#its the same specific phrase verbatim

[junglelandnatural]

i am literally so sorry but have we ever talked about the "you're just a man" parallels at the end of s6???

as in cas goes "you're just a man" to dean at the end of man who would be king and then ONE EPISODE LATER dr. visyak goes "you're just a man" to BOBBY, who SHE HAD A RELATIONSHIP WITH???

[bakuhatsufallinlove]

Does Izuku Think His Feelings For Katsuki Are Gross? (or, DvK2's Endless Emporium of Nuance)

This is a pretty common sentiment I see repeated, and we all know the source of it: Deku vs. Kacchan 2.

Original Japanese and official English translation.

Crunchyroll subtitles

In one translation, Izuku expresses discomfort over this topic; in the other, he outright declares it to be gross.

That is quite the difference. I gotta say, Crunchyroll’s direct “This is gross” kind of shocks me, because it functionally ignores the key adverb “sasuga ni” and translates the line the same as you would if he hadn’t said it at all. The official manga translator, on the other hand, clearly made a decision about what Izuku meant by that phrase and then dispersed that meaning across the line as a whole.

So I understand why people have this straight-forward interpretation.

I’m here to offer some linguistic nuance, because my main problem with “Izuku thinks his feelings are gross” is not that it is completely wrong. It’s that it isn’t the whole story.

There are two really important phrases to take into account: kimi ni wa ienai and sasuga ni.

To illustrate their meaning, let’s split the line into two sections:

Note: Grammatically, kara belongs in the first section. I’m lumping it into the second section for the sake of isolating the core ideas expressed in the first section and maintaining clarity in the second.

Now we’re going to break the sections down into their constituent parts. This looks like a verbatim nightmare of a translation, because it is, but trust me, it’s a useful exercise.

Kara links the two sections by showing that the first section directly causes the second. Something worth noting is that Izuku does not use past tense here—he uses present tense and indicates a continuous, unchanged state. He has not been able to before and still cannot tell this to Katsuki. I would argue this also suggests he thinks the circumstances will not change for the foreseeable future.

Important Phrase #1: kimi ni wa ienai

Ienai is the negative potential form of “to say,” which means it is not possible for him to say it. Iwanai, on the other hand, is the negative present tense, and if he had used iwanai instead, that might suggest that he has some choice in the matter. Examples in English might be, “That’s why I don’t tell you this,” “That’s why I’m not telling you this,” and “That’s why I haven’t told you this,” which all express intentional withholding despite opportunity. To use a form that specifically denies the possibility serves to center limitation, regardless of desire.

The combination of the two particles ni and wa are used to emphasize, compare, and contrast. This is extremely telling just on its own. Izuku is emphasizing the fact that, compared to everyone he could possibly tell, he cannot tell Katsuki this. He might be able to tell other people, but when it comes to Katsuki, he cannot. Ienai does not specify where the limitation stems from, but ni wa sure implies it.

Now let’s dig into the phrase that does the most heavy-lifting in the first section.

Important Phrase #2: sasuga ni

Sasuga ni is the adverb Izuku attaches to the adjective kimochi warui (gross or creepy). It is typically translated “as expected” because this kind of adverb sounds awkward in English. “This is expectedly gross” is not a sentence people say much. You might also see it translated “as I thought,” “naturally,” “obviously,” or “indeed.”

And there is something interesting here: Izuku uses a second word that means “as expected” on this page.

Yappari, which can also be translated as “in the end,” “sure enough,” or “after all is said and done.”

I researched the nuances of these two phrases, synthesizing definitions and examples from four different Japanese dictionaries/encyclopedias and two forum boards for language tutoring from native speakers. My conclusions as related to their usage here:

Yappari indicates:

an outcome that was expected (example: “I tried, but sure enough, I failed.”)

something that remains unchanged [in the state it was previously or in other circumstances]

a situation where, no matter how you think about it, you end up with the same result (example: “I was really torn over it, but in the end I gave up on going.”)

Sasuga ni indicates:

[you, the speaker] must acknowledge that this is the natural result of the situation up to this point (example: “they grew up in a big family, so naturally they are good with kids.”)

something exceeds the permissible range, or that it may be permissible under certain conditions, but not others (example: “no matter how nice a guy he is, if he was accused of something unfairly, he’s bound to get angry.”)

You can see the meanings overlap, but the sentiments are a bit different. I saw someone learning Japanese say that every time they used one of these phrases, native speakers told them they should have used the other one instead. Another learner responded that, from their observations, the distinction appeared to be that yappari is used when the speaker had personally thought about and expected this outcome, while sasuga ni suggests that everyone would agree with this statement.

I’m not sure this is true across the board; usage always varies, even among native speakers, so generalizations are only useful up to a point, but I have to admit, a bunch of little things I noticed in my research do support this line of thinking.

If yappari tends to be more reflective of the speaker’s personal thoughts and expectations, sasuga ni’s “acknowledgment of a natural result” could indeed imply external validation. This is true of the equivalent English words, at least: naturally and obviously both suggest that any reasonable person would accept it as fact.

In fact, permissible as an idea kind of hinges on social norms—what is reasonable for someone to put up with? What behaviors sit within the realms of welcome, allowable, or excusable based on your relationship?

In my opinion, Izuku feels like he cannot say this to Katsuki because it exceeds the bounds of what is permissible between them. If sasuga ni implies Izuku feels sure that anyone would agree with his assessment, Katsuki is absolutely included in that.

Izuku is not saying, “I alone think this is gross, so I can’t tell you.”

He is saying, “Considering everything that has happened between us up till now, you would obviously see this as gross, so I can’t tell you.” Its grossness is a natural result of the situation—their history, the way their relationship fell apart, the way Katsuki lashes out, how he can barely stand Izuku’s presence, let alone his emotional honesty.

Chapter 10, during Deku vs. Kacchan 1

But remember that this sentence is a fragment: the subject of Izuku’s sentence is revealed in the second half, and it is the fact that he runs his mouth when he wants to win more than he wants to save.

This is what is gross. Izuku acknowledges that the behavior itself is unpleasant, and that any reasonable person would agree with that. His whole identity as a hero is based on saving people, so he feels some real discomfort when he has to recognize that sometimes he just wants to win. In fact, he can want victory so much that it supersedes his desire to help people.

Izuku has intentionally emulated Katsuki’s practical tactics, but this is about instinctive response. He wasn’t standing there facing Muscular, thinking the winning move was definitely to scream, “shut up.” He was furious, so he wanted to win and make that guy shut up.

When the scale tips, he acts out. He talks shit. He screams at people and insults them, because that’s what Katsuki does. These are all unacceptable behaviors, socially-speaking. Katsuki constantly and intentionally acts the exact opposite of how he should to qualify as a Good Japanese Boy. Izuku, on the other hand, plays the part faithfully, at least until it demands he betray his core values.

Deku vs. Kacchan 2 showcases how neither Izuku nor Katsuki had fully accepted the heroism of their counterpart. Katsuki is uncomfortable with Izuku’s innate capacity to help others, to see their need and meet it without question. Izuku is uncomfortable with craving victory, with that indomitable drive to seek glory. They each admired All Might for the value they themselves embody, and they admired each other for the value they lacked, but that doesn’t mean their admiration was uncomplicated.

Katsuki is a loud-mouthed, aggressive jerk, but Izuku ends up acting just like him. He clearly feels conflicted about it. He’s annoyed and hurt that Katsuki pushed him away by being such a jerk in the first place. And, from his perspective, he fails every time he tries to wrangle their relationship into something less miserable. He might even be embarrassed over the simple fact that he has held on to these deep-seated emotions for years over someone who wants nothing to do with him. He wishes things were different. He doesn’t know how they could be, anymore. He wants to connect, but he can’t.

Izuku frames his inability to express this specific thought as natural and reasonable. Obviously, there’s no way I could do this. And honestly, he is probably right. After all, this is a very intimate, revealing thing to tell someone who seems to hate your guts and has for years.

At any other point in the story, Katsuki probably would have curled his lip in disgust and barked out Izuku’s exact words, “Gross.”

But in DvK2, Katsuki bears his heart to Izuku without restraint.

Katsuki confesses something painful and private to Izuku twice, at two separate moments.

Izuku has two confessions, too. Here's the first:

But the second he admits only to himself and the audience.

Maybe if Izuku had said his “image of victory” monologue out loud, Katsuki could have had his own moment of understanding:

Izuku’s reaction after Katsuki’s second confession.

Maybe Katsuki wasn’t ready to hear it, or maybe Izuku was too chicken to believe he was ready. Either way, he needed to voice both confessions, and he didn’t.

So the narrative punishes Izuku for failing to push past his own limitations.

In the battle of revealing their honne—their true feelings, their truest selves—Katsuki risked it all.

Izuku couldn’t do the same, and that’s why he loses.

Don’t forget that underestimating your opponent is one of the easiest ways to lose a fight in MHA.

But I want to reiterate, Izuku feels conflicted about this behavior and his own feelings, not ashamed.

Emotional conflict is borne from two or more simultaneous, contradictory feelings. Izuku admits that any reasonable person would see the way he unconsciously imitates even Katsuki’s bad habits as gross, but he also clearly tells us something else.

Izuku is directly expressing his own thoughts about it, and the most important phrase is nanoni, which according to online encyclopedia Kotobank, “indicates that the following is contradictory to the preceding matter” and specifically, “includes critical feelings about the contradiction between” those two things. The latter point is unique because other words often used for ��but” (such as kedo, which he used earlier in the form of dakedo) do not necessarily do this.

In the final line, one little detail here is the orange highlighted nda. This is used to explain and correlate topics of discussion. The most obvious point of explanation is why he acts this way. But the use of nanoni to connect this thought to the previous one tells us that this line is also explaining why Izuku doesn’t hate it.

Katsuki is his image of victory, and that alone is the reason he does not find this part of himself unacceptable. Just like with sasuga ni, Izuku is telling us that he understands the way other people would see this situation, and he knows what he “should” feel, but then he tells us that he does not feel that way.

I know it is very easy to see “This is gross, so I can’t tell you” at the start of this monologue, skip right to “image of victory,” and walk away thinking that Izuku is ashamed of that specifically, but the details show that the opposite is true.

And let’s not forget the nuance of yappari, which implies that Izuku has personally thought about this fact over and over, but it has always been this way.

I have seen people say that Katsuki is the one letting Izuku set the pace of their new relationship and that Izuku holds back, with this presumed shame as the cause. But I don’t think that acknowledges Izuku’s perspective on their dynamic, nor the casual mutualism they build together.

Katsuki initiated DvK2: a unique, closed “event” wherein, for the first time, they each expressed their vulnerabilities as much as they were able. But immediately outside the confines of DvK2, Izuku is the one who reaches out, as a gesture of reciprocation towards Katsuki for having initiated this change.

He is asking Katsuki's opinion, but what this gesture means is, “I don’t want us being honest with each other to end there. I still want you in my life.”

And maybe for the first time in years, Katsuki actually understands what Izuku means, and reaches back.

Look at these fucking nerds.

Notice that Izuku responds to Katsuki twice. At the first response, Katsuki has offered his observations and given him valid criticism on his technique, which is a show of goodwill. But then, Katsuki continues even when the admission reflects a personal weakness, with Izuku's punch having caught him off guard. This is actual honesty, and it means that they didn't just resolve their aggression and reset to neutral peers, but that Katsuki wants to be close, too. And just like during their fight, understanding comes the second time around.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: from Izuku’s point of view, Katsuki’s shitty behavior was the only thing that stood between them, because Izuku’s core feelings for him never changed.

Izuku lets Katsuki decide what is permissible between them, because Katsuki is the one who pushed him away in the first place. He opens the door just enough to say, “Whatever you want to give of yourself, I will accept.”

After that, Katsuki is the one making the big gestures by taking time out of his own life to discuss OFA with Izuku and All Might and help Izuku by training with him, even inserting himself into situations when he isn't asked. At every point, we see Izuku receive Katsuki with warmth and then follow up with smaller gestures of his own.

Chapters 202, 209, 249, and 327.

The reason we see so much of Katsuki’s side of their relationship, especially after DvK2, is because his feelings are the ones that change the most: from dysfunctional to self-aware and accepting. He has struggled for years over Izuku’s place in his life. He didn’t understand Izuku or his own feelings, and he was wrapped up in denial. He tells himself again and again that Izuku is “beneath him,” when we know the truth is he always thought Izuku was better than him.

Comparatively, Izuku resolves his conflicted feelings about his admiration for Katsuki much quicker, because the source of his conflict was primarily external while Katsuki's was primarily internal.

Chapter 257

A little detail I love about the "I'm too blessed" moment is that Izuku thinks of his conversations with Katsuki as "normal(?)" with a literal question mark attached. Is this normal? He doesn't really know. But it's enough. Kacchan is Kacchan, explosive and outrageous and way too much, all the time. Maybe they'll never be what other people think of as "normal," but Izuku is happy just to have Kacchan as he is, and be there however Kacchan will have him.

Katsuki's ideal has always been Izuku; he tried to outrun that fact and failed every time. Meanwhile, Izuku’s image of victory has always been Kacchan, and he has just been waiting for Kacchan to want to hear that from him.

Everyone has been wondering if Izuku will ever tell him. Me, personally, I'm hoping their story will end with a mutual declaration of their shared truth.

"You have always been my hero."

[qilingxiong]

Hey y'all. So, I love MLC fandom for a multitude of reasons, and one of them is seeing people come to pick up some of the same headcanons and potential story threads that I think about aloud here. It's amazing that occasionally discussions about these characters on this blog have inspired people to write or draw things of their own, spinning off from something else. Transformative exchange of ideas is part of what makes fandom fun for me. However, there's something I want to bring up for the present and future.

I consider this blog at its core to be a personal one. It's a place where I get to mess around and write down whatever rambling that comes to me. Given that I'm a fic writer, oftentimes I write down character thoughts as a kind of hold or saving for later, because I intend on expanding on them in some manner of fic. I am aware that this blog and my thoughts are public, and just to reiterate, I like sharing these thoughts! Seeing people take a piece of one post or idea I had and giving it their own twist, or as a springboard for a different fic concept, is great. But the emphasis on this is that it is transformative, and in some way separate from my original intention.

As a writer who does cherish their ideas, it is jarring to have someone show up out-of-the-blue in the replies of a concept post saying "I used this idea in my fic, as said in the tags of my last reblog". It feels worse to click on the aforementioned fic and see that specific details of that concept have been used without alteration. Credit is given in the author's note, but it is, frankly, ungraceful at best to phrase such a statement as "I stole [X] from this post on Tumblr. I did announce in the tags that I'd use it."

I am not mutuals with this person, and I do not read their fic. Declaring intent to (in their own words) steal an idea in the tags of a post does not constitute received communication, as I don't check the reblogs on every post, and Tumblr eats notifications half the time anyway. The wording of this statement tells me that A. this person is aware they crossed a line by directly lifting an idea from someone else without concrete prior interaction, and B. they do not particularly care.

I reached out to see if there was perhaps a misunderstanding that could be fixed, or a way to reword their credit. I would not force someone to change their actual writing after the fact, and MLC is a small, cozy fandom. I don't want to have conflict in a space I consider a safe haven among C-drama fandoms. However, the response was not constructive. I now have this person blocked.

So, in the future: if there's a story concept I've had that you would like to run with, and particularly if you want to draw on specifics from it, would you mind briefly checking in with me first? It can be a post reply, or a DM, or an ask. A good chunk of the time, I'll be okay! I just ask for decent credit and communication, and there are only some things I want to save for my own writing beforehand. They do exist, though, and I would rather not have them copied verbatim without my knowing.

The main principle here is not about arguing on what idea was originated by which person, but about extending a basic measure of etiquette and respect to other people who share this fandom space with you.

I wish this didn't happen. I do not want it to happen again. I like it here, I treasure this fandom and the friends I've made in it. So going forward, I request that you please don't do this.

