#they get similar scores but if the genius wanted to really apply himself he could be curing cancer or whatever

[sonic-adventure-3]

dude i phrased that sonic v shadow post so wrong. in my head “more skilled” meant shadow relies on more specific skills like gunplay and chaos energy manipulation, and more theoretical knowledge, not that he’s generally more proficient. “raw power” is wholly undescriptive and invokes an image of brute force, which isn’t what i meant. sonic has significantly more actual experience and more honed movement. sonic is a very quick learner, and has dexterity and stamina off the charts. he’s most certainly not unskilled, not in general nor compared to shadow, so i supremely failed if i implied that.

in my head at least, shadow would’ve learned to fight in a controlled environment, if he had physical training at all. i imagine he’d be book smart, had a formal education and shit. either he learned and trained on the ark, or when gerald messed with his memories he implanted fighting knowledge too, baymax style, or something i guess. sonic learned to fight through actual experience, so sonic would be the one with far better battle sense and instincts, it’s like second nature to him rather than a studious pursuit. dude’s graceful as hell, makes everything look easy; no way in hell is he unskilled or less skilled than shadow. shadow’s skill is like, classical, whereas sonic’s is pure schmovement. but idk i’m just thinking aloud.

[transrobins]

Some headcanons about the Bats’ natural capacities for empathy, and how that comes out in their work. Under the cut for length

1. Dick has a naturally high capacity for empathy and often finds himself in the role of the Wayne Family Therapist, partially because he has the easiest time understanding everyone’s feelings. He finds it easy to see things from others’ perspectives, and that makes it easier for him to problem solve. This is also why he’s so effective as Damian’s guardian/mentor. Damian inherited Bruce’s allergy to processing and expressing emotions in a healthy and constructive manner (and all the childhood trauma didn’t help either), so he needed someone who could see past all his shit and understand where he’s coming from

Dick channels his empathy into a high level of compassion, and tends to forgive people on the basis that he understands why they did the things they did. Sometimes this is good, sometimes it is Not. However, Dick’s high empathy also makes it easier to read people, and subsequently charm them. This is helpful not only in vigilante work, but in Gotham’s high society

2. Jason also has naturally high empathy, and tends to gravitate toward the role of a protector. As the Red Hood, he’s a fierce guardian of Gotham’s downtrodden. He grew up in Crime Alley, he’s been where these people are, and he can’t help but feel their pain. But it’s not just them that he can get into the heads of. He understands Bruce to a level that even Bruce himself doesn’t. He can’t stop it, even if he would prefer to never think about it at all (especially since Bruce can’t seem to understand him the same way)

Jason channels his empathy into rage. He has no problem using violence as a means of protection, because being able to feel others’ pain makes him so viscerally angry

3. Tim has naturally low empathy. He grew up incredibly isolated and has a hard time reading social cues and understanding others, but his genius-level intelligence makes him much more equipped to analyze people’s behavior and figure them out. He has little trouble distancing himself from the horrors of what he sees, and compartmentalization is second nature to him. He can distance himself from emotions well enough to create contingency plans for the people closest to him thanks Bruce, and fails to realize how that would be hurtful (Dick points this out when Tim says he didn’t think Damian would care)

However, Tim is still very compassionate, he just approaches it in a more logical way. He sought out Batman because he could see him running himself into the ground after Jason’s death, and knew that he was going to get himself killed. He couldn’t understand the pain of losing a child, but he could tell that Bruce was in pain, and went about trying to fix it the only way he knew how. Having Robin by his side made Batman better, so clearly he needs a new Robin

4. Damian has naturally low empathy, but I would say he has a higher capacity for it than Tim. He has the easiest time relating to and interacting with animals, mostly because people confuse him. This was especially hard when he was transitioning from the League of Shadows to the Bats. With the League he knew the score. He knew what was expected of him, and he knew what would happen if he failed. When he joins the Bats, he has no idea what these people want from him. His old rules don’t seem to apply anymore, and he can’t get a good enough read on them to figure out what the new rules are (enter Dick and his years of experience sorting out Wayne family emotional issues)

When he was with the League, his low capacity for empathy was capitalized on in his training. He was manipulated into believing that the reason he couldn’t figure out other people’s emotions was simply because he was better than them, just so he’d have no problem killing them. It takes a lot of work for him to unlearn that (and everything else the League taught him), and caring for his pets is a huge part of that. Since he has an easier time relating to animals, looking after them taught him about having a responsibility to other living beings and bridged the gap for him to start valuing other people as individuals

Once he’s made that progress, he operates with a logic-based compassion similar to Tim’s. He sees a person in need, knows he can help them, and then does so. He knows why it’s important, and does it because he knows these people are in pain even though he can’t feel that pain with them

5. Bruce doesn’t have particularly high or low empathy, but being raised as an isolated rich kid had a big impact on the way he relates to others. It’s not that he just naturally has a hard time getting into other people's heads, it’s that he’s so detached from everyone else. He’s detached from most of Gotham due to his privileged upbringing, but his early childhood trauma and isolation distanced him from the elites as well

This leads to his view of himself as Gotham’s guardian. He sees himself as, essential, an impartial party to all of this. It definitely impacts his relationships with his kids, since he only really understands the parts of them he sees in himself (Dick as a child who watched his parents die, Tim as an isolated rich kid, etc). This type of understanding extends to the rest of Gotham, too. He understands the people who have lost things to crime and corruption the way he lost his parents, and he understands people who are driven toward justice because of it. Like Dick, however, he doesn’t always know where to draw the line. To him, the Joker killing because he’s “clinically insane” ugh and Jason killing because he can’t handle the pain of Gotham’s people are more or less on the same level, and he tries to give them both equal opportunity to redeem themselves 

Cass canonically has extremely high empathy. She can understand people’s emotions even when she can’t process their words, and body language is literally her first language. Other people have a much harder time understanding her than she does them, simply due to the communication barrier, but her high empathy helps bridge that gap for her

When David Cain makes her kill, and she realizes what really happened, she is devastated. She essentially felt the man die. This pain drives her to escape, and eventually drives her to join the Bats. Her empathy still extends to the bad guys, and she’s had to learn how to separate herself from the (necessary) pain she inflicts. She has to tone down (or even shut off) her compassion for them in order to protect herself

[dailytimdrake]

how do you think Tim copes with failure? Something big that is his fault (or at least, he thinks it is). Does he keep trying or collapse in on himself?

This response turned out to be pretty long, so I’ll keep it under a read-more so as not to clutter your dash. Please remember that these are my opinion, and I am in no way telling you what you, personally, should believe about Tim!

I think Tim doesn’t exactly cope with failure well, if at all.

I’ve mentioned previously in passing on Tim possibly suffering from “gifted kid syndrome”, which ties in especially with this inability to cope with failure. An excerpt from a post by thingofthings on Wordpress:

“At the same time, if you define yourself as Smart, there is going to come a time when you’re Not Smart. When you meet people who are smarter than you, or you have to suddenly start working at a class. This can induce low self-esteem, depression, and general emotional crisis, because if you’re The Smart One what happens if you aren’t smart anymore?”

Tim is so used to picking up on things fast, and being right, and doing things perfectly, so much that when he does fail, it hits him particularly hard.

A lot of his identity is built on being capable. He becomes Robin because he’s good enough to be - because he proved himself by figuring out their identities, and getting Dick back to Gotham, and saving their asses. He had to prove himself worthy of being Robin. And the same thing happens in a lot of his relationships: he feels the need to be capable of something, to provide something, to be a good team leader, to give the other person a reason to stick around. So: failure? Not really an option.

It’s even more emphasised when you consider who he works for: Batman. Bruce is notoriously strict with his Robins, especially when it comes to personal failings. It’s not that he does it to hurt them, but because he wants them to be better. He wants them to improve. Nevertheless this method, applied to Tim, only really ingrains the idea that the only way to get someone’s approval/love is to perform well. I’m not going to get into his upbringing with his actual parents, but I imagine his experience with them was along the same lines as well.

In this context, Tim as a child might come to see failure as a surefire way to lose the regard of the people he’s worked so hard to keep. He might also view it as a personal failure - if he can’t do this one thing, if he isn’t always right, then what is he? A failure.

Side-note: I think he doesn’t see success (as in opposition to ‘failure’) as something to be particularly proud of, either. It’s his normal, an expectation that he should fulfill effortlessly, and to break this normal is to be lesser. This excerpt from chapter 2 CaptainnAustalia’s fic The Replacement illustrates this particularly well: 

“I wasn’t ready to go yet. I wanted to see if the replacement was really as good as everyone whispered.  When Tim finally landed the mark, a good ten minutes later, I felt the overwhelming urge to clap, or whistle, but instead I just leaned forward on my knees and watched for Tim’s reaction.

Nothing.

He just kept throwing, like he hadn’t noticed that the mark had landed. I was literally holding my breath, waiting for him to notice, to react. But he didn’t. He just kept going – landing more and more until there was a pile up and he couldn’t possibly hit the target any more. He collected his weapons wordless and put them in a small bucket off to the side. He looked over then and I could see it in his eyes.

No pride. No accomplishment.”

