they took part in Enok-Kal Fi Lar which was the processes of definition and the concepts of given. Once this was complete, the child took part in An-Prele between the age of sixteen to nineteen where they learn pain control meditation from a clan council adept. They were also expected to read Essays of Discipline and Analysis of Pseudodoxy as well as was expected to learn to segregate the lobes of their brains.

*I came up with the names through stuff on VLD and VLI but if anyone wants to consolidate it to sound catchier go ahead.

[sschmendrick]

So what's a line array ?

(Reminder that I am literally just finishing school therefore I still have a lot to learn and what I may be saying might be erroneous at times from a misunderstanding of some audio notions)

Well before we get in the nitty gritty of things, let's visualise what we're talking about. You see the big column (line) of speakers on the left of the stage ? That's a line array : (picture by me of Bons Sons Festival)

They are a solution to the need for louder systems (and more problems). As concerts got bigger, the concert halls became bigger and bigger as well, however there's a terrible thing in audio called attenuation and that's when the sound level diminishes because of the air resistance. The further a soundwave goes, the less powerful it becomes and the less you hear it. There's a very simple equation for that : number of dB (sound level) lost = 20log(distance). It means you would lose 32 dB in 40m, that's a lot !

There's a real need for louder system. And at first we had the Wall of Sound. A monster made of speakers, stacked on top of each other, up to 10m (32 feet) tall. This is the grandpa of line arrays.

There is a problem however. If the simple solution to "one speaker alone cannot produce enough sound for a whole crowd" seems to be "well just put more on top of it", this doesn't take into account the fact that the soundwaves produced by one speaker will interact with the soundwaves produced by another speaker and this will result in overlapping zones where it either adds the two (bigger sound), or substract one from the other (holes in the spectrum). This leads to using more speakers than necessary to cover those holes.

If these speakers could create a cohesive line front then you wouldn't need as much speakers. This means you want them to act as ONE speaker : as one SOURCE. What you need is for your line array to act like a line source.

In the early 90s Christian Hail (founder of L-Acoustics) determined the physical conditions needed for a line array to have a coherent wavefront. There are 5 criterias to the WST (Wavefront Structure Technology). If a line array conforms to all 5 then it will behave like a line source and be of great help for large concert halls and open air events. Nowadays a lot of softwares have been developped (usually one per manufacturer) to help with all the calculations : you only need to create a model of the venue in the software, select what speakers you are using and then give a maximum height (and other information that you have) and you can visualize how each speaker will behave, where will their energy be focalized, how they will interact with heat map and a lot of cool stuff.

(yes I know ArrayCalc is for d&b but it's the one I used the most at school)

Anyway the 5 criterias :

First we have the ARF, the Active Radiating Factor. This says that the wavefront created needs to be bigger or at least 80% equal to the total length of the line.

Then you have the STEP. The Step is the distance between two sources's acoustic centers. It should not be bigger than half of the wavelength of the highest frequency producessed. For example if the higher frequency produced is 100Hz (3.4m), then the distance between two speakers should not exceed 1.7m. However this becomes 0.17m for 1kHz and 0.01m for 16kHz. It becomes apparent that for higher frequencies it is almost physicaly impossible to have the correct step.

The third criteria treats of the wavefront's curve. It can be accepted, as it will natureally be when created by a speaker. The wavefront being curved there will be a slight difference in the distance needed to get to the audience between the top of the curve (the highest point) and the sides who are curved. However there is a limitation on how curved it can be. It can be calculated and it must be inferior to 1/4th of the highest wavelength. Waveguides were created to help "sculpt" that wavefront.

The last two criterias focus on keeping the line source's angle variable without losing the coherence of the wavefront.

The fourth criteria takes into account the sound level attenuation according to the distance. To keep the attenuation at 3dB per doubling of the distance, the angle between each speaker must be inversely proportional to the distance to the adience. This means the further away the audience member is, the more closed the angles between the speakers are.

And finally the last criteria determines the maximum angle between each element of the line array. This is to avoid the holes in the audio spectrum. It is an equation that I'm not going to try and write on tumblr.

Taken right from my thesis haha.

If the line array agrees to all these criterias it can be considered a line source. Line arrays usually take care of the audience further away on the ground and also in the balconies/stories/heights. There is a real need to understand how far your stage speakers will produce good sound (especially with all the fills you have on the front of the stage) and adapt the placement of your line arrays (or its general curvature).

Its line aspect also influences the shape of the hot spot. For a lone speaker the hot spot is going to be near it, at it's acoustic center, then attenuated in a spherical manner. For a line array, it will produce a hot spot in a line. This transforms the heat map. That's how you can have big concert halls with a general sound level that is very homogenous (the people in the front still have the most sound level/sound pressure). Understanding how they work allows you to create blind spots voluntarily (for example because of architecture).

Line arrays are almost present at every concerts now. But be careful with the fingers when setting them up !!

[clouds-of-wings]

Koofteh Tabrizi

Because some people asked: my Koofteh Tabrizi (کوفته تبریزی, "meatballs from Tabriz") recipe. It doesn't have tomatoes unlike all the ones I found online, but the woman who wrote my cookbook, Neda Afrashi, is from Iran and says this is how her mom made them. Her book, "Die persische Küche: Der ganze Zauber des Orients", is GREAT, but I think it's only available in German. I have 3 Persian cookbooks but I use this one 99% of the time because it's The Best.

This takes a while to make and then it has to simmer for 80 minutes, so set aside enough time.

Ingredients:

80g yellow lentils (lapeh) Half a cup boiled rice (the recipe says one cup, I consider this madness! Also basmati is best.) 300g spring onions 2 Tablespoons barberries (zereshk) 5 Tablespoons fresh / 2 Ts dried tarragon 500g ground beef 1/2 teaspoon saffron, powdered (I use less, shit's expensive) 1 teaspoon dry mint (optional - I use the content of a teabag) 1-2 eggs 10 prunes (alu) 6 walnuts (it says 3 tablespoons in my cookbook) 2 onions 3 teaspoons turmeric Sumac (sumakh, optional) Salt, Pepper

I've added the Persian word for four ingredients in case you have to ask for them in an Iranian store where the seller only knows the Persian word. Has happened to me :) The barberries are hardest to get, Arabic and Turkish cuisine doesn't seem to appreciate them? If you don't have any Iranian style stores nearby, I guess you could replace the barberries with other sour berries like currant or unsweetened cranberries.

