#it’s actually fun writing Japanese like that. like. the pen strokes are so nice to do. | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

pianostarinwonderland · 4 years ago

Note

Azul's Handwriting: While I wouldn't make myself an excellent student of the arts of good handwriting (much less I can't say I, myself, have good handwriting), Azul's signature is written within four confident strokes; namely in the order 'Azul A-shengrotto' and a line to finish up the 'tt'.

One thing that irks me with his signature is that the number of loops and the sharpness on the z's point is done too perfectly. In terms of writing speed, I would sum it up to confident, smooth strokes, not too fast nor too slow, again, perfect. Compared to Floyd's short, direct, and fast handwriting, or Jade's simple yet elegant signature, Azul's is far too...showy. One thing you can never replicate on a person's handwriting is muscle memory: the way they do the hoops, how they sting the letters, and the pressure they place on the pen. Azul has a perfect grip on his pen: summing up to the bold lines and thin ones alternated, the hoops being the grandeur show of how perfect his stroke is.

After the long discussion of how Azul writes, I'd like to take it upon myself to know how he did. Per his backstory, Azul wrote many things on clams, he perhaps honed his handwriting in that time. But by personal headcanon, he wrote to impress.

Comparing Azul's handwriting to another showy friend, Vil Schoenheit's, Azul's hoops are more exaggerated and his letters are sharper, meanwhile, Vil's is smoother and flowy. While it may be irrelevant (and perhaps unfair) to compare how they write, Azul's handwriting, while perfect, is rather stiff the more I look at it.

Going back to the personal headcanon, Azul. Really Really wanted to impress his fellow peers with his hoops and showy zigzag letters, so much that he probably practiced his handwriting to be perfect and legible for all to see. He spent all those time writing in clams, and his frustration perhaps sharpened his letters. Sharp, confident (or the mask of), and decorated with intricate hoops, very in character for Azul Ashengrotto.

[This is long and I ONLY INTENDED TO PENT MY FRUSTRATION ON HIS HOOPS--]

...................

Anon. Anon, do you know how much I screamed about this the whole day because of how absolutely big-brained this is?

I didn’t respond to it right away because I wanted to formulate a nice response that isn’t just me screaming and rotting about your analysis.

But I want to scream first, so I’ll just: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA ANON WHY ARE YOU SO FUCKING BIG BRAINED LIKE HOLY SHIT I WAS TRYING TO ANALYZE AZUL’S HANDWRITING TO THINK OF SOMETHING BIG BRAINED BUT I CAME UP WITH NOTHING AND I WANT TO READ THE OTHER HANDWRITING ANALYSES OUT THERE BUT THEY’RE ALL IN JAPANESE. BUT THEN YOU COME IN, HANDING ME A FREE HANDWRITING ANALYSIS ON AZUL’S SIGNATURE, AND I’M BLOWN THE FUCK AWAY LIKE HOLY SHIT I KEPT SAYING WHAT THE FUCK THIS WHOLE DAY BECAUSE OF THIS DAMN ASK LIKE ???? ANON I AM ASKING FOR AN OUNCE OF YOUR INTELLIGENCE—

Ahem. Anyway.

Regarding your headcannon, I actually do agree with the idea that Azul wanted to impress his classmates with his handwriting! If I may ramble for a bit under the cut, I have a lot of reasons why Azul may have wanted to impress.

Because he was bullied, Azul probably wanted to try to fit in or climb up the social rung so nobody would make fun of him anymore. Now, how do you do that exactly...?

In the social hierarchy in school, there are certain people who are the ones on top or the ones who are popular. I can’t speak for most schools, but in my school, the ones who are well-liked are the smart people, the artists, the writers (stories, essays, doesn’t matter), the dancers, the leaders, the musicians. I can also say that pretty confidently due to my experiences being in a friend group that is seen as outcasts. Within my friends, only two people, me and another friend, were notably more liked by our classmates than our other friends... at least, that’s how it seemed to be like. And this is because for that one friend, she’s very talented in her art, and as for me, people see me as someone ‘smart’ and would look to me for help.

So where am I getting at? All those people, the smart ones, the artists, the dancers... they all have one thing in common: they have talent. They have notable talents that have been honed and are now used to either help in certain school projects or simply to impress. And when someone has more talent in a certain field, they will be sought after more by others. People will want to befriend them more.

In other words, what can bring someone up there in the social hierarchy is the talent that they possess.

And that’s what Azul must have concluded as well, and that conclusion manifests in his unique magic.

Azul’s unique magic, as we all know, is It’s A Deal. He can take the abilities, whether magical or non-magical, of a person using this magic. As seen in chapter 3-33, there is technically no need for a contract for It’s A Deal to take place, but due to how potent this unique ability is, Azul has to use a contract as a check and balance. So take out all the contracts and other complicated things, and we see a spell that simply takes anyone’s magic and other abilities.

Following the theory that the unique magic of individuals is a manifestation of the sufferings they underwent, Azul’s unique magic may have been born from a desire to be just as talented as his peers. We see that he clearly worked hard in his studies, to the point that he’s become much more well-versed in magic than most of the students. But at some point, a certain thought may have popped up, something that many of us probably thought as well:

I wish I was just as good as them.

And from there, his unique magic may have manifested from there because It’s A Deal can let him be just as, if not, more talented than the people around him because he now has the ability to take their talents for himself.

Azul actually expresses this in chapter 3-33, albeit it’s implicit. Quoting from shel_bb’s translations, Azul says this in response to Floyd’s ‘lame’ comment towards him:

Azul: Ah... is that so? You’re aware that I’m a stupid clumsy octopus that can’t do anything by himself. So I’m going to keep taking until I’m the best version of myself I can possibly be. A beautiful singing voice, powerful magic, everything belongs to me! Give it all to me!

And later on in the same chapter, he says in his overblot when you defeat him:

Azul: Why does everyone bully me?! Because I’m a stupid clumsy octopus? I just wanted to be strong and show them they’re wrong...!

I italicized a few sentences here to emphasize my points. Azul wanted to prove his bullies wrong and show them that he’s much better than what they think of him to be. He studied as a result and wrote all those spells on the clams. But at some point, he probably thought that he still hasn’t arrived to where he wants to be because maybe the bullying didn’t let up. So it was likely that he ended up wishing that he was just as talented as his peers. And in part of that journey, he must have worked on his handwriting to show the people around him that he isn’t stupid or clumsy.

A long-winded explanation, I know DBBSBDHDHJD but this has been living rent-free in my head for weeks 💀 and maybe just maybe I want to add something more to your headcannon

#ask #twisted wonderland #twst #azul ashengrotto #twst theory

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kodzukenscorner · 4 years ago

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Semi, Kita, Kuroo, Osamu, Tsukishima, Asahi, and Sugawara with a multilingual S/O

anon asked: Would you please write headcanons of Semi, Kita, Kuroo and Osamu being in a r/s with a foreign s/o who is multilingual - Japanese language included - and all are self taught? Like there are people who excel in STEM, performing arts, sports etc so for s/o, language is s/o's area of expertise. Thanks!

anon asked: Hello can I request some hcs for Tsukki, Asahi and Suga when their sleep in one bed with their gf for a first time and she starts talking in a foreign language while she's sleeping? Like you know she's multilingual and the boys suddenly wakes up and they're like ??? what are u saying ¿¿¿ Thank you so much❤️ Hope it's not too much to ask for 🥺 Have a nice day

a/n: I combined these two requests because they’re so similar for one SUPER LONG hc post lmao

wc: 2,146

✶ ✶ ✶ ✶ ✶

Semi

Semi seems like someone who would probably try and learn English as an additional language

But he was not anticipating you being SO good at so many different languages

When he first saw you, he was immediately drawn to you because of how unique you were compared to everyone else

He definitely finds it very attractive when you talk to him in another language

Kind of begs you to say something sweet to him in another language because it makes him swoon

Will ask you to teach him how to say certain phrases so he can compliment you in return

Oh but when he found out you were actually self taught? He nearly combusted

Not only were you super cool for knowing so many languages but you’re also super smart and taught them to yourself??

