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divinityslain · 5 years ago

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hey there demons ! tis i , local lorekeeper & part - time trash pile , coming at ya to give miss wilhelmina no fucken rights ! isn’t that exciting ? click HERE for ur girl’s ~ new ~ pinterest . also this is long .

* RELIGION & TWSITD & FOOD MENT .

full name .

wilhelmina von hevring

nicknames .

mina minnie

birthday .

october 4

fódlan birthday .

4th of the wyvern moon

age .

twenty - three

height .

172.72cm / 5′8″

nationality .

adrestian

hometown .

county of hevring

residence .

garreg mach monastery

house .

black eagles

occupation .

student at the officers academy

crests .

minor crest of cethleann / sometimes raises mt when using recovery magic major crest of lamine / occasionally conserves uses of recovery magic

strengths .

faith riding lance

weaknesses .

flying axe brawling

budding talent .

reason

classes .

noble → monk → priest → bishop → holy knight

likes .

horses tea reading making people proud of her exploring shopping

dislikes .

mindless gossip henrik isolation the dark heights injustice

interests .

practicing magic chatting praying helping to restore the saint statues

favorite meals .

saghert and cream peach sorbet gronder meat skewers vegetable stir - fry

favorite teas .

mint tea angelica tea

favorite gifts .

riding boots tea leaves stylish hair clip goddess statuette owl feather * universal gift

least favorite gifts .

hunting dagger blue cheese arithmetic textbook

favorite flowers .

roses forget - me - nots

lost items .

gold hair bow heart - shaped locket storybook about the four saints

relatives .

lorelei von beaumont ( née hevring ) , mother unnamed noble , step - father theodore & sebastian von beaumont , maternal half - brothers jasper , anabel & elias von beaumont , step - cousins

count hevring , maternal uncle & legal guardian unnamed noble , maternal aunt & legal guardian linhardt von hevring , maternal cousin

count rowe , father / illegitimate child of unnamed noble , step - mother viktor gwendal rowe , paternal half - brother johanna sigrid gaspard ( née rowe ) , paternal half - sister henrik alphonse rowe , paternal half - brother astrid faryse rowe , paternal half - sister adiel gwydion rowe , paternal half - brother nikolai christophe blaiddyd , paternal nephew / johanna’s son

the product of an affair between lorelei von hevring , a noble from adrestia , & the head of house rowe in faerghus . obviously , count rowe is already long married with three kids by the time mina is conceived , & lorelei is … in the process of finding a suitable match , courtesy of her older brother & head of house hevring , so the newborn wasn’t exactly welcomed warmly .

( although , not anything new as nobles have been producing out - of - wedlock children since as long as anyone can remember . )

however … the thing is , this whole ordeal was count rowe’s plan all along ? like , none of his current children are crest - bearers . lorelei comes from a respected family , one that notably has a strong bloodline to keep crests alive . put two & two together , makes sense , right ? once the child shows signs of possessing a crest , he would take them off her hands … you know , since having a child in such a way would arguably look worse for her than for him ! & said child was supposed to become his true heir to the rowe territory .

WELL ! too bad for him , lorelei cut ties . a new husband , she said in letters that are now burned & forgotten . little did he know , it was because she was expecting & didn’t want him to know . fearful for what may happen , unaware of his true intent .

4th of the wyvern moon ; the day wilhelmina von hevring came into the very world that will become so cruel . a premeditated accident , that’s what she was . although her uncle had plans . people who would take away the burden he promised to keep a secret , until it suited him . alas , lorelei wouldn’t part from her daughter so quickly . it would take about four years of mina living in the hevring estate for lorelei to grow distant , more focused on her new children with her new husband in a completely different territory in adrestia . it was then she would be discreetly removed from the household , much to her confusion as she would grip onto her uncle’s hand .

those who slither in the dark . vile , uncaring , harshness ; result orientated . mages would spend two years testing & experimenting on mina — crestology , implanting a crest stone into a body seeing if it’s compatible . a lot of their prior experiments failed , but a strong select few survived for awhile .

just shy of over the two years , the mages of those who slither noted many different stages of progress . initially unaware wilhelmina already bore a crest , a minor of cethleann – they saw as she activated it for the first time during a trial . a welcomed addition to their studies ! but of course she was miserable & terrified . yet even so , she remained hopeful . hopeful that this would be over soon — silent prayers to the goddess fell from her trembling , cracked lips , over & over . a little after she turned six , her desperate prayers were answered . the mages successfully in giving her a new crest : a major crest of lamine . although as they have seen in the past , the stress of twin crests caused strain on her small body , causing her hair to turn white ( although , leaving a vaguely blonde undertone – perhaps homage to lamine herself ) & shortened lifespan . that … left them bored & itching to move on to the next , as the cycle repeated .

after dropping a slumbering , dirty & worn - out mina back to the county of hevring , & a brief meeting with her uncle explaining the results of the experimentation , they departed within the shadows once more . so idk fast forward a few months , she’s still six & still clinging to the teachings of seiros & the four saints . she even saved up enough money for a storybook . her uncle trained her in secret , unwilling to yet show her twin crests to the rest of the empire , & mina did her goddamn best to make him proud !! like little baby .. really .. was embodiment of pleading emoji . & alright count hevring was using her from day 1 but ….. would be lying if he didn’t get even slightly attached after all the time he inevitably spent with her lmao .

once she gained an understanding of how to not randomly activate her crests , her uncle took her to enbarr to introduce to the imperial family . at almost seven , she didn’t understand the weight of the situation . there he showed her off to the emperor & subsequently , his sons . a choice between eric & wilhelm , & the latter was chosen . wilhelm & wilhelmina were engaged , all because count hevring pulled the ‘ my niece has two crests & your son has none ’ card .. huh .. that really was the selling point . ( of course it was still kept hush , those who slither in the dark didn’t want to be discovered so quickly . the emperor , despite finding it a strange occurrence , didn’t question it … lmao little did he fucken know !! )

during her time in enbarr , mina stumbled across … a certain boy , unbeknownst to her at the time , her step - cousin jasper . now his father , being able to make the connection once he hears her name being called by hevring , went to lorelei afterwards & was like , hey so go back to your daughter , she’s betrothed to one of the imperial princes , that could be of use to us , etc . etc . & like , well , she did . mina , after years of being estranged from her mother , was swaddled up quickly in an embrace under a false guise of genuine wish to reconnect . she felt odd seeing her daughter with a hair color so foreign , but as the shitty adults do , she doesn’t make a note of it . mina was introduced officially to all of her step - cousins , as well as her own half - brothers . truthfully she tried her best to connect with them all , but the only one who stuck was jasper . not that she minded — despite all the negativity surrounding him , she still saw the good . she always did .

years later & more tragedy struck the empire . the insurrection of the seven , a soft coup ; her uncle participated in stealing power from the emperor – the individual she came to know more personally as her future father - in - law . & then …….. it happened . three years after the insurrection , wilhelm ( + the other imperial children ) were just . gone ? no one spoke about them , & she would be scolded each time she brought it up . her uncle was tense , perhaps due to the arrangement that the emperor literally was unable to break , but mina once more turned back to the church for solace . edelgard came back eventually , white hair similar to her own , but none of her siblings followed , so mina mourned for them in silence .

years & years past & her uncle started up a search for a new husband ; while she moved on from wilhelm , he’ll still be in her memory & heart . even when her heart attached itself to randolph , & they slowly started courting , despite her uncle strongly advising her against it ....... idk they been together for awhile now technically ?

ok so personality basically , she is beagles mom ! very … i would say naive , because how she doesn’t realize 98% of her family is using her , but .. but like . she’s !!! embodiment of honey & wildfire are both golden , softness is not weakness . she is also a horse girl so jot that down , you know ? find her in the stables pretty often . mina’s uno reverse edelgard in the sense that while edelgard is angry at the society they live in / the church + goddess + crest systems , etc . mina ?? doesn’t hold any hatred for what happened to her . it’s more like , she’s going to take her trauma & do the absolutely best she can because if she lets it go to waste then all of what she went through would’ve been for nothing & she can’t let that happen .

she agrees with edelgard’s position of how crests shouldn’t dictate the way people live , but also she still has her faith ?? like .. * channels all the cf endings that have the church being rebuilt despite under supervision .. bc she wld have helped *

uh idk if any of this intro makes sense but like here we are babies !! i am tired & have three more to write so i am …. TIRED .

#wilhelmina von hevring. › introspection. / my faith seems naive，at least today; maybe tomorrow i can believe again.#that is the tag im using bc idk any other tags hehdfvbdhn #im not fixing ANY mistakes bc its a testimony to how tired i am

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rivieraestateshq · 5 years ago

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Full Name: Tristan Aramis Whitehall (aka Aramis LeBlanc)

Age: 32

Faceclaim: Jeremy Jordan

Role: Client

Occupation: Actor (Theatre & Musicals)

Residence: The Villas

Born in Manhattan New York into a marginally affluent family legacy, his birth was during quite the scandal. Rebecca Whitehall was an only child and heiress to the Whitehall fortune. The one who married her would be able to walk into Whitehall & Co. Marketing Agency with the potential to take it over when her father retired. A burden Rebecca bore as she wanted to take it over. Still, she thought she had found love with Michael Kline. He was the perfect everything, but perhaps too perfect. Nothing gave her pause until after the wedding when she became pregnant. Hiring a P.I. the truth eventually came out. Michael was married in Vegas shortly after turning 18 and never had it annulled nor got divorced. This invalidated his marriage to Rebecca. This on top of his many torrid little affairs ended things quickly. As such, Tristan came into the world as a Whitehall and not a Kline. Going forward his father, not so affectionately referred to as ‘The Donor’, was not in his life. He only knew his mother and grandparents. He honestly didn’t miss out on having a dad. His mother was a strong woman and he never knew of her as anything but fierce and protective, like a lioness. Early on Tristan Aramis - named such from Arthurian Legend and the Three Musketeers, his mother’s childhood fantasy loves - showed certain aptitudes. He was wickedly sharp and picked up on things early compared to other children. He picked up on reading and writing very easily, and arithmetic nearly so. He also was quite the mimic as a kid and loved watching movies. And when he was taken to his first musical? That was all she wrote. He was hooked. He had said he wanted to be an author, but that quickly turned to the stage. He wanted to be up there performing. Rebecca and her parents thought this was a good development. Tristan was in a private school, but his accelerated learning path left him at odds with his older peers. He did not thrive socially, and had difficulty with making new connections. They thought that acting would help give him the tools to socialize better. So he started acting and singing lessons. His first role would be as an orphan in an off Broadway musical. The theatre bug did not die as Tristan grew up. Encouraged as he was, though, by his family? He saw no reason to look elsewhere. He graduated HS at the age of 16 and entered NYU on top of pushing forward with his career as a musical actor, occasionally taking on some strict acting gigs as well. His first Broadway gig was West Side Story at 19. At 20 he met Shawn Matthews, a dancer. Shawn was a couple years younger and was this big personality that was overwhelming. Tristan already knew he was gay by this time, had some flings and attempts at relationships. It was hard to date, though, as the college kids saw him as this awkward guy who found it difficult to have good conversations. Then the theater people only saw… Aramis LeBlanc, the up and coming actor. He thought Shawn was a good friend, and yes he lusted after the other man for a while. Secretly. He thought that Shawn flirted with him sometimes, but he didn’t have the confidence to act on it. It was at 23 as he celebrated his first lead role that things changed. Shawn kissed him and that was all she wrote. They entered into a tumultuous relationship. Hot and cold, back and forth. Tristan didn’t see how Shawn changed him. Didn’t see as Tristan got pushed aside and became lost as ‘Aramis’, the cocky and confident actor took center stage. Shawn never knew how to handle ‘Tristan’ and would yell and rant, then get pouty every time Tristan was there. So Tristan came out less and less. Until only his family and closest friends saw Tristan… when Shawn or they’re mutual friends weren’t around to witness. Or the general public. It was a concern, because ‘Aramis’ was still there even when Tristan and Shawn were off again, because Shawn never stayed far from his mind. It had always been Tristan’s fault they broke up, and Tristan trying to win him back. At 30 the exhaustion of always being this fake persona wore on him and he succumbed to the urging he visit a therapist by his family. It was a good thing, even if it was difficult as well to try and get to a better place mentally. Honestly, the therapy spelled the beginning of the end for Tristan and Shawn.Shawn always tried to push back on the progress that the therapist made with Tristan to reclaim himself from this persona he had made himself as a kid. A little over a year later the toxic cycle found it’s natural end. Tristan came home from a session with his therapist, a session Shawn had known of and how long it lasted for, to see Shawn in their shared bed in their shared apartment fucking, of all people, Tristan’s understudy in his currently Musical. Shawn claimed it was a surprise for Tristan, that this was for them. A nice threesome to bring the spark back to their relationship. Shawn had picked the wrong partner, though, as the other actor was sore to just get the Understudy part. He was all to happy to walk out telling Tristan he’d been fucking Shawn for a month, and that shawn had been cheating on him for a long while. The breakup was messy in that Shawn yelled, raged, cried and just carried on as Tristan, in emotionless and robotic motions, packed up his things and left Shawn with an apartment he wouldn’t be able to afford on his own. In fact, Tristan left most of his things there. Just took the things he needed and the few he wanted. And so he returned home to the large home the Whitehall’s owned in Manhattan. Home to his mother and grandparents. Tristan was off from then on though. It even translated to Aramis when for the first time in his career he missed a line while on stage. It was decided after that he’d finish the circuit, but then it was time to take a break from the stage. His therapist fully supported this. That he needed to reconnect with Tristan again and find a way to assimilate Aramis back into himself instead of being a different person. It was his mother who found out about Riviera Estates. It had been an embarrassing moment to be sure, that conversation, but she said the only reason she was bringing it up because he knew Cade, and the security was top notch. And since Shawn kept trying to call him, learn his changed number, and get to him at home and at his shows? Security was important. So he left New York behind for the tropics on a privately owned island resort.