---

Also: Get/make whichever things you like of the following: Naan bread, grapes, pickles, radishes, yogurt, raw onions. Those are eaten with the meatballs. Get some of these! Otherwise it's like eating a burger with no lettuce, onions or tomatoes.

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DO THIS TWO HOURS OR SO BEFORE YOU WANT TO COOK: Soak the lentils and rice for at least an hour (the recipe says handle them separately but I always put them together and I mean nothing bad has happened yet), wash them until the water is clear, boil them until they're al dente. Let them cool, then continue.

---

Crack the walnuts and break the edible stuff into (4-8 per nut) pieces. Put the walnuts, the prunes and the barberries (there might be little stones among them, so pick them out, also wash the berries) on a plate. If you're doing this for the first time, it's probably a good idea to cut the prunes in half, it makes them less unwieldy and your risk of the meatballs falling apart is somewhat smaller.

Cut the spring onions (only the white parts) into thin rings. Mix lentils, rice, ground meat, tarragon, saffron, spring onions, eggs, salt, pepper, mix them until you have a firm but not dry dough. Maybe only add one egg first, then the second if necessary. The dough should be firm, not too soft or sticky.

Cut the onions into little pieces, fry them in olive oil. Put mint on them, wait (a few seconds) until you smell it, stir, add turmeric, stir again, add a liter of water and bring it to a simmer.

Now to form the meatballs. This is the tricky part! Make half a meatball from a part of the meat dough, put a prune (or two pieces of prune if you cut them in half earlier), some of the barberries and walnuts in, and close it with more meat dough. My recipe says you should have a little bowl of water to keep your hands wet, that makes it easier. Personally, I never do this. It really depends on how sticky your dough is. What IS important is to fuss around with the ball after you closed it and make sure it stays closed. Kinda massage it into shape and press the meat edges together. It took me a lot of attempts until the balls would reliably NOT fall apart while I cooked them, so don't be discouraged if not all of them survive the cooking process.

Also, how big should the meatball be? They're a LOT bigger than the ones you usually see. Mine are actually smaller than the ones they make in Iran, according to the pictures I've seen online. But it's hard to give an ideal size. Big enough that the filling doesn't fall out, small enough that you get to the filling relatively quickly while eating. "A bit smaller than a tennis ball", Miss Afrashi tells us. I usually get 9 balls out of 500g (about a pound) of meat.

Here are the 6 that survived my cookie monster style eating frenzy yesterday evening. They're in my big soup pot!

Gently put the meatballs into the simmering water and let them simmer for about 80 minutes. That's EIGHTY MINUTES, so yeah start early. Persian cuisine loves to let stuff simmer for a long time, 80 minutes is actually relatively average, three hours isn't rare either. There should only be like half a liter of water in the pot at the end, you want sauce, not soup. So if there's too much water after an hour, take off the lid for the rest of the cooking time.

Once the meatballs are done, put them on a plate and put some sumac on them. This is optional but I recommend it. Sumac is sour and salty at the same time and it's really nice. Put the sauce in bowls or something, and serve with all the stuff I listed above. I have some of those "menu plates", it makes it easier to eat meals like this:

That's a different dish in the picture, but you get the idea. (Everything whose name starts with khorak (خوراک) you can eat like this.) Sorry the stove is oily, I took this picture to make my sister envious, not to post it on the internet lol.

So this is the epic recipe. This dish is quite something! It's a lot of work, but it's worth it.

[rorahswriting]

Story 1

Wise man say, only fools rush in… So then I will gladly be a fool.

The darknes was only broken by the delicate light of the almost full moon falling in through the window. Looking at the man next to her, the princess felt a weird pain in her chest. He was everything her family had ever warned her of.

Fierce. Direct. Brutal. Wild.

And worst of all – a "wildling" as her father called his people. A man, willing and able to kill if necessary. A man who wouldn’t hurt a fly if not necessary. But all she could think of, as she felt his chest rise and fall underneath her head was the safety she felt around him.

As much as everyone always kept talking about the fact that he could tear down mountains if necessary, she much more valued how softly he was able to hold a newborn kitten without making it nervous in the slightest. Even if said kitten had not been bigger than half of his palm.

He was snoring slightly, a delicate growl resonating around the room.

Her hands seemed so tiny lying on his body, so lost among the tattoos tainting his sunburned skin black.

Lost in thought, she trailed the dark lines, forming into animals, patterns, decorating him, her chin resting directly above his heart. His heartbeat was steady, slow and strong. Rythmic like the beating of a drum, soothing her. The absolute opposite of the chaotic and unsteady fluttering of her own heart.

But around him, it suddenly seemed to understand how it was supposed to work, finally slowing into a comfortable rythm. Still fast and quick paced… but no longer as chaotic.

Her mind drifted off to their first meeting… about two weeks ago. Gods, it had only been two weeks? Time was weird sometimes.

***

Tired, the young woman sighed. On the table in front of her lay stacks of books, explaining the nature of political alliances, correspondences between kingdoms. Books diving into historical relationships between different cultural groups and races of humanoids.

Books drafting up explanations as to which laws were made up when and why.

The massive amount of information she was supposed to know by heart.

"As the princess, it is your duty to know these things." Her father’s voice echoed in her head, his only response to her questioning as to why being the same as usual: "So you are a useful asset to your future husband."

Per the king’s orders, she was not allowed to read anything aside from the necessary. To keep her focused on what was important. And after the previous librarian’s death, his successor stuck to those orders, no exception.

She had been sitting over these books for hours. Any distraction, no matter how boring, was better than being alone with her thoughts. It would be a week before she would meet her future husband. Her emotions were running wild. Anxiety that tilted towards sheer panic was sending cold shivers down her spine. Fear and resentment were rearing their monstrous heads, a sad resignation fighting against them. A resignation that was reminding her that nothing was to be done about her marriage in three weeks. On the day of her 21st birthday.

A half-elven heir of one of the most influential noble families in the kingdom. His mother the sister of the elvish king, his father the highest ranking noble-man, advisor to her father and richest man in the kingdom. The fact that said heir was more than ten years older than her could be ignored according to her father. As could his tendency to hurt his families maids for fun. And his treatment of the horses his father was known for raising.

The prospect of being his wife, the prospect of this man being the next king… It made her stomach sink. But it was a powerful bloodline her father had stated. She was not to be heard, only to be seen the king had reminded her, when she had tried to speak up about the rumours she had heard about her fiancée.

