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rigelmejo · 1 month ago

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Thoughts after 9 years of learning Japanese

As you all know, this is going to include rambling. This is not a record of all the things I've done, and the recommendations contained are what I wish my past self would have done - they do not necessarily apply to you. Everyone is going to have their own path that works best, their own mistakes, and what helps me may not apply to everyone.

First mistake I made:

Severely underestimating how much time it would take to learn to do stuff in Japanese. FSI estimates put Japanese as taking 3520 hours (88 weeks at 40 hours a week) for English speakers to learn to around an upper intermediate/B2 level. I did not know that when I started studying Japanese. I didn't even think about looking up an estimate of how many hours I'd need to study to reach my goals, until 4 years into learning.

So I spent 3 years studying 15 minutes a day on average. And then wondered why I was still a beginner. So after 3 years, I'd studied around ~273.75 hours. No wonder I was still a beginner!

I was studying Japanese, while also studying French (for 30 minutes to 2 hours a day some months, average was probably .5 hours a day), and while also studying Russian one of those years (for 1-4 hours per day the year I focused on it - I needed to understand daily conversations ASAP). So Japanese was getting neglected, I had no time to spare for it. Even though out of all the languages I was studying, it probably required the MOST hours to hit progress milestones. With French, progress went 'slow' because I was only studying .5 hours a day, but in 2 years I'd studied 365 hours and had decent reading skills (A2-B1, not sure but wikipedia and news became readable), and I could just keep reading in regular life to maintain and improve my French from there. Russian I stopped studying once I no longer needed it in my daily life.

Finally, after 3 years, of just trying to study the same 300 kanji... I decided to change my study plan. As part of that, I also increased my study time per day for a while, so my study hours started going UP. That probably would have helped no matter what else I did. I just needed a LOT more study hours dedicated to Japanese. No matter what else I did.

If I could go back, I would tell past me that whatever I planned to do to study Japanese, to do it 1+ hour daily. Ideally, as many hours as I could be motivated to do it. 15 minutes was way too little study time per day to see big milestones of progress like hitting A2, B1, B2 skill competence etc. (Or the JLPT equivalents N5, N4, N3, N2, N1).

Second mistake I made:

Being a PERFECTIONIST. Being a perfectionist is not very compatible with learning a language - when learning a language includes imperfect understanding of materials for native speakers for YEARS, and making mistakes in the language for YEARS as you learn how to express yourself better. We made mistakes in our native languages for at least 10 years! For many of us, we made mistakes for 20+ years and still need grammar help sometimes when writing essays or other things. Learning a language is signing up to do it all again, with another language, which we will never be perfect at either. Learning a language is not compatible with perfectionism.

In a way, once I learned being a perfectionist about my study was holding me back, it made: language study way more fun and rewarding, and also helped me practice NOT being a perfectionist. Which was really healthy for me, and freeing, and such a positive in my life that I kept the hobby of studying languages. Because it was SO good for my mental health to embrace making mistakes, and embrace imperfection as the path to improving at the things I wanted to do.

Why was I a perfectionist those first 3 years?

I had taken a Japanese 1 class the first few months of learning Japanese seriously - an excellent class. We did 6 chapters of Genki 1. A class was good for me, in that it FORCED ME TO MOVE FORWARD. I had to move onto the next chapter's grammar and words, I had to practice speaking and writing, I had to accept some level of 'imperfect understanding' to keep up with the fast pace of the class - since I only had so much time in the day to study. If you, like me, tend to be perfectionist? I highly recommend taking classes if possible, that progressively teach more, so you are forced to progress through the material and forced to challenge yourself regularly. So if there's a Japanese series of courses available to you? Then taking the classes as they teach from N5 gradually to N2-1 material, will push you to simply make forward progress.

An added benefit of classes: even if you barely study because of your own motivation, the class will FORCE you to study Japanese at least ~7 hours a week. So with semesters of ~15 weeks, that's 105 hours a semester, and at 2 semesters a year that is 840 hours after 4 years of college classes. More, if you took summer classes or did any independent study OUTSIDE of class, which may put you over 1000 hours after 4 years. Which is going to put you a lot closer to the goals you have, compared to the measly few hundred hours I had after 3 years.

Basically, if you have perfectionist tendencies OR you don't tend to make time for study much, classes will MAKE you overcome those tendencies to a degree.

After 1 semester, I didn't take any more classes. Realistically, I probably could have finished Genki 1 in another few months, then started Genki 2 and finished it in a year, then started Tobira and finished that in another 1-2 years, and reached an N3 level in Japanese in 3-4 years. I did not do that. I spent the next 2.5 years going over Genki 1 over and over, and going over the 300 basic kanji in a book I found, over and over. My perfectionism insisting I perfectly memorized ALL words, ALL grammar, and could use it WELL before moving on. So I held myself back.

So if I could go back and talk to my past self, I'd tell them to pace my study similar to a class. To ignore the urge to fully memorize and be perfect, and push myself through a textbook chapter every 1-2 weeks like my Japanese class had been paced.

If I had just done that, I could have been N4 level in a year (~A2 level, upper beginner). From there, I could have been N3 in another year (B1, lower intermediate), and from there I could have started enjoying media made for Japanese native speakers after 2 years! But that's not what happened lol.

So finally, after 3 years of basically barely studying (15 minutes a day) and re-studying the same absolute beginner materials (Genki 1 and 300 kanji) I decided something needed to change. I had to do something, I wanted to read manga and play video games in Japanese.

Third mistake I made:

Not realizing the importance of specific goals. I went on to waste another year, so year 3-4, studying things that were not directly useful to me.

By specific goals I mean: knowing specifically what you WANT TO DO in the language, and making a study plan to specifically WORK TOWARD THAT GOAL.

An example would be: I want to read Ranma 1/2 manga in Japanese. Specific study plan for that goal: opening up Ranma 1/2 manga and looking up every unknown word and grammar point. OR, for a more general study plan, learning 2000 common words that are bound to come up in most materials, reading a grammar guide summary like Tae Kim's Grammar Guide, and then trying to read Ranma 1/2 manga and look up key unknown words.

So year 3, I looked up what other people were doing to learn Japanese on their own. I learned a lot of people used Heisig's Remember the Kanji book to learn kanji, to make kanji understandable before they started learning Japanese more. I learned a lot of people made mnemonics stories and posted them online - which was good, because I got RTK and struggled to come up with my own mnemonic stories - so I looked up mnemonic stories other people made and read them. I learned a lot of people used anki, so I started using anki. My brain is NOT compatible with anki, long term. I learned that lol. For short periods of a few weeks, I'd manage to study 200-500 hanzi, then I'd forget about the app for a few weeks or months, then come back and have to RESTART since I had to review every anki card again. And again, my perfectionism was holding me back and insisting I 'keep studying' the hanzi in RTK until I perfectly remembered them. And thus, I wasted another year.

Year 4, I could recognize maybe ~500 kanji by meaning, but did not know any actual words. Such as words written with kanji combinations, and what the kanji were actually pronounced like in different words. So I still felt like I knew nothing useful.

Finally, I reflected on how on earth I'd learned to read in French before. I remembered 'oh yeah, I looked up specifically 'how to learn to read in a language' and then followed the advice I found. So basically, with French I had MADE A SPECIFIC STUDY PLAN FOR A SPECIFIC GOAL.

I decided to do the same for Japanese, and this was the first time I made major progress. I looked up 'how to learn to read Japanese' (a goal I will keep setting, in Chinese later, as learning to read is super important to me apparently). I found a few articles of people sharing what they did, and then I stumbled upon Nukemarine's Let's Learn Japanese (LLJ) Memrise user-made course (it used to be called Standard Guide to Japanese Literacy SGJL). The course was perfect. It was free, it included kanji with mnemonics stories, AND words, AND words in sentence examples, AND grammar points, and audio for everything. It was made to build up someone's ability to read in Japanese, and included 6000 common words and all grammar in Tae Kim's Grammar Guide. It was perfect for a perfectionist like me - I could just work through it and know I was working toward my goal, who could not focus with a bunch of resources - it was one single resource with everything I needed in one place in a specific order I could follow. I had a specific study plan, FINALLY, to learn to read Japanese - to learn to DO something in Japanese. Something specific I wanted to do, that would motivate me to study a lot (which I needed), and all I had to do was follow the courses in order.

(And reflecting now, I probably also would have done well to just stick to Textbooks... as well made ones also would've provided the things I needed, in one place. A big mistake I made was not realizing Genki 1 was only Beginner 1 and would not even take me to Upper Beginner 2/Lower Intermediate. Most language textbooks, especially mass produced ones like Teach Yourself and Assimil, usually get a student to A2/Lower Intermediate. So I had assumed Genki 1 was the same... in reality Genki textbooks are WAY slower paced than other language textbooks, providing ~1700 words after Genki volume 1 AND volume 2 textbooks, whereas many other beginner textbooks tend to provide ~2000 words in 1 volume. If I had known earlier Genki 1 had so little information to learn, I would've gone through it faster).

So anyway. I find Nukemarine's LLJ Memrise courses in year 4, and cram study them. I get hyperfocused, and get through 4 of the course sections in 6 months. I learn at this point in my life, that for me, if I prioritize NEW items and simply skip reviews unless I have spare time for them, the knowledge on the items still sticks fairly well. And my perfectionism rears its ugly head when I start doing reviews, and getting obsessed with doing reviews over new-items, and then get stuck in a cycle of trying to continue reviewing until I'm perfect. So I started prioritizing learning/studying NEW items, and only doing Reviews if I had spare time. It made a huge difference for me, and I'd continue following this pattern in future study.

In 6 months, I'd gone through 4 course sections, and I was feeling motivated! I'd studied 1000 kanji, 2000 words, and a lot of grammar! I started wanting to TRY my goals. So I started picking up manga, and trying to read them, and looking up any key unknown words that I needed to understand to follow the main idea. This was similar to what I'd done way back when learning to read French. It worked!

It was going great! I read Yotsubato volume 1, Ranma 1/2 volume 1, Neon Genesis Evangelion volume 1, School Rumble vol 1, and a couple other easy manga I owned. So the next 6 months of year 4 I was enjoying actually DOING my goals. I was reading manga, looking key unknown words up. I tried playing Kingdom Hearts 2 and Persona 3 a few times in Japanese that year, and over time the games became easier to play. At first, it was exhausting, too hard, and then eventually I seemed to have 'permanently remembered' a lot of common words and the games were still 'exhausting' to focus on for more than a few hours but I could understand enough to play and look up key unknown words and follow the main idea. I have really fond memories of playing the opening of Kingdom Hearts 2 in Japanese, and understanding enough to compare it to the English localization, and noticing they used 'kimi' as 'you' instead of 'anata.'

