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broke-on-books · 11 months ago

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Got tagged by @threephantomrey on a reading game thing, it got long so it's pasted under the cut.

1) How many books did you read this year?

So many omg!! I logged 34 books on Goodreads but I only started logging there at the end of February. I also read a shitton of comics that I didn’t log there because I didn’t want to skew certain statistics and use a different app to log that. (Going by my rough math using that, I’ve read 360 individual comic issues in 2023, not counting rereads). So like I read a lot.

2) Did you reread anything? What?

Sooo much stuff. I just finished a reread of N. K. Jemisin’s Great Cities Duology like two days ago, which I cannot recommend more. Also reread 17776 recently, as well as a childhood favorite (The Fall of the Readers series by Django Wexler) over the summer. When it comes to comics I’ve also done a ton of rereading, most notably Emerald Twilight (Green Lantern (1990) #48-50) like 5 times for the most rereads, but I’ve also reread other faves (in whole or part) such as Wonder Woman: Historia, Batgirl (2000), and I’m currently doing a Green Lanterns (2016) read which has me brain diseased because I am actually obsessed with them SO bad. And I reread poetry constantly so there’s that too.

3) What were your top five books of the year?

I’m skipping this one honestly. I started thinking about it and it hurt my brain. Some standouts I haven’t mentioned yet though include The Fifth Season by N K Jemisin, The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin, The Last Speakers: The Quest to Save the World’s Most Endangered Languages by K. David Harrison, and The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Also like everything Greg Rucka did on Wonder Woman in the aughts (including the Hikateia <3333)

4) Did you discover any new authors that you love this year?

Probably Greg Rucka is a big one, Would maybe count James Baldwin here but that’s iffy because I decided to start reading some of his stuff because I loved a poem of his I had read before this year (among other things). I would also say I discovered A. S. King this year, but I don’t know if I’d say I LOVE her writing, rather that I find it incredibly entertaining because of how batshit fucking crazy it is. Like no one else is on her level when it comes to insanity honestly (and I say this as a comics fan)

5) What genre did you read the most of?

I mean superhero comics probably, but also I read a good amount of poetry (as always) and some fiction.

6) Was there anything you meant to read, but never got to?

Sooooooo much! Because I like so many genres I’m always reading like 10+ books at a time, and still a lot of stuff I just don’t get to. Some things I wanted to read include some poetry books I own, specifically my Most Famous Poems of All Time anthology (I think that’s what it’s called?) and my best of Antonio Machado book (bilingual edition!). There’s also a bunch of specific poems that would fall under this category. Also meant to read the Light of the Jedi by Charles Soule (and the rest of the main High Republic series), but that didn’t happen. Also I wanted to read some 90s Flash but it’s soooo long and I couldn’t justify starting it while I’m in the middle of so many things.

7) What was your average Goodreads rating? Does it seem accurate?

My average rating was a 4.2 which is pretty high. I’d say it seems accurate for the books I finished, but when you consider all my DNFs and comics it would definitely be way lower, as I quit a bunch of books halfway through for being terrible this spring that aren’t reflected, and also I read some really shitty comics for my faves this fall.

8) Did you meet any of your reading goals? Which ones?

No I didn’t meet them : ((((((((. I was pretty ambitious with the Goodreads goal (set for 100 books) so I’m not sad I didn’t meet that, but I was using those numbers to compete with my best friend on who could read the most, and I lost that (she had 43 to my 34) due to a slump in the early summer and another during the school year in the fall. For comics I recently hit 1000 issues read, so I’m happy about that mindset, and got my niche fave into my top 5 characters read so I’m pretty happy there. Still haven’t reached my goal of having Wonder Woman beat Batman for my top character yet, but that only emerged as an objective like a month ago so I’m not too upset.

9) Did you get into any new genres?

I’d say so, yes! In recent years I’ve done a lot of expanding my taste of books into different genres, and this year I think I read a lot of memoirs, (both traditional and fictionalized) than I ever did before. For traditional I read Jennette McCurdy’s I’m Glad My Mom Died and in terms of fictionalized, I read and enjoyed both Go Tell it on the Mountain by James Baldwin and The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian by Sherman Alexie. Next year I want to read more of this genre, especially getting to Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, which has been on my TBR for a while.

10) What was your favorite new release of the year?

New release… um…. Let me check something real quick. How have I read nothing from this year what. Okay I’m just going to stick to comics for this one and say Spirit World by Alyssa Wong was SO GOOD. Honestly may buy the trade for that when it comes out in April like I was loving that series sm. (also Wong is my favorite comic author currently writing. Although they’re not doing anything I’m interested in in 2024 it looks like : ((((( )

11) What was your favorite book that has been out for a while, but you just now read?

*blinks in classics fan* uhhh actually you know what. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner has been published for 231 slutty, slutty years and I only got around to it now. So that’s a shame. Also I read Huck Finn for the first time this year and that’s been culturally massive for centuries as well. Although the ending for that book was shit I really liked the rest. Tom Sawyer can actually die in a hole though I hate him SO much.

12) Any books that disappointed you?

SO MANY YES. I had a really long dnf streak in late spring of this year, but one of the books I couldn’t finish was one of the most hyped up books I’ve read this year, that being All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr. Also I actually finished this one but I just hated Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead by Tom Stoppard. Which like I’ve heard good things about this play and I had just finished Hamlet like a month or so before and just like. Idk it was bad I didn’t like it and thought it was super confusing. Maybe watching a stage production would make me like it more but like. It was not lit fam idk :/

13) What were your least favorite books of the year?

Those two for sure would be in there. Also just like the rest of my dnfs I guess. R & G was the only book I finished that I rated less than three stars on goodreads. OH WAIT COMICS. I read so many shitty comics oh my god. This could have gone in disappointments too but Green Lantern: Mosaic FUCKING SUCKED. Like jesus christ it was so bad I only made it three issues. It was such a disappointment too because it was a spinoff book from a really good arc imo (written by the worst human to ever draw air and write comics. Not an exaggeration) with cool ideas and characterization and then the actual book is like fucking. Horrific. Like he has the main character fucking graphically domestic abuse his girlfriend in front of her kid and then she forgives him and then she comforts him and it's just a hot mess of a book. Fucking awful. This summary doesn’t even begin to cover it.

14) What books do you want to finish before the year is over?

I told myself I would finally finish Muerte Bajo el Sol, the Spanish translation of Agatha Christie’s Evil Under the Sun by the end of the year but I very much lied there so yeah. I’ve been reading that book for so long I just need it over.

15) Did you read any books that were nominated for or won awards this year (Booker, Women’s Prize, National Book Award, Pulitzer, Hugo, etc.)? What did you think of them?

Oh yeah a ton. I like my books thematically crunchy so I generally search out award winners. I’ll be easy and say the Broken Earth Trilogy here, which I did love, although I think the first book was the strongest outside of the three. I won’t spoil but I was in the parking lot waiting to pick up my friend when I reached a certain point and I legit almost honked my horn in the senior parking lot. At dismissal. Also had a few great moments reading it where I realized that the author had read [insert classic here] as well and was drawing some inspiration for certain elements which I liked.

16) What is the most over-hyped book you read this year?

All the Light We Cannot See for sure. It just wasn’t it personally.

17) Did any books surprise you with how good they were?

Maphead by Ken Jennings lmao. I was given a metric ton of Ken Jennings books for Christmas 2022 (because I’m a MAJOR trivia/quiz bowl nerd and he hosts Jeopardy) but this was my favorite, and I really did like it. (especially the quiz in the back haha)

18) How many books did you buy?

No comment. The username is the username for a reason. No but uhhh for real idk. I used the libraries pretty heavily this year, so when it comes to like my own money then just two comic trades I think. Maybe some more poetry. I get given/ask for a lot of books as gifts so that’s where most of mine comes from. I got 9 books for Christmas like last week haha.

19) Did you use your library?

Yee! I used 4 different library systems this year, (high school, local public, college, and college local public) so I definitely made the most of it. Currently I have three library cards as I just applied for a new one in my college town using my dorm address lol. Oh and I got a few books from an informal swap library set up in a bookshelf right outside my summer job so that too i suppose.

20) What was your most anticipated release? Did it meet your expectations?

I’ll use Spirit World here because it actually came out in 2023 haha. I think it both met and surpassed my expectations, as the reasons I started the book were all better or just as good as expected, but also there were so many other elements that I thought were soooo good too so yeah.

21) Did you participate in or watch any booklr, booktube, or book twitter drama?

Nah idc about any of that. I listen to my friend complain about how shitty some of the popular tiktok books she reads are so that should count for something ig.

22) What’s the longest book you read?

The Fifth Season was 468 pages so that one. Shortest was Rime of the Ancient Mariner with 77 pages (although I think it was shorter tbh)

23) What’s the fastest time it took you to read a book?

According to Libby I think like an hour and a half for the Absolutely True Diary which is kind of crazy. (not counting the Rime here obviously) but generally it only takes me a couple hours for most books. Poetry collections and nonfiction are different though.

24) Did you DNF anything? Why?

SO MUCH. Why? Because it sucked. No but like I was trapped with my most accessible library from Jan - May this year being the one at my high school, which just had SO much YA and books for like. Middle schoolers. This was at a time where my tastes were maturing a lot and I really wanted serious books. So even recommendations I would get from the librarians for books during this time would fall flat just because they were too juvenile for what I was into.

25) What reading goals do you have for next year?

To beat my best friend in books read. Also like to try not to slump too bad and just like. Read a good amount. Finish my one spanish book so I can start my other spanish book. Have Wonder Woman beat Batman in my comic book stats. Yeah.

As for tagging uh idk im like really congested right now so like. people do whatever i dont want to have to htink of anybody to tag *thumbs up emoji*

#blah

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lescarbille · 6 months ago

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Hollla 🧡 I was tagged by the sweet @scuderiabs

How fandom would see you if you were a fictional character

Do this uquiz

Do this picrew

Tag people

Ooooh I love cookies! Like peanut butter one, I don't like chocolate! 🍪

Is it accurate? Nobody faint... Does it exist somewhere a fiction written by a friend of mine with me being the hot one? Maybe (Nobody will read it, it's a great one but I don't want people to know it is me... and it's in french... and that was written 3 years ago but still) 😅

Despite that little fic situation, I work in fashion (textile engineering to be clearer), you have to be flawless or you get judged really easily with cinnamon rolls personality or not. So I'm very aware of how I look 🤷‍♀️

I tag everybody who wants to know what fictional archetype they are. 🧡 (After the line it's just me yapping/oversharing)

I also happen to be a massive nerd (because I don't want you to think I'm empty or a fraud, I'm still very attached of what people think of me, I blame the anxiety for that one and my therapist says I'm an overachiever... Choose your character I guess ?).

I grew up in my books (I know Aristotle 😉 but also Homère, Platon and Shakespeare), Ao3 and Fanfiction.net. My favourite kind of gift on Christmas was space books or history of fashion books. I have a favourite number based on science shenangingan (42). I know how many types of ice there are in the universe and so many random things in any field. I play scrabble and I'm a killer. I've made the hardest studies you can make after a High School degree (math preparatory school), and I also was accepted in the hardest study you can make in letter. I wasn't the cool kid or the hot one before my senior year. Indeed I was hiding myself cause I was so shy that I had a stuttering problem with how nervous I was to talk to people (I was deadly red and I almost fainted every time I had to do a presentation, I flee from a national one at 19, happily I don't need to do it to go in engineering school I wanted). It's because I stuttered that I start writing when I was ten, it was easier for me to speak on paper than out loud. Now I am a massive flirt, know how to make people blush and I'm witty (how the table turns...).

(I wear the exact jacket today, it's a short velvet sage green jacket with a basic cotton white tee-shirt, I just got more jewelry a thin necklace, a bee bracelet and a pink friendship one saying "gorgeous" on my left wrist, a thin moon and stars bracelet and two blue-green friendship bracelet saying "eras" and "style" on my right wrist)

I think you know me by now...

#marlie is yapping #ask me anything

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merlin-plays-ln · 2 months ago

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so first up some explanations about Unity & coding in general just cause ik it can be confusing. This probably isnt like 100% accurate explanations, its just the way I think about it and I am Technically a professional software developer that knows a bit about unity.

Shaders themselves are written in a language called OpenGL - they're actually a pretty weird kind of code? Basically, all a shader does is take in one value, and output another. Like a basic RGB shader might take in a Vec3(red value, green value, blue value) like Vec3(255, 0, 0), and then just just output that exactly. That's what an 'unlit' shader does. The shader is still necessary because thats the piece of code that tells the GPU what to do when its given a 3D object.

I'm sure most folks playing video games know this to a degree, but all 3D shapes in digital space are typically made up of a ton of triangles linked together. Those triangle faces are made up of vertices, and the explanation of how all thats calculated and figured out by your computer is personally boring so I'm not going to bother with it, but it is relevant to how shader code works. Most shaders need to know where in digital space they're calculating and where stuff like light sources are.

All of the fancy bits of lighting in a shader are really just equations using the point in space, the location of light sources, and commonly, the color of the base texture of the 3D object to determine the final color of the object after its processed.

This is one of the purposes of "UV mapping" an object's texture actually - it's how you tell the computer where the color on a 2D image relates to a location on a 3D object

in Unity specifically, most stuff is handled through different kinds of objects. I think part of the original draw of Unity as an engine was the ability to package up any combination of assets and send them to someone else? Since as long as you hold all the different pieces of an object, anyone can use it. Even different scripts can be attached to different objects in many ways - thats why you might hear about crazy sounding things like "every object that moves is actually a door pretending very hard to not be a door" out of context for a game. That "Door" script just happens to swing exactly the same way a falling platform needs to, so why bother writing a second script to do the same thing.

For shaders, and this I think is common for most things that render in 3D not just Unity, they are typically packaged into "Material" Objects. this is your basic out of the box Unity material

Unity does let you directly edit their shader code but its kind of a mess to look at so here's a basic shader from the site "ShaderToy"

if someone wants a break down of whats happening there lmk this is just to show you its all math, always has been.

Materials in any 3D program can be put on as many objects as you want - so the same metal material can be applied to anything metallic - and the color and texture for individual objects can be still be different. This is where the issues with Shining Nikki's skin materials come into play; most likely, they just used the same exact material as the base skin tone on all the skin tone without testing or caring how it interacted with the other textures.