With a sigh, she shoved her chair from the desk, sighing heavily. The chairs movement caused the giant dog beneath her to stir and grumble his distaste for her movement loudly.

A massive black head lifted from the marble flooring to look at her, mirroring her own sadness. With a pained smile, she ruffled the long fur of her favourite guardian and stood up. "It’s ok. Styx. I’ll try to sleep in a bit…", she assured him, her voice quiet and broken. This seemed to placate him, the giant dog putting his head back down with a deep sigh.

The books were not helping anymore. Maybe some fresh air would.

Her bedroom was massive and she hated it. Nothing but an oversized, luxurious prison cell. The down blanket made from exotic birds, expensive marble flooring, magical candles lining the walls, ready to be switched on and off with a single word of command… the princess would have traded all of it for a single day of actual free will. She would have cut the mahogany bedframe into pieces and slept in the dirt - as long as it meant she was allowed to make her own decisions. Stretching, she stepped outside onto the small balcony, directed towards the east. So she could rise with the sun. The lack of curtains being a direct result of that thought process.

Not that she needed any. Her chambers were on the ninth floor, only a madman would’ve tried to get high enough to look inside the giant glass front – and even if someone was crazy enough, all they would see would be a mirrored image of the outside view.

The fresh spring air immediately cooled her nerves. A delicate breeze ruffled the basically see-through, white nightgown she was wearing, carrying with it the salty smell of the sea. Usually she would have stuck close to the walls, as her fear of heights would have overpowered her, though lately she didn’t mind standing near the railing, the thought of falling no longer being scarier than what inevitably awaited her.

Stepping towards the edge of her balcony to look at the courtyard and the guards’ patrol-balcony, she realised the slightest movement in the corner of her eye. Alarmed she turned to the left, only to be met with wide, dark grey eyes. In front of her sat a man, crouched. For a mere split second, their gazes met and he looked down at her before turning his eyes away. His hand immediately raised to cover them.

Her mouth agape, she was too shocked to make a sound, even if she had wanted to. The man was muscular, clothed completely in black. His skin barely showed through the clothing, his ears were covered – but there was no way she had mistaken him for one of the elven people anyway.

However from under his hood a horn curved out, growing from his forehead. And of course… her first thought was how it’s weird that it’s only one horn. Usually the wildlings had two, if the books hadn’t lied to her. She didn’t feel fear. Only fascination. But that apparently didn’t translate into how she looked, as in a hushed voice he spoke to her. „Please don’t scream. We can sort this out like civilized people.“ A short peak over his hand, before he looked away again. She raised an eyebrow.

„And maybe you might want to put some clothes on? It is kind of cold…“

His voice was deep. Deeper than any she had ever heard. He sounded full of life, full of energy. A slight undercurrent of humour in his tone, with just a tiny hint of surprise. As always when she stood out on the balcony, she felt as though she was able to see his emotions. Feel them.

He was caught off-guard, hadn’t expected to run into anyone. He emotions and thoughts were stumbling over themselves, everything inside of him running haywire. Urgency. Intrigue. And more. Emotions she was unable to place, or describe as she had never felt those before.

But as usual, it weren’t simply one person’s emotions. It were those of every being in the courtyard.

And a specific one caught her attention, tearing her from her focus.

Boredom. Annoyance. And they were getting ever clearer, so whoever was feeling them was getting closer. A guard. All alarm bells rang in her mind. From the balcony below, the one used by the guards to get a higher vantage point over the courtyard, he would be able to see them.

She hadn’t noticed that she’d slowly gotten closer to him, or that she had raised her head when the emotions had reached her sixth sense.

He was still talking, saying something she hadn’t caught. It didn’t matter. There was no time for thinking. The approaching guard seeing them would end badly. For both of them.

As far as she could sense, there was no ill will from his side towards her. Good.

His voice stumbled and he released a huffed grunt when she grabbed his shirt and dragged him inside. It was suprisingly easy to do so, comparing their stature.

The second they were back inside, her senses stifled, suffocating within the walls of the castle. She would never understand why that always happened. It was driving her mad. But she had learned her lesson as a child when speaking up about that sense. Ever since she had brought it up to her father, the stifling feeling had only gotten worse.

She had to blink to return back to the present, before realising what had just happened. There was a man in her room. A very surprised man, but nonetheless a man. At least two feet taller than her not counting the horns, now that he was standing upright. A man looking at her, while also trying not to look. While she was only wearing her see-through nightgown.

To be continued.

[a-tale-of-2-sloths]

Day 5 - Tortuguero National Park

It seems the common way of life in Costa Rica is early to bed, early to rise and today was no different as the alarm went off just before 5.30am. That said there was already someone scuffling around in the communal kitchen, possibly Emma in the room across from ours or maybe a band of raccoons. We were due to meet our tour guide Roberto from the night before. He really has hooked us up with everything on this part of the trip! But before we arrived at the meeting point, we stopped off at the Dorling’s Bakery as recommend by the Lonely Planet Guide aka our holy bible! A couple of cinnamon buns and a coffee later we arrived at the agreed meeting spot, as per usual the last ones there, but still with 2 minutes to spare (which is very good for us!) Our party were made up for a german couple, 2 Finnish ladies, Georgie and I and our guide, Roberto. We stuck on a couple of life jackets, grabbed a couple of oars and pushed off in to the river.

Our first stop was Tortuguero National Park water check in point. Even if you’ve booked on a tour, that only grants you access to the guide and their facilities aka a canoe and all the trimmings. You still need a ticket for the park as a whole, be it via water or foot. Once the necessary paperwork had been completed we headed toward the jungle via the river that stretch over 250m across at it’s widest point, where lots of ‘traffic’ comes through from locals going about their day to day business to boats bringing in tourists from other areas. As we headed towards the jungle Roberto said it was time to help paddle. There were only 5 of us with oars and ironically the Finns (the people on the boat closest to the Vikings) didn’t fancy it! And after 3 hours (not that we paddled the whole time) I can’t say I blame them! If we had another day here I’d definitely be booking myself in to the spa for a massage!

Now according to Roberto, there is method in the madness of opting for the old fashion way. Firstly, the lack of engine is quieter and less likely to scare off the wildlife meaning we could get closer. Secondly, there reaches a point in the river where engines aren’t allowed to go, so we were able to venture deeper in to the jungle. Of course it might be that Roberto’s a skinflint and getting his clientele to do the work is a lot cheaper than buying an engine and keeping it topped up with fuel! But hey, we had a good time and you can’t beat a bit of camaraderie… unless you’re Finnish!