What I learned from that whole of year 4 was: if I had just set that specific goal (to read), and made a study plan to specifically do it, then I could've been doing those things at the end of year 1!

Lessons learned and applied to Chinese:

By year 5, I could play some games I wanted to in Japanese and look up key unknown words, and I was satisfied. I felt that if I wanted to improve my Japanese some more, I could just read/play a lot of Japanese and look up words, for a period of time.

I watched Guardian chinese drama. I fell in love with it. I found out it was based on the novel Zhenhun by priest. At the time, the novel was not fully translated.

I decided I wanted to learn Chinese. I managed to avoid so many of the mistakes I'd made before with Japanese. I had a clear goal: read Zhenhun ASAP. I had a clear study plan: do what worked in French and Japanese, to learn to read ASAP. I had a much better idea of what I needed: structured study materials to work through, focused on common words and grammar points ASAP, prioritizing learning new things over reviews, and getting to PRACTICING reading as soon as possible. As once I started reading, that would motivate me and allow me to keep learning, mainly by just continuing to read. Just like it had with French, and eventually with Japanese.

I also dedicated 1-2 hours daily to Chinese, since I wanted to make fast progress. This was more time than I ever spent on French daily, and I was aware by that point that a language like Chinese was going to take me more hours to reach each progress milestone than a language like French. Because I was studying Chinese 4 times more time than French daily, I actually reached progress milestones in Chinese in around the same amount of months it had taken for French.

So by 3 months I could read Graded Readers in Chinese, by 6 months I could read higher unique character count Graded Readers in Chinese (1000-3000 unique hanzi), and by 6 months to a year I was reading webnovels and looking up key unknown words in Pleco. The whole year 1 of studying Chinese, I kept trying to read Zhenhun every once in a while, to remind myself of my goal and to see my incremental improvement. Also in year 1 I found Silent Reading/Modu and fell in love, it was also not fully translated. I spent a lot of time reading Modu in mtlnovel.com, the first time I read Traditional Characters, and tried to compare them to the English MTL and tried to understand the chapters. Since the only option was MTL, and I knew there were errors in the MTL, so I looked up key words in Chinese and compared to the MTL to try and understand what the chapters actually said. I think I read 20 chapters in mtlnovel.com in Chinese of Modu that year. Then eventually E Danglars made their lovely English translation of Modu, and I was so happy, and read that instead.

Year 2 of learning Chinese, I really focused on learning to Extensively Read - be able to read without looking up words, and guess unknown words from context. Year 2 I read Xiao Wang Zi in a paper book, which was challenging and took 2 weeks but I did it. I found Heavenly Path Notion Site and their recommendations, and read their recommendations for Beginners both intensively (to look up lots of words and learn them ASAP) and extensively (to build reading stamina and speed). I read a lot of webnovels, and fanfictions, and some manhua that year. I watched some cdramas only in Chinese, no English subs. It was going great, I was spending 1-2 hours on Chinese still.

Year 3 of learning Chinese, I took a break. My goal had been to read, and I could now do that if I intensively read by looking up key unknown words for anything I wanted to read. I could also extensively read some things, and I knew from experience now that as I kept extensively reading things, over time what I could extensively read would increase. So I had no pressing reason to improve my Chinese, to study regularly, and I stopped.

I got back into learning Japanese! So now we are in year 7 since I started learning Japanese. I took 2 years off, while I'd been entirely focused on Chinese.

I went back to reading Japanese, and found that thanks to Chinese hanzi-near-cognates in meaning, I could read WAY MORE without looking things up than I used to be able to. I could watch Japanese lets plays if I turned the Japanese captions on, I could read most manga I owned and understand the main idea without looking up any words, I could play my Japanese video games and read the text 'roughly' with the help of the hanzi-near-cognates. I could watch some Japanese shows, if I had the Japanese subs on, and follow the main idea without looking up any words.

Apparently what it took for me to learn kanji, was to learn Chinese hanzi instead - which had been a much easier quicker process for me lol. It took months to learn 1000 hanzi in Chinese, whereas Japanese it had taken me 4 years to learn 1000 kanji! I think the phonetic component of hanzi made them much easier for me, and they clicked easier in my brain, and I still struggle with remembering kanji pronunciations...

So anyway. That floored me. Suddenly realizing, even if I bought a Japanese eBook, I could kind of read it for the main idea! Even if I looked up no words. I had learned more grammar over the years in Japanese than expected, since the hiragana parts of grammar were somewhat understandable too.

Year 7 of Japanese: I really focused on LISTENING to Japanese. Because my weak spot was that I did NOT know many hiragana only words, and I did not know the pronunciation of many kanji words, and I was kind of 'coasting' and able to read what I wanted with my Chinese hanzi knowledge.

I found japaneseaudiolessons.com, and it really helped my ability to parse spoken Japanese faster. My perfectionist tendencies kicked in though, and I ended up reviewing more than moving forward to the next lesson.

I found Japanese Glossika, the old CD courses at a library, and tried to use them too - again, perfectionism kicked in and I did more reviewing than learning new things.

I learned about the 'relistening study method' recommended by a youtuber: relisten to something 5-20 times, and it will improve your listening skills. So I tried out what they said. I had found 'condensed audio' files of some japanese anime I'd seen and games I'd played, so I relistened to them several times. It helped my listening skills for sure.

I also applied the 'relistening' strategy to Chinese, to Zhenhun audiobook and Guardian show condensed audio files, it also worked great.

I realized I had a major weak spot in Listening Skills, and wanted to improve it in all languages.

I think at some point I also took a break to study Spanish, and specifically to study French pronunciation in comparison to Spanish, because I kept confusing Spanish and French reading materials. So I did that for some summer, and really differentiated the sounds of Spanish and French in my mind. Incidentally, since I was trying out a lot of Spanish learning materials for fun - I enjoy checking out learning materials and trying them out - I ended up able to read Spanish non-fiction books by the end of that period. Yes, reading motivates me intensely. I'd found a Linguistics textbook in Spanish at a yard sale and wanted to read it, so I learned enough Spanish to understand it in a year. I had also found The Nature Method textbooks like Le Francais Par Le Methode Nature, and Poco a Poco, and was trying them out.

Year 7 I also learned about the Listening Reading Method of studying, which fascinated me, and I tested it out with Chinese, French, and Japanese. I mostly did it with Chinese, as I most wanted to improve my listening skills in Chinese. And since it also helped with reading skills, it pushed my Chinese reading skills up a bit more. But the Listening Reading Method was really intensive, so I only ended up doing it for around 30 hours (instead of the ~300+ hours per book it recommends). I picked up some of the parts I liked of the LR Method and still do them now - specifically listening to audio AS I read when possible, and relistening to audiobook chapters several times when I have time. But the full LR Method was too much work for me, took too much focus, and it wasn't compatible with the way I like to do things.

I figured I might try Listening Reading Method out again later with Japanese, if and when I felt like it. Or at least the parts of it I ended up continuing to do - like reading along with audio, and relistening to audio many times.

Year 8 of Japanese: Still working on listening skills, this was 2024, as you know I worked through all of the NEW Japanese Glossika app course. It was a disappointment. I don't think it actually taught more than 3000 words, even though it's labelled as having 5,000+ words - I think many of the 'words' are just different forms of the same verb counted as multiple words. I spent 128 hours on it, so more study time than I'd spent on Japanese in years, but as many hours as there are days in the year.

In Year 8 of Japanese, I'd been studying Chinese for 4 years, and aside from reading webnovels once in a while, I wasn't doing much with Chinese.

Year 9 of Japanese: I have learned a lot about what study activities work for me and which ones don't. I clearly know my weak spots I need to learn: I need to learn KANJI WORD PRONUNCIATIONS and spoken Japanese better, so that I can read the actual Japanese words instead of leaning on hanzi-knowledge, and so I can understand Japanese when I hear it.

My study plans for the future for Japanese (so this year 9 and onward):

Work on listening skills. I will be doing this with Comprehensible Input Lessons (like cijapanese.com), Learner Podcasts (like Nihongo Con Tepper and Japanese with Shun), listening to condensed audio of shows/games, keep watching Japanese lets plays, and just continuing to Play Video Games in Japanese and Watch Japanese shows with only Japanese Subs. I think I know around N3 amounts of vocabulary now, and more if you count words I could quickly pick up after seeing the Chinese hanzi in a subtitle of a show or reading-while-listening. Goals: I would like to understand spoken Japanese better so that I can enjoy jdramas that haven't been subbed, Japanese audio dramas, and Japanese audiobooks.

Work on reading skills, later: Continue reading Tadoku graded readers (free), the graded readers on this free site jgrpg-sakura.com, the japanese reading materials on my.wasabi-jpn.com. I will eventually pay for and use Satori Reader app some time I am hyperfocusing on reading, and read as much as I can on that app, then start practicing reading more with novels+TTS (like the Japanese ebooks I have on Kindle), and reading my paper Japanese novels.

I am not even N4 if I take a mock grammar test, so I'm sure my production skills are nonexistent and very poor. But I do know a decent amount of words which I think is around N3 level, I understand a lot more than I did years ago, and I can do a lot in Japanese that I want to do (especially if I look up key unknown words). To be fair, I think I've still barely studied Japanese ~1000 hours over the years, so just studying/doing MORE hours of Japanese will result in progress. From here on I am satisfied with my future study plans. If the Chinese Listening Experiment continues going as well as it's been going, I may apply things I learn from that study plan, to my study plans for Japanese.

Summary:

My mistakes were not realizing how many hours to reach progress milestones in Japanese was going to take, being a perfectionist and prioritizing reviews over learning new material frequently, and not setting specific goals and making specific study plans for those goals until years had passed.

If you're anything like me I suggest: plan to study regularly for a decent amount of time to work toward ~3520 hours in an amount of years you'd like to reach N2 or N1 by (or whatever your goal level of understanding is), if you have perfectionist tendencies then formal CLASSES may be helpful to push you forward or being self-aware you tend to not focus on new stuff enough and purposely force yourself to regularly frequently move onto studying NEW STUFF, and set specific goals of things you want to do IN the language and make a specific study plan to work towards those goals.