Skin is a very difficult thing to replicate - as @alenadragonne mentioned on Miss K's post, the shader/material effects often involve several layers put on top of each other in a funky math way to get that feeling of softness. Theres also other effects that are used as well. A "Bump map" masks where lighting shines to replicate the feeling of texture in the lighting, and a "Displacement map" makes it visually appear as though the bumps and cracks in a texture were actually modeled

shamelessly taken from Wikipedia:

this is how a bump map breaks up the lighting

and this is how a displacement map changes the shape of the base object

I dont actually know much about subsurface scattering when it comes to coding shaders, but you can see the effect of it in real life pretty easily!

cursed au canceled i want to refresh my memory on shaders and talk about it more now

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messers-moony · 3 years ago

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Wish | F.H

Paring: Five Hargreeves X Wife!Reader

Summary: Five storms out to time travel after an argument with his wife and comes back to an unexpected surprise.

A/N: Five time travels at the age of 26 instead of 13

He was angry, that wasn’t mistaken, “ You aren’t listening to me! “

“ Are you hearing yourself?! What you’re about to do is dangerous! “ She yelled in response, and he scoffed.

They stood in the main room of their apartment. Y/n was placed in the kitchen leaning on the island while Five was dangerously close to the door. Both of them at the age of twenty-five. They had gotten married only a year before finding each other during one of his trips to Griddy’s with his siblings. He thought she was the prettiest thing he had ever seen.

Five stalked closer to her, “ You are so stubborn. “

“ I am the strongest one. “ His voice was dangerously low as they stood only a foot apart, “ I will do this. I don’t care what you say. Nothing will change that. “

“ Five, please. “ Y/n begged, “ I’m- I’m just worried about you. “

“ You don’t need to be. “ Five snapped, and he fast-walked to the door.

The male swung open the door, “ Five wait, please- “ But before she could finish, the door slammed, “ I’m pregnant. “

It was new news. She didn’t find out until a week earlier. She didn’t know when to tell him; there never was a suitable time. Now he had just threatened to fulfill a lifetime goal of his– time travel. Since he was a boy, he’s wanted to prove his worth. The only way Five could think to do that is by time-traveling into the future. He didn’t know what the future would entail. He definitely didn’t plan to get stuck in an apocalypse.

So for nine torturous months, Y/n endured a pregnancy. She was carrying a child of her presumed to be dead husband, which she didn’t believe in the slightest. Five Hargreeves was alive, and she knew that regardless of what anyone told her. She had a baby boy who she named Malachi. The same bright, alluring green as his fathers.

Despite his birth father not being around, Diego was a significant help. Diego stepped in where Five couldn’t. He was there for all of Malachi’s firsts and everything in between. But he was always Uncle Diego. A constant reminder that this man wasn’t his father. As far as the little boy knew, he didn’t have a father.

Things got more tricky as he got older. Malachi realized that a father figure was more common than not, which brought raising questions. She answered to the best of her abilities, but nothing was ever valid. None of her answers could be a hundred percent true because she didn’t know either. It was killing her to see her son this way.

He longed for a father. Wanted nothing more for a father-son relationship. Every birthday, every Christmas, he wished for his father to come home. It was killing Y/n because she understood his pain. The amount of dread, guilt, and sadness.

Maybe if she had told Five sooner, he would’ve never left. The guilt ate away at her. It was like an insect slowly crawling its way under her skin into her bones and nibbling them until they were gone. It didn’t help Malachi was an exact replica of his father. The dark, almost raven hair parted to the side, the glittering green eyes and a defined face.

No matter how long Five was gone, Y/n never took off her rings. She was a married woman until proven otherwise. Malachi had never even seen photos of his father. That was normal to him. All he knew was that his Uncles and Aunts told him he looked the exact same. Despite the same appearances, they had clashing personalities.

Malachi was the sweetest guy you could ever meet. Kind no matter who the person was. Wise beyond his years and intelligent like no other. His strong suit was English while he struggled in math. The irony was amusing. His father excelled in math, but he couldn’t do a two-step equation if he tried.

In the grand scheme of things, this didn’t matter. He got all the way up to high school. He was seventeen, to be exact, in his junior year of school. It was the summer before his senior year, and he couldn’t be more excited. As the years went on, the hope of meeting his father diminished to the point where he didn’t even think about it anymore.

He had his mom, and that’s all that mattered. His mom was his rock, his number one supporter, and his best friend. Malachi loved his mom more than anything and would give anything to keep her safe. Diego had grown to be like a father to him, but it was never the same. Malachi was sitting at the island doing homework while Y/n was cooking.

“ Hey, mom? “ He called, “ Yeah? “ Y/n turned to look at her son.

Malachi fidgeted with the pencil in his hand, “ Can I- Can I see your rings? “

“ My rings? Why? “ She asked, “ Well, dad gave them to you, didn’t he? “ Malachi replied.

Y/n nodded, “ Of course he did. We were married, technically we still are married. “

“ I just wanted to see what dad gave you. “ He murmured.

Hesitantly Y/n twisted both her engagement ring and her wedding ring off her left ring finger. She set them down on the granite island before her son so he could look at them. Gently he picked the engagement ring up and looked at it. It was the only time he’s ever seen the ring this close. She never took them off.

“ We got engaged in the snow. “ Y/n informed quietly, “ I really wasn’t expecting it. He never seemed like one to settle down. “

Malachi listened intently, “ Regardless. It was almost Christmas, and he took me to go Christmas shopping at one of the malls which was outside. “ She chuckled, “ Why he did that, I don’t know, but it was amusing. We got hot chocolate despite his love for coffee, and I made him wear a Santa hat. “

“ He was never into festivities before meeting me. Neither were your Aunts and Uncles. I started making holidays become more festive when you were born. Eventually, they got the hang of it. “ Y/n continued, “ Why was dad's name a number? “ He interjected.

“ He never got a name like the rest of his siblings. “ She answered plainly, “ Why? “

Y/n sighed, “ His father, more specifically your grandfather was a cruel man. Still is a very cruel man, which is why you’ve never met him. Reginald made the Umbrella Academy, where he adopted your dad along with his other siblings. “ She explained, “ They endured long days of training without breaks and horrid living environments. They were treated as experiments rather than children. “

“ They all got names, but Five didn’t want one. He rejected it because it didn’t matter. Name or anything. Their numbers would always define them, and Five was the only one who understood that. “ She finished.

“ What really happened to him? I know you’ve given me vague explanations, but I think I’m ready for the real thing. “ Malachi stated, “ I’m seventeen now. “

“ I know. Your father had powers. His others siblings do as well. They all do certain things. Five could travel through space and time. “ Y/n began, “ Growing up, he always felt the need to prove himself, to be better than everyone else. “

“ So, one day, he told me he was going to time travel. It was a big argument that definitely didn’t need to happen. At the time, I was a week pregnant with you, and I didn’t know how to tell him. “ She swallowed the emotions arising after remembering Five’s glare,

“ When I told him, it was too late. He was already out the door and gone. “

Y/n walked forward and took the rings back. She placed them back on her ring finger carefully as her son watched every movement. He knew she was upset. Malachi couldn’t help but be a bit resentful towards his father. All this to make a point? It seemed far-fetched.

“ That solution seems a bit absurd. “ Malachi commented, “ That's what I was trying to tell him, but he was very prideful and stubborn. “ Y/n replied.

A knock echoed through the apartment. The room felt tense. It wasn’t right; something felt off. Malachi felt it immediately cause he stood up and began walking to the door, wanting to protect his mother if a threat was there. Secretly Diego may have given him some defense classes, but that didn’t matter.

The boy opened the door to see almost the exact same face staring back at him, “ Who are you? “ Malachi snapped.

“ More importantly, who are you? “ The man retorted.

Every hair on Y/n’s body stood up. She knew that voice, and she knew that tone. It was him. He was back. It took everything inside her not to scream or cry but seeing Malachi hold his defensive stance against his own father was worrying her.

“ Malachi. “ She called, and he turned to her as she began to walk to the door, “ I need you to go to your room and promise not to eavesdrop. “

He wanted to protest, “ Please, sweet. I’ll be okay. I promise. “

Reluctantly Malachi backed away from the door giving the man a harsh glare that made the man evidently tense. Y/n waited for Malachi to be fully retreated in his bedroom before looking at the man in front of her.

“ Well. It looks like you’ve moved on. “ Five murmured, “ No- please. It isn’t what it looked like. “ She pleaded.

Her hand took his, and he recognized the rings on her finger. The same rings Malachi had just been examining. The same rings he took months to search for to find the perfect fit for his perfect girl. Everything seemed so colorful in his greyscale world now. His wife was still his.

“ Who- Who is he? “ His voice trembled as his lingering suspicion felt more accurate than ever, “ Come in and sit. We need to talk. “ Her voice was gentle and held no malice.

Five entered the now unrecognizable apartment. It wasn’t the same as when he left. In fact, everything seemed moved out of place. Y/n walked to the stove and turned off the burner that she was using. Five had peered at the papers on the island that were math worksheets and took a seat beside them.

“ Where did you go? “ She asked, “ The future. “

“ No shit. What did it look like? “ Y/n retorted playfully, “ It’s not as I hoped. It’s an apocalypse, love. “ His voice held so much pent emotion it was almost radiating off him.

She sighed, “ Okay. We need to talk about that- “

“ I- I want to know who that kid is. “ Five interrupted, and she gave him a knowing look, “ Malachi, can you come out here. “ Y/n called, and instantly he was out of his room.

The boy stood beside his mom, still not comfortable with the unfamiliar man. This time Five got a chance to really look at the teenage boy in front of him. The defined face, the almost raven hair, the same sage green eyes. His posture was protective and territorial, obviously for his mom.

“ Y/n… “ Five began as he swallowed the tears in his throat, “ Is- Is he mine? “

She nodded, “ Five Hargreeves, I’d like you to meet your son, Malachi Hargreeves. Malachi, I’d like you to meet your father, Five. “

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botwstoriesandsuch · 4 years ago

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OK SHUT UP SHUSH SHUT THE FUCK UP IT’S 1AM BUT SHUSH LISTEN! HEY, LISTEN!

I AM GIVING YOU THE TOOLS TO FIND THE EXACT DISTANCE OF ANYTHING ANYWHERE IN HYRULE, CUSTOM MAKE YOUR FIC JOURNEYS TO THE METER, FIND THE AREA OF ANY TOWN OR LANDMARK, OR JUST FIND OUT HOW BIG (or small) HYRULE KINDGOM TRULY IS ONCE AND FOR ALL SO GO AHEAD AND SAVE THIS POST TO YOUR DRAFTS CAUSE YOU MIGHT WANNA SEE IT FOR FUTURE REFERENCE

Ok so this all starts with THIS

FEAST YOUR EYES LADIES, LADS, AND GENTLEFOLK ON THE ONLY PIECE OF INFORMATION IN ALL OF HYRULE CONCERNING DISTANCE AND TIME.

[Image ID: A screenshot from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, depicting a picture of Ash Swamp hanging in Impa’s house. The dialogue box from Impa reads, “Does it look familiar? From this village, you should be able to get there in a half day’s time.” End ID]

Impa states that it would take you half a day, about 12 hours, to travel from Kakariko Village to the depicted 13th memory, which is at Ash Swamp by Fort Hateno.

Now here is where I took this information. I took it to

objmap.zeldamods.org

A fantastic online Botw map resource with tons of features like finding specific objects, and highlighting areas, and placing pins, and the basics of showing the locations of everything like shrines and korok seeds and all that.

BUT the thing that we care about today is this ability, here:

DRAW!

With those widgets on the right, I can specifically mark lines and shapes and the website will give me the distance of it in meters!

“But Kip, if the map already gives you the distance of anything you want then isn’t this entire post pointless?” Ashshshshshhshh no, shut the fuck up, shush shut, no, stop, silence, I am high on caffeine and I haven’t slept for two days. No.

As great as the map is, the exact ratio isn’t the best. Like, it tells me that the length of Hyrule is only 10km, or 6.2 miles.

I wager that realistically, Hyrule would be a bit bigger than that. And THAT, is where I come in. Or, more specifically, Impa.

Impa states that it takes 12 hours to travel from Kakariko to Fort Hateno. (I am saying Fort Hateno and not Ash Swamp because I am going of the nearest prominent landmark location near the 13th memory, and I highly doubt that Impa knew the exactly square foot patch of dirt that Link needed to stand on to activate his memory)

According to Google, it takes around 10 to 12 minutes to walk a kilometer. (I am assuming Impa was referring to walking and not riding, because I feel like she would have said, “You should be able to get there in half a day’s ride” or something of the sort. So, walking it is)

So:

12 hours divided by 12 minutes

(Which is 720 minutes / 12 minutes)

gives us

The distance between Fort Hateno and Kakariko village is 60 kilometers.

Badabing badaboom, great job! We did it. BUT NOW this is where our handy dandy online object map comes in.

[Image ID: A screenshot of the Breath of the Wild map showing the area of Kakariko Village and the plains in front of Fort Hateno. A blue line highlghts the path from the village to a marker on Fort Hateno. The line reads “1.89km.” End ID]

[Image ID: A screenshot of the Breath of the Wild map showing the area of Kakariko Village and the plains in front of Fort Hateno. The blue line from the previous image is still there, however, there is now a more prominent yellow line. The yellow line runs from Kakariko village, but ends at a marker point at the location of the 13th memory at Ash Swamp. The yellow line reads “1.55km.” End ID]

So while this map doesn’t give me distances that are exactly to my liking, it DOES give me a measuring means that will stay consistent. SO! As you can see, the map says Kakariko to Fort Hateno is 1.89km. (And just to be safe, I also did the distance exactly to the point of the 13th memory as shown in Impa’s picture, which came out to 1.55km. But! It’s doesn’t matter anyhow, because) We’re going to round this to 2km for the sake of my sanity because surprise surprise! I actually suck at, and hate, math.

So the map says Kakariko to Fort Hateno is 2 kilometers, but we know that in real life, the distance is actually 60 kilometers. So, if you want to use this object map effectively, you have to make a means of converting the “false” measurements, (which I will be refering to as “zelda” (kilo)meters, or zm/zkm) from the actual ones.

So THIS is what I fucking did oh my god help me it took me way too long even though it was really simple in hindsight I was just stupid and spent two hours trying to get the ratio equations right when really all I had to do was divide, it was a whole thing, anyhow, read away.

[Image ID: A screenshot of MATH oh my god it’s fucking math...BUT it’s kinda color coded so that’s nice. The top left of the page depicts text. In red text reads “zkm (Zelda km) = per the measurement on the objmap.zeldamods.org” and below that, in black text, reads, “Kakariko to Fort Hateno = 1.89 zkm ~ 2zkm,” which is underlines in yellow. Another line of black text reads, “Impa says it takes half a day’s time to travel from Kakariko to the 13th memory location AKA 12 hours.” Another line of black text reads, “It takes about 10-12min to walk a kilometer,” which is underlines in green.