(Yes, it’s a JayTim fic - I highly recommend it despite the use of first person interjections and other nitpicking that i’m guilty of, because I really really love Jason’s and Tim’s characterisation here. It’s one of the few fics that portray Jason and Tim as I see them.)

Anyway. When Tim does manage to fail, he kind of panics, because he’s just shaken the entire core of his being. A big part of his identity and ego is “I’m right and I can prove it”, and this has just been questioned. There are a few ways failure can go for Tim:

a) Tim fails to do something he set out to do, through no fault of his own. For example, he wants to catch this one criminal tonight. Not only does the criminal get away, but all Tim’s leads or contacts on him turn up dead ends as well afterwards. Tim’s first response: to blame himself. He did a sloppy job.Never mind that there were unforeseen circumstances - it’s his fault, because he could have factored them in, and yet he didn’t. Next: he fixes it with double the drive. Because if he can do this more than perfectly, it balances out the earlier failure. It’s all quantitative - if he scores a B on the set-up, he needs to work extra hard to get enough points in the execution to get an A overall for that particular mission. And if overall he does it well, then no one will have to know that he failed.

b) Tim fails to do something he set out to do, because he overestimated himself or his plans. An example of this can be found in Red Robin.. somewhere, where Tim has a few elaborate plans running, and one of them fails. He loses the criminal he took into his custody, and finds himself the target of an assassination tournament.

What does Tim do? He forms a new plan to put him back on track and to fix his mistake, but he is humiliated. There’s an underlying anger at himself for not getting it right.

“Too clever by half.” Are you even hearing yourself, Tim? His tone is simultaneously full of self-praise and self-blame. What he’s really saying is, “I should have seen this coming, and it’s my fault I didn’t, because I thought I was too good at this to slip up.”

This is similar to (a), but the emotion is more intense here. He’s more upset about it than he would be if he’d factored in the obvious fallacies in his plan: it’s very easy to lose someone in a sea of bodies. (Note that I say “more intense”. Much of Tim’s emotions are repressed behind a wall of “logic”, so they don’t seem to show a lot of the time, especially in his narration.)

Let me be clear: I do agree that Tim has insecurities, as does every other human character, but Tim is an arrogant know-it-all. He thinks he’s right, and you’re wrong, and he can and will be a smartass about it, because he’s been right so many times it’s inconceivable that he isn’t. So when it turns out his plans came out wrong, not only is it a blow to his identity, it’s also a blow to his ego. It’s incredibly upsetting to realise that your genius intellect doesn’t make you immune to being wrong.

Scarab puts this into words really well in RR#24:

Tim is so full of himself sometimes, it gets annoying.

What does he do next, though? He moves on. He improvises on his original plan, he jumps to the next related topic, he finds a way to fix this new problem that he’s got on his hands.

He finds out more about the assassination tournament. This pattern repeats itself throughout the RR run: Tim messes up, and then he just moves on. But of course, by virtue of being the main character and also a power fantasy, everything works out for Tim in the end, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

Back to Tim’s relationship with failure.

c) Tim fails to do something someone else asks him to do. Whether by personal failings or by circumstance, Tim takes it the same way. This is an embarrassment to himself. Of course, his first instinct is to fix it, but sometimes you just can’t fix things. Now his response will depend on how important he views this expectation of him.

c)i) If it’s something he doesn’t take very seriously, or someone who’s not as important to his identity/ego/peace of mind, eg. at the beginning of RR when he first associates with Tam Fox, and he doesn’t really show much care about how she’s obviously traumatised by her experience with his RR work.

He doesn’t really care! Words are just words, especially so when it comes to Tim, and he’s not offering to do anything to make up for it.

c)ii) But if it’s important, if it’s someone whose approval he desires, eg. Batman and the no-kill rule, he gets defensive of himself, but internally he reacts very similarly to (a). Not anger or humiliation, but self-blame. “What is wrong with me?” is the operational self-accusation here. “Why can’t I fulfill his expectations?” A lot of the time this external expectation may be something Tim expects of himself. Thus failure, or even something close to failure, triggers this response in Tim.

After he attempts to kill Captain Boomerang in RR#26 and ultimately decides not to, he’s faced with Bruce’s disappointment:

And he defends himself. You can hear the denial and self-blame in there. He has to keep emphasis both to Bruce and himself the fact that he didn’t do it in the end. To be fair RR is more of an exploration of how far towards the deep end Tim will go, so it makes sense he’d be kind of ‘rebellious’. But still the defensiveness implies a certain kind of insecurity, that’s just it: Tim doesn’t want to disappoint Bruce, but he has, and it upsets him that he did. (Because Tim does need the approval of those around him, no matter what he tells himself.)

So, overall: Tim is a perfectionist. Not in the stereotypical manner of “I have to become perfect”, but in the sense that perfection is his natural state and any deviation from that is a failure. It’s simply not acceptable.

His first response to failure is usually to fix it immediately, and when that proves to be non-doable, or doesn’t work out, he flounders. And then he shoves it to the list of failures in his head that motivate him not to fail again, and moves onto other things. But his failures are always in the back of his mind, and he consistently (whether consciously or subconsciously) thinks about them, how he could have done things different, how he could have prevented that failure. He gets hung up on them, but it’s not debilitating.

You bet he remembers that one time when he was 5 and considered for a hot second the possibility of, say, Lex Luthor being Batman. He will never let it go. But that failure doesn’t cripple him - he learns from it, and now here he is. Better.

Hope this response made sense! And yes, all my canon examples are from RR because.. guess who hasn’t read much else? I’m starting on Robin, I promise.

[puppetwritings]

Please! This isn’t a Game! || Pt. 1 || Jeonghan

Pt. 1 // Pt. 2 // Pt. 3 // Pt. 4 // Pt. 5 // Pt. 6 //

➢ Word Count: 4332

➢ Genre: sci-fi, fantasy, fluff, comedy, transmigration

➢ Summary: What do you do when you get thrown into an unknown world? Well, Jeonghan sure as heck does not know.

--------

“This isn’t a game,” the system said. “This is real life. If you die here, you’re really going to die! There’s not even a guarantee that you’ll go back to your reality. It’s better if you just take the long route. Don’t try to do anything flashy! Be lowkey! And please don’t join the military!”

Jeonghan’s lips were pressed into a line as he trudged through the crowd. His brows were furrowed and anyone who stood longer than three seconds in his path were faced by an icy glare. “Listen, you trashy system, I didn’t get on my knees and snivel and cry to that dumb old man, just for you to tell me my genius idea is bad.”

The system shrank back and said nothing as it watched Jeonghan signed his name on the check-in for the civil exam.  

“I know what I’m doing. Plus, you can boost my specs, can’t you?” Jeonghan said, putting the pencil back into the cup and moving aside.  

“I can! I can, but I can’t make you indestructible!”

“Then I’ll just become so powerful that I’ll be indestructible,” Jeonghan smirked to himself as he started to walk back through the crowd.

Yoon Jeonghan, nearly thirty, had been transmigrated into the body of a twenty-three-year-old with the same exact appearance as him and even the same name. The only difference? It was an alternate universe where magic ruled and the world wasn’t on the verge of falling apart.

He actually liked this place better. He wasn’t attached to stuffy rules, flashy cameras and paparazzi that poked themselves into his business, or parents who scolded him for anything he did “wrong”. It wasn’t “wrong”, it was just unconventional. And here, Jeonghan could be as unconventional as he wanted to be.

The only thing he was attached to was--

“Are you even listening, Host?!”

“Totally not,” Jeonghan easily answered.

The system wanted to cry. “I was explaining the timeline to you.”

“No need, I got it. This guy, Yoon Jeonghan, lived a tortuous life with his dad and his half-brother. This is a universe with magic and he was what people in Harry Potter would call a squib. He found out his half-brother was trying to take over the world, tried to stop him, and died!” Jeonghan easily summarized. He cockily tilted his head at the system. “His dying wish was to be stronger, fiercer, cunninger, and be able to take down his older brother, isn’t that right?”

“That’s right. You got everything right, but,” the little orb that the system embodied turned a bright red before it bellowed, “Why are you joining the military!?”

“His dad and brother are in the military, right? General and, what was it? Colonel?”

The system sighed. “And do you know what I am, even?”

“A system.”

“Yes?”

“An information giver. An NPC that gives quests,” Jeonghan said. “Um, Navi in Legend of Zelda. Hey, you even look like her. All you need are wings.”

The system would cry if it could. Of all the hosts it could have chosen, why did it choose this guy!?

Jeonghan sensed the system’s distress and he sighed. “You chose me for a reason, right? Just trust me.”

“I’m an AI, AIs don’t experience things like trust or emotions.”

“I would beg to differ,” Jeonghan said. “It’s okay, little system, you don’t have to lie to yourself. There’s even that one game in my universe. About like, androids becoming human? We’ve entertained that type of idea for centuries! You don’t have to pretend just to not scare me. Speaking of which, do you have a name?”

“No.”

“Then, can I call you Navi? Or are you gender-conscious.”

The system let out a long sigh. “Navi is fine.”

“Navi it is,” Jeonghan said, smiling in a self-satisfied way.

