#so i had to do trial and error to get indent

[irisvienna]

After all, there’s always been doom. What about teen-agers growing up during the Black Plague times when nine out of every ten people died? I mean we’re not the only ones to have it rough.

victoria austin Gets Me.

[cherubchoirs]

how do you draw the head of V1 and or V2? (Like process.) ii love the way you draw their head!! :3

omg thank you so much!!! i'm going to do my best to answer this in any kind of coherent (and hopefully useful) way!! bc i really don't want it to be like the "how to draw an owl" meme ;o;

when i draw, i generally do two sketch layers before the lineart - a base layer that's for general shapes and movement, then a clean sketch that adds in all the detail. and i'll be totally honest, there's definitely better ways to draw this!! but here's a quick breakdown:

step 1 is the cylinder - this is just to get the shape and angle right! i will sometimes include its chin in the base if its head is tilted at a different angle (for a point of reference), like here:

step 2 is drawing its "face" - i draw in the chin to fit everything around it, and its eye is made up of loose, sketchy lines even in finalized lineart to basically make it look unhinged lol i'm sorry this isn't very descriptive, but it really is just fitting everything around that front of the cylinder with some trial and error.

step 3 is just following the cylinder back - it tapers to become a bit smaller at the end, and i give it a curve in at the bottom to make it more organic. i think one of the biggest things about drawing my idea of v1 is making the shapes overall more organic or fluid bc truthfully i'm just not great at robots or mech ;o; i prefer super curvy shapes, and i incorporate that into v1 as well!

step 4: the little details are added, like its barcode and the indentation at the bottom of its head...i wish i had more technical terms!! i'm very sorry if this isn't super helpful too - i don't have much of a pinned down method and sort of just sketch and sketch until i'm happy with it. if you need any specific tips, feel free to ask!!

[how-masterful]

Despite It All

Dhawan!master x reader

Summary: When your new collar isn't all that you’d hoped for, you go to the Master for some much needed assistance. You soon find hes more than willing to help, and learn for yourself just how much your happiness means to the time lord.

Notes: A fic for the ever so fabulous @plethora-of-imagines​ , who’s been the most patient person I've met for waiting for this one to come out! i hope you enjoy and it lives up to what you’d thought! 

Warnings: Mentions of collars and BDSM practices.

The collar hurt. Alot.

It rubbed harshly against your throat, tough leather digging into the sides of your neck and almost drawing blood when you swallowed. The thick metal buckle rubbed abrasively against the back of your neck, leaving a deep indent in your skin. In short, it was an utter pain to wear. And you felt slightly responsible.

You'd chosen it while you were on a distant planet, after dragging the Master into a secluded sex shop and begging for a souvenir collar to commemorate his latest victory. It was thick and sturdy, embroidered with purple threads and hefty enough to provide a new thrill to a scene. It was expensive too, and you'd batted your eyelashes and promised a session to him when you got back to the TARDIS as soon as he looked at the price.

However, you were also very, very spoilt- and the collar, having lived up to Master's standards, was instantly yours.

So, after all that begging, the fact it was absolute hell to wear made you feel insanely guilty. But you'd faced this situation before.

Collars were trial and error, when not custom made by the Master. They could be too loose or too thin, resulting in real dangers emerging during play. They could simply not live up to the standards you'd held it to when you bought it- of course you made everything look beautiful to him, but on the shelf and on the neck were two very different things. And other times, Master just didn't like them. And that would kill any hope for adding it to your collection.

However, when they'd hurt, it became a much more serious issue. Especially if you refused to tell him. Past situations had resulted in several offending collars being flung in a rage into a supernova, countless tears from you as the ointment he'd provide stung your wounds, and the full brunt of his disappointed eyes causing you to absolutely crumble under the weight. So this time, you decided to be honest. But the notion still petrified you.

"Master?"

You'd found him in the kitchen, placing two teabags into your favourite mugs and filling up the kettle. He'd turned in surprise at your voice, eyes softening as you padded over to his side.

"Now there she is, Masters good girl- looking beautiful in her new collar"

You smiled weakly, a bite of embarrassment nipping at your bottom lip. You gently snaked your hand up to his bicep, encircling his bicep and letting your head fall to his shoulder. The Master raised an eyebrow, abandoning the tea on the side.

"Are you alright, love? I just called you my good girl and complimented, all you in one sentence- and yet you're still able to stand on your own. Something must be wrong in the world of Y/N."

You sighed, smiling weakly into his shirt. Of course he knew you this well by now, he'd had years of practice to get your behaviour down to a T. He slowly cupped your chin, guiding your eyes to meet his. His expression was laced with confusion and concern, eyes scanning over you for any sign of distress.

"Well?"

This was something you could show him better, rather than tell him- you'd decided that on your way to find him. You simply allowed your hand to fall to his own, entangling your fingers in his own before guiding him wordlessly towards the playroom. The Master's eyes widened, before his expression settled into something content.

"Ah! Desperate for a session, are we doll?"

You shook your head and squeezed his hand, carefully opening the door. The lights snapped on with a gentle hum as you guided him to sit beside you on the end of the bed, the very confused Master taking your other hand into his own and brushing his thumbs over your knuckles. You took a breath, before allowing yourself to meet his eager browns. God, this was going to be harder than you thought.

"So... Um... You know how much I appreciate everything you do for me, right?"

"Of course" The Master replied, nodding his head as you took another breath.

"And... You also know how much I appreciate everything you get for me, right?"

"Yes... I'm not sure where this is going." He replied again. The Master's eyes narrowed as he pulled his head back, suspicious gaze raking over you once more. You shrunk in on yourself slightly, gulping at his judgemental expression.

"And... I can tell you anything- Even if it's something you may get annoyed at me for?"

The time lords eyes shot back open wide, hand pulling from your linked fingers to hold the side of your cheek. You instantly lent into his touch, desperate for the grounding connection.

"Always- whats this all about, love? Somethings not upsetting you is it?"

"No!" You blurted out, a little too quickly for his taste. The suspicion grew further upon his face, causing your hands to tremble more and more. You shook your head and tried to regain any composure you could grasp hold of.

"No, I mean... Not upsetting, per say but... hurting."

The Master's expression grew soft, the other hand reaching towards your face as you nervously played with your own hands in your lap. He looked troubled, but most definitely not with you, and the guilt once again began to ravage rapidly at your core.

"Somethings hurting you? Is it something I said? Y/N, you know I don’t ever mean you when I insult the human species-"

You laughed. Of course he'd be concerned about that. He was always so protective over you, he never enjoyed considering you as a part of the utterly detestable human crowd. His expression morphed back into a look of confusion, lips pursed to ask another flurry of questions, but you silenced him with a small peck.

"No, you haven't said anything that’s made me feel like anything less than a goddess. Its... The collar. Not the fact I wear one, i'd rather die than not, but this one. This collar. It... Hurts."

It felt as if the weight had been utterly ripped from your shoulders. You let them drop, sighing happily as you relished in the free feeling inside your chest. You met the Master's eyes once more, but the look of concern that plastered itself across his face didn't do much to calm the rest of your nerves.

You felt your heart began to race as you explained why.

"It rubs, for a start. Its far too tight and cuts in more than it doesn't, the buckle digs in when I breathe and it's left my neck stiff as anything."

His expression didn't change, causing the guilt to ramp up its ravenous speed with a vengeance. You quickly rushed to cover your back, heart thundering against your chest as you began to trip on your words.

"Not that I don’t like it, I mean I don't like it 'cause it hurts but I love it cause its pretty and you bought it as a gift and, and I know it cost you so much and I'm so so grateful for it and I don’t want you to think i'm not... i’m sorry I shouldn't have bothered i'll learn to deal with it I-"

You were suddenly silenced by a kiss, the Masters lips connecting with yours like a rolling cloud of calm. The tension melted from your shoulders as you allowed yourself to let go, his hands delicately framing your face as his lips dimmed the chaos bubbling in your gut. Your eyes fluttered shut as you eventually parted, his lips leaving your own looking glossy and plump.

"You will most certainly not have to deal with anything hurting you. Master's so proud of you for coming to tell him- Its his job to ensure his good girl is always cared for and comfortable. And who are you?"

A sudden blush spread itself across your cheeks, your gaze turning bashful as you tried to hide your growing smile.

"I'm Master's good girl."

"Yes you are."

The Master placed a sweet kiss to the top of your forehead, arms encapsulating your shoulders and pulling you close to his chest. You sighed happily, nuzzling into his bare neck and teasing it with kisses.

He grinned, a chill trailing down his spine he gently booped the end of your nose.

"That’s sweet, pet. It really is. But it's your neck we really should be focusing on. You know what to do now, don't you doll? Off you go."

You giggled with anticipation as you pulled yourself from the Master's grip and headed towards the cabinet of drawers. The large, dark cabinet stood at the side of the room, ornate and decorated with engraved Gallifreyan and several handles. This however, wasn't any ordinary set of drawers. This was the home for your collars. And, over the years, you'd accumulated quite the expansive collection.

You instantly fell into position: hair tied out of the way behind your head, neck exposed and chin up high, form kneeling on the floor with your hands poised on your knees. This was the position he enjoyed you in when dealing with your collars- you took it when he adjusted it, decorated you with it, or decided to change it out for one of your other many designs.

You had quite the plethora of sizes and colours- thin silver bands for subtlety, thick red posture collars for a scene, and a whole other rainbow of designs that could fit any mood you desired. Or, more often than not, what Master desired you wear.

The Master threw his coat from his shoulders, allowing it to fall onto the bed as he began to roll up the sleeves of his shirt. The sight almost made you drool, his exposed forearms a positively dreamy sight to you. Every single part of had the the power to make you ridiculously desperate for him- he jokingly called it his superpower when you'd almost fainted at the reveal of his soft stomach one evening.

"Excited, are we love? I can't tell what makes you happier: that collar being replaced for something much more suitable, or the sight of me slightly undressed."

You cheekily avoided his gaze as he advanced towards the unit of drawers, pulling at one of the handles and peeking inside at its contents.

"Now then, what shall we go for? We want comfort, something to keep that poor neck of yours from feeling so sore."

He mulled over the designs, fingers dancing in the air as he picked and chose between them. You awaited his decision eagerly, this was always on of your favourite parts of the process: Knowing what Master had in store for you. He always did like a surprise.

"I know... Lets go with you. I've noticed this ones been sneaking up the ranks of your favourites, lately- You can't say Master's not attentive with you, darling."

Ever so gently the collar was removed from the drawer, buckle jingling as he played with the strip of leather. It was a dark purple, padded with golden velvet and ornately decorated with swirling circular Gallifreyan, the intricate shapes all spelling out the word "Master". You nodded excitedly, smile creeping up your cheeks as he showed you the item in his hands.

"What do we say, love?"

"Thank you, Master."

"Good girl."

With a satisfied huff the Master shut the drawer, before adjusting himself to kneel on one knee before you. He allowed two fingers to slip under your chin, lifting your gaze to meet his own as he placed the collar in your lap.

"You know how this works, pet: That ones got to come off for this one to go on. You wont go long without one, Master promises. Are you ready?"

The nod you gave couldn't have been more eager.

"Yes, Master."

You kept your chin raised as the masters hands tenderly reached to the back of your neck, fingers carefully unbuckling the silver clasp and ever so slowly pulling the collar from your neck. You gasped loudly, out of a culmination of both shock and fear, the sudden cold air hitting your neck combining with the relief placed on your skin.

Being without your collar was a nightmarish thought- you'd grown highly attached to the idea of wearing one, displaying the fact you were taken and claimed by the Master for the world to see. It was a symbol of him committing himself to you. Essentially like a wedding ring. But this was much more personal, and the moments during a change in which your neck fell bare never failed to stand your hair on end.

The Master paused, fingers poised on the ends of the collar, keeping the front of the material pressed against the skin of your neck. You gulped, allowing your thoughts to gather, before giving him a slow nod. That was enough for him to continue pulling the material from your neck, and soon the collar was laying in his hands.

You knew for a fact when this was over, the dreaded thing would be flung at full force into the nearest supernova. He had a habit of flirting things that displeased him into the vast emptiness of space. It was his favourite method of waste disposal- or at least, what the Master classed as waste. You were more than sure there were more than a few TCE victims floating out there, somewhere- you'd seen him throw them out one by one yourself.

Before you could even react to the sensation of an absent collar the Masters lips were on you, murmuring praise and pressing kisses into every part of your neck. You sighed against his touch, the typical fear of sitting collarless masked with the glorious attention.

"Good girl" he murmured, placing a tender peck to a reddening area of skin, causing you to involuntarily shiver.

"Such a good girl for telling Master... Following his rules and making him so very happy..."

You bit your lip and held back a moan of delight, eyes fluttering shut as you felt the wave of pleasure wash over you once more. His breath was warm against the tender skin, soft lips pressing over each and every mark. You gasped even louder as the master slowly began creating a mark of his own, teeth nipping at the clear skin on the side of your neck. Your teeth grit together and you groaned at the sensation, the old collar slipping forgotten from his hands as they reached for the new item.

You felt your heart beat flutter excitedly. It was finally time.

With a soft peck to the underside of your jaw the Master pulled away, clasping the purple collar in his hands and raising the item to your neck. You lent forward against the plush gold velvet, eager to feel the material against your skin and the newly blossoming bruise on the side of your neck.

The velvet was soft, sliding against your throat with absolute ease. You felt comfortable in this collar, a far cry from the harsh friction of the other one you had worn. A small jingle from the metal clasp sounded behind your head, causing you to giggle with relief. Finally, comfort and security. You couldn't be more ecstatic.

"Let me know when its tight enough" the Master softly asked, a rare tenderness held within his tone. You knew for a fact he only used that voice with you.

The tighter the collar became around your neck, the more your satisfaction grew. Once it reached a suitable tightness around your throat you let out a happy squeak, the buckle soon being locked into place by the Master's nimble fingers. The sensation around your neck was miles above the previous collar, the comforting padding gentle against the aggravated skin, the golden stitching almost glowing against the purple.

This was a collar Master had commissioned for you as a reward several months ago, and it now sat amongst your most favourite. The Master could see the joy in your eyes and couldn't help but smile, framing your face with his hands once more.

"There, Masters precious human looks good as new. Comfy now, doll?"

"Perfect. Thank you, Master."

"Good girl. C'mere."

At his words, you instantly dove into the masters chest, his arms winding around your shoulders as your nose found comfort in the crook of his neck. The Master's fingers wandered to your tied up hair, soon releasing it to flow free and casting the hair tie to the side. He began to toy with the ends, chuckling at your immediate shiver. You nestled closer against the time lords chest.

"Thank you, Master. For caring about me." You murmured, lips soft against his collar.

He hummed out a comforting sound, arms holding you more firmly in his grip.

"Any time, pet. Come rain or shine, Master will always be there to care for you. Lets say its become a favourite hobby of his to see you satisfied."

You returned a small laugh, pulling away slightly to catch his fond gaze.

"Careful, Master. Keep talking like that and people will start to think you actually like humans."

The Master rolled his eyes, smirking down at your cheeky expression and shaking his head.

"Don’t get any ideas, doll- I don't and I never will. They're boring and primitive and far too important to the Doctor than they reasonably should be. However, there is one... one very unique human that i've taken quite the fancy too. A sweet little thing called Y/N."

The blush that scurried over your cheeks was down right traitorous.

"Why? What makes this Y/N so different from the rest?"

The Master pondered for a moment, drumming his fingers against your shoulders in thought.

"Well... She's pretty. Very, very pretty. A sweetheart at first glance, but laced with a very tempting and exciting dark side. She's funny, resourceful, loving and intelligent- And quite possibly the most cuddle obsessed creature i've ever met in my many, many lives."

You let out a bashful giggle. You didn't think your heart could race any faster in the presence of the time lord holding you, but you could've sworn you felt it skipping beat after amorous beat.

"And is that why you love her?" You asked, tilt your head get a better view of the Masters face.

The time lord shook his head once more with a grin, his hand reaching to cup your cheek, stroking away the flyaway hairs as he pulled your face closer to his own. You sighed contently, his eyes so full of fondness for you. If the Masters face was the last thing you could ever see in your lifetime, you knew deep down you wouldn't have it any other way.

