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k-pop-imagines · 5 years

Text

Aurora || Chapter 2

> Aurora Masterlist <

Pairing: Park Seonghwa x OC

Word Count: 2.6k

Warnings: none

A/N: This is probably the longest chapter of anything I have ever written, wow. Seonghwa makes his first appearance in this chapter, that’s all I’m going to say. I hope you enjoy! - Admin Soomi

° AUFREGUNG °

-> excitement, anxiety, commotion

When she woke up the next morning and took a look in the mirror, she could only sigh at her appearance. Her mother was only joking at dinner but after a night of restless sleep, the circles under Yeseul’s eyes seemed a lot more prominent than usual. She put on a light layer of casual makeup to hide the fatigue on her face.

Her mother had already left for work and even though it was very early in the morning, she had left her a reassuring note, a lunch box, and a small plate of fresh pancakes on the kitchen table. She hadn’t eaten those in ages! Her father used to make them every Sunday but after moving to Seoul, eating pancakes became nothing more than a pleasant memory. Yeseul dug in and despite her stomach demonstrating a little because of her nervousness, she tried to enjoy her special breakfast as much as she could. They were different than the ones they ate in Germany, but she appreciated that her mother had taken the time to prepare them for her.

After finishing her meal and once more making sure that she looked presentable, she went on her way to the agency. Lucky for her, the building was only a few subway stops away from her home so it took her about 20 minutes to reach her destination. The first thing she noticed, was the 7/11 on the ground floor next to the agency’s entrance. That would surely prove to be convenient.

Yeseul hesitated at the door that would lead her to KQ Entertainment. First, her excitement and anxiety were fairly well balanced, but within a few seconds, the latter doubled and overpowered her. This was her dream but all the doubts and worries she had managed to push away last night, came crashing down on her again. She closed her eyes for a second and took a deep breath. Before she could let her thoughts get the better of her, she pressed the doorbell. No turning back now.

“Hello?” “Uhh, hello. I’m Hwang Yeseul and I have an appointment for 8 am.” God, why did that sound she was here to see a doctor? Stop overthinking, she quickly reprimanded herself. “Ah, yes! Come up please.”

The door buzzed and she hesitantly entered the building. The stairway she found herself in was bright, mostly white and grey but a few potted plants made sure it didn’t look too sterile. She walked up to the 3rd floor where she was greeted by a man who introduced himself as Kang Haejun, the same person she had talked to on the phone last night. He was a head taller than her, a bit chubby and addressed her with a warm smile that reached his eyes. “Welcome, I’m glad to see you! Please follow me, the CEO is ready to talk to you.”

Yeseul followed him through the office. She politely greeted a few people but didn’t have a lot of time to look around. The place wasn’t very big but she assumed they occupied more than this one floor as she hadn’t seen any practice rooms or studios yet. At the far end of a corridor, Mr. Kang knocked on a door and sent her inside after getting a short “Come in.” from the other side.

She carefully entered what she realized to be the CEO’s office and closed the door behind her.

A man behind the desk stood up and motioned for her to sit down. As soon as she took her seat opposite him, she suddenly felt very vulnerable. The CEO seemed like a friendly man but he was still the person who would be in charge of her future, whose hands she’d be putting her career in.

“I’m Kim Gyuwook and as you’ve already heard, we want you to train under our agency. I’ve got the contract prepared but I’d like to discuss the conditions and rules with you beforehand. It’s also very important to me that I get to know my trainees a little before I allow them to start training. So, I have a few questions.” Yeseul nodded shyly and he continued. “Don’t be nervous, though, I won’t interrogate you.”

He pulled out a piece of paper which she recognized to be the profile she had sent in with her application.

“Your profile says you speak English, German, and Korean fluently.” “Yes. I grew up bilingual, my mother is Korean and my father German. I also started learning English at a very young age.” "Do you speak any other languages?” “I learned French in school but I don’t speak it too well anymore. I forgot everything except for the basics after graduating, to be honest.”

The CEO let out a small laugh. “I feel like that’s a common theme for French learners somehow.”

He took a few notes before going on.

“Are you working right now or studying at university?”

“I currently work part-time at a convenience store. I already talked to the owner and I can schedule my shifts in a way that they wouldn’t coincide with practice hours.”

“That’s good. Now, why exactly do you want to become a trainee, or rather, an idol?”

She knew that question would be asked eventually and she had thought about how she would answer countless times before. “Back when I lived in Germany, I discovered K-Pop when I was going through kind of a rough patch. The music helped me become a happier person again and inspired me to become a singer. I want to stand on stage and give the same kind of encouragement and motivation to other people.”

“I’m sure you’re aware that this won’t be easy. You might not actually debut anytime soon. In fact, there’s a chance you might never debut. It all depends on you and your determination.”

“I’m willing to go through it and take the risks if it means I get to do what I love and dream of.”

“Very well.” He gave her a satisfied smile and moved on.

“It’s not a secret that all entertainment companies have a variety of rules for their trainees to follow and we are of course no exception. They are all mentioned in the contract but I would like to go over them with you so that there won’t be any misunderstandings.” Mr. Kim handed her a list of regulations and explained each of them thoroughly.

Yeseul was allowed to have a cellphone but usage during classes and schedules was not permitted. She was also not allowed to post on social media from now on.

Trainees were not allowed to date at all and artists had a dating ban until two years after their debut.

However, they didn’t care too much about keeping their male and female trainees apart, unlike other companies she heard of that wouldn’t even let them be in the same room together. “You know, how it works. If you forbid them, they will try to meet in secret all the more. There’s nothing wrong with making friends but if we do notice anyone getting too distracted though, we will take appropriate measures”, he explained.

No smoking, drinking, or taking drugs. That one was fairly obvious.

The part she was wondering about the most was the weight regulations. “There will be weekly weigh-ins. There is a weight range stated in your contract that you should stay in. We expect our trainees to be able to take care of appropriate calorie intake and healthy workout on their own. Unless you exceed that range or fall below it, we won’t be regulating your diet or putting you on a work-out routine.”

She considered that a fair amount of freedom.

Yeseul also had the choice to move into a dorm with some of the other female trainees but she decided not to as she didn’t live too far away from the company anyway.

“Now, let’s talk about your training schedule. I don’t think I need to tell you that your vocals are great. There’s always room for improvement but you already have a good technique and stability.” Yeseul had taken singing lessons for a few years and actually felt fairly confident when it came to that. She dreaded what she knew was coming next, though.

“However, your dancing is lacking.” She looked away in embarrassment. She had made sure to practice and learn a few basics before auditioning but she was well aware that she was definitely not very talented.

“There’s potential, don’t worry. It’s nothing our dance teachers can’t fix. Some of our trainees started out way worse and managed to become decent dancers. You’ll just have to practice a lot more than others. Which is why you will also be taking more dance classes than singing classes to get you on one level with the others.”

That made sense. “In addition to that, you will also be taking Japanese, acting, and modeling classes. Evaluations are once a week, every Saturday, and you will be recording demos in the studio every second week. Lessons in general start at 2pm every day as most of the trainees still go to school in the morning but you can practice on your own at every time of the day. Sundays are off.”

He slid her a piece of paper with her schedule. Today, she would have vocal lessons at 2pm and dance lessons from 4pm to 8pm but as there were evaluations, she would only be watching and starting the real training on Monday.

“Be aware that if you don’t meet our expectations during evaluations or break any of the rules, the contract will be terminated.”

She voiced her understanding and after a few more questions from the CEO, he handed her the contract and showed her where to sign. She read through everything twice as he watched patiently, then signed, ready to start this new part of her life.

It was almost 10am when Kim Gyuwook dismissed her from his office with a handshake and wished her good luck. She still had a few hours until vocal lessons were supposed to start so she contemplated going home and taking a nap when Kang Haejun walked up to her offered her a tour around the agency. She gratefully agreed.

He showed her around the office first, introducing her to a few people she would regularly be working with personally. Everyone was busy but still found the time to give her at least a friendly smile or wave. Just like she expected, KQ Entertainment occupied multiple levels of the building. The 3rd consisted of the office and various meeting rooms. He then led her down to the 2nd floor where the practice rooms and studios were located. She couldn’t take a look inside any of the rooms yet as almost all of the trainees were busy practicing for the evaluations but she made a mental note on where she would find the rooms later. There was also a small kitchen and break rooms with sofas on both of the floors. While showing her around, Mr. Kang also answered any other questions she had.

He told her that they were currently training a total of 7 trainees including her. They had about 12 male trainees but apparently, eight of them were already training separately as they would be debuting as a group sometime in the second half of the year. He also let her know that she was actually one of the oldest trainees, being born in August of 1998. It made her worry a little. She knew that most trainees started their training at a way younger age. She was 19 years old now, could that be considered too old already? Would it lower her chances of debuting? She decided not to worry too much. If she was too old they wouldn’t have accepted her in the first place.

After the tour, more detailed explanations and an extensive Q&A session it was almost 12pm. She felt a little bad for taking up Mr. Kang’s time but he reassured her that it was actually his job to introduce the new trainees to everything and make sure they felt comfortable. He also gave her his number and told her to contact her if she had any more questions or worries before returning to his office.

It didn’t make sense for Yeseul to go home before practice anymore. She remembered the lunch box her mother had packed her but decided to save it for later as she didn’t really feel like eating because of her nervousness. Still, she should eat at least something small, so she decided to head down to the convenience store to get a snack, something to reward herself taking this important step and to maybe even calm her nerves a little.

The young woman headed downstairs into the 7/11, where was greeted by a friendly, elderly man. She bowed with a smile before she started browsing.

As she walked through the narrow aisle, looking for an appropriate snack to celebrate today’s events, a group of boys entered the store. “We should get some chips for later!” “Aren’t you on a diet?” “Hyung, don’t be like that! I’ll just work out extra hard next week.”

She scanned the shelves and couldn’t help but quietly snicker at their bickering. She looked over at them for a second, counting three young men. Yeseul didn’t pay them too much attention, even though they were hard to ignore, and instead continued her search. Just as she was about to grab a chocolate bar, her eyes landed on the freezer. It was February, still cold outside, and she had just been told about the weight regulations. Was it really appropriate to buy ice cream now? Yes, it is, Yeseul decided. It was one of her comfort foods so she shrugged, opened the door of the freezer and reached up. Whoever had put her favorite ice cream on the highest shelf surely must hold a personal vendetta against her. She wasn’t tiny, only a few centimeters under average height but this was troublesome. Just as her fingertips brushed against the plastic packaging, a figure next to her reached out and handed the sweet treat to her. Yeseul’s face lit up in excitement and she quickly bowed to the kind stranger. “Thank you so much!” When she looked up, she was met with the shyly smiling face of a man around her age, part of the group who had caused the commotion. He seemed quieter than the other two though, who she could still hear arguing over which snacks to get.

“It’s not a problem. Is Melona your favorite?” His was voice soothing and hinting curiosity even though he was nervously rubbing his neck. She nodded eagerly in response. “Yes! It’s the best thing to eat when you want to celebrate, even when it’s cold outside…” She mentally scolded herself for rambling. She couldn’t help it, the sudden inquiry surprised her. Not that she minded, he seemed friendly and wasn’t overbearing at all. Yeseul could see he was about to ask what exactly she was celebrating but his two friends interrupted him.

“Seonghwa-hyung, I will buy these chips now and you can’t stop me.” One of them said as he headed to the counter to pay. The other one motioned for your savior to come over as they were getting ready to head out. The stranger, apparently named Seonghwa, gave you an apologetic smile, you bowed and wished each other a good day before he left with his friends.

Could it be that they were trainees as well? All three of them looked awfully handsome, they talked about dieting and working out, and went shopping right at this store. The fact that they were also dressed in sports clothes led her to make that assumption. At the same time, it could have just been a coincidence. At the latest, she’d find out if she ran into them at the agency.

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rigelmejo · 4 years

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i really do mean this, if you’re a native english speaker and you’re the type to try being a polyglot, or you just would like to learn multiple languages, and ESPECIALLY if French is a language you want to learn:

it really IS one of the easier ‘commonly studied’ languages for a native english speaker to learn. (Theoretically, Spanish is too, so you may consider that instead if it’s the language you really want to learn).

A couple years ago, I took a french class in college. I took it because in high school I’d tried to take classes and/or study the following languages independently: Spanish (1 class, learned nothing), German (2 years of classes, learned some verbs and standard conjugations, basically learned A1 kind of stuff), Chinese (1 year learning the basics and the teacher was great but I promptly forgot almost all of it), Japanese (independent study, I learned the kana and some simple words). I basically learned nothing significant - not enough to USE any of the languages in the ways I wanted to even minimally use them. I figured I was bad at learning languages.

So in college, I picked a french class to explore 2 things: 1. To see if I could even learn a language at all, by trying again with a new language I had absolutely zero experience with. 2. Because I liked the idea of studying languages, and wanted to see if I got to choose to study it on purpose if I’d do better (compared to many college classes I was required to take and hated, compared to language classes being required therefore ‘disliked’ by me in high school).

So mainly, I picked French because I had no experience studying it and thought it would be a good test of if I could learn anything substantial. I had some reasons for learning French, but none really motivated me: I figured since I live by Canada French might be useful, I figured if I ever work for the UN I could use French as one of my languages for it. So basically, the usual ‘not passionate’ reasons.

Now I do actually think passion helped me to actually learn French. So I encourage you, whatever language you are studying, to find something in that language or to do with that language that drives you and makes you passionately CARE. For me, I found a couple books. I was in a thrift store, and found 2 French graded readers from the 1930s. One was a French history book, and I found it fascinating that it was how French people from the 1930s viewed their culture and history. The other book contained letters from a 19 year old french schoolteacher as her life was more and more effected by world war 2 ramping up and then eventually occurring and changing her life. I am very interested in history, and I am even MORE personally interested in how specific people view their positions within their own perspectives. Because every person’s perspective is different - how a French person from the 1930s views their country is different than how a French person in 2020 probably would, and how we see WW2 is very different than that 19 year old woman in France in the 1930s saw it starting in her own world.

She wrote that she was shocked and impressed America had elected its first congresswoman, when in France women had no voting rights yet - and those small lines changed my whole view of what her life must’ve been like! Along with just... the idea this girl younger than me, a 19 year old, was a teacher of a classroom writing to another girl teacher at University of Michigan! For some people these details might be boring, but to me they reveal so much about what life might have been seen as back then, in those places in those perspectives. Those books are what made me WANT to learn french, CARE about learning French, get MOTIVATED to learn. For me, wanting to read French perspectives in their own language, directly from the source, is what made me care about French. I definitely think if you are studying a language (or probably anything), you will have an easier time if you can find something to care about and motivate you to study and improve. As a bonus, this interest driving your passion can help you come up with tangible actual goals you wish to accomplish.

For example, the goal of ‘I want to be fluent in French/German/whatever’ is fine. But how do you test that? With a CEFR test? I hope so, or something like that, or else you might struggle to come up with a real goal to aim toward. If you’re learning for a test, like a certificate that will allow you to work in a certain country - well that’s a real goal to envision and that you can plan for, and that goal can motivate you. But if it’s just ‘learn to C1 level fluency’ but you don’t ever plan anything measurable or tangible, how will you know you’re making progress? Get specific. If your goal is ‘fluency’ and it’s not for a test/certificate, then what do you want to DO with fluency? Talk to native speakers? Read books? Write articles in the language for a company? Translate? Travel to a location and speak with the locals about their city and culture? Decide. Decide what you want to do with that language. That’s where you’ll find your passion. That’s also where you’ll be able to figure out what real goals you’re aiming for.

For me, the real goal was “I want to read these books.” That allowed me to realize I needed plans to improve my reading ability - plans to learn words, study grammar, learn the most common words, etc. And allowed me to study according to my needs for my goals. I really suggest finding your passion, then making goals and study plans from there.

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Okay, back to: why French is a good language to try learning, if you planned to study it anyway, and aren’t sure how to learn a language (at least in my experience).

French REALLY IS a ton like english. I can’t stress that enough. It has a huge number of cognates and that’s really the biggest reason French is approachable. So many words, at least written, look so similar to english you can guess them. The grammar is a bit different, but it is generally pretty regular so if you study it then it will be manageable. The grammar is also, while a bit different, very understandable from an english native perspective. Even when it’s different, it usually makes sense to a native english speaker. And - in reverse - if you speak French and mess up and use English grammar patterns instead of the correct french ones, often you’ll still at least be understood. The pronunciation is also quite regular and once you get used to it, sounding out new words is pretty easy (I had to learn some Russian at one point in my life and... French pronunciation/listening is such a cakewalk compared to Russian...)

When studying a language, you need a study plan. If its your first time making one, you’ll likely run into a lot of suggestions on the ‘best approach’ and a lot of different methods you can use. Look into them, try them out, and when you find what works for you, be CONSISTENT and stick with it. French is a nice language to do this experimenting on study approaches, because improvement is generally quite rapid when you find an approach that works for you. (Compared to a language very different from English - for example, it took me 2-3 months to start reading French articles online and French books and at least comprehending short sentences and skimming for some main points in simple texts like news articles/informational books. Japanese, it took me 6 months to be able to look at titles and short tweets and do the same thing, and 1 year to be able to look at simple comics aimed for preteens-teens and be able to skim those comics for main ideas - I still can’t approach an actual news article in japanese!). So a language like French, or anything more similar to English, is going to allow you to see if your study plan is working FASTER. Especially if it’s your first time trying to learn a language.

I have found, that a lot of the techniques I use to study Japanese and Chinese, I actually used successfully with French first. So now, even though my progress is much slower when I use them for Japanese and Chinese, I already know that I DO know how to do those study approaches and I DO know they give me progress over time.

One technique is to ‘switch to monolingual engagement with a language as soon as possible.’ With Japanese or Chinese, as you can imagine, it takes longer to attempt to do this because learning to read in these languages is difficult. With French? What I had to do to make this leap was: learn basic past/present/future tense (just look up “French Grammar Guide” on google and read a free one), look up a 500 most common word list (also easy to find on google), study those for a few months. Once I did that, I could start reading French materials and just occasionally looking up new words that kept appearing and confusing me. At that point, I still occasionally relied on bilingual dictionaries and grammar books. So at about month 6, I looked up French grammar guides IN FRENCH. Then I just started reading them, and that’s how I learned a lot of my more advanced grammar in French. At that point, I just continued reading french/watching french, studying French grammar in French. I still occassionally use bilingual word lookups for frustrating new unfamiliar words, but mostly I’m so lazy I prefer to guess the meaning from the context of the sentences. And if I wanted to, I know enough words to just switch to a monolingual dictionary. After about 1 year, I got comfortable enough that I can navigate french sites, french wikipedia, french books, relatively fine. I’ve had my Google account set to French since probably month 3, and so all my computers and devices always give french sites/results first, french wikipedia, french definitions, so I just got more comfortable with french over time. If I had to compare it to my english, my French now at about 2 years (only the first year actively ‘studying’ in the sense of reading vocab lists and grammar guides), is a reading level around where I was at age 12-13. Enough that I can pick up whatever and read it, its just that more complicated reading material may be a bit of a slog (like adult level fictional novels). I started practicing from month 2-3 with instructive non-fiction books, so my reading level for history books and linguistic/science books in French is a bit higher. Basically, it took me 2 years to get to where I wanted to be in French (which is incredible to me!). And when I did it, part of my study plan ended up resembling the method of ‘switching to monolingual engagement of the language’ quite a lot. My experience studying french showed me that, yes, it does work. And its very helpful for me as a study method, since I learn most happily when learning from monolingual context in the media I’m consuming.

I am well aware of where I fall short in French - listening (and pronunciation as a result of that), and writing. I can write, but the active vocabulary I can recall is very low since I haven’t spoken/written in a while and it takes a few hours of me ‘warming up’ to remember how to say the words I can read. I can write, but the grammar I can write is much WORSE than what I can read, since I didn’t do grammar drills and NEED TO eventually when improving my writing becomes a goal. Reading was always the goal, so reading is the main thing I studied for. I can text/write with french speakers, but I’m not grammatically smooth. My listening is weak, because again - I rarely practiced, it was not a goal of mine. I didn’t care about French videos or audio content, or speaking to french speakers. If that’s a goal I desire, I’ll study for it and work on those areas.