#japanese #study plan #rant #japanese study plan #japanese journey #im not sure how to tag this #i wrote it because i appreciated an article someone else wrote of spending 4 years only to reach N2 and keep failing N1 #this was fun to write #you can see how i just take months off of study when im not focusing on study lol #you can also see that once i learn reading skills they tend to be PERMANENT and not degrade much #so once i could read in French and Chinese I'd take more time off between focusing on them and not #reading is an achievable goal within 1-2 years if you're willing to look unknown words up. even in Japanese or Chinese #as long as you study 1+ hour a day AND make a study plan that will work you toward reading ability

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wholoveseggs · 1 year ago

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Hi Lissa! Was wondering if you’d share some of your writing process. I personally can’t choose if I should write on my phone or computer atm lol. But I’d love to get some tips on how you write such great stuff

Ahh jeez, firstly my writing process is chaotic ~lol. I usually start on my phone, mostly for convenience. Then, I edit it and post it on desktop. I just use Google docs when I'm writing

My first step is to write out whatever ideas I have, then I flesh them out into something a little more readable. And then I keep writing until the thing is finished or I get stuck.

If I get stuck, I just let it sit for a while and work on other projects. Then I go back, read it over, copy and paste the things I like and trash the rest. Then go from there. Often repeating the process until I'm happy with it.

Know your weaknesses! I love to ramble, so I cut out a lot of things to make it all flow better. Sometimes you just have to save ideas for other fics just because it doesn't feel right for your current project.

The first thing I've ever written was Bloodbath, (I'm very proud of that title, it still makes me laugh) I was really in the trenches with that one, re-writing paragraphs over and over. Pulling up thesaurus.com like I'm doing my dissertation.

I've learned to relax and just let my thoughts flow instead of getting bogged down with trying to find the perfect word or describe every little emotion with precise detail. Sometimes less is more and you can't put everything you want into one fic.

I'm also terrrriiibbbllleeee at endings, I tend to write just different versions of 'and then they lived happily ever after' and just leave it at that. Like... I'm mostly just writing smut, it doesn't need to be life changing.

Lastly, know what you want to get out of your story and then try to think how you'd best achieve that. Personally, I always have two main objectives in mind: stay true to the characters and have it sound as natural and realistic as possible.

The most important thing is that it has to feel fun and exciting for you to write. Because if it's not fun for you, it won't be fun for the readers either.

Anyways, I'm rambling again, hope that helps you! If you or anyone reading this wants to bounce ideas off me, my DM's are open! My Elijah fixation is eternal~

~Lissa ♡

Ps: this may seem obvious, but always title your work! Especially if you are writing multiple versions. Don't be like me and have 18 untitled documents...it will haunt you…

#lissa responds #writing advice #thanks for asking Dex!

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johnslittlespoon · 1 year ago

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It just makes so much sense that you were writing in 2013, you have the unhinged vibe that the golden fics from that era had.

I'm just here to compliment you really lol, mostly because I am giving a try to write a lil something for the first time and god I can only dream of ever being able to write as good as you. I've been writing poems and music for years now but i find writing actual coherent storys with characters and dialogue so so hard.

I was wondering if you have any tips, or like little rules you follow when you write.

all the love, xxx

🌷

I'M GONNA CRYYYY this was the sweetest thing in the world to wake up to wtf wtf <333 thank you SO much, i really appreciate this wahh my heart :'))) but also you are SILLY. don't compare yourself to others!! if we all did that constantly we'd never get anything written!! there are SO many authors i adore on here that will always have me chasing the "i wish i could write like that" feeling and it's a great motivator but alsooo at the end of the day. you gotta fall in love with your own words and characters and stories <33

and i feel that so much!! we are twinsss, i also started out writing poems and music and then realized i had stories i wanted to tell that wouldn't fit in shorter form, then discovered fanfic in middle school in the early '10s and it was all downhill from there LOL. truly such a golden era tho oh my god. growing up reading the hat fic and borderline illegible wattpad stories was certainly... formative!

yapping ahead vv (i don't have much advice bc i'm still just learning as i go but hopefully some stuff i picked up on can be a bit helpful!)

i have zero method to the madness when writing so it's a relief to know it doesn't come off that way LOL but i do have a few little things that i follow and i always look for them when beta–ing as well! they're pretty small technical things and they're generally up to personal preference, but some of them come from authors i admire and i think they can really take anyone's writing up a notch <3

i don't feel qualified to give advice because i'm just raw–dogging everything lmao i've never taken classes or anything, so take all this yapping with a grain of salt bc it's just what's worked for me!

– i try to use descriptors like "the man" or "the blond" or "his friend" etc sparingly. i wish i could remember the source, but i read a great piece about why it's better to just go with the character's name 99% of the time, and then i went through so many of my works to edit them and i felt so much more confident in my writing afterwards– it made a big difference in readability (imo).

ofc there are exceptions, like if the name of a character is unknown, or if there are too many names being thrown around in one sentence and a "the man" or "the soldier" etc just sits nicer. i definitely still use them occasionally! but it does sometimes put some distance between the reader and the story when those descriptors are used too often instead of names, so it's a good thing to keep an eye out for when it comes to flow. sometimes less or more or whateva ??

– sorta on the topic of less is more, i love challenging myself to show vs tell when i can! whether it's by keeping dialogue short and letting actions speak instead (can add to intimacy/realism– we communicate so much through body language yk), through metaphors (literally how my whole '#john egan is dog coded' fic was born LOL), or describing feelings rather than spelling them out (his heart ached vs he was sad, his pulse raced vs he was scared, you get the gist). you said you've been writing poems so i feel like stuff like that would already probably come easily to you tho! <3

– this guide on ao3 is great for smut writers! whether someone's a beginner or just looking for ways to elevate the filth, i found it really helpful, it's a fun read as well lol. it calls out stereotypes/cliches and teaches you how to reword them, gives lists of slang and reactionary words, do's and don't's, etc. i don't follow everything in it but that's the beauty of writing; we all have things that work for us and things that don't and that's so okay. :-)

– in the same way that artists use references to practice and find their style, you can do that with writing too! i know a lot of writers have a doc or note where they jot down stylistic things they find while reading that they'd like to emanate, or words they want to use, specific phrases, descriptors, etc. if i'm reading a fic and find an auditory descriptor i like, i might take note of it, stuff like that. sorta like a text document version of a pinterest board!

– thesaurus.com is my best friend truly. often going with the 'simplest' version of a word makes for smoothest reading so someone isn't taken out of the story being like wtf does that word mean lol but sometimes things can feel repetitive, or like there just needs to be a little bit more spice; i probs go back and forth btwn my doc and thesaurus a dozen times an hour tbh.

that's all i can think of rn and ik those are pretty basic so i'm sorry about that!! i really do just kinda write what evokes emotions in myself, and then i hit post and hope it translates over to whoever is reading too :') drawing from your own experiences if you can/really sitting with what the characters would be feeling in whatever scenario you're writing is probably the most powerful way to present what you see in your mind.

i have a hard time writing about emotions/things i haven't personally experienced, so i usually stray away from it out of fear of not getting across what i want to, but some people are great at winging it and putting themselves in unfamiliar shoes so!! it's again just personal preference really.

and alsooo be kind to yourself! i'm an anxious wreck every time i post any of my writing, i am very much not confident when posting new fics and i agonize over my docs so much and trash a lot of works, but i know at the end of the day i can't grow or learn if i don't get the words down, and i can't get feedback or gain confidence if i don't post. becoming your own hype man and giving yourself the opportunity to improve is essential <33

sooo much love and best of luck!!! lmk if you end up writing smth, i'd love to read it (◠‿◠✿)

#also tentatively offering beta services to mota/sb moots bc i love helping w fics <33 hmu #if i am not super busy i am SAT #this got so long WHOOPS so sorry anon #johnslittlespoon asks #johnslittlespoon yaps

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desceros · 1 year ago

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hi 👋🏼 you've probably seen me in your notes before (i check your blog, like... every day - both for updates and to see all of the wonderful fan art and stuff you reblog, like a lot of other people do, apparently). i've sent you asks on anon in the past 'cause i'm so very shy (with people in general, not just you), but lately, i've been thinking about finally being a Big Brave Boy and coming off anon, and now! i am! doing that!

i just wanted to say that i typically avoid Fem!Reader fics 'cause i am, uh, very much not a woman and it often will activate my dysphoria (no offense to people who like those terms but every time i hear "flower" or "petals" be used to describe a vagina, i die a little bit more inside). However. the way that you write the Reader character - especially in Symphony - is... how do i put this... i'm able to sort of distance myself in a way where i can still put myself in her shoes without feeling the ick i feel with most other Fem!Readers. i think you phrased it best when you described her as something along the lines of falling between an OC and the reader themselves

of course, sometimes i still do get that feeling - it's not completely inescapable, sadly - but 1. it's far more tolerable with your work and 2. i enjoy it too much to want to stop reading it

ALSO. you 🫵🏽 are to blame for turning me into a Leo Girlie™️ (gender neutral). Just a little. 🤏🏽 i'm too much of a Donnie kinnie/lover to not want to punch him 99% of the time. but you made me CONSIDER the fact that MAYBE he's hot and MAYBE i kind of want to fuck him. whatever

anyway, i said far more words than i meant to, but i know that you don't mind long asks, so i won't be apologizing for that. i love everything that you write (Euclidean Line and Electromigration are so. they're everything to me) and i'm both excited for and dreading the new Symphony update! take care of yourself, including that wrist! ♡ ～('▽^人)

rahh!!! pops a party popper welcome to the off-anon club!!! :D

there are people out there who write male readers if that's what you're looking for, but they're a lot less common for sure. it's unfortunate!

for me, i like writing female readers mostly because female eroticism to me is. hhhhh. well. i'm really into making girls come. hehe

that said! i'm glad that you find them more readable! i have a few gender-neutral fics around, which as an enby myself is something i just gotta do sometimes. girls are great, but you need a good they-slash-them on your resume. nods.