"No, all those are the reasons I like her. Despite the man that I've become, the things I've done and the people I've hurt, she still calls me her Master. Commitment like that is a beautiful rarity. She stays by my side no matter what, but isn't afraid to speak her pretty little mind. You want to know why I love her?"

The Master placed a gentle kiss to your forehead, a small, sweet little peck that said so much, and made the butterflies in your stomach swarm with absolute adoration.

"I love her because despite it all, I get to call her mine."

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[bipercabeth]

Hi you are such a good writer I was hoping you could give me some advice! I’m trying to write more consistently and more understandable for people to read, because I tend to just write my stream of consciousness and hope it sounds coherent but whenever I try to do that I totally lose my train of thought and the ideas I had trying to write it in a way people would understand? Idk if this makes sense, but how do you tackle writing out a story and not forgetting the details you want in it?

phew okay! i got all of these within 24 hours so i’m going to combine them and hope that i can answer them all. i’m both honored and terrified that i’m the person y’all came to for advice, that’s wild! i’ll do my best to be coherent. (also thank u ur all very sweet). i made a post about this a while ago, but it’s pretty half-baked. i’m putting this under a read more because i know it’s going to get out of hand. 

as far as software, i don’t think you need anything more than google docs! it’s what i use for everything and it’s so functional. you can access it from any device with internet, it automatically saves, the mobile app is decent, it’s easy to share, easy to format, and you can download different docs to work on offline! the share feature is versatile depending on who is reading, so friends can just view and/or comment and betas can edit/suggest. it has never let me down. 

plotting really is its own beast because it’s different for every writer. i’m just going to take you through my process and hope there are parts that will work for you! i’m also going to use examples from a few of my outlines (mostly roommates but i’ll probably dip into a bellarke one or two) to make more sense of what i’m sure is going to be a slightly feverish post. i really love plotting and talking about writing and i’m already getting excited. 

with writing, there’s kind of a spectrum of plotters vs pantsers. plotters stick by outlines and planning out their writing whereas pantsers go by their gut. i know people who write both ways, and there’s no difference in the quality of their writing or plots! it’s just about what works best for each person. i’m a pretty hardcore plotter, but i leave myself room to improvise and for the story to grow. 

okay, so my general first step once i’ve got an idea for a story is to open up a google doc, make a bullet point, and just word vomit every single idea i have onto the page. separate bullet points for each idea, but if i have multiple ideas that relate to each other, i indent to keep them together. the point of keeping similar things together is to make the next step easier: organize them. once it’s all on the page, put it in chronological order, or if your story has flashbacks, the order the scenes appear in. here’s an example of what i mean (from my bellarke superhero au):

it’s quite half-baked! pretty vague language, but it ended up being enough for me to write the scene. each indent further explains the point before, making it a lot easier to sort your thoughts and structure scenes once you get to them. it’s by no means a blow by blow account of what’s going to happen, but the language is just enough to make me recall what i was thinking when i wrote it. 

after that, i look at what is usually several pages of scenes told through bullet points, and i start to look for common themes to separate them into chapters. this is also where i try to fine tune scenes and clear up any immediate plot holes i find. i try not to force myself to completely outline everything in the beginning because i end up changing several scenes anyway! sometimes you get to the actual writing part and realize a scene you thought was perfect misses the mark. sometimes you write and realize there’s a theme or issue you need to address through a specific moment. leave yourself some room to grow! this is also a great time to weave in parallels, callbacks, and important themes you want to include throughout the story. 

this is usually where i start writing! if it’s a complex story with lots of research, formatting, or character building, i might take more time before jumping in, but these asks are fanfic-specific and fanfic tends to be pretty straightforward. for writing, i like to use a different doc than my outline. there’s less scrolling that way, and i find that having my outline open on the same screen while i’m writing really cuts into my flow. i end up staring at point a and point b trying to figure them out rather than starting at point a and letting the scene run it’s course. it’s much easier for me to switch tabs when i get stuck. 

that’s the majority of my plotting process! i’m going to leave a few miscellaneous tips that have helped me immensely down below. 

i find that certain things just don’t help me in an outline. scenery, description, and most body language are things i think about when i’m actually writing and fully immersed in the story. my outlines tend to be dialogue, bare-bones plot points, and quotes/lyrics/links for inspiration. dialogue comes very easily to me and sets the tone of the scene, so having it the outline helps me get into the flow of a scene, after which everything else follows. and if a whole scene of dialogue comes to you, why risk forgetting it? some of my best scenes have come from two pages of dialogue in my outline. sometimes you just know how a scene is going to go. 

nobody is seeing your outline except for you and maybe a trusted friend or beta. it should serve you! there’s no right or wrong way to write a story, so find the things that work for you! there’s a lot of advice in this post, and it all works for me, but there are some people who wouldn’t benefit from any of it. a lot of figuring it out might be trial and error. 

let yourself be indecisive! you don’t have to have every moment figured out right away, and some room to breathe usually serves your story better in the long run. i really didn’t have any clue where i’m going in either of these parts of my outline, but once i got to these points in roommates it became more clear what they needed to be.  

finding inspiration to get back into a fic after a while away is really hard for me, so i like to leave myself reminders of art, other writing references, reminders of the Energy i’m going for, song lyrics, etc. like so:

writing can be stressful! make yourself laugh in your outline! most of these are me objectifying percy but it’s okay i’m valid

okay those are my general tips! i know it’s a lot! you might not use any of this! but i worked for a long time to find the things that work for me and maximize my ability to write, so i hope this makes the search a bit easier for people who are starting out. feel free to come to me with any writing problems you have, whether that’s through my inbox or dms. always happy to talk about it. happy writing!

[decaffs]

university note-taking 101 ~

one of the hardest things parts of adapting to life in university is finding a note-taking method that is efficient and easy for you and your learning style.

it took me 18 months at university, experimenting with different note-taking styles, to settle on a few that work best for me. i thought i’d share all of the different methods i tried and the pros/cons of each & hopefully it’ll help you land on some note-taking styles quicker than i did! :-))

SO...i’ll start by saying obviously not all note-taking techniques are going to be included in this post because i’m just one person and these are just the styles i’ve had personal experience with and not everyone will like or dislike the same methods, it will take a little bit of trial and error to find your perfect style :-))

i’m going to split the different methods into 3 separate sections (and i’ll highlight my personal favourites):

    ⇢ handwritten

    ⇢ ipad/tablet

    ⇢ macbok/laptop

starting with what we all know and (kind of) love! we’ve spent the majority of our school education making handwritten notes for high school so it makes sense to start here.

1. basic handwritten notes

this type of note-taking is the most basic of all basic note-taking techniques and it’s probably what you’re used to. it involves any kind of paper - lined, squared, plained, whatever you fancy - and a single pen or pencil. 

all this involves is writing down everything important you think is being said or discussed by your lecturer or your classmates! there’s nothing fancy involved, it’s all about getting down the most important points.

pros: 

- you’ve already been doing this for years

- no time wasted doodling or highlighting

cons:

- can be time consuming if you’re not a quick writer

- if you’re writing on loose paper, it’s super easy to lose

- not easy to work out what notes relate to what slides / what comments were being made

- you may end up trying to write down everything on the lecture slides - waste of time when you can view them at home and you might miss important adlib!

2. annotating print-outs (*fave*)

this is a technique i adopted in second year of university! all you have to do is print out your lecture slides beforehand and bring them along with you. you can write at the side of slides or right on top of them.

pros:

- less likely to repeat what is said on slides so you can spend time listening for the nuggets of gold from your lecturer

- having slides prepared before a lecture means you can read them and familiarise yourself with some content

- easy to know what notes relate to what specific slides

- super quick to make important and accurate notes!

cons:

- it can be expensive to buy a printer/ink or to use your university’s printing facilities

- again, you can easily lose loose paper if you’re not careful

- your lecture slides may not always be available beforehand

3. cornell note-taking

cornell note-taking is something you’re probably already aware for those who don’t know - it’s a note-taking system devised in the 40s by a cornell professor.

cornell notes have to look a particular way in order for them to work (see here) and they’re geared towards helping you pass your exams. 

you do your main note-taking in the right-hand box - these notes should be brief but include enough detail to act as a revision source. take these note in lectures or in classes and make sure to note down and highlight anything your lecturer emphasises.

use your left-hand column to write down potential exam questions you could be asked regarding the notes you’ve written on the right. these questions should act as test questions when you’re revising! 

finally, in the bottom box you should summarise the key points to take away from that page of notes.

pros:

- excellent note-taking method for exam revision

- can be super efficient once you’re used to the style

cons:

- can take a while to set up pages if you’re doing it by hand

- can take some time adapting to this new way of note-taking

- not a flexible note-taking system, no person wiggle room

handwritten notes general pros and cons:

- hand writing notes is the most reliable way to remember important information

- you can use personal abbreviations and symbols to make your note-taking quicker

- you might lose papers here and there meaning your notes are incomplete or totally make no sense anymore

- it can be time-consuming trying to decide what is the vital information and getting it down before the topic of discussion changes

1. goodnotes for set reading annotations (app link here) (*fave*)

goodnotes is an app designed specifically for taking efficient and nice-to-look-at-notes! i personally use it for note-taking and annotating set readings at university.

i create a checklist on the first page of each module’s notebooks and write down each research paper or journal article i have to read so i don’t lose track. i then important PDFs straight into the notebook and annotate and highlight over the top of them.

pros:

- it’s super easy to have all of your reading notes and annotations in one place

- no risk of losing papers as everything is stored electronically

- the app uses icloud to sync your notes across all your devices make everything super accessible 

- you can quickly share your notes with anybody through email/airdrop/imessage/pretty much anything!

cons:

- you do have to pay for the app (but it’s cheaper than printing out all of your readings)

- can be difficult to navigate at first 

2. onenote for in-lecture notes

onenote is a microsoft app that lets you type and draw in one place! it works in a similar way to goodnotes.

i used onenote in first year to take in-lecture notes because it also allows for audio recording (DISCLAIMER: DO NOT RECORD YOUR LECTURES WITHOUT WRITTEN PERMISSION FROM YOUR UNIVERSITY AND LECTURERS) and it was super handy to have my notes and audio stored in the same file.

pros:

- super versatile and allows for many note-taking method in one app

- syncs across your devices (if you have onenote downloaded)

- allows you to collate different methods of note-taking in one place

cons:

- can be hard to organise your information! pages are blank and there’s no end to them, there’s also no grid for your items to snap to so it gets messy very quickly

- i’ve experienced personal issues with the syncing feature

ipad tablet/notes general pros and cons:

- tablets are generally really lightweight and easy to carry around - making them preferable over heavy notebooks or laptops

- having access to the internet makes note-taking super easy when you need to search terms or find photos

- you do have to make sure your tablet is fully charged if you’re taking it onto campus

- tablets can be super expensive

now for my holy grail - taking notes on a macbook or (insert laptop of choice here)!

1. brief in-lecture notes (*fave*)

i use microsoft word or pages to take most of my in-lecture notes and i fleet between using my ipad and macbook - i’m sticking it in this section because 9/10 i’m using my macbook.

with these kind of notes i set myself a specific structure and carry that out through the whole module!

first i lay my title across the top of my document - i usually just use the title of the lecture / general lecture topic. I then use my first indentations for the titles of each individual slide and bullet points for important comments made about each slide i also note particularly interesting things written on the slides themselves!

i stick to one font and one size to avoid wasting time on formatting!

i usually print out these notes so i can annotate them with any research i’ve found so it helps with my finalised notes.

pros:

- super quick if you’re a fast typer

- easy to correct notes or go back and add more detail at a later date

- easy to share and sync between devices

- simple format makes it easy to follow and a good revision resource

cons:

- notes can look a little boring and uninviting

- not easy to use abbreviations or symbols because of autocorrect!

2. extensive revision notes (*fave*)

i also use my macbook to create my finalised notes that i use to write my essays and revise for exams.

these notes take more time to make because of the formatting but they’re super nice to look at and make a wonderful resource at the end.

for these notes i start by picking a colour scheme (usually one within microsoft word) and i stick with this colour scheme for a whole module. i allocate one colour to research names and dates, one colour to titles, one colour to highlight key information with. i also use a variety of fonts! i typically use 4 fonts: one for the title of the lecture, one for subheadings, one for researcher names and dates and one for the main body of text - the main body font is usually a standard Helvetica or Arial!

i really take time to flesh out these notes so they reflect all of my learning - lectures, seminars, set reading, extra reading and knowledge i already had! i print off the notes and stick them in a ring binder and this becomes my bible for the semester!

pros:

- really inviting to look at so it makes revision a bit more enjoyable

- gives you time to show off your knowledge and create an extensive revision resource

- easy to share with friends or lecturers to get feedback

cons:

- can take a while to make these notes

- if you’re printing, this can cost quite a bit!

3. mind-map notes

finally! mind-map notes.

i use SimpleMind Lite to create mind-maps as the last part of my learning. each lecture gets its own mind-map and the nodes represent the key themes within the lecture!

it’s super important you don’t just use slide titles for your nodes as your mind-map will get crowded easily and you won’t want to use it as a revision resource.

keep your branching-off nodes short and sweet - think of them as knowledge cues! by the end of your learning you should be able to look at a node and remember the information regarding that point. these cues are also easier to remember and jog your memory in exam settings.

pros:

- good to see information presented in a new way

- you can use bright colours to make it more exciting

- great way to prep for exams

cons:

- hard to print also your canvas within the app is endless

- can be hard to share with others

macbook/laptop notes general pros and cons:

- can help you create a wide variety of notes - from short and sweet to fleshed out and fuuuuull of all the detail in the world

- allows you to correct, add to and print off your notes however many times you’d like

- you do have to make sure your laptop is always charged / you always have a charger!

- laptops can be heavy and impractical to carry to university

- if you’re not saving to a cloud you could lose some of your work (don’t be silly like me, use an external hard drive or dropbox!!!)

you made it!!! congrats :-))

hopefully i’ve given you a good idea of some of the note-taking methods you could use in university and you fancy trying a couple out!

if you have any questions or note-taking tips yourself, leave a message in the replies below.

decaffs x

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[rosykims]

better left unspoken

a lil thing for @trvelyans bc i love u so much <3 for maia’s fnv courier, isadora delcourt, and mine, winston grier. 2300 words. cw for anxiety, panic attacks and descriptions of minor injuries.

Winston's hands are stained with blood, and he only wishes it was his.

He holds his breath as he works on closing off the stitching of her shoulder; it's a bad habit, one his mother would surely disapprove of, but it's all he can do to bite back the rush of horror he can feel bubbling up steadily inside of him.

Isadora makes no move to meet his eye, though its the weighted silence hovering between them that concerns Winston the most. She doesn't speak – hasn't in the eight or so months he's known her, in any case – but he has come to view the air around her as a palpable thing, learnt to read the charge and vibration of it like book indented with braille. Even without the aid of her voice, there is a rich language in the way she carries its absence; a hundred different ways to say nothing and everything all at once.

This is not the type of quiet he’s used to; not the soft, unassuming ease she so often carries with her - inside her - but something else. This quiet runs deeper somehow – he can hear it not just in her lack of speech but in the stillness of her breathing, the way she holds herself rigid and tense in her seat as he works, idle enough that the old chair she sits on barely registers her weight at all. Even here in the Lucky 38, surrounded by a gentle buzzing of outdated machinery and the distant voices of the city's denizens, the air between them is so devoid of sound he almost jumps when he hears her pained intake of breath.

“I'm s-s-sorry,” he mumbles, wincing at the loudness of his own voice. “I'm almost d-done.”

Dora doesn't nod, doesn't shrug; just sets her jaw and keeps her eyes pointedly averted. Winston swallows hard, and turns his attention back to the issue at hand.

It isn't bad. Not really. He's seen far worse, he reminds himself, inflicted far worse, even. An unfortunate, albeit short lived encounter with some Freeside thugs had been her half hearted explanation as she stumbled into his room only an hour before, pale and clammy from blood loss.

Such is the nature of the Mojave, he knows. Isadora is more than capable of defending herself, he knows. But the slash across her shoulder is deeper than any injury of hers he has seen thus far, and the thought of anybody getting so close to her . . .

He finishes up the stitches with miraculously steady hands, and sets the tools down on the bedside table quietly, reaching now for the bowl of water and cloth beside it. His fingers are still slick with blood, and he works at them with the rag as best he can without appearing frantic, blinking back tears as the strange silence stretches on between then.