He kind of feels like you’re too good to him so he cherishes you like crazy!

He also finds it very endearing when you slip into another language when you’re not noticing

Sometimes you do it when you get frustrated or upset and he finds it quite cute

And one time he heard you sleep talking in another language and he got so curious about what you were saying he tried to record you so he could go to google translate and figure out what you were saying

But you were mumbling a lot so he never did find out what you said

He shows you off to everyone and is very smug with you on his arm

Will talk you up to anyone who will listen and you guys come off as such a power couple

All in all, he thinks you’re a badass

Kita

Ok so Kita is a hard man to impress

He is an extremely hard worker and believes in putting your all into everything you do, within reason of course

So when he finds out you know another language, he is impressed

BUT when he finds out you know multiple and that you taught yourself, he is shook to his entire core

It’s been a while since he’s met someone who is so naturally talented like you

This information will definitely get a rare reaction out of him

When he finds out he is so surprised that he just can’t stop staring at you and asking you to tell him how you managed to learn multiple languages

He honestly tries to take notes on your methods but most of it is just natural ability for you so he is shook

Doesn’t push you to speak another language if you’re not comfortable with it

But when you do, he is all ears even if he can’t understand a word you’re saying

Definitely the type of guy to pick up on keywords and phrases you use frequently so he slowly starts to understand what you’re saying

He may even start to incorporate them into his daily vocabulary as well!

He always makes sure that you don’t overwork yourself when you’re studying a new language

But he will gift you with lots of cute notebooks, flashcards and pens to take notes and learn some more!

Will also keep a full stock of your favorite snacks for you to ensure that you take breaks and eat

He’s really proud of you but is mostly concerned with your health and wellbeing first and foremost

But he does feel a little twinge of pride every time he watches your language skills improve

Kuroo

Alrighty so Kuroo is the one who will brag about you the most to anyone who will listen

He just thinks you’re so cool and amazing and wants everyone to know how smart you are

He will be the guy to ask you to speak in another language just to show off

He also thinks it’s really hot when you do that so he can never get enough of it

Will try and learn a bit of another language from you but he just doesn’t have the attention span for it

He’s much too focused on you and how good you sound speaking another language

He will be able to pick up some simple words and phrases though

Absolutely insists on learning how to say ‘I love you’ in every language you know because he’s sappy like that

In exchange he’ll tutor you in the STEM and business fields, which is where his talents lie

Even if you don’t find it very interesting, it’s still sweet how passionate he is about it and how he wants to share that with you

Sometimes when you get frustrated or angry with him you slip into another language to yell at him

He has no clue what you’re saying but he is heart eyes because he just loves it when you do that

Even though he definitely knows you are yelling at him

He may be really annoying and show you off all the time when you’re hanging out with friends but when the two of you are alone he is a huge softie for you

His heart literally swells so much when he hears you mumble something in another language

Or even when you sleep talk

He just can’t get enough of hearing it and it makes him want to kiss you all over

Osamu

Osamu is very chill when he realizes you speak another language

Even when he notices that you actually know multiple languages, he’s still very calm and doesn’t like to make a big deal about it

He definitely likes to call you his ‘smart baby’ though, but he’s never been one to brag

Except when Atsumu gets on his nerves

Then he uses you as his biggest bragging trick

He will make Atsumu feel so bad by talking about how amazing and smart you are and how he wishes he could be dating someone like you

Yeah Osamu isn’t usually competitive unless it’s Atsumu he’s talking to

Not the type to outright ask you to teach him some sentences and phrases but he does pick them up from you

But he 100% asks you to teach him how to say different insults and swear words just to use them on Atsumu

Will also ask you to help him rehearse a conversation together in another language so that when you’re hanging out with Atsumu one day you guys can just switch to another language and make him feel left out

It’s actually very entertaining the lengths he will go to just to mess with his brother

He’d be the kind of person to learn to say something really sweet without you finding out and then surprise you with it one day

He knows just how to make your heart melt and is definitely very proud of himself for that

Sometimes he hears you sleep talking in another language and will wake up and just watch and listen to you as you sleep

He strokes your cheek really gently so he doesn’t wake you up and he’s got the softest smile on his face

Other times you forget the right word you’re looking for in one language and end up using another one instead

He always teases you for it but you know it’s all in good fun

He can’t even imagine juggling all those languages in your head

Tsukishima

Tsuki is a very studious person so he’s not super surprised to find out you’re multilingual

But he does use it as something to brag about when people get on his nerves

He just really proud of you and can’t help it sometimes

But he’s normally very lowkey about it and doesn’t want to make a big deal about it

But deep down he’s greatly inspired by you and wants to be more like you

You give him the drive to keep pushing himself and study some more

He’ll never be able to admit but he really likes it when you speak another language, there’s something so sensual about it

But he’s way too stubborn and bashful to say it out loud

So when you do slip into a different language, he listens intently and soaks up your every word

The first time you guys spend the night together his heart is racing like crazy

He has a hard time falling asleep, but you seemed to do it with no problem

So he just watches you sleep for a minute until you open your mouth and start mumbling something

He thinks it’s really cute and then suddenly you’re speaking another language entirely

You’re mumbling a bit but still speaking fairly normally

He thinks it’s really cute and as much as he wants to just enjoy the moment he can’t pass up the chance to tease you

So he takes out his phone and records you sleep talking, not having a single clue what you were saying

He shows it to you the next morning and you’re so embarrassed

He still makes you translate whatever you were talking about so he can tease you some more though

Asahi

Asahi thought there was no way on earth he could fall more in love with you than he already was

But then he heard you speaking another language and his heart practically burst right on the spot

He’s literally so proud of you and is in constant awe

He definitely thinks you’re too good for him but he still hypes you up every chance he gets

He treats you like royalty and when you speak another language to him he nearly faints

It’s such a sweet treat to him, even if he’s heard you speak another language time and time again, he never gets tired of it

He is so determined to communicate with you that he will work so hard to have you teach him another language

He buys a dictionary, flashcards, notebook, literally everything he can get his hands on

He’s not amazing at it but he’s trying his best and honestly what more could you ask for?

The first time you fall asleep with him, it’s on accident on the couch while watching a movie

You’re resting on his chest and he wakes up because he can hear you saying something really softly

When he finally comes to and makes out what’s happening, he realizes you’re talking in your sleep and it is in another language

His breath hitches in his throat and he does everything he can to remain calm and not wake you up

But on the inside he is freaking out at how cute you are!!

When you do eventually wake up, he asks you about the dream you just had

He really wants to try and figure out what you were saying in your sleep but he’s a bit too embarrassed to admit that he was listening to you

You unfortunately tell him that you don’t remember much about your dream

He swears he is going to study so much so he can understand what you were saying next time

Sugawara

Suga is probably one of the ones who is most vocal about how proud he is of you

He is constantly giving you praises and compliments whenever he hears you switch to another language

Sometimes you switch over and you don’t even notice it

You’re so engrossed in whatever it is that you’re saying that he just doesn’t have the heart to tell you he has no idea what you’re talking about

When you do notice, you get very embarrassed but Suga just finds it all very endearing

He is someone that has you teach him simple phrases and words but he also works on his own to figure out simple sentence structures so he can talk with you more

Likes to have little study dates with you so he can improve

One time during these dates you fell asleep and he just let you rest so he could study some more

You started mumbling something under your breath and that definitely caught his attention

He quietly moved close to where you were resting on the ground and tried to make out what you were saying

He quickly realized that you were speaking another language and grabbed his notebook and dictionary

He started taking notes on every word he could make out and tried looking them up in his dictionary so he could know what you were saying

You woke up to the sound of pages being flipped and you saw Suga sitting right next to you, with his dictionary in hand

You just thought he was studying really hard but when he noticed you had woken up he showed you his notes

He explained how you were talking in your sleep and he was trying to translate it

You immediately started laughing but did your best to translate the misspelled words he had scribble down in a hurry

He uses your sleep talking as a way to study now

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lethesomething · 6 years ago

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Make-up for lazy and/or busy people

Have some practical tips from someone who doesn't really has time for this, but tries it anyway.