Handwritten in blue ink is the equation,

“12 hours = 720 min

720/12 = 60″

The 12 is highlighted in green, and the 60 is underlined. In green text, below it, reads, “It takes 12 hours to walk 60 kilometers.” In black text under this, it reads “So Kakariko to Fort Hateno is 60 kilometers.” Another line of black text under this reads, “So based on that, we can find the actual values of a zkm (Zelda kilometer).”

Handwritten in yellow ink is the equation,

“2zkm = 60km

1km = 30km” [typo, I meant 1zkm = 30km]

The 60km is in blue, and the equation 1zkm = 30km is circled.

To the right of everything, in bigger, yellow text, reads “So: 1zkm = 30km 1zm = 30 meters

The map of Hyrule measures roughly 10zkm (length) by 8zkm (height) [typo, I meant width] giving it an area of 80 square zkm.

Therefore, the “true” size of Hyrule Kingdom os 2400 square kilometers.” End ID]

SO ARMED WITH THIS NEW KNOWLEDGE, you can now use this map to measure whatever you want, and by converting 1zm to 30 meters, you can get accurate result as to what that distance is.

Chart the roads, measure the rivers, the map even gives area tools for polygons, squares, and circles! This entire post was born out of a desire to see how long the characters in my fic should rest for when travel between different stables.

Now before anyone asks, yes! 2400 square kilometers is fairly small. That’s around 930 square miles. I believe even Wales is more than three times bigger than that. BUT! Considering Hyrule is a medieval kingdom that’s actually pretty sizable considering the average size of a Kingdom was 100 to 900 square kilometers.

And juuuust to double check, I ran the size though a Medievil Demographics generator, and 2400 (under the conditions of Fertile Land with 64% of the land being arable since I figured roughly 46% for lakes, the ocean, plus unusable land was more than enough to cover the Hebra, Death Mountain, and the Gerudo Desert. Which honestly is even MORE generous considering there are races that occupy these areas, but I digress) This still gives Hyrule Kingdom a good population of 108,000 people! Before the Calamity when all of its villages were up and occupied, of course. So the area is definitely more than enough, and can still give Link a more realistic amount of time to travel between areas (when you add eating and rest of course. Don’t make my guy walk for 10 hours straight from the Great Plateau to Hebra D: plz)

TL;DR: Hyrule is 2400 square kilometers; use the map, plus the conversion 1 zelda meter to 30 meters to measure anything you want; I am tired

Quick Edit: Please note that this conversion is for the purposes of people out there who need more realistic means of measuring distances for larger scale travel and such, like for writing fic journeys, or dnd campaigns. This conversion isn’t the best for smaller scale measure like buildings and such (EX: I’ve checked with buildings in Castle Town and the Coliseum, and they come out much too big, just a symptom of game design ratios not being perfect since it’s hard to balance consistent measurements and the immersion and plan a creator has for their game world!) So if you are measuring those smaller entities using the linked map, just stick with the given zelda meters! (EX: The Coliseum radius in zelda meters matches up nicely with the real world Roman Colosseum, beating it out by a few dozen meters!)

Also if you are a true believer in the interpretation of Impa’s dialogue as “half the amount of daylight hours,” see the reblogs!

#botw theory #cause it's technically a theory i guess #botw reference #botw #breath of the wild #legend of zelda botw #loz botw #if my math is wrong just shoot me on the spot ok #loz #legend of zelda #hyrule

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makeste · 4 years ago

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BnHA Chapter 292: You Say Jeans

Previously on BnHA: Horikoshi was all “well anyway here’s that Touya reveal I foreshadowed like a million years ago, viva la 2020.” Dabi was all “hello world, I’ve killed 30 people and today I’m going to explain to you all why” before he proceeded to explain ABSOLUTELY NOTHING but everyone was so distracted by his tale of child abuse and hero conspiracies that they didn’t much seem to notice. Can’t Ya See-Kun’s Shark Friend was all “IS THIS THE END OF HERO SOCIETY AS WE KNOW IT”, and Horikoshi was all “STAY TUNED”, and then Dabi set himself on fire and leaped off of Machia’s back like the chaotic evil, I-just-bleached-all-my-brain-cells weird little fire man he is, ready to burn everyone to crispy bits before they could even react properly to his whole big revenge speech. Fortunately he did not succeed on account of THE RETURN OF THE JING, THE JOAT, BEST FUCKING JEANIST, back from the dead by popular demand in what critics are calling “the best fucking comeback since Jesus himself.”

Today on BnHA: Best Jeanist snatches up Machia and the rest of the League with his fiber steel cables before you can say “more like BEAST JEANIST amirite.” Dabi gets all worked up and lights Hadou on fire which is a real JERK MOVE, and is all “THIS RIGHT HERE IS ALSO ENDEAVOR’S FAULT”, which, NOT SUPER CONVINCED ON THAT, BUT OKAY. Anyway so then he burns up all the cables holding him which is crazeballs btw, and then he and Shouto start fighting, and so basically the whole thing is a literal hot mess and we’ll see how that goes. Meanwhile Tomura wakes up and summons some Noumus, and poor Jeanist has to deal with those on top of the still-attempting-to-rampage Gigantomachia, and everyone else is all “we can’t help you on account of we’re all half dead”, and so it’s looking really bad. And then -- and I can’t stress enough how much I don’t even have the faintest idea how to segue into this next part -- the chapter ends with Mirio!?! just sort of POPPING UP OUT OF THE GROUND all, “SURPRISE, BITCH”, and it literally was so surprising that I am still just kind of speechless. WELL-PLAYED, I GUESS, lol wtf.

lol okay so the first page in the RHA scan is just the “three musketeers” movie promo image that we all already saw a few days ago. but it does confirm that (a) it is indeed a movie, and (b) that it’s set for a summer 2021 release! how exciting

okay so now back to our special Dabi edition of Making a Murderer

“ray of hope” oh hell yes. SAVE US MR. JEANIST

I guess he had a TV in his private hero jet or something?

gotta say, “dammit Dabi” does not even remotely sound like Authentic Best Jeanist Dialogue to me though. gonna need Caleb to see to this. well but what do you guys think? does Best Jeanist curse?? I personally feel like he’s one of those guys who NEVER EVER swears no matter what, except under the most hilariously trifling circumstances. like he’s eating an avocado one day and he accidentally stains the cuffs of his beloved jostume green and he’s all “FUCK”

btw how fucking rich is Best Jeanist though that he has his own fucking plane? the thought just suddenly occurred to me, you know? like even Endeavor, whose agency has its own on-site luxury apartment suites for all of his interns, still drives around in a dinky little car that Bakugou has declared to be too small. which, I guess we know why he felt that way now, seeing as the guy he previously interned with apparently gets around in Jeans Force One

anyway so back to the part where Jeanist shows up to save the day!! YEAH JEANIST WOOOOO

ILU JEANIST YOU REALLY ARE THE BEST!! HUGS AND KISSES!!!

lmao we just saw Gigantomachia take out like a hundred guys not ten chapters ago. and Best Jeanist shows up and takes him down in like two seconds. HOW DO YOU LIKE THEM APPLES LEAGUE OF VILLAINS. BET YOU’RE WISHING YOU’D TAKEN HIS QUIRK NOW, AFO. GET FUCKED YOU OLD SPUD

KACCHAN IS SO HAPPY TO SEE HIM AWW

SIDE NOTE, IIDA, YOU AND I ARE GONNA HAVE WORDS LATER ABOUT YOU ACTUALLY AGREEING TO PUT HIM BACK DOWN. YOU DO UNDERSTAND THAT THIS CHILD IS STILL DRIPPING BLOOD ALL OVER THE PLACE FROM HIS MULTIPLE STAB WOUNDS, RIGHT? WAY TO ASSERT YOUR AUTHORITY THERE. I THOUGHT YOU WERE THE CLASS PRESIDENT NOT THE CLASS CLOWN, COME ON NOW

LMAO DABI IS FRANTICALLY TRYING TO DO THE PLOT MATH

SHOULDA CHECKED MORE CLOSELY MY GOOD MARK. LOOKS LIKE YOU MISSED THE “MADE IN CHINA” STICKER ON THE BOTTOM. YOU HAVE BEEN BAMBOOZLED. OR ACTUALLY, I GUESS THE MORE ACCURATE WORD HERE IS JAMBOOZLED, AHAHAHAHA. JEANS

HOLY SHIT DABI

I legit almost thought that was Tomura for a second. you two look so alike now with the white hair and the crazy eyes

meanwhile, Shouto is still crying and it’s a lot to take, you guys. lotta feels

ffff come on Jeanist you better do something awesome again here, the mood of the chapter is starting to slip now

YES, GOOD, THAT’LL WORK

WELL YOU TELL ME, SPINNER. I GUESS THAT MEANS BEST JEANIST IS OFFICIALLY THE STRONGEST CHARACTER IN THE SERIES NOW. SORRY I DON’T MAKE THE RULES

ffff now Spinner is trying to wake Tomura back up. nah, how’s about we not do that

OH MY GOD HADOU YESSSS

MY GIRL OUT HERE WITH THE “NO THANK YOU” BOUT TO CURBSTOMP THE BIG BAD WITH HER QUIRK KSFHLKLK WHO HERE HAD “HADOU SAVES THE DAY” ON YOUR WAR ARC BINGO CARDS, YOU LOVE TO SEE IT!!

HEY!!!!

fucking son of a... fffkfkff... someone please reassure me that fire isn’t Hadou’s weakness. someone. anyone. also could someone please dial an ambulance and send them to Horikoshi’s house. but not just yet. first I’m gonna need you to wait about fifteen minutes or so while I take care of some things

well all right then, Dabi. so you wanna go on then and explain to us all how this, too, is somehow Endeavor’s fault?

oh I see, you’ve decided that since he’s responsible for “creating” you, everyone you hurt and kill is in truth really being hurt and killed by him! well now, that sure is convenient as fuck I guess

(ETA: that’s a nice effect with the panel sides getting all warped by Dabi’s quirk though, just noticed that.)

amazing how quickly you used up that sympathy card my guy. Shouto please kick his ass, I’m fucking done lol, you can all sort out the rest in therapy later

CAN SOMEONE PLEASE DIAL BACK DEKU’S EMPATHY STATS JUST A LITTLE BIT, HOLY --

“TODOROKI-KUN IS HURT THE MOST”, HE SAYS, WITH HIS ARM BONES SHATTERED INTO LITTLE TOOTHPICK-SIZED PIECES. I MEAN, HE’S PROBABLY TALKING MORE ABOUT MENTAL ANGUISH GIVEN THE CONTEXT HERE, BUT STILL. THAT’S ENOUGH HEROICS FROM YOU ALREADY FOR ONE DAY

NOOO JEANIST

LOTS OF SMOKE IN THE AIR RIGHT ABOUT NOW AND MY BOY’S STILL DOWN A LUNG. GOD DAMMIT

“if the number one suffers a total loss here, this country will fall to pieces” well okay, real talk though, I think the “country falling to pieces” part is pretty much unavoidable at this juncture. you all are just gonna have to try your best to pick up those pieces after the fact and see what you can do with them. if I were you I’d be less worried about the number one’s reputation and more concerned with the half-dozen child soldier interns who are still on the field and very much at risk of being burned to death should you suffer that “total loss.” please try to keep it together here for them

OH FOR FUCK’S

I really thought RockLockRock was gonna come into play here. USE YOUR QUIRK TO LOCK THE ROPES IN PLACE YOU DIP!! if he seriously just sits there and does nothing when his quirk could be the deciding factor I am cancelling his useless ass cute kid or no cute kid shfkjdls

(ETA: is he even there?? did he and Manual just hightail it out of there?? “well good luck, children.”)

also, we’ll put this aside for now to perhaps speculate about later, but what’s with Tomura remembering his dad’s house yet again in that far right panel?? and being itchy again?? I still have yet to fully work out the psychological mechanisms at work as far as his itchiness goes, so I’ll admit this is intriguing to me. it seemed like it was connected to his decay quirk, but then why is it acting up again now. what is this lol

yuh oh

forgot about these guys. looks like these heroes aren’t having such a fun time

oh fucksticks

excuse me ma’am but I don’t like this. you do know that my kids are all there, right. all burnt and impaled and broken-boned and the like. well except for Iida. he’s fine still. BUT THAT DOESN’T MEAN I FEEL LIKE WATCHING HIM GET TORN APART BY FOUR HIGH ENDS, WTF

HORIKOSHI YOU MOTHERFUCKER I SWEAR TO GOD

god fucking... okay look. Horikoshi. you win, okay!? congratulations, you win, this is your show and we’re all just sitting here at your mercy. fine. go ahead and just kill off everyone ever, then!! what am I even gonna do about it. stop reading?? fuck

this whole thing really went from zero to fucked before I could even blink huh. I really thought this was gonna be a turning point chapter for the heroes. shows what I know I guess??

meanwhile this motherfucker is just SCREAMING

ngl, if I wasn’t currently terrified on account of things suddenly taking such a drastic turn for the worse, this would be the coolest fucking thing I’ve ever seen. Jeanist my man, I hype you up like it’s my job because you are the greatest fucking meme character in the history of time, but make no mistake, you are also highkey WORTH ALL THE HYPE AND THEN SOME

seriously, though. don’t fucking mind him you guys, he’s just standing here in the coolest pose of all time taking on Gigantomachia all alone with one fucking lung because the substance pumping through his veins is COLD-BLOODED LIQUID DENIM, and DENIM FEELS NO FEAR

Best Jeanist really needs to get his own theme song. -- oh my god I just finally thought of a title for this post. lmao and it’s the dumbest thing. omg

MEANWHILE THE TODOROKI BROS ARE OFF IN THEIR OWN DRAMATIC LITTLE FIRE WORLD

which one do you think is the Mario and which is the Luigi. well, but I mean, Dabi clearly thinks that he’s the Luigi though and that’s why he’s so mad. nobody wants to be Luigi. what a life

THAT’S IT, SHOUTO!! POINT OUT ALL OF HIS HYPOCRITICAL BULLSHIT, I WANT ANSWERS

JUST TO CLARIFY, IT’S THAT NATSU, NOT SOME OTHER NATSU!! SO WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO SAY FOR YOURSELF!!