If using any kinds of study methods, I do think French is similar enough to English, that you will notice in a reasonable amount of time if your method is working for you and giving you progress. If it is, be consistent. There’s good weeks, and bad weeks where you’ll feel lost and incompetent.

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When studying Japanese I noticed, on a much longer timeline, similar progress being made from similar methods I used. Japanese had some unique challenges for me - the biggest simply being that I have to work harder to memorize new words since they’re not cognates to english like much of French’s vocabulary is. But my methods do work for me. So if you plan to study multiple languages, from my experience... French is definitely a good ‘testing waters.’

I had to crash learn some Russian to talk to some Russian people in my life for a while, and read Russian texts etc. And the study methods and goal setting skills I picked up when studying French helped me with that too.

My basic plan was:

1. Figure out your specific goals, plan accordingly. If you don’t care about learning certain areas within speaking, listening, reading, writing - then don’t make them the priority. If you do consider some or all of these areas priorities, then make specific plans for studying each area. 2. My goals have generally always included being able to read. So the following has always helped greatly:

look up the 300-1000 most common words in the language. These are the most important vocabulary to focus on learning first. The tumblr 300 word list, and the 625 word list floating around online, are my favorite starting places. Some nice lists on Memrise of common words are also good starting places. I can learn other additional words I look up, but these common words will help me improve fastest so they’re my priority.

look up “Language X Grammar Guide.” There are free ones for pretty much any language. Find one for the language I’m studying, and focus on the basic grammar points first - specifically verb and adjective conjugations, particles if the language has any (or that thing Russian has going on etc), genders, and simple ways the language does past/present/future tense. Basically, try to read the basic grammar points first, then also skim or read over more complicated grammar points as desired just to get an overview of things I’ll eventually want to notice later. My goal here is to get used to the patterns of the language, so when I look at sentences FULL of unknown words, I can at least try to identify which words are verbs/adjectives/nouns and other kinds of words that help explain what’s going on (like/the/and/or/for/to/with/’s). The quicker I can recognize at least the basics of what’s going on in sentences, the quicker I can figure out where words end in languages with no spaces between words. The quicker I can figure out which words are vital to the understanding of some sentences (if you know which words are nouns, and are reading News, then locating verbs helps next - to figure out whats Happening to the nouns). Knowing all this helps me prioritize which words I’ll NEED to look up when I’m trying to understand native content without me looking up every single word. Also, if writing/speaking is one of my goals, it helps me quickly learn some BASIC ways to express myself (simple past/present/future tense so I can communicate any idea basically with the help of a dictionary if i need to use a new word).

After that, make engaging with native content regularly a priority. If I want to learn to read, then make myself try to read native content as practice, and use graded readers as stepping stones etc. If listening is a priority, engage with listening materials regularly (and shadow what I hear, if I want to practice pronunciation). Basically - whatever your eventual usage goal is, regularly attempt to do it NOW (even though you aren’t fully capable yet). You will learn a little more each time, and improve specifically in that area you’re aiming to be able to eventually do. And you will have a nice gauge on your progress and what areas you’re falling short and need to adjust your study plan for. With French - from months 2-3 I started reading native content. It was a SLOG to read news articles and wikipedia. Eventually that was okay, but it was still a SLOG to read my own graded readers! Eventually I got decent, but it was still a SLOG to read french fanfictions! Eventually, that got decent, but it was still a SLOG to read french fiction novels for adults. Etc. I improved, but I didn’t start out perfectly able to do it - and I didn’t WAIT until I could do it, to start TRYING to do it. A lot of my improvement in reading... came from me practicing reading, looking up words over time until I learned them, until I got good enough to learn words from context, and still SLOGGING. But I wanted to read, so I kept trying to do it. I improved. It works that way with listening too, etc.

Finally, figure out what areas are not progressing toward my goal, and come up with additional study plans for those specific areas. If I need more grammar help or to do writing drills to improve my writing, maybe I need a textbook. If I want to speak to native speakers, maybe I need to find a group/people to speak to. If my listening comprehension is atrocious but its a GOAL, maybe I need to add listening study materials like podcasts/audio lessons/LISTEN to all new words when I look them up and add audio to my study flashcards. If I need to learn more words, maybe its time for me to update the vocabulary lists I’m using, maybe use SRS flashcards, Memrise, etc.

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A lot of that study plan I came up with for French, I ended up using when I started learning Chinese. And overall, it’s been a huge help. It’s still mostly what I stuck to. Hanzi and lack of cognates, mean that I do a lot more vocabulary flashcard grinding in the ‘knowing absolutely zero words’ stage. But the overall study plan is the same.

One thing I DID start doing for chinese, that I didn’t do before for other languages, was LISTENING from day one. I listened to Chinese shows, chinese youtube videos, chinese songs, and when I looked up most new words I looked up audio too. It wasn’t a goal for French so I don’t care too much that I never did it. But I can definitely say it helped me learn Chinese a lot EASIER than if I wasn’t doing it. I have a much better sense of listening to chinese and guessing the spelling, than I do for French. I have a much better ability to hear a word, and recognize it later when reading. Vice versa, in Chinese I’m much better at only reading a word and guessing its pronunciation based on pinyin, and it being close enough that when i HEAR a new word later I recognize it as one I’ve already read. These are simple skills but they’re super underdeveloped in my French - I struggle to do all these things in French. Now, my Chinese tone production is kind of shit - mostly because I need to do more tone drills, need to practice FULL SENTENCES more. But at least I can listen/read and link those two things in my head, and recognize them. I am certain it’s because I actively listened to Chinese from day 1 of learning, and kept doing so.

I also think, at least with chinese, the chinese subtitles that chinese content tends to have is immensely helpful. Seeing chinese subtitles especially in the early stages of study, helped me link the new sounds and words to the characters. And since I studied a grammar guide early on, seeing the chinese subtitles helps me make out the separation of words I hear, and helps me figure out which words I’m hearing are adjectives/nouns/verbs/grammar constructions etc. And, because I’m lazy, I’ll say that the DUAL english/chinese subtitles also helped me a fair bit. Again, because they helped me link the chinese sounds to the characters to the english words. When I knew no words, to even now that I know 1000+ solidly, they help me to learn new words constantly. In the very beginning, they helped a lot with me learning words/phrases that mean a few different things/have different nuance than in english. Like ‘ba le’ ‘suan le’ ‘xiang’ ‘kankan’ ‘meishi’ ‘meiguanshi’ ‘danxin’ ‘ni fangxin’ ‘bubi’ ‘xiaoxin’ ‘xing le’ ‘mingbai’ ‘dong’... just, so many super common words that have a few different english translations depending on the context of a situation and the translator’s choices.

If I go back to French and try to improve my listening comprehension, I’ll definitely be doing all these methods with French.

#rant #language learning

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dreamgloe · 5 years

Note

vanilla, letters & melt

prompt: vanilla, letters & melt (this prompt list here)

words: 4.56k

warnings: fluff, slightest bit of angst

notes: so this is really late but….better late than never, right? I’ll just keep it in the valentine’s day theme. ;) despite how long this took, i’m so happy to be writing some cute namjoon while writing some angsty namjoon (his chapter in ‘half of my heart’ has put me T H R O U G H I T)

tags: @joonieblossoms

mini playlist: fools by troye sivan | call your girlfriend (robyn cover) by clara mae | sponge by clay best friend by ikon

-x-

There were only two sounds in your apartment. One was the loud crashing noises of the Netflix romcom you’d decided to play with a hard press of your forefinger. Afterwards, you tossed the remote to the floor, not caring where it landed. The second was the scraping of your spoon against the paper carton of Tahitian Vanilla ice cream from your favorite neighborhood spot.

You told yourself that you hated this holiday, that it was a consumerist weapon holding people hostage in the name of love. If anyone asked you, you were boycotting and Galentine’s Day was the only holiday worth celebrating. Celebrating womanhood with your girl friends with copious amounts of sparkling rosé was the only draw to this time of the year.

However, that was a damn lie.

Not only were most of your friends in relationships, you actually loved Valentine’s Day. Well, you did. You loved the idea when you were in a relationship, which you had been in until about a month ago. It wasn’t as if you were certain that Choi Sungwoo was the one for you but you did spent the better part of eight months committed to him, his work functions–which you hated–and to trying your best to not demolish his ass in Overwatch every time you played with him. He was funny when he wasn’t trying to be and he was never ashamed to hold your hand in public. The sex was great, you knew there were no complaints in that department.

But…obviously something wasn’t working for him when he told you that it was over. He admitted that there was someone else. He said that he had feelings for someone at his work and he didn’t want to continue to lead you on if he was interested in someone else. He also said he wanted a chance with this person. He didn’t want any “what ifs.”. You couldn’t hate him for being honest but you hated him on principle anyway.

He wasn’t even a coward, you thought to yourself, stabbing your spoon back into the ice cream. You paused, looking into the carton. It was missing something, and with that thought you walked to grab the chocolate syrup out of the fridge, the kind that hardened on top of ice cream. Flipping the cap and squeezing it all over the ice cream, you only stopped when the top was almost completely covered. Flipping the cap back into place, you didn’t even bother to put it back in the fridge.

You just didn’t care.

It was at that moment that you were glad your roommate, Namjoon, wasn’t back. To be honest, you weren’t even sure what he was doing. You were just happy that he wasn’t home to watch the sad scene of a gross ice cream concoction and some pretty abhorrent Netflix romantic comedies.

He’d also broken up with his girlfriend around five months ago but he’d been dating his girlfriend as long as you’d known him which was a little over two years. If it was a competition, you knew he’d won hands down. You liked her too and were sad for him when she dumped him.

And that was pretty big of you, too, because when you first met Namjoon, you might have had a teensy crush on him. Teensy being an understatement. Who wouldn’t? He was smart, kind, tall, and had one of the best smiles you’d ever seen in your life. But the two of you quickly fell into a friendship, one that you’d rather die than ever mess up.

Knowing he was sad, you did everything you could to cheer him up. Museum dates, pounds and pounds of barbeque. You even went with him to see all those foreign films he liked even though you hated them. You should have better taste, having studied French Literature. You met Namjoon in a Modern French Philosophy class for crying out loud! However, you’d always been a sucker for girl gang movies and romantic comedies. But…you couldn’t bear the crestfallen looks across your roommate’s face so you did your best to cheer him up even if it meant sitting through a handful of painful German films.

At the time, you couldn’t bring yourself to pry into why she broke up with him. He’d tell you if he wanted to. That’s what you told yourself. Namjoon had been busy the last month but he tried desperately to be there for you as well. He watched a handful of dramas and even the latest season of Alexa & Katie with you on Netflix. Two things he hated and he did them for you. For that, you were grateful but it didn’t stop you from shovelling your way through the pint of ice cream in front of you, knowing full well you had two more in the freezer.

Obviously, you couldn’t help but soften at the thought of Namjoon holding your hand and giving you tissues as you cried your eyes out watching fucking Alexa & Katie, a show aimed at middle school girls. He wasn’t the best roommate in the world but he was definitely one of the best friends you have ever been lucky enough to have.

Why did your bout of loneliness have to bubble up on a day that was both the epitome and antithesis of loneliness, though? Couldn’t the universe give you a fucking break? You were still holding the carton of ice cream in your condensation covered hands, spoon in mouth, feet up on the coffee table when Namjoon walked in. You’d been so absorbed in your ice cream that your surprise caused the metal spoon to clack against your teeth harshly, causing you to spasm. “Ow,” you said, more to yourself, “Goddamnit!”

“Oh…hey Y/N,” he said, lugging his messenger bag off his shoulder and then onto the ground as he approached the edge of the couch. You sighed loudly, putting the spoon into the carton and placing the whole thing on the table. “Namjoon….” you said, a hint of whine, “don’t just…er….enter the apartment like that. Nearly gave me a heart attack.”

“So sorry, Y/N. Next time I won’t exist in my own apartment,” he said sarcastically, crossing his arms while looking at you, not being able to help the small smile that spread across his face.

“Thank you,” you say, “I’d appreciate it.” You said it seriously but you couldn’t help the smile that eventually followed too. You played with the blanket it across your lap, smoothing it out. You didn’t expect him to be home. But honestly, where would he be? Both of you were single on Valentine’s Day. You should have thought of that. It had been months since either of you had been relationships, where would you both be going?

There was a moment before you spoke. “Care to join me?” you said, motioning to the nest of blankets, dvds, snacks, and strangely, more than one Apple TV remote. He heaved a heavy sigh before he kicked his shoes off and said, “If we’re doing this, I’m getting the wine.” After grabbing a bottle of red and two glasses, he finally sat down on the couch with a big plop, getting under the blanket with you. He poured you a glass, handing it to you now that you no longer were holding the tub of ice cream. The two of you did a cheers and he leaned back into the couch, hi shoulder touching yours.

He let you finish off the romcom you were watching before the two of your poured over old DVD’s. He’d convinced you to settle on Notting Hill, claiming it was one of the best romantic comedies of all time. You argued and said it was borderline boring, to which Namjoon just scoffed. However, you did your best to conceal the tears you were crying towards the end. Namjoon decided not to rub it in your face because you looked so sad. Soon enough, you found your hand in his. His was warm and it only made you cry more. “Hey…” he said softly, pulling some tissues from his pocket.

You were crying and it wasn’t just the movie. You were sad and lonely as hard as that was to admit to yourself. You missed sharing something with someone, you missed holding hands like Namjoon was currently holding your’s, you even missed playing damn Overwatch. You thought yourself a very independent person and you hated yourself for crying because you were alone on Valentine’s Day. The thought itself drew a choked sob out of you and with your free hand, you furiously wiped at your face.

Taking the tissues, you sloppily dabbed at your face, warm with tears and more than two glasses of red wine. “I’m literally the most pathetic person on planet Earth right now,” you said between sobs, “You don’t have to hold my hand, Namjoon. Thank you, but you don’t have to.” You waited for him to drop it but he only interlaces his fingers into yours more tightly. You looked up at him as he started to speak again. “I want to, Y/N,” he said, taking a deep breath, “What’s this about? What’s going on?” You couldn’t even be annoyed with him because he looked so concerned.

You gave yourself a few moments to breathe before you answer him. “It’s just….I don’t know if I miss Sungwoo or…” you said, trailing off.

“Or what….?” Namjoon asked in a concerned voice.

“Or if I’m just hopeless, awkward, and desperate for love!!!” you exclaimed dramatically. It only took Namjoon a second to get the FRIENDS reference. He laughed, intertwining his fingers with yours. The two of you still couldn’t get enough of syndicated FRIENDS reruns on basic cable.

He leaned his shoulder into yours as you took a deep breath. “But in all seriousness,” you continued, “I know it sounds dumb…but…it’s so nice to be liked, to be wanted or needed or whatever…” You looked down at your lap, blinking your eyes a few times.

“I get that,” he said softly, lukewarm fingers now starting to just slightly condensate in your grasp. Namjoon was rarely this affectionate towards anyone. However, in the last month, the two of you had spent a plethora of your time that you were not working on your dissertations, with each other. At your behest, a lot of it in front of the television with junk food, which contrasted to the time after his breakup. But you two had different tastes.

You liked sitting shoulder to shoulder with Namjoon on the couch, crying your eyes out to preteen multicam comedies on Netflix. But you weren’t sure why he’d put up with you. You just came to assume it was because he was concerned after your break up with Sungwoo.

“Ugh, sorry,” you say, shaking your head, trying to shake out of it, “Do you want to pick the next movie? I’ll even watch that Hebrew movie you were talking about? Fill the Void?” You paused for a second before continuing, “That’s the one about arranged marriage right?”

“The young woman married her sister’s widower,” he said, correcting you. You nodded and the two of you settled into the couch to finish the shitty romantic comedy you were watching. When you finished, the two of you had polished off the vanilla ice cream. You took the empty carton, grabbing your second tub and bringing it as Namjoon was loading up the foreign film. Taking another deep breath, you sat down next to him.

The film was slow but stunning and you couldn’t help but getting wrapped up into it along Namjoon. Shoulders still pressed together, you felt your eyes well up unblinkingly at the emotional scenes laying before you. In a lull, you couldn’t help but speak. “Maybe I should just have my family match me up like Shira,” you said, “Easy, relatively painless, percentage chance of heartbreak significantly lowered right?”

You were just bullshitting at this point, working your way through your second glass of wine, using the last tissue from Namjoon’s pocket to dab at some of the drink dripping from your chin. You were reaching the climax in your rant when Namjoon interrupted you. “Just stop, Y/N, okay?” he said, grabbing your shoulders, only shaking you slightly, “One day, a guy is going to be so lucky that you’ve let him be part of your life. Stop beating yourself up about it. It’s a dumb holiday. You are so very much worthy of love. Trust me, I know. So shut up and let’s finish the damn movie.”

He turns away from you and back to the tv, but you can’t help but stare at his profile. Serious and hellbent on concentrating on the subtitled movie. You eyed him suspiciously. “What do you mean ‘I know?”

He let out a large breath through his nose. “Fine,” he said, getting up, “I guess I’m doing this.” You watched him as got up, leaving you alone on the coach, and made his way down the hall in the direction of his bedroom. Less than a minute later, he came back with a stack of letters rubber banded together. “Happy Valentine’s Day, Y/N,” he said, as if he was annoyed.

As you started to ask, he pushed them into your hands. “Just read, don’t talk, okay?” he said, more forceful than you’d really ever seen him before. This time, however, he sat on one of the bar stools a handful of feet away as you slowly undid the two skinny rubber bands.

“Okay,” you said resolutely, as you carefully pried open the first envelope. It had been dated around five or so months ago, in Namjoon’s skinny, clear handwriting. You started reading, feeling your face crease.

Y/N, I took some time before writing this because that’s what you do when someone who has been a fixture in your life, no longer is. By the time I started this, I told you that Chaeha and I broke up. Chaeha told me that she knew my heart wasn’t with her anymore. What’s worse is that she wasn’t even mad. I denied it to her, told her that I only loved her, but she knew better. I don’t know when it all started but…I’m pretty sure you’ve always been more than a friend to me. Two weeks to come to terms with the fact that she was right.

That was only the first letter. There were definitely more than ten letters in the pile and one by one, you opened them. He had written to you once a week since his breakup with Chaeha. A few of the letters were just Namjoon talking about his day, a short trip he took with his parents, the weekend getaway you took with your mutual friends. However, they all revolved around thoughts of you, even if you weren’t present at the time.

You could feel your eyes and face soften. On one hand, it was all too much and the other, not nearly enough. As you picked up the latest one, dated two days ago, you couldn’t help but look over at Namjoon sitting on the stool by the counter. He looked at you as if to encourage you to keep reading but there was something in his eyes that didn’t want yours to leave either. Always an eloquent speaker, his letters spoke volumes beyond what he could physically say.

February 12th, 2019, February 12th, 2019. Two days ago.

I’m sure if you ever read these, Y/N, you’ll have figured it out quickly by this one. You’re so smart and that’s probably one of reasons we get along so well, why that Modern French Philosophy class was the best class I��ve ever taken at this place. Probably one of the reasons why Chaeha and I ended, even. The day I wrote about in the first letter, Chaeha told me it was you. I didn’t completely admit to myself but I’ve had five months to think about us and I can now confirm. I can confirm my feelings. I still am not sure when it all happened but it did. I fell in love with you along the way of our friendship.

Your eyes scanned the rest of the letter, trying to absorb all the information thoroughly but as quickly as possible. You finished, and turned to look at Namjoon over the couch. Your eyes growing softer, wider, and a bit wetter.

Knowing what was going on but not really knowing how to comprehend, your words faltered in your mouth. “What is–? Why–? Really–?” you said, only being able to form a few short, questioning words. You were emotional and a little buzzed already and now ….you were pretty sure your best friend was telling you that he broke up with his girlfriend five months ago because he was in love with you.