The entire conversation had taken place in Jeonghan’s head, but his constantly changing expressions still scared the few of the people applying to get into the military academy.

“Aren’t you going to ask how I managed to convince that deranged old man?” Jeonghan asked, sitting down on a bench and waiting for the proctors to start calling names.

“I was there.”

“You’re absolutely no fun,” Jeonghan sighed.

“I thought he was going to shoot you.”

“Would you have protected me?”

“This early in the timeline? I might have had to,” the system grumbled.

“But you said this little squib is actually powerful, right?” Jeonghan asked as he plucked some flowers from the cracks in the pavement.

“Don’t call him--never mind,” the system sighed. “Yes, he’s powerful. Because they only checked for light magic, they missed his dark magic potential.”

“Well, why would good guys look for dark magic anyway?” Jeonghan said. “It’s perfectly normal for them to miss this guy and mistake him as a squib.”

“Don’t use that term.”

“Why? Is it copyrighted?”

“Well, yeah, it is.”

“Are you conscious of copyright?” Jeonghan asked, pausing in his movements.

The system thought for a moment. “No.”

“Then it’s fine.”

The system remained silent as Jeonghan weaved the few flowers he found around him into a bracelet. He shamelessly slipped it on before leaning back and watching young men who had a better physique than him line up for the civil exam.

“Thank goodness I got to inherit the other guy’s memories,” Jeonghan mumbled aloud. “Who knows if I can pass a civil exam if I wasn’t able to?”

“If we didn’t allow you to inherit his memories, perhaps you wouldn’t be as irrational,” the system quietly reasoned to itself.

Jeonghan shot a glare at the system and the system sadly floated down beside Jeonghan. It threw up a white flag.

“How much can you boost up my specs without it being physically obvious?” Jeonghan asked.

He had grown bored of just sitting on a bench and was now roaming around, looking at the food stalls that surrounded the area. He stopped at one that sold something similar to takoyaki and bought some using the money that he stole from his dad.

“I could maximize your speed and endurance. I could also maximize your strength. Your body wouldn’t change at all, except maybe getting a little more toned.”

“Perfect,” Jeonghan shoved a takoyaki ball in his mouth and then stopped walking for a moment. “Do I have to exercise to maintain it?”

“Host, if you join the military, you have to exercise anyway,” the system pointed out.

“But actively. With a purpose. Do I have to do that to maintain it?”

“No.”

“Perfect,” Jeonghan went back to eating.

It was another forty minutes before the proctor started to call names. Jeonghan had already finished two plates of takoyaki by then and had drank four bottles of water. He arrived just in time for his name to be called. He took is nameplate and confidently walked into the testing center, completely ignoring the looks of surprise from those who recognized him.

The exam was similar to the imperial examination that was given out in Ancient China. You would be given a question and you would have to answer it clearly in eight pages. If your idea were good enough, you would pass and continue onto the physical test. If you failed the physical test, but passed the civil test, you were eligible to become a politician and you could attempt the physical test again in another four years. If you failed the civil test, you could also attempt that again in four years, but you were only allowed three tries.

Jeonghan, luckily, arrived at the time that the exams were taking place. He easily breezed through the civil exam with his newly gained knowledge as well as his knowledge from the other world. He received a letter, confirming his above average test score, and was told to report back at the square in a few weeks to take the physical test.

“See,” Jeonghan haughtily showed the system in his mind. “See, I did it. And you doubted me.”

“I never had a doubt in my mind, host,” the system said.

Jeonghan rolled his eyes. What a liar.

“Host, what are you planning to do for the few weeks leading up to the physical test?” the system asked. There was nothing to do. Jeonghan’s transmigration and decision to enter the military warped the timeline, which caused them to miss out on a major event. It wasn’t important but it was the first contact this world’s Jeonghan had to the dark forces.

“Seek death.”

“Huh?”

“You said my arrival caused warps, right? But they still have to carry out their mission,” Jeonghan said. “I could offer myself up as a distraction.”

“Please, host, do you not remember what I said a few days back?” the system sounded as if it were in tears again. “If you die here, you might really die!”

“Navi, it’s fine. I know what I’m doing,” Jeonghan replied just as breezily as he had a few days ago. “Besides, I’m sure that brother of mine is itching for an opportunity to crush me.”

“Why is that?”

“Yoon Jeonghan is actually trying now,” Jeonghan said. “Before, Jeonghan was a crying, wimpy kid whom their father hated and mistreated. In the previous world, he never tried that so everyone thought he was just a no-talented embarrassment. But now, he wants to make something of himself. Even if there’s a chance that I might succeed, that half-brother will definitely try to snuff it out.”

“To the point of wanting to kill you?”

“Yep!” Jeonghan chirped. “Before, he was used as a pawn piece, now, my dear brother might actually be sending me to my death.”

“But you can’t—that’s—host!”

“Yes, Navi?”

“It’s too dangerous!”

“Which is precisely why I have to do it. If I’m already causing ripples, why don’t I just make a wave?”

Just as Jeonghan thought this, the door was politely knocked. Jeonghan signaled for the visitor to come in and watched as the butler bowed.

“Second Young Master, Master would like to see you in his study.”

“Speak of the devil,” Jeonghan thought. He nodded to the butler and followed him out of his room.

“Host, please don’t do this,” the system begged helplessly as it followed its host down the velvet carpeted halls.

“What are you crying so pitifully about?” Jeonghan asked, a gentle smile on his face that suited a sickly young lord. “If you keep crying, I’m gonna lock you in the closet, Navi.”

The system gaped at its host. Had there ever been such a twisted host recorded in history? Most likely not! Because they all died before they could complete the mission! The little system screamed indignantly in its heart but on the outside, it remained a calm blue.

“Host, you’re going to—”

“We both know what they’re going to use me as for this mission,” Jeonghan said.

“A double?”

“Exactly. But instead of being a helpless little lamb that gets captured, I’ll become a valiant hero that does better than my brother did in the previous timeline,” Jeonghan said.

“You have quite high expectations for yourself,” the system noted monotonously.

“There is absolutely nothing wrong with that,” Jeonghan replied.

“Host, have you ever heard of biting off more than you can chew?” the system asked. “Because you’ll choke if you do that!”

“Everything you say alludes back to dying,” Jeonghan grumbled. “Can you calm down? I won’t die! I didn’t die in my own world, so I won’t die in this one.”

“But in your own world, no one was actively trying to kill you, were they!?”

“People were,” Jeonghan scoffed. “Goodness, Navi, you don’t know anything about me, do you? Don’t go around making assumptions about me and be a good, quiet little system.”

The system was stunned into a silence and stayed that way until they got to the study.

The butler calmly opened the door and bowed before leaving after accomplishing his task. Jeonghan stepped into the room and took on the posture the previous Jeonghan often had—slouched, unconfident, and looking down.

“Father, Brother,” Jeonghan mumbled.

“Look at you,” Jeonghan’s brother, Taewook, threw an arm over his shoulder. “How are you going to join the military like this? You can’t even look us in the face.”

“Taewook,” their father interjected. “He doesn’t need to look us in the face. He shouldn’t be looking superior officers in the face anyway.”

Taewook chuckled, releasing his brother with a push. “That’s true.”

Jeonghan stumbled, though he really didn’t need to. Seeing its host act like this, the system felt its nonexistent heartache a little. It quickly snapped out of it though after remember Jeonghan’s plan. This man was just extremely good at acting!

“So, Jeonghan, you want to enter the military, right?”

Jeonghan looked up so fast, it seemed that his neck would snap. He nodded several times excitedly. Just by doing this movement, his face paled. His father and his brother’s faces contorted into mocking smiles but the innocent young man didn’t seem to notice.

“Then, you must be willing to help us with tasks. We will be raiding the lair of the Mutated Butterflies in a week and we need someone to be a decoy.”

Jeonghan’s excited eyes diminished a moment and he looked back down. His voice came out in a worried shake. “But—but, father, I know nothing of how the military or how anything works yet. That is why I decided to go to the military academy first.”

“Yes, I know, but you, my boy,” Jeonghan’s father leaned in closer, “You’re special.”

Jeonghan’s face lit up again and he listened intently.

“All you have to do is to bring the decoy troop in towards the front and your brother a few special operatives will sneak in the back and take everyone down.”

Jeonghan nodded. After a moment, he timidly spoke again. “But, father, will the soldiers in the decoy troop die?”

True to the original character, Jeonghan acted naïve and thought only of other people. For now, until he completed his first mission of getting in contact with dark forces and actually activating his powers, he couldn’t OOC too much or he would be directly ejected from this world and well, the system wasn’t sure what would happen after that. Each world varied on how they punished hosts.

General Yoon smirked behind his hand. He took a deep breath to recover himself before standing and walking around his desk. He approached Jeonghan, but Jeonghan flinched at the outstretched hand. The hand finally landed on Jeonghan’s shoulder and Jeonghan was roughly pulled closer until General Yoon was only an inch from his face.

“My boy,” General Yoon spoke in that low, magnetic voice that didn’t charm people but caused them to tremble in fear. “You shouldn’t think about the others. Think only of yourself and of your mission. Who cares if they’re sacrificed if our mission succeeds and you survive?”