EXCELLENT on the leo girlie (gn) thing, mwahaha! truth be told, i would be leonardo hamato number one fan were it not for the fact that rise donnie was actually built in a vat specific to my taste. chin hands at both of them but a little bit harder at donnie oops

anywho, thanks for the sweet words!! always fun to talk to people C:

#ask tag

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sciderman · 2 years ago

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EXTENDS MY HANDS.... DO YOU HAVE ANY CABLE COMIC RECS........ deadpool can be there too i guess

hilarious... hilarious... with all the cable comics i've been reading lately you'd THINK i'd have recs but honestly i don't. i've been reading all the cable comics i can get my hands on but his comics are really boring or confusing and i'm so sorry. it's no wonder they're always in the bargain bin. i'm so so so so so so sorry nathan summers. i still buy the comics because you look stupid hunky in them. and i'm a simple girl with simple needs.

nathan: [time-travel dialogue that makes no fucking sense to me] me, twirling my hair and kicking my feet: hahaha noo cable don't expo-dump me you're so hooot hahahaha...

i think the x-force stuff and the new mutants stuff might be more interesting - i think maybe cable works better as leader of a team (his usual role) or paired up with a foil (aka deadpool) vs solo, he's just not interesting enough to carry anything on his own (sorry)

that being said, my rec list will probably have a significant deadpool bias, because deadpool happens to often be the spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down, as it were - i think the thing that makes nate work is when other characters Point Out how ridiculous he is. and wade wilson kind of built an entire career off of that.

i think when nate's played straight (ha) he's just not my bag - i think he needs to play off of characters that reveal just how silly he is. especially since stakes are often so high with nate - time-stream space-time-continuum sort of stuff - it asks a lot of you. so you need someone there to keep things kind of silly. i always prefer lower-stake stuff, personally - otherwise, the thing needs levity from somewhere.

his most recent series was cute (bable my beloved) - written by duggan (who is Not my favourite deadpool writer, and also wrote uncanny avengers - general consensus is that duggan doesn't really Get Cable, but his stuff is still very readable.) (deadpool is there, also.)

on the topic - uncanny avengers (2015) - i kind of don't like the way nate is written here - very stoic, unfeeling, very hyper-macho. but he looks really sexy (even with his receding hairline.)

speaking of this particular artist that draws nate so sexily - deadpool vs x-force. beeeeeeyoing. i think it might be one of my favourite books with nate in. for entirely shallow reasons.

daddy? sorry. daddy? sorry. d

i've read the cable (2008) series and it was - kind of an infuriating experience, admittedly. the writing is confusing, and the art is actually insanely infuriating to me. like i wanted to scream while reading this series. it's sensory overload. a lot of cable comics feel like that for me, actually. i found this entire book in the bargain bin for like, £2 and STILL didn't buy it because i hated reading it so much.

that being said:

daddy? s

god. his head is so tiny. whatthefuck.

i think my favourite cable stuff i've read is probably niceiza's stuff (again. fuck.) and i think it's for the same reason why i like his deadpool stuff the most too - everywhere else I see nate he's this rugged tough guy who's kind of intentionally one-dimensional and hardcore - but when i read niceiza's nate he's kind of stupid sometimes. he's stupid and his worldview is kind of perplexing and ridiculous, and we're kind of perpetually infuriated by him but kind of feel for him because we have a real sense that he's trying so hard. it's not just cool-guy i have a massive gun check out my massive gun i don't have time for emotions i have a time-stream to fix sort of stuff - nate gets a weird kind of vulnerability in niceiza's stuff, and he's constantly, literally de-powered. niceiza loves de-powering him. and i love to see a nathan summers de-powered. he's so sexy when he's pathetic. i love pathetic men. and niceiza just so happens to have a knack for writing the most pathetic men i've ever seen.

so cable & deadpool (2004) and deadpool & cable: split second, obviously. do i even need to say it.

i'd love it if anyone had any recs for what people feel is the definitive cable - like, cable fans, if you could point at a book and say "THIS IS IT. THIS IS NATHAN SUMMERS AS HE WAS INTENDED." i'd love to read it, i'd love to read it. i know there's definitely comics i can point to for deadpool when it comes to that - but i think everyone takes something different from these characters - and a character like nate, i've seen so so so many different interpretations of him in fanon that always get me curious.

#sci speaks #sci talks comics

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tsunflowers · 1 year ago

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I finally finished reading dhalgren. what an incredible book. there just isn't anything else like it. I really think dorohedoro might come closest but dhalgren is both more meandering and more incisive. there are parts that feel completely surreal but then there are parts that cut to the core of social unrest in America in such a way that you wonder if the surreal parts have a meaning you aren't seeing

I read it bc it was on a list of top ten scifi novels people pretend to have read. you shouldn't pretend to read it, you should just read it. but it's hard for me to explain what I found so appealing about it. even if I describe things that happen in it I'll miss important stuff and I won't be able to convey the experience of reading it

it's about a city called bellona, which used to be one of the top ten cities in America but then something happened to it that disconnected it from reality. now there's only a thousand people mostly living in abandoned houses and looting from empty stores. people come to visit from all over for their own various reasons and one of those visitors is a man with amnesia who takes on the name "the kid" or "kidd." before he gets into the city he has sex with a woman who turns into a tree and acquires a weapon called an orchid which is like claws over his hand and appears without him putting it on sometimes. these things are not explained but they happen

once in the city he drifts around getting to know the different groups who call bellona home. theres disorganized hippies in a public park. there's a gay guy who lives in a shack behind a row of meat hooks. there's a white family who are living in a bubble refusing to see the reality of the city they're in. and there are the scorpions. scorpions are sort of gangsters, but they don't really claim territory or deal drugs. they're just a pack of people who all live crammed into one house and look out for each other and sometimes go on runs where they smash up buildings. and they wear holographic projectors that look like dangerous animals, like scorpions. kidd becomes the leader of a group of scorpions, and he also gets a girlfriend and a boyfriend. he's in a stable polycule for the back half of the book. also a lot of the book is about the creative impulse and whether your words stop being your own once they're published and interpreted. bc kidd writes poetry almost compulsively but has mixed reactions to people's responses

I think I would be remiss to rec this book without trying to provide some content warnings. I think I'm probably going to miss a few things but the book does include: heavy use of slurs (mostly n-- but also f-- and a brief appearance of an anti-Asian slur), sex with minors (the main character dates a teenager), child death, racial violence, explicit descriptions of rape, consensual but degrading sex, and gun violence. also the main character describes going to the bathroom more than maybe any other book I've ever read

it's heavy, and it's 800 pages, but if you're even a little intrigued by any of this I think you should try reading it! as strange as it can be I found it very readable. the dialogue feels natural and is often very funny. it's not actually an impenetrable brick of a book but it's completely its own thing

#my book review corner

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birlwrites · 1 year ago

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ok let me rephrase a post i made a little while ago - if my askbox is open, that's an invitation to send asks! don't worry about whether i've asked for them or not - me having asks enabled is me saying 'i'm down to receive random asks rn'

that being said, i have in fact closed my askbox for now. i've recently been getting a lot of questions with the potential for very, very long answers, either because they're broad questions, questions with a lot of parts, or because they ask about many characters. i'm feeling overwhelmed, so i'm going to keep my askbox closed until i feel ready to receive more questions.

i want to be clear that when i give a long response to an ask, it can *easily* take me upwards of an hour, often more like two. people often ask questions i don't have fully-developed answers for, and it may seem like i know all of this off the top of my head, but i really don't. a question that takes you 30 seconds to write might require me to consult my lore document, check the fic to see if i've said anything specific there, do additional research and worldbuilding if i think there are gaps in what i already have, maybe find reference images and previous posts i've made on the topic, and then take all of that and turn it into something readable. i cannot just copy-paste from my lore document; that text isn't going to make sense to anyone other than me.

and i do want people to ask questions! i love talking to you, and it makes me happy to know that people care about the story i'm creating. it was difficult for me to decide to close my askbox, even temporarily, because there are so many wonderful things that have come out of random stuff you've sent me

so this is me saying - when you send me an ask (in the future, when i reopen my askbox), please take a moment to think about what you're asking me to do. just because i enjoy answering them doesn't mean it's not a lot of work sometimes, and just because i often provide detailed responses doesn't mean it's simple for me. i have to make decisions about where to invest my time and energy.

i'll make a post when i reopen my askbox, whenever that ends up being - in the meantime, i hope everyone is having a good new year!

#i have felt. a little bit like my askbox has turned into me being quizzed on everything #i'm not a machine that spits out lore on command #i want to talk to people and have conversations #that's why i normally have asks turned on

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media-geneous · 1 month ago

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10 On-Page SEO Techniques That Still Work Wonders

10 On-Page SEO Techniques That Still Work Wonders (2024 Guide)

You’ve got a website. You’re writing content. But Google just isn’t sending traffic your way.

What’s missing?

Probably on-page SEO—the stuff you actually control on your own site.

The good news? Most people overcomplicate it.

Here are 10 on-page SEO techniques that still crush it in 2024. No fluff. Just what works.

1. Nail Your Title Tag (The #1 Click Magnet)

Your title tag is your first (and sometimes only) shot at getting clicks. Here’s how to make it irresistible:

Put your keyword upfront – “Best Running Shoes” beats “Shoes for Running That Are the Best.”

Keep it under 60 characters – Or Google chops it off.

Add power words – “Proven,” “Ultimate,” “2024 Guide.”

Make it a promise – “10 Ways to Double Your Traffic” > “Traffic Tips.”

Example: ❌ "Tips for Better SEO" ✅ *"10 On-Page SEO Techniques That Boost Traffic (Tested in 2024)"*

2. Write for Humans First, Google Second

Google’s smarter than ever. It knows when content sucks.

How to make it engaging:

Write like you talk – No robotic jargon.

Short sentences + paragraphs – Easier to skim.

Break up walls of text – Subheaders, bullet points, bold highlights.

Tell stories – People remember them better than dry facts.

Pro tip: If you wouldn’t say it out loud, rewrite it.

3. Optimize Your URL Slugs

A clean URL is a ranking signal. Keep it:

Short – /best-seo-tips > /post?id=12345&category=marketing

Keyword-included – /on-page-seo-techniques

Hyphenated – Google reads hyphens as spaces.

4. Use Headers (H2, H3, H4) the Right Way

Headers organize your content—for readers and Google.

Do this:

H1 = Title (only one per page).

H2 = Main sections.

H3/H4 = Subsections.

Include keywords naturally – But don’t stuff them.

5. Add Internal Links (Like a Pro)

Internal links keep readers on your site and help Google understand your content better.

How to do it right:

Link to related posts (at least 2-3 per article).

Use descriptive anchor text – Not “click here.”

Link deep pages – Don’t just point to your homepage.

6. Optimize Images (So They Actually Load)

Images slow down your site if not optimized. Fix it with:

Compression – Use TinyPNG or ShortPixel.

Descriptive file names – best-running-shoes-2024.jpg > IMG_1234.jpg.

Alt text – Describe the image for SEO (and screen readers).

7. Answer Questions (FAQs = Traffic Goldmine)

Google loves FAQ-style content because it matches real searches.