Snapping your head towards the kitchen to look at him, you were sure that you probably looked pretty lost. The expression on his face was serious but not hard, his chin between his forefinger and thumb. You wanted to move, to be able to look him closely in the eyes as if that act could provide you with answers. To be honest, you were overwhelmed and for a moment you thought you might just burst into tears. Where was all of this coming from?

The only thing you could do was hold up the stack of haphazardly opened letters. Not as in “I want to give these back” kind of way but in a way that says “I want to talk about these but my mouth and brain aren’t making the connection with one another.” He sloughs out of his chair and rejoins you back on the couch. You turn to him sideways, one knee up on the couch. You jester to him with the envelopes on your hands but a tight grip on them. A grip that might imply you don’t want to let them go, that if you do…what you just read will disappear.

“I know,” he says, “I know…it’s a lot, but it’s not–” He looks into your watery eyes and you can just tell he wants to stay more, that he probably has this eloquent speech or explanation planned out. He always knows what to say to you, what to say to other people. Where you were often speechless and stuck in your own head, he had a way with words that rivaled many heads of state.

You sighed and swallowed. “Tell me, then,” you manage to say, not quite knowing what is possessing you, “tell me what these letters haven’t.” Your knee brushed Namjoon’s thigh when you readjusted yourself next to him, placing the stack of letters on top of where your leg brushed his. You tried to remain as calm as possible for him, so that you could listen to him, but you were shaking. You couldn’t help it and you did your best to conceal that fact, by holding your arms to yourself, even though you didn’t want to look as if you were closed off from the conversation.

Once he started, you could only listen. The way he put into words possibly years of feelings…your heart was fit to burst. He’d been your friend for so long and you had built a relationship on being friends and roommates that you were more than satisfied with. Well, at least…that’s what you thought until the one person it also included flipped your world upside down with his confession.

“…You know I loved Chaeha. I was with her for half a decade,” he said, almost as if he was pleading. You nodded because it was true. He loved Chaeha. You loved her too…obviously not in that way but you’d grown close to her in the past two plus years of being Namjoon’s friend. She’d never…she’d never even given off any vibes that she didn’t like you, that she didn’t trust you, or that her boyfriend of five years might possibly be in love with another woman aka you. That thought hurt you too.

“I know, Namjoon,” you said, “I know you loved her so much. But why? When? How? I–I’m sorry. I’m not the articulate one in this friendship.” You held onto your own fingers so tightly, you knew there might be the possibility that they might bruise.

“I don’t know when it happened but here I am, fucking hopeless and in love with my best friend. Those five months taught me that Chaeha was right and that…she was right to dump me. I couldn’t continue to be in a relationship with her–even if I really cared about her because at the back of my mind, I was always thinking about you.” he said, finally shifting to face you, taking your shaking hands in each of his.

Never thought you’d see your best friend’s gaze falter, never thought he’d ever be at a loss. His hands were as warm as they were before but they felt different. This is what you were afraid of. Things changing between you. That’s why….whatever “little” crush you had on him when you first met, you pushed it aside. There was never going to be a way that you’d let Kim Namjoon slip away from your life. You had always recognized that you found him attractive but he was Namjoon, the PhD candidate with cartoon character pyjama pants and the guy who you’d let in the bathroom while you were in the shower so he could pee.

He still liked you after that and it confused you even more. “Not to sound like a broken record, but why me? What is it about me?” you asked. You were genuinely curious and confused. You weren’t a mess, per say, but you and Namjoon shared every streaming service and refused to purchase cable tv because you were on a budget. Chaeha had been beautiful, smart, and a fantastic career and life going for her. Why was your roommate looking at you like you held the fucking universe? Why was he taking a step closer to you right now? Why were his eyes bigger and glassier than you’d ever seen them before?

Why was it that when he squeezed your hands in his and he finally looked at you in the eyes, you could feel all the confusing puzzle pieces finally fall into place? Could he see the light bulb go off in your brain?

“What isn’t it about you?” he said, suddenly smiling more brightly than he had since he walked through the door, “One, you’re my best friend. Two, without you I would starve. Three, I realized you have always made my heart do this.” He took one of the hands he was holding and put it on his heart. It was beating rather fast. You could feel your fingers press into the shirt covering his chest, looking for some kind of anchor to keep you on this earth. Now that the two of you were closer, you could feel the light breeze of his wine breath on your face.

Of your own accord, you moved the hand on his chest to the juncture of his neck and shoulder in attempt to not pull him to you but still bring him closer. The only sound you could hear was the foreign film in the background and the sound of your own ragged breath. “What are you thinking?” he asks so quietly, that if it wasn’t silent, you wouldn’t have been able to catch it.

“It’s just that…the feelings I have…I have…I have pressed them so far down because of how much our friendship means to me, how much you mean to me…that I’m just trying to wrap my head around this,” you rambled. Your thumb rubbed at his jaw, reveling in the warmth and softness of his skin there. “Did you know…that I had a crush on you when we first became friends?” you said, not being able to help but chuckle at yourself a little.

“No,” he said, looking down at you.

“But you were with Chaeha and you two were really cute and I wanted to be your friend so bad that I–” you said but in a fast moment, were cut off by Namjoon’s lips against yours. You wanted to cry because you’d thought about it more than you wanted to admit. Repressing your crush on Namjoon was now going to take its toll in the form of big soppy tears that were pooling in your tear ducts.

Pressing your finger into his jaw, you used your hand to bring him closer, a sob stuck in your throat. You used a little more momentum than you had thought to and Namjoon ended up half on top of you as you fell back into the large, squishy couch cushion. His hands were soon around your waist and your arms slipped around his shoulders.

After coming up for air, you managed to get out “Sorry, I’m all emotional. This is all so good but a little much. I just…you overwhelm me…in a good way.” You tacked that bit on at the end because it was true. The very thought and feel of him right now consumed you.

“Please don’t feel pressured to say or do anything you don’t want to,” he said earnestly, “That’s the last thing I want to happen. Your friendship, regardless of this, means everything to me.” You smile, bringing his lips back to you. When you pressed him even closer to you, Namjoon eagerly maneuvered so that you were underneath him on the couch. His fingers brushed your bare sides while yours dipped under the collar of his t-shirt.

He melded to you like you had been there all along.

“I said it earlier but…Happy Valentine’s Day, Y/N,” he said, that big, happy doofy smile blooming across his face.

“You too, Joon,” you said, biting your bottom lip before pulling him in closer. The two of you remained tangled up together for several more minutes until eventually, you ended up on top of Namjoon. When you finally separated, the movie was over and you decided to clear up all your mess on the coffee table except for the wine.

As you reached for the tub of ice cream in order to take it to kitchen, you peered inside only to be disappointed. “Goddamnit, the ice cream melted!” you said annoyedly. But before you could walk to throw it in the trash can, a pair of arms looped around your middle as a chin pressed into your shoulder.

“So did I,” Namjoon said into your ear. You couldn’t help but chortle at the cheesy line. As cheesy as it was, it was still lovely. You wrapped your arms around his and leaned back into him as you help the condensation covered melted tub of ice cream. When his lips reached behind your ear, you leaned forward to place the tub on a surface, not wanting it all over the carpet.

Smiling at that moment, you promised yourself to never call Valentine’s Day a consumerist holiday ever again.

#hyunglinenetwork #btswritingcafe #namjoon x reader #bts fluff #bts angst #bts scenarios #bts fanfiction #namjoon fanfic #bts fanfic #kim namjoon #namjoon #namjoon fluff #namjoon angst #bts #bangtan #joonieblossoms #palepinksuga: writings #writings #fic: drabble

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sandfordsmostwanted · 5 years

Text

Trans Emmett Forrest Headcanons

(Hey, these are some of my trans Emmett Forrest headcanons that I wanted to get down. I’m new to researching trans issues so if anything in here is inaccurate or harmful, don’t hesitate to let me know and I’ll amend it accordingly!)

Emmett knew he was different from the other kids in his class, but didn’t realise he was trans until he was about 10/11. Initially, the idea terrified him; all the male role models in his life had been scumbags or wastes of space, and he didn’t want to be anything like them. He buried himself in his work to keep from thinking about it, and as he researched more and more, he found himself being drawn to trans and LGBT topics. The idea of it became less scary, and he started dressing differently. What little pocket money he was given was saved up for buying more masculine clothing that made him feel like his true self. His mom, busy with night school and work, didn’t question it.

Emmett comes out to his mom about being trans a few weeks before applying to Harvard: he wants college to be a fresh start, and to allow him to start living at the person he has wanted to be for years. He’s ridiculously nervous, but his mom assures him that she will love him no matter what. The revelation isn’t quite what Emmett’s mom was expecting – she was expecting Emmett to come out as gay rather than trans – but she shows him just as much love and acceptance as she would have done otherwise.

Her only sadness is that Emmett had been keeping this inside for so long, and she apologises for any influence she or her boyfriends have had in forcing him to stay closeted. That apology is what sends Emmett over the edge, and both he and his mom have a good cry.

Emmett’s mom has a massive influence over helping Emmett choose his new name: he values her opinion, and it helps them feel close. Emmett was originally named after a relative, but no male names in his family appeal. Instead, he chooses Emmett as a variation of his dead name, and it still allows his mom to call him “Em”, her chosen nickname since his birth.

“Emmett” also has a range of meanings for Emmett himself. He takes strength from the fact that it links to the Hebrew word for truth, something he strives for constantly. He also likes its Germanic links to the word “universal”; as an advocate for equal rights, he likes that he can represent that in his name. Additionally, as an enormous sci-fi fan, he gets no end of satisfaction about being named after Doc Brown from Back to the Future.

Being uncertain about his gender identity stopped Emmett having a bat/bar mitzvah at the traditional age; he wasn’t sure which one he wanted, and besides, his mom didn’t have the money for such a lavish event and he wasn’t close enough with his relatives to warrant one anyway.

Emmett does however choose to have a bar mitzvah at 30 – during that time, he’s reconnecting with his faith, and becoming more comfortable with his gender, and it just feels like the right time.

Transitioning at Harvard is difficult – not more so than Emmett expected, but it’s certainly not easy. He is frequently misgendered by students and staff alike (Callahan is particularly bad for this, often misgendering Emmett on purpose to undermine him) despite wearing a “he/him” pin most days. He learns to keep to himself and works his way to the top of the class without joining any study groups – not that he was invited to any anyway. It’s lonely, and exhausting, but it pays off when he gets Callahan’s internship and sails through the rest of law school. Eventually, he’s so successful that they have to start taking him seriously.

As a consequence of his hard work, Emmett is the first trans editor of the Harvard Law review, and the first trans valedictorian. Later in life, he is one of the first trans professors at Harvard Law.

Emmett specialises in family law – he doesn’t want anyone to go through the horrors he experienced as a kid, and especially wants to make sure all kids have a safe and loving family. Trans folks (especially kids) are obviously one of his priorities; he’ll often take their cases for free, just to ensure they get decent legal representation. He also specialises in divorce and domestic abuse cases, as he wants to support people like his mom. His favourite cases by far are adoptions though; when they go well (and they often do in Emmett’s hands, because he fights damn hard to make sure no-one gets left behind) they light him up for weeks at a time.

Emmett doesn’t start taking hormones for his transition until after he meets Elle – they’re expensive and difficult to get hold of without insurance, and all of his money is either going to living costs (rent, food, bills) or into a savings account to buy his mom’s dream house. Instead, he binds and takes strong enough birth control to stop menstruation almost permanently. He struggles with dysphoria but hides it as much as he can, using baggy clothing as a defence mechanism.

Elle finds out Emmett is trans entirely by accident. He’d been intending to tell her for several months, but with law school being so busy, it never felt like the right time. They’re studying together one night and Emmett had been particularly grouchy that day. Midway through a playful argument, Emmett had stood to collect a book from a higher shelf, and Elle had noticed a bloodstain on the back of his jeans. She quickly puts the dots together and gives Emmett her (his technically) hoodie to hide the blood whilst walking him back to her room to clean up and get the necessary supplies. Emmett is mortified, and upset, but Elle reassures him that this doesn’t change anything about their friendship and that she still adores him. When he still seems nervous, she introduces him to her secret Milky Way stash, which makes him smile.

Emmett is exhausted by the whole ordeal and stays the night; usually, he would sleep on the floor when crashing at Elle’s place, but she won’t hear of it when he mentions how bad his cramps get. The next morning, he wakes up to find Elle sat at her desk, surrounded by bright pink documents. Apparently, Delta Nu has a wide array of resources for trans members, and Elle had stayed up all night studying them all to learn about trans life, and how to support her friend. Seeing her, bright and chipper as she researches, is the first moment Emmett realises he might be in love with her.

Emmett was worried that, after coming out, Elle would be less comfortable with physical affection, but if anything, she gets cuddlier. She grabs his shoulders when excited, playfully swats him during arguments, and wraps herself around him in increasingly frequent hugs. He adores them; they make him feel safe and confident and warm. If they hold for slightly longer than just friends, it’s just because Elle is such a damn good hugger, right?

And then she buys him the suit and good God, he feels like his heart is going to explode. Wearing clothes that fit, having her look at him as if he’s something worth seeing, feeling good about his body after so so long: it’s overwhelming. So yes, he does go in for a kiss when she wraps her arms around him; he’s not sure if it’s romantic or just exuberant, but he goes for it, because he adores the woman in front of him, and wants to let her know. When they settle into a hug, he’s a little shocked, but he doesn’t appreciate it any less. It still remains one of his happiest memories.

Emmett would be reluctant to admit it, but the Wyndam trial terrifies him. Not only is it his first case as co-counsel, but the eyes of the world are watching, judging. Elle grabs his hand the first time they walk into court together, and he can feel the butterflies in his stomach take flight. It’s that feeling – plus his new confidence and his complete belief that Elle is onto something – that enables him to confront Nikos about his boyfriend. Showing off his ass was a bit of a cheap move, but it worked, and he swears he saw Elle blushing when he turned back around. Serves her right for that bend and snap – he could barely keep himself from jumping up with Warner and Enid when she’d demonstrated it.

The next few days are a whirl – they’re riding high on Emmett and Elle’s success at court, then Callahan ruins everything, and he can feel Elle slipping through his fingers. He panics – he’s already lost so many people, but this one hurts more than anything, like he’s being stabbed over and over again. He feels his throat close up every time he thinks of her leaving, and the words don’t come out until her door is shut and she’s out of reach. He buries himself in research that night – anything to help her stay, and to keep the case going even without her. He doesn’t sleep but doesn’t drink Red Bull to stay up; his heart is already hammering, and besides it reminds him of her too much. So he’s late to court next morning and he feels like he’s running through treacle without her. And yet there she is, shining in her pink glory, and he wants to scoop her up in his arms and never let her go.

But they’ve got a case to win first, and he settles for whispering in her ear. They do it easily – Elle really is a genius and she’s come so far. When they win, he can hold her, he can finally hold her. Warner comes and goes, his proposal rejected before Emmett can really get worried. Elle finds him soon enough after, slipping her arm around his waist and pulling him close. They smile for the cameras, but when they look at each other, both grins get a tiny bit bigger.

Eventually they wind up back at Elle’s place, sprawled across her bed. They’re both too exhausted to do much more than hold hands, but it’s the most comfortable Emmett has ever felt, and when Elle eventually sits up enough to pull him into a kiss, it’s perfect.

After the Wyndam case, Elle and Emmett discuss what they plan to do with their share of the legal fees. Elle, not needing the money, uses her share to buy Emmett a year’s supply of hormones to help start his transition.

During the early stages of his transition, Emmett experiences really bad acne and gets self-conscious about it; he worries that clients won’t take him seriously if he looks like he just walked out of high school. Luckily, Elle is on hand and her expert knowledge of skin care helps soothe the problem, and the acne fades much faster than expected.

Emmett also gets self-conscious about his weight during his transition; he isn’t particularly overweight, but the redistribution of fat leads to him having a little tummy, which when combined with his wider hips and fuller thighs, make him look heavier than he used to. Elle thinks it’s adorable, but understands his concerns, and helps him dress in a way that makes him feel comfortable, but still shows off his body rather than hiding it.

Emmett’s voice takes a long time to settle when cracking. It seems to get worse when he’s nervous, which is an extra stress when trying to take on difficult court cases. Once, during a particularly gruelling trial, he loses his voice completely, and had to pass the case onto Enid while he went home to recover. Luckily, Vivienne points him to an excellent voice therapist, who helps him both lower and take care of his voice.

As much as Emmett loves his suits, he hates wearing ties, especially when he’s binding. He finds the combination too constricting, and so pulls his tie off whenever possible. High-stress or pressure situations are the main culprit, but it will always be the first item of clothing he removes after work.

Emmett is not a particularly tall guy, and as a consequence, Elle in her higher heels can often end up a few inches taller than him. When they first start dating, Elle abandons these shoes; as much as she adores them, she doesn’t want him to feel self-conscious. When he finds this out, he tells her not to worry; he’ll stand on a box – he’ll stand on a hundred boxes – if that’s what it makes to make her feel beautiful.

Emmett never planned to have top surgery: he viewed it as an unnecessary expense, and finds binding to help ease his dysphoria enough to function. But after repeated chest infections and increasing back pain from overbinding, as well as a sudden self-consciousness when he turns to wearing more tailored clothing, he admits that it is more of a necessity than he thought. He gets his surgery six months before he and Elle are due to get married, and though he takes longer to recover from the process than anticipated (he keeps attempting to work too early, and only worsens his condition), he is a lot more confident, and feels genuinely attractive on his wedding day. Elle makes her agreement very apparent later that night.

#emmett is my soft trans jewish chubby son and you can't change my mind #emmett forrest #elle woods #Legally Blonde #legally blonde the musical #vivienne kensington #enid hoops #warner huntington iii #trans #trans character

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kerriescreativecorner · 6 years

Text

the Angel's Dark Side

Warning NSFW and 18 or over content it also has doming undertones and some S&M so if that is not your cup of tea then don't read

what if the sweet Angel Mitsunari hand a darker side today I give you a nice story showing perhaps Mitsunari’s dark hidden side. as always I hope you all do enjoy it thank you for stopping by and reading

Daisy hand just rushed the last of the patrons out the door of the library. It was a small town no more than 865 people live there and on days like today, only 5 people hand found their way to the towns treasure-trove of books. As she locked the front door she sighed softly to herself and thought

“Not many books to reshelve today. “ she had spoken out loud her tough without even know it.

“Hmm what was that” came clam even words from the reading corner at the back of the library and to her right

Daisy almost jumped out of her skin wan she heard the voice

“Mitsunari “ she stated softly “I see you are in your favorite spot ”

“Mm I been here all afternoon watching you “ there was a dark sensual glint to his amethyst eyes as he spoke the words

Daisy nibble on her lower lip she knew that look in his eyes all to well. Oh if only the world outside the two of them know about this sweet angles darker side then perhaps they would look at him differently than they do.

Mitsunari Ishida for what the world knew about him was the even-toned sometimes soft spoke pacifist. He was smart he held several degrees in several fields. Currently, he was teaching law classes at the University of Idaho alongside Nobunaga and Ieyasu. So Daisy was surprised to see him here of all days.

“I thought you hand classes and a study hall today Mitsunari,” she said without missing a beat or showing she hand caught the look in his eye.

Mitsunari smirked at her knowing she was just bating him, Boy he loved it wan she played this game with him, it always made things more interesting as well as unpriceable. And if there was one thing he didn’t like it was unpriceable and mild manner Daisy was a wild card he never knew what to expect with her.

Like him, her outward apprentices was of a sweet mild-mannered Librarian. She was smart like he was she hand degrees in creative writing. English Lit, and book restoration, as well as she, spoke Japanese, French, German, and Gaelic fluently.

She was soft spoken most of the time but she had her moments where she could be like her twin sister May. Outspoken and blunt to a fault but unlike her twin, she delivered it in a way that sounded sweet and kind not blunt and bitch like May was. But both twins shared one more thing in common that's how he found out about Daisy kinks, May was an open book Daisy she was a true hidden treasure he had to plunder and did quite often. one would never guess by looking at her, that like him she delights in some of the things one would read in fifty shades of gray and the books that followed after that one. Yes, Daisy and May might look like a carbon copy of one another but that's as far as it went. Daisy had class and heald herself as a lady at all times and that's what he loved about her.