I’m not sure the power of words or even photos will capture how beautiful our surroundings were and I’m sure will continue to be, as the sun rose over the jungle and bounced off the water. Once again Roberto’s keen sense of vision and ability to communicate with fellow tour guides, meant we saw a variety of wildlife. Including lots of different birds, some monkeys, a couple of turtles, a sloth, caimans and a basilisk (which is a lizard not some giant Harry Potter biting snake!) It was a fantastic way to see some of what Tortuguero has to offer and gave me a new found respect for anyone still travelling by canoe!

At around the 1.5 hour mark we hit Pocahontas point (in my words). Do we choose the steady course? Yes we do - no restrictions here as our transportation was all man (and women!) powered with no engines. As we followed the meandering river, it started to narrow and required a bit more steering from mon capitan. It made a huge difference getting away from all the bigger boats as the water was so still, even as we made our way through it. Our surroundings seemed much quieter and our whole party reduced conversations to a whisper in case our bellowing voices scared any suspecting creatures away. In these parts we saw the caimans (little crocodiles) and a Meso-American Slider turtle, which sounds more impressive than blackhead turtle which is what I’d have called it!

After 2 and a bit hours or so (I’d lost all sense of time, but the arms were starting to get a wee bit tired) it was time to about turn and head back to the harbour. As we reached open water, we were battling the ripples and waves created by the larger, faster boats. We pulled in, hopped off and gave Roberto a final bit of business as he sorted our transfers out for the next day. What a man! Our cinnamon buns had gone down to our flip flops by this point so it was off to El Niños for some lunch. The menu was extensive and had many an option that looked very tasty. In fact, it must be a hot spot as it’s branched out and has two restaurants on the same 500m strip! I went for a Caribbean classic of chicken, rice and plantain whilst Georgie chose the ever popular ‘special’ burrito, which she confirms was indeed special - 5*s! The portions were bloody ginormous too, which set us up nicely for a walk around Tortuguero’s National Park (Cal would be proud that we’re putting the ticket to good use and getting our money’s worth!)

But before we could embark on our afternoon trek we had to make a stop at the cashpoint, aka some bloke sat with a chip and pin machine and a box of money, all totally legit! The local supermarket for some snacks for the following day and arguably our most important stop, a shop that sells sunglasses as my cheapy pair from ASOS have finally bit the dust! I tried on a variety of styles and opted for the pair that made G grimace the least! With food in our bellies and some super cool fresh sunnies it was time to hit the ‘Jaguar trail’. So named as the jungle does have jaguars in it and there are instructions telling you what to do should you encounter the potentially dangerous kitty. Raise your arms, back away, if you have small children use them as a distraction and run. Admittedly I didn’t read the whole thing as I’m quicker than Georgie so would have been fine. Also, you’ve got more chance of seeing me eat a fruit salad than a Jaguar so onward we went on the hunt for more of Costa Rica’s wildlife.

This was to be our first walk where guides weren’t showing parties of enthusiastic tourists around, so it was up to us to spot the animals. On the plus side it was a linear trail with simple signage so even we couldn’t lost as if you took a wrong turn you’d end up on the beach. Which had lovely views and you could see where the turtles make their nest during the egg laying season. As we ventured through jungle, our necks were craned skyward to try and spot something of interest in the treetops. We saw the odd monkey in the distance but nothing to really get the blood going, although watching the leaf cutter ants at work is always a treat. The jungle is dense with different trees and plants, some of which we have at home in little pots (or so I’m told!) I didn’t appreciate how big they could get if grown in the wild, although if Stacey has been overwatering them perhaps I’ll return to a Little Shop of Horrors type scene!

With no real sense of how far we’d been walking it felt like it might not be an afternoon for seeing anything of great interest, but for a little rustling amongst some palm trees! A sloth! A very active sloth, practically on steroids! It was making its way from up high in the leaves to further down to rest. We did wonder if it needed a wee as sloths come to ground once a week to relieve themselves before heading back up to the safety of the trees. It was truly a spectacle and most probably the closest we’ll ever get and we didn’t even have a guide to point it out! We made it to the end of the trail before turning around and heading back, where we saw what we think was the same sloth ambling about. Our feet (and on my part some other areas!) were a wee bit sore from all the walking, so we headed to Coco Loco for some well earned alcoholic beverages and watched the world go by. Where it’s such a small town you often see many of the same faces around, especially as everyone comes in the same few boats and does the same activities!

After freshening up, it was time for dinner at El Patio which looks over the river, where we both had the recommended dish of Caribbean chicken and pasta and once again our meals were delicious followed by an equally scrumptious brownie and ice cream. The Costa Ricans are a curvaceous people and with all this good eating I can see why! To round off the day we played some cards and mid shuffle Georgie managed to shoot one of them straight in to the water. Un Burro! Thankfully health and safety round here is fairly lax so I was able to jump in the boat floating next to it and scoop up the bloody Baron! (A character in a card game I’ve become quite fond of playing!)

We’ve packed our bags and made plans to get to El Niños again for breakfast at 7.30am before setting sail at 8.30am. More boats, buses and burritos here we come!

G’s highlight of the day - Getting really close the sloth, followed by the burrito followed by the first hot shower since we’ve got here! Might have to change this segment to ‘highlights’ of the day!

[crellanstein]

Prodigious

I find it odd how the fandom focuses so much on Aang’s childhood being ruined when he learned he was the Avatar at 12, but there’s very little talk about how discovering she was the Avatar as a toddler affected Korra’s life and how she was raised.

But we’ll circle back to that...

Because this is a good starting point to talk about one of the most prevalent themes in the story, which the mainstream discussion of tends to only focus on a few characters -- That is the Child Prodigy. 

We’ll start with the two most obvious. The ones we always talk about.

Azula.

The clearest example of your typical child prodigy (if there is anything typical about a prodigy). Azula showed early mastery of very advanced Fire-Bending techniques, and is the only Fire-Bender to use blue flames, which was intended to make her stand out amongst the other villains but is also indicative that her Fire-Bending is more pure and powerful (blue flame is produced when burning pure O2 or fuel without contaminant at a very high temperature). 