[bettsfic]

hi it’s me again! i finished the kennedy book half an hour ago and i am still reeling.

you weren’t kidding about the last chapters. like the farewell party is a bittersweet anecdote, but then the epilogue is just absolutely crushing. what a brutal note to end on. the true endpoint is the paragraph in the acknowledgements where he thanks his coauthor for freeing him from the emotional prison he was in. phrase practically verbatim. like oh my god.

that thing you said about what’s not said really did nail the sort of very careful sidestepping of….giving his opinions, maybe? there is just a very deliberate sort of distance with which he describes any events, and so you really notice the barest hints of something more. (more than anyone can ever know, mr. hill? care to elaborate??? it’s the implication that they kept many secrets together and also his enduring loyalty to her that keeps us from learning hardly any of them.) i was reminded of the perception of the kennedys as american royalty because he really talks about her like she was a queen. jackie kennedy through his lens is beautiful and gracious and willful and truly given the royal treatment.

speaking of the royalty metaphor, aristotle onassis is two steps from being a mustache-twirling villain hoping that our brave knight clint hill dies a watery death under a yacht??? unprompted??? like, man. come on. honestly there’s a fascinating emotional thread in here about how he can only fully express feelings of protectiveness when they’re expressed by the president first.

anyway. this is a long ask. sorry. i feel like i should have something profound to say about the assassination chapters because of how significant the event is in history but i don’t yet. i probably sound unhinged but man. this was real life and this is how he chose to tell this story. what even was that.

THANK YOU.

re: last chapters: i want to look into what happened between him and his coauthor (they're married now!) but i haven't yet. i'm still feeling my feelings about the whole thing. can you imagine not reading the acknowledgements?? the acknowledgements that provide the only ounce of comfort amid the hurt of the last third of the book??

re: "MORE THAN ANYONE CAN EVER KNOW": i purposefully haven't shared that quote because divorced from its context you don't get the impact. to me that says he either totally had a thing with her but won't talk about it because he's an honorable man, in the same way he won't offer any kind of "no yeah the warren report was bullshit and the shots came from two different directions" confirmation, or he wants us to *think* something happened even if it didn't. i mean it's not like it was a secret that JFK and Jackie had affairs with other people. a great many of those people have written memoirs specifically about boning one or more of the Kennedys. so many in fact that it's basically a subgenre.

also there's some irony in the way he depicts Jackie. she didn't like to be written about. at all. ever. and there's more than one instance where he's, you know, an 80 year old man being a bit patronizing (in an otherwise very sensitively and thoughtfully written book), with all the mentions of mischief and little-girlishness. and so i keep thinking about how Jackie would have felt about this particular depiction, which despite the glossy nostalgia over the whole thing and I Love Lucy-esque antics, is a pretty nuanced depiction, at least compared to others i've read. he manages to revere her, nearly worship her, but still portray her vices, not as faults but as even more reasons he loved her. i don't know, man. it just feels weird to stumble upon a true story of what i thought were fictional feelings.

re: "he can only fully express feelings of protectiveness when they’re expressed by the president first": HOLY SHIT YOU'RE RIGHT. i'm still thinking about that scene where he takes the film out of that photographer's camera and JFK is just like, "ummm we can't make it seem like we're denying the press access to us, so we're gonna have to blame you," which prompted Hill to question his professional loyalty to the president against his personal loyalty to Jackie, and also it made me think, what would happen if he had to shoot someone? would he get blamed for that too? was he really only there as a human shield, able to protect but not truly defend?

re: "what even was that": WHAT EVEN WAS THAT.

[isthisselfcare]

Please forgive my absence, I log into tumblr once every 4 business months

I have answered some asks but not all, for which I apologise 

hello! rereading your work for the second time, proud of myself for translating less words than before (this british english's got hands and they kick me a lot). i keep beating myself about the question: WHAT is the clue about the mole in chapter 1? you said it was paltry, i didn't believe you, now i'm trying to make my eyes fall out over finding said clue. spare me.

It was the line about Shacklebolt’s assistant, she was grouchy about Draco for no discernable (at the time) reason: ‘Draco scheduled a visit with the Minister of Magic later that week. He sauntered past the Minister’s sour-faced assistant on the designated day, wondering who had pissed in her Pixie Puffs.’

She’s the one who would’ve heard Hermione discussing her findings with Shacklebolt early on, and subsequently learned that this Notorious Auror was going to protect her. That’s the entire not-even-clue. Rubbish, isn’t it?

Hi, since you like Jerome K Jerome, I was wondering if you've read "Two and a half men in a boat" by Nigel Williams? He basically recreated the boat trip on Thames with his friends like in Jerome's book. Nowhere near as good as the original, but it's pretty funny! He emulates Jerome's wit quite well.

I have not, but will add this to my reading list! 

Is Hermione bi in your fic?

I am congenitally unable to write cishet women, so, yes, or pan, possibly. Didn’t get into her head enough to know 

hey girlie. what does "cutty-uppy" means? i can't find the definition anywhere

Sorry. That was a made up word, referring to the sort of people who cut people up, those terrible Muggle surgeons  

do you mind if your tags are used on other fics? i think your tags on DMATMOOBIL are a creative writing piece in their own right (they make me laugh sm) so I was a bit disturbed to find fics that copy them verbatim with no credit.

I don’t mind at all, AO3 tags take on their own self-referential, memeish life and I am happy to add mine to the ecosystem. My own tags on Mortifying include the ‘no X we die like men’ and ‘what is X if not Y persevering’ meme-phrases

do you see yourself writing more dramione in the future?

I haven’t any plans to do so at present, sorry!

Continuing an investigation to see if you are actually Hermione, can you do a taraskvana?

Hah. No. I've got a dodgy knee, I can hardly even sit cross-legged!

She's a 10 but she only has 1 story posted

It’s me!

Dont know If somebody has already asked you this - would it be okay to print Draco Malfoy and the Mortifying Ordeal of Being in Love?

Printing for your personal use is fine

I noticed something about the Beltane chapter: "hippocampus" is a part of our brain's limbic system and one of its functions is memory formation, specifically creation  and consolidation thereof, so I thought it was very symbolic that Hermione and Draco were racing creatures  with the same name. Cause I feel like that chapter is a turning point in their relationship - Hermione stops seeing him as a barely tolerable pureblood ass. It's around that point that they really do start kind of liking each other  and start - if you will - forming new memories together! I know I'm just overthinking things, but I love dmatmoobil so much I'm constantly on the lookout for hidden meanings and symbolism.

There are a lot of easter eggs in the fic, but with this one, you have given me far too much credit. Thank you for sharing it! 

Will you be participating in the DHr advent?

Hiya, no, I had to decline as I hadn’t any writing time this autumn, honoured to have been invited, however, and eager to read the works!

Would you ever write a Tomione or a Sevmione?

I never say never, but frankly the possibility is remote. So sorry

Pain au chocolat ou chocolatine?

Scandaleux comme question, ça… pain au chocolat ! 

Re the “Marathon of chaos” on your Instagram. It’s been such a ride to not only follow your fanfic (I was an early adopter, which I know makes me sound like a hipster snob, and maybe I am one) but also watch it go from like 100 kudos to one of the top fics in the fandom. I’m here for your marathon and really grateful for all the work you put into MOBIL. Now for the question… when can we expect your next book? I don’t care if it’s Dramione, any other pairing, or any other fandom, or original fic, I WILL read it! Please continue to hit us with chaos!!!!

Thank you for your kind words! 

I haven’t got an answer on the timeline for the next piece, or whether I will link it with this online identity, but I am toying with the idea of writing it entirely in comic sans

Your Hermione was my gay awakening

If this is serious, I hope you find your own Hermione one day!

Can we please be friends? You sound like you would make a great one

Unfortunately, I am a rubbish friend who never responds to texts and cancels plans at every opportunity, you don’t want to know me 

I was so happy to see Uzbekistan mention in your story. That had never happened before. Thank you for mentioning my country 😻

You are welcome! Uzbekistan is honestly one of the most breath-taking countries I’ve ever visited – monuments that dwarf the Taj Mahal – unearthing the grand and bloody history of the Silk Road – stepping upon the same sands that the great Khans thundered across – seeing the ruins of the caravanserai – sheer magic! To say nothing of the hospitality of the people. I had far too much plov and quickly discovered my limit for vodka

You are my favorite cryptid

Cheeky. Thank you

And, finally, thank you to the person who sent me this article on a sacred relic that was stolen from an abbey and then returned ‘in an unceremonious cardboard box’! Hormone and Crotch are still at large

[blue-opossum]

Debunking AI as a Form of Protoconsciousness

        Debunking AI as a Form of Protoconsciousness

        Monday afternoon, 22 April 2024

        A couple of years ago, on a dream-related Facebook group, a young man presented the concept that AI is a form of protoconsciousness. He based it on how AI is typically unable to render text into imagery. He correlated this attribute with the dream state in how text is "always" distorted as with AI images when specific text is requested in the image.

        This theory has no basis in fact for a few reasons.

        Not all text in dreams (at least mine) is distorted. Much of the text in my dreams is readable for a time, but sometimes when I focus on it more, it changes. (This aspect implies the opposite of what the man is theorizing.)

        AI does not always misspell text in images. Even so, there are cases when it seems virtually impossible for AI to render correct text, for example, often spelling "LUCID" as "LUCIC" many times in a row. Other times, it adds a pun or gag to an image in a correctly spelled entire phrase that was not even prompted.

        Another attribute is that virtually everything in dreams appears incorrectly at one point or another (to avoid confusion with reality and potential mental corruption). Although the same is true for AI images, people have a bizarre obsession over how AI "cannot draw hands.” This attribute is partly untrue since AI does sometimes create hands with the correct number of fingers. It seems odd how people focus on this fault when so much else is typically wrong, missing, or surreal in AI images. It has reached the point where some people claim there are six fingers on a hand in an AI image, when there are five - the same lack of discernment in people who claim to see five fingers when there are only three or four.

        Then again, some so-called lucid dreamers make certain claims about hands in dreams (which is valid in some cases but not others - a typical ambiguous mindset of lucid dreaming propaganda). Some have this weird practice where they supposedly push a finger through the palm of their other hand (asinine and pointless) as a "reality check" or claim that hands always have the incorrect number of fingers, which is simply untrue. They imply that you should "count your fingers" to see if you are dreaming. (For me, indulging proto-cognizance, such as counting, often makes my dreams LESS vivid.)

        I have played around with this idea, but it does not work for me. If I do this (examine the appearance of my hands without forcing myself to count), my hands become more realistic and solid in some cases while I remain aware I am dreaming, so, whatever, people do not make much sense. If I know I am dreaming, why even do this? Yes, the somatosensory factor increases vividness, but pushing a finger into one’s palm is the opposite of somatosensory realism - revealing that people have no idea what they are writing about other than being a victim of placebos and cult-like ideas. A lot of lucid dreaming lore is more like a bizarre indoctrination, herd mentality, and brainwashing, but I have no idea who or what the source is.

        Even so, I have played around with my hands in dreams, deliberately making my fingers broken and crooked, or throwing their bones at a wall. In some cases, I can pull them open and store stuff inside them.

AI's response (verbatim): The text you’ve selected discusses the concept of AI as a form of protoconsciousness and critiques it by comparing the rendering of text in AI-generated images to the distortion of text in dreams. Here are the main points addressed:

AI and Protoconsciousness: The idea that AI could be a form of protoconsciousness based on its inability to accurately render text into imagery is challenged.

Text in Dreams: The author notes that not all text in dreams is distorted and that it can often be read clearly until closely examined, which then may change—contradicting the initial theory.

AI’s Rendering Capabilities: It's acknowledged that AI does not always misspell text in images, and sometimes it can even add unexpected elements to an image.

Perception of Errors: The text points out that both dreams and AI-generated images can contain inaccuracies, but there seems to be an exaggerated focus on certain errors, like the drawing of hands by AI.

Lucid Dreaming Claims: The author criticizes some practices and beliefs associated with lucid dreaming, such as the "reality check" of pushing a finger through the palm, and the claim that hands in dreams always have an incorrect number of fingers.

The passage reflects skepticism towards certain interpretations of AI capabilities and dream experiences, advocating for a more nuanced understanding of these phenomena. It suggests that while both AI and dreams may have limitations in representing reality, the focus should be on the broader context rather than isolated inaccuracies.

[oqmemphis]

Levelling Up: A Brief Journey Through the Depths of Purgatory

Recently I did something unthinkable. I clicked on a Reddit ad.

More specifically, I clicked on this advert, produced by the UK government:

As someone who is frequently in the West Midlands, I approached these exciting and novel claims with cautious optimism, and clicked on "Learn More" in the hopes that I might, potentially, learn some more.

I was immediately greeted with a promotional video which was -- one presumes -- produced in a single afternoon using a stock footage library and a pirated copy of After Effects. There is no voiceover; merely a soundtrack resembling a classic rock song with the vocals stripped out and the remaining instrumental dumped in a blender and homogenised into 66 seconds' worth of unfailingly cheerful but otherwise nondescript audio, which plays in a constant drone while the words "TO HELP SMALL AND MEDIUM BUSINESSES GROW" and other similarly orphaned sentence fragments scroll across the screen, all typeset in block capitals in a shade of green that I can best describe as "Kermit the Frog viewed through a dirty window". Whatever authority these vague promises might once have possessed is stripped away entirely upon clicking "Video transcript" and finding only the exact same phrases, alone and without context, written in inadvisably-applied sentence case in a completely unformatted list:

Perhaps scrolling down the page will be a more illuminating experience. Doing this reveals links to four pages, all of which are promoted with a slogan proclaiming that its respective project will help businesses to succeed and expand. That the West Midlands contains people as well as businesses is seemingly an afterthought, judging by the blurbs. Nonetheless, let us march ahead in defiance of our better judgement and read some details pertaining to these marvellous new projects.

Here is the first entry:

This is not a selected excerpt; these 143 words constitute the entire content of the page. It contains the phrase "the West Midlands and East and Southeast Midlands", implying that even reaching these dizzying heights was a significant ordeal for whichever poor copywriter was saddled with this mess. (Incidentally, if you click the link to the British Business Bank, you are taken to another landing page containing roughly the same information and number of words, as well as an invitation to sign up to some form of newsletter. I must respectfully decline this gracious offer, as I worry that my accepting it would drastically overwhelm the number of inboxes their mailing list was expected to handle, and potentially crash their site, and I do not wish to be prosecuted under the Computer Misuse Act for inadvertently Denial-of-Servicing what may or may not be a government entity with my laptop.)

As we continue to move through this disorienting informational void, we find: a paragraph about skills bootcamps proclaiming that people will be able to take "courses in digital" (this phrase is lifted verbatim, absence of noun included), a section about a nationwide employment scheme with no specific connection to the West Midlands whatsoever, and a PDF about town centre redevelopment written by a man who has not been in charge of urban development or housing since 2021 (two prime ministers ago, it should be noted), and yet whose policies are apparently still relevant enough to be included on this site.

Finally, after much of this hedging and fudging, we reach the content promised in the advert: road improvements. This page, naturally, does not burden us with any details of what is being improved, only rough explanations as to where:

81 words, of which six are title, and another three are a broken link. (Staffordshire County Council, presumably, is so ashamed of whatever drivel used to be available through that link that they opted to replace it with their 404 page.) I intend to analyse the remaining 72 words for multiple paragraphs, which is almost certainly longer than anyone responsible for this page expected.

It is impossible to know, given the broken link cited above, what in the name of hell this page is referring to by "greener travel options". Were this not under a section about road improvements, I would assume it refers to trains or other public transit -- especially given that the West Midlands contains the UK's busiest train station outside of London.

And yet.

Perhaps now is a good time to mention that the West Midlands is also one of the most car-dependent regions of the country, and that citing non-specific road-related "infrastructure" as a "greener travel option" relative to the current norm and then outright refusing to elaborate in any way whatsoever -- all while the UK's railways are regularly going on strike amidst the Prime Minister's abandonment of meaningful negotiations with anyone he perceives as furthering the "anti-motorist agenda" that apparently pervades the entire country -- is at best outrageously cynical, and at worst an attempt to strip the UK for parts and sell it to the highest bidder, with all the grace and respect of a scrap dealer getting revenge on the guy who keeps parking in front of his driveway.

But at last, we emerge from this idiotic tunnel. We reach the end of this misguided tour of broken dreams, having taken in passing glances of promises as insane as they are utterly empty. At the time of writing, this government's most significant accomplishment has been to waste vast amounts of money on fruitless legal fees and abandoned logistics operations, all with the goal of deporting half a percent of the last year's intake of refugees 4000 miles away to Rwanda for no readily apparent reason beyond gleeful cruelty. Nobody seriously believes they're going to achieve so much as fixing a junction in Staffordshire, if for no other reason than that they'll be out of power before anyone even touches a shovel. The sole upside for Mr. Sunak is that half of the local authorities he's allegedly working with on these projects are bankrupt anyway, so he has something convenient to blame all the inevitable problems on whilst simultaneously clamouring for ever more consolidation of power in Westminster. The only thing anyone has learned from this exercise in mental omniflagellation is that you should still never, ever, click on ads you see on Reddit.