As he thought about all of this Mitsunari watched Daisy reshelve the few books that had been returned. He knew full and well he had yet to answer her question about why he was not teaching this afternoon and he let it hang in the air unanswered.

Daisy turned to look at him the library’s control and catalog tablet in her hand. She was just about to dim the lights and arm the security system when he took it from her.

His purple hues scanned the tablet and he pressed the iCone that opened up the library's security, lighting and windows control system.

“ I didn’t install this state of the art window, lighting and security, system in my library for it not to be used, “ he said the words as the windows from the outside tinted so that no one could see in but anyone in the library could still see outside.

Daisy arched a brow at him a knowingly lovely smirk on her lips

“Why Mr. Ishida I use theme all the time wan I close the library down for the night “ she chided back at him her tone playful with that hint of her naughty side showing through.

As she had said the words she had plucked the tablet back from his hands and started to saunter off to the library’s check out and returns counter. She even threw an alluring look at him from over her shoulder as she spoke.

The counter sat at the center back of the library and one could look out and see all but one corner of the library and that corner was Mitsunari’s. And wan he was in it he had the full view of the short stacks of books and shelves. Daisy turned her head to that part of the library her lips pressing to gather. And Oh how they puckered into a full plump lip pout that always brought Mitsunari to his knees wan he saw it. Softly he cursed to himself if he didn’t take control over her soon he have to become the brat tamer not his favorite thing to do or at least not what he was thinking for today.

Mitsunari’s footsteps were silent as he moved, he watched Dazy stop and freeze in her tracks. Once she caught him on the prowl, Oh and prowl he did in a nice circle around her, his gemstone eyes of sparkling purple Sapphire now a dark deep dusky shade of purple showed her just where his mind was at that moment.

There was a rough gravelly tone to his tenor voice wan he spoke.

“I'm not in the mood for this game today Dazy” he plucked the table from her hands and placed it on the counter his eyes never leaving her as he did so.

Without missing a step even after taking the tablet from her He kept moving around her like a hunter stalking and toying with it pray. Daisy’s blood started pumping and rushing through her veins. the beat of her own heart filed her ears as it began to beat just a little bit faster. Her breathing picked up slightly her breaths becoming just a bit heavier now. She watched him her eyes only ever leaving him when he rounded to her back. Dazy had a small blinded spot she could not see from the ether corner of her eye even if she turned her head.

Oh, and he picked just that spot to stop right at her back. One of his hands reached out with long elegant fingers to brush whisper soft up the back of her neck. His fingers crept their way to her bun. She felt his nimble fingers find the bobby pines and slip theme free. It was only a few pines today seeing as she hand braided her hair and coiled it on her head. She felt his hand working to uncoil the braid of her dark cinnamon locks. if he would have let the braid fall it would have come to just about her waist. Then she felt him wind the braid about his wrist.

She gasped softly as she felt him tug back just a bit. About half of her braid was snaked around Mitsunari wrist and lower arm and she could feel the heaviness of it like a weight drawing her down. As he softly pulled on her hair he spoke by her ear.

“ remember what we talked about a few days ago “ the words where smoothly purred but there was a commanding edge to hem.

Her peridot eyes widened with his words and she had to bit her lip from gasping out her excitement

“yes “ the word was breathy when she spoke it

“Good “ was all he said as he used her braid to pull her back and to his chest.

Without saying a word his free hand found its way to her waist to take a firm grip on her Then he guided her along to a set of vintage old schoolhouse desks. Once there he sat on the top of one of the desks he pulled her into his lap.

“ you have been bratty today Daisy, “ he said as he let go of her hair and position her in his lap so that she was sitting across it

Daisy gave him a pout but that didn't stop him for what he did next he patted what little open space on his lap he had.

“ lay across my lap Daisy on your tummy “

it was the most commanding Daisy had ever heard that man speak. un tel now she didn’t know he could muster a look and tone as equal, if not more so than Azuchi houses ver own dictator Nobunaga. God that man was like Mussolini in the way he ran the towns only boarding house and bed and breakfast.

Daisy was liking this side of Mitsunari it suited him well. SO she couldn’t keep the excitement from her voice wan she spoke.

“ yes Mr. Ishida as you wish “

She said the words as she laid over his lap, wiggling her tight nicely rounded backside she could not help being bratty she just had to, her excitement and anticipation were too high. And then she felt his hands sliding up her white, black and red plaid skirt. His hand started that at the hem of her skirt, witched came to just half an inch blew the crook of the back of her knees. Ever so slowly his hand inched its way up to her plump well-shaped backside.

She giggled softly knowing what was coming she even tried to hide it. She couldn't help it was a nervous habit both her and her sister shared. And that she was nervous with building anticipation. Daisy hand to bite her lower lip to the point she almost drew blood so as not to further make Mr. Ishida think she was just being bratty.

Mitsunari palmed both the cheeks to her firm round ass, kneading each cheek in his hand before pulling it back. There was a loud smack that rang out and echoed off the library walls. And oh was it a satisfying sound to his ears that good hard smack to Daisy's backside. the sting in his hand was the most exhilarating strangely erotic sensation he had ever felt.

Daisy gasped as soon as his hand met her well-toned derriere before she felt the sting of it, witch hand her now whimpering softly and wiggling slightly in his lap. It was like her backside was on fire where his hand come down on. It was hot and ohhhh the sting of it hurt so good, it made her toes curl while her tummy fluttered with worm swirls of dark delight. Then she felt another spanking than another and more still, each one with a swift firm hand. And she moaned in lustful delight with every one of theme she even thanked Mr. Ishida wan she could.

Mitsunari blood was pumping with sinful delight from speaking Dazy and his lustfulness showed in his words wan he spoke.

“Stand up Daisy and face me “ he commanded of her

“Yes Mr. Ishida “ she simply stated on a breathy lustful gasp

Daisy did as he asks her to and was now facing him

“good girl “ he purred out “now call me Professor Ishida until I say otherwise “

Daisy’s peridot green eyes went wide and she made a soft sound as if his very words had given her a small orgasm.

“ Yes, Professor Ishida” came her words to let him know she was going to comply with the demand.

Mitsunari leaned back slightly his eyes roaming over Dazys lovely shape as he turned the words she just spoke over in his mind. He drank in the sight of her, How her pale cheeks were slightly flush with her hot running passion and desire the rises and fall of her chest in her heated state.

A finger came to his lips and he taped theme in thought

“On second thought just call me Professor “ he liked the sound of that more

“and take your blouses off as well it’s hiding what I truly like to see” he added that command to the other one he handed just handed out.

“Yes Professor “ came her words with a sinfully naughty sultry look as she unbuttoned the first button on her red blouse

Mitsunari watched Daisy intently as she oh so painfully slowly worked to undo every button. She stopped every one to give him a coy sultry smile and wan she got the ones that were right in the valley of her overly voluptuous breasts, she stopped to softly push theme to gather. Oh, and one almost popped out they were that large. Daisy and her sister May could put Dolly Parton to shame, they both were 5 foot nothing like the country singer and built like her tiny little waist and so topheavy you'd think they fall over.

He watched Daisy with great delight as his pants got tighter even with the loose boxes he hand on. Mitsunari hand to undo his belt as well as unbutton his slacks and it still wasn’t enough . in a breath he pulled Daisy to him and stopped her from fully slipping her arms out of her red blouse, which now hung just off her shoulders.

He placed his head in the valley of her breasts and breathed in her he sweet scent. she smelt of amber frankness and Muar and there was a soft rose floral note. he groaned on a breath as he breathed her in. he could not hold out much longer he was already throbbing aching with a carnal need.

Mitsunari took a ragged breath before he feathered kisses on the rounds of her breasts. His hand came to both her oversized mounds and kneading theme before his finger hungrily pulled back the lacy fabric of her bra to reveal her large erect nipples. greedily he found one and took it into his mouth sucking on it and rolling his tongue over the stiff nub

Daisy's hands came to his head her fingers softly gripping at his silvery locks as he worked magic with his mouth on her luscious breasts. And Oh God, he took his time in lavishing her full ripe melons drawing the sweetest and sinfully naughty gaps and moans from her. By the time he came up for air she was clinging to him her fingers so tightly threaded in his locks he knew if he moved from her she wouldn’t be able to stand on her own.

Mitsunari smoothly guided Daisy and laid her out on top of the set of schoolhouse desks. His hands sliding down her ribcage than her hips before he picked up one of her legs and locked it about his waist. With a hot carnal need he pulled her burning heat so tight agents his throbbing member he could feel how wet and ready she was for him even though her panties and his boxers

“Good god Daisy “ came his words filed with his passion and burning lust to have her.

He leaned down over her and took her lips in a heated needy kiss stealing any words she was about to say. Mitsunari drank from her lips like a man lost in the desert without water that hand just found an oasis. His tongue darted from his mouth and teased her lips to part so he could plumb it’s depths and coxing her tongue to dances with his. He groaned with delight into her mouth every time her hips would rock and grind agents his rock hard throbbing need, yet he never broke that claiming demanding kiss.

Daisy’s hands worked to pull his light plume color button-down dress shirt free of his slacks. Mitsunari without breaking the kiss worked his elegant fingers nimbly down the row of buttons to reveal this well-toned chest. By the gods, her hands were like magic as they dance over his pecs and shoulders. Ahww the way her nails raked over his skin or how they bit in leaving little crescent moons on his shoulder blades this only pushed him deeper into sinful wanting.

The power and ferocity in which he kissed her left theme both breathless once he broke it. They both were panting and gasping for air. it was on a long soft moaned that dripped from Daisy’s lips that shot right through him like a wildfire

“Oh professor” it was just two words but what they did to him and his senses it was Madness and torture all in one. And he was lost in it

In one quick breath, his hands were pushing up her pencil skirt, hiking it all the up to reveal her black lace panties. her breath hitched and back arched when he feather soft, brushed a finger over her heated core through the lacy fabric covering it . and Oh how very very wet with need she was.

“Oh so needy whatever should I do “ came his words that sound more like something Mitsuhide would say, but coming for him they had a more devilishly sinful note to them “whatever you wish professor” Daisy panted out the words which tremble with her state of need.

Then there was that delight full gasp of plusher. God he so loved to hear that gasp from her wan he slipped a finger under the fabric and pushed into her hot wet core. Yes, he took his time in finger her twisting and turning a finger sometimes he added one more just to extract the right sounds from her he wanted to hear. And Oh when she cried out professor and yes he would reward her with teasing kisses on her inner thigh. He took his time in removing her panties before he went to write lyrics of love with mouth and tongue on her hidden pearl and the soft petals of her flowered core.

Daisy’s hips bucked as she found it hard to catch her breath and harder still to form words. Her hands once more found the silvery locks of Mitsunari’s hair. Her grip on them so tightly she was pulling him closer to her sex she could feel him moan into it. Soon he hand brought her to the edge and sent her over it on a crashing tidal wave. she cried out in her release praising him and all the gods in the havens.

Mitsunari slowly pulled himself from between her creamy thighs his lips and chin gleaming with her sweet nectar. His eyes were smoldering hot as there bore into her yellow-green hues. With his eyes locked on hers as he licked his fingers clean then his lips.

“My My Daisy you tasted delightful “ came his gravely husky words as he slowly prowled his chest over her exposed breasts.

His hand deftly pulled her panties down as he took her lips in a feverish kiss letting her taste of herself. With one hand he took hold of his throbbing shaft and guided to the opening of her slick wet love tunnel but he didn’t enter her just yet.

“I want to hear you begging me for what you truly want Daisy “ he purred out smoothly his eyes never leaving hers.

“Hnaw” she whimpered as her hips rocked up and pushed agents the head of his throbbing shaft

“oh for the love of all that's holy fuck me already “her words were labored and spoken with gasping pants showing her eager hungry need to have him take her.

“Is that how you beg Daisy like a shameful slut and wanted whore” his words where a lustful growl as his hand came to her neck.

Mitsunari took hold of her neck his long fingers splayed out over her throat He didn’t fully choke her but he applied enough pressure to give the feeling of it without cutting off her air supply. The power and control he felt right now were to his liking and he felt his own cock as it throbs in his hand in response. “Please please fuck me Mitsunari “ Daisy begged of him her hips rolling and bucking wildly under him

That was all he needed to hear from her before he barred himself hilt deep in her tight warm wet treasure chest.

Mitsunari took her with a fevered fury pounding in and out of her so fast and hard the desks he hand laid her on rattled and banged agents one another. And oh the things that came from his mouth the words he used he would never in his right mind say or call a lady. But he knew Daisy got off on some of the degrading things he was saying. And never once did his hand leave her throat that gentle but tight hold he had on it a reminder of his establishes dominance in control over her.

He railed here until they both came, and when he did find his release he buried himself so deep into her he knew he had hit her innermost wall.

Daisy arched her back her hips digging into his as her head lolled back she cried out his name with the hardest orgasm she had ever felt. Her hands where clutching tightly to his back and shoulder her nails having dawn blood she had been holding him that tightly. She felt his hand leave her neck and his lips softly kissing where his fingers hand left light red marks.

It was a long while for both of theme to catch their breath. They both were panting and gasping hard. Every sweet soft kiss Mitsunari left on her came with him gasping for air until his breathing went back to normal.

Mitsunari took his time with some aftercare for Daisy, showing her that sweet loving side of himself that ever one knew so well. That said everyone thought he was.

--- Hideyoshi hand walked in from the library’s back door to Mitsunari putting his hand on Daisy's neck to the moment the mild-mannered angle of the group started to railed her like a sadistic spawn of the devil himself

Shock was not the word to describe the thoughts running rampant in Hideyoshi mind. Disbelief. Anger but not at the sweet angel that was now a devil in disguise. Oh no, he was going to have a nice long talk with Mitsuhide about this, then, then he was going to sit Mitsunari down and talk to him. It was a full ten minutes before Hideyoshi realized he was watching theme like some peeping tom and a bright red blush came to his cheeks as he turned to leave. Thank god, that neither theme didn't hear him come in or leave.

--- At least an hour past as Mitsunari sat on the floor Daisy between his legs, her back pressed to his chest as they cuddled to gather. There clothing was full righted now shirts and blouses all buttoned back up and tucked back into place they exchanged some of the sweetest hugs and kisses before Dazy spoke up

“It’s late and if I know May she going to worried about me” her words were spoken in her normal sweet soft tone

Mitsunari nuzzled the back of her neck “and what if I want you to stay the night “ he asked

Daisy moved her head to his shoulder and look up to this face “mmm is that an offer form more “ she asked

He just chuckled softly as he spoke “and what if it is “

“I'm sold, “ she said with breathy words

The smile he gave was blinding “ than let me get your coat and my things “

he offered a hand to her as he spoke and helped her to her feet before going to fetch her coat and putting it around her shoulders. He then gathered this briefcase blazer and navy style winter coat

Daisy locked the back door to the Library before taking Mitsunari’s arm and walking home with him for some more after-hours experimenting and fun with him...

#ikesen mitsunari #ikemen sengoku #ikemen sengoku mitsunari #ikemen sengoku Ishida Mitsunari #ikemen sengoku fanfiction #ikemen sengoku fanfiction Ishida Mitsunari #ikemen sengoku fanfiction Mitsunari #ishida mitsunari #ikemen Ishida Mitsunari #ikemen Mitsunari #ikemen fanfiction #ikesen Ishida Mitsunari #ikesen fanfiction

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it-snotam · 5 years

Text

the red thread (maximilian philipp fanfic) prologue

2014 (dates aren’t accurate)

The legend points out that there is an invisible thread that joins your heart with the people you are destined to meet in your life, this thread is unbreakable, but it can be twisted, tangled, and it can be stretched, but it can’t be broken. It is also said that once you met with the people that you were destined to meet, it will affect your profoundly.

Maximillian was only 20 when he met Emily, he wasn’t expecting to find her, at that age he was not really a person that believed in loved, he was focused in one thing and only that thing. He wanted to be a professional football player, just like he promised to his father, long before the illness took him. It became its most important goal, and when he fell in love with that blue-eyed girl, the plans went straight to the trash, or that is what he thought.

On the other hand, we have Emily, the blue-eyed girl that took Max’s heart, she arrived in Germany at the age of 16, soon after the death of her parents. Since she was a minor she had to go and live with Lukasz, her older brother and the only family she had left, the thing was that Lukasz had a family on his own now, he was way older than she was so his life was more organized than hers. He was married with Ewa, a polish girl that was a really nice person, she wasn’t mean and was always trying to help Emily in everything she might need. But Emily didn’t want help, she felt like she was interfering with Lukasz life, and all she wanted to do was to get away from that house and try to find her own life. Because of this, as soon as Emily finished school and turned 18, she moved to Berlin to study in the University, there was where she met Maximillian Phillip.

Emily has been through a lot in her life, she was only 18 at the time, but she seemed so much mature, I mean you would look like more mature as well if you had lost your parents and even worse if you had been in the same car with them the day they had the accident. Emily was lucky to turned out alive, as a constant reminder of the accident she had the scars, they weren’t that big, but they were there and that was enough to maintain Emily’s self-stem extremely low, most of these scars, at least the most noticeable were on her abdomen, reason why she would never wear clothes that showed her stomach. Apart from the physical injuries that she suffered, there were still some psychological issues that she has been dealing with, such as depression and anxiety, therapy has helped her a little, she felt better, but there were still days in which she didn’t want to leave her bed.

Max kind of understood her, he had also lost his father, it wasn’t in a car accident like in Emily’s case, but it was shocking for him, he admired his dad and their relationship, they got along really well, so, when he got sick and they found out there was not a cure for his illness, they started to get ready for what was coming, but Max was not completely ready when he died, I mean you are never ready to say goodbye to a love one, but he died way earlier from which he was supposed to. All of this drove Max to start going to therapy, he could’ve talked with his mother, but he was never a person that would talk about his feelings, and on the other hand he didn’t want to bother her, since she was going through the same plain he was in.

They never met in the office of the Dr Meyer, both went to the same therapist, but life have some other plans for the people, so they ended up meeting in a bar. Emily, advised by the therapist, was trying to go out more often, to have fun outside of her apartment, the doctor told her that she should start doing the things she used to enjoy, like singing, she was a great singer growing up and that always help her to keep her mood up, she would sing at school and at home while doing the house chores, but ever since the death of her parents she stopped singing, it was like she couldn’t find her own voice, and that’s exactly what she was trying to do now, she wanted to sing again and she tried to do it at home, but she would feel too depressed, and somehow she imagined that showing up to a bar, full of strangers that had their eyes all over her, she was so silly from time to time, there were a karaoke bars some of them don’t have the enormous quantity of people that the bar in which Emily and Max would met. The blonde girl was wearing a sundress, even when it was a little cold outside, she didn’t seem to be cold at all, the red of the dress sort of highlighted the pale of her skin, she had some freckles on her face, and Max found it so cute in her. She was tiny, I mean he wasn’t fat himself, he wasn’t super muscular neither, but he wasn’t as tiny as she was, she looked like a doll, and that completely caught his attention. When she finally got on the mini stage in which she would sing, he couldn’t keep his eyes away from her, it was like she was singing to him.

That was the beginning of the end for Emily, but none of them knew that at that time, because you never know that you are going to meet the person that is going to break you in little pieces, on the contrary, everything seems to be quite beautiful at the beginning. He invited her a drink after she went out of the stage, since he noticed that she was alone there, she was a loner, and so was he. They talked a little, just a little, because both of them were shy, he complimented her and enjoyed as her cheeks flushed.

Less than a week later they were on their first date, going to a café, they were still shy, but less than at the beginning, they talked and talked for hours, until the sun went to sleep and give its realm to the moon. Max walked her to her apartment, and she kissed his cheek before getting in the building. The German would have liked that the Polish had kissed his lips, but they would have other dates for that.