@tristanaramis

#Riviera Estates Bios #taken character #character: Tristan Whitehall #Jeremy Jordan

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kumistone · 6 years ago

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✿ GAME REVIEW: Marked By King Bs ヽ(ﾟ∀ﾟ )ﾉ━━!!!!

Hi! This will act as Part 1 of my game review for the King B series by Day7, which i am currently promoting at facebook after knowing that most of my friends haven’t heard of it. Those who had played this, you can also share your thoughts! Day7 games are very underrated but the graphics and stories are amazing :c Let's introduce it to others!

So this series consists of TWO games: The first one titled as 'Marked by King Bs' which i HIGHLY recommend for you to read first before proceeding to 'Loved by King Bs' which is the continuation of the former. You'll get the whole story by reading the first one + Marked by King Bs is more in the romcom side, so i'm sure you'll enjoy!

[ GAME WARNING: OFFENSIVE LANGUAGE, 70% ARE FROM ASHTON GRIFFIN ALONE LMAO THIS GUY ]

╔════════ ∘◦ ☆ ◦∘ ════════╗ SEASON 1: MARKED BY KING BS ╚════════ ∘◦ ☆ ◦∘ ════════╝

OKAY SO THIS SHIT IS REALLY FUNNY. The story started when your old schoolmate / STALKER cornered you to be his boyfriend and the (not-so) genius you thought it's a good idea to borrow a photo of a handsome guy in the internet and put it as your profile photo, implying that the guy on it is your boyfriend in an attempt to shoo away the stalker BUT! HA! It was actually the school's King B leader Ashton Griffin!

You go to school the next day with no idea that you dragged yourself in trouble. Ah, your wonderful dream of being left in peace will now shatter as you became the King Bs object of pranks!

YOU DID THIS TO YOURSELF WOMAN 8D

The game got me with the character's disses to each other lol. It makes them a lot more human. More modern?? and teen-y! It shows that their friendship is not just for appearances (ESPECIALLY ZACK JESUS CHRIST THANK YOU LORD FOR ZACK SNYDER) and that they are lowkey helping each other not to drown with their anxiety. You'll get to see it more as you progress since the game also offer backstories to read during Spin-Offs.

SPIN-OFF > You can actually read their thoughts about you / backstory before the ashton incident happened by buying them clothing. I don't regret buying them!! It's the others' chance to shine in your heart!

The game actually has a canon ending, that will become the backbone in Loved by King Bs. Your chance of getting the other guys depends on your choices because it will branch out from them. GOOD LUCK. This is a shorter read, compared to our usual Cybird/Arithmetic games. You can actually read this in a matter of HOURS if you can collect enough gold.

Collect enough gold. YES. Gold is used to buy yourself clothing, that is extremely important for you to progress in the game because you need your charm to go higher as you go further. WE GOT A PRETTY HOE TO BATTLE ANYWAY (curse you, Tiffany.)

[ BONUS: DATE FEATURE !! You can actually go on special dates with the bois by buying couple outfits! (WHICH ARE SO DANG CUTE AGHSSHSH) There is a normal date too, but who would want to miss out an extra time with their bae? ]

OVERALL I LOVE THE GAME SO MUCH 9/10. It clearly shows how young love is - a wild but cute mess! You won't get bored with it because each King B has their own unique personality and amazing backstories. I myself can't bring myself to leave them on their own. They all need love smh :((( SOMEONE GIVE WILLIAM KAL AND ZACK SNYDER LOVE FML THEIR FRIENDS DO NOT DESERVE THEM AHSJAHSD UGLY SOBBING

((MY KING B IS NICHOLAS BY THE WAY AAAAA NICO MY PURE BABY))

OPINION: HOME GIRL NEEDS TO KNOW THAT SHE TURNED THE BOY'S LIVES IN FULL 360!! THIS SHIT IS SO SAPPY AND FRUSTRATING I LOVE IT LOVED BY KING BS REVIEW TOMORROW! ✨ Thanks for reading!

IOS ANDROID

#DAY7 #DAY7 GAMES #MARKED BY KING BS #ASHTON GRIFFIN #WILLIAM KAL #JOEL BARRETT #NICHOLAS ROSADA #ZACK SNYDER #OTOME GAME #OTOME GAME REVIEW #NOTES #GAMEREVIEW #LOVED BY KING BS

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sockablock · 7 years ago

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(WELP I spent all day writing this, Campaign 1 Soulmate AU, where your soulmate’s last words to you are written on your arm, I’m sorry in advance for any sadness or emotions, MAJOR C1 spoilers below, read on AO3, enjoy!)

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Their Last Words Are With Us

“They’re your soulmarks, dears,” their mother explained, kneeling by the side of the clear-running stream and running water over their tiny arms. “They’re special words that your soulmate will say to you, one day.”

“Soulmate?” Vax echoed as his sister inspected the faint scrawling on her arm. “What’s that?”

“Somebody very important to you,” Elaina said. “Someone who was meant to be by your side, always. As a friend, or as a wife or husband, who will always be there for you.”

“Like Vax?” Vex asked. “Is he mine?”

“Perhaps, dearest.”

“Who’s yours?” Vax asked. “Is it dad? Do you have his words?”

Elaina only hesitated slightly before smiling and saying, “It’s possible, dear. You never really know who the words belong to, until you do.”

Vax frowned slightly at that. “Huh?”

Vex held her arm out for her mother. “What do mine say, Mum?”

Elaina did not answer, instead grinned and poured water over both of the twins’ heads, distracting them and sending them into a fit of giggles and splashing.

Then she finished their baths, wrapped them up in the same old fabrics she always used, and led them back, one holding each hand, to their small home in Byroden.

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Vex’ahlia and Vax’ildan learned many things as they grew older. They learned to mend holes in shirts and how to thread a seam that would not show. They learned to coax seeds into the earth and when to water the tomatoes and how to strip away the potato skins and the names of the farmers and hunters that kindly stopped by to bring meat and grains to their small family. They learned, through trial and error, to strike stones together until sparks flew and to sprinkle dry grass and small twigs over the logs in the stone-lined pit to keep the flames going. They learned the names of the birds that lingered in the trees and dotted the fields. They learned to catch fish, giggling madly and stomping through the river the whole time, from the patient, grey-haired man that lived a few homes down. They learned to watch the clouds for rain, to bundle close to each other when the snow came, to stay brave during thunder and to drink in the sunlight under a sky that always felt like home.

But they did not learn to read. In their small, dirt-dusted, seldom-travelled village, living with their mother in a simple, one-room shack, there was no need. And with no way to know what their soulmarks said, eventually the bright curiosity faded away into occasional cursory glances, with the firm knowledge that, wherever it may be, their soulmates were out there somewhere. They were loved, and meant to be loved. And for the twins, raven-haired children gleefully running barefoot through the grass, as their mother looked on, that was enough.

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“Elaina never gave you any schooling at all?”

Syldor—their father—stood behind the beautifully-carved desk in his office, all high-windows and plush carpeting, rich green curtains pulled aside to reveal a gorgeous view of the bustling streets of Syngorn below. Warm light flooded into the room, and the sun shone brightly, but the temperature was cold under his icy tone, laced with disgust and disappointment.

They wanted to go home.

“She taught us a lot of things,” started Vax, “like how to count and how to sing and when to plant the—”

Syldor held up a hand, and Vax went silent. “But no arithmetic, no history, no geography, no etiquette?”

“No, father,” said Vex.

“Do you know how to read?”

The twins exchanged glances.

“No, father,” Vex said again.

He rubbed his temples with his thumbs. “Then you’ll start with private tutors, until you’ve caught up to your peers. I can’t have you interacting with other children until you have. This is ridiculous.”

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“A Treatise on the Advancement of Elven Culture,” read Vex, clearly enunciating her syllables. “Written by Onvyr Zalim, Senior Scholar of the Lyceum, 549 P.D.”

“Good,” said her tutor, nodding his head. “Your father will be pleased to hear of your progress. Now, here is the copy in Elvish, I want you to have read through this one by tomorrow, and we shall compare the two for quality.”

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“You know what it says now, right?” Vax asked one night after sneaking down the hall to his sister’s room and climbing onto the bed with her. “You’ve looked at it now, right?”

She nodded her head. Her eyes gleamed with excitement.

“Want to trade?” Vax asked. “You can read mine if I can read yours.”

“You’re in mine, I think,” she grinned, rolling up her sleeve. “Look.”

Vax pulled his arm free as well and brought it closer to his sister.

Under the moonlight, the curls of text across pale skin almost seemed to glow.

Vex grinned. “Aw, Scrawny, that’s so sweet.”

Vax tapped his sister’s arm. “Yours is as well,” he said, “but is it weird that they mention me too?”

Vex shrugged. “I plan on you bring a big part of my life, brother. I don’t think that’s strange at all. Maybe in the future you’ll be friends with them.”

“I’d better be,” grinned Vax. “Otherwise you’ve got to change soulmates.”

She rolled her eyes and shoved him out of the bed, and he lay on the floor giggling for some time before picking himself up.

“Good night, sister,” he smiled. “Don’t let the elves bite.”

She stuck her tongue out at him.

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They were dining together tonight, Syldor seated at the head of the table and the twins at his left and right, across from one another. He was pleased at their academic progress, he said, even surprised at how quickly they were learning. They tried not to take offense at that, even when he added, with stomach-curdling self-satisfaction, that it must have been his blood finally showing itself in the twins.

After that, the table grew relatively silent, until Vex steeled herself and took a deep breath.

“Father,” she asked tentatively, “do you have a soulmark?”

He was silent for a moment. Then he gave a slight nod. “I do.”

“Could we know what it says?” she asked. “Is it…is it words our mother said to you?”

He sighed deeply. “I doubt it, Vex’ahlia. She never spoke elvish to me before. And, regardless, I would not know if they belonged to her until I died.”

Vax inhaled sharply, almost choking on his dinner. “What?” he asked. “What does that mean, father?”

Syldor put his fork down and gave both twins an incredulous look. “Did Elaina teach you nothing?”

They bristled at that comment, a common one in this household. Vax’s grip on his knife tightened.

Under the table, Vex kicked her brother and shook her head.

“No, father,” she said. “What is it?”

He met her curious gaze. “Soulmarks are words your fated will speak to you, you both know that, correct?”

They nodded.

“Do you know when those words will be spoken?”

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Vax collapsed onto the mattress next to his sister.

“It doesn’t have to mean that,” he said sternly. “Maybe they didn’t know it would be…it would be the end, and something happened on their way to see me.”

Vex sniffled, and wiped at the edges of her eyes. “I don’t think so, Vax. I’m…I think it does mean—”

He shook his head adamantly. “No way,” he said. “Not possible.”

Then he pressed his forehead to hers and said, “I promise, that’s not it. We’re going to get old and grey together, and we’ll always be the same age except I’m still gonna be two minutes older. That’s that, alright?”

Vex sniffed again, and tried for a smile. “Alright, brother. Alright.”

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After he left, she traced the scrawl on her arm with her finger.

I love you too, Vex’ahlia. I’ll tell your brother you said hello.

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One of the girls scoffed, her nose flaring and prim lips forming a smirk, and Vex instantly pulled her sleeve down.

“It’s not even in elvish,” the girl laughed, turning to the others. “I bet your soulmate isn’t even an elf.”

“They are,” Vex said defensively, cheeks coloring, “They are.”

“I bet he’s probably some stupid round-ear, from that dinky little town you grew up in,” giggled another. “I bet he’s poor and ugly.”

“Of course he’d be ugly,” said another, “if he’s a human.”

Vex fought for something to say. And when nothing came, she got up from the stone bench and ran to find her brother.

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“Humans’re better anyway,” said Vax loyally, hand rubbing soothing circles on her back. “Who’d want a stuffy, boring, dumb elf for a soulmate?”

They sat on one of the rooftops of the market district, watching people far below mill about under the colorful tent-tops and hanging flags and draped silks that adorned the streets. From this far up, they all looked like ants.

Vex nodded. “You’re right,” she said. “I hate this stupid city. I wish I could get out and run away and we could find our soulmates together.”

“Maybe they’ll be half-elves like us,” Vax suggested. “Maybe they’ll hate their dads just as much.”

Vex smiled. “I don’t think anyone could hate their dad as much as we do.”

He laughed. “You’re right, Stubby. That’s a good point.” Then he reached into his pocket and pulled out a carefully-wrapped square, that instantly filled the air with a warm, sweet smell.

“Look what I stole today,” he said. “Here, try some, I got it for us to share.”

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Vex came back from the forest with leaves in her hair, mud on her boots.

“I’ve found the perfect path,” she said excitedly. “Did you get the weapons?”

Vax stepped away from the bed, revealing a polished wooden bow and a set of daggers. “Teachers didn’t see a thing,” he grinned, then held up a small leather pouch, jingling softly. “And Syldor didn’t see me slip into that dumb office of his either.”