It's 2019 and everyone's a beauty guru

Let me preface this by saying: you don't need make-up. Don't let people tell you you need to 'put your face on'. You can damn well choose which face you'll be projecting each day or even part of the day. Unless you're manning one of those cosmetics counters in a mall, how you look is mostly about you and what makes you feel comfy. So while I'll be giving random ass tips on how to get certain looks with minimal effort, even that minimal effort is totally optional.

Now. Onward.

So I made it into my thirties without ever actually bothering with the whole 'make-up' thing. But now my job requires me to be Fancy sometimes, so last year I decided to make it a Project to learn and be somewhat good at it. I watched a whole bunch of youtube and read articles and Looked Stuff Up and then I bought a cheap version of All the Things to practice. It's honestly quite an overwhelming experience, and it's even harder if you, like, have a day job and hobbies and anime to watch and videogames to play and ranting blogs to write.

Like, Tati I love you but I'm not about to get up an hour earlier for this shit.

If you need some low-stakes, 'just looking around' type stuff, that's what this is here for. I cannot tell you how to do a cut crease or any of the fancy stuff. So have some of my own meandering experience, which can hopefully help you a little bit.

What is all this stuff?

When I did my research at first, I drew up a list of Things I apparently needed to buy to do the make-up. It turned out to be a long ass list. Here are the 'common' items on said list.

1. Primer

Exactly like the thing you put on your walls before you paint them. Supposed to go on top of the moisturizer and under everything else and depending on the primer, does different things. This is.…kindof extra. I've tried two different 'colour correcting anti red' primers and all they seem to do is dry out my skin. I'm sure some are nice but this is really not a basic necessity.

2. Foundation

The thing you slather on to make your skin either look smooth like polished marble, or cakey like badly done stucco. Kinda depends on how good you're at it. Comes in varieties.

Full coverage foundation: The stuff all the make-up youtubers use. It essentially turns you into one of those Japanese mask monsters? Like the ghost from Spirited Away. Good at getting rid of any and all blemishes, but requires More Work later on.

BB cream (or CC, or DD…): Supposed to be a more skincare friendly version of foundation. I've tried a few brands and they ended up medium to full coverage, and all of them dried out my skin.

Tinted moisturizer: Not… strictly… make-up? In Europe you tend to find these in pharmacy/parapharmacy places (so Boots or Walgreens for UK/US peeps). It's essentially moisturizer with some colouring in it to give your face extra oomph. Also, what I long expected BB cream to be (it is not). Because it's pharmacy stuff, it comes in versions with like no perfume, so if you have sensitive skin but want an Instagram filter for your face, this is probably something to look into.

3. Concealer

Spot treatment to get rid of any glaring discolouration you wish to hide. +10 to all stealth checks on red spots and eye bags, but does make wrinkles really obvious.

4. Face powder/baking powder

I have no clue what this is good for. I've tried two different ones on several occasions, and I think they're supposed to stop you from getting shiny by absorbing any facial oil. They mostly just make me look dusty.

5. Bronzer

Here's the fun thing about using full coverage foundation to make yourself look like a ghost: you then need More Product to make yourself look alive again. Enter: bronzer. This stuff puts a bit of colour back into those spots you so carefully blotted out so that you appear moar hooman. Only useful if you do the whole 'full coverage foundation' thing.

6. Contouring

That thing you know because of the Kardashians. Alternatively: don't let them know we can shapeshift. This is morphing powder/cream for your face. You use it to add shadows where no shadows are, and light where there is shadow and of course this means most people use it to look as close to skeletons as possible. Can do really cool things if you know what you're doing, and look Really Wrong if you mess it up. Not for the faint of heart. Also: your nose is fine. Really.

7. Blush

Blushing is the ultimate staple of romance fics, and it looks cute. Blush powder/cream is meant to give you glowing apple cheeks, even when you're not actively feeling embarrassed.

8. Highlighter

Societally acceptable glitter for the skin. This shit is amazing. It's officially supposed to make you 'glow' and look 'youthful' and 'juicy' but honey, who cares: Glitter!

9. Lip liner

A pencil/felt pen for your lips. Supposed to help you paint the outside of your lips so you only have to fill in the lines with lipstick later. Like carefully searching the edges before using the flood tool in Photoshop. Considering I'm pretty bad at the 'smooth strokes at lip edge' thing, it doesn't really help me to have to do it twice but ok.

10. Lip stuff

My favourite Make-up Thing. Puts colour on your lips. Comes in varieties.

Lipstick: Your mom's classic lipstick. The one with the twisty tube. Comes in a million colours and is sometimes moisturizing. Cons: everything your lips touch is now covered in lipstick.

Liquid lipstick: The stuff in the long tubes with the applicator. Usually transfer-proof which means that your coffee cup does not look like a blood bath after a few sips. Dries the hell out of your lips tho.

Lipgloss: the stuff that makes your hair stick to your face at the least gust of wind. Usually quite moisturizing but also super sticky. Makes your tea mug look like a particularly grisly murder scene.

Lip topper: Extra. Like… so extra. This is lip stuff that goes on top of your lip stuff in case you don't have enough lip stuff. Usually metallic or glitter. Because Extra.

Tinted lip balm: Another cheat item, like tinted moisturizer, in that it's not Officially Make-up. Is essentially lip balm, so it's not sticky and usually quite moisturizing and protective. Downside is that its colouring tends to be quite muted.

11. Eyebrow stuff

I don't know when 'fleek' became such an obsession, but there are pencils, and pomades, and powder and gels and spoolie brushes and they all do the same thing: shape your eyebrows.

12. Eyelid primer

Funny thing about eyes: if you have deepset or hooded eyes, like me, your eyelid spends most of its time covered by Moar Eyelid. This tends to transfer whatever you put on said eyelid to all the other skin. Hence: eyelid primer, which is like… glue? I guess? Makes stuff stay in place. For those people who don't have a bunch of eyelid foldage, it's supposed to help with the blending and whatnot.

13. Eyeshadow

Pretty colours for your eyes. Comes in powder and cream, and in literally so many colours, be it matte (no shiny), metallic (shiny), glitter (extra shiny) and fairly recently multichrome (Extra). I see a lot of influencers and (let's be real) make-up companies push the idea that you need like four shades and half an hour of blending for any given 'look' but that is mostly exaggeration. You can just pick a colour you like and wear it.

14. Eyeliner

Pencil or paint that lines your eyes and occasionally gives them wings. Comes in varieties.

Liquid eye liner: your basic all-purpose liner. This one has the advantage that it can usually be applied very thin and stealthy like.

Gel liner: as far as I can tell, a lot of liquid eye liner has an alcohol base, whereas gel liner does not. Its main reason for existing is that you can somewhat safely put it in your waterline, aka to colour the part of the eyelid just behind the lashes. This means you're going to be jabbing the pen or brush in your actual fucking eye, on the bottom/inside of your friggin eyelid and this is Terrifying. On the bright side: it's a pretty badass punky/emo/goth look. Think Avril Lavigne circa Sk8ter boy.

Kohl/pencil: this is a colouring pencil for your eyes. Tends to be a little bit thicker for extra Drama. Can also be smudged for smokey eye and even more goth points.

15. Mascara

Paint for your eyelashes. Most mascaras try to make them look bigger.

16. Falsies

Glue false eyelashes onto your own eyelashes. Ain't nobody got time for that.