The following week, they went on another date, this time was the cinema, they both had a hard time finding the right movie that they would want to watch, both they both agreed on watching a comedy, it was a quite especial date, they were in silence while watching the movie, but the girl could notice how Max put her eyes on her instead of on the movie, which made her cheeks turn red, thank to the darkness of the room, he didn’t quite notice this, but he would have thought this was cute, most of Emily was cute to him. After the cinema, he invited her to eat something, he didn’t want to separate from her just yet.

More dates came, and they started to get used to be together, they would text or call each other, Max would go for Emily to the university and they would spend the rest of the day together, till this point Max was playing by the local club so he didn’t had to leave the city that much, so he could spend a lot of time with her. They never put a name to their relationship, because he never asked, but they were certainty a couple, Max knew everything from Emily and Emily knew most of Max’s story. Soon they started sharing a bed, and not only for sleeping purposes, Max would stay for hours looking at her sleeping after they had just made love, at first, Emily would not let Max see her naked, she would turn off the lights, but Max made sure she would feel safe enough like to show him every one of her insecurities. Emily felt like if she had been with Max for far more that it had really been, she was so in love with him and she never thought she would love someone as much as she loved Maximillian. Max loved her too, but he didn’t love her enough to leave his dreams behind because of her, and the minute he got a call from Freiburg, he could not say no, it was a huge step in his career. He thought about telling Emily about it, he even thought about asking her to go with him, but he didn’t really want her to leave all behind her for him, mostly because they weren’t even official yet, so he just left. No goodbye, not even a warning about it, he left Berlin and he never came back.

Emily found it weird when he didn’t answer his messages or calls in more than three days, at first she thought he could be busy and that he didn’t answered because of that, after around a week she went over to his place and nobody opened the door. It was a huge fall out for Emily, she was used to be with the German, to spend more of her days with him, she didn’t expect him to disappear like that.

She wasn’t feeling well, she had turned into a completely different person while she was with Max, and she didn’t know if she could be that person without the German around, she stopped eating, not completely, but she didn’t really feel hungry, and she didn’t feel like eating like at all, instead of having 4 meals a day, she would eat a fruit, or nothing at all. For the same reason she wasn’t feeling like doing much, she barely got out of the bed, she started missing classes, she missed sessions with the therapist. When her brother came to visit her, mainly because Dr Meyer had called him because he was worried about the Polish girl, he found her in her apartment, she was passed out in the bed, her pulse was weak, her skin was more than pale, and she looked really sick. Lukasz took her to the hospital running, she was dehydrated, due to her not eating for the past month or so, the doctor couldn’t really tell how much time she was in that position. When she woke up she was disorientated, and she didn’t really know how she got there.

Lukasz tried to talk to her, but she said she didn’t remember what got her there, she didn’t remember why she got to that extreme. She said the same thing to the Psychologist, and after a great number of meetings from in which all of the doctors that had treated Emily, they ended up that she could not live alone anymore, at least not until she was emotionally stable. Lukasz took her to Dortmund, Ewa wasn’t really happy about it, but Emily was his little sister and he couldn’t leave her alone once again.

Emily was doing a little bit better, Lukasz was always trying to keep an eye on her, but Ewas was pregnant with their second child, and the things were still a little tense between Emily and Ewa, and it got worse with the pregnancy, so Lukasz looked for a place in which Emily could live, since he didn’t want his wife to get stressed and he didn’t think that the situation was beneficial for Emily.

The girl understood why Lukasz had to do that, and she didn’t say nothing about it, because she felt like she wasn’t in the position to tell a word, she was the one who was in the way of her brother’s family and Lukasz was only doing a favour to her because she was not a real person anymore, at least that’s how she felt.

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

i hope you like it!!

let me know if you want to be tagged for when I post a new chapter next week!

#maximilian philipp #maximilian philipp imagine #maximilian philipp fanfiction #mili #mili philipp #max #the red thread #football fanfiction

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nebanna · 3 years

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HERE you can buy german drivers license

German Drivers license “Führerschein” is a governmental privilege given to those who request a license for any of the categories they desire. It is required for every type of motorized vehicle with the exception of the smallest mopeds below 50 cm³, with a speed limit of 25 km/h, as well as motorized bicycles. (Even for these, there is a minimum age of 15 years and a small mandatory driving school course). The types of licenses one may obtain are the same in all the European Economic Area. See European driving license. The minimum age to obtain a driving license is: 16 years for a restricted motorcycle up to 125 cm³, 17 years for a car with a legal guardian, 18 years for unrestricted car and 21 years for buses and cargo vehicles.

Obtaining a driving license

The German driving license can be obtained after finishing driving school and passing a two-stage test, the theory test and road test. Before being allowed to take these tests an eye-exam must have been performed and a first-aid course (usually lasts 8 hours) completed.

The learner driver’s training usually takes place in legally authorized and mostly privately-owned, for-profit driving schools. The driving school handles all the necessary paperwork for the students, such as: applying for a license, registering for tests etc. German Drivers license

The theoretical part of the education comprises lessons at the driving school, held by legally authorized driving instructors, typically in the evening. The content and number of the lessons is set by law and depending on the type of license the student wishes to acquire; a different number of lessons has to be attended. Remarkably enough, a student does not have to attend different lessons, they could theoretically attend the same lesson several times to meet the criteria. Lessons are divided into general knowledge about road rules that anyone studying for any license might attend and specialized lessons for certain types of vehicles. To prepare for the written theory test, students usually obtain a study package from the driving school which can consist of software programmed, textbooks and sample exam papers. Schools usually take responsibility for their student’s success and thus keep track of class attendance and hand out sample exams for practicing. The theory test is a multiple-choice test consisting of randomized questions from a published guidebook. Thus the questions and correct answers can be studied in advance.

Practical training also takes place with driving school instructors. Specially labelled and fitted vehicles are provided by the driving school. Cars are usually dual control (feature extra mirrors and pedals for the instructor so that they can take control of the vehicle in dangerous situations) since driving and parking maneuvers are taught on public roads. For motorcycles, the student operates the motorcycle on their own with a driving instructor following in another vehicle and giving instruction via radio. A certain number of practical and technical lessons has to be completed again depending on the type of vehicle. Obligatory lessons include a minimum number of lessons each driving on: the motorway Autobahn; rural areas, and in the dark. The actual number of lessons a student completes varies with individual skill. As the most difficult part of the driving test is usually urban driving, most lessons actually take place there, even though there is no mandated minimum for that. German Drivers license

If a student wishes to be tested in a car with an automatic transmission and sits the road test in such a car, a code or note will be added to the license and the holder will only be permitted drive cars with an automatic transmission. A test passed on a manual transmission car also gives qualification to drive either manual or automatic.

Theoretical and practical training may be commenced at the same or different times. Some driving schools may insist a student attend a certain number of lessons before giving out appointments for driving lessons.

Both exams are held by an authorized inspector who visits the driving school for this purpose. Students must pass the theory test before sitting the road test, with no more than a twelve month gap between the two. During the road test, the driving instructor is present in the car with the assisting features of the driving school car deactivated or connected to audio signals and a warning light (if the instructor has to intervene, the test will result in failure.)

After each exam, results are immediately given to the students. In case of the road test, if the student meets all the required criteria, the license is handed over by the inspector. Should the student, for any reason, not be allowed to hold the license at the time of a successful test (for example because he has not yet reached the minimum age), the licence will be sent to the Kraftfahrzeug-Zulassungsbehörde (compare DMV DVLA) of the student’s place of residence where it can be picked up as soon as the person becomes eligible. There are limits on the frequency and the time elapsed before failed tests can be reattempted. Buy German Drivers license

The failure rate for driving tests in 2011 was 28%. Automobile associations have given the opinion that this is due to the low quality of the education at driving schools as it benefits their income if students take additional lessons after failing.

For cars, people aged seventeen do not get a standard driving license after passing all required tests. Instead a permission slip that only allows for driving a car under the supervision of persons meeting certain criteria as stated on the permission slip. The actual driving license becomes available upon the person’s eighteenth birthday.

The Driving license card is valid for 15 years, and is replaced with a new card when it expires. Before 19 January 2013, the driving license card was valid without time limit. There is a decision that cards issued before that date expire on 19 January 2033. Although the driving license is an official document issued by authorities, it has very limited validity as an identity card.

The rules for getting a German driver’s license vary greatly depending where you come from, with even individual US states having different agreements with Germany.

Getting a German driving license can be tricky for expats, but Jeff and Karen Smith had done their homework, and they were on top of it. They knew their Michigan license s were only valid in Germany for six months, giving them that long to exchange them for their Führerschein, so they went about taking care of business soon after they arrived.

But things didn’t quite go as planned. To start, the first aid classes they were told they’d need to take in order to exchange license s weren’t offered until near the end of their six-month window. That was okay – they could finish them and the rest of the paperwork before the deadline. And the required eye exams took five minutes. So far, so good.

Until they tried to apply for the license s. One office sent them here, another there. Two weeks, a dozen trips to half-a-dozen offices and a couple of hundred euro later, they still hadn’t got their Führerschein, the first aid courses turned out to be unnecessary, and their Michigan license s, mailed between offices, went missing.

Speaking of the Führerschein fiasco, Karen puts it mildly: “I had no idea it could be this hard.”

Well, it doesn’t have to be. I live in Baden-Württemberg, and to trade my Colorado licence for a Führerschein all it took was EUR 35 and two trips (one to apply, the other to pick up my new license ) to the Bürgeramt (sorry, Jeff and Karen).

Different countries, different rules

So why was I so lucky? Good question, frustrating answer. Like with many bureaucratic procedures in Germany, what you need to do to get your Führerschein depends on where you’re from and where you live; although traffic law is federal and not state law, each office has its own approach to handling the law.

EU citizens read no further; your license is unconditionally valid in Germany. Americans, Canadians, and South Africans? Relax; in most cases you can trade license s easily. Everybody else: You’ll need to do it the hard way, but take heart – you can do it (mostly) in English.

But let’s start with the universals. Wherever you come from, you can drive legally in Germany with your home license for six months after settling in Germany. And if you’re certain you’ll stay here less than a year, you can petition at your local Führerscheinstelle to extend that period to cover your stay. Just bring a certified translation of your home license (see below) and proof of your intended length of residency; like a plane ticket, or a work contract.

Exchanging your license for a German driver’s license If you’ll be staying longer than a year, though, you need a Führerschein to drive in Germany after your first six months in country. If your home country (or American state) has a license exchange agreement with Germany, you have up to three years to swap – after that, you’ve got to do it like the Germans do, from scratch.

Canadians and South Africans can trade with ease. So can many Americans (but not from all US states), a detailed list of these privileged countries/states, so-called “Anlage 11 FeV (Listenstaaten)” can be found here: www.fahrerlaubnisrecht.de.

Please note that if you want to get your foreign drivers license (from a non-EU country) accepted in Germany you need to prove to have lived for at least 185 days without interruption in the country that issued your driver’s license during the time the license has been issued.

Call ahead Exchanging your home license for a German one is usually straight-forward. But to minimize difficulty, Karen Smith advises, “Call the exact office that will issue your license to find out exactly what you need to bring, and get the name of the person you talk to.” Try the uniform number for public authorities when you aren’t sure of which office to connect with.

Sounds obvious, but sometimes several offices will have a hand in the exchange, and in Karen’s case, each one she contacted gave her a different set of requirements. Among the most common are an eye exam (just about any optical shop can do it, for about EUR 5), and an official translation of your home license (ADAC translations are widely accepted – the Smiths paid EUR 72 for two).

Also, to avoid costly misunderstandings, Karen further advises that when you apply for your license , “Bring a German.”

Generally, when you trade your home license for a Führerschein, the Führerescheinstelle will keep your home license . In some cases, though, you can keep your home license for a small fee. If you’d like to keep it, you should mention that when you first apply for your Führerschein.

Good news and bad news

Moving on to the less fortunate, Australians and New Zealanders; good news, bad news time. Good news: negotiations between Germany’s government and yours for similar exchange agreements are underway. Bad news: that doesn’t help you at all right now. Read on.

To get your Führerschein, you’ll need to take written and practical exams, and maybe some driving lessons – depending on your existing driving skills, too. Fortunately, you can do most of it in English.

Should you have to do your diving test again, negotiate with the driving school that you only take the mandatory minimal number of lessons! When a teacher does not come up with significant reasons why you might have to take more, then go to another school (Fahrschule).

Please note that effective 1 July 2011 the minimum age for driving in Germany with a foreign drivers license is 18 years.

One step at a time For those who only have to take the tests, “You generally have to allow two months for the whole process,” says Christine Timmer, who runs an English-language Fahrschule in Munich.

Typically, the process goes like this. First, you complete the requisite eye exam and first aid courses (eight hours, available through the Deutsches Rotes Kreuz or Malteser for EUR 25). In addition you will have to provide an eyesight test by an authorized doctor related to driver’s license that is not older than 2 years. Then, with those certificates, your translated license , a recent biometric passport photo, your most recent residence registration form (Meldebescheinigung), and (sometimes) the registration information from your chosen Fahrschule in hand, you apply for your license at the Führerscheinstelle (call first for exact requirements).

It usually takes between four to six weeks to process your application, giving you time to prepare for and take the written and practical exams with your chosen Fahrschule. Practice materials for the written test and the test itself are available in English. You’ll take the driving test in German with your driving instructor and an official examiner. Don’t sweat the German part, though, says Christine. “It’s really not that difficult, if you’re prepared and understand a bit of German. The examiner really doesn’t say a lot.” And when you pass, you get your new license on the spot.

How long you’ll spend preparing for the tests at your Fahrschule depends on your previous driving experience. Christine Timmer’s typical student requires two to six lessons. She charges EUR 51 a lesson, plus EUR 80 for the written test and EUR 150 for the driving test, but rates vary, she cautions. Altogether, then, you can expect to pay around EUR 500.

Worst case scenario

The worst case Führerschein scenario is having to take a full driving course, like young German drivers do. “To get a regular driver’s license ,” Christine explains, “you have to take 14 theory classes and at least 12 driving lessons. Driving schools usually offer them twice a week, so that takes about seven weeks. Depending on how quickly you learn, it can be done in about three months; but it usually takes longer, because of holidays and so forth. You start with the classroom sessions, and then move on to the driving portion, taking them in parallel so you learn the rules and also how to apply them.” How many driving lessons you’ll need to take depends on how quickly you learn. With 12 as the minimum, and 50 on the high end, the full licensing course can cost between EUR 1000-2000.

You can take the course at an English-language driving school like Christine’s, but don’t think it’ll be easy, she warns. “Take your time, start things early. Take it seriously, although you may be annoyed about it. And look for a driving school that has experience with license conversions (if you’re able to exchange license s), because not all of them do.

buy german drivers license online. Model 2021 year. Valid for 15 years. In Germany the driving licence “Führerschein” is a government document given to those who request a licence for any of the categories they desire. It is required for every type of motorised vehicle with the exception of the smallest mopeds below 50 cm³, with a speed limit of 25 km/h, as well as motorised bicycles. The types of licences one may obtain are the same in all the European Economic Area. The minimum age to obtain a driving licence is: 16 years for a restricted motorcycle up to 125 cm³, 17 years for a car with a legal guardian, 18 years for unrestricted car and 21 years for buses and cargo vehicles

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tindang · 3 years

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Nico!

3/28/21- It's been a week out from my visit to the emergency department at MGH. Blisters have formed since then, flowering from the red/brown patch of skin on my left thigh, where I had spilled boiling water in a terrible accident. I was in a lot of pain yesterday, but I woke up today to shrunken blisters and pruritus in-and-around the area. I'm sad to miss Palm Sunday mass and to have spent the whole weekend room bound. I've been trying to find some positives, but life has not been too kind lately. I'm back in a state of rollercoaster emotions and I'm waiting to get off.

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4/5/21 - Deviating from the Ideal: U.S. Migration Policies in the Context of Rawlsian Principles of Justice

In "Aliens and Citizens: The Case for Open Borders", the philosopher Joseph Carens begins his argumentation with the following epigraph:

Many poor and oppressed people wish to leave their countries of origin in the third world to come to affluent Western societies...[and] there is little justification for keeping them out.

He goes on to examine three distinctive political theories--Nozickean, Rawlsian, and utilitarianism--and applies them to the issue of immigration. Though distinct, Carens finds that all three approaches evince the moral failures of militarizing borders and restricting the movement of peoples, suggesting that a world without borders is one that respects the idea of moral equality.

I found Carens's Rawlsian argument most compelling, insofar as it goes furthest in laying the framework for thinking about this issue transnationally. He does this in two ways: first, by arguing that people in Rawls’s “original position”--a tabula rasa -esque scenario in which people first come together to decide how they wish to be governed--would consent to principles of equal liberty and social redistribution if cloaked under a “veil of ignorance” that erases distinctions like race, class, sex, and most pointedly, national origin; and second, by refuting objections to the application of the Rawlsian veil to global contexts (Rawls had only intended for the original position to apply to certain societies with a “particular understanding of moral personality”, not all).

I posit that the analytical power of Rawl’s original position, as it is applied to transnational affairs, comes from the tensions inherent in upholding principles of equal liberty in real-world settings. Of course, Rawls had predicted such conflict, and sought to address it by drawing distinctions between ideal and non-ideal theory: in ideal theory one assumes that people will abide by the principles chosen in the original position, even after the “veil of ignorance” is lifted; in nonideal theory, one considers the historical and human behavioral challenges of staying true to original-position precepts, which is more reflective of everyday problems and situations. I believe that these tensions between ideal and non-ideal theory serve as useful tools for critiquing restrictive U.S. migration policies. By exploring the deviations from ideal theory--in the context of U.S/Mexico border policies--towards the practicalities of non-ideal praxis, I hope to reify my understanding of border issues and justify (to myself) Carens’s conclusion, that there is little justification for restricting immigration.

It is no surprise that current U.S. immigration and border policies fall far from the ideals of liberty envisioned in the original position. The question has always been how did we get here? The answer most likely predates any explanation that the Enlightenment might afford us, lying deep in the consequences of American settler colonialism and chattel slavery. Though I acknowledge this history and its foundational impact on modern American society, let me first flesh out my understanding of the gradual legal push away from ideal theory--while remaining always fully aware that the law is but one avenue through which principles of white supremacy and racism are encoded. If we are to then start with the legal perspective for answering the question posed above, we might begin with the Supreme Court’s decision in the Chinese Exclusion Case (1889), which contains the nation’s very first declaration of national sovereignty over immigration and vested Congress with plenary power over such matters. Sarah Song, a law professor at UC Berkeley, traces the philosophical tradition undergirding this decision to ideas espoused by Swiss author Emer de Vattel, whose Les droit des gens (The Law of Nations, 1758) outlined the parameters of sovereignty in the case of international law. Vattel writes:

The sovereign may forbid the entrance of his territory either to foreigners in general, or in particular cases, or to certain persons, or for certain particular purposes, according as they may think it advantageous to the state. There is nothing in all this, that does not flow from the rights of domain and sovereignty.

In staking this claim, Vattel followed already established notions of the state as being like a “moral person,” first laid out by German jurist/philosopher Samuel von Pufendorf, and later further developed by German author Christian Wolff. This personification of the state sanctions it with “an understanding and a will of which it makes use for the conduct of its affairs”, namely, as Vattel reasoned, in the interest of its self-preservation and self-perfection. It’s worth noting that Vattel understood that this self-interest deviated from the ethos of being a “moral person”, which if taken to its logical conclusion with regards to the idea of “moral state(s)”, would result in a “universal republic” in which “a real friendship [would] be seen to reign among them” (II.12). Here, it is not lost on me that this utopian conclusion mirrors the conditions of Joseph Carens’s ideal theory--that is, a global community void of hierarchical distinctions. In this sense, Vattel’s swing towards non-ideal realism, defined by state self-interest, may be at the heart of today’s polemics over immigration.