She stifled a laugh. “Great. I can’t wait to get out of this fucking place.”

He picked up a dagger. “You’re in charge now, Stubby,” he said. “I don’t remember shit about living in the woods.”

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Years passed. Vox Machina, formerly known as the S.H.I.T.S., sat around a campfire somewhere on the outskirts of Whitestone, just because they could. Tomorrow they would head back to Emon, after receiving news that Sovereign Uriel would be giving an important speech in the Cloudtop District for all to attend. But, for tonight, they were camping out in the northeastern woods, just because they could.

“Even though we have a perfectly good castle, just a few miles away,” Scanlan added as he plucked idly at his lute. “Even though Percy is the Lord of Whitestone, and we just finished freeing the town from subjugation and we’re huge heroes.”

“I needed time away from there for a bit,” Percy sighed, leaning against a log. “It was too much, all at once.”

“I was only there at the end,” agreed Pike, glowing slightly in her astral form, “but it seemed pretty intense.”

“I like sleeping outside,” Grog said. “Beds never fit me right.”

“If I could make a mansion,” Scanlan grinned, waving his hands around, “I’d make you the biggest room imaginable, with the biggest bed there was. Well, maybe second-biggest room, and second-biggest bed.”

“Thanks, Scanlan.”

Keyleth idly let flames curl around her fingers, and every once in a while, would flick a spark towards the campfire. “It’s nice not having to go anywhere and do anything,” she said cheerfully. “And it’s always good to be in nature.”

Vax nodded. He was giving her small, sideways glances that Vex, perceptive as ever, absolutely noticed. A bit of inspiration hit her.

“Hey,” she said, “we’ve all known each other for a while, right?”

They all exchanged looks.

“Yes?” Scanlan agreed. “That’s true.”

She grinned enthusiastically. “So, you know what would be fun? Why don’t we all tell each other what our soulmarks say? Wouldn’t that be interesting?”

“Er…why?” Vax asked. “Why would we do that?”

Vex rolled her eyes. “We’re like a family now! And it would a good way to learn more about each other! Of course, we don’t have to if we don’t want to.”

Keyleth shifted uncomfortably. “I don’t know, Vex. Those…those are the last words your soulmate will say to you. Isn’t…isn’t that kind of personal?”

Pike nodded, and now Scanlan’s eyes turned to her.

Vex’s shoulders sagged. “Alright,” she sighed. “It was just a suggestion. Sorry.”

“It’s alright,” said Percy quickly. “Perhaps some other time? We’re all a bit worn out from the whole…rebellion, and all.” And then, with a small spark of hope at the edge of his tone, he added, “But really. Some…some other time might be nice.”

“I don’t know what mine says,” shrugged Grog from his spot on the log next to Pike. “Can’t read.”

There was a brief silence, as they digested that. Both Vex and Vax felt an odd ping of kinship.

“Do you want someone to read it for you?” Keyleth asked. “Is it in Common?”

He shook his head. “Nope, ‘s in Giant.”

Pike smiled and gave him a pat on the arm. “I’ve asked before too,” she said. “He’d rather not know.”

“Goliaths don’t really care about that sort of thing,” he said. “As long as you’ve got your herd or…or your family, or whatever, it doesn’t matter. You need more than one person in your life, right? There’s always gonna be a lotta people important to you, right? So who cares if one of them is there ‘cause of fate, and destiny and stuff. Sure, they’re special, or whatever, but they’re not the only ones.”

Another moment of silence.

“Well,” said Scanlan, leaning over and giving Grog a pat on the knee, “again, somehow, you’ve proved you’re the wisest of us all, and I’m not even sure you realize why.”

The hulking barbarian grinned back at him. “It’s m’ charm,” he said matter-of-factly. “I’m just amazing.”

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

A few hours later, the girls sat together on the ground in Vex’s tent.

“I just really didn’t want to do it with the guys around,” Keyleth said sheepishly. “But I want to show you two. If…if you both want to also.”

“I do,” said Pike. “Definitely.”

“Same here,” grinned Vex. “Ready?”

They both nodded, and as one, all three pulled their sleeves up and brought their arms together.

There was a pause, as they all read one another’s marks.

Pike spoke first. “That’s…very sweet, Vex.” She smiled, though it didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Have you shown it to your brother before?”

She nodded. “But don’t worry,” she added quickly, “it’s not anything to worry about. We made a promise to one another, you know? We’ll be together always.”

Keyleth gave her painfully optimistic pat on the shoulder. “Of course,” she agreed. “And besides, we’ve got the best cleric in the world. She’ll always heal us.”

Pike’s smile grew cheeky, and she stuck her thumb out. “Definitely,” she said.

Vex grinned, and looked back at the writing on Pike’s arm. “Well, at least we know one thing, now.”

“Oh?” Keyleth asked.

“Yes! We know that Pike’s soulmate definitely isn’t Scanlan. If it was, darling, you’d have a novella on your arm. Not just a sentence.”

Pike laughed. “That’s a good point,” she said. “It’d probably cover my whole body, if it were him.”

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

“Our lives are fucking awful,” Vax sighed as his fingers worked through his sister’s hair. On the ground next to them rested three bright blue feathers.

“At least we are alive,” Vex pointed out. “Unlike…unlike a lot of people back h—in Emon.”

“I was starting to think of it as home too,” he said softly. “It’s…it’s been a long time since we’ve had somewhere to call home. And now it’s gone.”

Vex bit her lip. She could feel her brother beginning to sink, and she quickly reached a hand back, and wiggled her fingers. He paused in his braiding, and took it.

“I love you, brother,” she said, staring forwards. “I’m glad you’re here with me.”

A small smile crept across his face. “I love you too, sis. I’m glad you’re here too.”

“This time it’s different. We have each other, and Vox Machina.”

“That’s true,” he said.

“And you’ve got Keyleth, now, don’t you?”

His grip loosened slightly. “I…I’m not sure if I do. She says…she says she loves me, but she’s worried about getting attached. She’s going through a lot right now, and there’s still her Aramente, and now the world is falling apart around us.”

“But she still loves you, right?”

“Well, yes—”

“Are you going to wait for her?”

“Well…yes.”

Vex squeezed his hand. “I’ll be here while you do then,” she said. “And once she sorts herself out and realizes she needs you, I’ll still be here.”

He squeezed back. “Alright,” he said. “Alright.”

She let go, and then grinned and said, “Come now, get back to work. My hair isn’t going to look amazing by itself.”

He laughed, and pulled gently on the braid. “You’re lucky you’re related to me,” he quipped. “Otherwise I’d never help someone as bossy as you.”

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

“It’s called the Deathwalker’s Ward,” said Vex, pointing to the spot in her journal where she’d written it down. “It’s in some kind of swampy, lake area, near Vasselheim.”

“Great,” sighed Scanlan. “More camping.”

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

“What happened? I was only down there for thirty seconds—”

“There, there was a trap, the armor was trapped—”

“The healing potion isn’t working, it’s not working—”

“Kashaw, can you do anything—”

“Fuck, fuck, I…”

“Percival, what happened—”

“Kashaw—”

“I-I can bring her back. I can raise the dead.”

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

Later that night, Percy gazed at the words curling down his arm and thought back to the last thing Vex had said before…before.

She had smiled, radiant despite the gloom and darkness of the underwater tomb. She had been chuckling, not unkindly, at the sight of a surly, halfling woman clambering out from one of the pits.

All good, Kima!

He traced a finger over his skin. Did this mean she wasn’t his soulmate? Or did the words know she wouldn’t have been dead for long? He sighed, and shook his head. He needed to do more research on this.

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

"I really am sorry, Shaun."

Gilmore gave him a sad smile. "I know you are, Vax'ildan. I am too."

"You are a beautiful, wonderful, hilarious, glorious arcane bastard. You'll find your soulmate, and he will be the most fortunate man in the world."

"Thank you, Vax. I must say, your soulmate is a rather lucky individual as well."

He pulled Gilmore into a hug. "Not as lucky as yours," he assured. "Nowhere near as lucky."

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

“Percy, have you got any more of those exploding arrows for me?”

“Of course, Lady Vex’ahlia. I always have a supply on hand for my favorite Baroness.”

She grinned. “You flatter me. Am I your favorite only because we killed the rest of Whitestone’s nobility?”

“Well, technically, I suppose. But even if we hadn’t, you’d still be my favorite.”

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

Vax put his hands in his head and sighed. Next to him, sitting on the bed, Keyleth watched the turmoil storming behind his eyes.

“I know,” he began, “I know with all that’s happened, between my new patron and my sister pretending to gag literally every time we attempt to share a word together, and mostly my own being fucked up in the head for weeks now, that I’ve pushed all of you away. You most of all.”

Then he turned, and met her gaze. There were tears at the corners of his eyes.

“You didn’t deserve any of that. Keyleth, I need you to know, through all of that, everything, nothing has changed about how I…” He trailed off, but then forced himself to continue. “We’ve had so many near-misses. Death is unavoidable. And it’s all the more reason for life to be lived. And it doesn’t matter to me what this is. What we call it. If you are willing to spend some time, any time, with me, then I will simply count myself lucky to have it.”

Keyleth reached over, and took his hand, never breaking eye contact. “It’s…it’s not like I’ve made myself very accessible either,” she admitted. “It’s on both of us. For…for the longest time, I was terrified that I was going to lose you. First to death, and then to the Raven Queen—which is still kind of like death—and then ultimately to yourself.”

Then she took his other hand, and squeezed them both gently. There was a smile creeping across her face. “And then…and then recently, I had an interesting talk with Pike,” Keyleth said, “and she told me something that really stood out to me. It was that some people…just have more of themselves to give. And I realized this whole time that I was afraid of losing you to a future that ultimately has not yet been written, which is stupid.”

“Maybe so,” Vax began softly, but Keyleth shook her head.

“Ultimately, you’re right.” she said firmly. “We have nothing to lose. I love you, Vax. And I’m sorry for being me, that it took me this long to say it.”

Vax sniffled. “I’m sorry,” he said.

Keyleth laughed. There were tears in her eyes. “Yeah. Me too.”

“I love you, though. That’s pretty fucking great.”

She lifted a hand up, still laughing. “That is pretty great, yeah! High five! Yeah!”

And Vax gave her a high five, and then tackled her onto the mattress, now both of them laughing like idiots and grinning madly and giggling every time they accidentally bumped into one another, or clumsily hit elbows together.

And later, that morning, as the light filtered in through their window, they traced the markings on each other’s forearms and smiled.

“I love you, Keyleth of the Air Ashari,” read Vax, and pressed a kiss to her forehead.

She smiled softly, and tapped his arm. “I love you, Vax’ildan. I’ll…” and her voice broke slightly, but she shook her head and continued, “…I’ll see you again.”

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

“Oh, I love being this high up in the air!”

Vex leaned over the railing of the airship they had chartered, now soaring above the vast expanse of gleaming, deep-blue water far below, the rippling and sparkling surface of the Ozmit Sea.

Percy, standing next to her, smiled. “Is it better than a broom?” he asked.

She turned to face him, and her braid flew behind her in the wind. She glowed in the warm sunlight.

“It is, darling,” she laughed. “I love my broom, but it’s much better.”

Percy nodded, and turned back to look over the railing at the clouds beyond. “I’m going to install an airship port in Whitestone,” he said.

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

Glintshore came and went, and in the smoking aftermath of the battle—shrapnel scattered across the scorched crater and corpses dotting the landscape and Kynan shaking on the ground and Ripley’s eviscerated flesh painting the dirt crimson—Vox Machina gathered around the limp form of Percival Fredrickstein Von Musel Klossowski De Rolo III, bullet wounds no longer bleeding, breath gone from his chest.

Vax and Pike were the closest, the Champion of Death and the Cleric of Sarenrae carefully examining his body for any possible signs of life, and mulling over the next course of action. Vex and Keyleth watched on, and Scanlan and Grog romped through the background, making sure the hired mercenaries were finished, and giving the rest room to work and to grieve.

Then Vax turned around, and gently asked his sister, “Vex’ahlia, what were your last words to him?”

She blinked, tears still streaming down her face. “I don’t, I don’t know, I don’t remember.”

He tried again. “Did you tell him that you’ll miss him?”

She frowned, confusion beginning to creep in. “No? I, no, I never said that.”

He nodded, and now his expression was firm. “Percy’s not dead for good,” he said adamantly. “Not for good. We’ll be able to bring him back.”

“What makes you—” Scanlan began.

And then realization hit. They all stood in silence for a moment.

“You read it,” breathed Keyleth, and Vax nodded.

“You don’t know for sure,” Vex whispered. “You don’t know for sure.”

“I don’t,” Vax agreed, “but I’m pretty damn certain.”

“Let’s get him into the mansion,” Pike said softly. “We can rest, and get our spells back, and we’ll do the ritual tomorrow.”

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

“I should have told you. It’s yours.”

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

“Percival, would you like to see my soulmark?”

Percy blinked a few times, and turned around to face her. Vex’s skin was pale in the moonlight, her eyes anxious but hopeful. He reached for the beside table and pulled his glasses over, and they both shifted into an upright position.

“Do…do you truly wish to show me?” he asked.

She nodded. “I…I think it might belong to you. I want you to.”

He smiled faintly. “You know, I’ve always hoped mine belonged to you as well. Would you…?”

“Yes,” she sighed. “I would.”