OH, WELL IN THAT CASE

BUT OF COURSE. THAT WOULD MAKE IT ALL WORTHWHILE, holy shit. okay I’m just gonna go ahead and say it, Dabi is a piece of work. I really thought this arc would make him more sympathetic at long last, but it seems like it’s doing just the opposite?? this is like an anti-redemption arc. I don’t relish the thought of venturing into the fandom tags once I finish reading this lol

(ETA: well folks, I’ve done it. and actually it was pretty interesting because there are apparently like ten different things that people are mad about, and so it’s like. each post is a new adventure lmao.)

so Shouto is all “BRUH HAVE YOU COMPLETELY LOST IT” and Dabi is all “YES”, basically? like, he says he’s completely lost his feeling for anything. omg. but you were so sweet. how does that even happen

“finally I can kill you” okay for real what the heck is your damage bro?? can we not. I like Shouto just the way he is, un-killed

oh shit and now the Noumus are here

cue Bakugou diving in to save his mentor, STAB WOUNDS BE DAMNED!! actually it would make more sense for it to be Iida, but if Kacchan is really fixin’ to go full Shounen Dumbass here then he might as well go all out, y’know

-- unless of course, Deku decides to activate another quirk??

“last I checked, the main character of this series was still me” OH? WELL I SUPPOSE THAT IS TRUE, SO PRAY TELL, WHAT HAVE YOU GOT LEFT UP YOUR SLEEVE YOU SUICIDAL BRUSSELS SPROUT

fucking love how he’s all “HAHAHA WITH MY NEW QUIRKS I CAN STILL DO STUPID SHIT EVEN WITH MY ARMS AND LEGS GROUND TO A FINE POWDER” btw. what can I say. Deku gonna Deku

FMMFHDKUHK W H A T

HOLY SHIT. HOLY FUCKING SHIT. WHAT THE WHAT. QUE THE FUCK

(ETA: okay look, all the love in the world to the brave scanlators who take time out of their lives to translate the leaks every week just so we can read the chapter a couple of days early like the addicts we are. that said, translating Mirio’s signature “POWER!!” -- which was already written in English in the original scan -- to “POG-CHAMP” is just a whole new level of wtfuckery from them lmao. is the Lida person back at it again?? amazing.)

MIRIO!?!?! SHOWS UP TO SAVE THE DAY?!?! POGS HIMSELF UP OUT THE GROUND TO BEAT THE NOUMUS LIKE IT AIN’T NO THING. JUST LIKE WE ALL PREDICTED!? I’M SORRY, DID YOU NOT SEE THAT COMING?? YOU MEAN TO TELL ME YOUR DAILY HOROSCOPE FROM ASTROLOGY DOT COM DIDN’T HAVE THAT ONE IN THE CARDS?? WAS IT NOT OBVIOUS?? TODOROKIS PLUS BEST JEANIST EQUALS MIRIO??

hot damn. Tintin really saw the writing on the wall with the impending Dabi Discourse and was all “NOT SO FAST” lmao. “HERE’S A BRAND NEW THING FOR YOU ALL TO DISCOURSE ABOUT” MIRIO YOU WILD CHILD. YOU GLORIOUS THUG

MEANWHILE LET’S NOT FORGET WHAT MIRIO HAVING HIS POWERS BACK ACTUALLY IMPLIES. HOLY SHIT. SUDDENLY WE CUT BACK TO ALL MIGHT’S OFFICE, ALL THE WAY BACK AT UA. ERI BRANDISHES HER TOKOYAMI-GIFTED BUSTER SWORD, A DETERMINED GLEAM IN HER EYE. “I HEARD YOU WERE TRYING TO HAVE A GIRL POWER ARC WITHOUT ME.” OH. MY. GOD

#bnha 292 #best jeanist #todoroki touya #dabi #todoroki shouto #midoriya izuku #hadou nejire #toogata mirio #bnha #boku no hero academia #bnha spoilers #mha spoilers #bnha manga spoilers #makeste reads bnha

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omoi-no-hoka · 5 years ago

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Hello! I'm sorry if this has been asked before, but how do you become proficient at handling conversations in Japanese/handling grammar very well? I read your post on the JLPT, and it addressed issues I have been tip toe-ing around--indeed, passive actions such as listening or reading are easier than the active ones. How did you go about that? Did you write a bunch of sentences daily? Did you have a conversation partner? What would you rec. to someone who lives outside Japan? Thank you!

This is an excellent question, and one that I get asked a lot irl by Japanese people in particular. Let’s talk about gaining fluency and the ways we can go about it!

How to Gain Fluency in Japanese (and Other Languages)

Speaking Fluency versus Accuracy

Language proficiency is divided into two separate categories:

Fluency: Although there are no widely agreed-upon definitions or measures of language fluency, someone is typically said to be fluent if their use of the language appears fluid, or natural, coherent, and easy as opposed to slow, halting use. In other words, fluency is often described as the ability to produce language on demand and be understood.

Accuracy: Correctness of language use, especially grammatical correctness and word choice.

By the above definitions, a “fluent” speaker may make grammatical mistakes, but they can speak without having to stop and think too much about conjugations, word choice, etc.

An “accurate” speaker can speak with nearly zero grammatical/word choice mistakes. However, the speed of their utterances isn’t generally taken into account, so it could take an “accurate” person twice as long to articulate the same idea as a “fluent” person.

Ideally, you need to strike a good balance between these two qualities when speaking. I have a boss, God bless him, who is 100% fluency and 0% accuracy and…man is it hard to understand what he’s saying sometimes, but he can generally get his point across just barely. I have another coworker who is 100% accuracy and takes about 3 minutes to form a sentence because he wants it to be perfect.

How to Increase Speaking/Writing Accuracy

First, let’s talk about the easiest thing to improve, which is accuracy. It’s also (in my opinion) the least fun thing to improve, because it means grammar books and vocabulary memorization.

You can only use a language accurately if you know what is correct and what is incorrect, and you can only learn that by studying grammar and vocabulary (or if you’re a native speaker and picked it up innately, you lucky bastard).

So here’s some things you can do to increase your accuracy:

For example, if you’re having a hard time using the passive, you need to review that part of your textbook and find some exercises to drill it into your head.

Say the correct thing aloud. Lots. Sometimes I just walk around my apartment and narrate everything I see/do like a crazy person, but that’s good practice.

Write example sentences using the grammar you’re struggling with and say them aloud too.

There’s a bunch of cool apps that connect you with native speakers that can help correct you too! I used to use HelloTalk, I think.

If you’re a creative soul, when I was studying for the JLPT, I took 1 grammar point and 5 vocabulary words from my JLPT study books and used them to write a 2-page short story about the adventures of ネギ, a stray black cat that smelled like green onions because she napped in an onion field. Then I had a Japanese friend check it over for me and mark mistakes. I hand-wrote them to improve my abysmal handwriting at the same time. It was really fun! I sometimes think about doing it again just for funsies.

When someone corrects you, don’t feel like your entire life is over and you’re a failure and you’ll never get it right haha. I’ve seen people fall into that hopeless mindset, and that’s just nonsense. It’s a good opportunity for learning and nothing more! Say the correct thing you’ve just been taught out loud, then write it down if you can. And, if possible, find a chance to use it in conversation asap.

How to Increase Speaking/Writing Fluency

Now this is the hard one. Especially for those learners who do not have native speakers nearby.

I’m going to be dead honest with you. I started formally studying Japanese at uni, and I had a Japanese roommate/best friend since year one. I had a 4.0 GPA in my Japanese classes (and only my Japanese classes lol) because I was and still am a MEGA NERD about it.

...But it wasn’t until I studied abroad in Japan my 4th year of uni that I gained fluency.

There are a lot of things that can hold us back from fluency. An interesting thing I’ve noted is that Foreign Language is perhaps the only subject in which a student’s personality can directly affect their progress. To gain fluency, you have to go forth and speak, but if you are naturally a shy person, that is going to hinder you. If you are the kind of person who takes mistakes/failures poorly, you will be less likely to take risks and try to say harder sentences. In contrast, you can get full marks in math regardless of the above personality traits.

I’m not saying that you have to be an outgoing explosion of a human being in order to gain fluency. But what I am saying is that you have to be willing to seek out conversations, and you have to be willing to take chances. Get out of your comfort zone. Use that new word you picked up the other day. Try to explain something that is difficult for you.

My problem was that, while I lived with a native speaker who would have happily taught me anything I asked, her English proficiency was much higher than my Japanese proficiency. And when I struggled to say something in Japanese, I’d fall back onto English. And when she told me something I didn’t understand in Japanese, she’d repeat it in English instead of Japanese, because that was easier for us both. The same thing happened when I was in Japanese class as well. I always had the assurance that I could fall back on English.

But when I elected to study abroad in Japan for 3 months, I knew that this was my big chance. So on the host family form in the “other requests” area, I wrote that I specifically wanted a host family that could not speak English. I was setting fire to my crutches, and I was scared but excited to see them burn.

By the end of my three months in Japan, I had gone from “Chotto matte kudasai” and needing a minute to form my reply, to “Okay, yeah I see that movie too and I liked the action scenes, but I didn’t care for the story little.” (I’ve underlined mistakes that I would have made in Japanese, to show you that I sacrificed some accuracy to obtain higher fluency.)

So, in short, the easiest and quickest way to increase your spoken fluency is to throw away all the crutches you can and use the language as much as possible. Every single day. Even if you’re just having an imaginary conversation with yourself! And like I said, there are a bunch of cool apps that connect you with Japanese people who want to learn English and you can do language exchanges with them. I had a lot of fun with those in the past.

As for increasing writing fluency...well. That’s a tough question with Japanese, because I can type Japanese at like 100 wpm, but my Japanese handwriting fluency is at a 10/100. I can read and type at the level of a native Japanese high school student, but I can only write the kanji that 7 year old can write. That’s no exaggeration.

The big reason for that dichotomy is that my work is paper-free. 100% of my work is done on screen, so about the only time I have to write out something is when I’m filling out a form, which includes my name (katakana), address, and maybe occupation.

If you want to increase your Japanese handwriting speed, just keep on writing. Write those little short stories about ネギ like I did, or find some writing prompts (I just started a side-blog with writing prompts yesterday btw) or keep a little diary. Make opportunities to write.

How to Have Nice Handwriting in Japanese

Okay, full disclaimer: I am the absolute LAST person qualified to talk about this, because I have awful handwriting in Japanese.

Unless you have prior experience with a different language that uses kanji, or you lack the keen eye of an artist, you will likely struggle to develop neat handwriting.

Personally, I really like using this app called Japanese Kanji Sensei. It’s on Android (not sure about iOS), and if you pay just a few bucks you can make your own kanji sets and stuff. Anyways, it will show you how to write the characters prettily. It gives you a good frame of reference for what nice, pencil/pen-written characters (versus calligraphy characters). It has hiragana and katakana on it too!

I get a stylus and write out the characters on this app for the muscle memory, so my hands remember the sensation of writing a certain character. (The muscle memory is different if you only use your fingertip.) This muscle memory and repetition is how Japanese people learn how to internalize kanji as well. I really enjoy and recommend this app. I’m sure that there are others out there like it too.

Summary

TL;DR: Review your textbooks, take risks, use every resource available or make your own, and just have fun with it! 💗

#Anonymous #ask me anything #Asks are open #study japanese #learn japanese #japanese language #nihongo #japanese fluency #second language acquisition #jlpt #studyblr #langblr #japanese langblr #japanese resources #kanji #study kanji #learn kanji

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pinkcurse · 4 years ago

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Julie? Really?

I know I haven't posted in about an eternity and a half. That is because my degree program is getting to the actual dissertation part of getting a doctorate. But I have to ask, cause I don't see it. Why, for the love of God, does everyone seem to think Sara (Sarah?) is Julie? The SB Facebook group I am in is positive 100%, without a shadow of a doubt that Sara = Julie. But what actual evidence is there? Not a whole hell of a lot.

We have never seen Julie's face, so you can't say that they look the same. The only shot of Julie we've ever seen is the back of her head. And her hair is drawn pretty differently there. Her hair is drawn shiny, like Kuon's, when we see Julie and Kuu watching Kuon's video. Sara's hair is not drawn shiny. I would argue it is drawn more similar to how Maria's hair is drawn, suggesting it might be more light brown.

I think it was Nakamura's focus on Sara's eyes that has led everyone to conclude she is Julie. However, the manga is drawn in black and white, and we cannot confirm that she has green eyes. So this emphasis cannot be considered hard evidence.

Sara's appetite was an interesting clue to her identity. In my opinion, it seems to suggest more of a genetic relative to Kuu than it does Julie. We have never heard anything from Ren or anyone about Julie having a famous appetite. On the reverse side, we don't know how Julie and Kuu met. Maybe it was their insane appetite that bonded them? The only piece of HARD, FROM THE MANGA, evidence that might even HINT at Sara being Julie based on the appetite is Ren's comment, from a long time ago, that his intake was harshly monitored. Also, it was suggested that he was force-fed (don't ask me what chapter, I don't remember). This comment indicates that mom was trying to feed him more than necessary, I had assumed it was because Kuon was expected to have an appetite similar to Kuu's. However, it makes much more sense if both parents have crazy big stomachs.

Age. Let's talk about Sara vs. Julie's age. Julie, in my opinion, and basic math, has to be AT LEAST 40. The original Dark Moon was filmed 20 years ago... they film the remake as Ren TURNS 20. I would HOPE Julie was AT Least 20 before she had her first kid. Still, at the youngest, I would say 36, which puts her at 16 when she had Kuon (which doesn't seem likely to me). Sara's looking damned good, almost teenish if she is actually 40ish-year-old woman... Just saying... it makes no sense. She is drawn more along the lines of someone around Ren's age. Even Kuu had some marks around his eyes, showing he is older.

Speaking of makes no sense... this WHOLE SCENARIO MAKES NO SENSE! IF this is Julie, there are two ways we can look at what's going on with her. Either her meeting Kyoko was intentional, or it was an accident.

Let's think about it being an unintentional meeting. My first question is, not why would a 40ish-year-old woman be assuming a secret identity to visit a theme park (that makes sense since she is famous and married to Japan's darling), it is why she would need to be accompanied by Director Date? She can speak fluent Japanese, and while, yes, visiting a theme park is more fun with someone else, Date doesn't seem like the funnest of company. Now it makes sense that Julie would know Date from when Kuu was in Tsukigomori since Kuon would have had to be a new born right around then (I bet it was fun to film with Kuu while his wife was heavily pregnant...) However, this relationship doesn't explain why she would have asked him to go with her to the park. Also, the coincidence thing is just too big. Now the story has always said that luck is part of show business. This would be a lot of luck. To magically run into Julie.