Indeed, I believe this is so. Public anxiety re the economic burden of migrants on American social institutions and fair wage have led to communitarian objections to increased migration from both conservatives and social democrats--while attending a protest against the Trump administration in 2017, I fondly remember standing next to a supposed feminist who, while rallying against the now former president, also expressed a resolute “no” when the crowd began reciting “Immigrants are welcome here.” The fixation on self-preservation may explain far-right popularization of terms like “chain migration” in lieu of “family reunification,” and the 2019 revision of the public charge rule which would have expanded the definition of being a “public charge,” and would have thus restricted poorer immigrants from either being admitted into the U.S. or attaining Legal Permanent Resident status. And, not surprisingly, today’s fears were enshrined in law vis-à-vis other, past Court decisions that occurred soon after that seminal 1889 case: in Nishimura Ekiu v. United States (1892) and Fong Yue Ting v. United States (1893), the Supreme Court again expanded the U.S. government’s power over immigration, citing further elaborations of Vattel’s theory of sovereignty (Song 2017); within the latter decision, these two passages from The Law of Nations are cited in their entirety:

Every nation has a right to refuse admitting a foreigner into her territory, when he cannot enter it without exposing the nation to evident danger, or doing her a manifest injury. What she owes to herself, the care of her own safety, gives her this right; and in virtue of her natural liberty, it belongs to the nation to judge, whether her circumstances will or will not justify the admission of that foreigner. (I.230)

Thus also it has a right to send [asylees] elsewhere, if it has just cause to fear that they will corrupt the manners of the citizens, that they will create religious disturbances, or occasion any other disorder, contrary to the public safety. In a word, it has a right, and is even obliged, to follow, in this respect, the suggestions of prudence. (I.231)

In other words, the state, by virtue of its personhood and the rights accorded to moral persons, has the right to exclude those it deems dangerous to its self-interest. As many scholars have pointed out, the right to exclude is essentially a property right; and the commensuration of individual property rights to collective, state territorial rights has been the source of much debate (See Carens’s Nozickean argument for open borders).

All this is to say that the principles of state sovereignty that underlie American immigration policy were founded under non-ideal theory conditions, which privilege human interest over ideal theory egalitarianism. The effect of this philosophical turn cannot be overstated; because while it is one thing to erect borders and deny access in the name of self-interest, it is another to punish those seeking opportunity and/or asylum for similar reasons.

To explain today’s punitive approach to immigration, it is incumbent on me to outline another ideal to non-ideal theory transition: This time, I mark as my starting point the Bracero Accord, a U.S./Mexico bilateral program that, between 1942-1964, facilitated over 4.5 million temporary labor contracts to male Mexican workers in an effort to redress previous, depression-era deportations of Mexican-American citizens and to address labor shortages that appeared during and after World War II. Though imperfect (the program was ultimately deemed exploitive), this bracero initiative may have came closest in realizing the tenets of justice that ideal theory conceptualized, formalizing (now questionable) protocols for far pay and anti-discrimination; that is, in setting aside the dehumanizing experience that braceros encountered, we might think of the legal protections granted to these workers, and the imperative that the U.S. government showed in trying to repair its relationship with Mexico, as a promise towards an ideal--a quasi- “veil of ignorance” that ended up being unrealistic, ineffective, and violent. So, it might be here within the context of the hopes of the Bracero Accord and the porous border through which hundreds of thousands of Mexican workers made their way each year that we locate our ideal beginning.

From this point, the rapid progression towards non-ideal theory, which again takes into account the “historical obstacles and the unjust actions of others” that seek to undermine liberty and justice, paradoxically began during the civil rights era of the 1960s, when a) the termination of the Bracero Program and b) amendments to the Immigration and Nationality Act effectively ended the legal and cyclical migration patterns of years past. Princeton sociologist Douglass Massey summarizes:

Whereas in the late 1950s, some 450,000 Mexicans had entered the United States each year as Braceros and 50,000 as permanent residents, by the late 1970s the Bracero Program was gone and legal visas were capped at 20,000 (Massey 2014)

A closed door, however, does not mean a locked one; notwithstanding new restrictions on migration, former braceros continued their northward journey through unauthorized channels, paving the way for what has become considered “illegal” migration. In his article, Massey provides this useful figure, which takes data from DHS to assess Mexican migration to the U.S. in the three categories shown below:

The noticeable inverse between trends in temporary labor migration and unauthorized migration (measured by the annual number of apprehensions divided by the number of Border Patrol officers, expressed per thousand) in 1964 reveals the unspeakable harms of supposedly benevolent updates to U.S. immigration policy. Despite the tapering of unauthorized migration since 1986, shown above, the wide-ranging consequences of the 1964 recategorizing of what were once “legal” guest workers to now “illegal” trespassers on the political, social, and individual levels of society deserves pause and reflection.

At the broad level of the body politic, the rising number of annual border apprehensions in the mid-1960s effectuated closer federal scrutiny of the border. At the behest of political racketeers, members of the U.S. Border Patrol, and a changing landscape of public opinion surrounding undocumented migration, Congress enacted a litany of measures that further restricted entry: 1986′s Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA), while granting amnesty and Legal Permanent Resident status to 2.7 million former undocumented migrants--subject to conditions of learning English and seeking citizenship--criminalized undocumented hiring and signed off the first of a series of significant increases in appropriations for the Border Patrol; 1994′s Operation Gatekeeper militarized the busiest border sector in San Diegos (See also ‘prevention through deterrence’ strategy); 2001′s PATRIOT Act made it easier for the government to employ immigration rules to detain or deport non-citizens without resort to the lengthy procedural regulations of the criminal justice system (Akram 2006). Juliet Stumpf and others have mapped these measures to a phenomenon they call “crimmigration,” which describes the American merger of criminal and immigration law that has happened since 1875 when the first federal statute was passed to restrict immigration of Chinese women. Since then, Stumpf writes, “the relationship between immigration and criminal law has evolved from merely excluding foreigners who had committed past crimes to the present when many immigration violations are themselves defined as criminal offenses and many crimes result in deportation” (Stumpf 2006). Indeed, today, immigration prosecutions outnumber all other types of federal criminal prosecutions, including prosecutions for drugs and public order violations (See “Prosecution/Courts”).

Interwoven into the political and structural realignments of U.S. migration policy during this time was the effect that legal/illegal discursive shifts had on White Americans. As politicians seized on the expediency of showing strength against the "Mexican Menace” and “alien invasion”, and as journalists found success in characterizing undocumented border crossers as “illegals” set out to “inundate” American society and “swamp” its culture (Chavez 2001), it becomes easy to imagine the kind of social re-engineering that must have taken place: As Mae Ngai reminds us in Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America, Mexicans were once considered legally white and enjoyed migratory privileges not afforded to Asian migrants (Ngai, 38, 2004); but, as UMASS-Amherst professor Moon-Kie Jung might say, racial differentiation happens when people come to hold schemas for “separating human populations by some notion of stock or collective heredity of traits” (Jung, 64, 2006). Viewed in the light of American genocide, slavery, colonialism and imperialism, the racialization of Mexicans based on notions of in/exclusion was par for the course. We might find then, within the border debates of the mid to late twentieth century, the seed of today’s social animus towards Latinx migrants, which has encouraged bias in enforcement of immigration law and (most likely) inspired Arizona’s Senate Bill 1070 (Read more about state/federal collaboration and interdependency when it comes to developing and enforcing immigration law in Judith Resnick’s “Bordering by Law”).

The human impact of these policy adjustments should not be forgotten, nor go unnoticed. For it is at the individual--and for some of my friends with undocumented parents, personal--level that federal immigration policies harm. This case is explicitly made in Jason de León’s The Land of Open Graves, which lays the blame for migrant deaths along the border squarely in the hands of the U.S. government. It is described in this podcast during which a university student talks about her experience growing up living in fear that her parents could be deported at any moment; and again, in the harrowing stories that undocumented child migrants have told, as documented by Valeria Luiselli in Tell Me How It Ends; and perhaps, more recently, in the iconic image of Yanela, the 1-year-old Honduran girl, who was captured crying for her detained mother. Between these examples, one thing is clear: U.S. immigration policies violate, if not the ideals of moral equality that America was founded on, then international human rights.

De Leon writes: “The benefit of the chronological distance from the pain and suffering of past migrations is that many Americans today have no problem putting nationality before humanity” (Leon, 26, 2015). In this blog post/essay, I make the case that this antipathy for life, or explicitly for the life of Others, has as much to do with historical myopia as it underlines the principles of self-interest that lie behind our legal and social interpretations. When people hear that undocumented migrant children are being separated from their families yet still defend the action as just since “They came into our country illegally,” I see this perverse rationalization as but a product of self-preservation. Mae Ngai has spoken about the consequences of normalizing such principles of sovereignty in immigration affairs, suggesting that it “generates the view that immigration is a zero-sum game among competitive nation-states” (Ngai 2004). Not only does this view fuel anti-immigrant resentment, it discourages us from seeing the moral worth of our neighbors and prevents us from coming together to form humane and bilateral coalitions for tackling transnational problems.

Against the backdrop of U.S. human rights violation, and the radical transition away from the conceptions of justice laid out in Rawls’s original position, I remain cautiously hopeful that there will come a day when justice will be served. It might not happen during my lifetime, but I’ll be on the vanguard of this fight.

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drmyler · 4 years

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Kafka - Psychoanalysis

Kafka, Metamorphosis a Psychoanalytical View

Dr Stephen F Myler PhD

Abstract:

Franz Kafka in 1916 wrote a short novella called Metamorphosis (1. Bantam Edition 2004) a book of immense psychological and insightful nightmare into the human condition. Here we will exam Kafka's masterpiece from a psychoanalytical perspective to see that this work was an insightful self examination of depression, mental health and the role of carers when love turns to loathing. To begin our journey for the non-reader of this famous text we will give a brief outline and then turn to the specific role of psychoanalytic insight from Freudian to Burns and beyond.

Introduction:

Kafka was born in 1883 a middle class Jewish boy, introverted, shy and inadequate, believed to be a result of a critical father, (2. Letter to his Father 1919) he was later educated in Prague in a German University however he went on in his spare time to write many works of outstanding literature. Here we are not going to delve into detailed life but satisfy ourselves with a small picture of the man as writer. Kafka was very driven and wrote daily through the night with a dedicated passion. Today he might be seen as OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Behaviour) prone to perfectionism. It is his perfectionist emotional driver that made his literature something very special.

Kafka wrote Metamorphosis in 1916 as a short novella about a young man who was the stalwart of the family, supporting an out of work critical father, a doting mother and childlike sister, in which our hero, Gregor Samsa was not popular at work and under daily stress of travel and deadlines to meet for which he felt a losing battle. In the beginning of the book he awakes from a troubling dream to find he has in fact turned into an ugly giant beetle his mind trapped in an alien body. From this beginning Gregor begins to explore his new limitations and narrow world view, his sight becomes dim, he cannot move without constant pain and great effort. His family are dependent on Gregor going to work, earning their keep and supporting their needs when suddenly he cannot no longer act in this role. His father is disgusted, his mother stricken and his younger sister while becoming his carer is repulsed by this new version of her brother. As time passes and he does not return to his old self – the family must make new plans to survive and now see him as their burden (roles reversed). In the beginning Gregor thought this was just a temporary situation that would soon pass and he would re-uptake his old life and continue forward. However in the end there is no solution and suffers a lonely eventual death.

In writing the following psychoanalytical analysis I have not read the many introductions, essays and critical insights of other writers. This was purposefully done to avoid contamination of my thinking process in treating Gregor as my patient in a psychoanalytical setting. I did not want to have the bias of others opinions to my way of seeing the text as the only evidence of the patients mental health problem.

The Patient:

Like any new psychological patient to the clinic a first one hour session would be usually conducted in two parts – the first – why have you come to see me? The second the clients ability to vent (tell their story in their own words) and so set the scene for further sessions. Lets imagine Gregor's typical answer to why have you come here.

Gregory: My family is very dependent on me to support them but lately I have been feeling very stressed by work and home alike. I had a very bad dream a few weeks ago and woke up in a deluded state in which I found it impossible to get our of bed. I just felt overwhelmed with exhaustion and the loss of will to keep going on with my miserable life. It was like I was some ugly bug that everyone despised and yet took for granted. All they want to do is squash my passion for life and replace it with their needs.

Psychoanalyst: It sounds very much as if you are stressed and reached what me might call a point of exhaustion – this means your energy has been depleted both physically and mentally. So to summarise – you are depressed right now from the burden of work and a non-supportive family environment and you feel you have given up trying to be the one who supports everyone else?

Gregory: Yes, it is like I was a donkey with burden I could no longer carry.

Psychoanalyst: Tell me a little of your background? (second part - venting)

Gregory: I have a very critical, controlling father who tries to dominate the household, however he is unemployed right now and his health has deteriorated through becoming lazy and irritable. My mother cowers to him and goes along with his demands even when unreasonable, I have a younger sister – she is just finishing her education but has not found any real outlet for her abilities just yet, she is kind and sweet but very nieve about the world at large. At work my supervisor while pleasant enough but he is also under pressure from our boss who like my father is controlling and micro manages our every move. This means you feel you are being scrutinized constantly and found lacking. I have to travel a lot for my work and often come home late and exhausted but then am expected to be there for the family as the main stay of their comforts. I do not have time for relationships and I am probably not a very good catch for any girl who might have any interest in me beyond the obvious. At home things have changed now that I have been fired and lost my income. My sister has started to care for me more and tries constantly to rescue me from my mood swings, however my mother has just fell apart and cries insistently about her poor boy yet shy away from actually helping me. As for my father he is even more disgusted by me than ever as I forced him to go out and find work, he even took in some lodgers to help make ends meet and so the burden has passed to my mother and sister to keep the household clean and fed. We have had some cooks and cleaners but they have mostly left because they refuse to have anything to do with me. I cannot really think of much else to tell you – but at least I feel I managed to get it all out.

Psychoanalyst: I think that gives me quite a lot to think about Gregor and you have been very clear and systematic in the way you have explained the background. Tell me how are you actually feeling right now?

Gregory: A little relieved to have finally explained myself and someone listened without a sneer on their face or laughing at me. Thank you for that. In general I know that everyday I feel sad and tired by life – I just want to lay down and sleep – that somehow when I wake up everything will be normal again – that I can function and have some sort of life.

Psychoanalyst: Well we have had our time today Gregor, an hour can pass very quickly the first visit. I hope to see you are least once a week for an hour, in the meantime I have a little homework exercise for you to complete for me. A one page biography of your family, where you grew up, your education, relationships and the current here and now situation. I know you have told me some of this already but it will help save some time in sessions by having a short version of your life so far. Please send to me via email before our next session so that I can read and analyse the content before you come. Here is my card and details. If at anytime you feel you are in crisis and need me – please call for an earlier appointment.

Gregory: Thank you Doctor, I will see you same time next week.

Psychoanalytical Analysis of the First Session:

For insurance purposes the analyst is forced to write a psychiatric number and diagnosis. This labelling is not a reflection of the true nature of the mental health problem but merely a forced situation in order to get paid. In Gregor's case – Clinical Depression DSM V 296.3.

In reality a psychological outcome may have been Reactive Depression to stress at both home and work leading to a lack of everyday cognitive functioning in both thought and behaviour.

Clearly in this case – depression is the key element from signs of mental exhaustion, a sense of hopelessness and helplessness from the role reversal of stalwart breadwinner to helpless victim in need of rescuing by his sister in particular – the constant disappointment to both his parents and rejection of his work colleagues. At his stage we do not have enough data to surmise the underlying unconscious drives that might be fueling his depressive state other than the external pressures of family and work. In further sessions the need will be met from a more in depth scrutinizing of his emotional world and inner conflicts. He clearly feels alone in his burden although the sister is obviously doing her mother's duty of care. The client mentioned a bad dream – this can be further pursued for unconscious motivations.

Further Sessions:

Over 20 or more sessions – Gregor's analogy of being an ugly beetle are further explored and his relationships with both family and work – more importantly his feelings about himself and his depressive state. It also became clear that his family were now neglecting his everyday needs for nutritious food, care and comfort. They in fact have become physically violent towards him causing him to further withdraw into his delusional world where he feels he is nothing more than an ugly beetle that should be stamped upon. Risk of suicide has now become evident in his demeanour. His appearance shows he is not looking after his ablutions, clothing is dirty and unkempt and he has lost considerable weight. He was also becoming lethargic in that he no longer cared what happened to him as long as this constant pain would cease (pain being mental anguish). His sister although dutiful in looking after him has lost heart in him getting better and so now only is a functional caregiver as opposed to a empathetic one. His biography homework showed that his father was not only controlling but bitter in that he lost a business owing considerable money to Gregor's employer who now expected him to pay off his fathers debts through a reduced salary for his own work putting considerable burden on him to support the family at home. The mother was ashamed of the home situation and was too weak to stand up to her husband in any matters of economy or otherwise. The sister was in the past spoiled and now resented her reduced situation and blamed Gregor for being sick. Again adding to his feelings of alienation and being alone.

Sadly Gregor died after the end of the sessions from self-neglect – basically willing his life to cease as he saw no longer any purpose to it. His father had found new employment, the mother felt relieved to see her son no longer in this life suffering and the sister finally felt free of her own burden that being her brother. While psychoanalysis would have hoped for a different outcome – the book itself determined the ending that we have to accept.

Conclusion:

While Franz Kafka meant his novella of Metamorphosis to be a comic tragedy of a wasted life it springs out at any educated reader in the art of psychoanalysis as a perfect example of chronic depression and futility. Those in this delusional state often contemplate suicide although mostly via ideation (I think it but don't), however self neglect is very common trait that leads to slow death from a lack of self care. When you have a non-supportive family, where their needs are being thwarted by your mental state – then further rejection can cause a spiralling effect of deeper resentment about your own part in the downfall of your mind. Many depressives play victim (3. Berne 1960's) inviting others to rescue them – when in fact they need to rescue themselves – but in the end they become their own persecutor and further victimize themselves to that bitter ending of death.

In real life via treatment for depression a sense of purpose is sought from the client in that he can see a new fresh change to his circumstances despite the battle of a non-supportive family and hostile work environment that is all to common in today's economy. In Gregor's case over time he would have explored his past traumas and realized the underlying demons that led to his lack of self assurance and efficacy to find a new solution to his mood.

Summery:

This paper was an exercise in psychoanalysis from a famous work of literature and reflects the art of the analyst who tries to understand the underlying concepts of the unconscious mind in creating monsters from our own imagination to battle with when we reach that point of exhaustion both physically and mentally called – depression.

References:

1. Kafka F. 1915 – Metamorphosis – Bantam Edition 2004

2. Kafka F. 1919 – Letter to his Father – Bantam Ed 2004

3. Bernes E. 1960's – Transactional Analysis – various volumes.

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solacekames · 7 years

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I saw your post about the My Borders My Choice campaign and oh wow. That is chilling and it makes so much sense. I wanted to look into it more but I'm kinda at a loss as to what exactly to google, so do you have any recommendations or resources? Also, if you've read Klaus Theweleit's Male Fantasies, do you think that's related to this topic? It sort of feels like it might be but I'm not sure. Thank you!

No, I haven’t read Theweleit’s book but I’m familiar with the thesis, and yeah I think it’s totally related. I reblogged something about it last year but since I couldn’t find it I’m going to paste in something from an article below.

When it comes to reading more, if you want to go theoretical, gender studies will usually have a lot of stuff about how female bodies are used/abused as metaphors for abstract concepts like “truth” and “the nation”. As with the process of dehumanization, it’s not something restricted only to fascists, but a patriarchal-authoritarian tendency that fascism takes to its ultimate extreme. If you want stuff that’s less theoretical and more topical and up to date, follow your local antifascist organizations on social media and check out their websites.

I have a summary post about the alt right’s divergent streams of misogyny here. You can also just go to where they hang out—/pol/ on 4chan, Gab.ai—and lurk and browse. Their attitudes toward sexuality and female bodies uses 21st century slang and slurs, but it hasn’t changed much in a hundred years, really. Just make sure you have a strong stomach if you decide to open that particular door—there’s nothing wrong with keeping the door closed if you’re not ready to open it.