They pressed their arms together, words towards the sky.

“I love you, darling,” read Vex softly. “I’ll miss you.”

Percy traced the text on her arm with a gentle finger. “I love you too, Vex’ahlia,” he read. “I’ll…oh. I’ll tell your brother you said hello.”

He met her gaze. “Vex,” he said softly.

She shook her head. “No, no, darling. Believe me, we’ve talked about it plenty before, but no. If anything, you should watch yourself any time you go off to visit him alone, understood?”

He laughed quietly. “Alright, alright. Of course.”

She smiled, and leaned in for a kiss. Their eyes were closed, so neither of them could see the worry written across Percy’s face, or the desperate denial on Vex’s.

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

“He really is gone,” Pike sighed, looking down at the ground.

Vex put an arm across her shoulder. “He…I know Scanlan will be back,” she said. “I think he just needs time alone.”

“I…I was just starting to think…”

The little gnome shook her head. “Nevermind,” she said. “Never…nevermind.”

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

“Oh, no,” said Taryon, waving his mug jovially and shaking his head. “No, I’m not doing that again.”

“Alright,” said Grog with a careless shrug. “Alright, fine. That means more ladies for me. You want me to find you a guy, or something?”

Taryon considered this proposal. Then he looked up at the large mountain of a man, eyebrow raised and tattoos dark against his grey skin.

“Do you believe in soulmates?” Tary asked.

Grog’s other eyebrow went up. “What? What does that have to do with anything?”

Tary sighed, and shook his head again. “Nevermind,” he said. “Just…just go have fun for the both of us, how about that?”

Grog grinned. “Yeah,” he agreed. “Yeah, that sounds like somethin’ I could do.”

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

“Zephra is beautiful in the autumn,” smiled Vax as he watched Keyleth’s hair blow in the breeze. She was standing in a clearing, leaves tumbling around her. “I can’t wait to spend the next hundred autumns here with you.”

She reached out with a hand to where he was sitting in the grass, and pulled him up to join her. “More than a hundred,” she said firmly. “Half-elves live a long time, and we’re retired now, right?”

He laughed, and wrapped his arms around her waist. “Sure, Kiki. Right now, we’re retired.”

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

"Do any of us actually know how to run a bakery?"

"Didn't you say it's all about getting experience?" Taryon asked. "It's like a new adventure! One that we will all be inexperienced in, at the beginning."

"I can sort of bake," said Pike. "Sort of."

"Most of us, then," Taryon corrected. "Do we have a name, yet?"

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

“And do you, Vex’ahlia Vessar, take this man to be your husband?”

In the silence of night, with only quiet chirping of crickets and the rustling of the wind through the leaves of the Sun Tree, Keeper Yennen’s voice sang strong and bright.

Vex’ahlia’s heart soared.

“I do.”

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

One day, a tall, dark-skinned man from Ank’harel came to visit with a lanky, half-orc bard-barian in tow.

Their retirement ended.

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

There was a knock, so Scanlan fastened his silk, royal-purple robe, put on his most charming smile, and with a flick of his wrist, the door to his room swung open, to reveal Pike.

A million lines, ranging from I don’t remember asking for an angel, to why, isn’t this a pleasant surprise, to oh, I see Ioun has answered my prayers after all, to aren’t I a lucky gnome tonight?

He managed to hold all of them back and instead gave her a small grin. “Hi, Pike. What’s up?”

She closed the door behind her, and took a step forwards.

“Hey, Scanlan. I was wondering if I could ask you a question.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Oh? Well, don’t be a stranger, come and sit down, ask away.” He motioned towards the velvet couch by his fireplace, and they both took a seat.

“Scanlan, what does your soulmark say?”

He balked. This wasn’t exactly unfamiliar territory, since soulmates was a rather rich vein for pickup lines and for hitting on people in bars. But this—seated before a warm fire with Pike sitting not too close, but also not too far away—was nothing he could ever anticipated.

“Uh…well…why do you want to know?”

“I was just wondering,” Pike said with suspiciously carefree nonchalance. “If you don’t want to show me, I totally get it—”

He pulled down the sleeve of his robe, and her eyes instantly trained in on the words.

“It’s gnomish,” she said, slightly surprised.

He shrugged, and gave her a grin. “I’d like to think it’s honoring my humble roots,” he said.

“Can…can I read it out loud?”

“Of course.”

“Stop it, Scanlan. Take all the time you need.”

She bit her lip, and traced the words slowly. It sent a strange tingling up Scanlan’s arm.

“Interesting, isn’t it?” he asked, defaulting in the face of uncertainty to what he knew best: talking. “I mean, I’ve always wondered what I might have said to the other person to get them to respond with that, or what they mean with take all the time you need, but you can never be sure, right? Anyways, I think it’s the universe’s personal laugh that I’ve also got Stop it, Scanlan written on my arm, you’ve got to admit that’s pretty funny…”

He trailed off as Pike stood up.

“Thanks, Scanlan,” she said, slightly strained. “I…I appreciate you showing it to me. I’m going to bed now.”

She started walking out of the room.

“Wait, Pikey, is everything alright? Are…are you alright?”

She turned, just before the door, and gave him a smile. “I’m okay,” she said lightly. "Don’t worry, Scanlan, I’m okay.”

She closed the door behind her, and Scanlan was left staring at the elegant woodwork in the silence. He turned back around, and lay down on the couch. Eventually, tracing his arm where Pike’s finger had been and wondering idly what she had been thinking, he fell asleep next to the crackling fire.

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

“Are you all ready to go?” Percy asked. “I…I’m not sure what we’ll find on the other end, or how we’ll be getting back.”

“I’m ready,” said Grog. “I wanna go kill those creepy culty fucks.”

Vax grinned. “I agree with the big man,” he said. “They’ve got it coming.”

“Ready,” said Keyleth, gripping the Spire in her hands.

“As I’ll ever be,” said Scanlan, shooting a wink that Pike and Grog, recently apologized to, grinned at.

“Let’s go, darling,” said Vex. “It’s time.”

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

Vax was dead.

And then he wasn’t.

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

“I can’t help but hate her,” Keyleth shook her head, face buried in Vax’s chest as they lay together on the bed of their room in Scanlan’s Magnificent Mansion.

“I know,” Vax sighed. “I know.”

“It’s just…It’s just not fair. It’s not fair. You’re my soulmate, Vax. We were only going to have a hundred years together. And now…and now…”

“I know,” he said again, stroking her hair. “I’m sorry.”

“I hate her,” sobbed Keyleth. “I hate her.”

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

In the other room, down the hall, Vex rubbed at her eyes.

“He’s my brother,” she said.

“Yes,” Percy said back.

“He…if we’re successful, he won’t live past this year.”

“Yes.”

“And if we aren’t, the world will end.”

“Yes.”

“I want to world to end,” she whispered. “I don’t want to live in a world without him.”

Percy put a hand on her back, and when she began to cry, he pulled her into his arms. “I’m sorry, Vex. I’m sorry.”

“It was right there,” she breathed between sobs, wanting to choke on her own words. “It was right there, in my stupid soulmark. It was right there, all along. He was going to die first. And then…and then you would, and you would see him for me.”

Percy nodded. His own body was starting to shake as well.

“We knew that I wouldn’t live as long as you,” he tried. “I’m human.”

“I know,” she said, “I know. But I wish you weren’t. And I wish Vax wasn’t going to die either.”

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

“And…And I’m going to miss you. I’ll be gone soon. I don’t even know if we have time. A lot of us could be dead soon, but I’m not offering you this thing, but I’m offering you an experience.”

There was a long pause.

“I don’t know a lot of big words, but I feel like I need a little bit of clar-if-ication.”

“I don’t know if we have time for this, but maybe, for old time’s sake, because I love you and I know you love me and we share this in common—”

“—yep, definitely—”

“—I thought maybe we could prank Scanlan together.”

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

The day came. And from somewhere within the dark city of Thar Amphala, lurching from the movement of the terrible, enormous body that carried it, they all linked hands and closed their eyes and nodded.

And then they began to climb.

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

Scanlan, the tiny gnome bard perched up, thousands and thousands of feet in the air, held aloft by nothing but the shimmering, translucent purple form of Bigby’s Hand, made of pure arcana and here by his own force of will, looked up at Vecna, the Ascended as the sickly green swirl of a teleportation spell began to creep around the emaciated, bloodied avatar of the new god.

Scanlan raised a finger, eyes dark and cold.

“This was going to save Vax,” he said, and fired off a Counterspell that, for once, was not driven by song or dance or laughter—just the enraged sorrow of a bard who had, long ago, buried his mother, nearly just lost his daughter, and soon, all too soon, would lose one of his best friends.

It connected. There was no question there.

And then, finally, Keyleth was handed the tome.

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

In the distance, the impossibly gargantuan skeleton of the massive titan loomed over the city of Vassalheim, as cheering and shouts of surprised delight burst over the night sky like fireworks. Lanterns were beginning to bloom along the city skyline, and people were coming out of their homes and armies were lowering their weapons as now the news spread like wildfire that finally, finally, the Undying King had fallen.

But Vox Machina were not celebrating.

Vax pressed his forehead to his sister’s and put his hands on her face. Behind him, the silent form of the Raven Queen watched on, unimaginably distant and terrifyingly close, all at the same time.

“I never had a greater friend than you,” he said softly. “And we traveled a lot, but I never had a greater friend than you.”

Vex shook her head, tears hitting the grass below them. “I feel like she’s taking part of me away,” she breathed, a wracking, shaking sob.

He stroked her cheek. “I will bring it with me to remind me of you.”

“I don’t know how to live.”

“I will see you again.”

“I know.”

“I will see you again. And I will tell your mother that you say hello.”

She laughed, a short a humorless laugh. “Please.” and then she sobbed again and said, “I love you. I don’t accept this.”

He nodded. “I know that it’s hard. And I am sorry.”

“I’m going to find you.”

He wrapped her into a hug. And then, after a moment, after one final hand on her back and kiss to her forehead, he pulled away and turned to Keyleth.

The druid walked up to him, and threw her arms around his neck, tears streaming down her face. He pressed his lips to hers, and afterwards whispered, “I’m sorry it’s so cold.”

“I don’t care,” she said. “I don’t accept this. I love you.”

He smiled. “I will never stop loving you.”

“This isn’t fair,” she said.

“I know.”

She looked him in the eye, and her heart broke all over again. “I guess…I guess we have to say goodbye.”

He took her hands, just as she had, all those nights ago, and squeezed them gently. “For now,” he agreed. “I love you, Keyleth of the Air Ashari.”

She stole one final kiss, and murmured back, “I love you, Vax'ildan. I’ll see you again.”

After what felt like the lifetime they would not have, he pulled away, and took a breath he did not need, and began to walk towards the dark cloak of the Raven Queen. With each step, tiny flowers began curling around his feet, small white petals blooming against the dark green grass where they stood, until a carpet of snowdrops trailed back from Vax’s pale form to the rest of his family. He turned to face them.

“S.H.I.T.S.!” he called, voice wavering but firm and strong. “How lucky I have been to have had all of you. How lucky, indeed. Thank you.”

Then he strode into the embrace of his mother, and his patron.

And then, it was just feathers.

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

Years passed. Keyleth of the Air Ashari watched alongside Percy and Vex in the shade, as three dark-haired and two white-haired children chased each other through the grass and around the gardens.

“Julius looks just like him,” said the druid with a sad smile. “But you said Jonathan’s the one who talks to birds?”

“Yes,” said Vex, “and he thinks you’re very cool, so I think you should go and talk to him later.”

“I might just do that,” Keyleth nodded. “Maybe he might want to come visit Zephra, one of these days.”

“Take Olivia also,” said Percy. “We think her magic is arcane, but it might do her some good. Besides, she’s his twin, and they don’t like being separated.”

“I can see how that might work,” said Keyleth. Then she looked at Percy and Vex and asked, “Say, did Pike and Scanlan set a date yet? I know gnomes don’t really operate on the same timeline as everyone else, believe me, I know, but have they said anything yet?”

“No,” said Percy, “I don’t think so. But knowing how quickly they fell all over each other, after everything that happened, I’m sure it’ll be soon.”

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

“Scanlan?” Pike asked, from their spot in bed.

“Yes, Pikey?”

“Remember when you showed me your soulmark, and you mentioned something about wondering why it said what it did?”

“Yes, I remember.”

Pike rolled her sleeve up, and held her arm out to Scanlan.

“It’s in gnomish,” he said, slightly surprised.

“It’s my humble roots,” she grinned. “Go on, read it.”

“I won’t make…” Scanlan faltered, but with a gentle nudge he tried again. “I won’t make you wait long, Pikey.”

“Stop it, Scanlan,” Pike recited. “Take all the time you need.”

Their eyes met.

“So…you think…?”

“I’m pretty sure I know,” said Pike, and grinned. “You forest gnomes live a long time.”

“Are…are you alright with—”

“I am,” said Pike. “I really, truly am.”

“Oh, good,” said Scanlan, and he smiled as well when she leaned in for a kiss.

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

“Mama, what do these marks mean?” asked Percival IV, holding his arm up for his mother to see.

“That’s called a soulmark, darling. It’s words your soulmate will speak to you, one day.”

“How will I know who my soulmate is?”

“You just do, when the time comes. I know that sounds confusing, but trust me, alright? When you meet the right person, you’ll know.”

“Did you meet the right person, Mama?”