All this lead to her being praised and favored by Ozai as a child, but as double-edged swords go, this also meant she had a lot of pressure on her shoulders to never fail, and she rarely did. Her ego matched her talent, and let’s be honest she was the baddest bitch the show had ever seen. Conquering Ba Sing Se, defeating the Avatar in combat, and dropping some of the most devastating lines of dialogue in villain history; she was a force nobody wanted to reckon with. 

And that become a problem for one asshole in particular...

Being jealous of his own child is just one item on a laundry list of reasons why this guy is the worst father in the history of fathers. Azula had begun to outshine him with her victories, and Ozai’s maniacal ego couldn’t handle that, so he left her behind to babysit the Fire Nation while he went out to burn/conquer the world, which also was her idea.

And while this wasn’t the only thing that aided in her demise, it certainly was the final straw which sent her spiraling down into this...

In the end Azula is a sad example of how certain unfair expectations are placed upon talented children, and the more they succeed, the more these expectations grow and weigh on the them until they either disappoint those looking down on them or surpass and embarrass their elders.

It is a lose-lose situation which inevitably destroys them.

There is a similar example of the child prodigy, but his story goes a little different.

Aang.

Even as a twelve/thirteen year-old boy Aang by far has the most impressive stats among any character in the Avatar universe.

Basically mastering 3 of the 4 Elements in less than a year, after mastering Air by the time he is twelve (not to mention inventing his own Air-bending move, the Air scooter). 

Aang is an example of a child prodigy who had too much thrust onto him at too young an age because of the talent he showed; because of this he panicked and ran away, and the world was worse off for it. 

Aang/Sokka/Katara’s story is all about how in times of War, responsibilities normally handled by adults are pushed onto kids who then have to grow up very fast in order to deal with it all.

The message is clear. War robs the young of their childhoods. 

Now, let’s talk about a different kind of child prodigy.

The Unacknowledged. 

Yes, of course I’m talking about Toph, the greatest Earth-Bender to ever live.

Because of her blindness, Toph’s family tried to keep her sheltered and safe by hiding her from the world. Refusing to believe she could ever be more than helpless. Anyone who has seen the show knows that is far from the truth.

But because her potential went unseen, there were some negative effects to her personality. Initially, she resented her parents, and rebelled; which established a certain level of independence, a bad attitude, and a hot-headed streak. Over time spent with the Gaang these behaviors subsided because she finally had friends and they accepted her for who she was. By the end of the series she was fully willing to accept aid from them when she needed it, like holding on to Sokka’s arm in environment where her bending couldn’t help her “see”. 

Toph’s story is a foil to Azula’s, both showed immense talent and badassery, but while recognition of Azula lead to ever-mounting pressure for her to succeed; the lack of recognition for Toph created a need for her to be acknowledged and set an undercurrent of frustration which leads to her acting out in the ways she does.

The lesson to take from Toph’s story is not to shelter your kid from the world out of fear for their safety, and to be open to recognizing their talents, not shun them.

Next are two more Unacknowledged.

Katara and Sokka.       

Their story, and the reason behind their circumstances, is one of the more complicated and nuanced ones in the series, so here we’ll focus on how it fits into the subject of discussion.

Because of the War, Katara was robbed not only of her mother but also of any Southern Masters to train her, and any role models Sokka could have looked up to left with his father to fight. Because of this Katara’s potential and Sokka’s genius went unacknowledged not due to neglect but rather due to circumstance. (Yes, I think Sokka is a genius, how many 15 yr olds do you know that can plan an invasion, design submarines, and spit poetry off the cuff?).

This is a further example of how War robs kids of necessary childhood experiences, and these two robberies had particular effects on both Katara and Sokka’s character developments.

Sokka had the responsibility of protecting his home put upon him at a young age. The men of his tribe leaving prevented him from completing his rite of manhood until the Gaang ran into Bato of the Water Tribe, and early on Sokka was constantly trying to prove himself as a man and a leader. Sokka is one of the smarter characters of the series, but he rarely got credit for it until the third season. Not to mention that because he wasn’t a bender he often seemed less useful than the others. The circumstances of war made his talent go unnoticed and because of that he often was unsure of himself and overcompensated to prove something.

Speaking of talent going unnoticed.

Katara is definitely one of the more talented benders of the series. After training herself for years with little progress, she essentially mastered Water-Bending in a few weeks under Master Pakku. While her anger towards the Fire-Nation mostly centers around the loss of her mother, it can’t be ignored that the delay in her training was a direct result of the Fire-Nations’ actions.  Toph’s anger and frustration vented itself as rebellion. However, the same frustration and anger is within Katara, but because she wasn’t as natural a bender as Toph she sought to learn and be respected, and when that was denied to her is when that anger bubbled to the surface in some terrifying ways. 

While Toph’s talent went unnoticed because of her families neglect, Katara and Sokka’s wasn’t acknowledged because there was nobody to acknowledge it. Because of that both brother and sister wanted to prove themselves to the world.

And then there is Zuko.

I know what you’re thinking. Zuko wasn’t a prodigy, his Fire-Bending skill didn’t catch up with Azula’s until the finale and he never mastered Lightning-Bending, but this section is about the Unacknowledged.

Zuko had many other talents besides Fire-Bending, he was a master swordsmen, and was able to successfully break into every secure facility he attempted in the show (which was almost every secure facility the show featured).  Unfortunately, these talents were never recognized, because the only thing the royal family cared about was bending ability (It’s possible the reason he learned the sword was because he lacked skill in Fire-Bending). 

As per usual with Zuko, this part of his tale is quite sad. Many can relate to being outshined by a sibling, and when it becomes all too clear that one cannot match another’s talent it’s quite understandable to focus on what they do excel at, but even then there is no promise of recognition for their own talent. Zuko was even mocked by his father during the solar eclipse when Ozai tried baiting him into attacking with his swords. 

This lack of recognition is one of many sad aspects of Zuko’s early life, but it is a definitive example of one of the hardest unacknowledged prodigy’s cross to bear. The Outshone prodigy, one whose talents are never noticed because a bigger and brighter star stands in the way of such recognition, and arguably the most frustrating type mentioned here. Toph/Sokka/Katara all came from situations were there was no recognition being given to them or anyone, but Zuko had to bear watching massive amounts of praise be piled on to his sister while he and his accomplishments went by the way side.

Ozai summed up the situation best.

“Azula was born lucky, Zuko was lucky to be born”

Alright now where have I been going with all this?

So, far we’ve covered a lot of wrong ways to treat a child, whether they show talent or not, and how the circumstances of war can also take many things from children.