Laura Smith - Sep 11, 2017 - ‘Male Fantasies’ examined the inner lives of German fascists and reached a horrifying conclusion

After World War I, a German paramilitary commander stood in the countryside, surveying a grisly scene: a lovers’ picnic interrupted by a grenade. The couple’s blood-smeared, mangled corpses gave the commander a strange surge of pleasure. The woman was a Communist whore, the commander thought, one of the many “Red women” destroying his homeland in the years since the armistice. He was a commander in the Freikorps, a paramilitary group made up of downtrodden German veterans who blamed Communist revolutionaries for their loss of the war. Many of the Freikorps later joined the Nazi regime. Perpetual war was not just their work, but their reason to be, the will to live merging with death. And one book would make a quest of understanding why.

Though afterward the Holocaust was declared “unthinkable,” that label was widely seen as an urgent call to untangle its root causes. Who did this and what were their motives? More than three decades after World War II ended, Klaus Theweleit’s 1977 book Male Fantasies, sought an unusual path to understanding. Theweleit, a German doctoral student in literature, wanted to understand the fascist man’s deepest desires. Not why did they do what they did, but what did they want? As German historian Sven Reichardt points out, while others sought political explanations for fascist violence, Theweleit shocked readers by looking to their quotidian lives for answers. The resulting two-volume book is an intimate analysis of the letters, poems, diaries, and novels of the Freikorpsmen: fascism up close and personal. To modern readers, the Freikorpsmen’s fantasy life will be familiar: a country in decline, a nationalistic call to purge it of disorder, a clear separation between men and women, rich and poor, your kind and the other.

When the book was published in Germany, it became a cult classic and required reading in leftist circles. “Everyone — at universities, in left-wing undogmatic circles, in communal communities or groups of men — read the book at the time,” said one German writer. In 1987, the book was released in English and instantly, modern-day parallels were drawn. A New York Timesreviewer wrote that Theweleit had “captured a glimpse of our souls.”

While other writers sought to understand the rise of Nazism by looking directly at Nazi violence, Theweleit, perhaps sensing that this direct path was too on the nose, used a different access point to the proto-fascist mind: their relationship to women. For the Freikorps men, there are three kinds of women: their absent wives/girlfriends/fiancées; the pure, upper-class “white nurses” serving the cause; and the “Red women,” the unruly communist revolutionaries waving flags in the streets. The Freikorps violence was not limited to women, but women are a potent symbol of their most primal fears: the dissolution of the self in another. Sex and the female body are, to them, nothing short of horrifying, so it is better that women be absent, separate, or dead.

When the Freikorpsmen’s wives appear in their writing, they are usually nameless and only mentioned in passing, even when they die. One Freikorspman’s writes only of his wife, “When I came home, I found my wife suffering from a severe nervous disorder. She died soon afterward.” Two pages later, he mentions honeymooning with his second wife. The white nurse is similarly unthreatening. She is sterile, sexless, and statuesque.

The “red women” however, are where the ugliness really lives. They represent everything that the order-obsessed Freikorpsmen fear: unwieldy sexuality, the chaos of revolution, the mingling of people regardless of class, creed, and color. “It’s a well-known fact that women are always at the head of these kinds of riots,” a Freikorps General’s speech read. “And if one of our leaders gives the order to shoot and a few old girls get blown up, the whole world starts screaming about blooodthirsty soldiers shooting down innocent women and children. As if women were always innocent.”

#murder tw #parsnepe

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clayduringcovid · 4 years

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Terra Sigillatta

Super-Refined Terra Sigillata

This article is used here courtesy of the author... Thank you Vince. Photo right by Andreas Franzkowiak : Roman Terra Sigillata Taken at Archäologisches Landesmusuem Konstanz, Germany

Introduction Traditionally, the primary objective of terra sigillata refined slip coatings is to get a high satin gloss without a glaze, using simple, time-effective polishing methods. Most of the popular published terra sigillata recipes do not separate the large particles adequately, and the product is not a true terra sig. About 18 years ago, I started researching terra sigillatas in conjunction with my Ancient Clay classes and workshops at U-Mass-Amherst. First experiments were derived from standard recipes in ceramics books and magazines, and the results were unsatisfactory. I wanted to achieve what I had seen on ancient Roman pottery.

Super-refined polishing slips were first used in the Middle East at least 1000 BC, and reached a pinnacle of aesthetics and technical accomplishment with the terra sigillatas used on Greek and Roman pottery. The purity of terra sigillata is perhaps most celebrated on fine Roman Arretine wares, with the monochromatic red high-gloss coating emphasizing complex relief decoration. But like so many innovations of the Romans, the technology was completely lost in the early medieval era.

1400 years later, 19th century German ceramic chemist Henrich Schumann was seeking low-cost coatings for sanitary sewer pipe. That doesn’t sound very romantic, but it drove him to make the critical rediscovery. Schumann was fascinated by the surfaces on Roman pottery, and conducted cross section analysis of the shards. He determined that terra sigillata is a very thin coating of refined slip composed of only the very finest clay platelets. Through subsequent experimentation, he was able to reproduced high quality terra sig surfaces. Schumann's findings guided me, and experiments conducted with students Heather Shadron and Rob Williamson at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst helped to refine the specific techniques outlined below.

Why Does it Work? To anyone new to terra sig, it seems magical when you polish the surface for the first time. Most experienced clay workers have discovered that almost any very-hard-leather-hard clay surface can be rubbed to create a soft gloss, or burnished to create a high shine. Pure clay is composed of kaolinite crystals in microscopic particles called platelets. Kaolinite crystals are very thin and flat and are reflective on the surface, and the resulting platelets have the same reflective qualities. In normally-worked clay, the alignment of flat particles is random on the surface of the ware, and thus there is little or no reflective quality. But if you do anything to cause the platelets to lay down flat, the amount of reflection increases. When you process terra sig according to the instructions below, you eliminate all but the finest fraction of particles, and those remaining ultra-fine platelets will naturally lay flat on the surface, producing some degree of reflection. Any compression through polishing with a piece of chamois or plastic film or even with the finger tip will increase the fraction of platelets laying flat on the surface, increasing the reflected light and our perception of a shiny surface.

What's the Difference Between Polishing and Burnishing? Polishing refers to any process that produces a shine on the clay surface. This might be achieved by rubbing the clay with your finger tips, a soft brush, a piece of chamois, a soft cloth, or a piece of plastic film, but it also includes the process known as burnishing. Burnishing is a type of polishing, and specifically involves compressing the surface by rubbing with a hard, smooth, unyielding object, like a polished rock or the back of a spoon. Burnishing processes are also found in metals, leather, wood, and fabrics, and they all fit the definition above. When you burnish a very-hard-leather-hard or re-moistened bone-dry clay surface, all of the clay platelets are forced to lay flat, while all the coarse particles are pressed down into the surface, leaving a very smooth, highly reflective surface. As mentioned below, terra sig makes a good burnishing slip, but one of the reasons we go to all the trouble to make a proper terra sig is to get a polished surface without the highly-labor-intensive process of burnishing.

Get an Appropriate Hydrometer An appropriate hydrometer that measures specific gravity is required for this technique. A winemaker's hydrometer will not work, because it measures fluids lighter than water. Glaze hydrometers that measures specific gravity will work, but they generally have a scale reading from 1.00 (the weight of water) to 2.00, which does not offer much precision in the range needed for terra sig. The appropriate hydrometer that measures specific gravity from 1.00 to 1.20, which is the ideal range for terra sig is listed below or click here. Note that hydrometers are extremely fragile. Get at least two.

Selecting the Clay You can make terra sig from almost any raw clay or mixed claybody, but the yield will depend on the average particle size. Finely divided air-floated clays such as Redart or Goldart and most ball clays will give a high yield of sig. Coarser clays like kaolin and fireclay give less sig and a greater amount of settled coarse residue. Don’t bother trying to make a sig from bentonite - it is too fine already, and doesn’t yield a good sig. Selection of the clay will usually depend on the desired color and firing temperature. See the section on “ Firing Ranges and Natural Clay Colors Achieved with Terra Sig” for more information.

Some clays are so coarse as to give a very low yield of sig. If you choose a particular clay for compelling reasons, and the yield of terra sig is especially low, the raw clay can be ball-milled before incorporating in to the initial mixture. See the section on “Adding Coloring Oxides and Ceramic Stains” for more information on ball-milling.

Preparing the Deflocculant The secret of refining a proper terra sigillata is to settle out all but the very finest particles. A deflocculant is a chemical additive that causes particles in aqueous suspension to repel one another, and it is a critical part of the terra sig process. Only a tiny amount of deflocculant is needed, and adding additional is counterproductive, so be very careful with your math and your measuring. Soda ash (sodium carbonate) and sodium silicate both work as deflocculants, but for reasons that no one seems to understand, a combination of the two work best in terra sig.

The amount of deflocculant is figured as a percentage of the dry weight of clay to be used. To a small amount of hot water, add 0.25% (1/4 of 1%) soda ash (sodium carbonate) and 0.25% sodium silicate. A hand blender will make short work of dissolving the chemicals. The sodium silicate comes as a liquid, but just measure the weight as if it were a solid.

Measuring Specific Gravity with a Hydrometer To measure specific gravity with a hydrometer, the liquid must be in a container tall enough to float the hydrometer. If your mixing container is not tall enough, pour some of the liquid into a tall thin container. The most practical container for this application is a laboratory graduated cylinder. An appropriate plastic 250 ml. graduated cylinder is offered below. Lower the heavy end of the hydrometer carefully into the liquid until it floats on its own, and read the scale exactly where the hydrometer tube meets the surface of the liquid.

Immediately before measuring the specific gravity with a hydrometer, always be sure to mix your terra sigillata thoroughly with a hand blender or drill-mounted impeller mixer. The sig will settle, especially in the initial mixture, and you must make sure that all particles are in suspension in order to get an accurate hydrometer reading.

Determining the Initial Mixture For the time and trouble involved, and considering the low cost of raw clay, it is best to make a quantity of sig all at once. I never make less than five gallons of initial mixture. After settling, siphoning, and concentrating, that will yield about a half gallon of super-refined terra sigillata. A near-full five-gallon bucket of initial mixture will take about 14 lbs. of Redart, Goldart, kaolin, fire clay, or any dry claybody, or about 11 lbs. of ball clay.

Add the dissolved deflocculant mix to cold water, starting with a quart of cold water for every two pounds of dry clay to be used. Add the dry clay, blending with a drill-mounted impeller mixer. When all the dry clay is mixed in, add more cold water, mixing well, and check frequently with the hydrometer until the specific gravity reading is 1.20 for any clays except ball clays, or 1.15 for ball clays. If you are mixing in a full five-gallon bucket, float the hydrometer right in the bucket. If mixing smaller quantities, you will need a graduated cylinder or other appropriate container as mentioned above.

Settling the Initial Mixture As soon as you have finished blending the initial mixture, note the time, and place the container on a raised table or shelf and leave it undisturbed for 20 hours. It must be in a location where you can siphon from it, and it will be a great advantage to have the bottom of the container at least two to three feet above the floor.

Don’t be careless about this. Do not move or agitate the container in any way during the 20-hour settling time, or during the siphoning process outlined below. If you agitate the mix, you ruin the terra sigillata. Consistency in method and timing is critically important in making good terra sig. If you accidentally agitate the mixture, or if you let the mixture stand for longer than 20 hours, thoroughly mix it again with a drill-mounted impeller mixer, note the time, and start the 20 hours settling period again.

Why 20 Hours? The 20-hour settling time may seem arbitrary, but it’s not. I am grateful to student Rob Williamson at U-Mass for helping to determine the ideal settling time. There are several forces at work in this deflocculated mix. The deflocculant introduces same electrical charges to particles in aqueous suspension, causing them to repel one another and stay in suspension longer. Also, there is ever-present atomic vibration which causes particles in liquids to naturally disperse. Working against these forces is gravity, causing particles to settle out. At 20 hours, in a deflocculated slip of the correct specific gravity, gravity has caused all the heavier particles to settle out, while atomic vibration and the repelling forces caused by deflocculation keep the finest particles (generally those less than one micron - 1/1000 of a mm) in suspension.

Decanting the Terra Sig: Get a Proper Racking Tube The essential tool for decanting the dilute terra sig is a winemaker’s siphon, referred to in the winemaking industry as a racking tube or racking cane. You can get one from any supplier of winemaking equipment, including many online sources. Note that in some cases the racking tube comes with attached flexible tubing, while in other cases the tubing must be ordered separately.

An appropriate racking tube features a “J”-shaped rigid plastic tube attached to a length of flexible plastic tubing. An important feature of a good racking tube is the diversion cap on the suction end of the rigid tube. This allows fluid to enter above the cap rather than below, and offers real advantages in siphoning terra sig. As you gently probe downwards with the rigid tube, the objective is to sense the increased density of heavier sediments before the siphon starts to pick up those sediments, thus avoiding contaminating the terra sig. The diversion cap makes this much more feasible.

Siphoning off the Dilute Terra Sig The upper part of the mix is now a very dilute terra sigillata, and must be carefully siphoned off, avoiding the heavier sediments lower down in the container. This is a touchy process and must be done properly with the right equipment. While siphoning, do not discard any liquid at the top. Some clays will give a seemingly transparent layer of water at the top, but this layer contains some of the very finest particles. Siphon off the transparent layer (if any) and keep siphoning until you come to heaver sediments in the lower portion of the container.

Start the siphon with the diversion cap just barely immersed in the settled mix. As mentioned above, do not agitate this container or the settled mix at all. Once the siphoning is started, gently lower the tip of the siphon tube into the mixture as the thin liquid is siphoned off, keeping the diversion tip just below the surface. The diversion cap will occasionally suck a bit of air, but that hurts nothing, and tells you that the tip is close to the surface. If it sucks too much air the siphoning action will cease, and you’ll have to restart it. You will quickly get a feeling for this.

With some clays such as Redart, the heavier sediments will form a distinct layer with a fairly hard surface, and you will feel that layer with the tip of the diversion cap. As soon as this happens, lift the siphon tube and stop siphoning immediately. Don’t risk picking up any of the heavier sediments.

With some clays, you will never feel a distinctly heavier layer. In that case, let the suction tube suck a little air every few seconds, and note the change when the siphon naturally begins to suck more air, indicating that the mixture is getting thicker. Once again, as soon as this happens, lift the siphon tube and stop siphoning immediately.

With most ball clays, the particle size is so consistent that you never will sense a heavier layer of sediment at all. In that case, just siphon off the top two thirds of the mixture and discard the rest, and you will get a good terra sig. That may seem inexact, but there doesn’t seem to be any other choice, and that bottom third seems to accommodate the heavier particles. As instructed above, in making ball clay terra sig you should start with a thinner 1.15 specific gravity initial mixture, and that helps to allow the coarsest fraction of particles to settle out, so even if you are not able to identify thicker sediments in the lower portion of the vessel, you can be sure they are there. Don’t try to siphon off more than two thirds. It just isn’t worth risking contaminating the sig.

With most clays, the residue of heavier sediment left in the bottom of the container represents most of the weight of what you started out with, but I have never tried to do anything with that residue. Raw clay is cheap, while terra sig is very valuable based on your time invested. The residue already has the finest particles removed, and thus is relatively non-plastic. I just discard it, but you may find a good use for it.

Concentrating the Thin Sig by Evaporation Since the initial mixture is either 1.20 or 1.15 specific gravity, and most of the heavy particles are settled out and discarded, the siphoned mixture will be extremely thin and relatively unusable. The next challenge is to concentrate the sig by evaporating water. This can be done by natural evaporation in any wide, low container will work, such as one of those broad dish-shaped plastic snow sleds, an automotive oil-change pan, or a very large round or rectangular cake pan. Protect the concentrating sig from contamination by large particles, but don’t put a cloth over it, because that will severely retard evaporation. Don’t worry about bugs or the very fine particles of dust that float in the air. Those particles won’t hurt the sig, and the bugs can be skimmed off.

Concentrating the Thin Sig by Heat You can concentrate terra sig with heat, but don’t do it on direct heat, like a stove burner or hotplate. The sig will solidify directly on the bottom of the pot, and the metal will burn. I concentrate terra sig in a large metal mixing bowl, placed carefully-centered on the bottom shelf of a toploader kiln, and I leave the bottom element on low overnight. It may be easier to place the empty bowl on the bottom shelf and then carefully fill it with a measuring cup, being very cautious to avoid splattering sig on the heating elements. In either case, turn off the circuit breaker feeding the kiln while you place or remove the metal container.

As another option, use a crock pot set on medium heat with the lid off. In either case, the rate of drying will depend on the atmospheric humidity and the mount of heat applied. It will take some experimentation to learn the ideal conditions.

Using the Terra Sig As Soon As It Has Concentrated If you are in a rush to use the sig, watch it carefully, and when it has thickened considerably, scrape the thick accumulation loose and mix back into suspension with a whisk. Add water to adjust the specific gravity as indicated below.

Storing the Sig in Dry Form If you don’t need the sig right away, let it dry completely, scrape it loose from the container, and store it until needed. Drying doesn’t hurt the sig in any way. 24 hours before you need to use the sig, place an appropriate amount in a container, cover with water one inch above the sig, let it sit overnight, and then add more water, checking the consistency with the hydrometer to get the desired specific gravity. If you are mixing a small quantity, a hand blender helps. For larger amounts use a drill-mounted impeller mixer to blend the sig.

Determining the Specific Gravity for Application A terra sig must be mixed very thinly to work properly, but beyond that there are no hard and fast rules for the ideal consistency of sig for application. The thicker the sig, the less water introduced into the claybody, but the greater chance that the sig layer will crack and peel. The thinner the sig, the less chance it will crack and peel, but the more coats you will need, and thus the more water introduced into the claybody, risking cracks in the ware. For most sigs and most application methods, I have had best luck with a specific gravity of 1.15, and would not recommend using sig mixed thicker than that. This material simply does not respond well to thicker applications, and it will encourage cracking and peeling, either during drying, firing, or subsequent use. Instead, you will get the best results with multiple thin layers of terra sig.

When and How to Apply the Terra Sig Some people recommend applying sig to leather-hard clay, but in my experience that is a waste of time unless you just want only the natural soft satin sheen sig can give without polishing or burnishing. The sig layer is pretty dense, more so if it has been polished. It doesn’t have much capacity for shrinkage, and none at all if it has been burnished. Even hard-leather-hard clay will shrink as it dries, and the sig coating will crinkle on a microscopic level, diminishing or ruining any shine that is present.

I apply terra sig to bone dry clay, and get the best adhesion when the clay has been sanded. Since most of my terra sig use is in conjunction with the Ancient Clay workshops I teach, the pieces are usually sanded, as is the tradition among Southwestern Native Americans and many other cultures past and present that polish or burnish their wares. I sand with 120-grit drywall sanding mesh, available from any good building materials center.

If you sand the wares, be sure to thoroughly wipe down all surfaces with a soft cloth such as tee-shirt material in order to remove all dust. If you neglect to do this, the paintbrush will carry the dust back to your sig container, contaminating the sig.

I apply terra sigillata with a wide, thick soft brush heavily loaded with sig, laying on flowing strokes, carefully avoiding drips. If the sig does drip down the surface, chase the drips with your brush. Don’t let the drips harden on the surface, and don’t let the piece sit in sig pooled at the base. I work my way around the piece, building up thin coats until I get an opaque surface that begins to conceal the sanded texture. That’s still a very thin coat overall, but if you accumulate much more thickness, you are risking subsequent cracking and peeling of the sig coat.

If you wish to preserve some of the color and the surface texture of the base surface, you can get a good shine with an almost transparent coat, because the shine results from the ultra-fine clay platelets laying flat on the surface. Ultimately, it’s a matter of experience with your particular terra sig and base claybody. Experiment with the thinnest buildup possible, and see if it meets your needs. Build up from there to see what you can get away with.