Example: ❌ "SEO is important for ranking." ✅ "Does On-Page SEO Still Work in 2024? Yes. Here’s why—and how to do it right."

Bonus: Add a FAQ section with schema markup for rich snippets.

8. Make It Easy to Read (Or People Bounce)

If your content’s hard to read, visitors leave. Fast.

Fix it with:

Short paragraphs (1-3 sentences max).

Bullet points (like this).

Bold key phrases (for skimmers).

Readability tools (like Hemingway Editor).

9. Keep Content Fresh (Or It Dies)

Google prefers updated content.

How to refresh old posts:

Add new stats/examples.

Fix broken links.

Expand thin content.

Update the publish date (if significant changes).

10. Promote It Right (Or Nobody Sees It)

Great content + zero promotion = wasted effort.

Where to share your content for max traffic:

MediaGeneous – Boost your reach with expert promotion.

Reddit – Relevant subreddits (if you follow rules).

Quora – Answer questions with a link back.

Facebook Groups – Niche communities.

Email list – Your most engaged audience.

Final Thought: SEO Isn’t Dead, Bad SEO Is

These on-page SEO techniques still work because they focus on helping people first.

Do this, and Google will reward you.

Now, go fix your pages.

FAQs

Q: How long should my content be for SEO? A: 1,500+ words for competitive topics, but quality > word count.

Q: Do meta descriptions affect rankings? A: No, but they do affect click-through rates (CTR).

Q: How often should I update old content? A: Every 6-12 months, or when info becomes outdated.

Need more traffic? Check out MediaGeneous for expert content promotion.

#Grow YouTube Channel #Get YouTube Subscribers #MediaGeneous #Get YouTube Views #Get YouTube Engagement #YouTube #YouTube Views #YouTube Subscribers

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benedictive-shaman · 2 months ago

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Sdorica After Mirage Thoughts Part 1:

Didn't know that there was an image limit per post so I'll have to make a follow up later! This is up to 3-4

I got really and weirdly emotional writing that one post about Valdrir the other day that it made me really want to read After Mirage to pick up on gay crumbs. So that's what I did. This post will mostly consist of me commenting on various screenshots I took of passages. I won't summerize the plot as that'd take forever buuuuuut if you want me to clarify you can send an ask.

If you don't know what After Mirage is, it's a web novel that tells the story of what Rune and Sophie do after the events of Mirage, as implied by the title. There is also Before Mirage that focuses on Clover, Lazer, and their relationship. Before Mirage is fully and officially translated, readable on the Sdorica website under 'novel'. After Mirage is not translated and is only available under the Chinese version of the website. This means I had to rely on MTL to read it, which while usable leaves a lot to be desired and in some places can border on unintelligible.

If you're wondering if you should read it, I'll personally say that I thought it was pretty damn good. It's not the longest read ever and you can knock it out in a few days of casual reading. If you care about Rune, Sophie, Theodore, or just want context for the stuff that happens in Aurora it's a great read.

Without further ado, yapping ahead

(Note: Eidatyr gets translated as Andatir by the MTL)

This was the line I mentioned earlier. I don't know when this was released but presumably it was before the relevant chapters of Aurora so I'm operating with foresight here. With that knowledge in mind, this moment pretty much immediately gives away that Eidatyr knows exactly who Rune is. She plays coy for a few chapters but with this understanding her actions are less "am I going to help Rune?" and more "Do I kill him?".

Okay this line I just thought was really out of pocket, so to say. My gut instinct was to say this was a mistranslation of a phrase that meant something along the lines of 'shake them down' or just scamming them out of money with naked being a metaphor for taking everything from them including the clothes off their back. But the lines later in the passage seem to suggest against that? I don't think it's very absurd to suggest that a business might want to scam customers who don't know better. But Idk I can't read Chinese.

(line said by Sophie)

I just really like this line. It's a continuation of the core theme of Mirage that interplays with the themes of Aurora. Rune has become his own person, more or less, but needs to decide his own destiny outside of what his birth or conditions thrust upon him.

This again shows how Eidatyr knows how much of a danger Rune is to everything but also shows her desire to protect him. This is sometimes borne out of her care for him and sometimes out of her love for Valdrir whom she sees in him. This same love also gets contorted in her murderous intent towards him, as a method of protecting Valdrir in the only way she can.

I said I wasn't going to explain the plot but I think I'll provide a little context on this. In Westport, Rune meets an older man who hails from the South named Wilhan (by MTL, I'll call him William from now on). He's someone who's motives are unknown but is really interested in the North. We later learn he's particularly competent at Rune magic of Southern style as well. Just note that.

This passage in particular stands out to me because of the later revelation that A: The mechanical kingdom is a floating island B: Sdorica's soul/the player/Vendacti are trapped in it. So this myth of the Northerners, which was likely planted by the Dracotines, directly parallels reality. This, again, was not information you could have known before this released so it's great foreshadowing.

Eidatyr just comes out and directly says she's gay. That's so awesome tbh. No I will not accept any doubt on the accuracy of the translation this is real to me.

Spoke about this one earlier as well. During this part of the story Rune tears his hands raw while helping to row their boat. I hadn't finished yet upon making the post and I think I have a better understanding of it now. She sees Valdrir a lot in Rune and seeing him having reckless disregard for himself reminds her of how Valdrir tried to shift the blame onto herself when Eidatyr faced exile. This same disregard for her self is present in Valdrir in a different form today where she is a slave to fate.

Here she's probably talking about having her runes carved out when she was exiled. It also speaks on a deeper level where she's thinking about how in spite of being a hardy, successful captain now she's still troubled by her past.

Okay she's very clearly yearning for Valdrir here. She's someone who was forcefully seperated from someone she cared deeply about so she sort of sympathizes with Rune's longing but also annoyed at this continued insistence of his.

This is what I was referring to later about her love turns into a sort of murderous intent. She knows that if she kills Rune here then Valdrir will be safe and no trouble will come to Westport. Nobody would even know what happened if she did it here. Her compassion for Rune/Valdrir's brother butts directly up against her desire to keep Valdrir safe. This really isn't a big struggle for her though but a brief yet powerful thought she has (see her interaction with Stephen earlier). She contemplates leaving him to die a bit later but it's short lived.

Later on, a certain someone remarks that Eidatyr's only method of solving things is through violence. What's interesting here is that she could have ended this through violence at several points but her compassion is what leads to Rune being kept alive. This does however lead to her downfall. So it's interesting the one time she refuses violence it ends up hurting herself.

Continuation in part 2, I have a lot more screenshots to get through.........

#sdorica #vendacti findings

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eclipsingsolace · 2 months ago

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Murder Drones: Echelons Chapter 1 Echoes of Peace

Its out now~

WARNING: ECHELONS WILL BE A MATURE STORY THAT WILL HAVE

Explicit Language

Graphic Depictions of Violence, Abuse, and other disturbing topics

READER DISCRETION IS ADVISED.

This is very much the 'pilot' of the story trying to establish what's going on in the 5 years since. Without like going crazy with world building taking it bit by bit, but don't worry there is still tension and drama. 😉

I am still trying to find the best type of writing style so any advise would be very appreciated. I want to make it as easily readable as possibe and ill be honest i know italics are for thoughts but in rich text its so subtle sometimes I wonder if you can even tell its happening, so if you know any better way please let me know

💖🙇‍♀️💖

I don't have too many music recommendations for this one at least without spoiling some stuff but id say if you're reading and KNOW where you are. listen to music that is

calm and homey,

wistful and inquisitive,

and tense music's.

of course, to set the tone as much as possible listen to the MD Ost when you think it may fit.

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avaguenotion · 2 years ago

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11.24.2023 - Friday.

Alright. Let me begin with a nice - جمعة مباركة Blessed Friday. Today at the masjid there was a very active wedding prior to the salah. It gave me some hope I suppose. Honestly it made me wonder who would be present at my wedding? Mmm... Anyway. More importantly (....right?) I have decided to make an important change in my date format. To facilitate machine readability and file names and all I have decided to use the " . " rather than the " / " to separate the components of the date. It might seem minor but it's not. I write so often and on so many different media that I have come to meticulously date and even time everything. When the date appears in the name of the file as I sometimes want to do especially on windows the " / " (backslash) is not permitted in the filename for whatever reason. I have this sense that all of my life up to now has been nothing but an introduction. The past 30 years, irrespective of how much has happened are really just the introduction to an epic novel that Allah has told us will never end. This writing. This work. This stuff that I do. It's important. I know it is. I exist somewhere in the vast eras of history and all of this writing will be preserved in some sense and be meaningful to Allah knows. So yes. From now on I am going to make it a habit to use the period in the date rather than the backslash AS WELL AS adding the time in most place where it matters. There is something else: nihaya As of around 3am THIS DAY I have begun my correspondence with "nihaya" i.e. my yet to be wife. Why "nihaya?" Because "nihaya" means "the end" and the woman I one day marry will be "the end of my longing." Those are obviously personal. I just wanted to document here that I have started. I am aware that this blog/journal is a publicly accessible one. It doesn't get much traffic nor is it my intention for it to get much attention but anyone who visits my website - themarsrevolver.com - might find out there's a secret. If you click on the black circle at the very top it will redirect to this very blog. Given the fact that I actively spread that webpage it's inevitable that some small fraction finds this blog. That's not to ignore those who find it via tumblr internally. Hey! If you're reading this salaam alaykum! I don't know what device you are reading this on but I suggest opening it on a desktop/laptop to see what it really looks like. *sips water* What else? I ordered a "The Mars Volta" hoodie. $50 a little pricey and I'm not sure about the material quality but I did it anyway, I really like the design and the only way to know is trying it out. Tomorrow the family is going to NYC to visit my great uncle for a delayed thanksgiving get together. That's about all for now. ٱلسَّلَامُ عَلَيْكُمْ

#daily #schizoaffective #abilify #life #music #the pillars of autumn #islam #family #nihaya #the mars volta #artist #the mars revolver #journal #writing #muslim writers

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linipik · 6 years ago

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Ooo, whats Nyxs plans for Adam? How do the others feel about their Roman counterparts (and whats Lances reaction to Alluras bf)? Do the romans tell Allura about Lotor?