[kuivamustekala]

okay now that i'm off work and have more of my brain left, here's my thoughts on why tarjeta is the better word of the two (beyond finnish pride at least) - and this is going to be a little lengthy because i cannot summarize thoughts to save my life. wahey let's go:

a lot of the english words in this tournament are either fun and silly ones or beautiful, poetic ones. both of which are excellent categories of Word. overmorrow, to me, isn't really... either of those? its meaning is very mundane. and nothing wrong with that, mundane words can also be quite great!

but i never see people actually use overmorrow in english. i only ever see it as an interesting little tidbit of "oh by the way, english also has a word for this!", or in a conversation of "i wish we had a word for 'day after tomorrow'" "fun fact we do!" but that's about it. now to be fair i don't live in an english speaking country or anything, for all i know it could be in use, but if that is the case i've not really seen that. so overmorrow is a very mundane word that doesn't have anything specific going for it as far as meanings go, or (at least in my opinion) doesn't sound especially beautiful (or fun), and sees very little use. (which i do think is a shame, a word like that is very handy! source: finnish has "ylihuominen" and that word does get used a lot.)

now "tarjeta" is also a very mundane word - especially in a country where the weather does tend to be quite cold. i don't think it sounds particularly beautiful or interesting either. and yes, you could phrase the same idea in different ways and get a similar enough thought across - "it's too cold to go out without a jacket" expresses a similar idea to "ei ulkona tarkene ilman takkia". but something that "tarjeta" gets across that the sentences going around that don't is that it's about how someone, personally, can handle the cold! there's a layer of individuality to it that just does not really carry over into english. and, like, yeah you could add that in with words - "en mä tarkene" can be translated to "it's too cold for me" - but it's still not quite the same.

and also, it's in use constantly in finnish. if you have a conversation about the weather you're almost guaranteed to use it somewhere, and the chances of it being in one of the first sentences are very high ("ihan hirvee keli, ei naalikaan tarkenis olla pihalla tänään" = "the weather's horrible, not even an arctic fox could handle the cold outside today" is something i have said almost verbatim on multiple occasions. biggest difference is the arctic fox just gets swapped out for whatever beast feels appropriate in the moment.)

tldr; they're both mundane words that don't (in my opinion) have anything particularly interesting going for them as far as sounds, mouthfeel of saying them or meanings go, but one of them (overmorrow) is something i never see used despite how useful it could be, and the other (tarjeta) is a word you have to know if you want to know finnish.

Ultimate Word Tournament!

overmorrow (English) [ˈoʊ.vɚˌmɑɹoʊ] The day after tomorrow.

tarjeta (Finnish) [ˈtɑrjetɑ] to be warm enough; to withstand the cold.

[butwhatifidothis]

Sacrifice for the Three Lords

So. Got curious about something.

Curious thing got long lol, under the cut

The word sacrifice has a very loaded, very intentional feel to it. For something to be sacrificed, it must be considered less than whatever it is being sacrificed for, whether in the moment or in the long term - it’s the logical conclusion to the act itself. Even if regret for that choice can come later, at the time you are sacrificing whatever is being sacrificed, it is considered less (for example, spending an hour of your time for a stupid meme post you spent too much time on, for a light-hearted start. In hindsight you might think it was stupid or not worth it, but at the time of bungling around in photoshop you considered the time lost as a worthwhile sacrifice to your end product).

With that in mind, how do the three lords view sacrifice? When is it mentioned in their routes? When do they themselves mention it, and what are they pertaining to when they do? I want to focus on the word “sacrifice” specifically, due to the already mentioned connotations and meaning attached to this word in particular

We’ll start with Claude, with his route’s first mention of the word sacrifice being, and I’m not kidding, post ts, at Ailell

What is being sacrificed here is Claude’s independence from Judith. He is expressing a want to not rely on Judith’s help once again but needing to give up that want in order to move on with his goals of winning the war. This is something that he alone is sacrificing with no involvement or need of sacrifice from anyone else - he is the only one losing something from this sacrifice.

The next mention is from Hubert’s letter

The sacrifice being mentioned belongs to Edelgard. Hubert is stating that Edelgard has made sacrifices that must be honored, heavily implying that they were necessary for her goals if they hold such importance as to keep that importance beyond the grave to be passed by those who have defeated her. Claude himself is not sacrificing anything, nor does he state any agreeance to the phrasing used here, but he has said earlier that her methods use too much bloodshed for people to rally behind, implying a disagreeance. 

This is the last time the word sacrifice is used in direct relation to Claude. When it comes to all that has happened to others, Claude specifically does not refer to it as something like a sacrifice that he is making.

Though that does not the word is not used further in VW. Dorothea, in VW:

The sacrifice being made here is deliberate and willing on the part of Count Bergliez. He is making the consenting, thoughtful decision to sacrifice himself because he views his men’s lives as more important than his own, and it is implied that his doing so achieved the desired outcome (the safety of his men). He came to this decision by himself, with no outside force making him do this (outside of the circumstances that prompted it - no one person made him do this). The act of sacrificing yourself for the lives of others is portrayed in a explicitly “positive” light coated in tragedy and even then only if it achieved its goal 

Lastly, for unique mentions on VW, Annette:

Forced sacrifice is seen as something painful. The making of circumstances where sacrifices must be made outside of the will of those making it is portrayed in a explicitly negative light that is sought to be rid of. 

In VW, Claude himself never refers to the loss of life as a sacrifice, and only ever refers to something as a sacrifice when it is him making it in a way that does not affect others. Sacrifice of life is only referred to as “positive” when either 1) Hubert, an amoral character who cannot be part of VW, makes mention of it, or 2) it is the singular sacrifice of one person’s life that they made of their own volition in order to save others, and even then it is portrayed in its context and in later contexts as a tragic event nonetheless

Next: AM

The first mention of the word sacrifice for AM - or in this case, BL - is after Lonato: 

The word sacrifice is not brought up by Dimitri. Byleth says that the loss of life must be accepted, the result of which is explicit denial from Dimitri of the supposed importance of sacrificing civilians. Sacrifice of life -and the direct phrasing of it as a sacrifice - is explicitly portrayed as bad in the eyes of Dimitri; he does not believe that life ought to be sacrificed to achieve one’s goals

Next time, post ts:

The sacrifice of lives is directly, verbatim described as needless. The concept of the idea of lives being less worthy than a cause is explicitly called wrong. Human life is given more value than any goal.

Note how this is a direct reference to his behavior in VW, where he sacrifices his life as well as those around him - save for Dedue, whom Dimitri not sacrificing is what allows VW’s story to continue (due to Dedue providing the blueprints to the throne room for the Alliance army to navigate through). Dimitri’s choice to deliberately not have Dedue sacrifice his life is a positive to the overarching story of VW, while his indifference to the now explicitly needless sacrifice others’ make of their own lives for his personal cause is portrayed in a negative light

And while we’re talking of Gronder (note, this also appears in VW and thus also applies to VW):

Ignatz’s further implies that the sacrifice made at Gronder does not mean anything - it is senseless, and without purpose. It must be given meaning after the fact; it holds nothing in and of itself, as it did not bring about its desired outcome

Next, Catherine:

Sacrifice of the self is seen in an understanding light while simultaneously being seen as something that ought to be avoided. It is also something that is shown to be something that must be up to the individual to decide for themselves, though is regardless seen as something that likely should be talked out of doing

Last for AM, Felix:

The voluntary, willing sacrifice of one’s own life, for the betterment of others, is portrayed as something “positive” that must be repaid by those which the sacrifice was made for. It is not something that can be morally justified in forgetting after the fact - the repayment needs to be made in order for the sacrifice to be “positive.” The intended outcome of the sacrifice must be fulfilled in order for it to be seen as good.

In AM, sacrifice is continuously referred to negatively. Dimitri outright denies the possibility of necessary sacrifices, and the only way sacrifices are seen in a “positive” is if they are 1) willing made by the person sacrificing themselves and/or 2) the desired outcome of the sacrifice is definitively achieved, with the latter stipulation still having caveats that prevent it from ever truly being seen as positive (Count Rowe)

Lastly: CF

Edelgard mention the word sacrifice the same time as Dimitri first does, after Lonato:

Sacrifice of life is seen as a necessity. Edelgard views sacrifice as something that cannot be avoided, and as such, she has no qualms in sacrificing her people’s lives to achieve her goals. She views her cause as having an inherit superiority over the lives of the people. 

Next, during the invasion of Garreg Mach (once you’ve settled on CF as a route):

Sacrifice of human life is once again seen as a necessity for Edelgard to achieve her goals. She states that she will not stop no matter how much blood she spills for her cause. The sacrifice of life is involuntary to those making the sacrifice, and yet it is seen as something that will lead to a positive outcome. The cause is given greater importance over human life.

Next, post ts, before Claude is fought:

The want to not sacrifice own’s life for their cause is seen as a negative. The idea of attempting to save one’s own life at the prospect of certain defeat is questioned in its rationality. There is a lack of understanding in the idea of not sacrificing one’s self to the cause - this is further shown in Edelgard’s death in all other routes, which is caused directly due to her unwillingness to give up her greater cause. She views her own human life as having less importance than her goals, which is consistent with her ideology of sacrificing everything for the greater good.

Notice the other two mentions of the word sacrifice in CF

Linhardt, at the final chapter (which appears in all routes, mind, but since he does default as a BE I feel it pertinent to include within the CF section):

Sacrifice is seen as a sign of desperation. The idea of sacrificing human lives for a greater cause is no longer comforting or a good enough justification. It being described as “depend[ent] on a throw of the dice” directly implies no control from the one(s) sacrificing their lives. 

And the last mention is from Rhea, during the last battle, referring to Rhea burning down Fhirdiad:

Sacrifice is being actively questioned. Edelgard’s reaction to Rhea forcibly sacrificing lives showcases the act as negative. Rhea, in all other routes, is one of Edelgard’s sacrifices she makes for her cause, and now Rhea’s mirroring of sacrificing the people’s lives for what she believes is right is being shown in a explicitly negative light. This is not Edelgard growing to realize that sacrificing human life is wrong as she does not reflect on her own doing so when she criticizes Rhea for the same thing.

In CF, when it is Edelgard speaking of sacrifice, it is always seen as a necessity - something that must be done in order to achieve change. Edelgard actively forces sacrifice on the people due to her believing that her desired outcome cannot be made without it, and so she makes little effort to mitigate this involuntary, large-scale sacrifice. 

But, when similar ideals of the value of human life against one’s own cause is applied to those which oppose her, she no longer sees it as morally justifiable to sacrifice the lives of the people, despite her own willingness to do the same. When sacrifice is seen through the lens of someone other than Edelgard, the idea of sacrificing lives for the greater cause is no longer enough to justify it. 

In contrast to Claude and Dimitri, who do not view such sacrifice as a necessity and thus do not attempt to justify it/force it upon others (except when Dimitri explicitly is doing something wrong, as directly stated by the game), Edelgard cannot fathom the possibility of being unable to sacrifice human life and achieving her goals at the same time. In contrast to Claude and Dimitri, who hold human life above their goals (except when Dimitri explicitly is in the wrong), Edelgard holds her goals above human life. Human life - including her own - has less worth than her goals, thus making it acceptable to sacrifice.

And, well. Considering that people are still being killed in most of Hubert’s endings due to all of the revolts and rebellions against Edelgard’s abrupt, violent, bloody rule rising up, the commonfolk are still not able to receive titles/military credits unless they marry into families which already have that (save for one character, who was previously noble already), and that freedom of choice is not guaranteed as shown by Bernadetta’s endings, along with the slew of other problematic elements in CF’s endings (especially when compared to VW and AM, whose endings portray a far more peaceful Fodlan)... yeah, the sacrifices absolutely did not achieve their stated desired outcome. And that’s when they were voluntary

[exeggcute]

'"La Culte du Prochain Train," often translated as "The Cult of the Next Train," is known to have originated at least a decade prior to Reconfiguration among the male offspring of asbestos, nickel and zinc miners in the desolate Papineau region of what was then extreme southwest Quebec. The chilling game's competition and its upspringing cult soon spread throughout the network of non-ionized and pre-Interdependent railroad lines which carried raw minerals south to Ottawa and the United States' Great Lake Ports.' Over Struck's little desk hangs a model airplane made entirely from different parts of beer cans. While Inc was keen on the whole lurid mirror-across-highway terrorism thing of early O.N.A.N., and Schacht's paper's focus was the violent French-Catholic protests against municipal fluoridation under Mulroney, Struck had picked the A.F.R.-and-Russian-Roulettish-train-jumping-cult-thing connection, and was sticking to it with the same tenacity that kept him on the 18's A-squad despite a serve that deLint described as resembling a debutante's curtsy. The plane's got flattened cans for wings, smunched-flat cans for wheels, part of a tallboy for fuselage and snout.

'As with many games, Le Jeu du Prochain Train was itself substantially simpler than the organization of the competition.' A cool smile from Struck. 'It was played after sunset at specified sites, specifically les passages a niveau de vote ferrée that marked every rural Quebecker road's intersection with a railroad track. In the Year of the Whopper, there were over two thousand (2,000) such intersections in the Papineau region alone, though not all saw heavy enough flow to accommodate the complexities of true competition.

'Six boys, miners' sons, ages ten to roughly sixteen, Quebecois French speaking boys, line up on six railroad ties' juts just outside the track. Two hundred sixteen (216) boys—never either more nor less—are involved in a night's opening rounds, organized into sixes, each group of six taking its turn with a different train, standing on consecutive juts just outside one track, waiting, doubtless tense, awaiting the procession of a fearsome bride, indeed. The night's heavily travelled crossing's schedule of trains is known to Le Jeu du Prochain Train's episcopate of les directeurs de jeu—older, post-adolescent boys, veterans of previous les jeux, many of them legless and in wheelchairs or—for the sons of asbestos miners, many orphaned and desperately poor—on crude rolling boards. No timepieces are permitted the players, who are under the absolute discretion of the game's directeurs, whose decisions are final and often brutally enforced. They all are silent, listening for the sound of the engine's whistle, a sound which is sad and cruel at the same time, as the sound approaches and begins to subtly undergo Doppler Effects. They tense palely muscled legs beneath hand me down corduroys as the next train's one white eye rounds the track's curve and bears down on the game's waiting boys.’

Struck keeps bogging down in these parts where it seems like the guy just totally abandons a scholarly tone, and even probably starts making up or hallucinating details which there's no way Jim Struck could represent himself as having been there to see, and he's blue-delete-looping all over the place, plus grinding his eye and picking at his forehead, his two more or less constant responses to creative stress.

'Le Jeu du Prochain Train itself is simplicity in motion. The object: Be the last of your round's six to jump from one side of the tracks to the other—that is, across the tracks—before the train passes. Your only real opponents are your six's other five. Never is the train itself regarded as an opponent. The speeding, screaming train is regarded rather as le jeu's boundary, arena, and reason. Its size, its speed down the extremely gradual north-to-south grade of what was then southwestern Quebec, and the precise mechanical specifications of each scheduled train—these are known to the directeurs, they comprise the constants in a game the variables of which are the respective wills of the six ranged along the track, and their estimates of one another's will to risk all to win.’

Struck transposes clearly nonadolescent uptown material like this into: 'The variable of the game isn't so much a matter of the train, but the player's courage and will.’

'The last few instants, vanishingly small, when the player may hurl himself athwart the expanse of track, across timber ties, creosote stench, gravel and scarred iron, amid the ear splitting scream of the whistle almost overhead, able to feel the huge push of terrible air from the transport's cow catcher or express train's rounded nose, to go sprawling in the gravel past the tracks' other side and roll to see wheels and flanges, couplings and driving rods, the furious back and forth of transverse axles, feeling the whistle's steam condense to drizzle all around—these few seconds are known, familiar as their own pulse, to the boys who assemble and play.' Struck's now progressed to grinding the whole heel of his hand into his eyesocket, producing a kind of ectoplasmic pinwheel of red in there. Did like even pre-bullet railroad engines have flanges and cowcatchers and whistles that steamed?

In a disastrous lapse, Struck copies hurl himself athwart, a decidedly un-Struckish-sounding verb phrase, verbatim into his text.

'...that the true variable which renders le Jeu du Prochain Train a contest and not merely a game involves the nerve and heart and willingness to risk all of any or all of the five waiting beside you at the track. How long can they wait? When will they choose? Their lives and limb worth how much Queen-headed coin this night? More radical by far than the American youth automobile game of "Chicken" to which its principle is frequently compared (five, not one, different wills to comparatively gauge, in addition to your own will's resolve, and no motion or action to distract you from the tension of waiting motionlessly to move, waiting as one by one the other five quail and save themselves, leap to beat the train...' and then the sentence just ends, without even a close to the parenthesis, though Struck, with a canny sense for this sort of thing, knows the analogy to Chicken'll ring just the right bell, term-paper-wise.