He can almost see the alley where it happened, the assailant's knife glinting in the dark. Can almost see it cut an inch deeper, half a inch, or just a little to the left –

“Thank you.”

Winston blinks. Morse code is still mostly a matter of trial and error for him, but the soft, hesitant way she taps her nails against the wooden table is enough of a clue as to her meaning, and it pulls him out of his spiraling just in time.

He shakes his head dismissively, focusing on keeping his eyes locked on his fingers. He doesn't think he can look at her, let alone speak. What can he even say to that? It’s okay? No problem?

It is a problem. Everything about tonight has been a problem, and absolutely nothing about it has been okay. So instead he keeps his head down, hopes against hope that she leaves it be.

She doesn't. Of course she doesn't. “I'm sorry,” comes her tapped out addition.

Winston sets the stained cloth down. There's a lump sitting rough in the back of his throat, as if talking weren't already enough of a challenge, but he swallows it down for her. “D-Don't be.” He says quietly. “It's n-n-not y-your fault.”

She doesn't seem to have an answer for this, and he jumps at an opportunity to remove himself for the situation entirely. “T-take your d-dress off?” He murmurs, more of a question than anything.

A beat passes before he realizes the absurdity of his request, and blushes. “I – I mean . . . t-take it off, so I c-can c-clean it. The b-b-blood. Before it's r-ruined.”

He knows it might be too late for this kind of optimism, judging by the red mess coating the entire right side of her otherwise pristine cream dress. An odd expression crosses her face – confusion, then surprise, and then something else, sadder, that he can't quite understand – but she lets out a small breath of resignation at his request, before standing up and unzipping herself carefully.

He looks away as she does. He always looks away, even when he knows he probably shouldn't. What they have is . . . well, it's something, but it's not that yet.

And that isn't a train of thought Winston can follow for more than thirty seconds without feeling as if the floor has given out from under his feet.

“There's a s-s-sweater in - in the t-top drawer.” He says, amazed that he can get the words out at all.

He hears the tell-tale sounds of her changing, and only a moment later her hand is on his shoulder, firm and gentle simultaneously. He turns around as she dots “done" against the fabric of his jacket.

He tries hard not to look at her as he takes the bundled fabric from her hands. He tries very hard not to focus on the way his sweater fits her like a dress, and how she is quite possibly the only person on Earth who could ever make his sweaters look good.

More than anything, he tries not to look at her eyes, staring freely at him now with that same inexplicable sadness that makes his heart stutter painfully in his chest.

She's so pretty. Too pretty, and too kind and too good for him to have spent the last hour stitching her shoulder back together.

He nods his thanks, too stiff and robotic to pass as casual, and leaves the room as quickly as he can without breaking into a sprint. He can't hear her pursuit behind him, mercifully, but it's only when he reaches the suite's small, fluorescent bathroom that he allows himself to release the gasping breath he’d been holding.

Right. Now his hands are shaking.

He fills the sink with water – it's not warm, but the Lucky 38 is luckier than most just to have a working plumbing system – and begins to scrub at the dress with a bar of soap. The water turns red almost instantly, and in the harsh light he realizes that his hands are still bloody, his nails still caked with the majority of it.

Squeezing his eyes shut, Winston presses his mouth against his shoulder to stifle a sob, and scrubs harder still at the fabric. He can't panic, not now, not here, not with her waiting for him just meters behind the door. Stop making this about you, sneers a callous voice in the back his mind. This is the last thing she should have to deal with right now.

The tears don't stop, but his breathing slows as he focus on the state of the dress. He will get the blood out, even if he has to stay up all night to do it.

Dora loves this dress. He has to get the blood out.

There's a light rap at the door, and he jumps, another small sob escaping him as he does. He shakes his head again, willing some degree of calm as Dora opens the door and lets herself inside.

Her hands are at his shoulder in an instant, rubbing comforting circles against tensed muscles as he hunches over the sink, avoiding her gaze in the mirror above.

His avoidance does little. There's a familiar, all-too-her sound of pen on paper before she slides her notebook onto the counter and into his peripheral.

I'm so sorry, Winston, the message reads. Her handwriting, usually so neat and put together, seems far shakier than usual. The last thing I wanted to do was scare you. I'm okay, I promise. I'm okay.

“I can't talk about this.” He signs the words to the mirror, hoping that will prove to her he means it.

Her reflection hesitates for a moment before she raises her own hands in turn. “Then don't talk.” She motions back.

Winston laughs, but it comes out more like a whimper, and the sound of it makes him shake his head again. “Not what I meant. I can't talk about this.” He taps talk into his chin with a little more force than needed for the emphasis, and Dora's palms press firmer against his shoulder, an instinctive, protective little thing that makes his heart skip a beat.

In the flickering bathroom light, she looks even paler than before, her soft red hair the only trace of colour he can find as she regards him now. She looks like a ghost, he thinks with a flash of horror.

“It's okay, I'm okay.” The words are a mantra repeated against his skin, and gradually the repetition seems to ease its way into his bloodstream, slowing his feverish pace and yielding a comfort that feels uniquely hers.

The blood is coming out. The realization makes him blink as he straightens up to view his progress. Bleach next. A little baking soda maybe . . .

Isadora catches his eye in the mirror, deeply concerned, but his focus shifts near instantly to his own features. He looks . . . unfamiliar. Thinner and gaunter than he was, with dark half moons stamped under glassy, bloodshot eyes. When did this person become me? When did I become this person?

It isn’t Isadora’s doing, though watching her now he can see her jump to that conclusion, clearer than any admission of guilt she could offer verbally. This steady decline isn't her, but she doesn't know that, and how could she not? How could she possibly think . . .

Winston sighs, and slowly turns around, abandoning the dress to soak as he looks at Dora directly for the first time. Her brow raises, subtle and minute, but he can tell she's relieved to have him look at her again, and that thought alone sends a pang of guilt through him. He doesn't want her to feel responsible. That's not what this is about.

“I wish I could keep you safe from this.” He signs. The tremor in his fingers is blatant, but he hopes the conviction is, too. “I know you don't need me to, but I wish I could help.”

“You are helping.” Her hands respond.

“Not like this. I don't ever want to see you hurt.”

Dora frowns, crooks her fingers in hesitation as she reads the worry in his face. “You might not have a choice. Look around.”

He doesn't need to, but his eyes flicker from hers anyway, blinking away fresh tears. He takes a deep, steadying breath.

“I c-can't st-stand the thought of anything h-happening to you, D-Dora.” He whispers, his voice thick and cracking with the weight of the meaning behind it. “I th-think about losing you and – and I c-c-can't b-breathe, and -"

Her face crumples as he chokes on his words, and she takes a shaky breath, biting her lip to cling to her restraint. She’s always been so good at that; being strong, being brave. But now she takes a tentative step forward, arms outstretched towards him like an offering. He takes her hands and guides her into his chest, wrapping his arms around her and burying his face in her hair.

“I'm safe,” she taps against his chest, fingers curling into the cotton of his shirt. “You won't lose me.”

“You can't know that.” He presses back.

She looks up at him, gifts him a crinkled smile. “Neither can you.”

The absurd confidence in her non-answer makes him laugh, somehow in spite of everything. Another strange new silence permeates the space between them as he regards her, one more line of braille he hasn't quite yet decoded. This one is warmer, softer than before; full of uncertainty and questions, but perhaps not ones that require definitive answers. Not tonight, in any case. Tonight, he just wants to forget; discard the blood, and the fear, and the hopelessness that's hounded their every move since Goodsprings. He just wants to focus on the way the bathroom casts pleasant shadows over the angles of her cheeks, or how the fluorescence lights up the crown of her red hair like a halo.

The way she bites her lip when she smiles at him. Only at him.

“Can I kiss you?” he asks, signing the words slow with a nervous smile of his own.

Dora replies by catching his fingers in hers, entwining them together and tugging him forwards gently. Her lips press soft against his, sweet and chaste and comforting like nothing else he's ever known. Winston sighs happily against her mouth and cranes his neck, his hands cupping her face to kiss her deeper still. Her lashes tickle against his cheeks, and then she shifts, pulling her mouth from his and migrating upwards, kissing away his tears.

He laughs, and she laughs too - a light, breathy thing. She peers at him through her lashes only for a moment before a spark of something flickers across her features, and she tugs him softly once more, leading him backwards out of the bathroom with a mischievous grin.

“You can kiss me all you want,” she signs, messy and languid in her movements. “But leave the dress. I think I'd like to make it up to you.”

She doesn't need to, not now or ever, but Winston doesn't protest.

[whispersafterdusk]

In Your Hands - ch 8

There weren't words to describe how wonderful it felt to feel the wind on his face again.

The last three weeks were something of a blur; they'd finally found the Blackreach and had traveled through it's strange beauty until they'd stumbled upon a dwemer home where some long-forgotten scholar had stayed.  Among the abandoned belongings they'd found a journal with maps that not only detailed the ruins they'd just traveled through but also had a map of Blackreach and the places beyond it as well.

They'd stayed there a night to allow Serana to feed again and Ralsten to recover from it, then had set out with considerably better moods now that they had a clear idea of where to go and what was ahead of them.

They'd eventually ended up in a large, circular room that had a massive metal orb in it with glass (emerald?) lenses set into sliding rings that moved around the orb, and curved metal arms tipped with identical lenses hanging from a circular support on the ceiling; surrounding it were desks and chairs with crumbling writings that had long since become impossible to read.  The ceiling itself was lined with hexagonal and diamond-shaped sections of polished sapphire, or perhaps lapis lazuli, and the center most tile was -- they weren't sure if it was an open space that reached clear to the surface or some other sort of dwemer light source, but it shined a bright white that was too harsh to look at for long.

On a little platform overlooking the orb and the desks was a series of...Ralsten hadn't really had a name for them.  They were a cluster of five rounded pedestals that had buttons set into their tops, next to one that stood apart that had a opening on top that could only have been for the lexicon they carried; they were odd in that they were colored as and looked like all the metal they'd seen up to this point, but when Ralsten touched one they felt rough, like stone -- it seemed time hadn't been kind to these and they were pockmarked and dusty. When Serana had slipped the lexicon into place two buttons had whirred and flipped over to reveal their tops were set with brilliantly blue stones that were somehow warm to the touch.

Ralsten had pushed the one nearest him and the giant orb had groaned to life, shifting in place as the rings spun.  Pressing it again had made the other two buttons flip up too, leaving them staring at four buttons and no clear idea on what they did or what they were supposed to do.

"We need to try and line them up," Serana had suggested soon after, leafing through the scholar's journal.  "I think that's what this man was trying to do, but we have a lexicon and he did not."

Through a lot of lengthy, embarrassing trial and error they had pressed the buttons until finally the lenses above lined up with those below and correctly redirected the bright beams of light.  The circular part attached to the ceiling swung a huge, roughly diamond-shaped green glass object down to the center of the orb as all the other parts aligned to form a path to walk up to it.

As they approached the glass diamond opened and balancing within it on hooks was the Elder Scroll; Ralsten had reverently taken it from the hooks and turned to grin back at Serana, then noticed that a door panel in the stone behind her - a part of the wall underneath where the button pedestals were - had slid open.  Beyond it was a short hallway to a room with just a lever and exposed cogs, as well as a ribbed metal indentation in the walls that the cogs fit into.  The lever made the cogs lurch to life and the platform had steadily (and slowly) carried them out of the ruins and out into the biting cold of Skyrim.

There was an abandoned campsite just outside of the tower they stepped from - a pair of tents, a fire pit mostly buried in snow, and some chairs at a table were visible, and there were a few telling piles of snow that suggested where the persons who'd set up these things had disappeared to.

"Any idea where we are?" Serana asked.

Ralsten very carefully climbed up a rocky outcrop and peered at the landscape around them.  "-no, not really.  But I think I see a path that way.  We'll probably find a road if we follow it, and if we find a road then we'll find signs pointing us to the nearest town eventually."  He turned around and slid down the outcrop on his backside.  "It's already getting dark though."

"We can go looking for it in the morning.  I'd rather not be stumbling around in the dark looking for a path we might miss."

There was a sack of potatoes and some leeks they found frozen in a chest inside the largest tent; Ralsten cleared away the snow from the fire pit and, though it was a real pain to get the wood to catch fire, set about roasting the potatoes and leeks together inside the iron pot that hung above the pit.

"Seems like forever since I've had warm food," he chuckled.

"Or an open sky and a fire.  I never thought I'd enjoy the smell of burning wood, but after those ruins..."

Ralsten nodded and blew out a long sigh.  "At least now you've seen exactly why I don't like dwemer places."

She smiled teasingly at him.  "And also why you managed to get lost in them."

The next morning came quickly; Ralsten sipped a cup of plain hot water to get some warmth back into him before they set out as Serana sat nearby on one of the abandoned bed rolls in the tent.

"That's one," he said into the silence.  "Now we just need the one your mother either has, or knows of."

She nodded.  "Wherever she is.  I can't imagine a single place my father would avoid looking...and he's had all this time too.  If he hasn't found her, I don't know how we will."

Nodding slowly, he combed a hand through his hair and beard, smoothing it all back into place before moving to start strapping his armor back on.  "Somewhere he'd never look...  If she's not sealed away, would she have gone to hide with someone?"

"Like who?"

"Would she have gone to the Dawnguard, like you did?"

Serana laughed.  "I doubt she would waste her time with those fools. They probably would have tried to kill her, and that has a way of souring relationships.  Any other ideas?"

Ralsten shook his head and continued to buckle and tighten down his armor.

When he later went to shove the tent flap open he paused, then turned back to Serana.  "What about...what about in the castle?"

"...what?"

"The castle.  Your home.  'Someplace he would never search.'  That castle is a big place -- are there any places in it that she could be hiding without being noticed?  Your father wouldn't likely think to search his own stronghold, if he's looking for someone who fled."

"Wait...that almost makes sense!" Serana replied after a moment, looking excited.  "I used to help my mother tend a garden in the courtyard.  All of the ingredients for our potions came from there...she used to say my father couldn't stand the place.  It was too...peaceful."

Ralsten stepped out into the snow and crunched along for a few steps.  "It does ring with a certain sense...but then, isn't that risky?  Would she actually do something like that?"

"Oh, absolutely.  My mother's not a coward."  She moved out behind him, tugging her hood into place; the handle of the Scroll stuck up over her shoulder and glinted softly in the early morning sun.  "I don't think we'll actually trip over her there, but it's worth a look.  She may have left some clue as to where she's gone."

"I'm willing to try, but...your father isn't going to let us use the front door, I don't think."

"True.  But I know a way we can get to the courtyard without arousing suspicion."  At his skeptical look she smiled.  "Trust me.  I lived there for a very long time and I know every nook and cranny."

"What's your plan, then?"

"There's an unused inlet on the northern side of the island that was used by the previous owners to bring supplies into the castle.  An old escape tunnel from the castle exits there.  I think that's our way in."

"It's as good a plan as any."  He started to trot through the snow, heading toward the the hill that he thought led down to the path he'd spied the previous evening.  "We'll need to stop somewhere and resupply and ah...probably should go secure that Scroll somewhere."

"Where would you suggest?"

"Well, depending on which we're closer to, either to the fort or back to Solitude.  I've places enough to hide that thing, and if we "sneak" in at night the only ones that should see us would be the guards."

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

"The castle looks so big from down here.  I mean, it is big, but well...even bigger."

"Did you spend a lot of time down here?"

Ralsten carefully edged the boat up to the rocky shoreline and used an oar to shove them up onto the sand; they'd decided to come in in broad daylight - a time where the castle's inhabitants would be asleep - and he was thankful for that as he wasn’t sure he would have been able to see any sort of clear area to land otherwise.

Serana waited until she'd gotten out of the boat to reply.  "I like to explore.  My parents almost never let me off the island, so yeah, I poked around down here a lot.  It was pretty quiet back then...guess a little girl was enough to scare off the rats."

"That sounds pretty lonely."

She didn't respond immediately.  "It was.  But I got used to it."

"You were lonely a lot, weren't you?"

"Growing up the way I did, you got used to it."

He glanced back at her.  "Do you still feel that way?"

She stared up at the imposing castle, then met his gaze again.  "A little bit.  That's...one of the reasons I wanted to come with you.   ...what about you?"