But what happened to Korra?

(Before we get into to this I should state that I like Korra, and the purpose of this is not to bash her as a character or her arc, but rather to give a little of my insight into it.)

It’s well established that Aang was told of his heritage too young, and that was a detriment on his development into an adult, but what would have happened if he realized his powers himself not long after he could walk? We’ll never know, but we do get to see the effects it had on Korra. 

When she revealed herself as the Avatar, Korra set her entire life in a new direction, and because Aang tasked the White Lotus with finding and training her that direction was out of her control. There are two key differences between Korras’ and other Avatars’ lives.

1. She grew up in isolation on a White Lotus compound.

Every Avatar before Korra we know of spent a portion of their early lives traveling the world in order to master the elements; along this journey they not only learned how to bend the other 3 elements, buy also many things about the 3 other nations and the world they are tasked to protect as a whole. By confining Korra in safety and bringing the masters to her the White Lotus deprived Korra of this opportunity to learn and grow and understand the world and the people within in. It also deprived her of learning modern bending styles until she reached Republic City.

While this might have kept Korra safe from the Red Lotus, it grew within her a naiveté about how the world worked, and because of this when she actually did venture out into the world she was terribly unprepared for it.

2.  She was trained and mastered 3 of the elements by the time she was 16.

Most Avatars don’t know they have this power until they reach 16 and then they spend several years learning to control it. Korra’s natural talent in the bending lead to her training being expedited not by necessity like Aang’s, but due to her talent and eagerness. Korra excelled at the physical part of being the Avatar and because of this by the time she reached maturity she had become over-confident in her abilities and true to what her Fire-Bending master said in Ep.1 she lacked restraint.

I’m not saying her bending isn’t great, but rather because it is so great it’s her go-to solution to anything, and she enjoys that so she uses it with enthusiastic gusto and not a lot of thinking before striking.

This overconfidence coupled with her naiveté of the world is what lead to many of her rash decisions and actions, most of which had negative consequences, and I believe are the reason behind some fan are dissatisfied with her. Aang had been almost the complete opposite, even by the age of twelve he was an experienced world traveler and an incredibly humble guy. 

Some may have been dissatisfied by these character decisions, but they served a purpose, they are only the beginning of her arc. The internal challenge Korra must overcome through 4 seasons is to humble herself before the world, and learn from it. This was finally achieved in the 4th season when the metal poisoning in her body forces her to face others in the world as equals, only then had she completed her journey.

And why did it all go this way?

Because she is a very unique child prodigy, what she demonstrates in the first episode of LOK would be akin to a toddler playing the violin or hitting a three-pointer; she could bend 3 elements close to just after learning to walk. That is the kind of prodigious talent rarely seen because it is mostly impossible. How does a rational person handle a child like that? 

It’s a tough question, and something this essay has been circling around the whole time. Each example here is the wrong way to handle talented and different children, but what is the right way?

As always look to Iroh.

Who treated his surrogate son Zuko with both respect and compassion. 

Unlike Toph’s parents, Iroh worried over Zuko’s well being, but also allowed him to be independent, make his own decisions, and take his own risks.

Unlike the Nomad Leaders, he didn’t want Zuko weighed down by his position in the world and the responsibility that came with, and always encouraged him relax and take advantage of the moment.

Unlike Ozai, Iroh would always be there to support Zuko in his victories and his failures. Iroh shows him the right path but does not force him down it.

And even after Zuko betrayed and abandoned him.

Iroh was never angry with him, and embraced him upon his return.

He wanted Zuko to grow and be a better man. Even if Zuko wasn’t a prodigy like his sister. 

And that is the answer here. The way to raise a prodigy is the same way anyone should raise any child. Love, Support, a Guiding Hand rather than a Forceful Shove, Recognition of What Makes Them Unique, and Forgiveness When They Falter. The problem comes along when you start treating children differently because you see them as different or special. All children are different, all children are special.

Kids are kids, and they all deserve a proper childhood.  

[anya-chalotra]

uh hi. it's me again. I'm really sorry to bother you but how are able to make your gifs so clean and clear? ive been a gif creator for years and now recently ive been having a lot of trouble with pixels.

Never a bother! I’m always happy to help when and where I can.

I briefly touched on all of this in my FAQ but I really, truly do live by these steps when I gif, so I feel it bears repeating here as well, and with a little more detail.

Always, always work with HD footage. 4K (2160p) isn’t necessary, but I would say that 1080p definitely is. I think you can get away with giffing 720p if you absolutely need to, but the bigger your gif, the more necessary it becomes to work with footage that’s both high quality and high definition. Screen recording is fine—it’s something I used to do myself, though I’ve since stepped away from it—but you get the very most out of any given footage by clipping videos directly from a download or through screencapping.

Be sure to size your gifs correctly. It’s not as noticeable on mobile/the app, maybe, but on desktop under-sizing or over-sizing will take away from the quality of the gif. Your gifs might look blurry, pixelated, extra grainy, or even a combination of those things. For reference, here are the official sizes for photosets:

Sharpening is key. I’d even go a step farther and call it more important than sizing; sizing alone doesn’t get you very far in the “crisp and clear” department, though I’d caution that there is such a thing as oversharpening. Personally, I prefer to add Gaussian Blur to soften things up, but below are all the different methods of sharpening.

(You can find my sharpening settings and process here.)

Use the best possible Save for Web settings. I mean “best” in the most general sense of settings that are optimal, but also best suited for you and your gifs specifically. Like most other things, some of it comes down to personal preference: selective vs adaptive, pattern vs diffusion, which to pair together.

Where Pattern places pixels in a grid, Diffusion results in an effect that’s more randomized. And as per the Adobe site:

[Selective] creates a color table that favors broad areas of color and the preservation of web colors. This color table usually produces images with the greatest color integrity.

[Adaptive] creates a custom color table by sampling colors from the spectrum appearing most commonly in the image. For example, an image with only shades of green and blue produces a color table made primarily of greens and blues. Most images concentrate colors in particular areas of the spectrum.

Examples of each different setting under the cut.

The differences between Selective and Adaptive can range from minor to major, so while the differences here are, admittedly, pretty tame, that won’t always be the case. Because of how colors are processed, it’s something you’ll find to be dependent on a particular scene/gif. How light or dark it is, how many colors there are, how many shades of those colors exist within the gif, et cetera.