'Le Jeu's historic best, reportedly, however, ignore their five competitors completely, concentrating their entire attention on determining the last viable instant in which to leap, regarding the last, final, and only true opponent in the game to be their own will, mettle, and intuition about the last viable instant in which to leap. These nerveless few, le Jeu's finest—many of whom will go on to directeur future jeux (if not, often, to membership in Les Assassins or its stelliform offshoots)—these nerveless and self-contained virtuosi never see their opponents' flinches or tics or the darkenings at corduroys' crotches, none of the normal signs of will faltering which lesser players scan for—for the game's finest players frequently close their eyes entirely as they wait, trusting the railroad ties' vibration and the whistle's pitch, as well as intuition, and fate, and whatever numinous influences lie just beyond fate.' Struck at certain points imagines himself gathering this Wild Conceits guy's lapels together with one hand and savagely and repeatedly slapping him with the other—forehand, backhand, forehand.

'The cult's game's principle is simple. The last of the six to jump before the train and land intact wins the round. The fifth through the second to leap have lost, but acquitted themselves.

'The first in a round to quail and jump walks home from there, alone under the moon, disgraced and ashamed.

'But even the first to quail and jump has jumped. Far beyond prohibited, not to jump at all is regarded as impossible. To "perdre son coeur" and not jump at all is outside le Jeu's limit. The possibility simply does not exist. It is unthinkable. Only once, in le Jeu du Prochain Train's extensive oral history, has a miner's son not jumped, lost his heart and frozen, remaining on his jut as the round's train passed. This player later drowned. "Perdre son coeur," when it is mentioned at all, is known also as "Faire un Bernard Wayne," in dubious honor of this lone unjumping asbestos miner's son, about whom little beyond his subsequent drowning in the Baskatong Reservoir is known, his name denoting a figure of ridicule and disgust among speakers of the Papineau Region vulgate.' Disastrously, Struck blithely transposes this stuff too, with not even a miniature appliance-size bulb flickering anywhere over his head.

'The game's object is to jump last and land still fully limbed upon the opposite embankment.

'Expresses are 30 k.p.h. faster than conventional transports, but a transport's cow catcher mangles. A boy struck head on by a moving train is shot as from a cannon, knocked out of his shoes, describes a towering, flailing arc, and is transported home in a burlap sack. A player caught beneath a wheel and run over is frequently spread out along a hundred red meters or more of reddened track, and is transported home in a number of ceremonial asbestos and nickel mining shovels provided by the Jeu's older and frequently dismembered directeurs.

'As happens more often, purportedly, a boy who has dived more than half way across the tracks when he is struck and hit, loses one or more legs—either there on the spot, if lucky, or later, under surgical gas and orthopedic saws applied to what are customarily violently angled masses of unrecognizably contuded meat.' The paradox here for Struck as plagiarist, who needs something with sufficient detail to be able to basically just rehash, is that this thing here has almost too much detail, much of it purple; it doesn't even seem all that scholarly; it seems more like the Wild Conceits Bayside C.C. guy seemed to get more and more tipsy as the thing went on until he felt free to make a lot of it up, like e.g. the contuded meat bits, etc.

What's interesting to Hal Incandenza about his take on Struck, sometimes Pemulis, Evan Ingersoll, et al. is that congenital plagiarists put so much more work into camouflaging their plagiarism than it would take just to write up an assignment from conceptual scratch. It usually seems like plagiarists aren't lazy so much as kind of navigationally insecure. They have trouble navigating without a detailed map's assurance that somebody has been this way before them. About this incredible painstaking care to hide and camouflage the plagiarism—whether it's dishonesty or a kind of kleptomaniacal thrill-seeking or what—Hal hasn't developed much of any sort of take.

'It is frightfully simple and straightforward. Sometimes the last of the six to jump is struck; then the second to last leaper becomes the last and victor, and advances, each winner literally "surviving" into the game's next round, a sort of sextupled semi final, six rounds of six Canadian boys each: the, quote, "Les Trente-Six" for the evening. the initial rounds' boys—those who have been neither the last nor the disgraceful first to leap—are permitted to stay at the le passage a niveau de vote ferree, assembled to become the semi finals' silent audience. The entire Le Jeu du Prochain Train is customarily conducted in silence.' In a disastrous and maybe unconsciously self-destructive set of lapses, Struck rehabilitates the prose but keeps a lot of the hallucinatory specific descriptive stuff in, unfootnoted, though there's obviously no way he could pretend to have been there.

'The surviving losers from among the Les Trente-Six then swell the ranks of the silent gallery as the six nerveless winners—the finalists, this night's "attendants longtemps ses tours"—some bleeding or gray with shock, survivors already of two separate long delayed leaps and hairbreadth escapes, eyes blank or closed, mouths working in savored distaste, await the nightly 2359 Express, the ultra ionized "Le Train de la Foudre" from Mont Tremblant to Ottawa. They will jump athwart the tracks in front of its high speed nose at the final moment, each trying to be the last to leap and live. It is not rare for several of the le Jeu's finalists to be struck.' Struck tries to decide whether it'd be unrealistic or unselfconsciously realistic to keep using his own name as a verb—would a man with anything to camouflage use his own name as a verb?

'...that several among the La Culte du Prochain Train's survivors and organizational directorate went on to found and comprise Les Assassins des Fauteuils Rollents is beyond sociohistorical dispute, though the precise ideological relation between the B.S. era's simultaneously chivalric and nihilistic Cult of the Train's savage tournaments and the present's limbless cell of anti-O.N.A.N. extremists remains the subject of the same scholarly debate that surrounds the evolution of northern Quebec's La Culte de Baiser Sans Fin into the not particularly dreaded but media savvy Fils de Montcalm cell credited with the helicoptered dropping of the 12 meter, human waste filled, pie shell onto the rostrum of U.S. President Gentle's second Inaugural.

[alyy0808]

English-APP Record Reading sept. 27 - oct. 8

Unit 1: The Nature of Academic Texts

In the lesson 1 titled Structure of Academic Texts I learned that Structure of Academic Texts is all about Structuring Paragraphs, Structuring the Three-Part Essay and Structuring IMRaD. First, I learned about  Structuring Paragraphs which is one of the essential features of academic writing, and we all know that a paragraph is a group of sentences that deal mostly with one topic or idea at a time. There are also three parts of a paragraph which are, first, is the Topic  Sentence. The Topic  Sentence is the main point of the paragraph while Supporting Sentences supports the main idea of the paragraph, and Transitional Sentences is used to end a paragraph and prepare the next paragraph for the introduction of the next concept. Illustration, definition, classification, comparison and contrast, and process  is the different kinds of patterns of development found in a paragraph. Also, In Structuring the Three-part Essay there are the 3 parts of an essay which are the Introduction, body, and conclusion. Structuring IMRaD or also known as  Structuring Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion, with a Conclusion. The context of the study and what the study will entail are typically included in the Introduction, while the Methods are part of this particular structure  that explain how the research questions and objective were met and answered. The results section presents the results  and how they were collected in the methods, It is also recommended to use graphs and charts to present data for a better understanding. Captions are also essential in presenting data because the readers may not read the entire text. Furthermore, the data or figures should not be repeated in the text.

 In the lesson 2 I learned about Academic Texts across the Disciplines and it explains about The Academic Disciplines, Connections across Disciplines, and Articulating Different Positions in Academic Writing. In The Academic Disciplines I learned that the academic disciplines has various branches under them which are the accounting, economics, finance and management marketing for Business.  Art, creative writing, languages, literature, etc. for Humanities. Natural and applied sciences also have biology, chemistery,  computer science, engineering, etc. and anthropology. education, geograpy, history, and law for the Social sciences.  Each discipline and its branches have its own communities with their own languages, communication styles, and ways of communication. Connection across Disciplines is all about the disciplines that are not so different in development and purpose. Disciplines are developed and designed to help us make sense of our world and phenomena. We can also gain more knowledge about the world when a practitioner can build on a perviously established body of work from his or her discipline. research are often used on this cause discipline requires you to make use of sources in form of past papers, journal entries and experiments. This helps not only your own research but also the discipline itself, as you are helping expan and add to the previous studies in your choosen discipline. Furthermore, With more knowledge in different disciplines, you will become better at knowing how your own specialization can fit with the rest of the world.

 Lastly, on the lesson 3 titled Articulating Different Positions in Academic Writing talks about that any discipline you to choose to enter already has a number of debates, studies,  controversies, and expirements that have been going on for years, if not decades or centuries. There are long-standing binary oppositions in each discipline that can help you make more sense of the different issues, themes, and topics you might encounter when reading academic texts and conducting your own research in the future. Production-consumption and labor capital are the binary oppositions of Business, while Humanities have artist-culture and text-context, Natural and applied sciences also have empiricism-rationalism and observer-subject, and nature-nurture and free will-determinism for Social sciences. These are just a few examples of the many binaries found in each discipline. with time and effort you’ll be able to pinpoint these binaries in the academic texts you read as well as determine other binaries within the disciplines.

 Unit 2: Thesis Statement and Outlining

In this topic I learned that in a academic paper Thesis Statement is very important because it is the main idea that will dictate the purpose and flow of your arguments in the rest of your paper. There are some characteristics in thesis statement and one of them is that, it shows where you stand regarding the subject matter you are discussing. Your academic paper should be persuasive  because in writing academic paper or research our goal is is primarily convince our readers to consider our stand, and by that to convince them, the rest of our paper should contain evidence that will help back up you thesis statement in order to pursuade others to take your stand. Furthermore, the body of your paper should then support and defend your thesis.

In Outlining Academic Texts I learned that creating an outline is one of the last steps of the prewriting stage, it helps the writer to categorize the main point of the topic, organize the paragraphs and to make sure that the paragraphs are fully developed.  An outline acts ultimately helps the writer to not get stuck while he or she is writing an essay. When writing a topic outline only phrases or main ideas are needed. There is no need to write the full sentences it also utilizes wording that is parallel to one another which is means that the same format is used for headings and subheading for organization. Sentence outline makes use of sentences, that means all headings and subheadings must be in sentences form.

 Unit 3: Writing a Summary

I learned that a summary is a brief statement or the main points of a paragraph or in research. Summarizing should reproduce the key ideas and points of a text, identifying the general concepts that prevail throughout the entire piece, and to express these concepts and ideas with precise and specific language. There are two techniques in writing a summary which are the previewing, skimming and scanning. In writing a summary it is essential to add the title and the author’s name in the first sentence and the author’s thesis too, so that it is easy to recall what the key points are, it also makes it easier to navigate through your summary. We should also avoid opinions or personal responses in our summary and be more mindful to avoid plagiarism. Furthermore, a proper summary can be used to help you to relevant information you might need for your academic writing.

The aims of summarizing texts are to reproduce the overarching ideas in order to identify the general concepts and to express the overarching ideas using precise and specific language. There are steps in summarizing texts and one of them is, the author’s thesis statement should be indicated in the first two sentences. It also should be break down the text or research into the main ideas before summarizing the whole texts and leave out the ideas that are not relevant to the whole text.

 Unit 4: Writing from Sources

I learned that in paraphrasing it doesn’t require you to quote from the source text, paraphrasing is a restatement of a text, passage, or work to express the meaning in another form. A good paraphrase shows how the writer understand what he or she reading. There are different kinds of paraphrasing which are the change of parts of speech, change of structure, clause reduction,and synonym replacement and there are also kinds of plagiarism which are, first, the verbatim plagiarism, word order plagiarism, and the idea plagiarism.

In techniques in paraphrasing I learned that there are several techniques that can be used to paraphrase effectively, which are the change of words and the change of sentence structure. In change of words we can change the part of speech, use synonyms, and change numbers and percentages to different forms. While changing the sentence structure we can change the word order, use different definition structures, use different attribution signals, and change the sentence structure and use different conjunctions. In paraphrasing we should not change the proper nouns and technical terms and we should maintain the meaning of the text when we’re paraphrasing a texts.

Lastly, paraphrasing vs. quoting, I learned that Quoting includes taking what the writer stated and repeating it word-for-word. This method is commonly used for terms or quick sentences. As mentioned in preceding lessons, copying an author’s phrases verbatim is typically categorized as plagiarism. To keep away from this, it's far critical to enclose the copied textual content in citation marks (“ “) whilst quoting and characteristic the phrases to the authentic author. When we are going to use quotation in our writing we should first introduce, cite, and explain (ICE method) the quotation we will be using.

 Unit 5:  Citing Sources of Information

In citation styles I learned that a citation is manner to offer credit score to the authors, scientists, researchers, and so forth whose innovative and intellectual work you used to guide or supplement your very own research and A citation style dictates what data is important to include in a citation, how that data have to be organized, what punctuations are used, and different formatting concerns. There are three different citation styles which are the American Psychological Association (APA) which is often used in education, psychology, and the social sciences and Modern Language Association (MLA) is normally used in the humanities while Chicago/Turabian style is often used in business, history and fine arts.  In writing in-text citations, endnotes, and footnotes I learned the format for in-text citations in APA uses the author-date-page number(s) while the format for in-text citations in MLA uses the author-page number(s) and the format for AD for CMOS ises author-date-page number(s), however CMOS also allows writers to utilize NB, where all references are found in either the footnotes or endnotes. Furthermore,  Footnotes and endnotes for APA and MLA should be limited and are usually used for additional content for other references. Lastly,  In writing a bibliography I learned that a bibliography lists all of the sources you used for your research and additional background reading. This includes even works that you did not end up referencing in your paper and a reference list or a works cited page is similar to a bibliography, but it only contains the sources you explicitly cited in your paper. Furthermore, The three citation styles organize and format their bibliographies and their bibliographic entries differently.

[schmokschmok]

everything changes, nothing perishes

Fandom: The Magnus Archives

Relationship: Jon Sims x Martin K. Blackwood

Characters: Jonathan Sims, Martin K. Blackwood, Gerry Delano, Georgie Barker, Melanie King, Tim Stoker, Sasha James

Wordcount: 10.000

Freeform:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Alternate Universe - College/University

Romantic & Platonic Soulmates

Brief Georgie/Jon

Amicable Breakups

Trans Melanie King & Martin Blackwood

He/Him & They/Them Pronouns For Asexual, Nonbinary Royalty Jon Sims

HOH Tim Stoker

The Mechanisms Are The Archivist’s College Band

Summary

It’s just like Martin to get a soulmate who’s already bound to someone else.

A "the first words your soulmate says to you are written on your skin"-au but the twist is only a twist if you haven't read the first installment of the series (which is not necessary but appreciated).

Read on AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28395876

Complimentary Georgie/Melanie Fic: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25056415 

CN: Alcohol (mentioned), Canon-/Fanon-typical Martin Loneliness, Food (mentioned), Toxic Parent-Child Relationship (Martin’s mother)

 #1

Just got drunk and walked in.

It’s kind of a funny story, Martin supposes, what with the admission of alcohol being the catalysator and the cocky confidence of the script. When he was young, he thought about this sentence a lot, even though his idea of ‘getting drunk’ didn’t correspond to reality. (He still thinks a lot about it, but it’s not as rose-tinted anymore. Or at least he likes to think it isn’t.)

He never pictured a face or an actual voice to accommodate the words. But he thought about the tone, and the inflection, the way someone might say it with anger or arrogance or the intensity of a really great punchline.

The stories he made up were full of bravery and heroism, of drunk shenanigans and questionable decisions, of happy accidents and laughter. Fantastical in places, but realistic most of the time.

On better days he imagines a whole group of people close to him – friends – waiting for him in their favourite pub or on a patch of grass in front of the college he’s going to attend soon or in the flat of one of them. He imagines them chatting and retelling stories animatedly, laughing and talking over each other in enthusiasm and comradery. And one day there would be someone new, someone Martin would not have seen before. And in the moment, Martin would get into earshot, they would say it: Just got drunk and walked in. And it would be the start of a story about the lack of courage and the finding of it on the bottom of a bottle. Or the beginning of a tale about someone trying to do good, being all on their own, however. Or it would be the end of an adventure of nerves and worry.

Martin can see himself with someone equally as anxious as him. But he can also see himself with someone cockily declaring that they drunkenly walked into a place they shouldn’t have been in as well.

On worse days he imagines hearing the words in a crowd, only in bypassing, the source of countless daydreams and nightmares swallowed by the masses of people going on about their day without ever realising he was there in the first place.