17. Setting spray

Face varnish. If you've spent an entire hour getting your make-up super pretty and fancy, you can put this on to make it last longer.

So how do you use all this?

That… was a lot of stuff and we're all still overwhelmed. So let me give you some suggestions, a 'look book' of wearable looks for every day and special ocasions, aka, now that i have this stuff, wtf am i doing with it.

The 'fuck everything' I have a shirt that says 'No.' on it. It's one of my favourite shirts and I use it on deadline weeks, when I'm in the office with a particularly large amount of stressful work. I tend to pair it with a noise-cancelling headset and a look of barely-restrained fury, but it'll look just as good with a cute dress or a comfy pair of jeans. Go wild. This facial look consists of the following:

Moisturizer

Lip balm in winter, sun screen in summer.

The 'I tried'

This was my 'work' look for several years and occasionally still. The fun thing about it is it's quite subtle and most people (definitely most men) will not think you're wearing anything. It makes you feel like you're undercover, just a bit (I take my entertainment where i can get it, ok).

Consists of:

Skincare (moisturise, people!)

Eyebrow pencil

Mascara

The 'You look nice today'

This one works basically like a photoshop filter for your face, if you're into that. It blurs out a little bit of the rough edges and emphasises other parts, but it still looks very much like you. Just a version of you that gets more sleep than the actual you, usually. For me, at least, it works to make me go 'damn, looking cute' when I accidentally meet my reflection in a bathroom mirror. It's a confidence builder.

Mosturiser

Tinted moisturiser or BB cream (depends on general dryness of skin I guess)

Concealer (eyebags, man)

Eyebrow pencil

Mascara

Tinted lip balm or lip gloss

A note on lips: Look. I love dark lipstick. Make me appear as if I have stained my lips in the blood of my enemies and I'm happy. But a dark liquid lip needs to be on point to look good, which is a hard thing to do, plus if you get it wrong it is very hard to correct and I don't need that stress in my daily life. Gloss or lip balm is just a little bit more low-stakes.

The 'Make me look like my selfie'

Some days you have time. This look is essentially the same as the 'you look nice today' with two additions

Cream eyeshadow

Cream (stick) blush

A note on cream make-up: Most make-up products come in a powder form and a cream/liquid type form. Generally, the powder form is more blendable, and those fancy eyeshadow pallettes let you do all kinds of crazy amazing stuff. However, we're talking lazy working girl looks, and I happen to do my make-up on a moving train (see earlier: not getting up an hour early for this shit). If you're going to be applying things in less than ideal circumstances, cream make-up is your best friend. It doesn't explode in a cloud of dust, it doesn't break when you drop it, there's no fall-out. It is, in general, lower difficulty, can be applied with like your fingers or one of those tiny little make-up sponges, and if you get it in a fairly neutral colour (like just a bit darker or lighter than your skintone) it isn't obvious if your bleary ass messes up a little. We're being practical here, not trying to make things more difficult than it has to be.

The 'yeah I worked hard on this, bask in my glory'

Finally, the full glam. I personally use this when I am required to be Fancy, or when it's a Sunday and I'm all 'fuck it i wanna be fab'. This is the one where you just go for it. Use All the Things. Turn your face into a ghost, then paint shadows back on. Use six different eyeshadows and blend them together. Put that liquid lip to use, you have time to clean it up and try again. Add glitter to Everything. Have fun with it.

#lethey writes about life #i have no clue what i'm doing but i'm sarcastic about it #make-up

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authorsdenbyorihime-may · 7 years ago

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How I Write Baybayin (Handwriting and Straight-cut Nib Calligraphy) Subtitle: This is a freaking long-ass post so be warned now

You can read the entirety of this post as is, or you can go straight to the calligraphy portion. It’s at the end of the post (sorry dunno how to link that portion here).

Writer’s Note: First and foremost, I will advise everyone who reads this somewhat master post that I am not an authority when it comes to how baybayin is written, as what you shall be reading is just based mostly on my own experiences on how the characters are written and comparing them with other writing systems that are based on syllables rather than individual letters, like the Japanese Kana and the Korean Hangul, among others. This is because baybayin are not technically letters (individualized, can’t stand alone, only comes either as vowel or consonant but not both, you get the picture), but rather are syllables (i.e. the consonants have free vowels with them lol) that form words.

Also, as far as I know regarding how the baybayin texts are originally written pre-Hispanic colonization era, some of the written texts in the Philippines (or at least, those that survived, or I remember seeing in old history books) were written from right to left, top to bottom. This also coincides with other writing methods in some parts of Asia that also read from right to left. The technique of writing and reading from left to right may be a Western invention, in my opinion so I just did some of the strokes in the baybayin characters go from right to left, except for the straight-cut nib section. Again, I am no authority so I’m just doing what I think makes sense to me, as there is no existing ANCIENT written rules on the stroke order of the baybayin. Other people may disagree with my stroke orders here due to various reasons, but if you’re into what I did then feel free to learn from them, for free. *heart*

This author’s other notes: I won’t be elaborating the history of baybayin here because that would take around (counts how many years I spent in school) 5ever as it basically intertwines with the “current” history of the Filipino people. I put quotes on “current” because every decade or so, some written histories get re-written based on some evidences or what, and I totally respect that. It’s like in scientific papers: legit today, debunked tomorrow. And it’s completely OK, because THE MORE YOU KNOW~

Also this author’s note: I keep calling baybayin alibata, because that’s what they were called when I was a kid and how it was taught by history teachers before the process called “being politically-correct” became the norm. It’s because alibata was supposedly an incorrect term which signifies that the characters were letters based on Arabic, but apparently it wasn’t so.. Yeah. I’m just saying, so the kiddies would know. And if you’re like me who also refers to baybayin as alibata, let’s get a high-five! (Cause you’re also old, but gold =D) Some biased history FTW lol ok let’s get started.

Handwriting Alibata Baybayin Strokes with a Bamboo pen (or Ballpen, or Pencil, w/e floats your boat)

OK, before I start I would be first putting here the somewhat traditional ordering of the baybayin, which is:

A BA KA DA E GA HA I LA MA NA NGA O PA RA SA TA U WA YA

As well as the borrowed/loan syllables (which correspond to C, F, J, Ñ, Q, V, X, and Z were apparently added some 6-7 years ago, in which I didn’t get the memo x__x)

CA FA JA ÑA QA VA XA ZA

OK, now that’s out of the way, it’s time for the actual stuff. For ease of practice and recall, I’m grouping the letters based on how I write them and in turn, their forms. This would make sense as the pictures move along, don’t worry. The forms are built sequentially, I tried making that a bit obvious in the diagrams, but there are red arrows in case I wasn’t that clear. For those that only have one picture or arrows in the sequence, I would be implying that the form is built on a single stroke.

Group 1: A, MA, PA, YA, FA, JA, VA

OK, let’s start with A:

Then MA:

PA:

YA:

FA:

JA:

VA:

Group 2: E/I (more on that later), KA, DA, HA, RA, CA, QA, XA

I’ll start with HA because it’s a foundational stroke:

I looks structurally like E, but only with a vertical stroke on its hat.

It’s because originally, E and I were the same character and whether it should be read as a syllable from the E or I line depends on how the reader would read it and the dialect used in writing the words, like it’s a fill-in-the-blanks kind of thing. It’s also the same with O and U, so if you see that part yeah they look alike. This is also the reason why revisions on writing the E-I and O-U consonants were made, but that would be for a later part. Just be patient for now. =D

Ok, moving on, we’ll go to KA:

DA:

RA:

A short note on DA and RA: In olden times, these two were only one character, and are used interchangeably based on word usage, thus for words such as doon/roon, which both mean way over there one is used for passive and one is used directly (sorry not a speech comm person). This is also the case for marami and ang dami (both meaning “there are many/there is much” but one is active and one is passive. Madami is, IMHO grammatically incorrect. But then again, I’m not a speech comm person so sorry if these are wrong. I’m just saying).