Jeonghan let out a nervous laugh and nodded shakily. He took a step back when he was released and he bumped into Taewook. “Ri—right. Right. Father, you are absolutely right.”

General Yoon said back behind his large oak desk. The chair squeaked under him. “Then, Jeonghan, you agree to come with us?”

“Of course, father,” Jeonghan said, his eyes shining like a hopeful youth. “I will not let you or Brother down!”

Jeonghan was soon dismissed after given vague and brief instructions. Jeonghan excitedly left but half way back to his room, that cheerful smile dissolved from his face and his giddy expression was replaced by a look of absolute disdain.

“Host, do you have a plan?” the system nervously asked. No matter how it looked at it, this was obviously stepping into a bear trap!

“Of course not.”

“What?!”

“We’ll play it by ear,” Jeonghan said. He opened the door to his room and sprawled out on his king sized, silk-covered bed. He rolled to the side and poked the floating system. “But I’ll make sure I won’t die. If things don’t go to plan, I can always run off and hide like a coward.”

“But host, you don’t have a plan to go by! What if you get captured?”

“Honestly, getting captured may be the best plan. In the previous timeline, Wimpy Jeonghan ran off and hid, right? He was slightly injured by the dark forces, which allowed him to be marked but they didn’t want to take the risk of snagging him because he seemed weak at the time,” Jeonghan began to reason. “If I get captured, I’d get tortured for information, if I get tortured for information then more dark matter will spill out of me and they will know that I’m worth their time.”

“Why do you want them to know you’re worth their time? All you need to do is get stabbed by a dark weapon and your powers will activate as the dark magic seeps into you.”

“I want them to know I’m worth their time because I want to be one of them,” Jeonghan said. He closed his eyes and smirked. “Only when I’m one of them, can I completely kill that pair of rotten family members.”

 --------

“Host, this is really dangerous,” the system fluttered around Jeonghan nervously. “You can back out now! You might not survive the torture!”

Jeonghan waved the system off as if he were waving a fly. He had been completely dressed in Taewook’s armor, meaning his face was half covered by a fabric mask and he was wearing a helmet that resembled a motorcyclist’s helmet, though slimmer. The armor was slim as well, but was made completely of flexible metal that would block any low to mid-level weapons and magical attacks. Of course, this type of armor was useless against the dark forces who would mostly be using mid-range to high-range attacks and weapons.

“Navi, calm down. I’ve already thought it through,” Jeonghan said.

“You won’t go through with it?!”

“I will,” Jeonghan smirked under his mask. He lifted his sword and yelled “Charge!” in the way Taewook had told him to, and rode off first.

The system floated by him leisurely and watched in shock as he jabbed, parried, dodged, and counterattacked with ease on a horse. The system floated in closer. “Host, have you done this before? From the information I obtained and from what I saw while I was briefly in your world, you don’t have this sort of thing. It’s all mechanical.”

“I took some fighting lessons as a kid,” Jeonghan said.

The system became silent. That doesn’t explain your fast-adaptive skills and superhuman reflexes, host.

Sure, Jeonghan’s adapting skills were fast, but he was quickly forced to retreat and was nearly knocked from his horse multiple times. The few moves he showed that impressed the system earlier were forgotten as he was shoved off his horse and tumbled into a tree.

“Host, are you okay?” the system flew around Jeonghan’s head until Jeonghan used his sword as a lever to get off the ground.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Just a little dizzy,” Jeonghan said. “Nothing I can’t handle.”

The system watched worriedly as Jeonghan flew back into battle. “Host, there is one thing I’m still confused about.”

“Yes, Navi?”

“You said you wanted to be a hero but you also said you wanted to get captured,” the system floated next to Jeonghan’s head.

“A hero can get captured. I just have to protect the soldiers to the best of my ability before I fall. They will think I am Taewook and find it confusing as to how I lost so easily and didn’t just leave them behind,” Taewook had a reputation of leaving his soldiers if it became too difficult, “and then they find out it was actually me, the weak and sickly young master, working hard to protect them. At least a quarter of them will be moved.”

The system was starting to understand its host’s way of thinking but still it was too complicated.

The dark forces were closing in about an hour and a half into battle. The soldiers were indeed surprised that “Taewook” stayed so long with them. They had heard of his reputation while they were still training and had fully expected him to abandon him. They felt a little touched that this didn’t happen, but now they really wished he would leave!

To the soldiers, “Taewook” was probably feeling a little ill. He moved a lot sluggishly and clumsier than usual. Although he threw himself at anyone who was in danger, his stamina could only last so long if he was sick!

Just as the soldiers thought up to this point “Taewook” became even slower. Jeonghan, who was under the mask of Taewook, felt exhausted. He had told the system to lower his specs back down and make them only a little higher than the original of this world. Being able to hold out for an hour and a half was already commendable, but in order to do this, Jeonghan felt that his body was about to tear apart.

Jeonghan was now surrounded by an army of dark forces. His soldiers were further away. They had become caught up and distracted, only to find out they had fallen into a trap! As the dark force soldiers slowly advanced, Jeonghan felt a wash of relief come over him. Finally. Finally, he would be captured—

Jeonghan let out a strangled scream as he was grabbed by the scruff of his neck and lifted up.

He was thrown onto a horse. He felt a warm hand on his back as he was tossed between the body and the neck of the horse. He could hear the surprise screams from his soldiers and the enemy soldiers but the clash and the blasts soon faded and eventually, all Jeonghan could hear was the running stream.

He was carefully slipped off the back of the horse and his “savior” followed him.

At first, Jeonghan thought it was Taewook but after some careful consideration, he figured it was not. The system, which had been shocked into disappearance, materialized beside him again and Jeonghan grumply directed a mental question at it “Who is this?”

“I’m not sure,” the system answered honestly, floating around the mysterious person in the black, fluttering cloak. “I can identify this person as female and I can verify that she was also in the original timeline, but as for her name, I can’t be sure as I do not have access to the memory files that contain this information.”

“Then, an alias?”

“She is known as the Huntress and she works for Mutated Butterflies.”

Jeonghan felt a flutter of delight. Then she was here to capture him! He was just taken away so she could personally lock him up!

Instead of getting cuffed or tied or having his “powers” locked, Jeonghan felt shock and terror shock his entire being as the Huntress fell down in front of him. Her hands hovered close to the wounds that had torn through his armor but she sat back. When she spoke, worry filled her voice.

“Taewook, are you alright? Why didn’t you just run away as you always do? That was such a silly thing to do!” the female said.

Jeonghan stared at the Huntress in shock. He inhaled sharply and found himself scooting back a step.

“Ah, I found another piece of information,” the system said. “In the later part of the storyline, it is revealed that the Huntress is one of Taewook’s lovers.”

“Taewook, what’s wrong?” the Huntress moved closer again.

Jeonghan crawled back another three steps. He pursed his lips and was about to speak when the Huntress pitifully sighed.

“I know, you won’t be able to explain to the soldiers, but I couldn’t just watch you get beat up like that! You understand my heart, can’t you?” the Huntress moved quickly and hugged Jeonghan.

Jeonghan let out a wheezing sound similar to a squeaky toy with a dead squeaker.

“If you were sick, you shouldn’t have come out to the battle field,” the Huntress continued to coo. “That disgusting father of yours has no morals!”

Jeonghan wanted to struggle to leave but in his current, very injured and drained out state, he could do nothing but become limp in her hands.

The Huntress cursed out their father some more. Jeonghan had begun to black out but he quickly regained his senses when the Huntress reached out for Jeonghan’s helmet.

His hand reacted on its own and he quickly smacked the Huntress away. As the Huntress was also wearing a mask, he could not see her expression. He could only gauge by how hurt she was through her voice.

“I'm sorry, I’ve crossed the line,” she said weakly.

Really, Jeonghan thought, what did she see in this man! He was obviously a villain! Obviously cheating her! Obviously abusing her love for him! If she was used to this sort of treatment, then he was only using her!

“Send me back to camp,” Jeonghan managed to gruffly spit out after a long moment of silence. He took care to make his voice as close to Taewook’s as possible but he could not measure the accuracy. He was barely conscious.

A rotten man or not, Jeonghan had to act like Taewook or he would be flayed and flamed. So, when the Huntress attempted to help Jeonghan onto his horse, he arrogantly brushed her off and opted to struggle himself.

His short journey with the Huntress ended with Jeonghan valiantly stumbling off her horse and valiantly ignoring a woman who loved him (Taewook) and valiantly collapsing in front of the camp without making it one step further into its premises. His plan to activate his powers had terribly failed but he had achieved half of what he set out to do.