“I did, darling. And guess who that person was?”

“Who?”

“Your father,” and here, she bopped her son on the nose and he started to giggle.

“But, you know, these marks don’t always mean you have to spend time with only your soulmate. When your mama traveled around with Vox Machina, well, it almost felt like all of them were my soulmates.”

Her son considered this. “Like when I’m with Elaina and Julius and Olivia and Jonathan and Trinket and Dad and Auntie Keyleth and Uncle Grog and Auntie Pike and Uncle Scanlan and—”

She grinned, and bopped him again. “Yes, darling, just like that.”

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

The wedding was small, and Grog carried Scanlan down the aisle on his shoulders as Kaylie played a bridal march on her fiddle, and Great-uncle Wilhand, arthritic and nearly bald, officiated.

There were two flower girls and one ring bear, that carried the three ring-bearers on his back.

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

“Keyleth?”

They were seated beneath the Sun Tree, watching the clouds roll by over Whitestone, below.

“Yes, Vex?”

“Do…do you think you’ll ever find someone else?”

There was a pause.

“I…I’m not sure,” she said. “Maybe. It’s…it’s still too new. But I know he would want me to move on.”

“You have all the time in the world, darling.”

She laughed. “Oh, I know.”

“I know there’s a lot to be said about soulmates, but still. We’re not soulmates, and I still feel connected to you. To everyone in Vox Machina.”

Keyleth nodded. “I know what you mean,” she said with a small smile. “I think…I think it’s always nice to know who your soulmate is, but it’s also nice to just…to just spend time with other people.”

“Yes,” said Vex, poking Keyleth in the arm. “It is.”

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

Nobody knows the reason why, or how, or who is behind the curling lines of text that appear on the skin of every newborn child across the planes. Perhaps it’s the work of sentimental deities, brushing their fingers against the arms of their creations to let them know that no matter what, in this chaotic, unpredictable, dangerous world, they will never be alone. Perhaps it’s the gods of love, helping mortals find the ones with whom they will share every full, deep breath of air and every beat of their hearts. Perhaps it’s the work of trickster gods, playing their jokes on those who will never know who their other half is, until the end. Or, perhaps, it’s the work of the Raven Queen herself, Weaver of Fates, Matron of Death, leaving her mark on creation and urging all to find their fated and enjoy the time they have together, before the inevitable.

Nobody really knows.

But maybe, as a wise goliath once said around a campfire in the woods outside Whitestone, under the night sky with his friends at his side, “who cares?” In the end, you stick with the people you love, all the people you love, and perhaps, maybe then, it won’t matter what fate tried to tell you. You’ll have found the ones you wanted, and you’ll have been with the ones you needed, all along.

And that? That is more than enough.

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

This was a place, almost a hundred years later, where the sun was bright, and the grass seemed to glow, and the skies always felt like home.

“Your sister says hello.”

There was a laugh, and a smile, and a warm hand on his shoulder.

“I know, Freddie. I know.”

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ncfan-1 · 8 years ago

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Simple Wants

Vanimeldë was a woman of simple wants--or, at least, she thought so.

Written for the April 3rd Legendarium Ladies April general prompt, Wants and Wishes.

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When she was young, Vanimeldë was a child of simple wants.

“Vanimeldë, please, you must pay greater mind to your arithmetic. I have spoken with your tutors, and your progress… You do not seem to have made any progress at all since the last time I spoke with them.”

Vanimeldë’s mother, Vanimandil, often initiated such conversations with her daughter. Though Vanimeldë might find arithmetic too tedious and too irrelevant to devote much attention to it, she was quite an accomplished listener, and she had heard servants whispering in the back halls, when they thought she wasn’t near. The wife of the King’s heir despaired of her husband ever putting his mind to one day governing Anadûnê, despaired of it perhaps even more than the King himself. One of the maids had heard her complaining to her favorite lady-in-waiting; one of the grooms had watched her follow her husband into the stables to implore him to stay in the capital as he was preparing to ride away to meet friends in Rómenna.

Sometimes, the whispers seemed to seep from the very walls, and Vanimeldë would just attribute it to her own keen ears. But what could anyone expect? Vanimandil was a daughter of Andúnië, if a few degrees removed from the Lords’ immediate family. They had strange notions of how to rule in Andúnië; so everyone said, and if it was what everyone said, there must have been at least a kernel of truth to it.

But Vanimeldë knew better than to repeat palace gossip indiscriminately. Information was a valuable resource, one that should never be squandered. Besides, it would just make her mother upset to remind her of it. So Vanimeldë smiled winningly and pointed out, “But arithmetic isn’t all there is to being Queen, is there, Mother? I’ve been doing very well in my other—“

“Yes, you sing very well, Vanimeldë,” Vanimandil cut her off, her formerly smooth brown forehead beginning to crease noticeably. “And you master any instrument given to you to play within a few months. However, that is not—“

“And literature and history, Mother,” Vanimeldë added earnestly. It was easiest to overwhelm her early on, to get her off track so that she didn’t exactly forget what she had been angry about, but that she would deem it no longer relevant. Vanimeldë had watched her father employ this method many times, and he almost always succeeded. “I excel in those subjects, and did you not say that I handled the colonial delegation wonderfully when I had to greet them last week?”

A pause, and then, Vanimandil nodded. “…Yes,” she allowed, her green eyes softening slightly. “That’s not precisely new, Vanimeldë; you’ve always been attentive to your history texts, and to the classics.”

But Vanimeldë knew her mother had weakened the moment the word ‘history’ passed her lips. They did love their history in Andúnië, though Vanimeldë thought the Andustari focused disproportionately on the Elves. Why focus on another race when their own had such a rich history? But in the Andustar, it was all about the Ñoldor, and the Falmari who visited from Tol Eressëa. Boring. Now, the tales of the great among the Edain, and, more recently, the voyages of Tar-Aldarion and the struggles of Tar-Atanamir and Queen Adanel, those were tales worth reading and rereading. And watching. In fact…

“And remember what my tutors told you about the languages I’ve been learning?”

“Y-yes.” Vanimandil hesitated, winding her long belt in her hands. Finally, she squeezed her eyes shut, and sighed. “I would prefer if you devote an appropriate amount of time to all of your studies, not simply the ones you find most interesting. But for now, I will leave you. We will talk about this again,” she promised, but as she shut the door to Vanimeldë’s bedchamber, the air that followed her was hardly that of one who had won an argument.

With her mother gone, Vanimeldë reached for the Taliska reader she had been looking through before Vanimandil came to her. The language held appeal for her by itself, it was true. But there was another reason she was interested in it, and that was another thing she wouldn’t be telling her mother, not yet.

The theaters in Armenelos only allowed adults through their doors, and did not make exceptions for princesses—at the very least, Tar-Ancalimon wasn’t willing to force them to make an exception. But they offered many plays sung or spoken in Taliska, and it would only be a few years yet before Vanimeldë was old enough to go inside. She intended to be well-versed enough in the language to understand the story by then.

II.

When she was a young Queen, Vanimeldë’s desires were, she thought, still quite simple things.

Vanimeldë wrote poetry, and she wrote plays. This did not make her unique amongst the nobility, or, indeed, even among past royals. Fully half of the volumes of poetry on Vanimeldë’s private shelves were written by authors with more than a drop of Elros’s blood—the works of Princess Áralindë, the sister of Tar-Atanamir who had been disinherited for marrying outside the House of Elros, was especially fine, and… Anyways, there were also several tomes of plays written by noble authors on Vanimeldë’s shelves. The quality of these works tended to vary greatly, with some being masterpieces, and some whose greatest contribution to the world would be to inevitably be used as kindling by the future generations. The former, Vanimeldë kept to enjoy. The latter, she kept to laugh at and to remind herself of all the things she was not. And the theaters in Armenelos typically ran at least three Elrosian-penned plays at once at any given time.

It was not spectacularly strange for the nobility, even the Kings and Queens, to write. More than one of Elros’s blood had contributed to the great cultural legacy of Anadûnê. So why was it, that when Vanimeldë wrote—

She gritted her teeth and tightened her grip on her stylus. She was the Queen; it was simply not worth concerning herself with. But Vanimeldë’s ears were no less keen than they had been when she was a child, and this time, she got the impression that she was meant to hear the whispers circulating around the palace.

‘Irresponsible.’

‘Given to frivolous displays.’

‘Can’t focus on affairs of state for more than a few hours at a time.’

‘Oh, if only that last child of Vanimandil’s had not died!’

Vanimeldë fisted her free hand in her dark hair. Incredible. Tar-Aldarion left the country for years on end on his voyages, and I’ve never uncovered so much as a scrap of evidence of ministers or courtiers or anyone calling for his removal. I haven’t left the capital. I am right here if there is a crisis. And yet…

Frustration was taking its toll. Vanimeldë hadn’t been able to finish the scene she was working on for the past three hours, though there were probably ten dialogue switches left. How ironic it was, that the very people complaining about the Queen sequestering herself in her chambers were causing her to stay there longer through their incessant criticisms. Just a few more lines, and I think I should be able to put this down for the rest of the day with a clear conscience. Just a few more lines.

The blank spot at the bottom of het page remained quite infuriatingly blank, and Vanimeldë would like you to know that it took an enormous amount of restraint not to hurl her inkwell out the open window, but that she did restrain herself.

“Vanimeldë?”

She didn’t hear anyone calling for her at first. Vanimeldë had sent her ladies-in-waiting and all of the other servants out of her chambers while she worked. Likely a few of them were gathered outside the outermost door in case she called upon them, but most had no doubt scattered to the four winds. If her pages came back with their tunics covered in crumbs again…

However, when Vanimeldë did hear someone calling for her, she was at least able to relax and set down her stylus (And managed to do so gently enough not to break it. This time.). She knew but one person who would come venturing into her chambers without ceremony. “I’m here, Herucalmo,” she replied, “becoming the living avatar of frustration. Come join me.”

Her husband strode into the room, looking very much as though someone had just died, though that wasn’t unusual for him. Vanimeldë loved him, truly, she did, but he was markedly intense about most things, and most of the times she liked to tease him about it. This time, she couldn’t summon the levity to do so. She could only flop back in her chair and look at him with a grimace. “What brings you to my dungeon?” Vanimeldë asked, wishing, not for the first time, that sarcasm was a substance that could literally drip off of her voice; distilling it into a perfume would likely do wonders for keeping certain officials out of her hair. “Has someone died? That would liven things up around here.”

Herucalmo grimaced right back at her. “Nothing that enlivening, Vanimeldë. If you will recall, you have a budget meeting scheduled with your ministers in an hour.”

Oh, that. Again, Vanimeldë resisted the urge to throw her inkwell out the window. It was made of Falmari sea glass, after all; that wasn’t exactly easily replaced. “I was under the impression that last year’s allotment was considered quite satisfactory. Do we really need to meet if obviously the best course of action is to do as we did then?”

“Considering that we have more money than we did last year, yes.”

“That could be easily solved by sending the surplus to the treasury.”

“They won’t accept that as a course of action unless you are there to recommend it.”

“I am hardly the first ruler to send such messages without being physically present in the council chambers.”

“Vanimeldë.” Herucalmo closed the gap between them, rested his hand flat on her writing desk. The look in his clear eyes was not unsympathetic, but at the same time, it wasn’t really a look that indicated he was going to leave without some sort of concession from her. “You’ve missed the last three council meetings. You are running out of excuses, and your ministers are nearing the end of their patience.”

She paused, running her hand over the rope of lapis beads strung around her neck. “I… I know that. I’ve been busy.”

Vanimeldë enjoyed holding court. She enjoyed hearing from petitioners, even if the issues they brought before her were laughably petty; it did give her a good laugh, and there was something gratifying about knowing that they’d thought it worth it to tell her about it. She enjoyed arbitration, diplomatic negotiations. She even enjoyed trade negotiations. It might have been one of the things certain people thought Vanimeldë didn’t have a sufficient attention span for, but there was something oddly fascinating about the knots people could tie themselves into over tariffs, and the underhanded trickery they would try to pull off when it came to taxes.

But meetings such as the one Vanimeldë was being called upon to attend now… She understood their necessity, of course; not all the vital workings of an empire could be exciting, though it would make life much easier if they were. However, the tedious minutia of running an empire held little appeal for Vanimeldë, especially when she knew she was going to be walking into a room where every person there would tell her that everything that came out of her mouth was wrong. If her advisors were really all convinced that they all knew better than her, what exactly was the point of showing up at all?

“I know,” Herucalmo murmured, lines showing up in his forehead, deeply etched. “But a gesture must be made.”

“And what would you suggest?” Vanimeldë demanded, her voice breaking with sudden exasperation.

Herucalmo said nothing for a long moment, his eyes very bright. Then… “I could go in your place.”

“If they demand that their Queen show herself, I am not certain they’ll settle for the Prince Consort.”

His mouth twitched in something like a smirk. “If I tell them that you sent me as your representative, they might accept it. And we are descended in the same degree from Tar-Atanamir. Even they cannot complain about that.”

Vanimeldë smirked back. “Go, then. As my representative.”

She almost wished she was going with him, just so she could see the looks on her advisors’ faces when Herucalmo told them he was there as the Queen’s representative; the flabbergasted looks might be enough to cure any bad moods for hers for a while. But for now, she had a scene to write…

III.