Voltron x PJO AUpart 1 | part 2 | part 3 | Part 4

As always, i am sorry for my writing, i am no writer. and sorry for taking so long in updating this AU.It is written the same way I narrate to myself but the general of the story is all there! (and I think this is the longest part to date)

RECAP TIME:

Shiro, Keith, Lance, Pidge and Hun are Greek demigods, Allura is a Roman Demigod. Their quest is about finding Matt and getting to Mount Othrys since it is appearing because rough demigods *cough* Lotor guiding the Romans *cough* are siding with Kronos because the Gods have gone radio silent for WAY too long. Reah helped Allura to get to Camp Half Blood and meet the Greeks because she doesn’t want his husband to pit demigods against the gods anymore but she made Allura promise to not reveal the the thing about camp Jupiter existing… They parted on their quest, had a couple of bonding moments *WINK* and when they got to the Gods Junkyard they met some roman demigods who were scrapping for weapons and who attacked team voltron only to be saved by MATT (accompanied with other demigods surviving away from any of the camps).

Under the cut is how it all follows

FIRSTLY lets move to Tartarus:Adam FELL…into tartarus only to be found by Nyx on her flying chariot and Adam convinced her that he was more valuable alive.

Nyx took Adam as errand boy in tartarus in exchange of the death mist thing and you know, not dying. Doing that he found the hermes shrine and he tried to contact his father or anyone without much success for MONTHS but at least there he got some food, so…yeah, it wasn’t all that bad. But of course the more he tried to contact his father , and after not getting an answer, it really seemed the gods couldn’t care less about their half human children and it can make anyone feel angry and unimportant.

Every single soul on tartarus has a thing against zeus and demigods and he always said like “ im just the messenger i dont care”, but since everyone is so bored they kept asking him about what got him there. But he had to be careful af bc telling dangerous ancient souls about how much he missed his bf a son of zeus (or ex boyfriend he is not sure) was SO not an option. BUT was by meeting these ppl that he met one of those kings that have escaped tartarus in the past and BOI did that gave him faith. It was possible. The thing is being in tartarus is weakening for a demigod, repeating yourself enough times that you are NOT dead is not enough to believe.. you are not dead. He rly wants a way out and, after all, Adam is the son of Hermes, god of travellers and the only god to be able to travel from the land of the dead to….anywhere so he had to channel he had that in himself, he only needed a way to get OUT. One of the days he is in the Hermes shrine he gets a dream on how to get out there: One of the non guarded, full of monster, secret doors to the mortal world through the labyrinth.

That is when he sets on that journey and finds in the entrance to the labyrinth/ exit from tartarus. He also finds in that exact point a adamantine sword: perseus sword (not percy riptide. Perseus,) a harpe giving to the olden hero by hermes, (The harpē was a type of sword or sickle; a sword with a sickle protrusion along one edge near the tip of the blade made of the indestructible metal adamantine , check it out it is pretty cool). The sword is cool and all but as always with demigods, when something good happens it only means something worse it’s on its way. And finding a weapon is bad news and everyone knows it.AND THAT is how Adam got out of tartarus. By then a year or so has passed and it is basically in the same moment hour 6 heroes start their own quest.

NOW..There are romans demigods with Matt, they recognise Allura and don’t really trust her because they kind of think she is with Lotor, but Matt is like, NAH she is with MY friends , with MY sister and they trust she so, she is alright and while they are camping in some safe part of the junkyard Matt explains to Voltron team about how camp half blood is not the only camp, and that there are…more ways a demigod can survive away from camp, there are the amazons and the hunters and all kind of side places created by demigods for demigods where they can feel safe.

They all then look at Allura who is relieved she can come clean to her quest mates, but then then she is confused by why Romans are attacking them, and some of the demigods who are with Matt say it is Lotor (who..it really is but Allura didn’t know is siding with kronos) and Allura is like “No no, it can’t be, Lotor is thoughtful and charming and a great leader who will always have his reasons and wants the best for Camp Jupiter and he is a real Hero “ half flustered and Lance sees that Allura actually...like-like this Lotor. Who seems to be La creme de la creme in the Roman camp while Lance is a rookie demigod, not really a fighter, on his first quest and he has been about to die most times than all of the others together in the past like 3 days..

And Lance just goes by…oh because he wanted Allura to like him because he was really liking her and the way she seems a full flagged fighter and leader. BUT still in a very Lance way he sides with Allura in front of everyone including the demigods who are not trusting her, “ of course she is not doing this to harm other kids, she has risked her life for us and she could enter camp halfblood so she is good and full of good intentions and Reah herself guided her to us so she is great”. AND Keith is like….oh because it seems Lance really likes Allura and even if they were hitting it off with the Pegasi maybe it was all in his head and Lance would like more someone like Allura who is actually thoughtful and not him who doesn’t know where his head is half the time :’)So..how to get from Arizona to Mount Othrys without being spotted by rough demigods, the romans AND all kind of monsters ON TIME? The only answer they find is The Labyrinth that is equally dangerous but could keep them away from revealing their position and their plan to the Romans. The idea is that Allura gets to camp Jupiter and confront Lotor …without being detected so she cant be stopped by Lotor….right handsMatt navigated trough it enough to suggest it is possible to get everywhere from there, Shiro is having a mental breakdown because he doesn’t want to get inside it again but he is good at hiding his feelings and be a Good Leader ™ But Matt is gonna keep with the demigods trying to slow down the romans and monsters while mount ostrys just gets more powerful and to distract them from the real quest with team voltron.

…And Pidge. Pidge is like NOUP I promised Athena I will bring you back alive and I found you and I wont Let You Go Again, We are heading back to camp because that is the only logical solution. Nothing says WE have to keep in this quest and we can go back regroup in camp half blood and live to fight another day with a better plan.But Matt has changed a lot since he went out on his quest with Shiro and Adam and he has met these amazing demigods and he tells her there are many things worth fighting for that thinking with her heart is equally important, and that they will meet again in camp Jupiter.In the Labyrinth!So yeah everyone kind of say their good byes and goes separate ways entering the labyrinth, technically they were set on following monsters (brilliant plan) because they are being kind of called by mount Othrys. As you know, the labyrinth is a fucking mess and without a real way to navigate it it is impossible to be completely sure what is going on, It changes and it seemed it was fuckin with them. After an incident with some flesh eating horses and trying to get away from rough demigods and monster trying to get them to the gladiator arena, a big attack from a Kampe it all goes to hell.

They found themselves in a REALLY small passage where SHiro is having a problem with his mechanical arm and hunk is trying to see what made it high-wire so much ,Lance started to get on his own, because he is brave and he could get them out of there and maybe he just have to knock on that weird rock door with a strange painting. That is when the painting in the wall started to look more than real and the Kampe spotted Lance first of course, and while he froze at the giant horrible monster who was destroying the walls and the floor and everything in the small passage materialising in front of him, Allura saved his sorry ass (again) controlling the mist as well as she could, but since she has been more worried about the entire Lotor siding with Kronos thing, it is not…as effective as it should. Pidge is trying to REALLY work up an exit, and thinking quick she tells allura to distract the Kampe with copies of them while they escape from the roof. BUT the Kampe is not fooled and When Allura and Pidge are the closest to the improve exit on the roof, Shiro and Hunk are about to get decked, Lance in one of his hero complex things gets the full attention of the monster again and Keith goes by OH No. Not. Again. and gets Lance out of the way. Lance is getting really furious with Keith bc it is the zillion time Keith takes him out of the way of a fight, as if he was not able to do things himself. The beast is attacking Keith now, frustrated that his precious prey got away and makes the floor crumble with Shiro and Hunk sliding further down, Allura Pidge and Lance got into the way of the roof and keith is channelling all that energy, the one that made him get to shiro back in his first quest, and he is able to step on the rock doorway disappearing from the monster.

Shiro and Hunk end up together in one of the most ancient parts of the labyrinth, dark, smelling like wet earth and little breathing space….,and poor shiro who was trying so hard to keep calm is 5 minutes into losing it completely , he, a son of zeus is underground, feels trapped and thinking they can end up in the gladiator arena again is driving him a bit too insane. Hunk is seeing this and does what he does best, try to get how the current problem works, bu this time is not some piece of metal but it is Shiro’s entire existence. ANd for all that is worth, Hunk is really good at coming trough for others in pinch moments.

Lance Pidge and Allura end up together navigating the most tedious part of the labyrinth. dumb monsters marching to the same place and they cant do anything but follow them with the help of allura’s mist to disguise them and praying Lance natural monster magnetism doesn’t get them killed…and the only door they find ends up in the middle of a GIANT field, so no help. It is tedious af and it just gets MORE tedious by their current situation: Allura is trying to get the mist to work for her but she is having a hard time concentrating after learning her family, the romans and…Lotor are behind Kronos getting stronger.

Lance is trying his best on keeping not only alive but showing he has everything to be a hero, but honestly he is debuting everything he knew about himself, He has been about to drown, he froze in front of a monster, he never knows what is going on. He has no quest experience like shiro and keith, he is not good at solving puzzles like Pidge or repairing stuff like Hunk, not to mention he had no idea about the romans or any of the problems Allura is having but he still tries hard to be the charming demigod who is no afraid of anything and is there to support her every move. Even tho he knows…it has been Keith the whole time who has been taking him away of fights the entire time, even fixing his mess of waking the Kampe, probably for the best because maybe…just maybe…Aphrodite kids where not mean to be on quests after all.)