CA:

QA:

XA:

Group 3: O/U, GA, SA, ZA

Just like in E/I, O and U are also structurally similar. To make an O:

To make it a U, just put a vertical line on the right side:

GA:

SA:

ZA:

Group 4: LA, NA, TA, ÑA

I grouped this bunch based on having a downward stroke in the middle of the form. The initial strokes are written as a single stroke from left to right, like in the first group.

LA:

NA:

TA:

ÑA:

Group 5: I have no idea where to put BA, NGA, and WA so I just made a miscellaneous group lol but they deserve just as much love OK?

BA:

NGA:

WA:

How the E, I, O and U lines are written:

In writing E, I, O and U (as in the case for the example below, which is GE, GI, GO, and GU), the original positions of the additional marks (such as the vertical lines for I and U) were kept but in order to differentiate E from I and O from U, the marks were made to be further distinct. For instance, GE is basically GA which has a horizontal line above it, while GI has a dot above it. As for GO, it has a dot below and GU has a horizontal line.

GI and GO can have either a hollowed dot like in the sample, or can also be filled like the samples below. It’s based on personal preference. Also I used G for the samples because it looks nice, fun to write, and most other examples of alibata on the internet use BA as their examples for this portion. Whoops, I meant, baybayin. XD

Vowel Killers: Invented by People who Needed It

I’m not entirely sure why vowel killer was the term used but it does tell it exactly what it does: it silences the vowels in the characters (because baybayin is composed of syllables) in order to make separate letters. It was invented by some Spanish friar who couldn’t properly write the native words because words that have consonants at the end were written incompletely. I.E. the word DOON (over there) was written as DO-O in baybayin. It was such a drag that he decided to introduce the Spanish/Latin alphabet by making baybayin characters that acted as alphabets, which is essentially killing all the vowels and leaving the consonant behind. So instead of using dots, the friar made a cross underneath the symbol which they called a kudlit (for obviously non-secular reasons), so that the words with consonant ends can be written and read as they were. As per the revision that was instated a few years ago, in order to make the baybayin a bit more secular, more forms of the vowel killers were made, which in my opinion look better than the original kudlit, because they look more organic with the forms.

As you can see in the pic of the letter G above, the first on the left is the original kudlit, which is shaped like a cross. The next one has an X, or sinawali (it’s literally based on the patterns of hard, woven rattan walls called sawali which look like X’s), the next one is called a kawil (sorry dunno where that came from) and the right-most one has a pamudpod (which may have come from the word “pudpod/pudpud” literally meaning grinding or repeatedly striking something on a hard surface or on a whetting stone till it disappears or becomes flat/dull, so pamudpod is the surface that makes the item pudpod like a used pencil or eraser. Do I even make sense anymore? Oh well, YOLO).

Stringing them All Together

My personal preference is using a kawil on horizontal writing (left to right) and using a pamudpod when writing vertically. I think the overall impact is better. But then again, it’s just my personal idea. Using any of the vowel killers are, like the filled or hollow dots on I and O are personal preferences, as long as there is consistency in usage.

If you can read the above and understand where the reference came from, you probably also call baybayin as alibata, and we should totally get some tea together. XDD It pretty much means “What is there, yonder?” smth idk but yeah, it sounds like that. Old and formal Filipino/Tagalog.

Langit - sky or heaven, Lupa - ground or earth, Araw - sun, and Buwan (or Bulan in Ilokano) - moon

Soliman - A variant of the name Sulaiman/Solomon

Amihan - the northeast monsoon, the nice wind that brings in cool, dry air around November-March. Or if you watched the old and new Encantadia, she’s the protag. XD

The third sampler is a phrase (I ran out of space it was supposed to be a sentence), and vertical double bars are used to end the sentence. I just made them into diagonal slashes to make them look cool. Also I ran out of space. x__x It’s transliterated as a wailing mom looking for her child: Ai anaku (bunga) - Ah, my child (fruit). No space for fruit so it ain’t there.

Author’s extra rant note: Of course, some early Filipinos didn’t wanna use the kudlit due to being comfy with whatever they had at that time, but eventually they gave in. Fast forward to a century later and the baybayin was pretty much dead, as it was for the next 4 centuries or so. Romaji became the norm (except for some of the native tribes that have their own awesome writing systems), but then again some Filipinos didn’t forget it entire time, as many of the revolutionaries’ battle flags had the syllable KA, which is the first syllable of Katipunan, their group which can also be transliterated as “the entire group of the people who meet and come together”. I can’t say more because this is a long-ass post and it’s not about Philippine history. But we can talk about that if you want. Just hit me up with an ask. Warning though: I might just say “thanks for asking but please ask something else” lol j/k XDD

Writing Baybayin using a Straight-cut Calligraphy Pen/ Dip pens with Straight/Oblique Nibs

For this portion of the post, aside from posting pictures of the baybayin in black and white ink I would be pointing out that the techniques I used here are based on Western traditional calligraphy techniques used by scribes of the past, so some of the stroke patterns would be a lot different from the handwritten strokes above. But then again, if you clicked the link to get here straight away instead of reading the previous portions, well you won’t be having that much problems then. Also I will assume you already learned how to write baybayin so I’ll leave you at that. For the black baybayin, I used a calligraphy fountain pen with a 2mm straight-cut nib from the Visual Deck Set – Calligraphy box, not sure where you can buy it online but I bought mine at the National Bookstore because nobody wants to buy it. (Should’ve also bought the other calligraphy set while they’re on sale. LOL Just saying XDD). The surface is just the back of old calendars because I was just testing the strokes. For the white baybayin, I used a Speedball™ C-2 oblique-cut nib and for the ink, it’s glittery silver poster paint from Reeves™ (diluted with dH2O), and the surface is some random paper with nice surface and sizing which my father got from the office. (Apparently you can’t print anything on it so it aged well there until my father disturbed the papers’ sleep and brought them home. Now I ran out of both the calendar and the weird red paper so business is halted for a bit. XDD) Again, these are all based on how I write stuff so it’s pretty much a personal opinion, it’s not absolute but it certainly works for me so here you go.

Group 1

MA:

PA:

YA:

FA:

JA:

VA:

Group 2:

E/I: I’m just putting I here because E and I basically have the same strokes. To make E, just omit the final vertical stroke.

DA:

HA:

RA:

CA:

QA:

XA:

Group 3

O/U: Same with E/I, I just placed U here because O is practically the same, minus the vertical stroke on the right.

GA:

SA:

ZA:

Group 4

LA:

NA:

TA:

ÑA:

Group 5

BA:

NGA:

WA:

E, I, O, U Lines

Vowel Killers

I didn’t make any full sentences or words because I ran out of nice papers, so maybe I’ll post some next time. Sorry. ._.

Author’s final note on writing using baybayin: I’m still on the fence in using the loan letters C, F, J, Ñ, Q, V, X, and Z because in my opinion apart from having redundancies with some other letters, they were just invented to spell out proper nouns that are foreign in origin. I wouldn’t even spell my full name using baybayin, except my nickname and would just rather use the Romaji/Latin Alphabet for ease. As for using baybayin to write foreign words, well, that can be as tricky as using kana to write foreign words. Both methods boil down to localizing a foreign word into how it would be pronounced based on the original language that the writing system belongs to. For instance, the Japanese waifu (as in “My waifu”) is the Japanized form of the English word “wife”, but because their spelling system is a bit different they had to estimate which kana would be suited to approximate how the word would be pronounced and in turn, be spelled. It is also the same case for some Filipino loan words that got Filipinized (and bastardized because long words are hard lol not kidding tho) such as the word istambay which originally came from “standby” and is now shortened to “tambay” which means “just loitering and doing nothing” or in how the young ones use it now: to hang out with friends (and probably just loiter and do nothing lol don’t kill me ok?). Thus, the usage of baybayin (or kana, or hangul, or Arabic because I think their writing is very lovely or whatever writing system you like that works as syllables more than letters) in writing words from another language would take extra steps such as following the rules of the written language or localizing the word first before writing them in whatever letters or syllables that you want. It’s like using what you have then making do with it/winging it out.