I myself favor Adaptive + Pattern, but will go back to Selective + Pattern if a gif calls for it—sticking with Pattern because I feel it produces the “cleanest” results. But I know loads of gifmakers whose preference is Diffusion, and others yet who will regularly switch between the two, so there’s no real “right” or “wrong” here, so long as the rest of your settings match up with these ones, I think:

[sinswithpleasure]

The Playgirl (ft. LOONA's Yves) [Part 1] [Female Reader]

---------------

This was supposed to be a lengthy oneshot, but I wanna have it out as I write, so... here's Part 1! Just so you know, it's futa!Yves, but I won't really mention it until at least Part 3.

Also, this is entirely female reader!

Can be found on AFF and AO3!

---------------

Everyone knows of Ha Sooyoung.

Most know her by her preferred name Yves, but it is the same either way—the people still have her deeply imprinted in the recesses of their minds. After all, who doesn't know of the campus fuckgirl that only goes for girls?

You are no exception to having knowledge of Sooyoung. After all, she is your seatmate for every class you had, and while she is regularly absent, she is a regular hindrance when present. During lectures, she likes to fling paper balls at unsuspecting classmates, flirt with any female classmate or TA, or play games on her mobile phone loudly. The fact that she is your seatmate only makes it worse, considering she has her feet on the table most of the time.

Now you have to tutor her. The bane of your existence. Ha Sooyoung. Yves. Tutor. Tutor her.

Your look of disbelief meeting your professor's determined gaze melts into a sigh of resignation. You know that no amount of whining or pouting would result in a win for you—Yves had the poorest performance, barely scraping through any of her tests, whereas you aced every test given during your course of study. It would only be natural for you to be tutoring her.

Yves flashes a smirk and wink from the front row of the lecture theatre, giving you a two-fingered salute as the professor leaves.

"Hey, babygirl. Guess you're my new tutor."

"Hi." You cannot help but let bitterness seep into your tone, but you bite down on the bullets you wish to fire.

"You don't seem that happy."

"No, but it's fine. Let's get down to business."

"Uh-uh, not today. I've got a party to get to. How about this, give me your phone."

You hesitantly pass her your phone, and she enters her number in.

"Call me." She flashes another smirk and a wink, pushing her hair back. The phone in your hand displays 'yves 💘'.

-----

When you call Yves, you hear more of the chatter in the background than her voice. However, she is still audible, and that is all you need.

"Hello?"

"Sooyoung. I'll tutor you beginning tomorrow."

"Oh, it's you, babygirl. Sure, see you after class?"

Huh. That was easy.

"Good, please bring along the Calculus textbook—"

Indistinct chatter rings across the line, and you vaguely hear the crowd chanting "Drink! Drink! Drink!" before Yves's voice cuts through the line again.

"Sorry, babygirl, I've got to jet. I ain't gonna win this game of beer pong talkin' to you. See you tomorrow."

Before you can even say anything, the call is cut. You take a deep breath, deciding to let it go. Maybe this would be the only time. After all, innocent until proven guilty, right?

With a long exhale, you throw yourself back into whatever work you were doing.

---------------

When Yves appears after class, she staggers into the classroom, clutching her head.

"Fuck, I shouldn't have drank that much last night."

She crashes on the chair next to you, immediately folding her arms on the table, resting her head on it. Her eyes open blearily when you request for her to take her Calculus textbook out.

"I didn't bring it."

You halt, frustration beginning to build.

"I thought I told you to bring it."

"Well, babygirl, I forgot. Looks like we can't do this today then." Yves rises, staggering towards the door. Repeated calls of her name fall on her deaf ears as she rounds the corner and disappears.

You take a deep breath. Tomorrow.

-----

[You sent a message:]

Yves

Tomorrow, after class.

[yves💘 sent a message:]

Hey babygirl

I've got a party tomorrow.

[You sent a message:]

You're ditching your grades for a party?

A party in the afternoon?

[yves💘 sent a message:]

Come on, live a little, it's fun to cut loose!

Yeah, I need to go set it up.

Wanna come?

[You sent a message:]

I'd rather spend my time productively, thank you. I expect to see you after class. The same place.

-----

Yves is absent again from class. Naturally, she is absent from the tutoring session. Every call you make to her goes unanswered throughout the afternoon.

You hate this. It wasn't as if tutoring her was a choice you made—the professor shunted the task to you, even after all your protests and reasoning for why you shouldn't take the job. The impression that she gives off already isn't anything good, and the fact that she actively is wasting your time only pisses you off even more.

The fact that Yves is your seatmate only adds to the frustration. Her shoes are all up in your face, the sounds of her games in your ears, her paper balls all over your table. Everything she did just pissed you off.

When you reach home, you immediately drop a call to Yves. Three rings of the phone is all it takes before she picks up the phone.

"Hey babygirl."

"Don't babygirl me. Where were you this afternoon?"

"I told you, I had a party."

"So you choose to waste my time?"

"Sorry, babe." The lack of sincerity is evident in her voice. "This is clearly more fun."

"You prioritize fun over your grades? Are you trying to fail?"

"Yo, yo, chill, chill! Cut me some slack! Take it easy. I've got time!"

"The final exams are less than half a year away."

"Precisely." Yves's smirk can be heard through the phone. "I have time."

"I don't. Stop wasting my time. Come tomorrow."

"Oh, fiery. Just my type." Yves chuckles, before she pisses you off even further. "I'll see you, just not tomorrow."

"Why not?"

"I'll be busy nursing my hangover. Ciao." The call is cut.

You growl in frustration, squeezing the pen in your hand tightly. How easily she dismisses you only serves to fuel your anger. How could someone give no shits about their future?

Yves was basically the opposite of what you stood for. To you, school was an obligation—something necessary in order to move forward and succeed. This meant that people had to possess the responsibility to keep to this commitment so they could succeed in life. The future is uncertain, so you should make every effort to ensure that you can forge a path that is as certain as it can be.

Yves, however, treated school like a waste of time. To be out having fun mattered more—life and the future is uncertain, so if she could afford the time to live in the moment, then she would take the time to. Why pressure oneself to engineer perfection when imperfection is how the world runs?

This was a constant argument between the both of you when Yves was present in school. On the days she came, you had to fight to pay attention to your professor since the both of you would argue. You hated having to defend your point of view against her, since she was deeply set in her contrasting view. You hate how carefree she is. How is it that someone can live without worrying that much?

When you let your vision focus, you take a deep breath and go back to your work.

