And now for a splurge of nonspecific topicness!

I hate typography. It's a known fact. I think it's even in wikipedia. If you look up typography, the first thing it'll say is that I, Lucid, hate typography. That being said.

I am gifted at forgery. Yeah. Go figure. I mean, everyone can say they have some talent at forgery simply because they imitated their parents signature once or twice for a school paper, or slip, or note. Some of the more adventurous ones even went so far as to attempt to write a note from their parents to their teachers in their parents handwriting. Generally that was a disaster.

No, see, I'm talking about being able to completely emulate another persons writing style, right down to what they would say and how it would be said. It's not something I do often, I mean, lets face it, why would I need to? I'm a construction jock, the only writing we do is numerical.

I found out I had said skill back in high school. It started with numbers. See, as any normal male, my writing was terrible to behold and was a cypher unto itself, even to me, to read. My 'nice' writing for assignments was barely any better. During my final year in high school I worked at a bank, part time. While there I had to refine my ability to write numbers as mine were illegible. The teller who was in charge often found herself frustrated at my unkempt 1,2,3's and took it upon herself to nostalgically flounce down memory lane to kindergarten and reteach me my numbers. I painstakingly copied the way in which she wrote her numbers and after a week became quite proficient at writing them exactly as she did so that if held next to one another it was impossible to tell who wrote which set. That was the beginning.

From there I tried people's signatures. Not even the person who owns a signature ever writes it the same twice, but there are markers that they almost always hit. I would have my friends write out their signatures nicely, then messily, then hastily, and three times more however they liked. From there I would examine it, write it over and over until I knew where they pressed hard and where they stroked fast, the height and length of their letters, so on and so forth. It was fun and I was often rewarded with a satisfying signature that looked like theirs, again, to the point where they wouldn't be able to tell them apart.

Even then, I didn't really think anything of my ability as I just assumed that any artistically gifted person in my various art classes would have the exact same talent that I had. It wasn't until one of my good friends asked for a tattoo design incorporating his writing into it that another of my art buddies noticed my ability to copy and exclaimed rather loudly how good at it I was and how she would never be able to pull off such a trick, which is what she thought it to be, just a trick. I leveled her with a blank look and asked if she seriously was unable to imitate other peoples writing. In my mindset, if we can imitate other peoples art, what's the difference if it's written or landscaped?

She said she didn't know anybody who could do that, then challenged me to try to imitate her writing style. I had her write out a paragraph of nonsense, it didn't matter what it was, borrowed notes from her various classes to get her prose down, then took it home for a week to practice. At the end of said week I handed back her notes, meekly admitting that I was unable to copy it and my talent was reserved to signatures.

I lied. When I handed back her stuff I inserted a set of class notes I had written on my own, in her style, for one of her classes. It wasn't a copy of her other stuff, but based off of it. Later on that week she noticed it and couldn't remember when they had done Hamlet in her english class, but they obviously had to have done it cause 'she' had written notes on it. I grinned all smugly at her and then she realized what I had done. It was great fun.

I don't have any practical uses for the skill, and it's probably rusty as hell given how often I don't use it, but it's there and if I ever need to be a covert op in espionage, I know I got one skill covered to a T...however you write them.

Lucid~Nonspecific enough for you?