I have applied very thin coats of terra sig to bisqueware with adequate results, but it never produces the level of shine or durability of surface achieved with a sig applied to bone dry clay. Terra sig applied too thickly on bisqueware will almost always crack and peel.

Polishing and/or Burnishing the Sig Surface As soon as I achieve the desired sig buildup, and the wetness has soaked in, I polish the surface with a piece of grocery bag plastic stretched over my fingertips. The first time you do this, you won’t believe what happens. It is magical. Grocery bag plastic is harder and denser than other plastic bag material, and gives a better shine. Some people prefer to polish with soft flannel or tee-shirt material or a soft brush, but I have had best success with the grocery bag plastic. I get a glassy shine in one polish.

There’s no reason to polish between coats. When you do polish, if you are not satisfied with the shine, you can simply paint on more terra sig. The new coat disrupts the previous shine, achieving a good bond.

It is possible to burnish any re-moistened bone-dry clay surface, but usually some sort of refined slip is applied to the base clay. A properly prepared terra sig makes an excellent burnishing slip, but if you rely entirely on the moisture introduced by the sig, burnishing must be completed in one sitting while the coating is still damp. Otherwise the surface will begin to flake and crack. To prevent this, especially with larger forms, many potters apply the sig, allow the water to absorb, apply a thin smear-coat of lard or glycerin, and let that absorb before burnishing. The grease retards drying, giving you time to finish burnishing the piece.

Even though terra sig makes a good burnishing slip, it is not the ideal use of this medium. The whole point of this elaborate preparation process is to produce a thin slip medium that polishes beautifully and gives the unique terra sig shine, but doesn’t involve the labor-intensity of burnishing. After proper application of terra sigillata, the actual polishing process on a medium-sized pot using grocery bag plastic takes ten or fifteen minutes. A thorough burnishing job on the same pot takes at least two or three hours.

Firing Ranges and Natural Clay Colors Achieved with Terra Sig A true burnished surface cannot be fired above cone 012. Beyond that, the compressed surface starts to shrink, and crinkles on a microscopic level, destroying the shine. On the other hand, highly polished (not burnished) terra sig surfaces can be fired as high as cone 02 with the polish intact. At higher temperatures, terra sigs can give an appealing satin finish, but the high shine will be diminished.

At cone 012, Redart sig gives a bright brick-red-orange color. At cone 08 it gives a classic brick red, and cone 02 it gives a red brown. At midrange and highfire temperatures, a Redart (or other earthenware clay) terra sig will fuse and become a glaze.

Stoneware clays like Goldart and most fire clays give an off-white color at low temperatures, and at midrange and high-fire temperatures will produce a tan in oxidation and gray in reduction.

Ball clays generally give white at lowfire temperatures, and an off-white or gray at high-fire.

Most kaolins produce white at all temperatures.

Red stoneware clays like Carbondale , Lizella, or Neuman red often tend to be quite coarse, but can still give a good brick-red terra sig that will survive to high-fire temperatures without fusing into a glaze. Some red stoneware clays may need to be ball-milled before incorporation into the initial mixture.

Slip clays like Barnard or Blackbird are often too coarse to make a terra sig, but might respond well to ball milling.

For the purposes of blackware firing, a properly-made Redart sig produces a very dense coating, and gives a range of colors from brick red to jet-black, and any re-oxidized spots will go back to brick red. Ball clay terra sig is slightly more porous, and in a blackware bonfiring can give intense jet-black, and any re-oxidized spots will go to gray or white.

Adding Coloring Oxides or Ceramic Stains - Using a Ball Mill I always work with pure clay terra sigs, because they give the best shine, and I like the natural colors. Colored sigs are an appealing option, but some oxides and all commercial ceramic stains are coarsely ground, and will diminish the potential for polishing the sig. Very finely divided oxides like copper carbonate or cobalt carbonate can be added in small quantities without significant loss of shine. When using other oxides, or when using fritted ceramic stains like Mason stains , you will need to ball-mill the mix. A commercially-made ball mill is a very expensive piece of equipment, but you can make do with a large rock tumbler. Fill the reservoir one third with quartz pebbles or glass marbles (use rounded grinding media - the cylindrical grinding media is intended for dry grinding), and one third with thick, creamy consistency terra sig with the oxides or stains added, leaving one third air space. Do not overfill the reservoir or the materials will not tumble properly. Ball mill for at least 24 hours, thin a small amount to the desired consistency, and test it. If the colorants settle out, or if it does not develop a good shine, it needs to be ball milled longer. This will require experimentation on your part, because it is outside my own area of experience. Ball-milling certainly helps, but just keep in mind that no matter how much you divide the particle size of added materials, they will never be platelets, and it is only the clay platelets that develop shine. No matter what, the more non-clay contaminants you add, the less shine you will achieve.

Using Terra Sig to Coat Feet and Lid Seats From a philosophical point of view, I like "dry-footed" wares, where you can see and feel the unglazed clay on the foot of a vessel, and I like the feel of a snug-fitting clay-to-clay lid seat. I find no advantage in a glazed foot, especially on midrange and high-fired ware, and dislike the sound and feel when you set it down on a hard surface like tile or stone. I do not care for the brittle, fragile feel and fit of a glazed lid seat, and again, I see no advantage in it. However, some claybodies high in grog can give unpleasantly rough surfaces on the exposed clay of a foot or lid seat, and you would certainly be justified in wanting a smoother surface. A good solution is to coat those parts with terra sig made from the base claybody. That way, you still have the visual and tactile contrast of unglazed clay on the foot or lid seat, but it will be relatively smooth to the touch.

Slake down scrap claybody clay overnight in ample water and mix with a drill-mounted impeller mixer, adding more water to achieve the 1.2 specific gravity initial mixture. Don’t worry about sand or grog, because those will be the first components to settle out in the initial mix.

If you do not use the base claybody, select a clay appropriate to the base claybody and the intended firing temperature. Remember, an earthenware clay slip will become a glaze at midrange and high-fire temperatures. Terra sigs made from stoneware clays like Goldart or from a ball clay or kaolin will work fine up to high-fire temperatures, and even then will still give a silky smooth surface.

Using Terra Sig Under a Glaze This last item may come as a surprise, because historically terra sig is always used alone, without a glaze, since the objective is usually the unique shine possible with a true terra sig. The clay-glaze interface is a site of considerable thermochemical activity, dependent on the firing temperature, and the flux content of the glaze. The old aphorism "the glaze feeds off the body" is especially appropriate here. As a glaze fuses, it has considerable solvent effect on the surface of the clay, and some of the surface materials are dissolved into the glaze. That's why a celadon sometimes goes brown where applied very thinly on a stoneware body - it incorporates additional iron from the body, pushing it to the darker iron color. Anyone who has done considerable slip decoration has experienced the effect where a very thin application of slip simply disappears, having been absorbed into the glaze. That's what happens with terra sig. However, like any liquid medium applied to dry greenware or to bisque-ware, terra sig will settle more thickly in recesses and textural details, and thinly on high spots and flat areas. In the thicker areas, the glaze will not dissolve the terra sig coating, and it will have a localized effect on glaze color. This could be an advantage with almost any glaze at any temperature, but it is especially useful in electric-fired lowfire and midrange work, where the exposed claybody often looks pallid and lifeless, and where the glaze often benefits from more surface activation. A terra sig can bring interesting color and surface to the unglazed areas, even at midrange and highfire temperatures, and it will give more variegation of color and visual texture in the glazed areas. If you are going to coat the foot and/or lid seats of the pot, be sure to use a terra sig appropriate for the intended firing temperature (see the section above on "Firing Ranges and Natural Clay Colors Achieved with Terra Sig"). That doesn't preclude using a Redart terra sig on cone 10 wares - it simply requires that you use wax resist or sponge off the foot and/or lid seats.

Caveat I call the product of this method "super refined terra sig," and I believe that to be true, in comparison to many of the terra sig recipes out there. But it has come to my attention that the glassy surfaces seen on classic ancient Greek red-figure and black-figure wares were achieved with little or no polishing, and thus the terra sig must have been refined to a much greater degree. At some point I'll do further research into that process.

A well-prepared terra sigillata is truly a remarkable medium. It has become a popular option in contemporary ceramics throughout the US, Canada, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. Polished terra sig finishes have become especially popular in pit-firing, bonfiring, sagger, sawdust-smoking, raku, and horsehair effects. Whatever you do with terra sig, you are part of a 4000-year tradition that continues to evolve. If you discovery interesting new effects or uses in your experiments, I’d love to hear about them at [email protected].

Vince Pitelka, Smithville, Tennessee October 5, 2005

Sumi von Dassow

TERRA Sig 101

Terra Sigillata 101: How to Make, Apply, and Troubleshoot Terra Sig

Sumi von Dassow covers everything you've ever wanted to know about terra sigilatta!

Sumi von Dassow

• April 1, 2020 •

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Terra sigillata is an ultrarefined clay slip that can give a soft sheen when applied to bone-dry wares and, if polished or burnished while still damp, may give a high gloss. The ancient Greeks and Romans used this technique in lieu of glaze. I love the buttery surfaces that can be created with terra sigillata and I have been meaning to try it for a long time.

If you’ve been intrigued by terra sig, today’s post is for you. Sumi von Dassow gives the low-down on terra sigillata, from mixing, to applying, to burnishing, and, of course, troubleshooting. She also shares a number of terra sig recipes. – Jennifer Poellot Harnetty, editor.

The term terra sigillata, which means ‘sealed earth’, comes from the name of a type of Roman pottery mass-produced around the first century AD. This pottery was decorated with impressed or stamped decoration, which is what the word ‘sigillata’ refers to. (Think of the kind of stamp, or ‘seal’, which would have been used to seal wax on a paper document.) These pots were coated with the same kind of very fine slip which Greek potters had been using for hundreds of years to create their famous black and red pottery. Though many books incorrectly refer to this slip as a ‘glaze’, it was not actually a glaze but the material we now call terra sigillata.

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Making Terra Sigillata

Terra sigillata, or ‘terra sig’ for short, is made by mixing a suitable clay with water and a deflocculant and leaving it to stand until the heavier particles of clay settle out. (Deflocculant weakens the electrical attraction between particles of clay, thus breaking up small clumps of clay and allowing the individual particles to float freely.) The deflocculant causes the finer particles to float in the water, which can then be decanted for use. In general it is not possible to buy terra sigillata, so if you want to use it, you must make your own.

To make terra sigillata, you will need a clear glass or plastic jar with a wide mouth, an accurate gram scale and a length of clear plastic tubing for siphoning. The only ingredients are water, dry clay and deflocculant. Many kinds and colors of clay can be used, including ball clay, kaolin, local clay or scraps of whatever clay body you usually work with. There are also many possible deflocculants, the most commonly used being sodium silicate, soda ash, Darvan 7 and Darvan 811. You might find recipes calling for Calgon water softener, but don’t try those – Calgon doesn’t work since it was reformulated to eliminate phosphates. Lye can also be used as a deflocculant, and I have even experimented with using the waste water from washing wood ash.

Not all clays are equally suitable to make terra sig, and the proportions of water to clay to deflocculant will be different depending on what clay you use. It is a question of experimenting with different types until you find something suitable. You can try substituting any dry clay, including scraps from your clay body, for the clays called for in the recipes which follow. The process is simple, but a bit time-consuming. First, measure your water, and stir in the deflocculant. Weigh out your clay and add it to the water. For best results, be sure to weigh these materials precisely. If you have a ball mill, you can ball mill the mixture, otherwise, shake or stir it vigorously. Then place the jar, loosely covered, somewhere where it won’t be disturbed for several hours to several days, depending on the recipe.

Naked Raku Orb by Charles and Linda Riggs, 2003. 7 in. (18 cm) in width. Stoneware painted with white terra sigillata and polished with a soft cloth, bisque fired to cone 010, covered in resist slip and glaze. Sgraffito through glaze before raku firing to 1400ºF (760°C).

After the appropriate settling period, you will see a layer of dark sludge on the bottom of your jar, and if it has been a long settling period you may see clear (or possibly dark-colored) water on the top (this varies depending on the type of clay and length of settling). It’s the part in the middle – hopefully, about half the mixture – which you need. Use a syringe to remove carefully as much of the water from the top as you can without taking any of the fine clay particles along.

When clay starts getting into your syringe, it’s time to siphon off the middle layer into a clean container, using the clear plastic tubing – or for a small batch, simply use the syringe. Don’t be greedy. If you get some of the heavy sludge into your terra sig, it may never settle back out and you’ll have gritty terra sigillata which won’t shine up as well. It’s a good idea when you get close to the layer of sludge to switch to a new container, so if some of the sludge gets in you don’t contaminate the whole batch. You now have a batch of rather thin terra sigillata (along with a lot of sludge which can be discarded or used for some other purpose). It can be used as is, or allowed to settle and evaporate for a few days before using.

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Applying Terra Sigillata

Terra sigillata can be applied in two ways, by brushing or spraying. Brushing is easier, but may leave noticeable brush-marks. On the other hand, spraying requires more equipment, and may leave a bit of a pebbly texture where the droplets land on the pot.

Saggar-fired Orb by Charles and Linda Riggs, 2003. 9 in. (23 cm) in width. White stoneware sprayed with white terra sigillata, polished with a soft cloth, bisque fired to cone 010, saggar-fired in a raku kiln with wood shavings, steel wool, copper, and salt.

Before you apply terra sigillata, your pot must be smooth and dust-free. Terra sigillata is so fine that even if you cover a textured surface with several coats, the texture still shows. This is wonderful if you have a deliberately textured surface, and in fact, the only way to burnish a textured surface is with terra sig. However, if you have sanded the pot, the surface is likely to be covered with little scratches from the sandpaper, which will not be covered up by the terra sig.

Even more important, if you have sanded your pot, you must carefully sponge off any dust. Dust will cause the terra sigillata to peel off after firing. Therefore, if you want to achieve a really smooth burnished surface using terra sig, it is most effective to apply it to a wheel-thrown pot which has been ribbed smooth after throwing or trimming, or if handbuilding, to smooth the entire surface at leather-hard stage with a rib.

Terra sigillata should be applied to a bone-dry or almost bone-dry pot. If you are brushing it on, you need to apply at least three coats. If you are putting white terra sigillata on white clay, three coats is probably plenty. The terra sigillata needs to soak into the clay, but should not be allowed to dry completely between coats. Once you have applied several coats, the surface should be buffed with your fingers, a cloth or chamois-leather before it dries completely. The pot is ready to buff when the surface looks waxy and grey but is no longer wet-looking. If it has lightened in color, it has dried too much and another coat of terra sigillata must be applied. For the greatest degree of sheen, apply three thin coats and buff after each coat.

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Watch out for two things when you are brushing on terra sigillata: don’t let it drip down your pot, because the drips will show; and don’t allow your brush to lose hairs, as the hairs will make a permanent mark. Be sure to use a good quality soft brush – a watercolor mop brush works well. If you are brushing terra sigillata onto a wheel-thrown pot, the simplest way to apply a nice even coat is to put the pot on the wheel and let the wheel do the work for you while you move the brush up and down. Once you have enough coats on part of the pot, you can start burnishing with the fingertips of one hand while you are still brushing the terra sigillata onto another part of the pot with the other hand. If you have a large pot you are almost required to do this to get a really good polish, or the terra sigillata may dry out too much before you finish brushing it on. Don’t touch the surface until it has soaked in, though if the terra sigillata comes off on your fingers, it isn’t ready to burnish yet, and you will mar the surface by touching it. After you have applied enough terra sigillata to the whole pot, and there are no wet patches, then you can start using a chamois-leather or a soft cloth, or even a thin plastic shopping bag, to bring the surface to a high gloss. Check out this post in the archives for more on burnishing ceramics!

If you are applying terra sigillata to a handbuilt or sculptural piece, you may find it impossible to use the wheel to help with the job. In that case, you can still brush it on, but be careful not to touch any wet spots. You may also want to experiment with pouring, or even dipping if you have a large enough batch of terra sigillata and a way to safely hold a delicate piece of greenware.

Step 1:

Weigh out Darvan 7 or 811 and add it to the measured amount of water.

Helpful hint: If you always mix your terra sigillata in the same container, place a permanent water-line on the side of the container so you don’t have to measure the water every time.

Step 2:

Weigh out the dry clay, add it to the water solution, and mix thoroughly.

Step 3:

Stripes become noticeable down the sides of the container as the heavier particles begin to settle.

Step 4:

After settling (in this case, approximately 3 hours, but could be as long as several days), siphon off the middle layer of liquid from above the layer of sludge. Be careful not to get any of the settled sludge in your siphon.

Step 5:

Center a pot on the wheel upside-down, and while the wheel spins begin brushing on the terra sigillata from the foot. Apply two or three coats, until you cannot see the underlying clay color clearly.

Step 6:

Once you have applied enough terra sigillata to the lower portion of the pot, and it has soaked in so it is not glossy wet, use your fingertips to begin polishing the surface as you continue coating the pot with the other hand.

Step 7:

Turn the pot right-side up and finish coating it with terra sigillata. Apply just inside the lip; there is no need to coat the entire inside of the pot.

Step 8:

Using the polishing material of your choice-a car-polishing mitt works well -bring the entire surface to a high sheen.

Troubleshooting

Terra sigillata occasionally suffers from problems adhering to the clay it is applied to. Terra sigillata is not integral to the material the pot is made from, as is the surface of a stone-burnished pot; at the same time it doesn’t adhere by melting like a glaze does. Some potters prefer to burnish with a stone for this reason, but you can keep this problem under control by attention to some rules of thumb in applying terra sigillata and firing your ware. Most important is to make sure the terra sigillata is quite thin and watery. It should take several coats to cover your pot, and the final depth of applied terra sigillata should be a fraction of a millimeter. The pot must be dry but not dusty. If necessary, use a damp sponge to remove dust from the surface before applying terra sigillata. However, beware of sponging the surface of your pot too much: every time you rub it with a wet sponge you are removing particles of plastic clay and leaving behind the heavier particles of clay and coarse grog, which don’t hold on to terra sigillata as well. After coating your pot, allow it to dry completely before firing; it is a good idea to wait 24 hours.

Avoid a too-rapid increase in temperature during any firing – a pot which comes out of a bisque firing perfectly smooth may peel in a hot and fast pit-firing. If you experience a great deal of peeling despite following all these rules, you may have to change the clay you use or the terra sigillata recipe. One last thing to try is adding a little CMC gum to your terra sigillata. This is a gum which is often used as a binder. It comes as a powder which has to be dissolved in hot water before it can be added to your terra sigillata. Add only a very small amount at a time and test as you go. CMC may reduce the level of sheen you get from your terra sigillata, and it will slow the drying time.

Many potters use terra sigillata as a canvas for the fire to paint on, either pit firing or saggar firing their burnished pots. However, other potters like the satiny surface of terra sigillata as is, without any special firing. Ricky Maldonado is a potter who uses terra sigillata as a base for painting intricate patterns, rendering them with tiny dots of low-fire glaze covering the burnished surface of his pots.

You can also try using terra sigillata to partially cover a surface which has been burnished with a stone. In this way you can have a multi-colored burnished pot with a high level of sheen. I frequently use terra sigillata made from Cedar Heights Redart clay to paint intricate patterns of fine lines on burnished pots made from red clay. I then smoke-fire these pots to achieve a black-on-black effect. I adopted this process because I found that plain clay slip often rubs off a burnished surface, while the process of buffing terra sigillata to shine it up seats it even on an already burnished surface.

Recipes:

Some of these recipes suggest checking specific gravity with a hydrometer (here’s a great hydrometer DIY!). You can also pour 3½fl oz (100 ml) of terra sigillata into a graduated cylinder and weigh it – if it weighs 115 grams it has a specific gravity of 1.15. This is the recommended consistency for terra sigillata. If it is much thinner it is hard to apply enough without over-saturating your pot with water. If it is much thicker, it may peel off after firing. In practice you will get to know just how you like your terra sigillata and you won’t have to check the specific gravity of every batch you make.

Check out this video in the archives on Marcia Selsor’s super quick terra sig!

Click here for some colorful terra sigillata recipes!

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