If we are thinking about Julie meeting Kyoko intentionally at the park, this gets even more screwed up. The biggest question is, how would she know Kyoko is going to be there? Why would she choose to approach Kyoko in this way? She doesn't know Kuon's exact feelings toward her, and she doesn't know Kyoko's actual feelings towards Kuon. If she just wanted to meet her "son," there are a 1000 ways LESS convoluted she could have chosen to go about meeting her. But instead, she picks a method that has a decent chance of failure. If Kyoko didn't notice Date (if she had been in La La Land), if she didn't approach him, then this whole scenario fails. Could a backup plan have been in place? Probably? But why would Date agree to it? How would either know what was going on with Kanae and her new role and to use learning English cheep would allow them to accept Sara into their outing? Now, if Julie could predict outcomes like Ren can, then there is something to be said for it. However, the difference here is that Ren was acting and could rationally predict responses within the confines of the scene, and he knew his fellow actor. Julie doesn't know Kyoko, and she doesn't know Kanae. Rationally she can't accurately predict their behavior. Kuu could give some insight into Kyoko, but I don't think it would be enough to make this all go off without a hitch. He certainly doesn't know Kanae.

If someone set this up and just put Julie into position, I bet everyone would think Lory. I can't see us not knowing about that and not seeing Lory scheming something. Buuutttt..... what about someone related to him? What did little Maria look like the last time we saw her? What was going on in the story? It is plausible Maria was able to infer what was going on with Kyoko's mother, and it would make sense if she reached out to Ren's mother to maybe do something to help her friend. It's a long shot, but if this IS Julie and it was intentional, it doesn't have Lory's dramatic flair, you know?

Anyway, my point is there is no way we could say conclusively, based on the data at hand, that Sara and Julie are the same people. There is too much we don't know. It could be Tina, who is younger, and it would explain the melancholy when she was talking about love earlier, but that assumption has holes too. There are way too many unknowns about the American side of the Skip Beat story to say anything with 100% certainty until the author gives us definite proof.

And before you point to Ren's expression at the end of chapter 290 as of this definite proof, the last word was "Huh?" not "Mom?" All that proves is that Ren recognizes her and knows her. I am sure we will get more info in the next chapter. Especially if he takes the photo to Lory raging about it. THEN I might concede that Sara and Julie are the same people. Until then, I am with Ren. Huh?

#skip beat #skip beat!#skip beat chapter 290

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nofive · 3 years ago

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Five’s Bedroom

I have done a headcanon about brief observations I have made on Five’s bedroom before. I have also talked about things in his bedroom in a few other headcanons. But this will be delving into the canon state of Five’s childhood room, and his area in the Apocalypse to get a sense for how Five is as a person and a bit more of what he was like as a child.

Also fair warning, this post is long, and their are lots of big images. If you want, I am tagging this post with a special tag “Five’s Bedroom Meta” so that you can block it if you do not wish to scroll through it on your dash. All images that have adjusted brightness was purely to enhance the background of the image.

Like with everything I may add on to this as time goes by.

The bare bones, no deep diving yet ( Five’s Childhood Room )

Based off multiple images from the Making of TUA book, the show itself, and Aidan’s behind the scenes pictures I’ve put together a very basic floor plan of Five’s room ( please don’t make fun of my handwriting ). I don’t know about y’all but I feel like Five’s door needs to be at a til like Allison and Luther’s. But its not. So this floor plan basically gives a layout of his room in general. Its not to scale obviously, but it gives us a good starting off point. One thing I would like to note, that I think is only applicable to Five’s room as that there are two doors much like Reginald’s office, which I will touch on a bit later. Not drawn are the at least four lamps, one on his desk, one on the small bookshelf by his bed, and one on his nightstand, he has at least two sconces one on the wall near the closet, and one on the wall near the blue chair, he also has a main light fixture with at least three bulbs. But it is simply his closet, a very small closet at that.

Five’s bedroom has two windows, one that leads to a fire escape, which is next to his bed on the wall with the slanted roof. Both windows have radiators beneath them that Five utilizes as shelving. On the slanted wall side of his room Five’s bed is pushed not quite into the corner as he has a small bookshelf there that has more toys on it than books, and has a chest at the foot of his bed, and then he has his bookshelf which due to the slanted wall has the appearance of a built in.

Five’s desk and desk chair are on the same wall as his closet, though his desk chair being on wheels can move about. Above the desk are a set of shelves, Luther’s room has something very similar, with a set of towels and his toiletries. Five’s towels are blue, Luther’s appear to be tan or brown. If I had to guess all the siblings have different colors of towels. Next to his desk in between it and the bookshelf is a basket that appears to have a white board, and a fireman’s hat. There is also a possible laundry basket on the other side of his desk closer to the closet.

On the wall that has the main door to his room you have his wardrobe or armoire. we know thanks to Klaus that this houses jackets, possibly that snazzy coat and scarf from the bank as well as various toys namely baseballs. I know there is a baseball bat in his room but I cannot find a picture of it. Also I should note, I have no idea what is rapped in that white sheet looking thing.

On the other side of the door we have his dresser. The door funnily enough has a window up top sort of akin to an office door implying that Five’s room did in fact used to be an office. In fact the way it’s styled makes it seem like it could be a 1920s styled Private Investigator office. The dresser has a dart board above it that he takes down to write his equations and then puts it back up despite not putting anything else back on the walls. In front of the dress and the second window is a blue chair that we see Delores occupy while Grace patches up his Shrapnel wound she is sitting on his blue desk chair. Next to the radiator under the window we have Five’s nightstand.

The walls of Five’s bedroom are all painted a minty green color. So is all the triming including the the window seal ledges. The only non-painted areas are the bricks under the slanted roof/wall of his room and the boarder wallpaper.

The Deep Dive

So that takes us around his room, now lets actually delve into those pictures and what we see in them. So lets start at the beginning with the closet. To my knowledge Five is the only one with a closet in his room, and a second door. I only bring this up because the parallels and similarities between Five and Reginald is very obvious. And we know Reginald’s office has two doors. I just think that is interesting, not to mention Five’s bedroom was very likely an old office based on how The Academy is multiple buildings together. I should also note that based on the scene when Five is escaping onto the fire escape the window that is not on the slanted wall portion of his room shouldn’t have light coming into it because another building butts up to it.

Five’s bedroom is actually quite large accented with blue of varying shades from the carpet to his main comforter, to his desk chair, pillows, curtains, and his secondary chair. All the wood in his room is a light walnut color. And his doors are painted this minty green color. His second comforter looks to be navy, white, and red plaid. The fact that he has a second comforter that is used means not only has Grace changed his sheets, but he likely has slept in them, which means he likely did sleep. I only say its second comforter and not a blanket because we know Five has a chest at the foot of his bed with a blanket on it that could have been used. The chest likely has his extra bedding in it though. On Five’s bedside table he has a stack of what appears to be text books, but they seem more like workbooks of some sort. So think like SAT prep books. He also has a set of what appears to be five novels on his nightstand, and some sort of CD player or maybe a dehumidifier.

The blanket as you can see has planets, a moon, and a spaceship on it, which is pretty on par for things that Five likes. All over his room, and in these images you can see images of robots on his walls. Particularly you can see comic drawings of robots. He has a rock-em sock-em robot poster on his wall. He even has a robot on his bookshelf by his desk. Five has a fascination with robots. Which could foreshadow his relationship with Delores, and perhaps something of his relationship with Grace, liking wanting to know how she works. Also foreshadowing of Five and Delores is quite literally in the wallpaper boarder above the chair rail which has a kid pulling a red wagon with a mannequin in them.

Additionally we see lots of building blocks particularly on the bookshelf next to Five’s bed. Five is very hands on when it comes to his hobbies. He has means of transportation all over his room which could make sense given his power, but it could also give him a connection to Luther seeing as Luther also has airplanes and cars in his room. Five has boats, and cars all over his room. Further he also has lots of construction toys including an excavator and a cement truck. On top of his wardrobe he has a sail boat and a covered wagon. He also has a poster of a motorcyle or moped on his wall. If Five had stayed behind he would have been the first to learn how to drive for sure.

From first glance Five’s room seems super organized. But when you actually look at it, its not. Books in particular are stacked where he can stack them. The binders on his desk are initially upside down, and someone put them right side up, I would guess Luther as he is messing around Five’s desk to look for things. Five works in an organized chaos we see this from his equations as he writes over the boarder and such We later see this echoed in his Apocalypse home.

When it comes to other things Five has a few knick knacks all of them are travel based, saved for one. I’ve mentioned the toys. The one I’m referring to can be seen on his desk and I believe it is a nautical instrument used to help measure distance and time or speed. I could be wrong. But it is on Five’s desk along with what appears to be homework of some sort in the trays. He’s also got a stapler on his desk which I simply find ironic.

The one knick knack he has that isn’t related specifically to travel is a wooden basket that has busted up watches. Pocket watches, wrist watches, etc. They are old, and are not digital. My theory on this is that at one point he attempted to use the watch to magnify his power, particularly that of Time Travel. But they kept breaking, but it only fueled his theory that he could do it. This is also a call back to the comic where Five as a kid is always shown to have a pocket watch.

Briefly on his closet, which is best pictured above. It is small. Also it appears to only hold his uniforms, which by the way he is going through them makes him seem like he should have more clothes and he can’t find them. This implies Five does have civvies or street clothes but they have been lost over time which would make Five’s “Shit” make much more sense. Its not that he only has uniforms as his option, its that he can’t find his civilian clothes.

Last but not least the dart board. I do have a headcanon about it. But the fact that you can see the equations go behind the dart board on the wall means he put it back up. Five in the original pilot script had a love of knives quite like Diego. My guess is the dart board is a call to that. But we also know Five is super competitive and I think he tries to get accurate with throwing knives to beat Diego. Also we know that Five has Diego’s knife holster in the apocalypse so Five liking knives is not just a original pilot script thing.

The Comparison ( his Apocalypse Home Base )

Five’s apocalypse home base ironically takes on many similar characteristics of Five’s bedroom. Meaning the core of who Five is has not changed. He has a love for learning, partially cause he is literally creating new math, but he has a desk still, and he still stacks books haphazardly. He also has his chalkboard which seems to be Five’s favorite way of doing math. I theorize its because he’s working on things that are so large he needs more room than paper can provide. Also paper is hard to come by in the apocalypse, at least blank paper is because he uses Vanya’s book. Five has a habit of placing important things on places he can easily see and find. Such as the probability map ending above his bed, and the equation on his chalk board likely ending up in his copy of Vanya’s book.

Final Thoughts

So what are my final thoughts? I think the making of TUA book has got Five pinned all wrong. Five’s room is sparse because he left early, but not because he didn’t have hobbies or time to decorate it. He clearly did. Five like athletics at least baseball, and he had an interest in robots, comics, and transportation. He also likes building as he has blocks and potentially even legos. The transportation could be an extension of him getting to know his power, maybe. But we know Luther is very similar with transportation just of the aerospace kind and we know that’s likely not related to his power ( unless you include my headcanon that his main power is actual gravity manipulation ). Five had interests and was even starting to personalize his room before he left, he also had an imagination seeing as the fireman’s helmet is still readily out and available to play which plays into Delores being part of his active imagination and becoming the imaginary friend he needs to stay somewhat sane in the apocalypse.

Five’s room tells us of a boy who was active, and had interests, and he still has a liking for those interests as we see him unable to help himself and play with one of the trucks during the show. It gives us a brief look into the boy that we truly know very little about. Because while we have so much of his story displayed for us, we have so little of what he was like before. He has toys and things all over his room with no real rhyme or reason as to why things are placed in certain areas. It makes sense to him obviously, but it is not the key organized thing you would expect. If it was all his trucks would be in one place for example.

We also can see Five is a bit more chaotic than his room implies on first glance. From both the Apocalypse and his kid bedroom Five has a habit of stacking books a bit haphazardly and storing things also a bit haphazardly as seen by the crate on top of his wardrobe, and the fact that he has stuff just piled into said wardrobe that comes tumbling out when Klaus does.

When it comes to his room location I believe it is on the third floor above Allison and Luther’s, on the second, and Klaus, Vanya, and Diego’s on the lower floor. Since we don’t know where Ben’s room is and the door across from Five’s is always shut, I do think that that is likely where Ben’s room was. But according to Five there are 42 Bedrooms in the place so it could be anywhere really.

Five’s room, like Five himself hides behind a layer of sparsity. You have to give him more than a cursory glance to know what is really going to get him deep down.

#headcanon: a single drop of coffee #five's bedroom meta

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polar-stars · 4 years ago

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Greetings @wishingforatypewriter ! If I’m not mistaken...today’s your birthday right? At least you told the Birthday Bot in the SoRina discord server that it’s the 15th of February and today is the 15th of February!

So, I drew you a little something for this occasion 🎉 You’re without a doubt one of my favorite writers within the SNS-community and I really enjoy your work and also connect some really fond & strong memories to a few particular ones. (Remember “Cherry Red and Green with Envy”? Yeah, I read that in a lovely summer night in Italy, on a balcony. And gosh, the sheer joy I felt that day. I send the thing to my best friend instantly and kept gushing about the work through multiple audios shdfhf And well, that’s just one examplel) Generally speaking, it’s always interesting to hear your headcanons or learn more about your characters!

By all means, if you ever publish that novel you occasionally mentioned...Please tell us the title of it. I will order it all the way from the US, shipping costs be damned!

Furthermore, I’m not the only one who drew you something. @takoyakitenchou also has a treat ready for you! She also brought up the idea to collaborate on a small fic as well & what it would be about. I’m going to post the first part of it right here and she will be posting the 2nd part a little later.

All in all, I hope you’re going to have a really good day ahead of you ☺️ And now, after all of my rambling (I just had to get some stuff out shdh), here’s Pt. 1 of the tenchou & Lea adventures, a little fictional verse where there’s no pandemic and only good vibes:

誕生日おめでとう (part 1)

in which tenchou has no regard for time zones but birthdays must still be celebrated

8:00 PM EST, February 13th (2 AM CET, February 14th) If the takoyaki store manager had had enough brain cells to promote Germany to the forefront of her nonexistent timezone awareness, she most likely would not have called Lea at two in the morning central European time. Lea picked up with a weary “Hallo?” and was all the more confused as she got an English reply back. She reached out a hand to the nightstand and the lamp that could be activated with just a touch, hoping that the light would bring more clarity to her tired mind. But instead, she just blinded herself. Completely oblivious to Lea’s predicament, the tenchou said cheerfully, “I got you a plane ticket.”