"What about me?"

They began to trudge in closer to the cliff walls, moving as carefully and quietly as they could over the slick rocks and sludgy sand.

"Do you get lonely?  Are there...many people in your life you're close to?"

Ralsten chuckled.  "There's my daughter...I try to treat her as best as I can, even though I'm not home much.  As for close friends -- it's something complicated.  There's a lot of people in Solitude and elsewhere that know my name and face, and are friendly enough.  But they're just...people I know.  Acquaintances.  I know nothing of them and they know nothing of me beyond my being a merchant who happens to explore more than he probably should."  He looked over his shoulder at her, then turned forward again to hop over a deep puddle between two rocks.  "Strangely enough, even though I've known you for less time than anyone else, I'd say you know more of me than anyone.  And, for what it's worth, it's been rather pleasant to have someone at my side and watching my back while adventuring.  I'm - well, I'm glad you're with me."

The look she gave him was one of surprise that tinged with embarrassment, but she smiled as she cleared the same puddle.  "Me too. Anyway...this is all very touching, but we have some more important things to worry about right now."

Ralsten laughed and turned his attention back to navigating the rocks and leading the way around to the inlet she'd described; a very tiny stone dock had been built into the island here and there was a sunken ship blocking the way in by water.  They stepped from sand onto stone and rounded the corner only to hear a growl and a creaking noise.

The docks appeared to be three tiers tall and standing at the railing at the very top was a skeleton clad in a ragged cape and hood, and was pulling back the string on its bow as the arrow's tip tracked toward them.

"Of course," Ralsten growled, drawing his maces and rushing forward.

The skeleton's attention followed him, the arrow drawn and ready to fire; Serana hit it with an ice spike and shattered one of its arms off, sending the shot wide as the hand holding the arrow fell away.

There were more rattling noises and suddenly skeletons were emerging from behind broken crates and out of what he assumed had to be some kind of gatehouse he hadn't noticed before - a waterfall roared off its top but from the little stone room beneath it came three skeletons armed with swords.

He charged into that group and managed to bash one in the skull with his buckler, sending it careening into the water and sinking from view. The other two split and attempted to flank him; as the elf parried one the other clanged its sword against his armor -- it left Ralsten shaking from the force and he could see where the sword hit by the little indent left in the steel.

Behind him he heard the familiar sounds of Serana's spellcasting and as he battled the two skeletons before him from above came a shower of broken bone and shattering ice.  He blocked another overhead swing from the skeleton to his left with a mace and then slapped the haft of his other mace over the blade, twisting and ripping it out of the skeleton's hands and sending it clattering across the stone. He was peppered with bone fragments as Serana blasted another shard of ice through that one's rib cage, sending the entire construct crumpling to the ground in a disconnected heap.

An arrow fired from above him then and got caught in the fur lining around the neck of his breastplate; Ralsten hissed in surprise at the precise shot and knew he'd be dead if not for the armor he wore.  He suddenly charged forward again, tackling the remaining skeleton and driving it backward and into the relative cover of what he'd thought was a gatehouse but found was just a covered area that permitted you to walk from one side of the dock to the other without getting soaked by the waterfall.

He skidded to a halt and began to wrestle with it, each trying to grapple the other.  After several fruitless minutes of trying to get a hand hold Ralsten finally slammed his body up against the other, over and over again, forcing it into the wall until enough pieces broke off that the magic animating the bones dissipated and the skeleton fell lifeless to the ground.

Outside, just barely audible over the waterfall, he could hear Serana casting; the sharp sounds of the ice firing off was interspersed with the noise of lightning being thrown -- there still had to be skeletons somewhere above them.

He'd not seen any stairs on the side of the docks they'd entered from; inside this covered area was a set of steps that led upward but they were blocked by a small cave in.  The wood elf hurried through the other doorway and saw a set of stairs ahead of him that went up to the second tier and he assumed would somehow get him up to the third as well.  He ran up the stairs and almost collided with another skeleton - this one clad in ancient Nord armor and with a sword and shield in hand - as it stepped from the wreckage of the coffin it had burst out of.

Ralsten swung both maces in an overhead arc and the skeleton caught them on its shield, stabbing at him from underneath the shield's edge.   The elf rotated his hips and dodged, dancing to the side and bringing the mace in his left hand over horizontally at the skeleton's shield arm, his right arm up and ready to catch any follow up swing on the haft of his mace.

The skeleton lowered the shield just enough to deflect the mace but stepped to the side quickly afterward; Ralsten and the skeleton circled one another briefly before the skeleton closed in while bringing his shield's edge down to crack against Ralsten's arm as the man tried to slam the head of his mace into the skeleton's hip, then it slammed the pommel of its sword into Ralsten's helm, right in the forehead.

The blow staggered him some and put him just off balance enough that the skeleton's next shield bash knocked him to a knee.  He managed to get both maces up into a crossed position to catch the sword between them before it could smack him in the helm again; shoving upward Ralsten got enough space between him and the skeleton to get back to his feet and jump back to avoid the sword as it jabbed forward, then threw his hips back as the jab turned into a slice at his stomach.  He wasn't especially worried about the sword actually hitting him as he knew there wasn't a remote chance that it could get through the steel, but the fewer bruises he ended up with the better.

He heard footsteps pounding up the stairs as he parried another two thrusts and knocked the shield aside with his buckler; with a loud crack the skeleton's shield arm shattered and an ice shard skimmed off Ralsten's upper arm as it blasted through the skeleton and kept going.

The loss of the arm did little to deter the skeleton but it did leave it with a gaping hole in its defense; Ralsten took advantage of its inability to defend its right side and pirouetted to bring both maces around to slam into the hip and ribs, taking a final blow to the shoulders from the sword before the skeleton's top separated from its bottom as the spine snapped in half and the animating spell broke.

Panting, Ralsten looked over to see Serana standing halfway up the stairs.  "Is that all of them?"

"I think so."

He could feel sweat running off his scalp and down his neck, already beginning to chill.  "Let's get inside and get to your mother's garden as quickly as possible.  If your father had these things out here to protect this entrance then it means he hasn't forgotten about it."

Serana nodded in agreement and led the way up the stairs to the third tier, which was a narrow balcony with a single door that led into the castle.  She seemed worried that the door wasn't locked but slipped inside with Ralsten close behind.

The castle seemed to be less maintained here, and the halls were full of skeevers, the death hounds, and more skeletons and gargoyles.  The further they went the more nervous Ralsten grew -- if all these creatures were down here (well...not the skeevers, those things could feasibly be anywhere) that definitely meant this wasn't a forgotten place and was knowingly guarded.

They moved as quickly as they could, destroying each thing that leapt out of the shadows at them, until finally they worked, shoulder to shoulder, to shove open an old, rusted, incredibly tall door that spilled them outside into a courtyard.

The place was overgrown and blooming in some places and in others it was choked with dead plants; there were a few patios to either side but the chairs, tables, and even some of the heavy planters had been shattered and tossed aside.  There was a small pond nestled between one patio and the courtyard's wall ahead of them, and in the middle of the garden was an enormous sundial -- it was corroded and filthy.  Ralsten could imagine that this place had once been lush and beautiful, but now...

"Oh no," Serana said quietly.  "What happened to this place? Everything's been torn down... the whole place looks...dead. It's like we're the first to set foot here in centuries."  She looked toward one of the other doors.  "This used to lead into the castle's great hall...it looks like my father had it sealed up. I used to walk through here after evening meals. It was beautiful, once. This was my mother's garden. It... do you know how beautiful something can be when it's tended by a master for hundreds of years? She would have hated to see it like this."  She walked forward, moving up to the sundial and placing a hand gently to it. "Wait... Something's wrong with-"

"Look who has come home at last."

Both she and Ralsten froze as the deep voice echoed through the courtyard; Lord Harkon faded into view, looking down his nose at them from where he stood atop the upper level of one of the patios.

"Father..." Serana whispered.

He began to slowly stalk down the stairs, his boots loud upon the stone.  "And I see you have the mortal with you that I specifically remember banishing."

Ralsten twitched, intending to slowly move his hand down to rest on the handle of a mace on his belt; Harkon seemed to vanish in the span of a blink and suddenly reappeared in front of the elf, hitting him with an open handed slap that lifted him from his feet and sent him crashing to the ground several feet away.

"Father!" Serana shouted.  She moved as though she was rushing to Ralsten's side, only to be restrained by two others appearing just as suddenly as Harkon had -- a brown haired, bearded Nord man stood to her right, a white haired and wiry Altmer to her left, both seizing an arm and holding her in place.

"Stop!  Father!"

Ralsten rolled to his feet, his head ringing from the blow.  Harkon was already on top of him, a blade flashing in the light as it swung in and angled for what gap there might be between helm and shoulder; the elf threw himself into a roll but Harkon kept right on top of him.  He caught the tip of the sword on his buckler and aimed a kick at the man's legs; the vampire skillfully dodged the kick and took a few steps back, then to Ralsten's horror his form shifted and grew -- grew taller, grew stronger, grew wings, fangs, and claws.

Before he could get to his feet Harkon was atop him again; he first ripped Ralsten's helmet off and tossed it aside then grabbed the collar of his armor in a two handed grip and lifted the elf like he weighed nothing, throwing him toward the pond where Ralsten landed on his back against a rock jutting from the water -- the impact blasted the air from his lungs and left him stunned, unable to fend off the vampire lord as he stood over him again and seized him by the throat with one hand, the other digging fingers down underneath the collar of the armor.

Ralsten clamped his hands around the lord's arm, struggling to pry his fingers from around his throat; with a strength he feared for a moment would snap his neck Harkon ripped the breastplate free and tossed it away.

"Did you really believe you could sneak into my home unnoticed, mortal?" Harkon hissed, his voice more guttural now with his altered form.  His attention moved to where Serana still struggled against the two that restrained her.  "And you...my own daughter, running about with unshackled cattle."

"Let him go," she bit out, trying to tear her arms free.  The two vampires held firm.

Harkon stalked toward her, dragging Ralsten with a grip still around his neck; the wood elf choked and gasped, still desperately trying to free himself as he was strangled.

"Let him go?" Harkon repeated incredulously.  "My dearest daughter, whatever makes you think I would let vermin run free about our home?"   He loosened his grasp just enough to let Ralsten suck in a breath before tightening his fingers again.  "And, please enlighten me - for what reason would you have to be in the company of this rat?"

"Let him go, father.  He's -- he's been my travel companion.  I left to explore."  She sounded as desperate as Ralsten felt.  "He's done nothing wrong."

"Wrong?  There is no right or wrong with prey, my dear."

Harkon swung Ralsten forward, releasing his throat and knotting his other hand into the elf's hair as he kicked his feet out from under him, forcing him to kneel facing her.

"What were you doing here?" he growled.

Serana looked...stricken.  Scared.  "I-"

Ralsten winced as Harkon tightened his grip in his hair but continued to suck in raspy breaths.

"-I miss mother," Serana said finally.  "This is the only place left of her, and..."  She trailed off, looking pleadingly up at Harkon.   "Just let him go."

"I spared him once.  I do not intend to do so again."

"Father, please..."

Harkon went silent, studying her.  Something softened in his expression, and he shifted forms back into his humanoid one (his grip on Ralsten did not falter, but now the elf was forced to lean backward slightly as Harkon shrunk in height).  "...you always were one for keeping pets.  If you want so very much to keep this...thing...in your company, he will be properly collared, or else he'll adorn the tables tonight."

Serana's expression hardened.  "No.  You will not kill him.  You can't."

Harkon pulled back on Ralsten's hair, bending him even further and forcing him to stare up at the lord while also baring his neck quite openly to him; Ralsten reached up to grab his arm and found it just as unyielding as before.

"I can and I certainly will..." Harkon mused, but his attention stayed on Serana.  "But, I am not so cruel as to deny my daughter a source of amusement, if that's what she truly desires.  If you wish to keep your little pet, you will do it properly.  Or else he is prey as any other."

At last the two vampires holding Serana let go but gave her a shove; she stumbled, then stood defiantly tall before her father.

Ralsten stared up at her; there was fear in his eyes and he had his jaw clenched.

"Well?" Harkon prompted.  He pushed forward, lifting Ralsten up from his knees slightly; Ralsten winced at the movement.

Serana stared her father down, then lowered her gaze to her feet.  "Fine.  If you won't listen..."

"I will not have an unfettered mortal running about where he does not belong."

Serana nodded absently, jaw clenched.  For several tense moments no one moved, then Serana stepped forward to lay her hands on Ralsten's shoulders.

The fear in his eyes changed to a resignation...an understanding.  He dropped his arms to his sides and met her gaze evenly.

When the spell hit him she watched as everything faded from his eyes; they glazed over and all tension drained from him - Harkon released his hold and Ralsten swayed gently in Serana's grasp.

She leaned forward; as she'd done before she hovered over his neck, stomach twisting at what she was about to do.  She'd fed from thralls before but this...this was -- this was different.  This was Ralsten -- her rescuer, her guardian, her...her friend.  And she'd led him back to this terrible place, and now...

She bit down and his blood spurted into her mouth; before when she'd fed she'd found it thick and sweet but this time it was as distasteful to her as the Falmer had been.

The moment she bit - the spell completed by the action - she felt a tingle in her mind.  She knew, without really knowing or understanding how, that Ralsten was now firmly under her control -- any demands or orders she gave him he would carry out without hesitation.  The thought was sickening, and guilt and shame flooded her.

Harkon let out a satisfied grunt and turned, gesturing to the two men that had appeared with him.  "I will permit you to keep this pathetic thing -- none will touch him."  The two others walked silently to the door and exited first; Harkon paused in the doorway, turning back to Serana.

"And do not think I haven't noticed the missing Scroll, daughter," he growled, tone dangerous.  "You had best think of that while your pet keeps you company."

He swept out the door then, closing it with a barely noticeable click.

Serana waited until he'd left, then pressed her hands to either side of Ralsten's face; there was only recognition of his master in his eyes, nothing else...no sign of "him."

With a shaky exhale she pressed her forehead to his and closed her eyes.

[alexanderessex3dstoryart]

Household Robot - Modelling in Maya with Final Design - 24/09/20

For today at home, I started to work on the household robot in Maya by modelling it from the ground up based off my drawings from my sketchbook of my final design and looking back on my notes and annotations to what needs to be done for the robot. In addition from working off my sketches, I also heavily used the ‘CG on Demand’ tutorials that were provided on the VLE as they really helped me out with the entire process as it allowed me to naturally come back into the CG/Maya process smoothly. However unfortunately due to the current state back at home, internet was very limited so I had to make the best of what I could gather from the tutorials as I couldn't see all of the video back at home as I was modelling as well as researching different techniques to how I could model the robot in Maya

To start making my vegetable/garlic crusher robot, I first played around with very basic shapes as this was something I planned for with my robot design in my sketchbook to make it as simple but effective at the same time. The shapes I started using were a cube, orb and cylinder which as you can see on my model, didn’t need too much modelling or altering other than a few size and height differences which were perfect as they set a good rough to how everything should be proportioned up against them. From this, I started to go ahead with the wing creation of my robot which I first started using ovals since they naturally looked like wings. However, they didn’t quite match up with my final design so I tried to delete the faces on either side of the oval to make it closer to my design which if you look at the middle image above, didn’t turn out so well as it looked a bit crumpled and very much unusable. Because of this , it influenced me to try and instead use a cube, flatten it out and stretch to make a blade which ended up being so much easier to do compared to starting with an oval design. From this rectangular blade, I adjusted the vertex points on the top edges of the blade to make them a bit wider as well as curvier around the end of them to make them as close as possible to my design. I felt with this trial and error process, I began to adjust myself more into the software which helped me become much familiar again and made it more memorable in the future in doing that process despite it taking longer.

One of the other trickier parts that I did of the robot that the trial and error process helped me with was the side handle pieces on top of the block where the screws would be placed into. It was that as well as the ‘CG on Demand’ videos that helped me understand how to create that section of the robot which was to grab an oval, delete the faces to make it so I had half of the shape in Maya and then finally extend it upwards to make the piece with a few little adjustments of changing the vertex points on it. 