Pidge, is just looking at the horizon like she is in the office. Matt might be her beloved brother, but seeing how they all are thinking with their hearts and that is making them terrible for this quest is another level. And Lance,…lance is ranting to her how he could totally go against Kampe if Keith did not interfere again and again. BUT Pidge knows that Keitth has a problem with Lance being in danger and it is not because Lance is not capable exactly and more with Keith crushing hard on Lance, So she yeah, she is trying to side with Keith here out of solidarity and convince Lance that Keith is not trying to sabotage him or any of those things. That maybe Lance could learn from keith and spend more time with him maybe (wingman pidge ftw)

Keith ended up alone in the labyrinth and after being able to use again his doorway powers he finds himself in a room with two doors and a doorman in the middle of them. The two faced doorman is Janus himself ask him which is the door he is gonna go, which decision is the correct one since he will have to make The Choice of His Life in the future….and inpatient Keith start asking Janus ALL the questions at once starting by “what was that?”, “what does his coin means?”,”what was his mother relationship with Janus?”, “that he knows about the romans and that it is unfair he didn’t knew before” and blablabla. And janus is like,one of this doors give you all answers, the other takes him to certain death and Keith goes by coin flipping decision time in hopes he could trick Janus into revealing the correct one since he figure out Janus is just trying to fuck with his head. And surprise! the moment he flipped the coin it transformed into an imperial gold gladius and keith basically surprises janus, Keith goes to stab him and janus just disappears through one door and keith in a moment of good judgement goes to the other because Janus of course went trough the door that would kill Keith. SO…he gets to the door with the answers BIG GASPSO

Back to Hunk and Shiro are in one of the ancient marts of the maze and they start walking thanks to Hunk who was prepared to go into a really dark place and has scraps from Hephaestus Junkyard. And in one of those rm=emote parts of the Maze, they start hearing talking, HUMANS talking, to be precise demigods and it means it is the same kind of demigods that are working with monsters and trying to get Kronos back and Shiro is like protector mode ACTIVATE and is ready to fight them as soon as the turn one corner but the demigods sound like they are..discussing between them SO they end up getting as close as they want to hear what they are talking about and SHiro just stops dead on his trail as he recognises one of the demigods….it is Adam.

and Shiro NOW stops breathing. So hunk resolves that the best approach is NO fighting so he kind of goes in making himself appear he is on their side playing innocent and that some leader needs them BUT Adam recognises him from camp and Adam gets Hunk is Lying. He is about to knock Hunk out and… shiro interferes. So you know this is the first time they see each other after their fight back before Shiro was captured and made a champion, before Adam went to tartarus and Back. (their fight was about how shiro is always playing the hero and getting himself and everyone around him into dangerous shit and how Adam was playing it safe and never wanting to risk more than he should. BOth were correct) Adam: I thought you were dead Shiro: I thought YOU were deadAnd it ends up being the Most Awkward Reunion in the world. like Hunk thought they were gonna be fireworks and tears and a kiss but it is nothing like that. They fall directly into quest mode because talking about their feelings is recognising their previous fight and that they separated.Adam stares at shiro new scar/arm/hair all the time and Shiro stares at adam new sword/dark circles under his eyes and he is always On Edge. Both look tired and terrible. .Hunk is like, OKAY good the update but we should be thinking on getting to the others!! and Adam tells them that the baddies have a way to navigate the Labyrinth accurately : clear eyed mortals who are in danger and shiro is all like, we HAVE TO go for them. And it is actually the only plan they have. Anyway, Adam has been with the rogue demigods for some time now and knows a weird lot about their plan, he is totally aware that those are demigods tired of being the pawns of the gods and after his field trip to tartarus he honestly sees why. of course shiro and hunk tell him , about the Romans and about mt othrys and how Kronos is gaining power from the rogue demigods and more monsters and titans and everything is marching destroying any minor deity or nature spirit who is on the God’s side and how even then…the god’s have been silent. surprising no one.

Allura Lance and Pige arrive to the place the monster are marching to inside the labyrinth: It is an Arena and they recognise it as Shiro’s gladiator arena and MMMM they are starting to also see rogue demigods and minor deities and things are starting to get dangerous but they can’t turn back or they get more attention than they want so they go inside the arena where everyone is reuniting for something and trusting the mist to do its job BUT before getting in they get spotted by a girl in a cell: She tells them how weird is to see a purple shirt (Allura) with two orange shirts (Lance and Pidge) and even more that they are disguising themselves. The girl looks like she has been in the cell for LONG time: Surprise it is Shay, (a clear eyed mortal) but they couldn’t open it at all so they moving inside the arena for what seems a BIG meeting promising her they are coming back for her.

MEANWHILE, Keith finds himself in the door with the answers. He is now in a warehouse in the middle of a meeting. Of several romans. Who are now looking at him like he just insulted them and their mothers. And They are all “noooo this cant be that door was enchanted” and keith is all “YOU ARE MY ANSWER? WHO THE F ARE YOU ALL? WHERE IS JANUS?” They are seeing a young demigods with a CHB shirt wielding an imperial gold clearly roman sword ready to fight. Not Normal at all. And a clearly old guy with a scar in one eye and the BOSS is all “kid, you are a roman” . Things start computing in his head the coin, the weird way he was able to find SHiro, his past encounter with Janus… but keith goes “I am a son of Ares” From the group of romans a woman calls his name: “…Keith?” and… that is when Krolia appears.

Reunion Time! Krolia is a Janus Legacy and went to Camp Jupiter back in the day, this group is an Olden Elite Roman Secret Group part of the old Preatorian Guard, who never ceased to exist and that has been moving parallel to Camp Jupiter for centuries. They are the Speculatores Augusti, dedicated mostly to avoid the secret of the existence of the romans demigods to go out there and keeping the roman problems…roman, it is like a legend inside camp jupiter but they still exist in the shadows. and right now they are trying to calm this nonsense. They Know about Lotor, and they know that the plan is to turn demigods away from the gods and that it would revive Kronos.

Some Backstory:

Krolia is not a demigod directly, she is a Legacy but an incredible good fighter and then she got with Ares. Krolia met Texas after being pregnant with Keith. (insert here an incident Texas going all, wow pregnant lady you alright?) And wao, they hit it off really, enough to Krolia consider to have a mortal normal life…normal as it could be. And Keith was born and they were a family for little time but then rumors started about Kronos awakening slowly and that Keith would be in the middle of the THAT war and that the Romans where starting to not hear from the gods and suddenly it all started to be more than rumors so she decided to leave them and try to stop whatever was happening from inside. And she left them with a janus coin so he could know something about his roots and , making texas promise he wouldn’t let keith go to any of the camps and Texas was like OKAY but he died when Keith was 10 or something and Keith ended up in camp Half blood anyway…. And she didn’t know until this moment when her son was in front of her and now she knows texas is dead and everything is a little bit too sad.

Keith tells them what he knows from his quest, about shiro about the arena about allura about the rogue demigods and about the other good demigods working with Matt he is basically full of good info and it gave them the ultimate details to do finish their STRIKE the that has to be ASAP before that whole army marches to mt Othrys and puts in danger the entire world. And Keith is like….but for Kronos to gain all his power he will need more time…that is what Matt said. And they explain that the one danger in Mount Ostrys is no other than Atlas himself and if someone takes the sky from him The General of Kronos would be Free and that would mean The End.

And that is how the entire secret roman group Keith is now part of goes to the place where the big army is reuniting: The Arena (btw this is the group that has Ariadne’s String and that’s how they can use the Labyrinth )

THEN

We have the three groups all reuniting in the same place.Adam Hunk and Shiro want to rescue the innocent mortals Allura Lance and Pidge are there to know what the in the hades is going onKeith is there with the Speculatores to stop the armyThe monsters are all ready to part and in the podium there are Titans are guiding the army and some demigods allura recognises as ex- roman campers, and they say the found a way to navigate the labyrinth and that they are going to san francisco immediately to liberate their general and to meet with the Romans who are also tired of the god’s nonsense, between the horrible noises monsters did in agreement. Allura is seeing how this only could be possible with the help of someone INSIDE camp Jupiter but she doesnt want it to be Lotor. and asks herself why Reah didn’t say anything when she send Allura to CHB. Lance and Pidge see that the mist is really wearing off and that Allura is tired to the bone so they start to head to the exit but it is cramped with monsters, and a random demigod spots Lance and they are in REAL problems now that the baddies are have seen him, but not…them SO…..Lance does the sensible thing and tells Pidge that it is important to get Allura to Camp Jupiter and he directs the attention to himself.

Adam Shiro and Hunk are using a moment when all the baddies are distracted with something to open the cells of the mortals (thanks lock picking Adam abilities via hermes) and they get to Shay, she tells them that Allura Lance and Pidge are there..NOw the monsters being distracted and furious make sense and it is horrifying . SHiro jumps to go to look for them despise Adam telling him to wait that he feels something is Not Right and he is getting really frustrated with shiro because of his hero complex and there is when HUnk tells Adam that probably is because Shiro has more of a survivors complex since the moment he arrived to camp half blood without them, that probably even when he was in the arena he felt more lucky than matt and him since he was alive. Adam is like, damn him, and HUnk is like MAYHAPS if you too talked you could get somewhere YOU KNOW, being under heavy circumstances can really make anyone have a crooked perspective and that it is what always happens with old machines that often people dont know it but they work like that too. and you just have to be kind and work with that new perspective to be able to see the present and what is happening and not what it is supposed to be happening.

Shiro finds Pidge and Allura first and send them to where adam and hunk are close to the cells, and Pidge tells him that Lance did probably the most stupid thing ever but there is a WALL of monsters and is being really difficult to get to where Lance is and curses his entire existence for being underground and not having the space for flying or lightening or nothing and he feels USELESS AF

Keith is with his new roman secret organisation intending to work again from the shadows, after hearing the plan or the army heading to mt othrys the plan to take as many monsters down right there right then is the best. They plan to blow the arena and send the majority of monsters direct to tartarus or some pit deep down. But then, there is the shift in the monsters attention and when Keith and others go to investigate from one of the upper levels of the tribune before, you know, blowing the whole thing up. From there…He sees is mother fucking Lance and his heart stops or beats faster…Lance is alone surrounded by so many monsters that it is ridiculous and holding a number lance is in “who wants to go against ME first uh? maybe this is the lucky day any of you get to kill a beautiful son of Aphrodite OR maybe I could kill you?? who knows!!”and “That telekhine thinks he is better than all the empousai look at him! he is gonna strike first! are the empousai so weak they are gonna let him win? really?”and pinning the monsters against each other and it is ridiculous and charming but over all dangerous because it is obvious to Keith Lance could not go if 3 or more of the monster decided to attack together. So he tells the other speculators to wait 5 minutes so he can save Lance, they say 1 or they might miss the opportunity to blow the most important titans. So that is the best he can get. Keith starts going down to the arena where Lance is, resolved to his bones to WIN and pulverise anything that dares harm his… friend

Lance has been streaking of with his bow any monster who is falling for his taunt and pinning some of them against each other but arrows are limited and he lost his sword back with the Kampe. Monsters seem to be picking up that too because the circle is getting tighter and there is no way out but if he is going down he is going down fighting. Keith gets to him

-queue to some serious Ares Blessing Moment-

Lance shoots his last two arrows and starts hitting monsters with his bow …and then Keith is in front of him , red glow around him and practically…invincible. Lance is half jealous, but also half in awe. Keith is more than a natural wielding not one but two swords (his spatha and a new golden gladius) (was that even possible??) The monsters who were all focused in Lance didn’t see Keith coming at them Keith passed him his spatha in the middle of the fight and it was even better than when they were sparring at camp. They didn’t need words to know what to do and they were holding it well against the monsters and it felt that, at that rhythm two demigods did had an opportunity to come out alive. A second later shiro’s metal arm appeared harming a monster, and Keith just yells at shiro “The floor!” and takes lance, holds on to shiro and BAM-

There is no more floor! the explosion takes half of the Arena , many monsters start falling and shiro is concentrating the entire power he is channelling from the very deep of his gut into not letting these two demigods and himself fall with the rest of the confused monsters. The explosion gave him enough wind to fly a bit and it is the best he has felt since entering the damned labyrinth. And soon gets them to their even larger group.