Vanimeldë wrote. And wrote. It was a glorious time, when she could write without any interruption at all, save those which she chose to heed. The play was finished, a score created, a willing actors’ troupe found, and a theater designated as the site for the debut. When she thought about it, Vanimeldë felt as though she was walking on air. She couldn’t remember the last time she had been able to write without disruption for so long.

But as Vanimeldë emerged from seclusion, she began to notice things. Her ears were still keen, and she was gifted with the far-sightedness of the House of Elros. She could hardly be expected not to notice.

Notices of meetings and scheduled negotiations and arbitrations were either finding their way to Herucalmo’s hands when they should have reached Vanimeldë’s, or they were simply addressed to him outright. Certain courtiers now addressed Herucalmo more deferentially than they had before, and in others, Vanimeldë detected a certain edge of… derision? Yes, derision, when they addressed her. Like she simply wasn’t someone to be taken seriously anymore. That wasn’t the least of it, but that was what followed her wherever she went. The nagging sense of dynastic irrelevance.

Vanimeldë supposed she could have stood to be paying more attention to exactly what her husband was doing while acting as the Queen’s ‘representative.’ Never let it be said that she couldn’t recognize her own faults; she knew she had been inattentive in this. But never let it be said either that Vanimeldë did not know how to send messages as well as she could receive them.

“Are you certain you can afford to spend the evening at the theater?” Vanimeldë asked sweetly as she and Herucalmo settled into the royal box of Armenelos’s grandest theater. Alcarin was not with them; the boy had never had much love of art, poor thing. “I know how busy you have been of late.”

If Herucalmo caught the knife in Vanimeldë’s voice, he gave no sign. Seeing as such equanimity would be new for him, Vanimeldë attributed it to obliviousness. So much the better. “I think I can afford to spend one night away from the palace,” he said with a smile.

So very much the better.

“Oh, good! I think you will enjoy this one, my love. It seems just the sort of thing that would interest you.”

Vanimeldë had never told Herucalmo precisely what her play was about, though considering that Herucalmo had never exercised the curiosity required to ask, she could hardly be faulted for keeping her silence. If he was content not knowing, then let it be a surprise. Vanimeldë loved surprises.

For an hour or two, Vanimeldë watched. And waited. Waited for that particular moment of dawning realization, and the emotions that accompanied it. If she was nothing else, Vanimeldë was an avid spectator; she hoped dearly that Herucalmo, her Herucalmo, would not disappoint her.

Around the end of the second act, Vanimeldë saw enough of that crawling look to ask, with just the right degree of anxiousness, “How are you liking it so far?”

“It’s… wonderful.”

To say that Herucalmo’s voice was strained would be a gross understatement, bordering on obscene. To say that it was strangled did not do it much more justice, but Vanimeldë supposed she would have to be content with that descriptor until she could find a satisfactory replacement.

As for Vanimeldë, she suspected she would have bled sugar if pricked, her smile was so sweet.

That nagging sense of irrelevance was still with her, and Vanimeldë did not know if she would be able to be rid of it. So many thought Herucalmo more fit to rule than her that it might well be impossible. But she still had her writing—and judging from the ghastly shades of white her husband’s face was turning, another new hobby. It was so good to have new hobbies.

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Anadûnê—Númenor (Adûnaic) Andustar—The western promontory of Númenor. The north of this region was rocky, with forests of fir trees on the coast. Andustar contained three small bays which all faced west, the most northern of which was the Bay of Andúnië. The south of the Andustar was fertile, and there were forests of birch, beech, oak and elm trees. Timber was this region’s main source of wealth. Falmari—those among the Teleri who completed the journey to Aman; the name is derived from the Quenya falma, '[crested] wave.' Taliska—the language originally spoken by the Houses of Bëor and Marach (later to be known as Hador) before they entered Beleriand. Taliska is noted as apparently having some Khuzdul influences. Though the language largely fell out of use among the House of Bëor (the Bëorians coming to more commonly use Sindarin in their daily speech), it was still widely-enough retained for the survivors of the House of Hador to carry it with them to Númenor, where the language eventually evolved to become the Adûnaic tongue.

#Tolkien #The Silmarillion #Fanfic #Legendarium Ladies April #Tar-Vanimelde #Herucalmo #Vanimelde is a troll is a troll is a troll

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sunshineweb · 7 years ago

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In Praise of Mediocrity, Being Happy, And Learning How to Learn

Here’s some stuff I am reading, watching, and thinking about this weekend…

Book I’m Reading – The Art of Learning One of the best books on the art of learning I’ve read is, well, The Art of Learning by Josh Waitzkin. I picked it up again this week, and it was as refreshing as the original read.

Josh is a champion in two distinct sports – chess and martial arts. He is an eight-time US national chess champion, thirteen-time Tai Chi Chuan push hands national champion, and two-time Tai Chi Chuan push hands world champion. In his book, Josh recounts his experiences and shares his insights and approaches on how you can learn and excel in your own life’s passion, using examples from his personal life. Through stories of martial arts wars and tense chess face-offs, Josh reveals the inner workings of his everyday methods, cultivating the most powerful techniques in any field, and mastering the psychology of peak performance.

One of my favourite chapters is titled – Making Smaller Circles – which stresses on the fact that it’s rarely a mysterious technique that drives us to the top, but rather a profound mastery of what may well be a basic skillset. Josh writes that depth scores over breadth when it comes to learning anything –

The learning principle is to plunge into the detailed mystery of the micro in order to understand what makes the macro tick. Our obstacle is that we live in an attention-deficit culture. We are bombarded with more and more information on television, radio, cell phones, video games, the Internet. The constant supply of stimulus has the potential to turn us into addicts, always hungering for something new and prefabricated to keep us entertained. When nothing exciting is going on, we might get bored, distracted, separated from the moment. So we look for new entertainment, surf channels, flip through magazines.

If caught in these rhythms, we are like tiny current-bound surface fish, floating along a two-dimensional world without any sense for the gorgeous abyss below.

When these societally induced tendencies translate into the learning process, they have devastating effect.

Josh’s idea of making smaller circles is a great way to decide how to live, what to read, and how to invest sensibly.

To reiterate, the concept of making smaller circles, as outlined in Josh’s book, stresses on the fact that it’s rarely a mysterious technique that drives us to the top, but rather a profound mastery of what may well be a basic skillset.

When it comes to investing, this concept applies in the way that you must do just a few small things right to create wealth over the long run. You just need some simple ideas. You just need to draw a few small circles. And then you put all your focus and energies there. That’s all you need to succeed in your pursuit of becoming a good learner, and a good investor.

Articles I’m Reading If there’s one podcast transcript I read almost every month, it is the one from Farnam Street’s session with Naval Ravikant, the CEO and a co-founder of AngelList. Naval is an incredibly deep thinker and challenges the status quo on so many things. This aspect comes out very clear in this podcast.

One of my favourite sections is when Naval talks about the idea of being happy –

When it comes to learn to be happy, train yourself to be happy, completely internal, no external progress, no external validation, 100% you’re competing against yourself, single-player game. We are such social creatures, we’re more like bees or ants, that we’re externally programmed and driven, that we just don’t know how to play and win at these single-player games anymore. We compete purely on multi-player games. The reality is life is a single-player game. You’re born alone. You’re going to die alone. All your interpretations are alone. All your memories are alone. You’re gone in three generations and nobody cares. Before you showed up, nobody cared. It’s all single-player.

On the aspects of learning and what to lead kids to learn, Naval said this –

I think learning should be about learning the basics in all the fields and learning them really well over and over. Life is mostly about applying the basics and only doing the advanced stuff in the things that you truly love and where you understand the basics inside out. That’s not how our system is built.

We teach all these kids calculus and they walk out not understanding calculus at all. Really they would have been better off served doing arithmetic and basic computer programming the entire time. I think there’s a pace of learning issue.

Then there’s finally a what to learn. There’s a whole set of things we don’t even bother trying to teach. We don’t teach nutrition. We don’t teach cooking. We don’t teach how to be in happy, positive relationships. We don’t teach how to keep your body healthy and fit. We just say sports. We don’t teach happiness. We don’t teach meditation. Maybe we shouldn’t teach some of these things because different kids will have different aptitudes, but maybe we should. Maybe we should teach practical construction of technology. Maybe everyone in their science project, instead of building a little chemistry volcano, maybe you should be building a smartphone.

* * * Ben Carlson, author of the blog and a nice book by the same name – A Wealth of Common Sense – recently wrote about few financial advices he thinks are not talked about much but offer big financial payoffs. One such advice, and that I believe makes great sense, is about why time and health matter more than wealth. Ben wrote –

Cornelius Vanderbilt’s son William was far and away the richest person in the world after doubling the inheritance given to him by his late father in just 6 years. But the burden of wealth brought him nothing but anxiety. He spent all of his time managing his substantial wealth through the family’s businesses, which meant he had no time to enjoy his money or take care of his body.

He once said of a neighbor who didn’t have as much money, “He isn’t worth a hundredth part as much as I am, but he has more of the real pleasures of life than I have. His house is as comfortable as mine, even if it didn’t cost so much; his team is about as good as mine; his opera box is next to mine; his health is better than mine, and he will probably outlive me. And he can trust his friends.”

William also told his nephew, “What’s the use, Sam, of having all this money if you cannot enjoy it? My wealth is no comfort to me if I have not good health behind it.”

All the money in the world doesn’t matter if you don’t have the time or the health to enjoy it.

This is one timeless advice, I think.

* * * Before the internet, and before people lived in large cities, the circle of people our ancestors may have come into contact might be only a couple hundred people. Out of two or three hundred people, it may have not been too hard to be in the top tenth percentile at something.

Now, when your circle of acquaintances is the whole internet, being in the top tenth percentile of anything takes years of determined effort. Our brains still have expectations rooted in these smaller communities: That we should be able to create something exceptional and praiseworthy for our efforts.

Amidst this, it was fresh to read a perspective in praise of mediocrity –

If you’re a jogger, it is no longer enough to cruise around the block; you’re training for the next marathon. If you’re a painter, you are no longer passing a pleasant afternoon, just you, your watercolors and your water lilies; you are trying to land a gallery show or at least garner a respectable social media following. When your identity is linked to your hobby — you’re a yogi, a surfer, a rock climber — you’d better be good at it, or else who are you?

You see, there is no disgrace in appreciating mediocrity, in accepting our limits. And, by the way, the reason we call them limits is because rejecting them is what gets us into trouble.

Thought I’m Meditating On

There are two things I would never say when referring to the market: “get out” and “it’s time.” I’m not that smart, and I’m never that sure. The media like to hear people say “get in” or “get out,” but most of the time the correct action is somewhere in between. Investing is not black or white, in or out, risky or safe. The key word is “calibrate.” The amount you have invested, your allocation of capital among the various possibilities, and the riskiness of the things you own all should be calibrated along a continuum that runs from aggressive to defensive. ~ Howard Marks, in Mastering the Market Cycle

Video I’m Watching Do schools kill creativity? You bet they do. In this video, Sir Ken Robinson, noted British author, speaker and international advisor on education in the arts, provides ample proof that schools do kill creativity. He also makes an entertaining and profoundly moving case for creating an education system that nurtures (rather than undermines) creativity. This is another one of my favourite videos!

youtube

Enjoy your weekend, — Vishal

The post In Praise of Mediocrity, Being Happy, And Learning How to Learn appeared first on Safal Niveshak.

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webpostingpro-blog · 8 years ago

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New Post has been published on Webpostingpro

New Post has been published on http://webpostingpro.com/meriden-city-council-approves-342000-for-software-computers/

Meriden City Council approves $342,000 for software, computers

MERIDEN — The Town Council on Monday permitted spending $342,000 to replace software and update 157 Town computer systems.

City officials say the enhancements are important due to the fact the current software is the give up of its lifestyles and give up of support, leaving the Town susceptible to protection breaches.

Town group of workers recognized $208,000 in unused finances from the previous year’s

Fiances and police asset forfeitures to fund the assignment, while the stability of $134,000 could be borrowed from already-bonded initiatives. The City could then ought to pay itself returned $sixty-seven,000 over the next economic years.

Finance committee Chairman Miguel Castro, a Democrat, praised the Metropolis body of workers on their work financing the mission. We the Humans Councilor Walter Shamrock said he became thrilled the assignment could have “no fantastic impact on our budget.”

In different enterprise at Monday’s council meeting, resident Sean McDonald obtained the Spirit of Meriden Award for his offerings to the network through organizing meals, toy, and clothing drives.

FDA Approves Conditional Silicone Breast Implants

On Wednesday 4/143/05, the FDA health advisors endorsed disposing of the thirteen-year antique ban on silicon gel breast implants. This flow took place as Mentor Corp. Persuaded the FDA that it is newer silicone implants are a good deal extra secure and durable than older versions. The enterprise may also use those implants handiest beneath the following protection conditions set forth with the aid of the FDA.

– Potential patients ought to sign a consent form acknowledging that they understand the risks of a silicone breast implant along with the fact that they may ruin and require replacement or removal.

– A mentor can also best sell silicone breast implants to board

-licensed plastic surgeons who whole a special palms-on training software to discover ways to insert the implants in a manner that minimizes the chances of it breaking.

– The mentor should create and keep a registry to music the long term results patients have with the implants.

– sufferers ought to be knowledgeable about the truth that if an implant breaks, the effect of the breakage commonly does no longer motive immediately signs and symptoms. Further, they may be cautioned to have an MRI scan after five years and every two years thereafter to check for breakage.