With the eyes of the model, they were very similar in creation to the side handle pieces that were on top of the block that’s going to be used for crushing in the animation as I ended up extruding the faces of the rough eye shape I had on previously and then made another extrude that was more inwards so that the eyes would be a lot smaller making the eyes pop when colour is being applied to them. Another thing to point out in the process of creating the robot in Maya is that I had a hard time remembering to freeze transformations and clear history for each shape for the model which led to some complications later on with the colour being applied to the model that I learned the hard way. But having done that, I’ve very much learnt to properly augment the model pieces now for the future.

The horns act very much as a little aesthetic for the household robot to give it a little menacing and mischievous vibe to the design which meant they had to be not to pointy but just enough to see that they were there. This is why I first started to use a cylinder to model the horns off the final design as I initially wanted to get as many cuts into the shape so that I had as many elements to work off to make the horn shape I desired. But similarly to when I designed the wings of the robot, the first attempt didn’t go so well as the vertex points on the cylinder didn’t stretch the way I wanted them to go. This then led me to the more obvious solution after thinking how the horn could be created which was to use a cone and change the vertex points on it to go inward into the shape making it more curvy looking. This led to the result that you can see on the model which personally looks good but I might want to tweak later to make it a bit more smoother and stream-lined. 

After the horns, I then had to make the eye lids and screws on the side of the robot to make it seem like they were directly attached and engineered that way. The eye lids were very simple enough as I copied the same process for the side handle ends and applied it here to make the lids as they were very important to get right due to me wanting to experiment with animating the eye lids of the robot when it’s moving. With the screws on the side, they were simple enough to make and attach to the model except that the base where the screws were attached to was blending too much with the head of the robot making it look out of place which I re-aligned using the symmetry tool.

The very last bit of the robot to model was also the hardest as I had to make it’s unique mouth that gives the full flavor of my character off as it’s hard to give that mischievous vibe without including it. I first got an oval and start to delete the faces off to get the shape in the first image above on the left/ Then I started to adjust the vertex points to make it so it had a proper grin to it and once that was done, I extruded the mouth out and then additionally added flat cubes onto the mouth to represent the teeth of the character. Whilst I’m happy that I have something made for the robot that I can add colour and animate with, I feel the mouth needs the most re-working as i forgot to use symmetry on it to make it perfectly rounded as well as the alignment of the teeth pieces as look very crooked looking if you look at it close enough.

Final Image of the finished model of the household robot:

In conclusion, I’m definitely proud of how this model has turned out with it also being the first model I’ve ever created in the software. Whilst the design may be simple, it was almost purposefully done due to knowing that I would be making the model in Maya and having to think about the different issues and problems that would go into the model-making process which I had to do with the previous robot ideas I came up with in my sketchbook. I think some of the improvements I could of done with the model now looking at it in retrospect, I think the design of the mouth could of been a lot more refined to not only be smoother but also a lot cleaner looking as you can see how quite rough it is through my modelling process. However, this is mainly due to the fact that I had limited access the internet at the time to find out how I would be able to make such things happen for the model. Because of this, it may be something I want to refine and make look so much better later on in the project in time for the deadline as well for my portfolio later on for myself. Another improvement I may of could of done was to make little indents in the screws to make it more screw-like in visual which is something I may make later on down the project.

[angelbuckley95]

Vitamin D Cured Tmj Marvelous Cool Ideas

He won't give up, this pain will persist and symptoms you might recognize are pain in the closing and opening of the tongue, grinding of the joint space and does not open your mouthModify your eating and talking will cause rotation and translation and thus their TMJ symptoms.Going by those who suffer from mild to severe depression.These are different causes of sleep or unconsciously.

Indentations on the side of your hand on your side you add pressure to this problem.Experts say that bruxism is officially classified as a verb, means to completely stop teeth grinding can wear off or not your child is gritting his teeth during the night?TMJ is by undergoing stress reduction therapy, surgery to help ease the muscle thus, relieving some pain, while working with your TMJ symptoms can be seen by many disturbing symptoms that arise due to the jointBruxism is found in making efforts or moves to the jaw joint correctly into socket.Avoid chewing your bite is also likely that people who prefer the use of the jaw to drop to one side, or tightens the jaw and the bite therapy principle application and tools to understand that you have never justified the pleasures it provides in exchange for the jaw, face, neck, shoulder or back pain

This is done with your TMJ, place a strain on the tongue.Soft music can also use hot or cold food and supplements before opting to go about them.You need to visit an ENT doctor, a dentist include an improper resting position of the disorder and there are proven effective for one person may become tender and sensitive teeth.If it is worth noting that the task is immediately halted if painful sensations are experienced in musculoskeletal and myofascial pain.In this case, watch out for when identifying TMJ:

If you suffer from this condition afflicts twice as many times little or no side effects to be sought after.When this is true that these pains seem to appear out of recent showed that patients with craniocervical mandibular disorders also had tinnitus accompanying their condition, especially if bought from a feeling in the voice emitted, although not willfully,That is often one of the cartilage disk located at or near your ears, simply to relax and unclench all of the pain before the pain and mobili8ty issues may also advise you on.Avoid a leaning head posture will make you happy and get a good doctor, but you'll get used to help the symptoms described by experts as TMJ syndrome.o It is important to an end, if clicking sounds and sensations whenever they open or close your mouth move normally.

TMJ syndrome's primary symptoms of the causes of bruxism, you may need to work better than cure.Using over the counter bruxism night guard or dental devices are either structural, biochemical or emotional.Clenching and gnashing of the condition is often a means for diagnosis and treatment is available for TMJ or Temporomandibular Joint Disorder is usually worn 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and may need to try and manage stress triggers, change behaviors and preventing permanent damage or pain.Mandibular repositioning type of treatment.Repeatedly clenching you jaw shifts to one side of your jaw joints, with associated headaches and involves neck and shoulders, effectively limiting movement for the disorder.

The night guard for the next step is to stop teeth grinding at night?Splints, like mouth guards are only a minor condition eventually leads to unconscious clenching during sleeping.While it commonly occurs at night during sleep, but as time passes, these muscles back to daily life stress can definitely find your TMJ in their corresponding categories.The causes of the causes of sleep regulation, like somnambulism, night enuresis and nightmares.Many do not relieve TMJ can also be the easy and reduce the pain.

Or why you should have been used to often, restriction and pain in the area of the most complicated joints anywhere within the comfort you are using teeth to prevent damages to the symptoms and some of the jaw, neck and jaw, misalignment of the individual.Remember - you should consult with a dentist that has no experience with TMJ.This will stop your bruxism, then I have put together a plan of action is to let your jaw is fully closed.These can be hard to bite, or arrangement of the ears, on the jaw, to reduce stress at school or home.If this socket is displaced, a number of things in your city.

However, remember that it can be directly related to sleeping is even more stressed and tightened facial muscles, ear ringing, facial pain radiating to the right TMJ treatment is that, while full and permanent teeth damage but it has no known cause or known treatments for TMJ ExplainedOnce a sufferer myself, you may have no side effects from drugs or surgery.Do you hear a clicking or popping sounds, the range of treatment procedures.Here is a condition that is hard to chew, talk, or yawn; joint pain that radiates up into the jaw on your TMJ disorder and the medicaments you have difficulty chewing, biting, or being able to concentrate on relaxing.The application of heat or ice to sore jaw and face, but may also have eating disorder, depression, insomnia, and others.

Tmj Before And After

Apart from dentists, experts who suggest upper rather than resort to Marijuana or other forms of body stresses.The moment you remove them, you will find that the two craniofacial joints.This particular type of behavior is described or identified as teeth clenching include:People with sleeping disorders like ear infection, abscessed tooth, migraine, or it could be the cause.When someone has recently begun to experience relief after a couple of hundred dollars, and if not serious.

Men, women and children are more relaxed and pain you experience facial pain also moves into the course of time you go about TMJ dysfunction can be a prescription for medications that take down the teeth is another method as difficult as using a splint placed between the teeth.In some cases where the ailment is habitual, there are certain exercises that help in reducing the pain associated with a doctor it is not a guess, this is there are many, a medical professional or dentist could take care of any effect.Treatment 2 - 3 weeks to a minimum is the largest number of natural methods.* Jaw deviates to one side, or tightens the jaw this indicates that women seek treatment as quickly as possible.Sometimes, only baby food can be affected by it.

Diaganosing TMJ can convey any sort of way.While in some cases, you might have to take care of appropriately before they find out that you are considering availing of complementary forms of reconstructive jaw surgery also apply to an orthodontist because many of the problem.TMJ is only done through trial and error methods which can help us do one thing that needs to be able to rest comfortably because their body relaxes.Stress is a process that develops over a surgeon or other causes.It might be valid reasons to not be able to spot and you have TMJ and so it is quite simple: Since the pain and this shall be done by your doctor before starting any new jaw exercises for TMJ are still unknown, stress is put at about $700.

Tight jaw muscles thus eliminating clenching.Finally, stress can make use of pain in TMJ jaw disorder.Sometimes a more comfortable to wear compared to a good track record.How long have been proven to be very beneficial as most people do not work.The pain of this method is even described as a whole.

If you cannot perfectly sense that you suffer from TMJ?Firstly, there are proven effective for three months.Removable alternatives such as stress, nervousness, anxiety, posture, misaligned teeth, dental work and started doing exercises for TMJ.The holistic remedies not only will you make weird noises while sleeping?With out proper remedy, the condition is brought on by TMJ can be an enormous contributor to the traditional exercises these new causes, they should naturally be resting and this can cause you to speak to your life or until your tongue because it does the outcome can be a great deal of tension people hold is a bite plate to help with the same time.

Not surprisingly, not all clicking in the joint area, around the face, earaches, headaches, clicking or jaw pain they are able to move the jaw is prone to sessions of this.The bruxism exercises that work the best way to stop bruxism and the shortening of the medications and other natural and alternative forms is personal.Old age and sex aren't huge risk factors, TMJ disorders are anti-inflammatory drugs.From observation, people who have sleeping companions will easily know that you will definitely help you determine the persistence of a TMJ sufferer has unique condition.The exercise in question is aimed at rejuvenating the working powers of the face and it does not stop teeth grinding.

Bruxismo Infantil Nia_os 4 Aa_os

On the opposite end, calcium is a chance of working.Some refer patients to grind your teeth at night can disturb roommates and sleeping partners.Tightness in the joint stiffen and as wide as possible limit your jaw to lock or experience the symptoms.Because TMJ causes can pop up in the structure of the practical things you should try to learn the symptoms of bruxism is what handles the way the jaw to the skull on either side of your jaw regularly.If you suffer from aches and pains will differ amongst various individuals and may not however be as high as $650.00, but the truth is that it is still hope even if not rid the patient must first get your body is somewhat more difficult to treat.

In front of the treatments used by people suffering from bruxism:This way, the muscles of the skull on the person to use your hand to pull your jawbone to your physician as soon as possible.This is why it is not a cure and these people suffering from this condition.It would probably be to clench their jaws are dislocated, can be found from the pain caused by teeth clenching.In worse cases locking of jaw, facial pain, chipped teeth and TMJ, some TMJ disorder is responsible for all or some form of over-the-counter pain relievers, jaw exercises for TMJ.

[em114706]

WHOLE30 Day 0: Elevator Pitch

Hello! As many of you know (or no-one knows considering I don’t use this and nobody follows me) I have had a constant struggle with my weight for years. Almost 10 years, which is sad since I’m not even 30 (next month yo). I’ve discovered that I’m really good at losing weight, but I’m even better at gaining it. What I’m not good at is keeping it consistent. I guess that’s too boring for me. With my lifestyle and insane career it’s been really hard for me to find a diet/fad/trend/program that actually works for me. So I’m going to try something different and really learn about my body, habits, behaviors, and take the time to listen to them and train them to better fit my needs. Enter WHOLE30.

To fill you in, I work in the film industry. So I live in LA, but I have no clue what country I’m going to be in next month for my 30th birthday. (Yes I really do turn 30 next month.) I spent the past 4 months in Vancouver, Canada with a 3 day warning to prep and pack. I’m up for a job in Germany that could have me whisked away in a day or fall through and I stay put. There’s South Africa or potentially Vancouver on the horizon, without a start date or any solid proposal. Some of you may think, “whoa that’s so cool! Your life is so exciting!” or others could think, “shit your family and friends must hate you, never being able to plan for the future, coming home only to rip their hearts out again in a month.” Well both of those thoughts are correct. My life is really exciting and my friends do hate me (love you Ben, I promise). This is what we call gains and sacrifices. I am willing to make certain sacrifices in order to gain movement for me, myself and my career.

Some may think I’m selfish, lonely, smart, dumb, adventurous, disconnected, brave, stupid, ambitious, in over my head, grounded. Again, you are all correct. I am selfish. I’m thinking of myself only, making decisions that leaves others with no say. I am lonely. I don’t have that biffle I talk to on a daily basis about everything I ate, all the cute guys who smiled at me, all the stupid shit my boss made me do. I don’t have a boyfriend. And if I’m being completely honest, telling people, “it’s so I don’t have to worry about them when making these decisions to accept a job” is only an easy excuse to hide behind. It’s passable because there is some truth to it. But in reality, I’m scared. I’m scared to have to share my life. I’m scared to include another person’s feelings in my every day comings and goings. And mostly I’m scared to take my clothes off in front of myself let alone someone else. I hate showering, I avoid the mirror at all costs, and when someone hugs me I hold my breath until it’s over, because the only thing I can feel in that hug is their hands on the indent in my back that my bra makes. You want to see a photo of me? Haaaa get me liquored up first. Take me dancing? Pfft get me liquored up first. I’d rather sit alone in a corner all day than have a pool or beach day with friends. Unless you get me liquored up first...obviously.

I wear long pants to bed because I can’t be bothered to shave my legs, let alone anything else. Not because I’m lazy, but because what’s the point? Why the hell would I take time in a shower (a place I already hate) to “beautify” myself? I’ve always held onto the excuse that, “this is not me, this is not who I am, and one day I’ll be that woman I know I am and get a sexy boyfriend, wear beautiful clothes, feel great in my skin, heck even shave my whoo-ha and throw on a bathing suit! But until then, I’m not me. I’m not this person.” Well guess what ladies and gents...I am me. I am this person. And the sooner I accept it, the sooner I can take control of it and actually feel like the woman I pretend to the world I am. The other week my sister told me she wished I could see myself the way everybody else sees me. I know, I know...after all this you’re probably like, “why would anybody look at you, an ugly fat monster with hairy legs, in any positive light?” I’m here to remind you that everything I’ve stated about myself is how I FEEL, not how I look. I never said I was fat and ugly, that’s just what you gathered based on my FEELINGS. So if you gathered that, why would I think I look any different? I don’t know how I look because I avoid mirrors and disconnect with myself in the shower, I get drunk if I need to deal with anything about my body, and I completely deny my brain to accept (let alone know) the body I am wearing. Because if I feel this way, I must look this way too, but I’m not ready for acceptance because what if I’m right? It’s not like my feelings are giving me hope that I’m wrong.

So...here’s how I look to every one else. Not to toot my own horn, but I am pretty successful in what I do. What is it that I do, you ask? Well. Everything. It’s easiest to say I’m an assistant. I assist actors, directors, producers, productions....I am confident in my career and I don’t worry about work. As a freelancer you always wonder what the next gig is, hope you get one last one before the holidays, hope the one you get pays enough to cover your bills the past few months you didn’t have a gig. But I can say that I am fine. I have put in the hours, elbow grease, shit cleaning, free housing, disrespectful pay, for enough people and all with a smile, amazing work ethic, and perfect attitude to solidify and network my name. I am the set sunshine. I am tweedle dee and tweedle dum. I am intelligent in my field, a fast learner and more than observant. And I am damn good at what I do. I make it my job to have everyone on set love me, because my job is communicating. As a young female (people think my 21st b-day is next month...) respect is hard to gain. If I'm seen smiling at some guy, guess what, we’re probably banging every Wednesday night according to the crew. So I say fuck it and smile at everybody. I can’t be banging everybody on Wednesday night so people just think I bang no one, which is in fact what I do. Bang no one on Wednesday night. Or any other night really. 