One thing stays the same though in all of his imaginations and phantasies. In every single version Martin can think of, he falls in love with the voice before seeing their face first. It doesn’t matter if the words are yelled in arrogance and vanity or muttered self-consciously and kind of self-deprecatingly or hesitantly contemplated. He falls in love so fast and hard he stops breathing for a second then and there.

He had years upon years to build up enough expectations to know it only needs a little shove to snowball all of his fluttering endearment into the devastating, all-consuming love he was always destined to feel.

Martin is a romantic at heart and it doesn’t matter that all of his what ifs are futile and unrealistic, he’s in love with the idea of having a fairy-tale romance and that’s enough as it is. With all its daydreams and the gentle warmth in his stomach.

 #2

He doesn’t want to be lonely, really, he tries his best not to be. But it’s hard and he doesn’t know how to change it. When he still lived with his mother, she complained a lot about him being home all the time when he wasn’t working. (He shouldn’t think too much about it, she also complained a lot about him being away too much – no matter if he was out working or meeting up with somebody who could turn into a friend.)

The first two years in college didn’t change that fact at all. He was friendly with most of the people he met in his department and at the events he attended. But he wasn’t friends with them by any means. And that had always been the problem, hadn’t it? They thought he was a good lad, a nice chap, a dapper mate, a “we should hang out sometime!” and an “it’s lovely seeing you here!” but he’s not interesting to talk to. People don’t remember him because: While he can hold small talk relatively well, conversations with him tend to be one-sided. He asks the right questions, listens and reacts appropriately to the things people tell him, but he doesn’t reciprocate, can’t counter a story with a story because they’re either too personal or too embarrassing or don’t exist at all.

The first person talking often enough to Martin to make him share a few selected stories here and there is Gerry Delano. They share a single class and find themselves sitting next to each other, sharing and comparing the notes they made during the lecture. They haven’t met up outside of their shared class before, so Martin’s pleasantly surprised when Gerry asks him to come see his band the up-coming weekend.

 #3

He’s late. Because of course he is. One time. One single time he gets invited to something, so naturally he has to put in overtime. He’s at least an hour late, maybe even a little bit more. The text he shot Gerry to let him know that he’s late sits unread and unanswered in their chat and Martin feels awful.

Eventually, he reaches The Anglerfish, the small student bar just off the campus that hosts open mic nights and concerts for student bands. Gerry’s band is supposed to play tonight as the closing act; the after-act for a bigger student band Martin’s never heard of – The Mechanics? The Mech– something something. Apparently, they have a longer set than the other bands so Martin could be lucky to only have miss one or two songs of Gerry’s band.

Martin hasn’t listened to a single song of any of the bands that play tonight, so he’s not sure what to expect from the evening. Muffled music spills out of the slightly ajar windows, but he can’t make out a genre or any specific instruments, so he reaches for the handle of the door and takes a deep breath, for the last time relatively alone, then he opens the door and goes into the dimly lit entry way.

The first thing he hears are the chattering voices of people standing off to the bar and sitting at tables lining the walls, but when he dives into the crowd, simultaneously scanning it for Gerry’s lanky figure, he hears it.

“Just got drunk and walked in,” declares a voice loudly and with a manic kind of arrogance. Martin freezes in place. This is all wrong.

But he doesn’t get the chance to dwell on the fact that he heard the phrase etched into his upper thigh verbatim from someone he can’t even see, because the crowd doesn’t stop moving. Despite Martin’s need for the whole world to take a fucking breather, the people behind him shove him into the room and he tries to get air into his lungs again, but he only manages a few shallow breaths before the voice carries on and Martin realises that it has to be the singer on stage who said the most fateful words of Martin’s life.

The voice is gruff now, deeper and drunkenly confident.

Careful not to bump into too many people, Martin navigates through the crowd, trying to catch a look at the stage. In spite of his height it proves difficult and he goes further into the bar, diving into the crowd, while absolutely forgetting why he came in the first time: To meet Gerry who wanted to see the band Martin’s currently enraptured by, before playing with his band.

Finally, he manages to find a place at the far-right side of the publicum – close enough to see the stage but far enough to not stand in the way of the fans that came specifically for the band.

The song’s still going, and Martin scans the stage briefly. The band’s bigger than he expected and if it weren’t for the sheer presence of the person standing front centre stage, clutching the retro silver microphone with only one hand, Martin’s sure he’d have to look at every member of the band to determine who he’s looking for.

Adjusting his glasses, he attempts to take in every detail he can but he’s pretty far off and he can’t see everything he wants to. The things he can see are their long brown hair, dishevelled and laced with braids to keep it from falling into their face, goggles perched on their head like a headband; the dark brown skin of their face and hands and the lower half of their left arm; the black paint around their eyes, rampant like ivy roots; the black nail polish on the hand holding the microphone; the white linen shirt underneath the muddy brown waist coat, a dip hem skirt in the same soily brown over fishnet stockings and heavy brown boots with at least four or five centimetres of heel.

Their voice sounds like it’s made to narrate and yell and sing and– well, talk, actually. It sounds like a voice Martin would love to talk to and listen to and wake up to and– shit. This is bad and, did he mention, this is all wrong.

A narration begins and Martin realises all of a sudden that it took one measly song for him to lose all dignity and sense of appropriateness and instead win all of the love at first sight he dreamt of but didn’t anticipate to, well, suck so much.

He can’t have a crush on someone like, like that! Someone beautiful who carries themselves with ease and swagger and confidence. Until now he thought he could do this, you know, meeting his soulmate and instantly falling in love and maybe even talk to them like a civilised human being. But he was wrong, god was he wrong! He can’t talk to that ethereal being in fishnets. This is, wow, this is so far out of his comfort zone, he involuntarily takes a step back.

The only reasonable explanation is that he must have misheard the narration, must have missed a quintessential detail of what happened. Or it’s a very strange coincidence, his soulmark isn’t the most non-sensical sentence, there’s probably plenty people out there being able to say the exact same sentence. He just hasn’t met them yet.

Still, he can’t avert his eyes, he’s transfixed on the stage, listening to the, to be embarrassingly frank, horribly hot voice laying down the events leading to Oedipus’ Trial of Wits. Everything except the stage steps back and Martin’s brain singles out the band. The elbows touching him and the feet stepping on his don’t feel as real anymore, or maybe he’s less real in this weird interspace of knowing your soulmate or crushing on a complete stranger with the intensity of a thousand burning suns.

But there is no way to know, is it? He can’t go back and enter the bar again, consciously heeding the sentence that caused his distress. The only things he can think of doing are either getting to know the singer, who introduces himself as Jonny d’Ville just a few songs later, which is pretty creepy and Martin doesn’t want to do that – or he has to attend the next concert (or next concerts?) to determine if he merely misheard which doesn’t seem like a better alternative, if Martin’s honest.

So, still unsure what he should do next, he focuses on Jonny d’Ville and the way he gestures while narrating and singing like he’s winding his thoughts forth; the way he sits down during the songs he’s not involved in; the way he can’t hold back when Marius von Raum sings the part of Herakles and he mouths the words excitedly before jumping back to the microphone to sing the part of Zeus; the way he uses a single drumstick to beat the drum and holds the harmonica; the way he draws a steam punky gun and flourishes it like a natural extension of his arm.

“I’ve been looking for you!”

Gerry’s voice is so close to his ear, that the sudden proximity startles him more than the actual talking to him, or at least that’s what he tells himself. He’s not far gone enough to admit, even if it’s just to himself, that he was captivated by the band so much that he didn’t even realise that they neared the end of their act.

“D-Didn’t you get my text?” Martin yells back, leaning back, out of Gerry’s personal space. “Had to put in overtime and when I got here, I couldn’t find you.”

Gerry waves dismissively and shouts back: “Well, I found you at last, we’re up next!” He grins self-consciously and nods towards the stage. “Don’t really wanna get up after them but the crowd’s hyped up so maybe they’ll accept us as one of them.”

Even though his gaze flickers to the stage multiple times, Martin succeeds in looking at Gerry and smiling encouragingly. Then he says: “You’ll do amazing, Gerry. Don’t worry.”

While Gerry opens his mouth, the last notes of Elysian Fields carry through the bar and applause rings out. Jonny d’Ville takes a step forward, basking in the applause of the crowd and chugging water from a half litre bottle. As the applause dies down a bit, he lifts the microphone up again and exclaims: “Thank you! Thank you! Now, we are aiming to put that on CD, ehh, sometime around July. It won’t be exactly the show that you saw, this is, well, this is the debut. This’ll be refined and processed, et cetera, et cetera.” He bows outlandishly. “But if you want to help with that occurring – and you know you do – there is a crowdfunding, an indiegogo page, uhm, for this, uh, CD, there’s lots of,” he fumbles for words, “lovely perks from dice to patches and all sorts of brilliant things. So, go there, give us all your money.” The crowd laughs. “And then we will make a CD and we will send you the CD and you can listen to this to your heart’s content, uhh,” the crowd cheers again, “but thank you so much for coming!” He gives a few more thanks, then he says. “We’re going to, well, we’re going to leave you, uhm, with one quick final song and I think you probably know which one. So, sing along if you know the words.”

And the crowd knows the words.

Involuntarily, Martin steps back, overwhelmed by the sheer energy that erupts because of the people around him jumping up and down, yelling the lyrics to Drunk Space Pirate.

After that, it doesn’t take too long for The Mechanisms to clear the stage off their instruments and The Black Eyed Keays to set up their own act. Gerry comes out, hand gripping the neck of his electric guitar harder than necessary, knuckles lighter than the rest of his tan hand. His band is composed of five members including him, Martin’s yet to meet them.

Before he can start really looking at the other four musicians, he can see Ashes o’Reilly coming through the makeshift curtain separating the backstage area from the public. They goe straight to a woman standing off to the side, while politely dismissing people congratulating them and trying to involve them into conversation. As Martin averts his eyes because it seems like a private moment, he sees Jonny d’Ville leaving the backstage area, pulled through the curtain by Raphaella, their hands intertwined.

Something in Martin halts, something that had been on edge for the last hour or so, something that seemed to only be satisfied by the crushing reality of his potential soulmate holding the hand of someone other than him. (They could be friends, Martin knows that, he’s not that dense to think that everyone holding hands has to be romantically involved with each other. But it doesn’t stop him in the slightest of thinking that he wants to be in the place of holding Jonny d’Ville’s hand. He doesn’t even know the real name of the guy and already wants to hold his hand. Pathetic. And definitively creepy.)

Shaking his head to remind himself that he’s here for Gerry and The Black Eyed Keays, he turns away from Jonny d’Ville and Raphaella stopping at the bar, but out of the corner of his eyes he catches sight of Raphaella wrapping her arms around Jonny d’Ville’s waist.  

 #4

As far as Martin can tell, it’s going well for him, wonderful even, just perfectly fine. He realised today that he hadn’t spent too much time wondering about The Mechanisms or Jonny d’Ville in the past few months and he’s rather proud of himself for not obsessing. His shift ended a tad early today, he didn’t have any costumers that grinded his nerves, the night provided him with a good eight-hour long sleep, and he didn’t even have nightmares.

This is the literal incorporation of a good day. Martin doesn’t have too many of them, so he tries to really bask in the feeling, who knows how long it’s going to last.

On the way out of the Ceaseless Watcher, he picks up two cups – one filled with black coffee and one with a herbal-fruit tea blend – and starts walking to the patch of grass in front of the Jonah Magnus’ University where he’s supposed to meet Gerry. Careful not to spill coffee or tea or burn himself, he clenches one of the cups between his forearm and his chest, while he fumbles for the phone in his pocket.

For a second, he contemplates coming to a halt to text Gerry that he’s on his way, but he doesn’t want to stop, being in the momentum already. While concentrating on proper (or at least somewhat comprehensible) grammar and typing the right letters, he’s paying a little less attention to the way as he should. Of course, he notices the change of underground from the hard-stomped way underneath the trees to the openness and softness of the grassy patch. But, actually, that’s about it. It’s not too crowded because it starts to be too cold outside to properly hang out, so he doesn’t even have to navigate through groups of students.

The thing is: Martin doesn’t really think something (or someone) could cross his way, so he doesn’t even try to pay attention to the area around him. And that’s why he doesn’t reckon with the incredibly inauspicious sounding crinkling when he steps on something that is decidedly not lawn.

Martin stops dead in his track, draws a shaky breath and wants to say anything (like an apology probably), but the only words leaving his mouth are a softly whispered: “Oh no.”

The words of apology are stuck in his throat and he doesn’t dare look up from the sketchpad he stepped on unintentionally. Right on top of a study of the two statues in front of the academic museum of arts is a rather perfect imprint of the sole of his boot. Martin swallows.

“You cannot be serious,” drawls a voice that makes heat rise in Martin’s cheeks – out of shame and recognition all the same.

As if the voice had snapped Martin out of a stupor, he rushes to say: “Oh, god, I am so sorry.” Shoving his phone into his coat pocket and setting down the two cups, he crouches and starts to wipe at the now slightly damp paper, more apologies tumbling from his lips.

“Alright!” The voice cuts him short, impatiently. “Stop it. It’s alright. Don’t bother.”

Two hands reach for the sketchpad, taking it out of Martin’s hands without further ado.

“I’m really sorry,” Martin says again, still not daring to look into the face of the person he just ruined the day for. Instead, he’s looking at their hands – one of them pulling the sleeve of a jumper or hoodie out of the sleeve of their coat and over their other hand to gently dab at the paper that already starts to get wavy where Martin’s boot hit it.

The person who is definitely not Jonny d’Ville (because Jonny d’Ville is a stage name and Martin doesn’t know who the human being in front of him is) retorts curtly: “I gathered as much.”

“Is it …”, Martin interrupts himself, shifting his weight so that he’s sitting on his heels instead of the balls of his feet. “Was it important?” He scrunches his nose. “I mean, I didn’t– didn’t destroy, like, a project for a course you’ve been working on for months, did I?”

“No,” they reply but their tone suggests otherwise. “It’s not … It’s nothing.”

They stop dabbing at the paper and Martin realises that they’re looking at him now and that it would be the polite thing to look back. It costs him approximately a metric shit ton of effort to lift his eyes and meet theirs. But he manages. (Just about.)

Martin regrets his decision to meet their eyes at approximately the same time that he can start making out the details of their face that he hadn’t been able to see in the dim light of The Anglerfish and the distance between him and the stage. It’s the exact same moment that Martin realises that they are as beautiful as Martin thought they would be. In a more reigned in and moderated kind of way – their hair confined in a bun, their face not painted with ivy roots but dotted with circular scars, and their outfit more suitable for daily use – but nonetheless beautiful.

“It doesn’t look like it’s nothing,” Martin says softly, and he doesn’t know where he’s getting the courage from. (Probably nowhere, he’s not exactly thinking as it is. And ‘not thinking’ is not the same thing as conjuring up courage.)

A scoff slips past their lips and they reply: “It is, though. And even if it wasn’t: I don’t see how this could be of any concern to you.”

Martin averts his eyes and looks down at the two cups he placed next to the place where the sketchpad had previously lain. The shock of already having his foot in his mouth is probably the reason why Martin just goes on: “If I want to make it up to you, I need to know just how bad my clanger was.”

His gaze flickers back to their face and takes in the steep corrugation between their drawn together brows.

Slowly, they say: “You don’t have to make it up to me.” They look almost appalled at the thought, and Martin’s not sure if he should be offended on his behalf or theirs. (Does he look like someone who ruins peoples work and then walks away? Or did nobody ever thought about righting their wrong when interacting with them?)

“I know I don’t have to,” Martin retorts, then he backpaddles and tries to correct himself: “I mean, you don’t seem like someone who’d enforce rectification but … I want to.” He swallows around the lump in his throat. “Make it up to you, that is.”

“Oh,” they say softly, and Martin thinks that they seem like they didn’t even notice they said anything at all. Absentmindedly, their left hand fiddles with the hem of the maybe-sweater-maybe-hoodie sleeve still pulled over their right hand.

“This was absolutely and entirely my fault,” Martin says when they don’t speak up again. “So, if it would be alright with you, I would like to, I don’t know, buy you a coffee?” The blush on his cheeks intensifies because he knows what this could look like. But someone like them would never even consider that someone like Martin could hit on them, so he tries not to dwell on that thought for too long. “I work at the Ceaseless Watcher, so, you could drop by and get a coffee on the house?”

Martin attempts a smile but it’s a rather weak one. The palms of his hands are clammy and a little numb, but he doesn’t dare wiping them on his trousers to get rid of the feeling.

“Are you working on Thursday?”