“Sorry?” “A plane ticket,” she repeated as if she were talking about the weather. “From Brandenburg Airport to JFK. It leaves in two hours. Unless I did the math wrong, you’ll be in New York by nine in the morning eastern on… the 14th. I hope.” “Was zum Teufel?” Lea choked out. The tenchou paused for a split second. “Is this not a good time for you? I can call you back.” “Reina, it is two in the morning over here.” “I think you’ll live,” she replied, and Lea could clearly visualize the offhand wave on the other end of the line. “Three coffees should do the trick. You might wanna start packing, though.” Lea sat up in bed and rubbed the sleep out of her eyes. It seemed she wasn’t getting out of this anytime soon. “You know how deranged you sound right now?” “I know, it’s crazy! I live in California but we’re meeting in New York.” Lea briefly debated telling the tenchou that her present location was not, in fact, the point, but she did not currently have the mental capacity to do so. She settled with a long sigh. “What’s this for?” A moment and a half later, the tenchou said, “You know whose birthday is coming up on the 15th?” “Yeah, of course.” “Do I need to explain further?” “Ohhh,” Lea said, finally understanding. “See you soon.” Reina grinned. “I sent the plane and hotel info via Discord. Have a safe flight.” Then she hung up. It was going to be an interesting weekend.

9:30 AM EST, February 14th By the time Lea arrived at JFK’s international terminal, Reina was waiting with a triumphant, very poorly spaced welcome to fuckin ny scrawled on a massive sign. It was pretty obvious that the tenchou was still slightly out of it from jello shots with her Juilliard homies the night prior, but there was business to be tended to. “What are we doing?” Lea asked as the tenchou took her carry-on. “I was thinking we’d collaborate on a gift.” “Art? Or… a fic?” “Either. Both. What if I started a takoyaki store in NYC and gave her exclusive access?” “That seems nice,” Lea said agreeably, noting not for the first time that the store manager was probably missing a few brain cells. “But maybe not a good idea.” “Oh, you’re right. I’d have to get a building and everything.” Reina gave a lopsided smile. “Maybe we’ll do that next year. So… art and a fic it is, then.”

10:00 AM EST, February 14th “You need a coffee,” Lea decided once they were sitting at a local cafe. “Let me buy,” Reina said quickly. “It’s the least I can do after dragging you here from Germany. What do you want?” Fair enough. Lea nodded as a sign of gratitude and replied, “Latte macchiato, please.” Five minutes later, Reina brought eleven coffees to the table. Lea gawked at the tenchou. “Are you…” she trailed off. “Insane? No. Caffeine dependent? Very.” She passed Lea the latte and organized the ten iced coffees in two neat rows in front of them. “I’ve been trying to lower my consumption this week. Normally I’d get a dozen double espressos, so this is actually pretty major progress for me.” “Subtracting two cups doesn’t seem like progress,” Lea said dryly. “These are all americanos,” Reina explained defensively, like that solved everything. Lea gave a doubtful eyebrow raise. “Oh? How many espresso shots in each?” Resenting the fact that she’d hit home so accurately, Reina muttered, “Three.” Lea decided not to press the matter further — the tenchou was pissy enough as is — and instead watched with mild concern as the tenchou proceeded to chug the first five coffees without so much as a breath in between. “Now that I’m partially functional, you wanna get started?” Reina asked. “You and I can both do an art piece and we’ll collaborate on a fic together.” “Hmhm.” Lea reflected on the offer in her head. For a short moment she considered asking if she could take just about 10 writing courses beforehand, half-joking and half-serious. But she decided against it. With a brief look at the clock and the knowledge that it once took her an entire year to update a two-part fanfiction, she knew that if they needed it done by tomorrow they’d have to get started soon. “Interesting idea,” she therefore said. “But what would the fic be about? I have the writing pace of a turtle, so it might be better if we come up with something real quick.” Reina finished her sixth cup of coffee before raising an eyebrow at Lea. “By the way, when are you gonna update—” “Not even God knows when I will update anything,” Lea sighed. “But I’ll give Tuesday or Wednesday a try. Right now, I have to focus on the collab instead. So, do you have any ideas already?” “So… Tuesday as in this coming Tuesday? Or next year Tuesday?” Lea politely declined to comment. “I wrote part of the fic while I was in line for the coffees,” Reina said, pulling out her laptop. “Want me to share a Google Doc or—” “Google Doc,” Lea cut in. She had heard many times of the tenchou’s wackass habit of writing all her fics in direct messages with fellow writers and then copy pasting them onto whatever platform was most accessible at the time. “Discord is more convenient,” Reina deadpanned, her mouth on the rim of her seventh americano. “But alright. Google Docs it is.”

#I hope you'll like it ;v;

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tori-beanie · 5 years ago

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PART TWO IS HERE!

You know that soulmark AU? Yeah? Well I made another chapter and I’m proud of it.

Let’s talk about some stuff first. I did not come up with these designs. Nope, that belongs to FanartFunart with this post here! I’ve been given permission to use the idea for fanfics, and I am very grateful for that. Make sure to give them some love!! https://fanartfunart.tumblr.com/post/184661279405/filed-under-aus-i-do-not-plan-on-actually-doing

Please also check out the last part of this I wrote, the first part of the ‘Soulmarked’ Series!

Without further ado, please enjoy,

The first Encounter

~~MORE~~

Logan was ten years old, and he still had four blackened marks on his forearm. Not a single one had gained color yet, and it was starting to drive him insane. He tried to distract himself with as much as possible with extra work and so many books. However they were his soulmates. He knew they would eventually meet. That didn’t make Logan’s life easier though. People accused him of faking the extra marks, and some were disgusted by the amount. Five people all going to be in a relationship? How was it even possible? Luckily Logan read. He read far above his grade level, even able to get his mother to buy him a book about people with multiple soulmates. It was one that he was working to memorize, one of the ten year olds most important things.

At the moment he was at school, bored. He had already finished the homework for his advanced math class. He had skipped a grade easily, so instead of being a fifth grader, he had moved up to sixth and took advanced classes. It was work that was a bit more his level. If he had to take basic fifth grade classes he really would go insane! They would be far too easy for Logan Foley! But even now he had worked ahead and now had nothing else to do. For now he would stare at the marks on his arm, and hope that one of them started changing color. At least then he would have something to focus on…

Patton Foster had been living in shades of white black and grey now for about five years. He honestly had trouble remembering what color things were. Obviously he knew the sky was blue and the grass was green, but what were blue and green? What did their pigments look like? They were both different shades of grey, but that didn’t really help him. All the nine year old could do was stare at a colored pencil or marker and hope he picked out the right one. Did hair come in purple? Who knew anymore. It was going to be purple this time.

In his art class, Patton and the two other colorblind students were given passes on their art. And although he still tried to be accurate, sometimes he’d draw a red skinned person with blue hair and yellow eyes. The teacher told him it was okay, and Patton tried to believe it. He kept a smile on his face. He could be perfectly happy, even without color! He would get them back once he met his soulmate! Yes, Patton was still a bubbly bouncy fourth grader, just as he should be.

Roman… Roman O’Ryan was sick of hearing the same song over and over again. It seemed his soulmate favored playing one song on loop just to drive him crazy! However it was okay. It may be a weird song that he wouldn’t normally listen to, but Ro has memorized all the words. In fact, he memorized most of the songs his soulmate played. Although tastes seemed to shift around a lot. Once or twice he could have sworn that the songs overlapped as if more than one was playing at the same time. It was weird to think about. How could one soulmate listen to so much music!? Oh well. He’d deal with it later when they were able to meet.

It was nearly Romans tenth birthday, and he was really excited. He was a fifth grader at a school near the edge of town, and would be having the best party ever! His mother was bringing them all to a themed arcade for his double digits! Roman had been handing out invitations to anyone who looked like they were friendly, when he saw someone. The boy was covered in black swirls, like a pattern that the boy couldn’t memorize. As he moved forward towards him and held out an invitation, their eyes met. This boy had one green eye, and one that was a yellow tone. However both boys gasped when his left arm began to glow red and yellow through his clothes. Yes, this was interesting…

Declan was minding his own business. Honestly the sixth grader had been sulking about being in another new school. His parents moved frequently, which meant a lot of bouncing around schools. De had been rather annoyed, not looking very inviting when a boy stepped up to him. When he met the boys red eyes though, a warm pleasant heat began to swirl down his arm. De immediately looked at it, seeing a red filling up what had been a blank black flower, and yellows mixing together until there was a proper crown atop its petals. Both boys were utterly speechless.

What should they say first!? De took initiative and held out his hand, voice still a bit shaky from the shock of it all.

“Hey. I’m uh, Declan. Declan Shea.”

“Roman O’Ryan… Are you my soulmate?”

“No, my shoulder just flowed and colored itself in for no reason at all.”

He couldn’t help the sarcasm. De was a habitual liar, something that normally made people annoyed with him and got him in trouble. However Roman… He just laughed and grabbed De’s hand, pulling him up with a bright smile.

“Come with me! My mama is picking me up today! We’ve gotta show her this!”

Honestly Declan didn’t have it in him to object, a small half smile on his face as he was dragged along by a hyperactive boy.

Virgil was quiet. He had grown to be an average student, but he had a few problems. Mostly with anxiety when around other people. Due to that fact, he was homeschooled by his mother and father. Overall he was a happy boy though, learning to read and write at his level. However he excelled in science. More specifically, when it came to the human body. It was always fun to learn about it, and maybe then he would understand ‘Dark Blue.’ He had no names for the soulmates he knew existed, so he just called them after the color their words were written in. The dark blue one was written in long science speak, making it Virgil’s favorite to learn.

He would read all the phrases written on his body every day, smiling as each one was looked at. It was a bit anxiety inducing to think about how he had four soulmates waiting for him, and it was a lot of love to give, but he was still excited. Who wouldn’t be!? Although his favorite at the moment was the yellow one.

‘So you’re the little stormcloud!’

It was written across his neck, and he was happy to read it. In fact, it inspired the boy to learn to sew so he could put a storm cloud patch on his jacket. Maybe it would help his soulmate recognize him. Yes, maybe one day...

General Taglist: @midnight--fox @your-friendly-neighborhood-enby @heathers-dorkness-0923

Soulmarked Taglist: @fanartfunart

#ts patton #ts logan #Soulmarked #ts roman #ts deceit #ts virgil #ta fanfic #roceit #ts soulmate au

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designsfromtime · 5 years ago

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“Yes, you can afford one of my gowns! READ HOW!

“I cannot afford your gowns.” I hear this ALL the time. But what really frustrates me is that most of you don’t understand that a bargain is only a bargain if it is quality made. YES! You can have an amazing gown from me for around $800!

I sell mostly on Etsy, with the exception of cast mates who know my work, or some of my followers on Facebook, Tumblr, or Instagram, the majority of my sales go through Etsy.

There are hidden costs the average consumer doesn’t understand. First of all, Etsy takes about 20% or more out of each sale I make. That on top of the listing fees I have to pay, as well as the cost of having an upgraded store, and a website that is separate from my store. All those things add up. I also offer FREE shipping inside the US - - But I did NOT raise my prices to cover that expense. I do deduct it from my taxes as an expense, but the average cost to ship a gown First Class via USPS is about $45 to 50.

Most vendors on Etsy, Ebay, or even vendors at Renfaire buy bulk fabrics and crank out the same gown over, and over, and over ad naseum. However, all of my work is custom couture with MANY hand-sewn elements.

I charge by the piece. That means I charge for EVERY cut piece I physically sew together, and that includes the lining, and piping! If I charged by the hour, just a basic gown would retail for no less than $4,000 to $5,000.

Embroidery affects the cost of my work because it takes MORE time than the actual construction of our gowns, and beading and pearling or hand-tacking down trims takes even longer than embroidery. Again, In’t charge an hourly wage, but I charge by the stitch count of the embroidery pattern and a flat rate for beading and hand work - which usually is merely a pittance of what it should be because I WANT to make my work affordable while still being fairly compensated for my time and labor.

The average basic 16th Century court gown I make only runs about $800 to $900 for labor - - it’s all the embellishment that costs!

So, if you choose a gown with tabs around the bottom of the bodice and/or around the shoulders, or a sleeve that is paned, this is going to drive up my labor fees because we STILL charge by the piece. Those tabs are DETAILED ya’ll! They are piped, and lined and take a lot of labor on my part. But listen . . . we can customize a gown that is more basic and forego all the bling and STILL offer you something amazing. So don’t let the price of the gowns you see listed scare you! Before you go to another vendor and buy on the cheap, give me a chance!

Let me put it this way: You look at my work and you drool. You then look at the listed price and say, I can’t afford it, so you go to a vendor who is going to offer you a basic cut gown - that may not be an historically accurate style, or they use fabric they purchased in bulk, say a synthetic brocade. The brocade is more than HALF the design aesthetic for these bargain priced gowns! There is much MORE involved in creating a quality-made garment. So, why not choose a more affordable fabric and ask me to make you a basic gown!? Yes, you might pay $400+ more for one my basic gowns, but at least it will be made with my quality standards! - AND you only need a 20% deposit and can split the balance up into 6 payments.

Let’s do the math:

The following link takes you to one of my “basic” gowns.

https://www.etsy.com/listing/781566625/plus-sized-elizabethan-costume-bridal?ref=shop_home_active_6&frs=1

Here is the cost breakdown of this gown:

Specialized Supplies provided by DFT: $124.03 Embroidery Labor: $200 Gown Construction & Pattern Drafting Fees - $790 Beading Fees: $150

The basic gown, to include the specialized supplies I use for construction, is ONLY $914.03. It’s the embroidery and beading fees that up-ticks the labor costs.

20% Non-refundable deposit would be: $182.80

Balance due: $731.23

If you placed this gown on my six month payment plan your monthly installments would be $121.23.

NOW. . . that cost doesn’t include fabrics. So keep that in mind, but I can help you bargain shop for good quality textiles. You can peruse some gorgeous brocades and Jacquard fabrics on my Pinterest board. You will need about 8 yards of fabric for the skirt and bodice, 2.5 yards for the forepart, and another 1.5 yards for fitted sleeves.

https://www.pinterest.com/designsfromtime/costume-fabrics-common-supplies/brocades-jacquards/

Here’s another example using a gown made of brocade:

https://www.etsy.com/listing/620386905/womens-plus-sized-renaissance-dress?ref=shop_home_active_68&frs=1

Specialized Supplies provided by DFT: $109.99 Embroidery Labor: $350 Labor & Drafting fees - $740 Beading/Spangle Labor - $150

The basic gown is $849.99! I added piping in a complimentary olive green silk, gold trim which I beaded, and custom embroidered the sleeves and forepart, but you can use a different brocade pattern (such as a diamond shape) for the sleeves and forepart and still stay in budget.