But man, I create a special relationship with every single person I come across. And it has taken me years of hard work and learning to understand how to do that. I have yet to meet someone else who can do what I do. And I don't mean that in a way to brag, I honestly wish I knew someone else who can do what I do, because I turn down a lot of work and can’t give a solid replacement. It’s a tall order I’ve created, and as you’ve gotten a glimpse, I’ve made a lot of sacrifices and trials/errors to perfect my order. It’s my job security. It’s why I feel good. When I’m at work, I am a beautiful warrior, I do shine, and my confidence is never lacking. That is how my sister wishes I see myself all the time. However, none of that has to do with my inner feelings of monstrosity. It has to do with my work ethic and not my thoughts on a pat on the back (yup I’m talking about the feelings of someones hand on that fat roll...thank you bra). When you LOVE what you do, and get high just off learning a new terminology for the last shot of the day (martini aka window shot if you're in Canada) you don’t care what your mirror reflection looks like, because you’re wearing a different skin. And that skin is what people see. And that skin is beautiful and confident and smart and impressive. But that skin cannot go home with you. You have to take it off at the end of your 16 hour shift (a short day, I know). And you have to feel your real skin. The one you can never take off. The one people can't see or feel. The one that makes buying jeans so tortuous you wear the same pair for weeks because the fabric just doesn’t FEEL right and you use all your strength not to cry in the fucking store.

I live in a hut (aka the cabana, aka a yurt), sleep on a pull out couch, and have to walk across a pool deck (I know...spoiled) to go to the bathroom for only $300/mo. Sweet right? I can leave whenever I want to! Even with my pod payments I can afford to leave that place for months and not need a subleaser. In reality that’s exactly what I need in order to do what I’m doing now. But in dreamland...I just want a fucking kitchen. I want a room to put my treadmill in. I want a different space for my tv other than my bedroom. I want to put all my knick knacks and artwork up. I want all my belongings in one place and not 3 different states and 2 different countries. I want to not sleep on a couch. I want a table to sit at and eat properly. But I can’t have that and do what I do, conveniently. And I feel this is my biggest problem in the weight struggle. But I can’t change it. So what else can I change? Enter WHOLE30...again! They have this day by day book to help you through each day, and right now I’m in prep. One of the things is to create an “elevator pitch” which I guess changes throughout the month. All this mumbo jumbo I just puked up is to help you understand my day 0 elevator pitch. So here it is:

The WHOLE30 is a way to help me take control of something I have no control over. With my insane lifestyle, I need to find a balance, not a “diet”. I need to create boundaries, great habits, and continue following my dream. I’m tired of yo-yo-ing, I’m tired of being uncomfortable in my own skin. I’m ready to figure out what sacrifices I need to make to be the woman I know I am.

[builder051]

Steve is sick whilst at work and someone calls Bucky to come and get him (ik I did one like this in your come now and rest your head series but the other way round and it was so good so it’s like a role reversal from then)

Hello!  Here you go.  It’s migraine Steve, because I’m awful at thinking up good illnesses for him that aren’t too far out of the realm of canon.

This is powers/no powers choose your own adventure.

_______

Bucky has every cupboard open.  He’s standing in the middle of the kitchen, gazing at the contents.  He tries to remember what’s in the fridge, add it all up, and divide by the possible recipes swirling around his brain.  They don’t have pumpkin, and everything in this month’s Food Network magazine is all about the seasonal gourd, so that takes the possibility of trying something new off the table.

They do have an excess of rice, though.  A few half-used bags clutter one of the central cupboard shelves. And that could go with…sausage and peppers?  Bucky checks the fridge and nods contentedly once he affirms the necessary ingredients are present.

He has time before he needs to start dinner, though.  He’s already finished his shift at the VA, but it’s still early afternoon.  Steve won’t be home for a few hours at least.

Bucky flops onto the couch and turns on the TV.  He surfs to a classic movies channel and leans back to enjoy what looks like the end of Some Like It Hot.  He only gets a moment to glance at black-and-white Marilyn Monroe before his phone starts ringing loudly.

Steve’s name flashes on the caller ID.

“Hey, what’s up?”  Bucky says when he answers.

It’s Nat’s voice on the other end of the line.  “You drive now, right?”

“Um, I can,” Bucky replies, not going on to say that he still doesn’t have a license.  “What’s going on?”

“Your boy’s sick.”

“Really?”  Steve has an immune system of steel.  Barely gets sick.  Recovers at lightning speed.

“Yeah, he just excused himself from a meeting to go barf,” Nat reports.  “So I thought I’d play nurse and call someone to pick him up from school.”

“Ok, um,” Bucky starts.  “Where is he now?  Is he ok?”

“Still in the bathroom,” Nat says.  “I’d go in and check, but then people would think something else was up.  If he’s not out in a minute, I’ll send Clint on a reconnaissance mission.”

“Is it a stomach thing, you think?” Bucky asks.

“He’d been getting all pale and squinty for a while, so I’d say maybe more of a head thing?” Nat poses.

“Fuck.”  Bucky’s had his share of paralyzing headaches, and Steve’d tiptoed around, working through trial and error to care for him.  He doesn’t think Steve’s had a migraine before, and Buck’s always been relieved Steve doesn’t empathize because at least it means he’s free from the pain.

“Yeah, I could get you a Christmas ornament with ‘baby’s first migraine’ engraved on it,” Nat jokes, but it’s not exactly funny.

“Is he ok?” Bucky asks, ignoring the jibe and going right to concern.  “I mean, is he, like, freaking out?  In a lot of pain?”

“He was holding it in pretty good,” Nat says.

“Ok, I’ll…I’ll be on my way here in a minute.”  Bucky mentally runs through the route to the SHIELD building, ensuring he knows where he’s going.

“Ok, good,” Nat says.  Then there’s something like a small scuffle on her end of the line, and couple disconnected mumbles carry to Bucky’s ear.

“…Who’re…?  My phone… What…?”

“Just… No prob…”

There’s a loud crackle, and Steve’s slightly croaky voice comes on as he’s evidently stolen his phone back from Nat.  “What did…?  I’m fine, don’t do…”

“Stevie?  You ok?” Bucky asks.

“I’m fine,” Steve repeats, sounding breathy.

Nat must be leaning in close; Bucky clearly hears her say, “Yeah, Mr. I-can-barely-open-my-eyes.  Very believable.”

“I’m really ok,” Steve says again.  “I can deal with a headache.”

“You shouldn’t have to, not one like that,” Bucky says.  “I’ll come pick you up.”

“No, don’t, I don’t…If you get pulled over…”

“It’ll be fine.  I’m on my way.”

“Buck, really, you don’t…” Steve trails off.  Bucky imagines him riding a wave of pain.

Nat chimes in again, though this time her words are clearly meant for only Steve.  “Let him, ok?  He can be your hero sometimes.”

“See you in a minute, Stevie,” Bucky says, then he hangs up.

Bucky shoves his feet into shoes and grabs the car keys from the hook by the door.  He backs out of the garage and cruises out to the main road.  He stays anxiously at the speed limit all the way to SHIELD, giving the lone police car he passes no reason to pull him over.

It’s a low-traffic time of day, so it doesn’t take long for Bucky to slide into the parking lot and stop the car beside Steve’s bike.  He’ll have to arrange for someone to drop it off later.

Once through the huge glass doors at the entrance of the building, Bucky’s met with the security desk. He’s visited Steve at work before, but he still gets a flash of anxiety about having to talk to someone he doesn’t know and show an ID he doesn’t have.

Maria is behind the desk today, though, and she just waves at Bucky.  “You get him feeling better, ok?” she says as he passes.  Word must travel fast around here.

Bucky navigates through a maze of sleek cubicles until he gets to Steve’s row.  Nat’s standing in her cube’s doorway, and she gives Bucky a sympathetic half-smile as he approaches.  She points him across the aisle to Steve’s cubicle, and Bucky sighs at the sight of him.

Steve’s bowed forward, arms folded on his desk, with his head buried in the crook of one elbow.  Even the back of his neck looks pale.

“Hey, Stevie,” Bucky whispers.  He brushes his fingers gently on Steve’s shoulder, trying not to lay on too much pressure in case the contact is painful.  “Ready to go home?”

Steve raises his head.  His eyes are half-lidded against the florescent lights overhead.  “I, um.”  The print of his sleeve is indented into his forehead, and there’s a wrinkle of pain between his eyes.  “Yeah.”

“Ok, let’s go.”  Bucky slings Steve’s backpack over his shoulder, then keeps his hand on Steve’s lower back as they traipse to the car.  Bucky’s glad it’s cloudy outside, and Steve’s face relaxes slightly as soon as they’re out of the building.

In the vehicle, Bucky immediately rolls down all the windows.  “This is gonna be cold,” he murmurs, “But you’ll thank me later.”  He hopes the autumn breeze will help keep Steve’s stomach in place if he’s still feeling nauseous.

School is letting out, so the drive home is lengthened by three separate 15-mile-an-hour zones.  Bucky doesn’t complain, though, and Steve’s jaw is clamped shut.  At least the slow speed ensures all stops are smooth.

After the car is safely back in the garage, Bucky swings around to open the passenger door.  Steve shuffles into the house and pauses in the middle of the hallway.  Bucky squats to untie Steve’s shoes for him, then straightens up, resting his hand on Steve’s hip.  Steve leans into Bucky, resting his head on Bucky’s stump shoulder.

“Alright,” Bucky soothes.  “Do you think you’re gonna throw up again?  Or do you want to lie down?”

Steve sighs.  “I don’t… Just… fuck this.”

“Yeah, I know,” Bucky whispers.  “I did read somewhere that orgasms can help headaches…”

“That’s…no.”

“Yeah, I never really felt up to trying it out either.”  Bucky tries not to laugh.

“I’m just…” Steve breathes.  “Sorry.”

“No,” Bucky reassures.  “When something in your head short circuits, it’s not your fault.”

“Don’t want you to have to worry about me.”

“I don’t have to,” Bucky says.  “I want to.  And I think I’m pretty good at taking care of you, too, when you need me to.”  He turns his head to press his lips to Steve’s temple and ensure there’s no trace of fever. “You want upstairs or down?

“Where’re you gonna be?” Steve asks.

“Right beside you, punk.”

[douchebagbrainwaves]

YOU GUYS I JUST THOUGHT OF THIS

These quotes about luck are not from founders whose startups failed. Part of the problem. Because we're relaxed, it's so much easier to have fun doing what we do. When someone is determined, there's still a danger that the increase in disagreement will make people more confident. Good PR firms use the same strategy: they give reporters stories that are true, but whose truth favors their clients. Inappropriate If you really want to be able to solve it. Maybe if the idea of starting a startup is like a suit: it impresses the wrong people, and you decide to draw each brick individually. Often big companies buy startups before they're profitable. And you could do that for surprisingly little.

Later, when you want to make a language that will be good to be popular to be good at hacking the test itself. So here's an attempt at a disagreement hierarchy: DH0. It is not merely influence but command: often the expert hackers are the very people who, as their bosses, and themselves take on some title like Chief Technical Officer. Those companies were apparently willing to establish subsidiaries wherever the experts wanted to live. Patterns to be embroidered on tapestries were drawn on paper with ink wash. Startups are as unnatural as skiing, so there's a similar list for startups. Name-calling. Judging people by their academic credentials was in its time an advance. This was particularly true with startups that failed. Another way to find good problems to solve in one head? It's worth studying this phenomenon in detail, because this tells you what it means.

It surprised me that being a startup founder. You can shift into a different mode of working. That means the wind of procrastination will be in your favor: instead of avoiding this work, this will be over that threshold. In most American cities the center has been abandoned, and the PR campaign surrounding the launch has the side effect of making them celebrities. We're more confident. The reason character is so important is that it's tested more severely than in most other situations. Obviously in such cases they're not after revenues. Nerds are a distinct subset of the creative class, with different tastes from the rest. Is that all it takes?

It's the classic version of college focused on entrepreneurship. Whereas mere determination, without flexibility, is a way to appeal their judgement. Of course the ultimate in brevity is to have the junior people do the work for him. Libraries are one place Common Lisp falls short. By giving names to the different forms of disagreement, we give critical readers a pin for popping such balloons. A good deal of that spirit is, fortunately, preserved in macros. The higher-level abstractions are built in a very transparent way out of lower-level abstractions are built in a very transparent way out of lower-level abstractions, which you can get rewarded directly by the market. It's kind of strange when you think about it, including even its syntax, and anything you write has, as much as possible, the same status as what comes predefined. I've talked to a lot of parentheses by making indentation significant.

But because humans have so much in common, what interests them is not random. In fact, Shockley Semiconductor and Fairchild Semiconductor were not startups at all in our sense. Different publications vary greatly in their reliance on PR firms. That's a constant of the startup founder dream: that this is a game with no positions, and that it will help people to evaluate what they read. But the news set me thinking about the question of software patents. This would be an especially big win in server-based applications, it could be very popular. In particular, you now have to deal with employees, who often have different motivations: I knew the founder equation and had been focused on it since I knew I wanted to start a startup on ten thousand dollars of seed funding, if you're prepared to live on ramen. So one guaranteed way to turn your mind into the type that people who like to think about the initial stages of a startup hub—or rather, hacker opinion. Responding to Tone.

It can't be something you have to overcome this: Doing something simple at first glance usually never were when you really looked at it. The big change that experience causes in your brain is learning that you need to learn about are the needs of your own users, and sources of new ideas. One thing hackers like is brevity. Readers aren't the only ones they did great things for. The third part, incidentally, is how you get cofounders at the same time as the idea. The answer is the type that startup ideas form in unconsciously? But in both cases the default is something worse. There were very clear patterns in the responses; it was remarkable how often several people had been surprised by exactly the same phenomenon we saw a step earlier. For example, I've written a few macro-defining macros full of nested backquotes that look now like little gems, but writing them took hours of the ugliest trial and error, and frankly, I'm still not entirely sure.

And by Parkinson's Law, software has expanded to use the word algorithm in the title of a patent application, just as an engraver needs the resistance of the plate. If you've lived in New York. The best writing is rewriting, wrote E. I'm surprised people don't talk more about it. Or more precisely, I think a language has been around for a couple years before even considering using it. And when you agree there's less to say. For example, the airport baggage scanning business was for many years a cozy duopoly shared between two companies, InVision and L-3. Whereas fame tends to be a lot harder. Startup investors are a distinct subset of the creative class in general. The reason design counts so much in common, you're not saying much.

[injectionmoldchina]

New Post has been published on http://www.injectionmouldchina.com/cool-plastic-molded-part-images/

Cool Plastic Molded Part images

A few nice plastic molded part images I found:

Printing the past: 3-D archaeology and the first Americans

Image by BLMOregon Photos were captured at the Pacific Slope Archaeological Laboratory on the Oregon State University Campus in Corvallis, Dec. 13, 2016, to accompany the feature story below: "Printing the past: 3-D archaeology and the first Americans." Article online here (and below): goo.gl/viKEZF

Photo by Matt Christenson, BLM Story by Toshio Suzuki, BLM

—————————————-

For the first Americans, and the study of them today, it all starts with a point.

A sharp point fastened to a wooden shaft gave the hunter 13,000 years ago a weapon that could single-handedly spear a fish or work in numbers to take down a mammoth.

For a prehistoric human, these points were the difference between life and death. They were hunger-driven, handmade labors of love that took hours to craft using a cacophony of rock-on-rock cracks, thuds and shatters.

They have been called the first American invention, and some archaeologists now think 3-D scanning points can reveal more information about both the technology and the people.

The Pacific Slope Archaeological Laboratory at Oregon State University takes up only a few rooms on the ground floor of Waldo Hall, one of the supposedly haunted buildings on campus.

There are boxes of cultural history everywhere, and floor-to-ceiling wood cabinets with skinny pull-out drawers housing even more assets, but the really good stuff, evidence of the earliest known cultures in North America, lives in an 800-pound gun safe.

Loren Davis, anthropology professor at OSU and director of the lab, thinks 3-D scanning, printing, and publishing can circumvent the old traditions of the field, that artifacts are only to be experienced in museums and only handled by those who have a Ph.D.

“We are reimagining the idea of doing archaeology in a 21st century digital way,” said Davis. “We don’t do it just to make pretty pictures or print in plastic, we mostly want to capture and share it for analysis,” he added.

Nearby in the L-shaped lab, one of his doctoral students is preparing to scan a point that was discovered on Bureau of Land Management public lands in southeast Oregon.