When Yoon Jeonghan woke up, five days later, he will have found that he successfully entered the military academy without taking the physical test and rightfully became named as a hero.

~~~

(A/N: check out the description or the pting ff tag on my blog for new chapters!)

[mister-tom-a-dildo-lover]

Strive Pt. 19

{PART 1} {PART 2} {PART 3} {PART 4} {PART 5} {PART 6} {PART 7} {PART 8} {PART 9} {PART 10} {PART 11} {PART 12} {PART 13} {PART 14} {PART 15} {PART 16} {PART 17} {PART 18}

Pair: Tomarry

Rating: M-E(depends)

Tags: Mild Language, Homosexuality, Sexism, Obsessed Tom, Time-Travel/Dimension-Travel, Teacher/Student, Eventual Romance, Teacher-Harry, Grey!Harry, MoD(sort of), Death!being,

Tom began enforcing his demands over his fellow Slytherins. The end of the year exams were coming sooner than any of them would like to think, and for the seventh years that meant their N.E.W.T.s. And as those were always more difficult, they required more studying and consideration than anything else at present.

He wanted the entirety of Slytherin to do well on their exams. Even the somewhat challenged students were expected to scrape by with Acceptables because he refused to have his minions poorly representing him in any manner. And they all knew that if there was so much as one Troll, all hell would be set loose upon them.

Their reviews in class had become more intense as well.

Professor Potter had been the most strict with them because he expected more out of his students than any other teacher had during Tom's time at Hogwarts. He had a mental scale of where seventeen/eighteen year olds should be in terms of magical skills and put them to the test during every class and every club meeting. He pushed them harder than he ever had before and didn't accept excuses.

The interesting thing about his teachings, was that he focused a lot more on defensive tactics even while using offensive spells. Potter didn't want anyone to end up stranded should they somehow get caught in the crossfires of Grindelwald's forces. He wanted to arm them with the means to escape such a situation should it potentially arise, but he did not want them to have to fight for their lives.

And Tom hadn't minded when he realised just what the man he admired was doing. Potter actually cared. Sometimes it felt like the teachers truly didn't care about the students because they were just passing faces. Within seven years this batch would be gone and would be replaced like always. Every school was a revolving door basically. But it was obvious that Potter cared and was trying his best to help their future endeavours.

The man had been new but was sacrificing sleep and time because he wanted to help the students learn more easily. Because he wanted them to actually reach the potential they all possessed. Because Potter saw something in each and every student and decided that it was something worth his attention. Something worth the amount of effort he put in to help them.

Personally, Tom couldn't say he saw the same, but he at least appreciated that Potter would be so optimistic. Even when optimism seemed pointless sometimes. At least Potter had faith in his students. And he didn't judge them based upon prior actions of theirs.

All Tom needed to do was to study as much as possible in between all the small tutoring sessions he'd been giving to the younger students who'd been paying for his help.

He really needed to become a teacher. There was just something about watching people succeed because of him. And he knew it was because of him since so many of those students would still be utterly hopeless without his aid.

Tom had to make sure that when he came to Hogwarts to apply for a job, he did it when Dumbledore wasn't around so he couldn't attempt to interfere. And he knew very well that Dumbledore would no doubt try to put a wrench in his plans even if he didn't know what they were exactly.

The Slytherins were whispering thanks to the recent article in the Daily Prophet. Dumbledore had been landed with major fines though the details had remained private. Still, the knowledge of his suffering made many hearts feel lighter as the N.E.W.T.s drew nearer. The Slytherins were espeically pleased with this information since it felt like the man was finally getting his comeuppance after years of being an arsehole with contradictory views.

Dippet was constantly on edge during meals recently, and it probably had to do with how he hated confrontation. The man was like a wet doormat and didn't really like doing much of anything. He was also relatively easily to manipulate if one knew how.

His former Deputy being investigated made him look bad for never noticing anything he had done before Lord Malfoy lodged a complaint. And people liked to talk in the wizarding world. No one was a stranger to rumours and Tom had heard a few people wondering none too quietly, if he'd been in on Dumbledore's actions because Dumbledore was so famous so he'd get away with more than others would. Had Dippet possibly turned a blind eye to his attitude because of who Dumbledore was? Or had Dumbledore bribed him somehow?

This left the man in a precarious position and he had to tread carefully lest he lose his own job.

Truthfully, Potter would be a better Headmaster than anyone else on the staff.

"Thank Merlin that it's all over!" said Abraxas as he pretended to faint onto one of the green sofas of the Common Room. "I never want to see another book or piece of parchment every again!" he cried dramatically.

"If you wish to become the Lord of your House you'll have to suck it up," said Nott blandly, holding up the very thing Abraxas claimed to never want to lay eyes on again. "Otherwise I'm certain your parents will gladly try for another child if it bothers you that much."

There was a shared look of disgust from all but Tom, who didn't care enough about things not about him to be emotionally invested in them. Tom was busy reading through the review he'd made for his Charms N.E.W.T. and nodded to himself as he noted every single thing that had been asked on the Theoretical exam. And then of course the Practical where he'd scored an extra point for his Corporeal Patronus.

That same day, he'd also taken his Transfiguration N.E.W.T. and he'd gotten an extra five points because of his Animagus form.

Yes, Tom had succeeded! Months ago he'd done the entire ritual to the exact measure and had finally managed to figure out his Animagus form. No surprise, it was a snake. And use of the Room of Requirement allowed him to make use of a room full of mirrors so her could see just what kind of snake he was.

He was an all-black Horned Viper with equally black eyes to show that he wasn't a natural serpent. Horned Vipers weren't black. They were usually shades similar to sand or dirt in order to camouflage themselves more easily. He had two pointed horns atop his head as well as had the venom the common serpents of the species possessed. He was sure of how to use it yet but he'd get there eventually.

And when he Transfigured himself right in front of the examiner, the woman had tittered with excitement and called him a genius as she batted her lashes in exaggeration. She also handed over a form for him to fill out so the Ministry could register him immediately. He'd received high praise for his accomplishment since not many magicals even attempted to become Animagi and certainly never before graduation.

He'd put in the time and effort and while he'd attained his form months back, he'd practiced consistently in order to officially debut it for his N.E.W.T. exam. That way he could do it on command and it seemed more impressive that way.

Perfection was what Tom strove for. Among other things of course.

He'd been assured that he'd set the record for the youngest Animagus in British history. It was a pleasing piece of information and made his day all the better.

Tom always did love succeeding.

And at some point in the future he would have more time on hand to fully explore what he was capable of when in his snake form. He could imagine all the spying possibilities!

Tom entered Professor Potter's office with slight trepidation. He didn't actually know why the man had called him over, but he knew it at least had to be important.

The man was seated as usual, though his hair was a bigger mess than it usually was, and he looked so very tired. Like he was out on the front lines of either war and was just done with everything. There were literal lines on his face.

"Mr. Riddle, I know it's a bit sudden to just be calling up up here but I felt it urgent to speak with you."

"Is this about my N.E.W.T. score, sir?" No one could blame Tom for being worried around his grades. They were the most important things to him at present. All Tom really had to his name was his intellect. And Parseltongue, but for things publicly expressed, his intelligence was it.

The older man shook his head. "I simply felt it better to inform you of this in private. London was bombed yesterday."

"Again?" was the only thing he could ask. Over the past several years, London had been perpetually bombed over and over. He'd managed to never be there personally when it happened, but London was a major city and as such, it was often a target of the Nazis. Still, mid-June of 1944 and they were still bombing London!

Why anyone would choose to continue living in such a place when it was constantly under attack made no sense to him. The orphanage itself had been lucky enough to escape any damage, not that the buildings around it were lucky enough to say the same. In fact, on the very block of road, Wool's was the only building still relatively intact if one didn't count the already numerous damages from years of disrepair. It was over a century old after all.

"I'm afraid so. The bombs were a lot larger this time and caused considerable damage. I felt it best to warn you ahead of time. I do not know if you intend to go back once you graduate or not, but it's always best to be aware or your surroundings."

Thank Merlin Tom had in fact not been planning to go back. And really, who would miss him in that hellhole he grew up in? They'd just think of him as another casualty of war and for once he wouldn't mind that in the least. Their opinions meant nothing to him. He'd be doing things they could only dream of once the time came.

"I won't be returning there, sir. But thank you for your concern."

He was… dare he say, touched that the man felt enough concern over his well being. No one ever truly had before. Not that Tom ever really had anyone that would care about him anyway.

Potter smiled a small smile that was filled with both sadness and relief. "Forgive me for intruding but will you have somewhere to stay after the term ends?"

Not really. He could probably get an invitation to spend the summer with Abraxas, but he wasn't sure if he wanted to. On one hand he wanted to be on his own to do things on his own and explore his interests on his own, but on another he longed to remain at Hogwarts. He knew he'd miss everything but the other students.

"I'll take your silence as a negative."

Tom willed his face to not blush because he didn't like blushing and didn't like expressing common emotions. And he didn't want Professor Potter to see him when he wasn't in perfect control. The man had already seen enough emotion from Tom and Merlin forbid he see more.

Potter fiddled with his spectacles for a moment, tossing them between his hands without a thought. "As you can imagine, I am being stretched a little thin when it comes to all the work I'm doing now. I simply have too much to focus on at present and I might need some assistance come the new term."