The gowns in my store are priced for “style” and the level of “embellishment.” But if you take the time to read my cost breakdown I provide in each listing you can see the basic labor fees just for the gown construction.

Here is the bottom line:

You CAN use “fabrics” to provide a wow factor rather than the trims and embroidery I use to create a more budget friendly gown. No, they aren’t going to bring the BLING I am famous for, but a basic gown without tabs on the bottom of the bodice made up in a beautiful brocade, with minimal embellishment will allow you to purchase one of our quality made gowns.

If you have a properly constructed over skirt with meticulously placed cartridge pleats, bodices with built in under structure, lining added to overskirt fabrics so that these less expensive brocades “drape” properly, and finish the edges with hand-made piping, not only can we put you in a gown within your budget, BUT offer you a durable quality made gown that is gorgeously styled. The devil is in the details folks! And the details in our work is more than just the sparkly bits. It’s about quality of construction.

You can spend $300 to $400 for one of these “more affordable” gowns and then have to turn around and spend another $300 to $400 when the gown doesn’t hold up to the rigors of reenacting, or you can spend $800 to $900 in labor for one our gowns that will last you a minimum of 5 or 6 years - or more! . Most of the gowns selling for $300 to $400 that I’ve seen won’t last more than 2 seasons - if that - before they start falling apart. How do I know this? Because many of my cast mates bought these bargain priced gowns and they literally fell apart the first time they wore them. The longevity of the gown will be profoundly effected by the fabric you chose, as well as the quality of construction. If properly cared for, our gowns will last many, MANY seasons. If you don’t wad it up and throw it in a suitcase, as I’ve seen some people do with our work, they will retain their beauty and shape for years to come - and THAT my friends is a bargain.

HERE’S THE 411 OF WHAT SETS OUR WORK APART:

- Our Bodices are highly structured.

First of all, my bodices are custom drafted to fit your body. They are cut in a historically accurate pattern - rather than using a commercial pattern in a style that has no historical basis. I use imported products from the UK that aren’t available here in the States.

My bodices are MORE than just two pieces of fabric sewn together. Mine have multiple layers with built-in under structure hand-tailored into them. One layer, is a fusible cotton interlining to stabilize your fashion fabrics to add body. We also add a second layer of a product used to stiffen it (no, I’m not gonna tell ya what we use), PLUS we add an additional layer in front of a product that acts like buckram, which was used in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries to stiffen and add structure. I also add a few stays to keep the point at the bottom from flipping up when you sit. YES - You still have to wear stays with our gown bodices! Anyone who says otherwise doesn’t know what they’re talking about and needs to hit the books and do more research.

Some vendors DO add a layer of interfacing, but they tend to use a Pellon fusible interfacing like you can find at JoAnns. I have found this product to be inferior. First of all, it’s made out of petroleum and will hold in heat. Second, it doesn’t stay affixed in place to the fabric but will loosen and bunch up over a short period of time.

- Skirts that have ENOUGH fabric to properly cartridge pleat and drape.

My skirts are made with panels 55″ to 58″ wide. On average we use 4 panels, but this will depend on your fabric. Using four panels creates that beautiful volume you see in my gowns. You can tell when a seamstress has scrimped on fabric because the fabric doesn’t DRAPE but clings to the farthingale at the bottom. The fabric should NOT pull or look stretched.

I flat line ALL silks or faux silks so that they drape properly and have enough body to cartridge pleat. My cartridge pleats are no LESS than 3/8 inch in width. They are deep, copious, and neat in appearance. I reinforce them by hand tacking them together so that they won’t lose their shape over time.

- Grommets: I use a .000 size grommet and because our bodices are MORE than just two layers of fabric and a layer of Pellon fusible interfacing, our grommets DON’T pull away from the garment or fall out. I ALSO couch all the grommets to secure them in place.

I work with color: I use color theory based on your skin, hair, and eye color to choose colors that will be more flattering on you. I also use a color wheel for unique color combinations.

So, perhaps you cannot afford one of my highly embellished gowns with embroidered textiles and beading, but you CAN afford a basic gown that still offers quality construction.

Look, I’m not trying to corner the market. I have more work I can shake a stick at, but what drives me a little nuts is watching people spend their hard earned money on a sub-quality gown because they are convinced my work is out of their price range.

I die a little every time I get messages in my Etsy store wanting me to make them a hat or a headdress to wear with one of these bargain priced gowns. Inevitably, they send me pictures and I have to stuff a sock in my mouth to keep from saying, “WHYYYY???” I can’t tell them, “Hey, that gown you just bought from that particular vendor is gonna fall apart and you’ll be ordering another gown next season.” I have to keep my mouth shut, suck it up, and construct a headdresss or a hat wherein there will be a disparity in quality. In other words, there will be a difference in the quality of my work against the gown they’ll be wearing it with because most of these “bargain” gowns are painfully simplistic both in the style and in the construction. All I DARE to do is offer a politely worded, “When you’re gown shopping again, keep us in mind.” I did break my cardinal rule the other day when I was approached, once again, by a girl who was working with a vendor who I know falls in the category I just harped about and wanted to know my “thoughts.” Be warned. Never, ever ask me my thoughts or opinion unless you are ready for truth. I can’t help it! I have too much integrity to lie. The bad thing about being direct is that the written word doesn’t allow for my true intent and tone and I come off sounding like a b****. Sorry. :(

One thing that sets me a part as a professional designer is not just my experience, or my penchant for directness (which not everyone appreciates obviously), but having a very keen eye for detail, which is reflected in my craftsmanship. This ability has been honed over the course of 40 years and allows me to be able to edit work for quality with just a glance. That can be a double edge sword. On one hand, it drives my own efforts for quality, but can make me VERY unpopular if I point things out in others’ work. :(

I WISH there was enough of me to spread around and be able make ALL OF YOU a quality constructed gown, but time and age restricts how much we can crank out and maintain our quality standards. I also WISH I could teach other costumers the simple steps they can take to elevate their craftsmanship. But look, I’m pragmatic. What’s their motivation to do so if they stay busy cranking out hundreds of gowns for $400 a pop? Most aren’t interested in growing their skills, and believe me, they are NOT happy with me for pointing out the disparity between their work and mine. So, all I can do is educate consumers who want to develop an eye for quality and know the difference between a $400 gown and one that costs $900 or more.

Don't let the price of gowns in my store scare you. I can work with many budget levels to create high quality, historically accurate gowns that will be durable, fit you like a glove, and last you many, MANY seasons as a reenactor. As the director of a reenactment group, and a cast member at faire since 2001, I have a practical understanding of the unique needs of reenactors and offer costumes that will stand up to the rigors of reenacting - - and believe me they do take a beating. So keep me in mind when you are gown shopping again!

www.DesignsFromTime.com

#elizabethan dress #historicalclothing #historical costume #historical fashion #period costume #costume design

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chaoticbis · 4 years ago

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ranger sorter antics

basically a wordy list of all the “hard” pairings this thing gives me

tldr : cassie was #1, and that’s all you need to know.

im doing the ranger sorter and they’re making me choose between kelsey and lucas, which may not sound hard to y’all, but ohh boyy

(edit) these f**king choices man. now they want me to choose between kai and zhane????

(edit 2) how am i, a bisexual, supposed to choose between ryan and katie. i know this ain’t all about looks, but goddamn

(edit 3) THEY’RE MAKING ME CHOOSE BETWEEN ZIGGY AND ADAM, WHAT TF IS THIS???

(edit 4) i guess the characters cycle back through

(edit 5) okay i think i pressed “i like both” one too many times, and any who, they’re now making me choose between wes an dustin. i—

(edit 6) im 146 pairs in and only 28% done?

(edit 7) i guess this wouldn’t take as long if i didn’t overthink it, but also, theyre now making me choose between leo and chip

(edit 8) DUSTIN V. ZHANE?????

(edit 9) i just agonized over having to choose between antonio and rocky, and now it wants me to choose between antonio and tyler???

(edit 10) NOT CASSIE AND AISHA

(edit 11) okay ill prob stop after this bc i wsnt to finish and im not even half way there and i think people get the point, but HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO CHOOSE BETWEEN IVAN AND XANDER? HOW?

dustin or trent?

i was just going on in my head about how i don’t mind tommy, and this thing has the audacity to make bridge and rocky the next whatever. i hate it here.

ok i keep fucking up and choosing “i don’t know” or like the movie characters (i haven’t seen the movie in years)

and now i have to choose between cassie and xander

how does i dont know affect your score?

not my favorite green rangers. when will this be over

the f**king audacity of this sorter thingy

how tf am i supposed to choose anything anymore??

i have a math test i shoud’ve studied for, but instead im here, contemplating whether i like cassie or bridge more.

this thing just doesn’t know when to stop. does it

*smashes head against wall

mike or mike lol

wait a second. adam wasn’t a choice for anything, yet he’s in the top ten? not complaining, but wtf sorcery is this???

is there no way to save the results?

anyway, it was pretty accurate, but i still think i pressed idk too many times

i would share my results, but i don’t feel like getting cancelled (lol don’t @ me)

#pr

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deadanddeactivated · 5 years ago

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Matchmaker, Matchmaker, Put on Your Pants

Fandom: Sanders Sides Pairing: DLAMP Characters: Virgil, Deceit, Remus, Logan, Patton, Roman Notes: Day 12 of the fluffuary event being hosted by @tsshipmonth2020 - DLAMP. i am so far behind opps. Summary: Remus doesn't really mean to meet his brother's soulmates first. He just sort of does.

AO3

In a world of soulmates, Virgil sometimes wonders what end of the stick he got when words started appearing on his skin. They weren’t First Words or Love Words, static words that marked a special moment. Rather they were Written Words - the things that his soulmates had written on their skin. Or drawn. Or accidentally marked themselves with. Basically whatever ink spills onto his soulmates, leaks onto his.

Sometimes it’s nice, like the little ‘I love you’ that always appears in light blue pen at his wrist. Other times it’s annoying, like back when he was trying to figure out exactly how many soulmates he had.

The ink only remains on him as long as it remains on them. Which is why that ‘I love you’ is usually faded by the time he goes to bed but fresh in the morning. It’s also how he got a completely free and mostly painless tattoo of a yellow snake on his hip.

But there’s a thousand other connections Virgil could have developed, and sometimes that thought keeps him up at night.

A timer would have been interesting. An exact count of the seconds until he met his soulmate, or the moment he fell in love with them. It also would have been terrifying and a lot of pressure and Virgil’s really glad he didn’t get a timer.

First Words might have been nice. Solid words that didn’t change or fade. But then he ran the risk of having terrible first words, or gerentic ones. Sure, no one really greets strangers with a ‘hello’ for that exact reason but the risk is always there. And what if he misheard someone? Or if two people said his words? It all sounds like such a nightmare.

Virgil would just straight up hate having a first touch soulmark. He isn’t a touchy-feely type person, just brushing up against a stranger in the street leaves him wound tight all day. And what if that was how he and his soulmate touched? He’d never notice.

Of course there are also the invisible connections. Like Strings of Fate, or Guides. Then there were the colourblind soulmates. And the mental connections. Virgil’s pretty sure any type would make him nervous. It’d be too easy to ignore the strings and guide, to run away from who fate deems his match. Being colourblind doesn’t seem too bad, but Virgil would always be doubting if he had soulmates at all. Same if he had something like a soul song.

Besides, he’s seen Aunt Patty cornering his cousins with invisible connections before, grilling them for news way worse than everyone else. That is something he’d rather avoid, thank you very much.

So yeah, Virgil often wonders about the other connections. But usually he decides written words suit him just fine.

Usually.

“Oh come on.” Virgil complains when he steps out of the shower. Red’s got a moustache drawn across his face, which means Virgil has a moustache across his face. Virgil also has class today. Where people will see the moustache across his face. And stare.

“I so don’t need this today.” He grumbles. Unfortunately, there’s really no avoiding it. He can’t miss this class. Only hope his soulmate will rub the moustache off soon.

Another piece of ink catches his eye as he gets dressed. Light blue ink right beneath the usual ‘I love you’. ‘Sorry! It was a joke! -- thinks hes funny.’ One word, likely a name, is smudged and unreadable. Like names always are. Virgil isn’t sure if Light Blue doesn’t know those details wouldn’t show up or if they just never think about it.

What he does know is that Light Blue and Red have met, a few months ago at least. He figured it out when the usual ‘I love you’ appeared in red text on his other wrist, the handwriting matching Light Blue’s perfectly.

Virgil also knows that, despite Light Blue’s tendency to talk to him, none of his soulmates share his Written Words. Which is fine, it’s whatever. Most soulmates don’t share a connection.

He’s pretty sure Red can see strings, based on the rings they sometimes draw around the base of their fingers. Light Blue told him he has Love Words, one night long ago when he was wondering about a person he doesn’t know exists. Virgil has suspicions that Yellow is coloured, because sometimes they write the names of colours up their arms. To Virgil they’re all yellow, but he doubts that's accurate. Dark Blue is a mystery. If Virgil had to guess, he’d say Dark Blue has Timers because, very occasionally, Dark Blue writes numbers and dates that don’t quite match their usual science-math mumbo jumbo.

All of that is fine with Virgil.

Really.

“Put it out of your head Virgil.” He orders himself, huffing. Why is he so focused on his soulmates this morning? Does a stupid moustache prank really have him digging deep right now?

Or, a quiet and very honest voice says in the back of his head, maybe it’s because it’s your birthday. Which, Virgil knows, is much more likely. That doesn’t mean he wants to admit it.

So what if it’s his birthday? So what if he’s another year older and no closer to finding his soulmates?

So what if it’s another year he doesn’t even exist in their lives. Not really. Not the way they exist in his.

Because if he’s right about his soulmates, then they don’t have a changing connection like his. They have some flat, unchanging thing that doesn’t tell them anything.

But Virgil? Virgil already knows them. He knows that Red likes theatre, because they’re always writing down their lines or the dates of shows or the roles they want, sometimes later circling the ones they got. He also knows that Red always forgets the milk.

Then there’s Light Blue, who will write on his skin for hours because he doesn’t want Virgil to feel alone. Even though he doesn’t even know Virgil’s there, reading his every word. He also sounds like the sweetest person on Earth.

Yellow likes to draw. They also have a pet snake, and a pet rat. Virgil thinks they’re terrible with names too, because they like to write people's names only to give them little nicknames or descriptions.

Dark Blue probably writes the least, but when they write boy do they write. Virgil’s arms have been covered in various math formulas and half-finished thoughts. It’s like Dark Blue can’t find enough paper in the world to contain all the thoughts in their head.