The End!!!! No just kidding. But it’s the last part.

To be honest there are a lot of stuff in the internet about baybayin so I’m not that entirely sure if what I have here is pretty much redundant or not. There are a lot of sites so just use your Googling skills to find what you need, although it may be a bit difficult for readers/users who simply try writing and not understanding the entire language so just use with caution. It’s hard to end up with THAT tough guy who has a kanji tattoo that actually spells “poop” instead of whatever it was supposed to be. I actually saw a guy sporting a tattoo that reads FUUBEN in Japanese, which translates to inconvenience. I lol deep inside but the guy seems happy with that so I just let him be.

Well, I hope this long-ass post helped you a lot, or at the very least the stuff made sense to you and it was worth your time reading. Please leave an ask if you have other questions, I’ll try to answer them if and when I can. Have a great day and may the force be with you. =D

#how to write baybayin #how to write alibata #how i write baybayin #baybayin handwriting #baybayin handwriting stroke order #baybayin calligraphy stroke order #baybayin calligraphy

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wendyimmiller · 5 years ago

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Fear, Loathing, Capitulation, Relapses, A Cry for Help, and Another Empty Promise to Do Better; In a world of unfairness and charlatans, these are the real things!

Déjà vu all over again. In what is apparently becoming an abusive relationship, I again find myself the victim of Marianne Willburn’s poison pen, which, I now believe she nightly wields in her dreams, inflicting dagger-sized wounds on a field of retreating lesser writers in Play Station-like battles. For again, right here on Garden Rant, my home turf, another rebuttal. Actually, a rebuttal to my rebuttal of her rebuttal to my happy, harmless, and humorous little column, “Time for A Grexit,” which appeared in the July/August 2019 Horticulture Magazine. Just a 500-word bit of sophomoric snark I dashed off last summer when I was still sweet and hopeful. It was cute. It was funny. And, despite itself, it did manage to make a surprisingly cohesive case for American gardeners taking all their English gardening books and dumping them into Boston Harbor. I was innocent back then, and my life was so much simpler. Appallingly, it turns out that having a stalker is nowhere near as much fun as you might imagine.

The end of life as I knew it.

The most recent blog site equivalent to being repeatedly chased down the street by your neighbor’s dog.

This most recent rebuttal wasn’t unexpected. Red flags were up after her first rebuttal, and my family and I worried that Marianne could possibly be a serial-rebuttaler. I could see her in her classy, tastefully appointed, mountain retreat, seething from my jovial retort to her first rebuttal, and working. Working! I cowered, knowing she would soon, on a day of her own choosing, emerge with another 15,000 word tirade. All of it letter perfect and grammatically correct, and crafted to turn all my loved ones against me and laying waste to all I am, all I ever was, all I’ll ever be, and everything I’ve ever loved. Including all my dead pets. And all my dead Stewartia. And, I’ve got to admit, I’ve been a nervous wreck. Pretty much, this has been the worst period of my life, which includes the bout with cancer I mentioned in a previous missive and, in fact, bring up in almost all my conversations.

The rebuttal that came out of the blue.

This is my jovial retort to her first rebuttal. Jovial, yet at the same time devastating.

Here’s the deal. After my last rebuttal, I was out of ammo. I’d used up everything I had. No quotes left in the stockpile. No more references back in the magazine. No last cache of jabs, nudges, innuendo, and implications. Not even a dull, rusty bayonet on the end of my empty rifle/poison pen with which to inflict dagger-sized wounds. So I hunkered down in my ramshackle, mismatched, patched together, horticulturist-class, Midwestern hovel, tried not to notice the leaks in the ceiling and the paint peeling from the walls, and prayed for a miracle.

And, whatya know, I actually got one. Apparently Marianne was out of ammo too. So when the inevitable time came and I looked over and saw the grenade roll into my bunker and blow up, I was pleasantly surprised that it did so with only a soft doink. No blast. No shrapnel. No carnage. What happened was more akin to an uncomfortably loud airing of the “We Are the World” video interrupting your conversation in a bar. Or maybe it’s better described as something like hearing the “I’d Like to Buy the World a Coke” commercial playing on a scratchy transistor radio on a hot day by some kid in line ahead of you at the snack bar at the community pool who walks off with the last French Chew. Or maybe it was more like an overly-affectionate, dripping wet kiss from an older aunt with a weird accent right on the face of your much younger self. Whatever metaphor best describes my response to Marianne’s newest rebuttal–and you get to choose–the fact is that while indeed unpleasant and unwanted, I survived it.

But that doink? Came to find out it was pretty passive-aggressive. One that snuck back up on me after another day and a second look. “Garden Regionally, Get Inspired Globally” was Marianne’s banner, her battle cry and l’appel aux armes. Well, who the hell can argue with that?

Brian at work.

Marianne, you pulled a good one on me. Left me dangling and looking like a real jerk. Reminds me totally of a time when I introduced another friend/nemesis and co-worker named Brian to the audience at one of our symposiums at the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden. Our ongoing “feud” was pretty well-known to most of the audience, although not all of it, and I decided to deliver the most personally insulting introduction I could imagine, laying it on thick for an awkwardly long time, bringing up typically off-limits things like divorces, and, in my mind, generously setting him up for one of his patented hilarious ripostes. But he said nothing. Just went into his talk. With big sad eyes. Made me look like a complete asshole! A master stroke!

Yep, Marianne, you got me. You got to the reasonable position first and now here I am a rubber ball dangling from a string on your paddle. Well done.

As I’ve made plain, I am but a simple gardener from the heartland forever drawn by the magnetic pull of my next Big Gulp, teetering constantly on the cusp of diabetes, and free of an opioid addiction by reasons no one understands. As such, I too am not without need of nor appreciation for inspiration. So, for you Marianne, yes, if you get that from English writers who for some reason hope to cross how-to manuals with great literature, go for it. It’s kind of weird, but whatever. Just don’t be tricked into trying Meconopsis. It’ll break your heart.

I, on the other hand, I turn to the bottle for inspiration. And, believe it or not, I only discovered that about myself while pondering this. Ironically, it also occurred to me that my method might be even more cosmopolitan than Marianne’s! While plenty of good Kentucky bourbons are close at hand, I sometimes find my inspiration from a single malt Scotch. Or a spicy Caribbean rum. Or a sexy French vodka. Or a hot-tempered Greek Ouzo. Sometimes a warm Japanese sake is just the ticket, but there are times when a smooth Canadian whisky will do just fine. Or a Mexican tequila. Or wines from almost every continent. Even, and I’m gritting my teeth a little as I admit it, an English gin. Fact is, turns out pretty much the whole planet is lousy with spirits ready to light up the masses with inspiration. This whole revelation humbles me. It fills me with wonder. Heck, I’m but a tiny speck in this big Universe. All of us are. And maybe, deep down inside, somehow, we’re all pretty much the same.

I took that idea to bed with me last night. I laid there thinking about people. And Marianne. I pictured her in her home, sitting by the fire with a cat on her lap and a Christopher Lloyd book in hand, sighing at the better passages and finding inspiration. At least between those times when she’s not shrieking abuse towards Ohio and pounding out another manifesto of a rebuttal on her keyboard. Nope. I suppose that when she settles in and watches Monty Don on Netflix that she really isn’t that much different from me when I find my inspiration by stumbling around in the garden at night, a half empty fifth of Jameson in hand, condemning myself to damnation for all the neighbors to hear by way of whatever blaspheme I bellow when I discover brittle, dead branches where my daphne used to be.

A daphne.