- NOW they are all reunited!

They are all happy to be reunited again, but it is Big Awkward tm. Lance was SO close of dying so many times it stopped making sense, Keith is a roman Legacy,Adam is alive but spend a weird amount of time on tartarus and then with the baddies and that mess up any demigod, shiro and him have a silent treatment going (weighted by all the things they want to say to to each other that have been accumulating for they time apart) Allura is a bit heartbroken and confused because everything she knows is going down, Pidge literally let Lance distract the monsters because it was the only logical thing to do but he is also her friend and it was…not a good decision and she knows it. And Hunk, the Hephaestus child is trying his hardest in keeping them going somewhere. while taking the rescued mortals out of the labyrinth.So they head to the next exit they find to regroup and think what they are going to do.

Allura met the boss speculators augusti, Kolivan , and she is shocked something so secret has been running alongside her camp for so long…but she is relieved not all romans are on the bad side and gives her hope that camp jupiter has survived so many things They tell her to not open suspicion to lotor when they get to san francisco…so they have more of an element of surprise to defeat him.The Roman BoM is down to closing any doors from inside the labyrinth, rescue any other mortal that could be helping the army and Get to camp mt othrys, after all they have ariadne;s string to navigate that hellhole.

Lance is decided to follow Pidge advice and reallt talk to Keith, after all they were working well together, it has been a life or death situation but somehow it felt just right , being with keith, fighting side by side, it felt like they could do anything.

“Hey man…Thanks for saving m- “and keith interrupts him angry and welp, that is so not what lance was expecting “are you insane? WHAT? what the fuck where you thinking, are you a martyr? do you have a death wish? if you ever get in some stupid situation like that again I….” and keith shuts up but Lance follows anyway, “you what? UH KEITH? you WHAT!? “Keith: “just get out of the way and let the others do their job” and thats is the last drop for lance,”am i in the way? YOU are on mine. you are always on my way. I know you think i cant do this , you think so low of me that i cant survive on my own, we all know you are so good , a Natural, well, you are not the only capable hero-” Keith :”ï dont care about being a stupid hero! “ Lance: “WELL, I DO” lance is about to cry and is when keith knows he cant keep being around lance, he doesn’t want him in danger and Lance will only keep heading first to complete that damned quest. Keith knows lance is good he is what heroes are made of and honesty that scares him. Heroes don’t have happy endings, right?. Lance just stands up and goes. It all was a mistake, going to Keith was a mistake and he was a fool for believe he and keith were even playing on the same field because every time it seems they have something going it ends up even worse.

and keith is not even surprised it all ended up badly he knows the demigod way and it is that for every good thing that happens, something worse is coming: adam is alive - he seems like he’s seen death, he found the truth about himself - the romans are this close on bringing Kronos back, he gets close to lance fighting side by side - apparently lance hates him, SO…ketith decides to go with his mom , “after all adma is here, you are six now for the quest , and…we will find each other again at mt othrys or camp jupiter” he tells them

And the guy just…LEAVES. everyone is a like “don’t be a stranger, see yah soon, BYEEEE” well, Keith found his family his entire legacy thing so…they show all the support they can . BUt Lance, he cant believe Keith is quitting! now that is betrayal even so…he was the one who tell Keith to leave(him alone).

Keith disappears through the labyrinth with his mom and the Speculatores and the rest of the team is left to get to camp Jupiter and try to stop Lotor before Kronos Army gets to Mount Othrys and free the titan Atlas.

BONUS DOODLE because you made till the end!

THANK YOU SO SO MUCH FOR READING! you all deserve another golden star!!

Hope you are enjoying this story, also I think there is only one update left!!

and if you have ANY question, i am Happy to solve anything <3

and consider donating to my KO-FI, maybe???

Also, another pull through for @monthlyklance in their Klance AU Month

Disclaimer:

SO YOU KNOW, the speculatores Augusti existed and were distinguished by special secret boots, all is super secret and i thought it fitted perfectly to the Blade of Marmora.

I use Kronos even when referring to Romans because changing names too much confuses me :T

#klance au month #klance #adashi #voltron #pjo au #themindoflore #voltron legendary defender #Percy Jackson and the Olympians #did i just wrote that much on the labyrinth? omg it is like botl is my fave book :o #fanart #fanfic #sometimes i write stuff and wonder if it is readable

494 notes · View notes

liannelara-dracula · 2 years ago

Note

Hi, can we have the diaboy's handwriting?

Hi Love,

Totally, this sounds so cool. For more explanation of if cursive is old or not you can refer to the comments.☺️😊

-Liannelara

P.S. For fun here is admins hand writing

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Prompt

Requests are open

Rules

Warning:

*certain words have been/may be censored for Tumblr guidelines.

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The Diaboys Handwriting hcs

Sakamaki

Shu

Fancy and kinda dark academia aesthetic but is definitely not readable to most of us.

It's in cursive of course cause he's archaic.

And he's pretty lazy, he like barely holds his pen.

He mostly writes in Latin that way none of his brothers understand but sometimes he writes in his demon language.

Although with all the tech now he literally does the voice audio type or anything he needs to write down.

It's so rare to see this lazy ass with a pencil in his hand lol.

Reiji

Its crazy but in cursive it is beautiful, like great penmanship.

But in print, Reiji shows a completely different side of himself.

He never writes in print because he finds that people may think he's vulnerable.

Reiji only writes his most personal thoughts in print and its because he never shares with anyone and can't be himself except for on paper.

So only sadness and angry are written in print.

It is canon that he once held a diary when he was younger so it wouldn't be surprising if he writes his feelings in print. I mean he's stressed.

If he had a lover he writes in print because he wants her to know this side.

Cursive is what he uses when he's doing chemistry or a grocery list.

Laito

The left is how he writes in his demon language its more secretive and mysterious. He hardly uses it tbh.

The writing on the right is usual, normal print/cursive writing.

It's not super fancy or plain.

It is plain but with a little flare.

His writing is pretty neat and clean.

Although he doesn't write a lot he does like to write about his sexual escapades.

Kanato

He alternates between the two.

The left is when he is more focused and maybe upset. But not mad.

If he was mad, he'd write everything in caps.

Although the right is when he is calm since it's cursive.

He uses both interchangeably tho.

What's actually nice about his handwriting is not that it's simple or because it's bold or small. It's what Kanato writes.

I seriously think he writes poems and he is really good at it.

I mean any girl could fall in love with how this man writes, especially if he writes about you.

And he has such a nice voice when he talks about his lover/love interest.

Ayato

It's a mess, he prefers to type.

He makes spelling and grammar mistakes all the time but he uses a pen.

He literally cannot read his writing sometimes and asks Reiji if he knows and his brother just gets really mad at him.

He crosses out so much stuff.

And he writes in any spot.

He doesn't stay on the line, the letters are everywhere.

It's super plain and he never writes in cursive because he literally does know what is the top or bottom of the paper after writing it.

Subaru

Very messy and always in ink.

There are so many scribbles and ink smudges.

He always writes in print because his cursive is unreadable.

He doesn't stay on the lines, his writing moves up and down.

It's very careless and free.

He writes very big.

And has a hard time reading his handwriting sometimes.

Kino

Different and kinda neat but has a lot of crossed-out parts.

Sometimes capitalizes things for no reason.

He can write in cursive but wouldn't choose to.

Although his writing style is unique considering the font.

He is also part of the ink-only squad.

He also likes to abbreviate a lot of stuff.

Is able to keep his writing in a steady line for the most part.

Mukami

Ruki

If he's presenting it's neat, if its for his own things its sloppier.

But still, no soul has ever been able to read it.

He does it on purpose.

Kou has always wondered what it says but he's never been able to tell if it's even in English or in the demon language. Like he has no clue.

Ruki does this in case something thinks about snooping.

He probably does write in his free time, and honestly, he writes a lot. I bet he has so many journals that are filled over the years about his life as a vampire.

So it's hundreds of years of the world all in these books of his.

It's honestly fascinating but no one can read them.

Though if he had a lover he may open up to them about it and share what is in there.

But he might be a tease and lie about what's in there to get her to laugh and throw a pillow at her.

Kou

Okay now although the content at the end of this letter (left) is yandere that's not the point.

I seriously feel he writes in a bunch of fonts and caps/lowercase just cause he's everywhere.

And this is usually how he writes to his fans because they think it "cute"

The right shows his usual handwriting tbh.

It takes a second or two to understand.

But it's not too bad.

He hardly uses his handwriting for anything tho.

Puts hearts on "I"s

Yuma

Messy, always messy.

He is just so sloppy.

You'd think that because he has good hands in a garden he'd have nice handwriting, but you're wrong.

He connects letters with each other, and he has spaces, eraser smudges, and even crossed-out words.

Although his paper is not clean and you can read the writing, well for the most part.

He does have a nice signature though.

Azusa

He has really neat handwriting.

Like it's easy to read, it's neat, and it's not super big.

But there's only one problem.

His papers are always ripped or crumbled, torn, worn out, or have watermarks.

Like there isn't one time where the paper is nice.

He seems like he doesn't know how to do cursive or rather he forgets.

He probably writes relatively small.

Tsukinami

Carla

Fancy cursive and then regular cursive.

He's never used print in his entire 3,000+ years lol.

If he is writing a very formal letter to someone important he uses the writing on the left.

If he is writing for himself or to his brother he uses the writing on the right.

Either way, no one can deny that he has good penmanship.

His signature is also really elegant.

He has his own signature style in cursive.

Something most cannot do.

Shin

Like his brother it is in cursive and very fancy.

The left is how he writes in a more formal setting because it is easier to read.

He always writes really neatly surprisingly, it's the founder prince in him.

It's always in a steady line too, you'd think he'd measure where he wanted to put the handwriting.

The right is his more loose and less legible writing. He uses this if his letter is informal and it is to someone he is comfortable with or has known for a while.

He doesn't really write in print unless its for school and he wants to blend in.

Because he's supposed to be a British exchange student it doesn't surprise me if most of his notes are in shorthand.

I think once he learned that no one uses cursive he decided to not use it that much and stuck to print.

Which probably looks something like this.

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