That’s what his soulmates are to him. Full people that… well, that he’s sort of already fallen in love with.

It hurts to think they know nothing about him.

“Okay great, I guess we’re just having a bad day today.” Virgil huffs, fitting a scarf over his face in hopes it’ll cover the red moustache. It must have been drawn in some heavy duty stuff.

Great.

“Trying to look anime instead of emo today?” Virgil sighs as he falls into his seat, not even sure he wants to give Remus a response. No matter what he says, Remus is likely to make something of it and Virgil just isn’t sure he has the energy.

Of course, his friend is likely to make something of it even if he doesn’t say anything so…

“No.” He admits, pulling the scarf down to reveal the mark. “Apparently someone played a prank on Red this morning.” Remus gasps, then grins.

“Matchy!” He says.

“Sadly.” Virgil agrees, rolling his eyes and fixing his scarf back up. “Hopefully by tomorrow they’ll both be gone.” This time Remus’ gasp is more offended.

“Are you insulting my moustache good sir?” He demands.

“Always.” Virgil smirks.

“I’d throw my gauntlet at you but Roman refuses to give it back.” He claims.

“You’d duel me on my birthday?” Virgil asks, raising an eyebrow.

“Oh most certainly. It’s like birthday punches but with sharp pointy things!” Remus grins. “But, since it is your birthday…” Virgil’s amusement turns to caution at the look in Remus’ eye.

“Don’t make a big deal out of it.” He warns.

“I won’t, I won’t!” Remus assures, brushing him off. “I’m just saying you should come to my dorm later to get your present.”

“Isn’t that my present there?” Virgil asks, gesturing towards the lump on the desk, horribly wrapped in a mix of purple spider-themed paper (the spiders look self-drawn) and green octopus paper.

“Nop!” Remus claims, very concerning grin on his face. “This is something else!”

“Seriously?” Virgil sighs.

“As a heart-attack!” Remus grins, and then grins all the more as Virgil mutters about how that doesn’t work.

‘It’s ready!’ Virgil sighs at the message for the thousandth time, trying to pretend he wasn’t nervous. And excited. Nercited. Oh god, he’s been spending way too much time with Remus lately.

And he’s about to be spending more time with him too, because he’s just reached the door to Remus’ dorm and the mysterious birthday present beyond. Raising his hand to knock, telling himself he just wanted to get this over with, Virgil pauses right before his hand connects with the door.

“Remus, this is ridiculous!” An unfamiliar voice snaps from the other side of the door. Does Remus have guests? Although it could be Remus’ roommate, that guys so exlusive Virgil’s not convinced he exists. Should he still go in?

“Just trust me Ro, you’ll love this!” That’s Remus. What is he talking about? Surely it’s not… no, Remus wouldn’t be trying to play a prank of him. He’s better than that. Right?

“I don’t trust you.” Mysterious Person, possibly roommate, probably ‘Ro’, huffs.

“Oh come on Roman,” a new mysterious voice speaks up, “I’m sure it won’t be that bad.”

“The last time you said that I ended up with a moustache drawn on my face!”

What?

“Shush!” Remus shushes the other. “Shhhhhhhh!”

What?

Did, did Virgil hear that right? Surely he didn’t. Surely he misheard, or it was a coincedience or-

A ding sounds from his pocket as Virgil’s phone goes off. The door opens a second later, revealing a wide-eyed Virgil with his arms still raised to a pouting Remus.

“You heard, didn’t you?” He whines. “Roman you stole my thunder!”

“What?” Virgil finally manages to say it as Remus steps back, revealing the owners of the mysterious voices. Two men are standing side by side in the middle of the dorm, chests wrapped together with a mix of purple wrapping paper and green paper covered in octopus’. One has browny-blond hair and big blue eyes framed with glasses. He smiles at Virgil, seeming entirely unbothered by Remus’ sheddigans.

The other man is clearly the twin brother that Remus has mentioned having. They’re practically spitting images of each other, although this one looks more… well, less like a chaotic mess. He has his arms crossed and a moment ago he sounded very put upon. But now? Now he’s staring at Virgil like a deer in headlights.

A lot like Virgil is staring at the two of them really.

Surely these aren’t…

That can’t be possible, right?

But right under the twins nose is a somewhat smudged, slightly faded moustache. It’s drawn in a black marker but it other wise matches the red mark on Virgil’s face perfectly.

“Hi!” The blond greets, waving. “I’m Patton! You’re a friend of Remus’, right?”

“Um, hi?” Virgil manages, swallowing around the lump in his throat. If Remus’ twin is Red, and Virgil is starting to really think hope he is, would that mean Patton is Light Blue?

Holy shit was Virgil really… really staring at half his soulmates right now?

“He’s a friend of mine, but his much more to you.” Remus says, grinning ear to ear and wrapping and arm around Virgil’s shoulder. Still stunned, Virgil doesn’t even push him off.

“Huh?” Patton asks, tilting his head tiltly. In response, Roman holds up his hand and wiggles a finger. Virgil can just barely make out the purple ring at the base of the finger. “Oh my gosh, really?” He asks, hands raised to cover his gasp and growing smile.

“I uh, I think so.” Virgil says.

“Well I know so!” Remus grins. “I recongized that moustache immediantly, I mean I did draw the original. Aren’t I the best best friend? I got you your soulmates for your birthday! They’re even wrapped!”

Virgil takes a moment to let that sink in.

And then…

“You got me stuck with a moustache on my face!” He accuses, turning to glare at Remus.

“It was for a good cause!” Remus claims.

“Good cause my ass.” Roman huffs.

“This is so exciting!” Patton grins, bouncing and accidentally breaking the wrapping Remus had done, much to the mams dismay. Without the paper in the way, Patton quickly bounded over to grab Virgil’s arms. “What’s your name? What’s your soulmate connection? Wait, you were talking about the moustache does that mean you have Written Words? Oh my gosh that’s so exciting! Does that mean you got my words?” Words tumble out of his mouth so fast that it takes Virgil a moment to catch up.

“Uh,” he starts, “I’m Virgil. And uh, yeah. Um…” he trails off again, not quite sure what he’s meant to say. So instead he gently pulls his arm out of Patton’s hold, turning it over so he can see the words there. Words that Patton wrote. Every morning. Holy shit.

“Oh my gosh!!” Patton squealled, pulling Virgil closer to look at the words.

“Babe you’re overwhelming him.” Roman warns, having recovered a lot more completely than Virgil has.

“Oh please.” Remus says, leaning more completely on Virgil’s side. “I’m the most overwhelming person he knows.” This time Virgil has the sense of self to bump Remus off, although he has to do it with his shoulders since Patton still has his arms.

“That’s not a good thing.” He huffs.

“Ignore my brother.” Roman says, he taps Patton’s shoulder and Patton, begrudingly, steps away. Virgil’s arms don’t stay free for long, Roman taking his hand and bowing over it. “I am Roman Prince, I have been searching all my life for you Virgil. You are more beautiful than I ever dreamed.” He says, ending his little speech with a kiss to the back of Virgil’s hands.

“Uh,” is all Virgil can manage, his face flushed red.

“That was really good Ro! You didn’t even stutter this time!” Patton praises, making Roman’s face turn red as he stands back up.

“Patton! You’re not meant to tell him that!” He hisses. His face goes all the redder when Virgil laughs.

He knows these people, he suddenly remembers, he’s known them all his life. Red is just as dramatic in person, Light Blue just as sweet. Virgil never should have expected anything different. The thought calms him. Why was he so overwhelmed in the first place?

“I’ve been waiting all my life for you to find me, Roman Prince.” He teases, laughing again when Roman stutters. It reminds him of the grand declarations Red would write, the hearts he would draw, only to quickly scribble them out in embarrassment. It’s cute.

“Using our dorm for a party I see.” A new voice speaks up. “And blocking the doorway.”

“Hey De!” Remus grins. “Guys this is my roommate, I told you he was real!” The three soulmates look over, meeting the mysterious mans yellow eyes. Roman makes a strangled noise but Virgil doesn’t get time to think about that. He’s a bit distracted as De’s eyes roll into the back of his head and he stumbles.

“Shit.” Virgil curses, quickly stepping forward to catch the stranger.

“I’m fine.” De claims, eyes already blinking open again. “It was just… lots of colour, rather quickly.”

“Oh my gosh!” Patton grins, looking from the now yellow band on Roman’s wrist to the new comer.

“I am the bestest best friend and the bestest rommate!” Remus announces, cheering.

“Huh.” Is all Virgil can manage for the moment, staring at his soulmate as gets back on his feet.

He’ll never actually tell Remus this but… yeah, best birthday present ever.

“I am determined to find our last soulmate first.” Roman announces, slamming his lunch onto the table the others have claimed for lunch.

“I’m still reeling from the fact there’s only one.” De, actually Dante, says. It didn’t take long for him, and Virgil, to get used to Roman’s particular brand of dramatics. Or Patton’s practicular brand of ‘constantly, unintentionally adorable’.

“I’m sorry!” Virgil says for the thousandth time, although there’s no heat in it. “I can’t help my eye colour!”

“Colours.” Dante corrects. He’d been only a little put out when he realized Virgil had mismatching eyes, apparently he’d spent his life assuming he’d have five soulmates not four. That has been added to Virgil’s ‘con’ list for being colourblind.

The little messages his soulmates send him have been added to the ‘pro’ list for Written Words, not that he’ll say aloud how much he loves them.

“Why first?” Patton asks, because he’s a kind heart who will actually play along and not just tease Roman.

“Because Remus keeps meeting my soulmates first! He’s convinced he’ll meet our last soulmate first, and I won’t let him!” Roman explains.

“Well he does have a fairly good track record.” Virgil says.

“You meet Patton first at least.” Dante offers.

“No, I meet Remus first.” Patton admits.

“Patton was his favoruite barasita.” Roman says, like it’s some great tradegy.

“You know, it shocks me how good he is at finding soulmates. He couldn’t even find out classroom today.” Virgil says.

“Seriously?” Dante asks, smirking.

“Yep. Apparently he ended up in some science class and decided to just stick around. He made a friend though.” Virgil elbroates, pulling out the text messages they’d been sending earlier that day.

“Oh, maybe his friend is our soulmate!” Patton suggests, deaf to Roman’s dramatic ‘noooooo’. “He does write a lot of science-y things, right Virgil?”

“Lots of people do science-y things Patton.” Virgil points out.

“Still, maybe there’s a clue in the things he writes to you.” Dante says.

“He doesn’t write anything to me, he just writes on his arm.” Virgil argues.

“There has to be some sort of clue.” Roman claims, suddenly in good spirits again. “This could help us track him down, so we can meet him before Remus.”

“I hate to break it to you but any ‘clues’ would probably be smudged.” Virgil shrugs. “All I know is that he’s probably got a timer.”

“A timer?” Patton asks. “How can you tell?”

“Well it writes weird dates sometimes.” Virgil explains, lifting his sleeve to show the date on his shoulder. There’s a date about three weeks from now, which has be crossed out. “But it changes almost every time.”

“I hear that’s common with timers.” Roman says. “Apparently the timer changes when your fate changes, like you were meant to meet today but you missed your train and now your won’t meet for another three months.”

“Seriously?” Virgil frowns. “Okay that’s terrifying.”

“I like it.” Dante says. “Soulmates seem way too ‘free choice is a myth, our lifes are completely pre-determined’, you know?”

“Okay! Let’s not have another one of those talks! I need to sleep tonight!” Patton quickly shuts that down.

“Yes, let’s go back to talking about how we’re going to meet our soulmate before my brother!” Roman says. “If he’s crossed it out, does that mean that’s not the date anymore? What’s the new date?”

“How am I meant to know?” Virgil sighs.

“Hey guys!” Remus calls out. “Look I made a friend! His names Logan.” He gestures to the man beside him who suddenly raises a hand to his head, wincing.

“Go away Remus, I’m trying to organize how to meet my soulmate without you.” Roman says, back to his brother.

“Might be too late for that.” Dante warns.

“Seriously?” Virgil asks, looking from Dante’s smirk to the new comer. Roman turns to look, eyes glued to the end of a red string that no one else can see.

“Oh come on!” He exclaims, frowning.

“Four for four!” Roman cheers.

“Why does Remus keep meeting my soulmates first?!” Roman demands, standing from the table to glare at his brother, hands on his hips. For his part, Remus is finding quite a bit of amusement in his brothers annoyance.

“Oh last soulmate!!” Patton grins, jumping from the table to wrap his arms around Logan. “We found you!”

“Or Remus found you, he has a habit of that.” Virgil says.

“It’s a horrible cruelty of fate.” Roman huffs.

“Way not to be overwhelming everyone.” Dante comments, resting his cheek on his hands as he looks between Patton, Roman, and Logan. Virgil just watches Logan, seeing all the stages of surprise and confusion that he went through meeting Pat and Roman.

“Ah,” Logan finally manages to speak, “I was wondering why they suddenly all matched.”

“What luck!” Patton grins.

“Remus luck.” Virgil says.

“Stop giving Remus all the credit for my soulmates!” Roman snaps.

“We’re not just your soulmates.” Virgil argues, just to rile Roman up a bit more. As they bicker, Patton lets go of Logan and instead leads him to their table. It was a little cramped with just the first of them but they managed the six.

“They’re always like this.” Dante warns from his spot across from Logan.

“Don’t lump me in with them.” Virgil says, only to immediately return to his overplayed argument with Roman.

“Believe it or not, this is actually them giving you space. De almost passed out when he met everyone.” Remus faux whispers to Logan.

“It was because of the colour!” De claims, face turning red.

“Oh my god!” Patton exclaims, suddenly standing and looking mortified. “We didn’t do introductions!”

“I think,” Logan tells De, looking over the chaos, “I might not mind.”

“Yeah, they get you like that.” Dante sighs.

“Don’t let him follow you, he’s just as bad.” Virgil says.

“Oh so’s Logan, you guys just didn’t see him in class.” Remus grins.

“Falsehood!” Logan claims. Virgil can’t help but laugh, grinning as he feels something settling. They go through proper introductions. Roman goes last, giving his customary prince-y bow. And then getting flustered as Patton, Dante, and Virgil clap because they’d made a secret pact and they all agree Roman looks adorable flustered.

When Virgil goes home, he’ll fret that they scared Logan off. He’ll worry they were too much.

But tomorrow, Logan will join them for lunch once more. And the day after, and the day after. Then, when the semester ends and they have the time, they’ll all look for a place to live together.

And when Roman comes home, grumbling about how Remus found his own soulmates and Roman wasn’t at all involved, Logan will be there to chuckle about it.

All of them will be.

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