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gingermintpepper · 3 years

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After thinking it over for a bit, I've decided that I might as well do a proper underrated 3DS game rec list. I'm a bit of an ATLUS junkie and that's gonna be pretty disgustingly apparent in this list, but it's not my fault that they released hit after hit and all of them were duly ignored.

Due to tumblr's 10 image limit (and my struggle to keep motivated to do one thing for more than three hours) I'm definitely gonna have to break this up into parts and I'm fairly certain one of these lists is just gonna be MegaTen games lmao but I'd like to let people know about these excellent titles and see if I can't at least get people interested in them so they can get more traction.

So, without further ado:

Some 3DS Games that were criminally slept on (part 1)

Monster Hunter Stories

God, where do I begin with this game. Well, the basics: It's a JRPG spinoff title of the now widely successful and popular Monster Hunter series featuring a different take on interacting with the varied and intricate monsters populating the world: Riders.

Yep, instead of hunting the beasties, you play as a young rider who's completed their intiation ritual and can now bond with 'Monsties' as they've cutely labelled the usually ferocious monsters of the wilds. The great thing is that you still fight Monsters--tons of them in fact but this isn't a paid review and in my humble opinion, the most impressive thing about this game is the visual style. The landscapes, the armour, the way they redesigned and 3DS-ified the classically hyper realistic and monstrous beasts to not only be absolutely adorable but still capable of being intimidating when the time calls for it, the stellar animation of special moves and combination attacks--it's delicious, nutritious, stupendous, I can and will consume it like it's part of my recommended caloric intake.

It's very akin to Pokemon in the way its basic gameplay premise is set up, however, instead of catching--or even indeed befriending--the Monsties in the game, you rummage through their nests and steal their eggs, later hatching them and getting yourself a brand new lightly kidnapped monster pal!

Other general things about the game:

Pros:

The armour and weapon sets for both male and female characters slap along with the general character customisation options. They're incredibly diverse (though limited in body type) and you can switch around traits and features whenever you want from your house.

The POGS--these porkers are everywhere and they serve as tiny little achievements for exploring every odd and end of the world. Also they have little outfits. They're so cute. 🥺🥺

You can actually ride the Monsties. All of em. Or, at least the ones that you have available to be your buddies. They all have exploration skills and traits that not only make exploring much more interesting but encourage you to swap out your active Monstie and play around with your options a bit.

Y'all breeding Monsties is complicated and I live for just how intense and ridiculous you can get with optimal builds for these things.

The story is really competently put together! The characters, character designs and even the internal conflict with your starting trio of characters is really compelling along with the mystery of the blight that's infecting Monsters across the world. It's not anything worth awards but it's compelling and it makes you care about the characters if that's what you're in the market for.

Amazing sound design, expansive world, everything about the presentation of this game oozes that Monster Hunter charm even if the art is cutesier than usual. You'll never get bored of its stellar visual presentation!

Available for around twenty quid on the Google Play store, so if you want, you could actually get the full game on your smartphone or tablet. Note though that it would be a battery nuker.

Cons:

If you're on a regular 3DS, frame rate drops are a given. This game kinda pushes the visual capabilities of the 3DS to its absolute limit--a lot like Okamiden did back on the DS.

One save file :( It's pretty much for the same reason as above but still.

If you're playing as the girl, you can't get male armour and vice versa. Since there's only one save file, you'll never be able to have all of the armour sets in a single playthrough and that's criminal because both of the sets for the genders are absolutely breath-taking, thank you.

I 👏can't 👏make👏my👏 own 👏Palico👏

Multi-player for this game is pretty dead seeing as it's almost five years old by now and never got much press or traction. Usually this wouldn't be an issue - this game is 99% singleplayer and you don't really need to fuss about with multi-player to have fun, but if you want to collect all the Monsties, you'll need it since the only way to get Glavenus is through pvp achievements. :/

Final thoughts: Play it if you find yourself getting tired or disappointed with 3DS Pokemon games but still want something that feels as fantastical as Pokemon. It outshines the 3DS Pokemon games at every turn and I will never be over just how thoughtfully put together and fully realised these games are. Of course, if you've ever played Monster Hunter, then you know just how intensive these games are with the lore, biology, cultures and world of their Monsters but seeing that translated into JRPG format was just very sobering and it's a game that, to this day, continues to awe me with just how much love and attention went into it.

Last note: If you're still unsure about it, there's a demo available on the e-shop of the 3DS that allows you to play through the entire initial area of the game. Your data does carry through to the full release and to give you an idea of how much I've been able to squeeze out of it - my playtime for that demo is currently sitting at 22 hours. Make sure to get a hold of that Cyan-Kut-Ku!