Daphnes. My God, how many have I loved? How many I have lost. I feel my mood changing. You know, it just isn’t fair. I just can’t get over the disparity. The disproportionate distribution of the wealth. I’m thinking here in terms of gardening. Those lucky bastards. Those haughty English, PNW, and Japanese gardeners who ply their passion where the soil is rich, the weather is benevolent, and every person who scratches a mountain laurel into the ground gets drunk on their overnight and over-sized success. And they say to themselves, “I’m bloody great. I can grow everything.” And they take a creative writing class on Tuesday nights at the community college and peck out some frilly, freakin’ best seller! Books that we here in the nether regions see in the windows of the five and dime, which draw us inside just to get out of the cold for a minute. But we slobber all over the pictures and the manager comes and makes us buy it, accepting a chicken and a few eggs as partial payment. Figuring that since we now own it, we might as well read it, we do. And then get all “inspired.” Then on the one half of that one spring day that’s sort of nice, we go out, religiously follow all the advice, and then invariably, inevitably, unsurprisingly experience the kind of catastrophic disaster that can only come when you live here and are daft enough to follow gardening advice from those who live over there. In God’s green Eden. In freakin’ Eden!

Wait. Whoa. What happened? It seems I’ve gone back down that rabbit hole. I apologize.

But, you know, there’s another thing that isn’t fair. Here in the continental part of the country, hard-working, decent, good gardening folk who can write and who really need a break never get brought in from the bullpen. Good writers, people who have willed lush, magnificent oases out of hardpan in weather that kills the people whose central air breaks on all but three or four days a year, never get that call from Timber or any other publisher. Why? Because all of their editors are tied up ushering dozens and dozens of spoiled English and PNW writers through their “masterpieces.” So-called gardeners for whom a daphne could fall off a truck and roll into their ditch and still grow like a Callery pear.

Another daphne.

Dammit. Angry again. Wait. I’ve got an idea.

I’d like to buy the world a home, And furnish it with love, Grow apple trees and honey bees, And…

Well, that got annoying really quick. Screw it. I’ve got issues. I’m off to the liquor store.

Fear, Loathing, Capitulation, Relapses, A Cry for Help, and Another Empty Promise to Do Better; In a world of unfairness and charlatans, these are the real things! originally appeared on GardenRant on November 20, 2019.

from Gardening https://www.gardenrant.com/2019/11/fear-loathing-capitulation-relapses-a-cry-for-help-and-another-empty-promise-to-do-better-in-a-world-of-unfairness-and-charlatans-these-are-the-real-things.html via http://www.rssmix.com/

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turfandlawncare · 5 years ago

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Fear, Loathing, Capitulation, Relapses, A Cry for Help, and Another Empty Promise to Do Better; In a world of unfairness and charlatans, these are the real things!

The end of life as I knew it.

The most recent blog site equivalent to being repeatedly chased down the street by your neighbor’s dog.

The rebuttal that came out of the blue.

This is my jovial retort to her first rebuttal. Jovial, yet at the same time devastating.

Brian at work.

Yep, Marianne, you got me. You got to the reasonable position first and now here I am a rubber ball dangling from a string on your paddle. Well done.

A daphne.

Wait. Whoa. What happened? It seems I’ve gone back down that rabbit hole. I apologize.

Another daphne.

Dammit. Angry again. Wait. I’ve got an idea.

I’d like to buy the world a home, And furnish it with love, Grow apple trees and honey bees, And…

Well, that got annoying really quick. Screw it. I’ve got issues. I’m off to the liquor store.

from GardenRant https://ift.tt/37s0CpZ

#GardenRant

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tobiasbuckell · 8 years ago

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This is how I Bullet Journal

Hi, I’m Tobias Buckell, a science fiction writer, and this is how I Bullet Journal.

I mentioned I’d started bullet journalling on twitter and people were curious and suggested I create a blog post.

So in September, I had been seeing people mentioning Bullet Journals and seen some Instagram links and Pinterest accounts about bullet journaling.

I was a bit put off by it all because there were pictures like this (these aren’t actual Bullet Journals, but emblematic of the sort of thing that kept me from engaging initially):

Staedtler pens are great! I know I use Stabilo pens a lot, but I really do love these beauties. They are a little bit more expensive than Stabilos but they write so smooth! . I buy them individually from Blick art supply, especially black and pastel pink & blue! . What's your favorite pen? . . . . . . . . #studying #midterms #studygram #study #stationery #studyhard #giveaway #bulletjournal #studytime #student #studymotivation #collegestudent #staedtler #college #organization #notes #studyabroad #journal #washitape #handwriting #revision #exams #studyblr #planneraddict #bujo #studyabroad #plannerlove #stabilo #muji #aesthetic #pen

A photo posted by Mich (@babeswhostudy) on Jan 2, 2017 at 4:15pm PST

Or like this:

Last week in my Erin Condren Planner using a @planningroses kit 💞 the end of 2016 was a weird one for me, but here's to all the fun adventures that 2017 hold!

A photo posted by Meagan (@megz.plans) on Jan 3, 2017 at 1:20pm PST

It seemed like a group of scrapbookers vomited all over to-do lists. I bounce off the scrapbooking aesthetic. I wouldn’t mock it, those examples above are beautiful. But, it looked like it could, maybe, you know, be a lot of yak shaving or vacuuming the cat before getting stuff done:

Yak shaving is a programming term that refers to a series of tasks that need to be performed before a project can progress to its next milestone. This term is believed to have been coined by Carlin Vieri and was inspired by an episode of “The Ren & Stimpy Show.”

I don’t know if that’s fair, but to me (and I emphasize that ‘to me’ part), needing fifteen different colored pens and the right paper, stencils, and so forth, to get a to do list done, that seemed like madness.

But then someone I really respect (who had the same reaction to it all) told me they were thinking of doing it. Always curious to examine new personal time management tools, I told that person that if they did it, I’d also try one out for a month as a personal experiment and see what I thought.

Bullet Journalling Attempt #1

I went online and purchased a Luechtturm 1917 A5 Notebook as devotees of the system recommended it. I overnighted it, along with a nice gel pen (also recommended). Why reinvent the wheel?

Here’s a youtube video review of the notebook:

Nice notebook!

I then watched the official Bullet Journaling youtube video by the Bullet Journaling inventor:

There. I was ready to start and be awesome! I was relieved to find out that the creator of the Bullet Journal didn’t recommend using fifteen different colored pens and stencils.

I grabbed my fancy new pen, opened my fancy new book, and started following the instructions on the video…

…and promptly biffed it.

I’m ADD, I’m dyslexic, and I made a bunch of mistakes making my first pages.

However, I was determined the experiment continue. I realized that using a pen terrified me because I kept making mistakes. I also wanted to be able to rip out pages if I screwed them up (Bullet Journallers say you just create a new page, or decorate around the mistakes, but, I wasn’t feeling it at the start of the experiment). So I drove up to Staples, purchased an A5 binder with some paper and, on a whim, I snagged a bunch of mechanical pencils.

I booted up the video and started again.

Within a week of keeping that loose-leaf, three ring binder, I came to a few conclusions:

1) using a pencil helps me lose my worries about making a mistake on the page. 2) with pencil I didn’t need loose leaf paper. 3) man, that Luechtturm had really nice paper, regular American school paper was shit. 4) this is the most important: whatever may or may not work with Bullet Journalling, the idea of indexing my notes and scribbles was revelatory.

Okay, about number four. That’s like, paperclip obvious. It’s so obvious in retrospect I don’t know why I wasn’t doing this in high school or college. But honestly, I have gone my entire life writing things down on scraps of paper as they occur to me, and then collating them onto the computer.

One of my most popular posts is “How I Write a Novel” and you can see that I do actually use paper for brainstorming:

But I get that into computer quickly as I can because it’s then organized and searchable. And when I was planning things, my desk would look like that.