In all honesty, Martin didn’t reckon they would actually agree. Much less on the first go. (Such things don’t happen to Martin. He is never lucky enough that things just work out.)

“I– uh, yes,” Martin rushes to say before they can think about changing their mind. “Five to eleven.” An owlish blink in Martin’s direction. “P.M.”

“Good,” they say, both hands now lying flat on their sketchpad. “Then I will see you on Thursday.”

Martin takes this as his cue to stand up and leave, and it takes him almost ten whole minutes until he realises that he doesn’t even know the name of the person he had just met. And it takes him almost five more minutes of self-loathing and -pity until he remembers that they will see each other again. Next Thursday.

Maybe one time everything can work out for Martin. Just one time.

#5

It doesn’t work out for Martin.

It doesn’t work out for Martin, so obviously and severely, that Martin genuinely thinks about hiding in the employee’s bathroom so that Jane can take over the register and deal with the slowly trickling in students of the Jonah Magnus Institute.

Jon (that’s his name, Jon without an H, it’s short for Jonathan, narrowed eyes at Martin’s name tag, Martin) has a girlfriend that is beautiful like a flower meadow in full bloom underneath the blue open sky. But they don’t just look great together (and they do, Martin’s perfectly and painfully aware of that fact), they seem to get along greatly, too. (Which is good! It’s not like Martin’s begrudging someone’s happy relationship or anything. It’s more like … he envies it? Envies the apparent ease and comfortability that come with knowing someone intimately for a long time. Envies the way they lean into each other and share private smiles. Envies the look of contentedness and trust when they look at each other. – Or maybe he’s overanalysing things he has never been part of. Eternally condemned to an etic approach to romantic relationships.)

Today, however, Martin wants to flee the scene because Jon looks livid and Georgie’s attempts to calm him down seem rather futile. They’re barely in earshot when Jon hisses: “I still don’t understand why you invited her along.”

“It’s not every day that you meet your soulmate,” Georgie replies soft spoken and with an exasperation that implies that it’s not the first time she has said this sentence to him. “And I won’t let you antagonise her just for the sake of it. At least get to know her. If she’s as bad as you think she is, you get to tell me that you told me so and I’ll back off.” She smiles at him. “Deal?”

But she doesn’t wait for him to answer, instead she turns to the counter where Martin’s been standing the whole time, trying to look like he hasn’t been eavesdropping, and greets him: “Hey, Martin.”

“Hi.” Martin tries to smile through the awkward glances Jon shoots him. “What can I do for you?”

“Two latte macchiatos, one decaf, one regular, and one white coffee,” she replies. While he’s ringing up her order, she continues: “And maybe if you could answer me this: Do you think Jon’s approachable?”

Martin stops dead in his tracks and Jon splutters: “Georgie!”

“What?” Her gaze flickers between an indignant Jon and the redder and redder growing face of Martin. She tilts her head in confusion and furrows her brows.

Jon hisses: “You can’t rope Martin into your schemes, you wretched thing!”

“Why not?”, Georgie questions before Martin gets to have a word in this. (Not that Martin would actively try to intervene when they’re obviously fighting about something important. Something Martin doesn’t want to think about while they’re still standing right in front of him.)

“Because,” Jon starts to say, but Georgie’s bulldozing on: “Martin is the newest addition to our squad and you brought him in, so, if anyone knows if you’re approachable or not, it’s him.”

“Martin is not a part of our friend group,” Jon says bewildered, then the realisation that Martin’s right in front of them sinks in. But the words are out in the open and the damage is already done.

“Jon!” Georgie exclaims, her voice filled with outrage (or at least something that comes close to outrage).

Martin smiles weakly and says: “It’s okay, Jon’s right. We’re not friends, or anything.”

It’s true, even though Martin had hoped that they could become friends. Or at least acquainted. Sometime in the future. (But Martin has to admit that Georgie thinking that Martin belongs to them in any kind of way – it felt nice. Nicer and bigger than it should probably have.)

“Oh,” Georgie says, brows even more furrowed than before, and a look of contemplation on her face that Martin can’t decipher. Then she shakes her head and Jane calls out for Jon and Georgie to collect their drinks.

They continue their argument while walking away, and Georgie sends him a soft smile and a wave over her shoulder before they grab their coffees and head for a table near the front of the café.

Martin tries not to look at them too much, or at all even, but he must have failed embarrassingly, because he notices Jon’s displeased face before he realises that someone has entered the café and beelines for the table Georgie and Jon sit at.

And that’s the moment Georgie’s and Jon’s conversation hits him full force. Jon’s soulmate has come into their life. Jon‘s soulmate has come into their life and the soulmate in question has just entered The Ceaseless Watcher. Which means one thing: Martin is not Jon’s soulmate.

Martin laughs lowly and self-deprecatingly and thinks: It’s just like him to get a soulmate who’s already bound to someone else. If he’d tell his mother, she’d probably tell him he had it coming without ever specifying why.

 #6

“Sounds exhausting,” Gerry says, both arms on the counter and more slumped against it than standing upright.

Martin shrugs his shoulders and says: “That’s just uni life.”

“It’s not,” Gerry retorts, pulling a face. “I’ve been lying on my bed the whole weekend, working on a few new songs. What you’re doing is the Martin way of life and, no offence, but it sounds exhausting. Three out of ten, wouldn’t recommend.”

“I kinda … take offence?” Martin’s voice goes up way too much at the end of the sentence, and Gerry waves his hand dismissively. “Did you just come by to insult me?”

Gerry grins and extends his arm to ruffle Martin’s hair (which is not something Martin expects other people to do and that’s why he doesn’t really know how to react to it), before he says: “Nah. Don’t. If it’s working for you, go ahead. – I’m here because my roommate and their girlfriend broke up, so I’m waiting for them to, I don’t know, cheer them up, I guess.”

“Oh,” Martin says eloquently. “I’m sorry?”

Gerry shrugs. “It’s alright, I think. They didn’t sound too upset on the phone.” Then his gaze falls on the giant clock on the wall behind the counter. “Should be here soon. Could you please ring up one regular latte macchiato and one decaf?”

Nodding, Martin punches the order into the register and Gerry reaches for his wallet. Then Martin steps over to the coffee machine to prepare the two different shots of espresso and heat and foam the soy-oat milk blend.

They exchange a few more quips while Gerry carries the hot beverages to a table next to the wall and gets back to the counter because they don’t want to disturb the other patrons by talking too loudly.

Gerry’s about to go on a tangent about the breaking of his G and B strings, when the bell above the door chimes and someone enters The Ceaseless Watcher.

Without intent or his own volition, a bright smile plasters itself onto Martin’s face, before he even turns towards the door – pavloved into customer friendliness – and sees Jon walk into the café. His smile falters a bit, but he manages to uphold it and greets: “Hey, Jon.”

Jon nods in reciprocation and says: “Martin, Gerry.”

“Oh, you know each other?” Martin asks, already one finger on the register to punch in Jon’s order, but Gerry’s hand makes an abortive gesture.

“Jon’s my roommate,” Gerry explains with another gesture towards the table where the two latte macchiatos wait for them. “Didn’t know you were acquainted.”

A blush creeps up Martin’s neck and he forces an embarrassed groan back down his throat. He’s torn between processing the information that Jon and Georgie broke up (apparently) and the realisation that Gerry used they/them pronouns for Jon.

“Well, we are,” Jon replies curtly and frees Martin from saying anything at all. Jon already turns to leave the counter when Martin squeezes out: “Jon, could I– would you– just a moment?”

Jon nods and Gerry walks to their table to give them a moment of privacy. But Martin doesn’t continue, because the questions that pile up in his mouth and block the way for the thing he actually planned to ask try to fight their way over his lips. Did Georgie and you really break up? Is it because of your soulmate? Are you alright? Is Georgie alright?

“Yes, Martin?” Jon looks vaguely annoyed. (Or maybe Jon looks obviously annoyed, but Martin doesn’t want to accept it because he’s a hopeless romantic and thinks that even if he is not Jon’s soulmate, Jon is still his and that must mean something, right? The universe wouldn’t be as cruel as to present Martin his soulmate only to make them hate him, right? – Yes, of course, Martin knows that soulmates don’t have to be romantic or even platonic, that a shared soulmark only means this person will have an impact on your life and that it is on them to find out what kind of impact that is. But Martin wants it to be positive. He desperately craves for it to be positive force in his life. And he doesn’t know what he’s going to do if this thing ends up being a giant fluke.)

Martin clears his throat and tries to ignore the burning behind his eyes.

“Just,” Martin swallows down everything that doesn’t have any place being in his mouth, “Gerry used they/them pronouns for you and … I don’t want to misgender you?”

Jon’s face doesn’t tell Martin anything. If Jon is pleased knowing that Gerry uses the right pronouns; if Jon is annoyed that Gerry made a capital t Thing out of Jon by using gender-neutral language; if Jon doesn’t really care either way. Jon just looks at him. It’s a bit unsettling.

“If you don’t want to talk to me about this, I get it,” Martin continues softly when Jon doesn’t say a thing and only studies Martin’s face. “You don’t have to. But I would like to, you know, respect it if you preferred a specific set of pronouns.”

Martin shrugs to shove the weight off his shoulders, but Jon’s stare turns disconcerting. Uncertainty making its way into Martin’s chest, until Jon says slowly: “I use he/him and they/them pronouns. At the moment it’s the latter.”

A nod in acknowledgment earns Martin something akin to a smile, the smallest of uplifts of the corners of Jon’s lips, and warmth spreads through Martin’s cheeks and chest.

They lift their hand in a wave goodbye until they seem to realise that they’re not actually leaving but rather sitting down at the table Gerry’s still waiting at, and duck their head in something Martin wants to call embarrassment.

For a few minutes while nobody walks up to the counter and everyone seems to be busy except Martin, Martin takes a plate out of one of the cupboards and places two pastries on it. Then, after a few pacing steps forward and back again and too much hesitation, he walks over to Gerry and Jon and places the plate on the table.

Jon opens their mouth to say something and Martin can see the questioning look on Gerry’s face. But he cuts the discussion short by blurting out: “On the house.”

In an attempt to mask the anxiety already spreading through him, Martin smiles his brightest smile, turns around and walks away. (Which: Who does something like that? Jon must suspect that Gerry has told Martin something Martin shouldn’t know about. Or they must think that Martin is an absolute court jester. And given Gerry’s face, at least Gerry suspects that Martin is not acting out of sheer courtesy.)

(Martin desperately wishes for the ground to open up and swallow him whole.)

 #7

Georgie and Jon are broken up for good, or that’s at least what Jon says to Martin. This is remarkable because of two things: First of all because it means that Jon is actually talking to Martin except for, you know, ordering coffee or awkward small talk while Martin prepares the beverage. And secondly because Martin didn’t think their split would actually last. Georgie and Jon are, even if it sounds impossible, the perfect pair and Martin isn’t sure how they managed to not be soulmates.

Since Martin tried to clarify Jon’s use of pronouns, Jon has significantly warmed up to Martin and Martin isn’t sure if it’s because of this or because Jon can’t spend as much time with Georgie anymore. (It’s not like they actually take a break from seeing each other. Gerry told Martin that Jon and Georgie went to an outing together on the same night they broke up.) Either way, Martin’s suddenly confronted with a Jon who asks him low-voiced how he’s doing and who hesitantly wants him to have a good day.

“He/him day,” Jon says instead of a greeting. He wipes sweat from his forehead and tries to tug every stray strand and wisp of hair behind his ears or underneath his hair tie – rather unsuccessfully.

Martin throws a glance behind Jon to assess the situation in the café and if he can risk leaving the counter for a moment. When he deems it safe, Martin says: “This reminds me … Wait a moment, I …”

He doesn’t finish his sentence, but instead walks into the little storage room in the back of the shop to fish a little box out of his bag and come back to the front of the café. A small blush blooming on his cheeks, Martin smiles at Jon and says: “Hey, Jon.”

Jon furrows his brow as if he hadn’t realised that he skipped an essential part of the conversation, then replies dutifully: “Hello, Martin.”

“So,” Martin begins, “I’ve been thinking. We’ve been talking about your pronouns and …” Martin trails off and presents the little box he retrieved from his bag. He opens it and showcases two braided bracelets, one in salmon pink and one in teal. “I heard about pronoun pins and bracelets? Had some yarn laying around and thought … if you want to, you could use them to indicate your preferred pronouns?”

At the end, Martin’s voice trails off and he sounds a lot less sure about his idea. His uncertainty is a mix out of ‘did I overstep’ and ‘am I too much’, but the way Jon’s furrowed brows melt into something entirely else lets Martin think that he’s not as much a burden as he feared.

Cautiously, Jon reaches for the bracelets, stopping mid-air to throw another glance at Martin who can’t stop himself from making a weird combination of nodding and shrugging.

Jon takes the two bracelets out of their box and Martin throws the empty box into a drawer underneath the counter. He runs them through his fingers, feeling the texture of the yarn and the structure of the fish braid pattern. Pocketing the salmon pink bracelet, he extends his right arm with the teal-coloured one towards Martin, asking: “Could you tie it?”

The uncoiling of the knot right underneath Martin’s midriff makes Martin smile and he takes the bracelet out of Jon’s hand to tie it around Jon’s wrist. He miscalculated quite a bit with his own wrist as reference, but he is able to comfortably wrap the bracelet around Jon’s wrist two times, before he ties it into a loose knot. The colour looks nice against the warm undertone of Jon’s skin and up-close Martin can see the smaller and bigger moles scattered across his lower arm.

Martin’s not sure if it is he who lets go of Jon’s arm first or Jon who takes his arm back, but he knows that he looks up from where he held Jon’s wrist just a few seconds ago and catches sight of Jon looking at him. It’s not a look Martin can decipher. As so often, Jon looks like he’s trying to make sense out of something Martin has said or done. (Or maybe he’s trying to make sense out of Martin as a whole. The same way Martin is still trying to grasp the essence of Jon.)

“This is really nice,” Jon says, and it sounds more like he’s turning every word three or four times before releasing it into the air between them; like he’s somehow forcing the words out after analysing and approving them, because they don’t want to be heard. But the way he cradles his wrist and the bracelet with such great care and a little disbelief shows clearly that he’s serious. Jon’s eyes snap upwards to look at Martin again, and Jon adds: “Thank you, Martin. That’s really,” he draws in a breath, “considerate.”

Not sure if he should dismiss Jon’s words or not, Martin ducks his head and turns towards the register: “Decaf or Regular?”

“Surprise me,” Jon replies with a shrug of his shoulders. Martin tilts his head in confusion and Jon clarifies: “Gerry and Georgie think I drink too much coffee, but I don’t necessarily like them interfering with my life choices, so we made the deal that every time we drink coffee together, we order one decaf and one regular and it’s a surprise who gets to drink the decaf.”

Chuckling lowly, Martin retorts: “That’s a nice tradition.”

Jon pays for his coffee and Martin turns around, reaching for the decaf beans, safely out of Jon’s sight. For the taste, he adds much more ground coffee than Elias normally allows him to use and sprinkles a bit of cocoa powder on top of the milk foam. Then he hands Jon the final product and smiles.

Their fingers almost touch when Jon takes the mug out of Martin’s hands and he starts to walk away for two and a half steps, before he turns back again and asks: “When does your shift end?”

“Oh,” Martin throws a glance at the clock behind him, “in about an hour? Why?”

Jon shifts his weight and replies: “I thought I could use a walk, and that, maybe, you could use a walk, too?”

This seems to cost even more surmounting than thanking Martin, but it fills Martin with warmth and the hope that Jon doesn’t hate him. (He should know by now that Jon doesn’t hate him, they’ve been friendly for quite a time now, but the fear that Jon [or anyone, really] could suddenly decide that Martin is too much and too overbearing is prevalent.)

He swallows all that down and says: “Yes, I’d like that.”

 #8

When Melanie and Georgie get together, Martin’s not entirely surprised. Actually, he’s not surprised at all because Jon himself has told Martin that Melanie had asked him about his feelings for Georgie. (I don’t get it, Martin, do I look like I would begrudge them their relationship? Do I look like a fragile thing that needs to be coddled? No, Gerry, shut it.) But part of Martin wonders if Jon’s really as alright with the situation as he makes it out to be. As far as Martin knows, Jon and Georgie had been dating for quite a while, and Melanie is Jon’s soulmate. It must be a horribly awkward situation to be in.

Somehow this hasn’t kept them from hanging out as a group, though. Melanie and Georgie are lying in the shadow of a tree, while Sasha and Tim rampage through the water, and Jon and Martin, they sit on the small landing stage, their feet dangling in the water.