– Mentor ought to behavior a 10 12 months have a look at to decide the proportion of breast implants as a way to wreck in that time.

– The study needs to be reviewed via an independent record reveal.

– The effects of Mentor’s breast implants may be reviewed by the FDA in five years to confirm that the implants are performing as expected.

Silicone-gel breast implants started out selling in 1962 and had been banned in 1992 amid fitness fears. Studies when you consider that then has proven that they do not reason critical sicknesses like cancer or lupus however that they can reason infection and scar tissue in the event that they leak and are untreated.

Approximately 264,000 breast enlargements and sixty-three,000 breast reconstructions had been accomplished in the America in 2003 – the great majority using salt water-filled implants which might be bought without restriction. It is anticipated that if the silicone breast implants return to the market, two hundred,000 women may have them set up in the first 12 months.

3 Ways Patient Reviews From Practice Management Software Could Be Harmful to Your Practice Growth

I propose those software program applications (together with Demand Pressure, Solution Attain and so on) a lot of my clients due to the fact they could automate everything and fills up the one’s schedules. However, if you use the software program like that, watch out for the little-recognized troubles that may give you regards to affected person evaluations:

1) They’re not visible to new sufferers.

The software bundles the reviews on a separate page that can hyperlink to your website or from their very own platform. It seems incredible, But, a patient has to go attempting to find them for your internet site. That assumes things: a) they could locate them without difficulty once for your internet site before they get bored and leave (you have got only some seconds for them to discover what they want). And b) They’re all ready for your website.

Only Google opinions stand distinguished in the path of the brand new affected person attempting to find a dentist. if you do not have sufficient Google opinions then you are not giving the potential new affected person enough incentive to virtually click on onto your website online. With all of the litter on this New Economic system, you need to combat for each affected person “movement”.

2) They may be no longer as trusted due to the fact they aren’t public facing.

These software applications plenty of times want to placate the dentist. It seems notable to have 3,000 5 star opinions for your Demand Pressure web page, but new patients won’t accept as true with that in any respect. In particular whilst every dentist has a similar profile and it is on your personal internet site which you control.

Humans trust Google critiques due to the fact they agree with Google, They are public facing and everyone can pass on there and write an amazing or bad evaluation. They’ve greater “mental weight”. So the 39 four.8-star the overview you have got on Google may get greater attention from People than your 14,450 5 megastars evaluates on your website (if They are even capable of locating it).

3) Automated Google review collection:

Pay attention this problem – it can go away you with many, without a doubt awful negative Google reviews.

The identical software programs can automate the sending of Humans to Google to put in writing an assessment. Here’s the problem: for a few, writing an awful evaluate is a cathartic experience that has not anything to do with you. They could have had an awful day and want to go away one so they have “yelled at someone” without yelling at a person.

And at the same time as you might not have any now, I’ve seen them preserve onto that hyperlink for over a yr (it’s in their email) and one day you piss them off and they cross write it. awful information is spread at least 7x quicker and more depended on than desirable information.

Then you definitely have this trouble where a group of terrible evaluations is left as “maximum recent” and that is the first effect a brand new patient receives whilst going through your Google opinions. Also, it is very hard to put off bad opinions even though They are libelous.

Computers Through The Ages

Steve Jobs and Invoice Gates are both names that are synonymous with computer systems. Nicely, at the least they’re with present day computers however they were just building on an idea that came along in the 1800’s and endured to develop in the course of time. What used to be massive machines that took up all sorts of room and did most effective rudimentary (to our requirements) work, we now preserve in our fingers and of direction era is best advancing similarly all of the time.

So, we go lower back in time, to an Englishman named Charles Babbage who,

Maximum say became born simply too early for his thoughts. He originated the idea of a programmable pc and because of that is referred to as the daddy of the era. He invented the first mechanical computer again in 1833 which become an analytical engine. The center of facts and applications became to be furnished to the gadget through punched playing cards. The output had a printer, a curve plotter and a bell and it is able to punch numbers on cards that might be study at a later date. His concept even had an arithmetic logic unit, manipulate glide and incorporated reminiscence, which would had been, had it been made, the first ever layout for preferred use.

All of the elements for Babbage’s device had to be made through hand and sadly his idea by no means reached fruition as the authorities reduce his grants and he ran out of cash. His son, Henry Babbage did make a simplified version of his dad’s concept though, in 1888 and he effectively proven that it worked in 1906.

All of these thoughts made way for the analog computers which used direct mechanical or electric models of a trouble as the basis for the computation. however, they have been now not programmable, they weren’t correct and they were not very flexible. Something had to exchange.

The primary programmable electronic computer

Become ENIAC which turned into speedy and bendy and become finished in 1946. The program became designed via the states of its patch cables and switches. Someone would write a program and then routinely set it into the machine with a manual reset of the patch cables and wires. It was a much cry from what we have today in the way of computer systems because it took up 1,800 rectangular ft and weighed a hefty 50 tons. Believe hauling that around for your pocket!

Generation stored progressing and nowadays we can do nearly whatever from a tiny device we feature round with us. Fantastic. What’s next? Stay tuned!

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auskultu · 8 years ago

Text

The Computer As a Tutor

Ezra Bowen, Life, 27 January 1967

Inside the low,windowless building, 18 computer terminals—each with a teletypewriter keyboard, cathode-ray tube, earphones and projection screen—were lined up in back-to-back rows. One wall of the room looked like a dark mirror but actually was one-way glass. Near it, a half-dozen men and women holding clipboards waited anxiously; the results of four years of planning and preparation in the complex world of electronic education were finally about to be put into regular, classroom use.

A side door burst open and in trooped a dozen scrabbling little first-grade children, some wide- eyed, some smiling, some a little scared. The children were seated at the terminals and the computer quickly took them in hand. "Well, hello, Jimmy,” the machine said into an astounded 6- year-old’s earphones. "I’ve been waiting for you.” Thus began the most eerie—and perhaps the most promising—dialogue ever carried on in a United States grade school.

The windowless chamber was a new first-grade room of the Brentwood Elementary School at East Palo Alto, Calif., and the exotic computersystem was Brentwood’s new math and reading teacher. Since that first day, Nov. 1, 1966, half the kids in the first grade at Brentwood have been taking all their arithmetic and the other half most of their reading from the IBM 1500 computer, and they will continue doing so until the end of the current school year. Other elementary school children have occasionally faced off with a computer for short-term experiments, but this is the first time a machine has ever been handed the responsibility for a full chunk of the regular first -grade curriculum. Furthermore, the 1500 is taking up the challenge in a neighborhood where leaching has not always flourished. The Brentwood area is a melange of gas stations, drive-ins and tiny ranch houses, where 85% of the population is Negro, and too many of the school children are a year or two behind the national norm in elementary reading. But, in these first few months at least, the 1500 has thrived in this environment.

"We really wanted something like this,” says Brentwood’s principal, William Rybensky. "\Yc*re committed here to innovation.” Indeed, Brentwood has offered up 100 of its children to the computer, and the machine’s proctors, programmers and assorted spear carriers outnumber the rest of the Brentwood faculty. So far, everyone involved in the experiment seems absolutely delighted with it.

The IBM Corporation is especially happy since it has invested some $30 million in the research and development of computer- based instruction. "There maybe a lot of profit in this one day,” says Leonard Muller, Director of Instructional Systems Development for IBM. Executives of other heavyweight electronics corporations agree. They have begun to hear the rustic of the new money that is falling like autumn leaves onto educational ground.

Most important, the kids love the experiment, although that first day, when they confronted the 18 terminals hooked into the computer, some of them shied away. "If I touch it, it’ll hurt me,” said one small girl, stepping back. One of the proctors assigned to teach the children and tend the program touched the face of the cathode tube and slipped on a set of earphones. Reassured, the girl and her classmates allowed themselves to he seated and the earphones drawn over their heads.

Soon the terminals in front of them began to dance with images —white-dot and white-line drawings of a dog, a bone, a cat—all flickering from the brain of the computer onto a gray screen. Through the earphones, a voice said, "Bow-wow, woof-woof. . . . Touch the dog with your light-pen and see what he does.” Each child, at his own terminal, touched the dog with the light-projecting pen he held, and the dog went for the bone. An electronic snail crawled onto the tube, veered away from a turtle and went to visit his friend, a butterfly. The voice at each terminal murmured new instructions—"Touch the snail” or "Touch the turtle.” As the lessons progressed, a child who touched the correct image heard the voice ooze a gentle "Good.” When an incorrect image was touched, the voice softly said "Nooooo,” then repeated the original command. Sometimes a tiny arrow popped onto the screen above the correct picture. If there was a hesitation of more than five or 10 seconds, the voice said, with a slight rigidity, "Do it now.” And if a child made two or three mistakes, or did nothing at all, the computer tapped out a distress signal on a monitor, and the teacher came— even as she once did for you and me—to find out what the trouble was and correct it.

The kids were fascinated. One boy, when he finished his lesson, twined his legs around the base of the swivel chair and refused to move, his proctor gently pulled him away. As he dug his heels into the rug, she pushed him out the door.

"He didn’t want to leave because he was so absorbed,” said Pat Suppes, the Stanford philosopher and mathematician who, along with Stanford psychologist Dick Atkinson, developed the mechanized reading and math programs for Brentwood. "Usually he gets so bored in regular class, he starts trouble.”

By the end of the first week, the computer had subtly moved half the class into its first exercises in New Math. (The other half of the class was cm reading.) Brackets popped up around the dogs and the voice in the earphones explained to the kids, in its best New Math jargon, that they were now looking at the set with dog as its member. Guided by the computer, every child moved along at his own pace.

In the course of a day each of the terminals had several pupils assigned to it. At the start of his session the pupil would see his name on the cathode tube and would confirm his identity to the computer by touching his name with his light-projecting pen. Then the computer would start the pupil off with audio-taped instructions exactly where he had ended the last lesson. The brighter children quickly jumped ahead, skipping over the practice drills, taking on more complex problems. Whenever the slower ones faltered, the computer automatically branched them onto a sequence of corrective drills.

Meanwhile, the other half of the class was using computerized exercises and word games to learn how to read. When the child faced the terminal, a baseball diamond and a list of words flashed onto the tube and the voice said, "Touch a four-legged hairy animal that goes meow.” If the child touched the cat. a tiny runner zipped to first base. Four hits and the student won that part of the game. In more formal drills, if the student made a mistake, the computer would branch him through as many as live corrective exercises. Within three months the computer's audio- tape deck was reading aloud “Peter, Peter, Pumpkin Eater" as the written words appeared on the tube and each child was reading along with good old IBM 1500.

Simultaneously the computer was also taking attendance, giving tests and marking them, recording every child's responses and measuring the reaction times flown to the last millisecond.

"We're on the edge of some very new stuff, very deep,** says Suppes. "With this technology we may he able to give each kid the personal services of a tutor as well-informed and as responsible as Aristotle. Right now teachers teach to the middle 50% of each class. The machines provide the chance to do much better teaching on an individual basis for the top 25% and the bottom 25%.”

AIready the Brentwood computer has stored up thousands of details on each child’s reactions to the lessons. Suppes and Atkinson study the information as it comes through and adjust the program whenever a particular exercise seems redundant, misleading or too complicated. For the long run they are permitting the information to pile up, in hopes that it will provide a flow of clues to the most critical question of all: just how do people really learn?

Every human being has a different learning style: some people gather knowledge quickly, others slowly or not at all. Everybody comes into a learning situation with a different background, different vocabulary, different attitude and a different supply of what is called intelligence. In a typical sixth-grade classroom, for example, the mental age level of the pupils, according to a widely accepted study, ranges from 9 years to 16. But measured intelligence is no true indication of the capacity to learn. There is, however. some agreement among psychologists that a student, whatever his supply of intelligence may be. seems to learn best when his lessons are tailored to his own pace of learning. The Brentwood computer system does adjust to each pupil's personal speed.

"I think this thing of individualizing instruction is the most important single principle of learning,” says Suppes. "We’re trying to go deeper and deeper into it. to find out whether we can write curricula so they reflect the personality, the learning characteristics of each child. Computers can collect for us the data to do a real, microscopic analysis of the curricula. There will be no guessing here. Data! Data! And that's what I think is really exciting.'’

Suppes's partner. Atkinson, agrees. "We're really interested in the psychology of learning,” Atkinson says, "How does a kid master a concept like math or reading? What should be the exact sequencing of the materials?” Unlike many of their colleagues who carry out their experiments in the canned atmosphere of a laboratory, Pat Suppes and Dick Atkinson believe that the answers can best he found in the daily struggle and confusion of a classroom.

It is natural for Suppes and Atkinson to feel a strong paternal pride in their computer system. Nevertheless, there are critics who think that the IBM 1500 has a face that only its father could love. Critics of computer education complain, first, about the cost. Computer technology today is too expensive for any ordinary school system without heavy underwriting by the federal or state government, a major foundation or a corporation. Most of the men involved in computer learning are convinced the cost will come down, and it is possible that within 10 to 15 years every school—or at least every school district—can pay for its own computer system. But right now, although the price of computers themselves is already dropping, the costs of sophisticated terminals and programming remain quite high.