But creating an index, that was interesting. Because now I suddenly, like a light bulb going off, realized I could create not only daily to-dos, but project to-dos, and flip back and forth. Even better, while I used a variety of to-dos via digital software, some projects of mine were getting so complex that I needed a way to glance at the 30,000 foot view quickly.

Surprisingly, there is no official graphical user interface for a novelist 10 years into his career who needs an at a glance look at what’s going on with all his novels in one place.

But with an indexed paper system I could built a two page spread with all that data, including my own symbols for different things happening to the books and…

…all of a sudden I understood all the custom scrapbook-y stuff I was seeing. These were personalized UIs. And creative output, of course.

I quickly created a sketch of a two page spread that would allow me to see all the complicated things I was doing for my novel career, and right away I was like “yeah, I’ll be opening this up every time I talk to an editor, or agent, or accepting a deadline.” I could see everything I was up to on one page.

Bullet Journal #2: Considering aesthetics

So, the Staples binder was a shitty quick solution. The paper was cheap. The binder was cheap. And I hated the rings. Yeah, writing on the right page was easy, but writing on the left? I had to hold my hand in an odd way. I took to writing on only half the page. In the second week, I got online and started ordering possible Bullet Journal systems.

Here is what I ordered:

Upper left is the shitty Staples A5, 3-ring binder. I liked A5 size because I could stick the notebook in a backpack pocket, or take it with me to a panel to take notes.

On the upper right, I snagged a Japanese 20-ring binder with some nice paper.

On the lower right I purchased a very nice 6 ring system with a luxurious leather holder that could take credit cards and extra pens and pencils, plus it had more space in the middle. Many diarists in the US use that gapped six ring system, I found out. Incidentally, my wife took up that notebook for her own Bullet Journalling (it is infectious apparently).

On the lower left is the system I settled on: the Kokuyo Systemic Notebook cover.

Here’s a product shot of the whole thing:

For the pencil (it has this great pen loop) I have a Uni-Ball KuruToga 0.7mm Mechanical Pencil which is magical because it has a mechanism in it that rotates the lead every time you pick it up, so that the pencil comes down sharp on the next stroke. I use the diamond infused lead for the super sharp lines. Pencil isn’t as sharp as pen, but this pencil really helps compensate for that.

I used that to build out my to-do list and project management, heavily using indexing so I can jump around and find what I need.

Each Kokuyo twin ring notebook lasts me about two months. I think I could get three out of them, but I haven’t tried yet.

I also added a Moleskine Cahair slim notebook on the left panel of the Kokuyo Notebook cover. So my project management happens on the right, with the twin ring, and on the left, I write down ideas and writing snippets.

Bullet Journalling: What I do

So I have an index, then I create some pages for quotes. Two pages of my favorite quotes, one for life, one for writing.

Then come the future pages that Bullet Journalling recommends. They don’t work as well for me so I’m slowly deprecating them. But my month page is a thing just like normal. Then I start doing my daily pages (dailies some people call them).

My page looks simple, I don’t adorn, I have the shittiest handwriting. Here’s a sample fake page:

Date at top (because that helps me know what day I wrote things on).

Priority: I write in two to three (no more than three) priorities for the day, things that absolutely have to be done. Like ‘refill meds’ so that I can continue living.

After a skipped line I write “Today will rock b/c:” and then fill in why it will rock. This is something I picked up from a neurophysiology researched, how to work/live better journalling exercise I read about. If I can’t fill that out, that means I’m not looking forward to anything on this day. Seeing a blank after that is a clue I need to stop and think about why or what is in the way of me having even a small thing to look forward to. Often it says something like “Today will rock b/c: I’m going to have a Choco Taco after dinner!”

Then I have my daily to-dos that I’ve filled out in the morning or the night before. I use a box for these (instead of a dot), and if the box is half filled it’s in progress. I like coloring in the box after I achieve a to-do, it makes me feel happy, accomplished, and kick ass. It’s dumb, but there you go.

I interweave journaling and to-dos, which is what blew me away about some Bullet Journallers. It’s not official, I don’t think, but I use a circle to denote a journal entry. So right under the to-dos I’ll often have something like:

Bubble: “Man it’s colder than all fuck outside, this is so depressing. I hate being cold all the time. I hate winter. Etc” I wanted to start journaling because I’ve read a lot of research showing its positive impacts. Interweaving the to-dos and journaling mean I do this organically throughout the day, and can also meta-comment on my mental state regarding some of the to-dos.

I can add new to-dos as they occur to me interleaved through this all as well.

And lastly, I use a plus sign to denote a thing I did that wasn’t scheduled:

+phone call from XYZ. We discussed ABC project. 1pm-1:30.

These plus activities are added in for things I know to do, interruptions, last minute etc.

With all this in play, I can look at each day and see that ‘oh, I failed on my to-dos but a crisis happened’ or what have you. Journaling helps me express myself and engage in meta-cognition.

I use a triangle to denote warnings, or things I’ve noticed.

Triangle: you didn’t get enough sleep and are feeling like shit. I was perusing my journals and noticed a number of patterns flagged by triangles that I was able to get ahead of.

Lastly, I try to write at the end of the day if I was grateful for anything. Gratefulness journals are again, shown to by psychologically helpful.

I’ll take notes on a lecture, or call, right on the page of the day, then go index them after I’m done (a significant lecture will get indexed from front, I keep a project page called ‘call log’ and log the date, time, person, and quick summary on that page, which notes the page of the diary that is on, that call log is a project page indexed by index). Sounds complex, but I’m able to keep a surprising amount of info organized easily, and generating it is easy.

Project pages. I mentioned that I have a novels project page. I also keep pages that log books read, tv shows watched and my thoughts, movies and my thoughts, each audiobook I’m listening to. These are as I go logs.

I also keep lists. I have lists of movies recommended to me written down, and books recommended to me.

Specific complicated projects all get a page.

One of the most useful pages ever for my mental health was “Things I’m Waiting On.”

Open loops, things that are undone and in-progress, that I have no control over, keep me up at night. When I created my first ‘waiting on’ page, I had 43 items on there. It was a relief to list them all out, collating the items from various project pages. I list contracts I’m waiting for, checks, people getting back to me about questions, things being shipped, etc. Knowing that it was on a page that I could update really took it out my perpetual worrying back mind. It also let me put dates next to them so I knew how often to ‘poke’ the project on a set, regular reminder schedule.

I also have pages for ‘life goals’ ‘year goals’ ‘places I want to see’ and things like that.

Project pages are more decorated up with lines from a ruler, and things to help me graphically understand what I’m up to. I can’t share these really, right now, as they have either personal info or info about projects I can’t talk about. But really, there are lots of arrows and things written sideways and all custom designed by me to get the gist of what happens next.

One thing I have learned from Getting Things Done, each project breaks down parts by next actions on those pages, so I understand what I have to do next and can copy a next action onto my daily page as an easy to do.

So to create an internet business project page, first step might be ‘investigate open domain names related to ‘theme of business’’ after that ‘register the domain’ because each of those are concrete, actionable steps that I could almost assign anyone, that I can follow when brain dead. Obviously creative stuff is not something I can assign, but if I were to assign it to another writer, how would I write it? (Say: write one page of X. Or brainstorm 3 ideas for X. Or ‘spend 30 minutes brainstorming ideas for X). That is how I break it down for creative stuff.

That is basically been how I spent the last four months, and I actually think it saved my sanity because the crunch of work I had to achieve in the last four months meant I depended on this heavily.

My only issue was that two months per notebook sucked. I think I can squeeze three out of the Kokuyos, but I am currently testing out a Luechtturm 1917 that I think I can 3-4 months out of and that will be nice, as I won’t have to copy over my project pages every two months.

But man, I love that clear plastic cover and the immediate index of the Kokuyo, so we’ll see how this goes over the next two months.

This is how I Bullet Journal was originally published on Tobias Buckell

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