Was he honestly doing what Tom thought he was doing? Tom held his breath in anticipation, afraid to get his hopes up too much.

"Perhaps you can apply to be a Teacher's Assistant. Mine, to be more precise. And you and I would have control over the DADA classes and would be working together to instruct the students. I will still maintain control over the Dueling Club, but my duties as Deputy Headmaster are unfortunately very taxing and time consuming, and there is more to do than you'd think."

"Yes," was all Tom could say. Because he'd been given essentially what he'd wanted. He would work at Hogwarts and stay where he'd longed to be. He'd have a guaranteed place to sleep and food every day. And he would have access to the Library and wouldn't be forbidden from the Restricted Section because he would no longer be a student. And he'd be around Potter every single day. It was all he could ask for.

Potter smiled much brighter this time, and Tom could feel the odd lightness in his stomach in response to how charming the man appeared. And how effortless it was for him too.

"I'm glad. You are a model student. You are intelligent and from what I've heard of your N.E.W.T. scores, you set some records. And the benefit of assisting me will aide you in the long haul. Especially when I intend to win that Dueling Mastery come July."

Ah, yes. If the man managed to become a Dueling Master, then Tom would be able to learn more from him than a usual student would and no one could claim favouritism.

"Thank you, sir."

"In order for us to truly mesh well, we'll need to spend this summer getting better acquainted, don't you think? I'll inform the Elves that your possessions will be moved to your new room post haste."

Tom was going to be working at Hogwarts. Despite the unpleasant news about London, this ended up being a great day for him.

The very last day. As a student at least. This wasn't Tom's last day at Hogwarts in general, but he was still feeling a little emotional at the thought of how a few weeks ago he'd been under the impression that he'd have to stay in Diagon Alley all summer, possibly struggling to get by until he could hopefully apply for a job at Hogwarts. Possibly having to listen to the explosions not too far away from where he'd sleep. And now he was sure of the fact that he was going to be okay. He was in the safest place in the British Isles.

Nothing could get to him here. And Professor Potter was perfectly fine with him staying over the summer. In fact, he wasn't the only one staying. With Dumbledore no longer in Dippet's favour, Dippet was easier to convince of certain things. And Potter was the favourite professor, as well as his Deputy, so listening to him was a good idea.

Four other muggle-raised students would be staying over the summer because they too lived in London and it was too dangerous to go back yet. Potter had already set up rooms for their families to use if they had to come to Hogwarts to escape the tragedy. Tom had already seen the tears of absolute gratitude for the man's actions and would admit to himself alone that he'd also felt a little emotional as well.

How was it that Potter could understand the absolute seriousness of the muggle world war, but Dumbledore, a fellow Halfblood just like them, couldn't?

It was like every time he turned around, Potter gave Tom another reason to admire him.

Tom's only regret was that Potter hadn't come to them years ago, where he would have no doubt done something then as well. Tom wasn't blind to the fact that some students never came back. And he understood exactly why things like that happened.

If only Potter, or someone at least like Potter, had been around when the bombings had started. Tom could think of so many students who would still be here.

A lot of magical people liked to claim they cared about muggleborns and muggle-raised children, but even the most Light of magical users overlooked those very people all the time. Sure, they bent some of the old laws and traditions to better cater to those new individuals, but did they ever really stop to think about truly integrating them into their society? No.

It was a glaring fault in all magical communities around the world.

But Tom could see that Potter wanted to change that. Because he actually gave a damn about everyone.

A/N: London was actually bombed during mid-June of 1944. It was the first use of a specific type of bomb too.

[livixbobbiex]

Writing Figure Skating 101 - The Routines

This is 100% about Yuri!!! On Ice, but most of this could be applied elsewhere too

Now obviously, artistic liberty, you’re free to write whatever you want and good on you, but for those who want some more realism in your fics: 

Combinations

Most often, the second jump in a combination will be either a toe loop or a loop (because they’re the only ones that take off from the right backward outside edge - which most jumps land on). If the skater spins or changes feet in between jumps, then it’s a jump sequence, not a combination. 

Also, during a Free Skate, you can only use one three jump combination, and three combinations or sequences over all. So you could have a program with a three combo and two two combos, or a program with three two combos, if that makes sense.

If you’re unsure about a combo, don’t just guess. Type into youtube, for example “double axel triple loop combo” and some results should come up. Pay close attention to how the skater moves, also. When writing Yuuri, I’d honestly recommend watching some clips of Yuzuru Hanyu, as they have (in my mind at least) a similar look.

Jumps 

Do not be afraid to google in favour of just throwing in jump names. I just tried it and it took me literally five seconds to find some pretty good, well thought out resources. There are thousands just a mere click away.

If you’re writing about 12 year old Yuuri Katsuki landing a triple axel - although it is adult Yuuri’s favourite jump - like it’s nothing, you probably need to take a step back and think about it. Of course, there are exceptions (see Until My Heart Bleeds And My Heart Aches for example - in which Yuuri starts skating more professionally earlier than canon), but in general, nuh uh. 

The only character who we’ve seen perform difficult jumps at that kind of age is Yurio, and we can assume he’s been skating with a proper coach since a very young age (based on that flashback with his grandfather). The only other character confirmed to have had that kind of affinity with jumps so young is Viktor (in a scene he implies he used to perform quads in Juniors without Yakov’s permission). 

As a very helpful guide, try and look for the Yuri!!! On Ice guide book, as I’m 90% sure it had listed the jumps that every skater can do. At least, I’m sure that chart does exist somewhere. 

Also pay attention to real life figure skating! The anime and the reality are at similarish levels, so take notes of what’s going on. AKA, don’t have your skaters jumping a quad axel on a whim when IRL it’s known as “the impossible jump” (though my own headcanon is that Yurio would be the first to ever land it sometime in his career - only after serious training).  

In terms of allowances, the free skate for example only allows eight jump elements total (including normal jumps, combinations, and sequences - you could do 10 jumps for example in a routine, but only eight separate elements). Again, look at the actual character here. In real life, Nathan Chen landed five quads in a routine, so I think you could safely say the same for characters with a very high stamina in the YOI canon. 

The in between parts

So you want to write step routines etc? Great! If you want to put in the hours of research so you can write exactly mechanically what they’re skating, all the more power to you. Actually, I’d probably love that, but you don’t really need to. If you were to just throw in something like “Yuuri slid into a spread eagle” I think that would be enough for most people. 

Again, just watch a figure skating routine, it’ll help you get a feel for how people choreograph these skates. Just remember that figure skating can be very boring when it feels like only jumps and spins. 

Strengths 

One of the things Yuri!!! On Ice did really well in my opinion was building up a bunch of different characters, with different strengths and weaknesses. If you pay close attention to the anime, some of it is pretty clearly stated. Viktor’s consistently high technical difficulty, Yuuri’s ability for step routines, Yurio’s flexibility, how Phichit’s appealing to crowds etc. 

When writing a skating routine, this is your weapon so that you’re not just repeating yourselves. Every description of skating should feel different, because there’s at least one quality that separates each character. Once again, refer to the guide book as I’m pretty sure it flat out listed their special quality, and all their stats. 

Also think about each skater’s emotions, as that was a huge part of the anime. Especially if you’re deep in the POV and mindset of your character, just talk about what they’re feeling as they skate. The only character who actually seemed to pay full attention to the routine without letting their thoughts drift is Seung-gil in canon. 

Trust me, “as Yuuri spun and prepared himself to launch into his triple lutz, digging his toe pick into the ice, he couldn’t help but briefly think_________” is a lot nicer to read than “Yuuri performed a three turn, stepped onto the left back outside edge of his skate and vaulted into the air, rotating three times and landing before_______” 

(I realise that the second didn’t sound as awful as I intended it to but you just have to imagine that sentence essentially repeated in one massive block paragraph). 

The main thing I’d want people to take away from this is that describe, putting in a few minutes of research to ensure that it’s accurate and plausible, but don’t over describe.

Scoring 

Okay so let me just throw out some real life world records here:

Men’s combined total: 330.46 Men’s short program: 112.72 Men’s free skate: 223.20

Lady’s combined total: 241.31 Lady’s short program: 80.85 Lady’s free skate: 160.46 

Owned by Yuzuru Hanyu and Evgenia Medvedeva respectively. 

This is explained in the actual anime, but program scores are calculated out of technical elements (set points for performing jumps and spins correctly, plus any additional marks for making them more difficult, and then minus any errors) and presentation scores. 

I’m not going to sit here and break down exactly what each score should be based on as we’d be here for hours, so honestly, just look at the Worlds results or something and base your scores from skaters at a similar level to whichever character you’re writing. 

Also a warning that scores used to be based from a mark out of six given by each judge for both technical merit and artistic merit, and changed to the current system in 2006. So if you want to write junior Vitya, you have to look into the old scoring. 

As for now, that’s all I have to say in terms of writing routines. I 100% will write a part two about the actual events, and the politics of skating etc. but this part is already getting long enough

Also just a disclaimer that I’m not a figure skater (unless you count the fact that I can do, like, one twizzle), nor am I some writing genius. I’m just a big consumer of wonderful fanfiction, and a longtime fan of skating, and was inspired to write this from the sheer amount of authors notes that read something like “please forgive me I don’t understand figure skating”. Some of this information could itself be wrong, so I’m not claiming this is 100% at all. It’s more just my advic