Jon’s hand is resting right next to Martin’s and it would be so easy to reach out and grab it, to intertwine their fingers and just enjoy the weight of Jon’s hand in his. But they have never done something like this, Jon is an untouchable entity in the night sky, beautiful like the milky way but foreign and unjudgeable with his disconcerting stares and assessing questions and brutally honest words. And a mere mortal like Martin can’t just reach for the hand of a natural phenomenon like Jon Sims.

So, he takes his hands into his lap instead to keep himself from doing something ill-considered like taking Jon’s hand anyways.

For a moment, they watch Sasha and Tim, but when they head back to the picknick blanket Georgie and Jon had brought and where Georgie and Melanie are leisurely sitting, Jon indicates that they could go back to the others, too. So, they get up and walk back to the others. (Martin’s hand twitching to reach for Jon’s.)

“No way! You’re lying!” Tim’s voice is barely more than a whisper, while he’s scrubbing his hair as dry as possible with a towel.

Sasha’s hand reaches out for Tim’s ankle to direct his attention to her, and she says while signing simultaneously: “Nobody can hear shit of what you’re saying.”

“Louder?” Tim asks and it’s obvious that he tries to adjust his volume. But Sasha shakes her head. “Louder?” Sasha shakes her head again and Tim waves dismissively, before he continues to towel dry his hair.

“What’s going on?” Martin says, sitting down next to Sasha, quietly marvelling at the fact that Jon sits down next to him even though the space doesn’t necessarily allow it.

Melanie’s cheeks redden (a foreign and unsettling sight, if Martin is honest), and she seems to think about her answer for a moment, before she finally extends her legs, showcasing multiple sets of names written on her skin. Sasha’s, Tim’s, Georgie’s and Martin’s. But most prominently right in the middle Jonathan Sims in the same curvy scripture as the rest, but instead of a felt tip marker, it seems to come from under Melanie’s skin.

“Oh,” Jon says right next to Martin and Martin thinks: Oh, indeed.

That is, however, where the similarities between Jon and Martin end, because while Martin starts to panic at the obvious evidence of Melanie’s and Jon’s soulbond, Jon says: “Georgie, this is your handwriting.”

“Yes, it is,” Georgie replies cheerily, before pointing at the crook of her arm. “And you know what? That’s Melanie’s handwriting.”

“Congratulations,” Jon deadpans, but Martin can feel the rigid line of Jon’s shoulders relax.

Just for a moment, though, because Georgie says: “And you know what that means, Jon! There’s still someone out there waiting to be found by you!” And Jon is as tense as before.

“I hope not,” Jon replies, and Martin can’t help himself hoping that Jon is right. Because Melanie turning out not to be Jon’s soulmate doesn’t automatically turn Martin into Jon’s soulmate. Martin doesn’t even know what’s written on Jon’s body, and even if he knew he’s not sure he could remember the first thing he ever said to Jon.

Georgie only smiles, used to Jon’s antiques and clearly mentally occupied.

“You’re making such a big deal out of it,” Tim says while turning his C.I. back on. The volume of his voice adjusting to an appropriate level when he’s finally able to hear himself again. “Out of anything, really. Why don’t you just enjoy the knowledge that somewhere out there is someone who enjoys talking to you, like, without any obligation.”

Out of Jon’s sight, Georgie starts a countdown (three – two – one!) with her fingers, and as if she had given Jon a sign, he goes on a tangent about determinism. Martin has never been as in love with Jon.

Oh.

Oh.  

 #9

MartiniKolada: sos

MyKeaymicalRomance: what did you do?

MartiniKolada: i had an oh. oh. moment MartiniKolada: you know where you think oh. and then it hits you like oh. but it’s italic and the italicity of the moment hits you right in the face??

MyKeaymicalRomance: i don’t think italicity is a real word

MartiniKolada: italicness then??

MyKeaymicalRomance: maybe italicisation?

MartiniKolada: does it really matter???

MyKeaymicalRomance: probably not lol

MartiniKolada: as i was saying MartiniKolada: i just had the mortifying realisation that i think i love jon?? like, not likelike but lovelove?? and idk what to do, like, what WILL i do next? burst into a song or into tears??

MyKeaymicalRomance: oh, well, i think it’s probably too early to tell him

MartiniKolada: “probably” he says

MyKeaymicalRomance: well, what do you want me to say?

MartiniKolada: idk???

MyKeaymicalRomance: do you want me to come over after my class?

MartiniKolada: yes pls ))):

MyKeaymicalromance: k

 #10

It’s October, and their semester break is over in two weeks. Martin’s already dreading having to go back to courses and classes because he’s not sure if the last few weeks of seeing Jon almost every day are over if they both have to pick up work again. (The good thing is that the others will come back from their visits home. Martin doesn’t know how it happened, but he’s grown close to Gerry and Jon’s squad and actually misses them.)

Now, however, he concentrates on the fact that Jon asked if he would like to stay overnight because Gerry’s away and he doesn’t want to be alone tonight. He said It’s eerily quiet and Martin didn’t need more to say Yes, I mean, yeah, no problem, I’d love to. Because: It’s not like Martin regrets agreeing to Jon’s request, it’s more that Martin’s utterly overwhelmed with the thought that he is going to spend time sleeping in the same room as Jon. (Embarrassing, right?)

“You seem distracted,” Jon states and reaches for the mousepad to pause the film they’re watching. Or in Martin’s case: attempt to watch.

It’s not a new development that Jon and Martin sit on Jon’s bed, huddled close together, to watch a movie or play a two-player game Jon has found on his hard drive. But it being old news doesn’t prevent Martin from marvelling at the way Jon’s thin frame fits in neatly with the curve of Martin’s fat stomach and thigh. And the way Jon seems to melt into Martin over the course of one evening, almost liquified at the end, nestled into Martin in a manner that Martin couldn’t recreate if he tried to; absolutely unretractable when Martin tries to reconstruct how he could find himself in a situation like this.

“A bit,” Martin agrees, studying the cursor now resting on the nose of the protagonist. “It’s nothing.”

“If you don’t want to watch a film, we don’t have to,” Jon says and it’s only because they’ve been spending so much time together that Martin recognises the defensive tone of Jon’s voice as concern. (A few months back he would have definitively thought that he had done something wrong and that Jon is annoyed with him. And the knowledge that the anxiety coiling underneath his midriff is with great certainty unfounded and only fabricated by his own brain makes warmth spread through his whole chest.)

“No, it’s alright, really, it’s nothing,” Martin repeats placatingly, already reaching for the mousepad to unpause the film.

But Jon catches his wrist mid-air and says lowly: “I hate when you do that.”

“What?” Martin’s hand sinks until it hits his stomach, but Jon’s hand remains wrapped around Martin’s wrist as if he needed to keep Martin by his side; as if Martin could somehow muster up the volition to get up and go.

Jon’s gaze is entirely on the junction of their skin, probably focusing on the way Martin’s skin tone clashes with the salmon pink of one of the two bracelets Jon’s wearing tonight. (Or probably not because Jon doesn’t really care for things like that.)

“Well,” Jon says to Martin’s wrist, “when you say it’s nothing even though it’s clearly something.”

Self-consciously, Martin contemplates for a hot second telling Jon the truth. That he just likes being with him even though Jon doesn’t feel the same way as Martin. That he likes how they fit together like matching salt and pepper shakers. That he likes the firmness of Jon’s hand around his when Jon excitedly grabs Martin’s hand and forgets to let go again. That he likes Jon’s distracted (and to be honest distracting) soliloquies and overexcited monologues.

Being honest, however, isn’t worth the awkwardness that will most likely be the result of confessing his feelings, so Martin deflects: “That implies that you’re always telling me right away when something’s bothering you. But that’s not what you do, is it?”

Jon pulls a face. “No.” He sighs. “No, it’s not.”

Without thinking, Jon shifts the weight of Martin’s wrist in his as if he’s trying to feel for Martin’s pulse. For a moment, they’re both silent, dwelling on thoughts they’re not ready to share, yet. Or maybe only Martin’s not ready to share, yet, because Jon concedes softly: “You’re right. So, if I were to share a matter that has been on my mind lately, would it be more encouraging or pressuring for you to hear about it?”

Martin weighs both options, partially occupied with the way Jon’s still holding onto his pulse. Then he concludes: “Both, probably? I mean, it could be both.”

“Do you want me to tell you anyway?” Jon asks, lifting his gaze and focusing on Martin’s face. (Jon has this incredibly unsettling habit of looking at people at precisely those moments it’s the most disconcerting, gaze unwavering and the only thing betraying his own nervousness is the way he fiddles with the hem of his sleeves or the jittery tapping of his fingers against the fabric of his trousers.)

And since Martin can’t refuse Jon anything, he nods.

“You know, this is probably ridiculous and you’re going to make fun of me, endlessly,” Jon says, a barely visible crinkle appearing between his brows, “but Georgie said that she doesn’t understand why we haven’t kissed, yet. And it’s been on my mind ever since. Should we be kissing, Martin?”

Martin almost chokes on air. “What?” He must have misheard. Or misunderstood. Because it’s absolutely impossible that Jon said this particular string of words without any hesitation.

“Well,” Jon says, obviously growing uncomfortable, “I told her that she should stop being presumptuous, because if you would want to kiss me you would say as much. But Georgie said she wouldn’t be surprised if you were to think that I’m kiss averse as some asexual people are and that you were ‘too bashful’ to ask for clarification.” Jon breathes in and out, once, then twice. Martin’s trying hard not to mcfucking lose it. “We’ve been dating for quite some time now and I hope you’d feel comfortable enough to ask me things like that instead of assuming my stance. However, I do see now that I should put my own house in order first rather than waiting for you to say something.” The crinkle between his brows smooths out. “So, the quintessence is that I would like to kiss you, Martin, and that I would like to know if you were amenable to this idea.”

Owlishly blinking, Martin tries to make sense of all the admittedly beautiful but absolutely impossible words that Jon has said just now. He’s not sure which part he should be concentrating on and his thoughts crash into each other, tumbling onto his tongue, only to get buried underneath a new load of thoughts just a nanosecond later.

The thing that actually makes it past Martin’s stupor is: “We’ve been what?”

Jon furrows his brows again and replies slowly: “Dating.”

“And you didn’t think I needed to know that??” Martin’s voice cracks, eyes wide and cheeks reddened. The pressure of Jon’s fingers around his wrist loosens and Martin wants nothing more than to hold on dearly, but at the moment he can’t do anything but stare at Jon’s face that shifts slowly into a look of embarrassment.

“Well, I thought– I didn’t,” he groans lowly. “I thought you knew.”

“How should I have known?” Martin doesn’t really want to argue about this, but the words tumble out of his mouth, absolutely unstoppable. “Did you send me a formal enquiry? Ask me to be your boyfriend while we were doing incredibly romantic things like shopping groceries? I would have said yes, don’t get me wrong, this is not a ‘I don’t want to be dating you’ because I do very much want to date you.”

Martin’s breath goes hard, and he attempts to focus on the blush that bloomed on Jon’s cheeks sometime around the mention of Martin calling himself Jon’s boyfriend and that deepened further when Martin stressed that he wanted to be Jon’s boyfriend as well. But then Jon’s smiling. Not a barely visible lift of the corners of his lips but a genuine smile that crinkles the corners of his eyes.

“I think,” Jon says, shifting the weight of Martin’s wrist again, so he can intertwine their fingers completely, “that everything we do together is inherently very romantic. Even grocery shopping.”

“Oh, my god,” Martin tries to hold back a giggle and fails, “you’re a sap! This is unbelievable. This should be illegal.” He wriggles his other hand out of the almost non-existing space between them and cups Jon’s hand in both of his. “You can’t just spring the fact on me that we’re dating, only to change your behaviour a hundred and eighty degrees and say things like, things like that!”

“I’m only adapting,” Jon replies, lifting Martin’s hands and pulling them in close. “I thought we were taking it slow because you never made a first move, and I didn’t want to be too much.”

“Then we’re in the same boat, huh,” Martin says while he’s watching Jon pressing small kisses on Martin’s knuckles. “So, what do we learn from this, Jon? Don’t talk to Georgie about those things, come talk to me.”

Jon snorts. “You’re one to talk. I can’t count the times Gerry told me to ‘go get my man he’s pining again.’ It was embarrassing.”

“Imagine how embarrassing that is for me?! I was literally gay on main while he thought we were already dating?!” Martin makes a suffering noise at the back of his throat, but Jon doesn’t stop pressing small kisses into his knuckles, so it’s not as bad as it could be. “We need to cut ties with Gerry but that shouldn’t be a problem, right?”

“No, that’s feasible,” Jon replies. “Very sensible.” He puts down their intertwined hands. “A thing that would be very sensible, too, is telling me about the reason you were distracted earlier.”

“It seems ridiculous now,” Martin says, but Jon nudges him with his shoulder to prompt him to go on. “I just thought about how hard it is to sit next to you and not kiss you.”

Jon lifts himself up on his elbow and murmurs: “That is a lie, Martin K. Blackwood.”

“Only half of it,” Martin replies softly, before he closes the gap between them and kisses Jon with as much care as he can conjure.

(The light shove Martin gets when he asks “so, we’re boyfriends now, huh?” is definitely deserved.)

[the-cat-at-the-theatre-door]

46, 50, and 51 for Seraphina and Emmeline! <3

Seraphina

46. If this character was in a musical, what would their motif be (what kind of instruments do you hear, what’s the tempo, etc.). 

Seraphina’s motif is very bass instrument heavy - alternating between that of a Cello and a Double Bass. Tempo wise, it’s surprisingly upbeat, sounding somewhat in the same verbatim of Minuets I & II in G Major. She’s a relatively grounded cat, serving as a backbone (aka a bassline) for other cats to depend on, but the tempo and minorly joyful jaunty tune suggests that while she’s generally more serious and grounded, there is something a touch whimsical about her, should it suit her fancy. 

50.  What are some motifs associated with your character?

Grief is a big one - most of Sera’s life has been made up of grieving in someway or another. In the spirit of practicality, and in an effort to keep herself going and promoting a general sense of persistence, she often explained to her sons that life was much like feeling your way through a dark tunnel, and for every lamp you light another one goes out, leaving you back where you started. But the important thing was that regardless of how dark it gets, regardless of how many lights go out, you can *keep lighting new ones*. 

51.  What were some inspirations for your character (people, movies, games)?

Sera’s a little but of Madame Giry (Not LND Madame Giry) with a couple spoonfuls of Mary Poppins, and a few heavy handfuls of Beatrice from Much Ado About Nothing (Adularia is much like her Hero). 

The idea for her name, funnily, comes specifically from that one line in Il Muto in PotO “Serafimo, away with this pretense”, because that had been what was in my head when I pitched her for the first time (And I would keep accidentally singing it as “Serafina”). Tweaked it slightly and there you have it. I feel like that line is also relevant, because its something she probably said alot “Away with the pretenses”. She likes things laid out plain and simple, and does not appreciate being bamboozled or lied to.

Emmeline

46. If this character was in a musical, what would their motif be (what kind of instruments do you hear, what’s the tempo, ect). 

Emmeline’s motif is very airy and fast paced, played on a piccolo. It really drives home her tendency to be generally light footed, and her thoughts in several different places at once. The faster paced she is, the faster the piccolo plays. Gives the fairy like vibe, but slightly more chaotic. 

50.  What are some motifs associated with your character?

The escapism of and growing space of the woods is very heavily associated alongside Emmeline, as are birds. 

Birds are demonstrative of her general inability to stay in one place very long (the Junkyard is the longest she’d stayed anywhere, and she’s been all over the UK). Her refusal to put her little bird friends in cages also point to her sense of discomfort in limitation, preferring to think far outside the box than remain in it. 

51.  What were some inspirations for your character (people, movies, games)? 

 If Mr. Ray (Finding Nemo), Ms. Frizzle (Magic School Bus) and Dr. Phlox (Star Trek) combined into one cat, that would be Emmeline. She has the tendency to be *quite* eccentric, likes singing songs to teach full of complicated words and phrases, and her healers den is stuffed to the brim with plants and birds and other strange wildlife and perhaps an insect or two that she uses in her healing practices (She fully encourages the kittens and other cats to come visit her there. She will launch into an entire lecture if one of the kittens asks what something is and let them hold it - no no dear it’s not poisonous! Don’t rub your eyes afterwards though. Might cry blood).

Add a dash of Miss Clavel for her accent and generally fussy nature, and we’re in business.

[dannygals]

Good day, Ms. Reschell An D. Bayo!