The cost of buying the basic hardware for Brentwood and preparing the first-grade program will come to roughly $1.5 million [$10,778,757.49 in 2017] by the end of the school year. If the school across the way were to try to install a similar computer system for its first grade, the cost would be the same $1.5 million for hardware, maintenance and program creation and development. It will be at least a year and a half and maybe five years before the Brentwood program is sufficiently developed so that it can be applied more cheaply elsewhere. Meanwhile, that school across the way spends $180 [$1,293.45 in 2017] a year to buy English and arithmetic workbooks to teach the same number of kids very much the same John Hit the Ball and the New-Math Union of Two Sets (lay translation: 1 + 1) that come out of the computer. A number of educators—who have nicknamed Brentwood’s program "The Pat and Dick Show”—have asked if it might not make more sense to spend the additional $1 million-plus on better salaries and better training for more and better human teachers.

Furthermore, to a lot of people the Pat and Dick Show, with its humming computers, one-way mirrors and the automated sincerity in the electronic voice, comes too close to 1984. But the critics, it appears, will have to learn to live with it. The Brentwood spectacular is only one of perhaps a thousand projects in computerized learning which have been installed at all educational levels across the U.S. in the past half-dozen years. In fact, about the same time the 1500 met the Brentwood first-graders:

Fifty graduate students at Carnegie Tech’s Graduate School of Industrial Administration were deep in a scrimmage with a computer that simulates the activities of nine make-believe corporations. As part of the exercise, the students formed management teams, bought stock, began to run the companies, grappled with accounting, taxes, labor, production quotas, sales figures and inflation and generally tried to drive each other out of business.

At Illinois a computer nicknamed Plato gave a short audio- taped lecture and quiz to a junior studying electrical engineering. The student flunked the quiz and pressed a button literally marked "Help!” Patiently, plato gave a simpler, fuller explanation: the boy got the message, punched a button marked "Aha!” and plato went on with the lecture.

Using a talking typewriter he developed, social psychologist Omar Khayyam Moore of the University of Pittsburgh was teaching 3- and 4-year-olds to read and write up to a fifth-grade level. The talking typewriter generated careful enunciations and cheery pictures of a b-a-r-n. The child sitting at it ran his fingers over the keyboard. All the letters were locked except for a "B.” The child hit the "B” and the letter appeared on the paper in the roller. With the keyboard continuing to lock in proper sequence, the child spelled out the word "barn.”

At M.I.T. a graduate engineer took a light-pen and made a sketch of a bridge on the face of a cathode tube; a computer then whipped the rough lines into the symmetry of a functional bridge and rotated the image to give a three-dimensional view’ of the work, while a high-speed printout device disgorged stresses and force vectors for such a bridge.

In Santa Barbara, Calif, a high school physics student used teletypewriter computer terminals to whip through algebraic equations that would have taken hours of tedious hand-calculating.

At the computerized National Library of Medicine in Bethesda, Md. a medical student asked a machine for research sources on Occupational Dermatitis. Among the recommended readings hammered out by the machine was: "A Study on Dermatitis in Rice Farmers, Yang KL, et al. Chinese Medical Journal (Peking) 84: 143-59, March 1965.”

Basically the computer is used as a tool, to speed up the clerical routines of calculation or of combing through archives. In the more sophisticated programs it also takes over the role of a tutor—sometimes a rather fatuous tutor at that. A machine at a California school greets its fourth- to-eighth-grade pupils with "Hello, I’m your friendly computer.” Another computer has presented German to college students by dropping German words, one by one, into English sentences, until it arrives at a dialogue straight out of the old Cinderella Hassenpfeffer satires: "Der sky war klar, die Winde hat ton sich died, and der moon went brightly im Westen down.”

"People are so fascinated by the miracle of the computer,” Suppes says, "that no matter how awful the stuff programmed into it is, they think it’s wonderful.” Over the past 15 years people have been unduly fascinated by many kinds of educational hardware. Classroom television was supposed to change the world of learning by bringing cosmic events and the voices of great men into the schools. But it has mostly brought the same old professors droning along on the little gray screen. Multiple-station recording machines called "Language Laboratories” were supposed to improve the study of foreign languages, by handling pronunciation and grammar drills with taped lessons, therein freeing the teacher to conduct stimulating classroom sessions. But all too often the recording machines have been fed uninspired, rote drills by teachers whose old-fashioned training has not prepared them to utilize fully either the hardware or the extra time the machines could give them. Mechanical teaching machines— most of them metal boxes with a viewing window—were supposed to speed up and individualize learning by serving up simple, step-by-step lessons. But most of the teaching machines have been no more than vastly expensive page-turners, with programs so dull that neither teachers nor pupils could stand the tedium of clicking through them.

Classroom television, language laboratories and teaching machines appeared in schools in the 1950s as part of the postwar technological upheaval. At the same time there was an intellectual upheaval, and a wave of curriculum reform aimed at shooting new life into course content swept classrooms. It included the broad concepts and ordered jargon of the New Math, and new courses in physics and biology built on the sensible notion that science students should spend their time like real scientists, experimenting and discovering, instead of memorizing outdated charts of elements. Some of the new courses were better, but they still had shortcomings. The main problem, according to one junior high teacher, was that "It’s fine to talk about getting highschool kids to think like scientists and the inductive method of reasoning and all that, but how are you going to get some dunce in the back of the room to induce when he’s asleep? You’ve got to wake him up first. We’ve got to get these kids involved.” With the computer, says Suppes, "the kid can’/ just sit there. He’s got to do something. And the computer checks him out at every step.”

The computer—with its ability to evaluate, individualize, to store up and present vast quantities of material—may turn out to be the only means by which the country can cope with the explosive growth of what has come to he called the Knowledge Industry. On any morning, 55 million Americans are in school. Outside the formal classrooms, big business is continually training or retraining employees; and 20 million preschoolers are being borne down upon by psychologists who feel these little children should stop frittering away their time and start making organized use of those crucial learning years. The present national budget for education is $49 billion, second only to defense. This cost will keep right on rising as science continues to push out the boundaries of human learning and thus the boundaries of what an educated man must know. For example, in one single subject, chemical engineering, 5.000 journals now deal regularly with petroleum research alone. Somehow this bursting mass of information must be stored where men can quickly get at it, and ultimately it has to he put across to students in ways that they can understand.

Faced with these facts, President Johnson, under the guidance of Francis Keppcl, then U.S. Commissioner of Education, asked Congress in his budget message of January 1965 for $4.1 billion of new federal funds for education at all levels. As a result, $3.8 billion was appropriated and some $200 million was earmarked for universities to enable them to build and finance regional development laboratories and research centers. There, new concepts like computer learning were to he thoroughly tested. Within the enabling legislation there was an invitation to big business to join the universities in research and development.

Educators soon found themselves being ardently wooed In a fast-growing army of new friends, mainly big electronics corporations. The corporate ambassadors talked to superintendents, teachers and school boards, lobbied with Keppel and his associates and wooed university scholars, trying to show what their electronic hardware could do for the future of education.

As part of their courtship some corporations passed out private grants and handed over equipment for educators to experiment with. "There’s a billion-dollar market at our feet,” one executive blurted out at a management convention. And another boasted that "We’ve been in education for years. We train thousands of people ever\ \ear, teach them to operate computers, build jet engines: we’ve got one machine with a tape recorder and color slides that shows how to do industrial soldering in 35 steps.”

Such visible lust for the big dollar and a tendency to equate education with the teaching of craft skills alarmed many educators. "Those guys who think you can teach kids in school just like you’d set up an industry program for 50 men in industrial soldering, they’re nuts,” said Fritz Ianni, who, as research chief, helped Keppel shape the new federal aid hills. "There will he a payoff, but it’s going to take time—five to 10 years.”

Fortunately, a number of electronics companies moved into education with caution. For a half-dozen years. IBM had been providing computers to schools and colleges at a discount of as much as 60% to handle both research and the morass of clerical work—class scheduling, accounting, payroll, test scoring. In 1964, foreseeing the day when actual school courses might be written for computers, IBM had bought up an educational publisher, Science Research Associates. Presumably, S.R.A. had writers who would know how to prepare good educational material to pour into a computer and salesmen who could reach the buyers in the schools. This pioneering merger set off a spate of others, as various hardware companies reached out for what they called "software” partners—i.e., educational publishers who could help them slide gracefully into the classroom.

RCA bought Random House; Litton Industries, Inc. bought American Book Company; Time Inc. put its educational subsidiary. Silver Burdett, into a joint venture with G.E. and hired Francis Keppel as chairman of the board; Xerox bought American Education Publications and other little helpers; Raytheon bought D. C. Heath. In all. from 1964 through 1966 there were 120 corporate marriages of this kind.

"Right now it’s a hot romance between the hardware and software boys,” says Pat Suppes, "but it will cool later on, when we have hardware that is more or less standardized. Then it’ll be just a matter of how you write the courses.

"These guys from G.E. and IBM and Phileo, they’ve got a lot to learn. Their ignorance of education is gargantuan. But they impress me. They’ll sit down and learn it. I mean, IBM has a vision of an IBM computer in every school in the country. They’re not about to quit.”

Whatever happens in the executive suite is, in any case, of only minor concern to tough and independent learning specialists like Suppes and Atkinson, who are clearly in command of their research-and-development ship. They are the ones who decide what hardware to buy and they have final say on what goes into the computers. "Professional educators are running the show,” says one executive, more in admiration than in anger, "and I can’t see industry ever getting them out.”

The question is, how good a job are the educators doing? Too many of the computer programs now under way are only dazzling little demonstrations or dull litanies reminiscent of the days of the teaching machines. In some ways, the computer, like teaching machines and closed-circuit TV and language labs, is no more than lights and wires in a box, completely susceptible to whatever garbage its keepers choose to feed it.

"We now have some machines that can talk but have nothing to say,” warns Harold Howe, who succeeded Keppel as U.S. Commissioner of Education. "1 would caution the businessman not to venture into hardware unless he is prepared to go all the way into printed material and and kids should turn their own pages.” At most, a computer should be a training device to encourage logical thinking.

Pat Suppes, on the other hand, is continually trying to push his machines into the outer limits of research and beyond. "You know, with technology you always have a gleam in your eye about what you’re going to do next,” he says. Particularly, he hopes for the day when a student can have a free dialogue with a computer that can recognize the student’s voice, understand his words and talk back with flexible replies.

Already, in select experiments, computer programmers are moving their machines closer and closer to human consciousness. At Stanford one computer, by matching the sound waves in a human voice to waveforms already programmed in, can recognize some 200 words spoken directly to it through a microphone. At General Electric’s laboratory in Santa Barbara and at M.I.T., other computers are inching toward the ability to understand and reply to questions they have never before received.

And, finally, there is the ultimate concept. At Syracuse University, Dr. S. Seshu is working on the total teaching machine, an electronic input system which will transfer factual information on punch cards or magnetic tape directly into the human brain and memory. Dr. Seshu has not yet mastered the details, but he says, "All that we need to do is And the input terminals in the human brain, and the necessary code.”

Such talk, while alarming to most adults, does not disturb the students—from first grade to graduate school—who meet the computer every day in their classrooms. They are growing up with the machine, and to them it is no more alarming than any other common piece of hardware, like a pop-up toaster or an automatic phonograph. At Brentwood the veterans of last year’s computerized math drills at the Grant School are completely blase about the machine. They show no sign of having been dehumanized or damaged in any way. If anything, they have become rather fond of the machine, which they seem to regard as a simple- minded and fragile friend. On one occasion last year the computer, whose code name was thor, suffered a particularly severe breakdown. The next day the teacher was handed an envelope containing something signed by the whole class. It was a get-well card for thor.

#education #computers #futurism #tutoring #technology #science #computer learning #ibm #1967 #1960s #sixties #60s

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webpostingpro-blog · 8 years ago

Text

New Post has been published on Webpostingpro

New Post has been published on http://webpostingpro.com/meriden-city-council-approves-342000-for-software-computers/

Meriden City Council approves $342,000 for software, computers

MERIDEN — The Town Council on Monday permitted spending $342,000 to replace software and update 157 Town computer systems.

City officials say the enhancements are important due to the fact the current software is the give up of its lifestyles and give up of support, leaving the Town susceptible to protection breaches.

Town group of workers recognized $208,000 in unused finances from the previous year’s

In different enterprise at Monday’s council meeting, resident Sean McDonald obtained the Spirit of Meriden Award for his offerings to the network through organizing meals, toy, and clothing drives.

FDA Approves Conditional Silicone Breast Implants

– A mentor can also best sell silicone breast implants to board

-licensed plastic surgeons who whole a special palms-on training software to discover ways to insert the implants in a manner that minimizes the chances of it breaking.

– The mentor should create and keep a registry to music the long term results patients have with the implants.

– Mentor ought to behavior a 10 12 months have a look at to decide the proportion of breast implants as a way to wreck in that time.

– The study needs to be reviewed via an independent record reveal.

– The effects of Mentor’s breast implants may be reviewed by the FDA in five years to confirm that the implants are performing as expected.

3 Ways Patient Reviews From Practice Management Software Could Be Harmful to Your Practice Growth

1) They’re not visible to new sufferers.

2) They may be no longer as trusted due to the fact they aren’t public facing.

3) Automated Google review collection:

Pay attention this problem – it can go away you with many, without a doubt awful negative Google reviews.

Computers Through The Ages

So, we go lower back in time, to an Englishman named Charles Babbage who,

The primary programmable electronic computer

Generation stored progressing and nowadays we can do nearly whatever from a tiny device we feature round with us. Fantastic. What’s next? Stay tuned!

0 notes