TL;DR? Just google it, don’t guess. 

[sportsleague365]

How does one go about solving a multi-million pound problem? Not many of us have had the opportunity of trying to work that one out but then as manager of Manchester United, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer isn’t your everyday person. For all of the Norwegian’s victories both on and off the pitch during his caretaker spell in charge, though, he is no closer than Jose Mourinho was to solving the Alexis Sanchez conundrum. The Chilean has started only three of Solskjaer’s dozen games in charge two of which came in the FA Cup and produced a shambolic performance off the bench during United’s 2-0 Champions League defeat to PSG – the first loss of Solksjaer’s reign. Introduced as a substitute in first-half stoppage time after Jesse Lingard had pulled up with a hamstring injury, Sanchez struggled to make a meaningful contribution to proceedings, failing to create a chance or have a shot throughout the second half and even managed to sustain an injury in a freak collision with the assistant referee. Solskjaer suffered his first major setback against PSG (Getty Images)As has become the norm during Sanchez’s ill-fated United career, an inquest into his ineffective performance began soon after the final whistle had sounded with his manager stating that ‘he can’t do anything about Alexis Sanchez’ and that he needs to ‘find himself’ at Old Trafford. Sanchez has never got going since swapping Arsenal for United 13 months ago, but with three and a half years remaining on his rather generous contract, Solskjaer will have to try and find a way of kickstarting his career. Should he succeed, he could well further his own chances of keeping the job long-term. Put an arm around himInitially seen as a stop-gap manager until someone with a higher profile could be approached next summer, Solskjaer has done his chances of landing the gig permanently no harm at all during his two months in charge. One of the big factors that could convince Ed Woodward to hire Solskjaer on full-time is that he has managed to get the best out of United’s most valuable assets, such as Paul Pogba, Marcus Rashford and Anthony Martial. Solskjaer has been praised for his management of Paul Pogba (Getty Images)Solskjaer’s public praise of his players and gentle encouragement away from the cameras appears to have worked wonders with those who fell foul of Mourinho’s tough love tactics and there is no reason why a similar approach can’t work with Sanchez. Upon his shock announcement, Solskjaer admitted he would be leaning heavily on what he learned under Sir Alex Ferguson, saying: ‘He’s influenced me with everything to be fair. The way he’s dealt with people, the way he was the manager of the club, how he kept 25 international players happy, hungry and wanting to improve.’ Like Ferguson, Solskjaer isn’t afraid to use the ‘hairdryer treatment’ if a situation demands it as Lingard has testified to, but also like his managerial mentor he seems aware of when to use a more comforting arm around the shoulder technique to get his players into a positive frame of mind. Despite challenging Sanchez to prove himself in the aftermath of the PSG defeat, Solskjaer also spoke of the Chilean’s ‘quality’. Other United players ostracised under the previous regime have proven their quality since being reintegrated into the side and Solskjaer appears willing to give Sanchez a chance to do likewise. Give him a free roleUsually reserved for true mavericks of the sport, the free role was mastered by the likes of Juan Roman Riquelme and Matt Le Tissier in the 90s: playmakers of exceptional, game-changing talent but rather lacking in the work-rate stakes. Sanchez isn’t a creative genius a la Riquelme nor the regular contributor of outrageous wonder-goals like Le Tissier, but what he has in common with players of those ilk is that he operates best when absolved of defensive constraints. He is at his best when unshackled. During his time at Arsenal, Sanchez nominally played on the left wing, yet really he was afforded plenty of license by Arsene Wenger to hare around the final third, popping up in undetectable positions and applying erratic pressure to opposition defenders. Arsene Wenger gave Alexis Sanchez a free role during his time at Arsenal (Getty Images)After working with Sanchez for a a little over a year, Wenger hailed the ‘chaos’ that he could bring to Arsenal’s attack, saying: ‘He has that desire to go forward and provoke. He is a guy who provokes chaos in the defences because he has a go at you.’ Usually such a fluid position would be reserved for a player who has earned the right to practically play where they want and while that certainly is not the case with Sanchez, alleviating him of responsibilities and allowing him to do as he pleases could help him rediscover his edge. Lingard has been given a free role as such in certain games, notably in the FA Cup win over Arsenal where he played as a False 9, but after hobbling off with a hamstring injury against PSG a space in United’s attack has potentially opened up for Sanchez to take on. MORE: UK Your council tax is probably going to go up this yearLiving with Kim Kardashian: One-bedroom condos to $20m mansionsColeen Rooney ditches wedding ring as she ‘orders Wayne to rehab’ following 10-hour benderChange his systemSolskjaer has predominantly played a 4-3-3 system since taking over at United, with Rashford leading the line, Martial cutting in from the left, Lingard drifting off the right and Pogba breaking forward from central midfield to provide an extra body in attack with Nemanja Matic and Ander Herrera covering dutifully behind him. Plan A has worked so well that Solskjaer hasn’t really had to change it up, only making cosmetic changes such as replacing Rashford with Romelu Lukaku against Fulham at the weekend in order to give the England international a rest. However, with Martial and Lingard looking likely to miss Monday’s FA Cup tie with Chelsea at least, Solskjaer may need to devise a new strategy around other attacking players such as Sanchez and Lukaku. Could Sanchez and Rashford forge an effective partnership up front? (Getty Images)He could decide to stick with three up front and deploy Lukaku on the right, as he did against Arsenal and Sanchez on the left with Rashford through the middle. Whether that would give United sufficient industry and defensive endeavor on the flanks, though, is up for debate. Moving Rashford back out to the left wing, meanwhile, seems counter-productive considering how lethal he has been from a central position of late. Shorn of his first-choice wide players, the solution could be to setup in a 4-3-1-2 system with Sanchez deployed in tandem with Rashford. That switch wouldn’t result in either Rashford or Pogba moving out of their favoured roles while it would also encourage United’s full-backs Luke Shaw and one of Diogo Dalot or Ashley Young to push on and provide width, therefore maintaining that attacking threat. Positioning Sanchez as a central striker could also be the way to finally get him scoring at a consistent rate following a dismal return of five goals in 37 games thus far. MORE: MANCHESTER UNITED FC Three ways Ole Gunnar Solskjaer can kickstart Alexis Sanchez's faltering career at Man UtdGary Neville and David Beckham pay tribute to Class of '92 mentor Eric HarrisonMan Utd plan bid for £100m-rated attacking midfielder #AlexisSanchez #OleGunnarSolskjaer #AlexFerguson

[pricelessmomentblog]

How Einstein Learned Physics

I recently finished Walter Isaacson’s biography of Albert Einstein. The biography covers not just Einstein’s intellectual achievements, but also his anti-war activism, marital difficulties and celebrity. However, I wanted to share just the one part I found most interesting: how did Einstein learn?

Wanting to understand how Einstein learned physics may, at first, seem as pointless as trying to fly by watching birds and flapping your arms really hard. How do you emulate someone who is synonymous with genius?

However, I think the investigation can still bear fruits, even if you or I might not have the intellectual gifts to revolutionize physics. Whatever Einstein did to learn, he clearly did something right, so there’s merit in trying to figure out what that was.

How Smart Was Einstein? (Did He Really Fail Elementary Mathematics?)

One of the most common stories about Einstein is that he failed grade school math. I think this is one of those ideas that sounds so good it has to get repeated, regardless of whether it is true or not.

Unfortunately, it’s not true. Einstein was a strong math student from a very young age. He himself admits:

“I never failed in mathematics. Before I was fifteen I had mastered differential and integral calculus.”

While the story about Einstein being an early dullard is certainly false, it’s not the case that he was universally regarded as a genius, either.

Einstein’s grades (highest grade=6)

In college, Einstein often struggled in math, getting 5s and 6s (out of a possible 6) in physics, but getting only 4s in most of his math courses (barely a passing grade). His mathematics professor, and future collaborator, Hermann Minkowski called him a “lazy dog” and physics professor, Jean Pernet, even flunked Einstein with a score of 1 in an experimental physics course.

At the end of college, Einstein had the dubious distinction of graduating as the second-to-worst student in the class.

The difficulty Einstein had was undoubtedly due in part to his non-conformist streak and rebellious attitude, which didn’t sit well in an academic environment. This would follow him in his future academic career, when he was struggling to find teaching jobs at universities, even after he had already done the work which would later win him the Nobel prize.

Einstein’s discoveries in physics were truly revolutionary, which certainly earns him the title of “genius” by any reasonable standard. However, the early picture of Einstein is more complicated than that. All of this indicates to me, at least, that it can often be very easy to judge the genius of someone after the fact, but perhaps harder to predict in advance.

How Did Einstein Learn Math and Physics?

Given Einstein’s enormous contributions to physics, I think it’s now worthwhile to ask how he learned it.

Throughout the biography, I took notes whenever his methods of learning and discovery were mentioned. Then, I tried to synthesize these observations into several methods or behaviors that appeared to have enabled both Einstein’s revolutionary discoveries and his deep understanding of the subject matter.

1. Learning comes from solving hard problems, not attending classes

One thing that becomes apparent when looking at Einstein’s early schooling was both his distaste for rote memorization and attending classes. The physics professor that flunked him, did so, in no small part, because Einstein often skipped class. As he claims, “I played hooky a lot and studied the masters of theoretical physics with a holy zeal at home.”

Einstein as a boy

This habit of skipping classes to focus on solving hard problems in his spare time was one cultivated by his uncle, Jakob Einstein, who first introduced him to algebra. By the time he was 12, Einstein already had a, “predilection for solving complicated problems in arithmetic,” and his parents bought him an advanced mathematical textbook he could study from during the summer.