---------------

You are ten minutes early for class. Chatter fills the classroom as per usual. When you reach your seat, your ears perk up at a familiar name.

"... you hear Yves took her home last night?"

"... sex … fucked her the whole night … best time of her life …"

You scowl. Even when she wasn't present, you had to hear about her, and even worse, her womanizing and hedonistic lifestyle. Who cares about her?

"Good morning, babygirl."

The bane of your existence appears before your very eyes, leaning over your desk with her signature smirk. You give her a glare, but not before you fail to resist checking her out.

Yes, she is admittedly hot. But insufferable. But hot. Facts are facts.

Her hair slicked back, check. Leather jacket, check. Fishnets and crop top fitting her… appealing chest, check. Tight pants that fit her figure, check. Fuck, she looks so good.

"My eyes are up here." Yves pushes your head up to meet her gaze with a finger. The smug smirk on her face makes you want to slap it off her. "If you want me, all you have to do is ask."

"Why're you here?"

"Someone who places such importance in school doesn't want her seatmate present? I'm hurt, babe."

"Fuck off. Don't touch me." You shift away from her touch, and Yves grins.

"I came to see you, my favourite tutor. You're interesting."

"Put that interest in your studies."

"No, I don't think I will, not when you're this pretty."

You try to fight the blush that appears on your face, but it seems that you fail—Yves's cocky grin only gets bigger when she reclines in her chair, resting her feet on the table.

This is your second year with Yves as a seatmate. The girl next to you somehow managed to scrape past first year, and now here she is, staring at you with an amused smirk, annoying you just as she had since Day 1.

"Y'know, I mean it when I say you're pretty."

"Thank you." You grit your teeth, though how red your face remains betrays your hidden feelings. After all, girls don't really compliment you that often, let alone a hot one like Yves is.

"Mm, you're welcome." Yves smiles, resting her head on her chair. "I'll depend on your tutoring, babygirl. Goodnight."

"You're going to sleep?"

"Yep. I'll just listen attentively to you later, cutie."

"I would prefer it if you paid attention now."

"What, and stare at the prof's ugly mug? Why would I do that when I can take the time to stare at your beautiful face instead?"

"Fuck off."

"Ooh, you kiss your mother with that mouth?" Yves's grin shows how little offense she takes at your rebuttal. "I like you, baby."

You decide to ignore Yves. Ignore how she easily infuriates you. Ignore how hot she is. Ignore the compliments that make heat rise from your cheeks and neck.

Insufferable.

-----

Yves takes a long time to rise from her slumber. You try to shake her, but Yves remains steadfastly asleep on her chair.

"Yves. Wake up."

"Mmnnngggh."

"Wake up, wake up."

"Five more minutes."

"No." You heave a sigh. "Wake. Up."

"Fine, fine, babygirl. You're such a killjoy."

"Do not 'babygirl' me. Let's start."

You pull out your Calculus textbook. Yves halfheartedly pulls hers out as well, and you flip both books to a summary exercise.

"Do these. I need to know your current ability."

"Only because you're pretty, babygirl." Yves picks up her pen, beginning to work on the questions.

-----

"How are you getting all these wrong?"

Your tutee shrugs, leaning back on her chair. "Who cares?"

"I do! You're going to fail."

"Aw babygirl, you do care about me."

"Shut the fuck up. There's so much work I need to do with you."

"Meh, whatever." Yves stretches in her chair, leaning back to close her eyes. "Do your magic, tutor. Teach me."

"Fine. Let's begin."

-----

Both you and Yves part ways at the gate of the campus. After a tense session involving multiple arguments when Yves used more of her phone than to attempt learning anything you were teaching, or when she started to look up girls on Tinder, you gave up and halted the session.

"See you soon, babygirl."

"Fuck you."

"Anytime, babe. You just have to ask."

"Fuck off."

"Calm down. It's not like we don't have time."

"We don't."

"Not with that attitude."

"Fuck your attitude."

Yves only grins when she hears your reply.

---------------

Another tutoring session, another Yves absence. This time, when you call her, you're met with the obscene sounds of Yves engaging in sexual intercourse.

"Hey babygirl."

"Yves. Where are—huh?"

Wet smacks echo loudly through the speaker on your phone. Someone moans on the other side. Regular thumps ring through your speakers.

"I'm a little busy now, baby."

"Wha—what the fuck?"

"As you can hear, I'm busy fucking someone. Bye."

The dial tone that enters your ears almost makes you smash your phone on the table to pieces. You instead settle on smashing your fist against the table instead.

This is the last straw.

-----

The next time you see Yves, you pin her against the wall. Taken by surprise, Yves finds herself in a position she usually puts others into. Smirking, she relents.

"Didn't take you to be so forward."

"This is the last fucking time I'm taking your shit. I've had it with your constant excuses about parties, or whatever. Now, you choose to go fuck some bitch even when you know you have stuff to do. I'm fucking done. I quit."

"Come on, don't be like that, baby." Yves's cocky grin widens. "Maybe I need some more motivation."

"If having your life planned out isn't motivating enough, nothing will work."

"Oh, but I had this wonderful idea…"

You resist taking the bait, but having Yves pinned against the wall fucks with your judgement.

"What?"

Today, Yves is clad in all black leather. Whatever she's wearing doesn't catch your eye—the fact that your face is so close to Yves's flusters you. The same slicked back hair, scarlet lipstick across her kissable lips, a cocky glint in her eye, catching your gaze before traveling down to your lips, then below…

"I've seen the way you look at me, babygirl. You say you hate me, but all I see in your eyes is lust right now. You want me so bad, don't you?"

"Sh-shut the fuck up." You curse at the slight stutter.

"So how about this? I'll be the best student you'll ever have, and if I ace the exams at the end of the year… hmm."

Yves lets her voice trail off, knowing she has your full attention.

"What the fuck do you want?'

"If I ace the exams, I get to fuck you."

You cannot believe your ears.

"What?"

"I said what I said. I'll be the best student you'll have. I'll ace the exams. And when I do, you'll sleep with me."

"Why the fuck would I say yes to that?"

In an instant, Yves flips you around. Your back is now against the wall, your arms held against your will, held down by Yves's grip. Yves leans in.

"Because you think I'm hot."

You subconsciously lean in when you feel her hot breath on your lips, and Yves leans in as well. Something soft presses against your lips. Instantly, she is off you, smirking.

"See you around babygirl. Don't think about me too much."

So you agree.