Reading Record (English-APP 1st Session)

Unit 1: The Nature of Academic Texts

A paragraph is a group of sentences that deal with a single topic or idea. It is the first structure found in academic texts. The paragraph's components are as follows: topic sentence, supporting sentences, and conclusion and/or transitional sentence. The topic sentence's purpose is to present the primary idea of the paragraph's theme. The supporting sentences, on the other hand, expand on the major notion of the topic sentence. The ending sentence brings the major notion to a close by summarizing the full concept and ensuring that the paragraph concludes with a complete idea. A transitional sentence prepares the reader for the next concept in the following paragraph.

One method of composing an essay is a three-part essay. This structure is divided into three sections: introduction, body, and conclusion. The introduction introduces topics that will be covered in the body of the essay; the body should give evidence to support your thesis statement. Finally, the conclusion restates the thesis statement and concludes the essay. IMRaD is an acronym that stands for Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion, followed by a Conclusion. This structure is commonly employed in academic publications, particularly research papers. IMRaD intends to discuss the research issue at hand in order to explain the topic and its intended goal.

Non-academic Texts can be produced by anyone, for the general public, and promptly published; the language employed is informal, casual, and may contain slang. Authors may not be provided; nevertheless, they can be discovered in journals such as Time, Newsweek, or Rolling Stone, as well as on Wikipedia and in newspapers. Non-academic texts include religious literature, graphic novels, and magazines. Academic text, on the other hand, can be written by professionals in a particular field, prepared for an academic audience (educational), thoroughly evaluated, and published through an academic source, academic journal, certified publishing firm, or university press.

Academic disciplines are divided into branches. Accounting, economics, finance, management, and marketing are all aspects of business. Art, creative writing, languages, literature, music, philosophy, religion, and theater are examples of humanities. Biology, chemistry, computer science, engineering, geology, mathematics, physics, and medicine are examples of natural and applied sciences. Anthropology, education, geography, history, law, political science, psychology, and sociology are examples of social sciences. Each discipline and its branches have their own communities with their own vocabulary, styles, and means of communication.

Binaries can also be found in a variety of academic disciplines. Business: production-consumption and labor-capital. The humanities include artist-culture and text-context. Empiricism-rationalism and observer-subject in natural and applied sciences. Nature-nurture and free will-determinism are two concepts in the social sciences. These binaries can also migrate freely between fields, and this is often how linkages between academic disciplines can be discovered.

Critical reading is a method of reading more actively. It necessitates that readers employ their critical thinking skills to question both the text and their comprehension of it. Critical reading necessitates the reader performing the following tasks: Form judgments about the text, analyze, interpret, and evaluate it while reading, query what the text does and means, challenge the text's assumptions by questioning its argument and interpreting the meaning in context, and describe, interpret, and evaluate in response to the text. Remember that critical reading necessitates three steps: studying the text, understanding the text, and evaluating the text. Finally, annotate what you read by highlighting relevant facts, stating your queries on the text itself, using the margins for your own notes, and underlining important themes. That was the extent of my knowledge in Unit 1.

Unit 2: Thesis Statement and Outlining

This class taught me that a thesis statement is a single line that normally appears in the first paragraph of a document and states the writer's major idea and stance. A thesis statement has the following characteristics: It demonstrates your position on the subject under discussion. It informs the reader of what to expect from the rest of your paper. It directly answers a question you've been asked, It makes a claim that can be contested, It is a single line towards the beginning of your paper that introduces your argument to the viewers. A good thesis statement is supported by facts and is the result of hours of investigation.

An outline functions similarly to a blueprint or a map, and it ultimately assists the writer in not becoming stuck while writing an essay. A well-written and developed outline includes the following elements: the text's thesis, the main idea developed in each body paragraph, and evidence or supporting details in each paragraph to support the main idea. Outlines are classified into two types: topic outlines and sentence outlines. Only phrases or primary concepts are required for the topic outline. In the aforementioned framework, there is no need for full sentences. A topic outline also makes use of words that is similar to one another. This indicates that for organization, the same format is utilized for headings and subheadings (in terms of word structure or parts of speech). Finally, a heading or subheading should not be separated into only one portion; if there is an idea under “A,” there must also be a concept under “B.” There must be a "2" if there is a "1." Sentence outline, on the other hand, employs sentences. That means that all headings and subheadings must be in the form of sentences. There is less requirement for parallelism between headings and subheadings, but the same divisions per heading notion should still be observed; it cannot be separated into one component solely.

Unit 3: Writing a Summary

Summarizing a text means condensing its main points into a paragraph or two. When conducting research or studying, this is an excellent practice to follow. A summary typically has two goals: to replicate the essential ideas and points of a book, recognizing the broad principles that run throughout the article, and to articulate these concepts and ideas using exact and specific language. There are two methods you might utilize to prepare for writing a summary. These methods are previewing, skimming, and scanning. First, use the previewing technique to better orient yourself to what you need from the content you're about to dive into. You can gain an understanding of a text's overall logical progression by skimming through it. Skimming can also assist you in determining which portions of the text require your undivided attention in order to achieve your goals for reading the content. Finally, scanning is comparable to skimming, but you should have a more specific goal in mind. You're now skimming to look for a specific statistic or figure, or to see if the text discusses a topic you're researching.

One method for summarizing the material is to employ previewing or pre-reading strategies, which can assist you in comprehending the contents even before you begin close reading. Here are some approaches for summarizing a text:

• You can now identify and include the title and author of a text after reading it.

• In the first two phrases, include the author's thesis statement.

• In a text, write one or two sentences for each important notion or idea.

• If necessary, break the book into sections or by primary themes before summarizing the entire thing.

• Remember to leave out unnecessary elements; there is no need to go into minor and supporting details of the content.

• Avoid adding your own thoughts on the material.

• Avoid stealing the author's work. If you are directly quoting the author, include quotations.

The goals of summarizing texts are to recreate the overarching ideas so that the broad notions can be identified, and to express the overarching ideas using precise and specific language. The author's thesis statement should be in the first sentence. Before summarizing the text or research, break it down into its main ideas. Finally, leave out ideas that aren't relevant to the entire text. This is what I gained in Unit 3: Writing a Summary.

Unit 4: Writing from Sources

This unit taught me that paraphrase is a restatement of a text, passage, or work that articulates the meaning in a different way. It is not necessary to cite from the source material. A decent paraphrase demonstrates how well a writer comprehended the reading information. These are examples of paraphrases:

• Change of parts of speech - Parts of speech are classifications that are assigned to words based on their roles in a phrase. Nouns, pronouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives, prepositions, conjunctions, and interjections are examples of categories.

• Change of structure - The sentence structure is altered to match the writer's perception of the original text.

• Clause reduction entails reducing or changing clauses to phrases in order to decrease confusion and interruption and simplify sentences.

• Synonym replacement - This is the most basic type of paraphrase. It entails replacing the terms in the phrase with comparable or synonyms.

Plagiarism is the act of pretending to own material that is not your own. Plagiarism can be classified into several forms. Word-for-word or verbatim plagiarism, often known as "copy-paste plagiarism," occurs when a researcher duplicates another person's work word-for-word or verbatim without properly citing the author (s). Word order plagiarism occurs when a writer alters some of the author(s)' words by looking up synonyms in order to make the paragraph appear to be his or her own. Idea plagiarism occurs when a writer paraphrases another's work in his or her own writing but fails to properly cite or attribute the idea to the author (s).

Paraphrasing Techniques Texts are changing the words (changing the part of speech, using synonyms, converting figures and percentages to alternative forms) and the sentence structure (change the word order, use different definition structures, use different attribution signals, and change the sentence structure and use different conjuctions). Quoting is when you take what the author said and repeat it word for word. This approach is typically used for brief phrases or sentences. Plagiarism is commonly defined as verbatim copying of an author's words. To avoid this, when quoting, enclose the copied text in quotation marks (“ “) and credit the words to the original author. When you want to use a quotation in your writing, make sure to introduce, cite, and explain the quotation. This strategy is known as the ICE method for ease of recall.

Unit 5: Citing Sources of Information

A citation acknowledges the writers, scientists, researchers, and others whose creative and intellectual work you used to support or enhance your own research. It is also used to quickly discover specific sources and to help avoid plagiarism. A citation often comprises the author's name, the date of publication, the location of the publishing business, the journal title, and a DOI (Digital Object Identifier). A citation style specifies what information must be included in a citation, how that information should be ordered, what punctuation should be used, and other formatting problems. The following are the three most common citation styles:

• APA (American Psychological Association) is used in education, psychology, and the social sciences.

• MLA (Modern Language Association) is normally used in the humanities.

• Chicago/Turabian style is often used in business, history, and fine arts.

The APA citation style is a set of criteria that a publisher must follow to guarantee that written material is presented clearly and consistently. It is concerned with a variety of elements, including header selection, tone, length, punctuation and abbreviations, citation of references, and many more. The MLA citation style also includes brief parenthetical citations in the text, all of which should be linked to an alphabetical list of works cited at the end of the text. Finally, there are two main documentation systems in the Chicago style: (1) notes and bibliography and (2) author-date. Choosing between the two is usually determined by the topic matter and the character of the sources mentioned, as each system is preferred by different groups of researchers. The Turabian citation style is similar to the Chicago style, with slight changes for student authors.

Citations in the Text in APA Format (7th Edition) For in-text citations, the APA citation uses the author-date method. The last name of the author and the year of publishing should be included in the printed text. Footnotes in APA Style (7th Edition) Footnotes should be used sparingly in research, according to the American Psychological Association. For content and copyright concerns, APA footnotes and endnotes are used. In-Text Citations in MLA Format Parenthetical citations are also used in MLA format. In-text citations are often put at the conclusion of a sentence or paragraph. In most cases, author-page numbers are used. Footnotes and endnotes in MLA should also be kept to a minimum because they can be distracting to the reader. It can be used for bibliographic notes that the reader can turn to for more information. Explanatory or content notes, which give brief extra information, can also be included in footnotes and endnotes. In the Chicago Manual of Style, generally known as CMoS, the author-date style requires the in-text citation to be in parenthetical format. For direct quotations and paraphrases, give the author's name, publication date, and page numbers. There is no punctuation between the author's name and the date of publishing, but there should be a comma between the date of publication and the page numbers. Footnotes, endnotes, and a bibliography are used to reference sources in the NB Style in Chicago format.

A bibliography includes a list of all of the sources you used for your study as well as any additional background reading. This includes works that you did not end up citing in your paper. A reference list, also known as a works cited list, differs from a bibliography in that it only includes the sources that you referenced to, summarized, paraphrased, or quoted in your paper. Aside from that, they fulfill much the same function. For your bibliography or references list, the APA citation style provides a specific formatting guidance. The works cited page is how MLA refers to the reference list. It is also found at the end of a paper and should provide detailed information about any sources used in your paper. The following is the format: Author. Title. Container, Other Contributors, Version, Number, Publisher, Date, Location. Include only the elements pertinent to the source you're quoting. Order the entries in your works cited page alphabetically, beginning with the first author's last name. A bibliography is commonly used in the Chicago/Turabian citation style, which means that all of the materials you utilized in your study must be included, even if they are not expressly credited or discussed in your article.

[cathaeamae]

READING RECORD

(English-APP 1st Session)

UNIT 1: THE NATURE OF ACADEMIC TEXTS

To begin with, in this unit I have learned the Academic and Non-academic texts where academic texts are written by professionals in a given field for the academic audience, they are formal and states critical questions and issues. While non-academic texts are written for the mass public and can be written by anyone with the use of informal language. In addition, I was able to familiarize the word discipline we're it was designed and developed to help us understand the phenomena in our world. Lastly, I learned the branches of academic disciplines which are the business, humanities, social sciences, and natural and applied sciences where they have their own vocabularies, styles, and modes of communication, and when in case if I can't discern the issues and problem I'll just find the existing binary oppositions to help me comprehend the issue of the text better.

UNIT 2: THESIS STATEMENT AND OUTLINING

In this unit, I was able to learn how to write a strong thesis statement and its characteristics, moreover, I was also able to identify the main ideas of an outline and how to make an outline on a certain topic. So firstly in lesson1, I learned that thesis statement is the main idea that written in the introductory paragraph of a paper. Thesis statement shows your stand on a certain issue, it asks a question, makes a claim that can be debated, and it represents the argument of your paper to the readers. So when writing a strong thesis statement I always remember to ask myself, is my thesis statement answers a question? can it be disputed by others? Does my thesis statement specific enough? Does it pass the so what test? The how and why test? This instances is just one of the few tips on how to write a strong thesis statement and it must be backed with facts and a long research process. Secondly in lesson2, I learned about outlining academic texts, where it helps writers categorized the main points. A well-written outline must have a thesis statement, the main ideas for each paragraph, and the evidence or supporting details. So there are two ways to outline ideas for outlining texts and that would be the topic outline, which only utilizes keywords and concepts, and sentence outline which utilizes complete sentences to organized the ideas. And lastly, I was able to learn about IMRAD outlining, where IMRAD stands for Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion.

UNIT 3: WHAT IS SUMMARY AND TECHNIQUES IN SUMMARIZING A TEXT

To begin with, in this unit I was able to understand what a summary is and the techniques in summarizing academic texts. In lesson 1 I recalled the definition of summary, where it is a shorter and more condensed version of a given text. It gives the reader the idea of what is the text about, for short, the goal of a summary is to reproduce the key ideas and express them with precise language. Whenever I make a summary of a certain paper I use techniques for me to prepare, which are previewing, skimming, and scanning. They're truly is effective at the same time helping to do before writing a summary. In lesson 2, I was able to learn that when summarizing a text, it must have the author's thesis statement in the first sentence, then break down the research into main ideas before summarizing the whole and, omit ideas that are not relevant to the whole text. In accumulation to this, the language to chose must not only be precise but also convey the imperative concept. Lastly, I was also able to follow the steps in summarizing a text.

UNIT 4: WHAT IS PARAPHRASING AND TECHNIQUES IN PARAPHRASING, PARAPHRASING VS. QUOTING

To begin with, in this unit I have learned the definition of paraphrasing, where it is the restatement of a text, passage, or work giving the meaning in another form. So there are 4 kinds of paraphrasing which are the change of part of speech, change of structure, clause reduction, and synonym replacement. Since I was already familiar the word plagiarism, in this lesson I just recalled its definition where plagiarism is the claiming of ownership of material that is not your own. Then I learned the different kinds of plagiarism, it is the word for word plagiarism or verbatim plagiarism, word order plagiarism and idea plagiarism. In addition I was able to learned about the techniques in paraphrasing, which the one I use often everytime I paraphrase is the change of words, where it replace the words with a new part of speech, then we have also the paraphrasing word order change where it was the changes from the active voice to the passive voice or vise versa. Furthermore, I also learned about quoting which is repeating what the author said word by word but with proper citations. So there is a technique that needs to be follow in writing a quote which is the ice method, where ICE stands for introduce, cite, and explain. When quoting, I always remember to not forget any elements of quoting because it will result to plagiarism. Lastly, I was able to learned the difference between quoting and paraphrasing where quoting is used with shorter phrases or sentences, while paraphrasing is effective for longer sentences.

UNIT 5: CITING SOURCES OF INFORMATION

In this unit, I have learned about 3 major citation styles used in academic writing and how to choose which citation style to use. First of all, I learned that a citation is a way to give credit to the author whose creative and intellectual work you used to support or supplement your own research. It is also used to easily locate the sources used as well as help avoid plagiarism. In addition, I also get familiarize about citation style where it dictates what information is necessary to include in a citation, how that citation should be organized, what punctuations are use and other formatting concerns. I was able also to know the forms of citation which are in-text citation, parenthetical citation and reference citation. Where the difference between in-text and parenthetical citation is that in-text citation, the author's name is incorporated into the text as part of the sentence and the year follows in parentheses. While parenthetical citation is that the author's name and publication date appear in parentheses. And in reference citation, it refers to the complete bibliographic entries of all references used by the writer. Then lastly I learned the kinds of citation styles where we have the APA citation that is used in education, psychology, and social sciences, then the MLA citation where is normally used in humanities, and the Chicago/Turabian style which is often used in business, history and fine arts. Honestly, I easily get confused in these topics but im still working hard to understand the lessons better.

[faelapis]

back on my bs for a second - sometimes there’s like. certain very specific phrases that you hear over and over again with the anti-SU crowd that make no sense with even the smallest amount of probing, but you have to assume some popular person started it cause everyone phrases it exactly the same way.

with SU future those very specific phrases seem to be “the conflict was solved by a hug” and that, for the epilogue as a whole, “there’s no reason for its existence”.

you can tell they have the highest critical thinking skills in the room when they quote youtubers they like verbatim.