Einstein learned physics, not by dutifully attending classes, but by obsessively playing with the ideas and equations on his own. Doing, not listening, was the starting point for how he learned physics.

2. You really know something when you can prove it yourself

How do you know when you really understand something? Einstein’s method was to try prove the proposition himself! This began at an early age, when Uncle Jakob, challenged him to prove Pythagoras’s Theorem:

“After much effort, I succeeded in ‘proving’ this theorem on the basis of the similarity of triangles,” Einstein recalled.

Isaacson explains that Einstein, “tackled new theories by trying to prove them on his own.” This approach to learning physics, which came naturally to Einstein, was driven by a strong curiosity both to know how things actually work, and a belief that, “nature could be understood as a relatively simple mathematical structure.”

What’s important to note here is not only the method of proving propositions to learn physics, but also the drive to do so. It’s clear that Einstein’s curiosity wasn’t merely to perform adequately, but to develop a deep understanding and intuition about physical concepts.

3. Intuition matters more than equations

Einstein was a better intuitive physicist than he was a mathematician. In fact, it was only when he struggled for years in developing general relativity, that he became more enamored with mathematical formalisms as a way of doing physics.

An early influence which encouraged this intuitive approach to physics was a series of science books by Aaron Bernstein. These books presented imaginative pictures to understand physical phenomenon, such as, “an imaginary trip through space,” to understand an electrical signal and even discussing the constancy of the speed of light, a matter which would later underpin Einstein’s discovery of special relativity.

Swiss education reformer Pestalozzi emphasized learning through images, not by rote.

Einstein’s later education in Aarau, Switzerland, was heavily influenced by the philosophy of Swiss educational reformer, Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi. Pestalozzi claimed, “Visual understanding is the essential and only true means of teaching how to judge things correctly,” adding, “the learning of numbers and language must definitely be subordinated.”

Were these early influences causal factors in Einstein’s later preferred style of visualization to solve physics problems, or were they merely a welcome encouragement for a mind that was already predisposed to reasoning in this way? It’s hard to tell. Whatever the case, I think it can be argued that developing intuitions of ideas, particularly visual intuitions, has an invaluable role in physics.

How does one develop those intuitions? Einstein’s own thoughts were that “intuition is nothing but the outcome of earlier intellectual experience.” Einstein’s hard work building understanding through proofs and solving problems undoubtedly supported his ability to visualize as much as it benefited from it.

4. Thinking requires a quiet space and deep focus

Einstein in his home office

Einstein was a master of deep work. He had an incredible ability to focus, his son reporting:

“Even the loudest baby-crying didn’t seem to disturb Father,” adding, “He could go on with his work completely impervious to noise.”

Although overlooked for academic positions, it was his intellectually unstimulating job at the Bern patent office, which gave him time and privacy to unravel the mysteries of relativity. Einstein remarks:

“I was able to do a full day’s work in only two or three hours. The remaining part of the day, I would work out my own ideas.”

The obsessive focus Einstein applied to solving problems as a young boy, eventually served him well in cracking general relativity, culminating in an “exhausting four-week frenzy.” This intensity sometimes impacted his health, with him developing stomach problems in his strain to unravel the difficult mathematics of tensor field equations.

Einstein’s ability to focus, combined with a reverence for solitude, allowed him to do some of his best work in physics. Even as he aged, he still spent many hours on his boat, idly pushing the rudder seemingly lost in thought, interrupted by bursts of scribbling equations in his notebook.

5. Understand ideas through thought experiments

Einstein’s most famous method for learning and discovering physics has to be the thought experiment.

Books such as this were Einstein’s first introduction to the power of thought experiments

One of his most famous was imagining riding on a beam of light. What would happen to the light beam as he rode alongside it at the same speed? Well, it would have to freeze. This, to Einstein, seemed impossible by his faith in Maxwell’s electromagnetic equations. But if the light doesn’t freeze, what must happen?

These thought experiments were built on his intuitive understanding of physics, which in turn was built on his experience with working through theories and problems. Their strength, however, was to draw attention to contradictions or confusions that may have been missed by a less intuitive physicist.

His ability to engage in thought experiments even served him when he ended up being wrong about the underlying physics. It was exactly this type of thought experiment that he suggested to refute the current understanding of quantum physics in what is now known as the ERP paper, which showed that quantum mechanics could create changes in a system instantaneously, violating the speed of light. In this case, however, Einstein’s intuition was wrong—quantum mechanical systems do behave in such bizarre ways—which is now known as quantum entanglement.

6. Overturn common sense… with more common sense

Special and general relativity stand out as being some of the most mind-bending scientific discoveries of all time. With special relativity, Einstein discovered that there is no absolute time—that two people moving at different speeds can disagree about the passage of time—with neither being right or wrong. With general relativity, Einstein went further, showing that gravity bends space and time.

Einstein at age 42, the year he won the Nobel prize

It would be reasonable to assume, therefore, that to overturn such commonsense principles would require some departure from common sense. However, Einstein’s genius was to reconcile two commonsense principles—relativity and the constancy of the speed of light—by discarding a third (the idea of absolute measurements of space and time).

Einstein’s talent, it would seem, lay in his ability to defend what he thought were the most reasonable ideas, even if that meant discarding ones which had a longer tradition of being thought to be correct.

This skill of overturning commonsense with other intuitions may have also eventually been behind his inability to accept quantum mechanics, a very successful theory of physics that he himself helped create. His intuitions about strict determinism, led him to champion an unsuccessful and quixotic quest to overturn the theory for much of his life.

This practice also suggests a method for learning the many, counter-intuitive principles of math and physics—start by building off of a different commonsense premise.

7. Insights come from friendly walks

While solitude and focus were essential components of how Einstein learned and did physics, it was often conversations with other people that provided his breakthroughs.

Albert Einstein with Michele Besso

The most famous example of this was a walk with longtime friend Michele Besso. During his struggles with special relativity, he walked with his friend trying to explain his theory. Frustrated, he declared that, “he was going to give up,” working on the theory. Suddenly, however, the correct insight came to him and the next day he told Besso that he had, “completely solved the problem.”

Discussing ideas aloud, sharing them with others, can often put together insights that were previously unconnected. Einstein made great use of this technique of discussing tricky problems with friends and colleagues, even if they were merely a sounding board rather than an active participant in the discussion.

8. Be rebellious

Einstein was never much of a conformist. While his rebellious streak probably hurt his earlier academic career when he was struggling to find work in physics, it is also probably what enabled his greatest discoveries and accentuated his later celebrity.

This rebelliousness likely helped him in learning physics as he pushed against the traditions and orthodoxy he didn’t agree with. He hated the German educational system, finding in Isaacson’s words, “the style of teaching—rote drills, impatience with questioning—to be repugnant.” This rejection of the common educational method encouraged him to learn physics on his own through textbooks and practice.

Later, the same rebelliousness would be essential in revolutionizing physics. His research on the quantization of light, for instance, had been first discovered by Max Planck. However, unlike the older Planck, Einstein saw the quantization as being a physical reality—photons—rather than a mathematical contrivance. He was less attached to the predominant theory of the time that light was a wave in the ether.

Where many students would have been happy to conform to predominant educational and theoretical orthodoxies, Einstein wasn’t satisfied unless something made sense to him personally.

9. All knowledge starts with curiosity

“Curiosity has its own reason for existing,” Einstein explains. “One cannot help but be in awe when one contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality.”

Einstein, curious until the end

This curiosity is probably Einstein’s most defining quality, after his intelligence. His love of physics started as a boy when he was given a compass and fascinated by the idea that the needle moved because of an unseen force.

Curiosity was his motivation for learning physics. Einstein, who could be quite lazy and obstinate when a matter didn’t interest him, nonetheless had an intense passion for understanding the things, “the ordinary adult never bothers his head about.” Curiosity was also, in his own mind, the greatest reason for his accomplishments.

Einstein believed that, “love is a better teacher than a sense of duty.” Love of learning and knowledge is, perhaps, a more important skill to cultivate than discipline.

Learning as Einstein Did

Einstein’s approach towards learning cannot be entirely separated from who he was. Was his obsessive focus a result of his intelligence or his curiosity? Did his ability to easily visualize thought experiments come from encouragement in an unusual Swiss education system, extensive practice or natural ability? Was his revolution in physics a product of genius, rebelliousness, luck or maybe all three? I’m not sure there are clear answers to any of those questions.

What is clear, however, was Einstein’s reverence for nature and the humbled attitude to which he approached investigating it. As he wrote:

“A spirit is manifest in the laws of the universe—a spirit vastly superior to that of man, and one in the face of which we with our modest powers must feel humble.”

And, so even if Einstein’s genius may lay outside the reach of most of us, his curiosity, humility and tenacity are still worth emulating.

How Einstein Learned Physics syndicated from http://ift.tt/2kl7pJj