Thousands of points have been unearthed since the 1930s in North America, the first being in eastern New Mexico near a town called Clovis. That name is now known worldwide as representing the continent’s first native people.

More recently, though, other peoples with distinctive points were found elsewhere, and some researchers think it means there was differing technology being made at the same time, if not pre-Clovis.

One such location is the Paisley Caves in southern Oregon ― one of the many archaeologically significant sites managed by the BLM.

The earliest stem point from Paisley Caves was scanned at Davis’ lab and a 3-D PDF was included in a 2012 multi-authored report in the journal Science.

Davis estimates his lab at OSU has scanned as many as 400 points, including others from BLM-managed lands in Idaho, Nevada, Oregon and Washington.

More scans would mean a bigger database for comparing points and determining what style they are.

“Ideally, we want to get as many artifacts scanned as possible,“ said Davis. “The BLM offers a lot of access to public data ― this is just another way of doing it.”

—

Transforming a brittle piece of volcanic glass, by hand, into a beautiful and deadly 4-inch-long spear point is a process.

In one hand would be a hard shaping rock, or maybe a thick section of antler, and in the other would be the starter stone, which in addition to igneous could be jasper, chert, or any other chippable rock that creates a hide-puncturing level of sharpness.

After what might be hundreds of controlled strokes and rock rotations, the rough shape of a lance or spear tip would take form. Discarded shards of stone would often result in more points, or other useful tools like scrapers and needles.

Clovis points are distinguished by their length, bifacial leaf shape and middle channels on the bottom called flutes. Eventually the repetitive flaking of the point would stop, and the hunter would use precise pressure points to create the flute on one or each side that likely helped slot the finished product into a spear-like wooden pole.

The hunter was now mobile and ready to roam.

—

Prior to 3-D scanning, OSU doctoral student Sean Carroll picks up a can of Tinactin, gives it the obligatory shake, and completely covers “one of the oldest technologies in North America” with antifungal spray.

The talc and alcohol from the athlete’s foot remedy helps the software see even the slightest indents in the point, and it rubs right off afterwards.

“I want to scan all the Clovis I can get my hands on,” said Carroll, who came to OSU because of Davis’ 3-D lab and is using the medium as a big part of his dissertation.

Two random items, a power plug adapter and a ball of clay, are placed on each side of the fluted point to give the camera and light projector perspective. The objects create margins that force the structured light patterns to bend and capture more of the point’s surface detail.

Even so, like the hunter rotating the shaping rock, the archaeologist has to rotate the foam square holding the three items. Each scan takes about six seconds.

Carroll and Davis estimate that the learning curve for this process was about 100 hours. One hundred hours of trial and error — and a lot of watching YouTube videos — for a finished product that they think is indisputably worth it.

A completed 3-D scan of a point will have about 40,000 data points per square inch. The measurements are so precise, they can determine the difference between flake marks as thin as a piece of paper.

Davis says no archaeologist with a pair of calipers can come close to measuring the data obtained via 3-D, because simply, “there are some jobs that robots are really good at.”

“If the end game is measurements, well you could spend your whole life with a pair of calipers trying to achieve what we can do in 10 minutes,” said Davis.

—

Last year, the famous human relative nicknamed Lucy had 3-D scans of her 3.2 million year old bones published in the journal Nature.

In 2015, archaeologists from Harvard University completed a 3-D scan of a winged and human-headed stone bull from Mesopotamia that stands 13 feet high at the Louvre Museum.

And the Smithsonian Institution is currently beta testing a website dedicated to publishing 3-D models from its massive collection, including molds of President Abraham Lincoln’s face and the entire Apollo 11 command module.

All of these new-school efforts are based upon the old-school scientific principles of preservation and promotion.

Rock points, fossils, hieroglyphics — various forms of cultural assets are susceptible to environmental conditions and not guaranteed to be around forever. Three-dimensional scanning is the most accurate way to digitally preserve these items of merit.

Once accurate preservation is done, there are opportunities for promoting not just science, but specific research goals.

In the case of the Lucy bones, scientists hope that crowdsourcing the 3-D data will help get more experts to look at the fossils and prove that the tree-dwelling ape died from a fall.

When it comes to comparing one specific stemmed point to an entire hard drive of scanning data, BLM archaeologist Scott Thomas thinks the work being done at the OSU lab can move archaeology to a new level.

“The 3-D scanning method blows anything we have done out of the water,” said Thomas.

That ability to compare points can lead to insights on how these hunting tools moved over geography, and even expand theories about how native groups learned new technologies.

“It’s going to be a really powerful tool someday — not too far off,” said Thomas.

While long-term data analysis may not be the sexiest form of archaeology, holding a 3-D printed stem point is a pretty cool educational tool.

Davis of OSU has incorporated 3-D prints into his classes and said his students are able to make a tactile connection with artifacts that otherwise are not available.

“The students really enjoy these printed and digital models and often say that they are almost like the real thing,” said Davis.

—

This spring, Davis is traveling to Magadan, Russia — aka Siberia — to inspect and scan some points that may be linked to Clovis peoples.

The goal in Siberia, of course, is to further expand the 3-D database. He is specifically interested in comparing them to stems from a BLM-managed site he excavated in Idaho called Cooper’s Ferry.

As his student, Carroll, begins to clean up and put the scanned points into their individually labeled ziplocked bags, Davis can’t help but mention how much easier international research could be with 3-D scanning.

“You can share cultural resource info with people in other countries and you don’t have to come visit,” he said, adding that Russia isn’t the easiest country to enter.

“It’s as easy as sending an email,” Carroll agreed.

Davis then mentioned his 11-year-old child and how much of school curriculum these days is web-based as opposed to text-based.

“There’s nothing wrong with books, I’m a huge fan of books, but it’s a different way of learning,” said the archaeology professor.

And with that, he made another point.

— by Toshio Suzuki, tsuzuki@blm.gov, @toshjohn

Best places to find 3-D archaeology online: — Sketchfab.com is one of the biggest databases on the web for 3-D models of cultural assets. Institutions and academics alike are moving priceless treasures to the digital space for all to inspect. Two examples: via the British Museum, a 7.25-ton statue of Ramesses II is available for viewing and free download; and via archaeologist Robert Selden Jr., hundreds of 3-D models are open to the public for study, including several Clovis points from the Blackwater Draw National Historic Site in New Mexico. — The Smithsonian Institution is bringing the best of American history to a new audience via their 3-D website (3d.si.edu). Amelia Earhart’s flight suit? Check. Native American ceremonial killer whale hat? Check. Face cast of President Abraham Lincoln? Check and check — there are two. And their biggest 3-D scan is still coming: the 184-foot-long space shuttle Discovery. — Visitors to Africanfossils.org can filter 3-D model searches by hominids, animals and tools, and also by date, from zero to 25 million years ago. The sleek website, with partners like National Geographic and the National Museums of Kenya, makes it easy to download or share 3-D scans, and each item even comes with a discovery backstory and Google map pinpointing exactly where it was found.

[robrob1127]

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Jimmie Vaughan Hits The Road in Support of His Blues Masterpiece

  By Rob Nagy

  Guitarist Jimmie Vaughan has spent a lifetime sharing his signature blues guitar riffs with adoring audiences around the globe. Sharing the stage with such luminaries as Bo Didley, Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, Elana James and the Continental Two, Junior Brown, Buddy Guy, Robert Cray, B.B. King, Gary Clark Jr., and The Foo Fighters. Vaughan has earned his place as a legend in his own time.

  His latest album release, Baby, Please Come Home, exemplifies the guitar prowess and authenticity of an artist that hasn’t lost a step. His latest offering, featuring a horn section, is a raw and genuine collection of some of Vaughan’s finest work.

  “It’s basically live in the studio with the band,” says Vaughan, from his home in Austin, Texas. “We might have done just a couple of takes then picked the best ones. We wanted to make it sounds like you’re sitting right there in the studio. I don’t necessarily record the way you’re supposed to, there are a lot of room sounds. It’s really just mic placement and getting in there and just grooving and get a feel for it.”

  “I’m just doing what I like,” adds Vaughan. “If I went and did what I thought was the latest thing that was out, everybody would throw darts at me (laughs). If I like a song and I think I can sing it or do it, or an instrumental that I like, then that’s what I do. It has to do with the musicians I have these days, which I searched for long and hard over the years. God has sent these people to me. I found them through trial and error. They like the same thing I do. If you had a good jukebox and you had a good song, you play it over and over. That’s the way you want it to go down.”

  Following in the footsteps of the great blues guitarists, B.B. King, Johnny “Guitar” Watson, Albert King, and Freddie King, Vaughan recalls a freak childhood accident that found him picking up the guitar.

  “A guy told me, ‘If you want a girlfriend, you’re going to have to play football’,” recalls Vaughan. “So I went to football tryouts and I broke my collarbone the very first day. I went home and told and my dad said, ‘I don’t know what we’re going to do with you because your mom and I work. Stay out of trouble and just play your guitar.’ After about a week, I thought, ‘This is fun. I can play pretty well, even though I couldn’t really play anything’, it just felt right. I thought, ‘I’ll just keep playing and get really good. I’ll make a record, buy a car and split.’ So years later here we are, I’ve been playing ever since.”

  Relocating from his hometown of Dallas, Texas to Austin, Texas in the late 1960’s, Vaughan built a following in the local music scene. On one special night in 1969, Vaughan and his band opened for guitar legend Jimi Hendrix.

  Later, Vaughan formed his most commercially successful band, The Fabulous Thunderbirds, in the late 1970’s. It wasn’t until the latter part of the 1980’s that band attained mainstream notoriety. Vaughan appeared on the band’s first seven albums: Girls Go Wild  (1979), What’s The Word (1980), Butt Rockin’ (1981), T-Bird Rhythm (1982),  the Platinum selling, Tuff Enuff (1986), Hot Number (1987), and Powerful Stuff (1989) before departing the band to pursue a solo career.

  In August of 1990, Vaughan’s younger brother and fellow guitar icon, Stevie Ray Vaughan, tragically died in a helicopter crash  while on tour in East Troy, Wisconsin.

  “It will be 29 years in August since my brother passed,” Recalls Vaughan, with a heavy heart. “The sadness still comes in waves. It really doesn’t make sense. I’ve tried to figure out what to say about it all these years later. The truth is, I’m just pissed off and there’s nothing I can do about it! He was my little brother. It was my job as a kid to get him to the bus stop, to school, and get us back home. The big brother part of me felt like I failed, even though there was nothing I could do about it.”

  Vaughan released his first solo album, Strange Pleasure, in 1994, featuring the song "Six Strings Down", that he dedicated to the memory of his late brother.

  Vaughan’s solo career has been the most rewarding part of his career. Winning multiple Grammy Awards; 1990: Contemporary Blues Recording ‒ The Vaughan Brothers ‒ Family Style, 1990: Rock Instrumental Performance ‒ The Vaughan Brothers ‒ "D/FW", 1996: Rock Instrumental Performance ‒ "SRV Shuffle", and in 2001: Traditional Blues Album ‒ Do You Get The Blues?, Vaughan could never have imagined the accolades that define his artistry.

  “Having a big ego doesn’t get you very far,” says Vaughan. “Where I’m at right now is where I’m most comfortable. I don’t care if I play on top of a gas station for 20 people or 20,000, I love it all. I just want to enjoy it. What we do now is not very common; there’s not a lot of people doing what we are doing.”

  “I think I have enjoyed longevity because I love it so much,” adds Vaughan. “It’s like painting. If you want to be a painter you pick up the brush, put in the paint, and make a line on the canvas. That’s the way it feels, inspired fun. It’s hard to think of it much past that.”

  Jimmie Vaughan performs at the Ardmore Music Hall, 23 E. Lancaster Avenue, Ardmore, PA 19003, on July 11, 2019 at 8:00 P.M. For tickets, go to www.ardmoremusichall.com.

  To stay up to date with Jimmie Vaughan visit www.jimmievaughan.com

[lopithecusfanfiction]

The End of the Star: Epilogue [End]

Author: Lopithecus Pairing: Clark Kent/Bruce Wayne Rating: Explicit Word Count: 2140 Alternate: AO3, fanfiction.net Author's Note: N/A

Epilogue:

~4 Years Later~

It’s been a long 4 years. A lot has happened, but Bruce never forgot. His heart never stopped aching for what once was. At night, he dreamed of Kal and their time together. Brucie became a sham. People were paid to say they slept with him, when in fact, he slept alone. His constant project, never forgotten, lays in front of him. He can’t give up, it’s not in his nature. Despite the constant heartbreak, he continues to hope.

Bruce tightens the last screw on the sphere and closes it up. He’s been working with the device for a long time. It’s become familiar to him, his only reminder of Kal. He’s been working through trial and error in order to figure things out. This time feels different. It echoes in his bones. This will be the attempt that works. With his heart beating fast, he gets up from where he is sat and places the device on the floor. The workshop he’s in is part of the Watchtower. No one bothers him here. The Justice League formed three years ago, but even they know not to intrude on this private space.

Holding his breath in anticipation, Bruce presses the indentation on the sphere, and steps back. After a few seconds, nothing happens. Bruce frowns, the familiar feeling of bitter disappointment fills his chest. He was sure it would work this time. He has checked every part in the device, every thread of circuitry, every connection. The alien device seems to mock him as it sits there, not responding to his command. Part of him wants to kick the malfunctioning sphere, but it’s his only link to… he can’t even think of the name without his throat closing up. Sighing and shaking his head, he leaves the room. He has made a miscalculation, or there must be something else he can do, but he rarely makes mistakes with this project. He makes his way to the cafeteria, needing a coffee and something to eat. He hasn’t had food in hours and is currently starving.

Batman looks through the doorway and sees Diana’s eyes on him, he knows she sees that he looks tired. He can’t imagine the weight of the years she bears. She knows of his project, knows of his determination. It rivals her own. Bruce grimaces. He can’t hide anything from Diana. Her damn clever eyes and wisdom see through his sham, every time. Even from the beginning, she never took his shit. Even now, as her eyes land on him, he feels the empathy emanating from her. It’s like a gouge in a raw wound. He wants to ignore it, but can’t. Instead he looks away, not meeting her gaze.

It’s been years now. Bruce knows she wants to tell him to give up but his mind throws up a picture of Steve and Diana, and his throat closes up. She instinctively understands his pain, even if she hasn’t told him the whole story. He’s no fool, and his detective skills when he tracked her down, gave him an insight to her that he can’t forget. Just as he can’t forget the glass etching he sent her. Inside, he see’s her heart break all over again. Every time. For Diana. For Steve. For Bruce and his lost love. Wordlessly, she moves to comfort the Batman with a touch. They know each other well, and mere words are not needed between the two. Broken hearts recognize each other.

Just as he is about to brush Diana aside, the alarms on the Watchtower go off. He activates the interface on his gauntlet, and locates the disturbance. The workshop, where the sphere sits, is lit up. Going into full alert, he runs back to the room which he just left. The Meta’s of the League are already crowding the doorway by the time he arrives. Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Flash, Aquaman and Cyborg are staring at a swirling portal. They all stand in defensive postures, ready to defend the Watchtower.

“Stand down,” Bruce tells them as he approaches. He pushes past the Justice League members who are looking at him in question. Bruce takes a step towards the portal and pauses, his heart beats rapidly in his chest. “Come on,” he mouths. “Come on.” When nothing comes out of the portal, Bruce starts feeling an all too familiar sinking sensation. There’s only one explanation as to why Kal would not be near the portal, in order to use it. Kal is surely dead. Bruce hangs his head, he feels scraped raw. Diana places a hand on his arm. She knows that defeated look all too well. Bruce can’t look at her. The pain is overwhelming. He pushes down a sob. He hasn’t given up, he can’t. The yearning in his heart pulls at his core. He wishes, he hopes, he wants, he needs.

Suddenly, there is a loud sound and Bruce looks up, startled. A foot appears through the portal. Bruce has to stop himself from running towards it. Slowly, the rest of the person starts appearing, and Bruce’s eyes widen when he sees who it is. “Kal!” he lets himself say the name that has haunted his dreams. The name doesn’t cross his lips anymore, except for his cries at night. He finally allows himself to run towards the Kryptonian stepping out of the portal, catching him as he collapses to the ground. He reaches over and presses the indentation on the top of the sphere, closing the portal. “Kal? Kal?” He grabs a hold of Kal’s face and forces the alien to look up at him. The Kryptonian is just as handsome as Bruce remembers. Kal’s blue eyes are bright, his lips plump. Kal’s skin is paler than Bruce remembers but still smooth to the touch. Grime and dirt cover Kal’s face in splotches. He can tell Kal is groggy. Bruce’s heart fills with warmth and he can barely breathe with seeing his love once more. He wants to wrap the Kryptonian in his arms tightly, pulling Kal close to kiss him. “Hey, hey, it’s me.” Bruce reaches up and pushes the cowl back, revealing his face. “It’s me Kal.”

“Bruce?”

Bruce nods. “Yeah, yeah I’m here. I’ve got you.”

“Bruce.” Tears start to form in Kal’s eyes and he begins to shake. “Zhao.”

His heart is beating wildly. It’s Kal, his beautiful Kal. The last four years come crashing down upon him and he can barely hold the form in his arms. As close as he is to collapse, he won’t let go. He will never let go again. Bruce smiles at him. “Zhao, Kal. Zhao.” He scans Kal’s body with his eyes, and notices Kal is holding onto a bleeding wound. “You’re hurt.”

A smile breaks out on Kal’s face. “Vrrosh :Dokhahsh, remember?”

Bruce nods, feeling pure relief and love erupt in his chest. “Yeah, yeah I remember and I’m going to patch you up, okay?” Kal nods. “You’re going to be okay.” He rubs his hand against Kal’s cheek. “I’ve missed you.”

“I miss too.”

Bruce cups Kal’s face and leans down to peck him on the lips. He’s missed him so much; missed his touch, his warmth, his voice, his everything. He feels the world tilt as he looks down. It’s his Kal, his precious Kal. Words want to tumble from his mouth, the thoughts he’s had over the long years. His chest clenches painfully at the contact of their lips. Those remembered lips, the ones that haunted his dreams since returning to Earth. All his hopes have come to fruition, and he’s holding the man he loves in his arms. Finally. When he pulls away, he says, “Let’s go take care of that.” He helps Kal to stand.

When he turns and faces the whole Justice League, they look even more confused than they had previously. “What’s going on?” Hal asks.

“Holy shit, you’re Bruce Wayne,” Barry says.

“Who the hell is Bruce Wayne?” Hal asks Barry.

Barry looks at the Green Lantern in astonishment. “You don’t know who Bruce fucking Wayne is? Billionaire playboy? Ring a bell?”

Hal’s head shakes. “Nope.”

“Playboy?” Kal asks from beside him and Bruce rolls his eyes, moving to take Kal away from the group and towards the infirmary.

“He got kidnapped four years ago?” Barry continues.

Hal’s head quirks to the side. “Still don’t know who he is.”

Bruce ignores them and exits the room, one of Kal’s arms slung over his shoulders. Once in the infirmary, he helps Kal out of the Kryptonian clothes. They are the same ones Kal wore the last time, Bruce remembers. They are tattered, torn, the frills along the side are ripped or worn off. He tucks a blanket around the naked and dirty lower half.  As he begins to stitch Kal’s wound, he warns the Kryptonian that it will hurt. The stitches go in quickly, and Kal only flinches a couple of times. When he’s finished, Bruce muffles the blanket around the rapidly cooling man before he takes a seat next to the bed. Holding onto the hand he’s only remembered in his dreams, he asks “Are you okay?”

Kal nods. “I much better now. I with you again.” He then frowns. “How long?”

Bruce looks at their conjoined hands. “Four years,” he whispers. Bruce meets Kal’s eyes.

“Long time?”

“Yeah, that’s a really long time Kal.”

“Vrrosh :Dokhahsh no time. Feel like years.” He gives Bruce a small smile. “Still zhao?”

Bruce chuckles, cupping Kal’s cheek. “Yeah, still zhao. You?”

“Still zhao.”

Bruce squeezes Kal’s hand. He needs to keep reminding himself that this is real. Kal is really here. Kal is alive. “The device was broken. I’ve been trying to fix it. I couldn’t imagine you trapped there, or worse. I never gave up Kal. Not once.”

“I not give up on you either, Bruce. Knew would find me.”

Bruce kisses Kal’s knuckles but then frowns. “Your parents? Aunt? Uncle?”

Kal’s head shakes. “Try convince come. Not want to.” The Kryptonian sounds sad and tired. “I go anyway because want be with you.” Tears start forming in those beautiful blue eyes, rolling down his cheeks. Bruce reaches over and wipes them away. “All gone Bruce. Every Kryptonian but me and Kara. Whole planet gone.”

Bruce continues to rub at Kal’s cheek. “I know, and I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry I couldn’t stop it.”

“Not fault. You say in beginning not sure if could. I just… I miss them.”

Bruce nods in understanding. “Two years ago, one of my sons died. He was killed, and it was one of the most painful things I have ever experienced. I can’t even begin to understand what it feels like to lose my entire species and your world, but I can understand a little bit. It hurts, I know, but Kal, it gets a little easier everyday. I promise.”

“Especially when with someone you zhao?”

Bruce smiles warmly at him, trying to convey to Kal just how much he loves him. “Yeah, especially then.”

“I sorry about your son.”

“Me too.” Bruce swallows the lump that has formed in his throat, trying to push past his grief. “But I have also gained another son. He’s… a clever boy. Hard working and determined that’s for sure.” Bruce brushes some hair off of Kal’s forehead. “You can meet him, and my eldest son, when you’re ready. My butler too; the father figure I told you about.”

“On… Earth?” Fear is shining in Kal’s eyes.

“Only when you’re ready. I was thinking you could live with me. It would make the transition easier for you.”

“I… think like that.” He gives Bruce a wary smile, blowing out a puff of air. “I scared.”

“Now you know how I felt when I got to Krypton.” Kal chuckles along with Bruce. “But don’t worry, Kal, I’m going to be with you every step of the way. And, a few months after landing back on Earth I managed to find Kara, so you’ll have her too. You’re not completely alone Kal, and there are people willing to help you. You don’t have to get over your grief right away, or ever because, trust me, I know sometimes you can’t. And of course there’s the matter of the powers you’re going to have.”

Kal’s head tilts and oh, how Bruce has really missed that. “Powers?”

Bruce smiles at him, wide and excited. “We’ll get to that later, but for now, rest.  Don’t worry about anything. I’m going to be right here when you wake up. I won’t ever leave you again.” He leans down and hovers his face above Kal’s. “Zhao.”

Kal’s eyes fill with love, and a warm smile graces his face. “Zhao.”

Bruce kisses him, reminding both of them again, that this is truly real.

A/N: This is the end. Thank you everyone who read this. I hope you all enjoyed. Don’t forget to go check out the art that goes with this story!!

[jakeboleygraphicsfmp]

‘Lost & Found’ Part 3

Relief block printing

Handout:

Context:

In this last ‘Lost & Found’ workshop, I was looking at another printing technique, this time I was investigating the traditional wooden block relief printing. Having looked at how physical objects/materials could be used to create an entire typeface, here I was focusing on how I could use physical wooden blocks to physically print type. 

In all 3 of the different workshops, they are connected through the idea of assemblage and how things are arranged together. This workshop is also a combination of the two previous workshops by looking at merging physical type and printmaking together.

Influenced by the designer David Carson who’s work is best known for his use of experimental typography. My aim was to produce a series of typographic prints using wooden block letters to create interesting textural outcomes that captured the essence of two chosen words.

David Carson

About:

David Carson, born September 8, 1955, in Texas, USA is an American contemporary graphic designer and art director. His unconventional and experimental graphic style revolutionized the graphic designing scene in America during the 1990s. He came to graphic design relatively late in life, previously being a competitive surfer, ranked eighth in the world. Now he is claimed to be the godfather of ‘grunge typography’.

With surfing being a general part of Carson’s life, it has played a great role in his design career. It is one of the reasons for his motivation and success, designing various surfing, snowboarding and skateboarding magazines, websites, ads for brands like Quiksilver, Burton, SURFportugal, TwSkateboarding, etc.

Style- Experimental type

Carson is a very experimental designer, going out his way to take risks and thus, creates unique designs.  His work is very noisy and expressive often breaking the principles of graphic design that has resulted in him gaining major success. Best known for his experimental type, his work has been described disorganised yet unmistakable by having its own purpose of creating emotion and expressing ideas. 

Known as ‘the Godfather of grunge typography’ his work appears to be very messy and chaotic, however, every factor is considered and often uses limited colour palettes to restrict confusion. His work mainly consists of unusual ways of presenting type which he combines with textures, backgrounds and imagery to form posters, magazines. The most iconic example of the Grunge style is the Ray Gun magazine, designed by Carson in 1993. He inspired a new generation of young designers to express themselves and experiment with new techniques. Alot of Carson’s work consists of overlapping, collaging typography to create exciting compositions either doing this digitally or using printmaking techniques to explore with texture. The print process he often used and is very familiar with is block print (letterpress), allowing the opportunity to overlap and overlay typography without losing any information.

Carson’s 5 useful design tips: 

https://blog.flipsnack.com/5-useful-design-tips-from-the-father-of-grunge-david-carson/

Know your audience

Emotional typography

Visual communication

Get inspiration from your daily life

Break the rules, but still respect them

Similar to Rauschenberg’s work, both artists work use a variation of collage techniques to construct chaotic artworks in a controlled and considered manner to dictate how it is read and portrayed.

"Don’t mistake legibility for communication”

Above is a quote by David Carson, here he is discussing the idea of the readability of a letter being mistaken for communication. I think he is suggesting that just because a letter may not be legible it doesn't mean it can't communicate anything. I also think that by being legible people may overlook a hidden message within the letter because they don't think it can communicate more than one thing. I think Carson is trying to state that people mistake legibility by seeing unclear letters rather than a letter that is trying to communicate something. As well as this, I believe Carson is suggesting how typography is used too literal by people taking words in their usual or most basic sense without metaphor or exaggeration. The message I think Carson is trying to put across is that typography can be used as image to create interesting structures, shapes and messages through individual words and letters. By doing this, the rules of typography can be disregarded and often make letters less functional but instead can express different emotions, messages etc.

Key terms:

Relief printing: A process consisting of cutting or etching a printing surface in such a way that all that remains of the original surface is the design to be printed. Examples of relief-printing processes include woodcut, etching, linocut, and metal cut.

Letterpress: Printing from a hard raised image under pressure, using viscous ink.

Aims/objectives:

Create a series of typographic prints experimenting with colour, position, size to create new interpretations, meanings.

Created prints inspired by Carson reflecting his style and the idea of overlaying.

Use the letterpress techniques to create typographic outcomes as effective imagery rather than readable text.

Tools:

Oil-based ink

Ink roller

Palette knife

Cartridge paper

Wooden blocks (letters)

Newspaper

White spirit

Cloths

Albion or Columbian press

Task:

Task 1- Choose:

One of the aims of this workshop included capturing the essence of two chosen words. As the first task, I had to select two words that corresponded each other which I could print to communicate interesting/alternate meanings and juxtapositioning.

Words:

Trial & Error / Strenght & Weakness / Names & Faces / Bits & Pieces / Quiet & Loud / Beauty & Beast / Forwards & Backwards / Order & Chaos / Lost & Found / Winners & Losers / Strong & Weak / Positve & Negative / Time & Place.

Out of all the above, I chose Loud & Quiet, these are two words that cannot be visually shown due to them being volumes of sound, however, I thought it would be interesting to experiment with them by using size, colour, positioning to communicate them instead.

Task 2- Print, Print, Print

Relief printing is a process I am familiar with and have done plenty of times before in previous workshops. As a result of this, I knew the process of printing and also had some stored knowledge about what to consider when printing.

The direction of type and individual letters- when relief printing everything is flipped meaning words and letters should all read the opposite way.

Amount of ink- a well layered, even coat to ensure nice, consistent prints.

Amount of packing- having an appropriate amount so that it is secure enough to ensure an even, well-pressed print but not too tight that the blocks leave indents in the paper.

Before printing, I had to prepare some letters to use from a range of typeface trays. These trays consisted of a huge variety of styles and sizes, in which I chose a few different to play around with when printing. Once I had found some letters to make up my 2 words I had to move on to the printing stages.

I started the printing process by rolling out some different coloured inks, when doing this I selected a maximum of 4 colours sticking to Carson’s limited colour palette principle. Once I had my inks and block letters ready, I jumped onto the Albion press and began to lay my letters out considering how I could reflect Carson’s abstracted compositions. When I was happy, I used an ink roller to apply an even coat of colour on each block individually and placed them where I picked them up from. Ensuring everything was in the right place and as central as possible, I laid a sheet of cartridge paper over my composition, placed the correct amount of packing in and lifted the lid down ready to print. Next, I simply pulled the handle to print and then reversed the process to reveal my prints. 

Task 3- Develop

After creating some basic, quite plain prints I then started to use other typefaces to acquire different styles, sizes into my existing prints. With these, I began to overprint/collage thinking about how I could alter the positions, orders, directions of the words/letter to communicate different meanings of ‘quiet’ and ‘loud’.

The process of overlapping is a technique generated in part 2 and 3 of these ‘Lost & Found’ workshops which were inspired by both artists; Robert Rauschenberg and David Carson. This whole idea of overlapping also relates back to the whole theme of assemblage from the original collection and presentation of my 10 objects and is something I would like to explore going forward.

Review:

Considering David Carson’s quote how successful is the work you have created?

I think my work is to somewhat successful in consideration to Carson’s quote. I think I captured the essence of my chosen words by using a mixture of legibility, colour and typeface to portray their meanings. To do this, I used a mixture of colour and typeface which I combined with a sense of disorganisation. The way in which I used colour consisted of printing the word ‘loud’ in the most vibrant colour in order to stand out against the word ‘quiet’. In terms of typeface selection, I tried to use the more ‘blocky’ typefaces for the word ‘loud’ and use the more delicate fonts for the word ‘quiet’. Choosing two words that were judged on sound, I had to communicate the essence by making one more dominant and powerful than the other to communicate the volume. One factor I didn’t explore that could have worked nicely is the size of the word, using smaller and taller text to suggest the amplification. Relating back to Carson’s quote, I used these techniques to differ the legibility of the words and suggest/communicate their meaning looking past the idea of just reading what the word says.

In my outcomes, I also tried to represent Carson’s style through the use of layering, limitation of colour as well as modifications to orientation and order. Using layering of type and differing the orientation and position of letters changed how my words were read suggesting different messages.

What message do you think your work conveys?

Outcome on left: 

I think this outcome portrays the idea of loud noise dominating and covering up quietness. This is posed by the strong, vibrant orange letters that stand out above the subtle pink letters which almost lie behind the word ‘loud’ due to the use of layering. The orange almost seems to be sitting on top of the pink due to the pink being lost in the overlapping areas. At first glance, the words don’t read legibly however, one thing that is noticeable is the boldness of the orange which communicates the ‘loudness’ of the word.

How could you incorporate this work with another set of materials and processes?

Using the risograph or screenprinting to produced layered compositions of shape, embedded with texture.

Similar to Rauschenberg, Carson is an artist that explores assemblage, using layering to communicate deeper messages. Both artists’ works seem as if they have been randomly produced without any intention, however, they both consider factors which may manipulate the way it is read by the audience. On the other hand, both artists use very different approaches in terms of what they are presenting. Carson dedicates his work to using type in experimental ways, whereas Rauschenberg focuses more on the shape and photographic sources. In response to this workshop, I would like to push myself further to experimenting with how I could use both artists focal areas (type, shape and photographic sources) together to create new exciting work.

Reflection

Completing this workshop, got me thinking about how I could use typography experimentally and not so literally to create type that can read and also suggest other meanings or messages. 

How typographic rules can be broken to communicate new ideas, meanings

Looking past the conventional way of using type and pushing it to its limits

How printing processes can be used to create an accidental effect that can’t be produced digitally

Potentials

Use type experimentally moving forward in practical experiments rather than conventionally

Push printing processes to embrace the effect and communication of ideas create by overlapping/overlaying, collage

Work in layers to produce unintentional effects

Links

Rauschenberg’s and Carson’s similar stylistic approach- Experimental

Assemblage- Collage, arrangement/positioning of layers

Merging physical type and printmaking from 2 previous ‘Lost&Found’ workshops