7th Dragon III Code: VFD

The title may sound intimidating but the premise is not! A mysterious disease called Dragon Sickness spread by the Dragonsbane flowers that have cropped up all around the world. You and your team are recruited by the Nodens game company after you display extraordinary prowess in their hit virtual reality game 7th Encount. As you go through the adventure, you are tasked with finding out the truth behind the Dragon Sickness and asked to stop both it and the Dragons that are destroying the world.

This game is fun. It's another turn-based JRPG however, in this game you create all of your characters yourself from the myriad of classes available to you from the jump. Different classes of course have very different specialisations - Samurai focus on high powered cutting damage with their swords, Duelists are summoners who can influence the element of the battlefield as well as summon monsters from each element, Agents can hack into your enemies and inflict a barrage of nasty ailments, just to name a few - and you are given three teams of three characters each to experiment with different team comps and find the balance that works for you. There's also a wide variety of Dragons to hunt and kill in the game, which directly affects how infected your world is with the Dragon Sickness causing Dragonsbane. Along the way you will also come into contact with many interesting characters, concepts and confrontations that will make the task of saving the world all the more imperative.

Pros

1. The character creator and differing classes give way for tons of experimenting and playing around with your own unique approach to combat and carrying out your missions. Granted, 'character creation' is generous, it's little more than palatte swaps but the classes are really where VFD shines. Eight main classes may not sound like a lot, but the expaniveness of the character skills, their synergy with their fellow classes and the uniqueness of some of the classes in and of itself allows for so much flexibility and creativity in approaches to even tougher bosses. It also encourages the switching about of your party members to really finagle with the options available to you.

2. God this game is pretty. The locations, the character art, the creature design - all of it is gorgeous and this game capitalises on every bit of the 3DS's presentation limitations as it can.

3. You can romance anything and everyone - yes, you can even be gay/lesbian/poly in this game. In fact, one of the main characters - Julietta - is gnc and he's a constant source of joy as well one of my personal favourite characters, right behind Yuma.

4. Exploration is very very forgiving as the game has healing spots and teleport nodes all over the world to allow for quick, seamless travel between quest points without feeling like anything is too much of a hassle. There are also special enemies that allow for quick grinding as well as quick farming of money. In general, the game does a really good job of making sure that the grind is never unbearable or inconsiderate of your time.

Cons:

1. This is the fourth game in a series the West has never seen any other title for, and from the looks of it, will probably never see any other titles for. Because of that, there are some elements that may seem confusing or revelations in the plot that may seem to come out of nowhere.

2. While the visuals are great, the OST of this one is pretty short making for a lot of reused soundtracks that can get really annoying if you're like me and need your audio to be interesting or consistent so it doesn't distract you too much.

3. This one isn't really a con but it is divisive: This game gets pretty difficult at times. A few of the main dragon enemies including and especially the final boss can give you a serious run for your money in the annoy-o-meter in terms of the kind of absolute JRPG fuckery they can pull out of their magic bag of bullshit movesets and while I generally enjoy that kind of thing, I know it's not for everyone. Most regular combat shouldn't be too tricky once you have a team comp that works well together but you also need to pay attention since the same team that carries you to victory one time might be worth beans against another dragon.

Final thoughts: This is... a really good game. Interesting story, really interesting characters, pretty world and a battle system that really makes you sit down and think. There's also a demo for this available in the e-shop and while your data doesn't carry over - you do receive multiple perks for carrying over your demo data including some exclusive items that, while not game breaking, do help a ton in the early stages of the game.

This isn't a final list by any stretch of the word; I only have the energy to do these two right now, but the next games up for coverage are Ever Oasis and Stella Glow! If you're interested in my full plan of games I want to cover here then my current lineup includes: Theatrhythm: Curtain Call, Project Mirai: Deluxe, Culdecept Revolt, Alliance Alive, Radiant Historia: Perfect Chronology, Etrian Odyssey V, Devil Survivor 2: Record Breaker and Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse.

Finally, if anyone has played any of the games I mention, cover or plan to cover PLEASE REACH OUT TO ME, I AM SO LONELY IN MY FORTRESS OF SAND. On a serious note, I'd love to hear what other people who've played these games think!

Thanks for reading,

-Ginger

PS: @feralpeacock Because a million years ago, on my first underrated games post, you asked that I remember you. :D

#ginger rambles #ginger talks about video games #monster hunter stories #monster hunter #code dragon iii vfd #video games #3ds #underrated games #These take so much energy to make holy shit #There are so many more amazing 3ds games I could talk about #But I legit just don't have the braincells for #Also I know Apocalypse probably has the biggest audience that played it out of all the games listed #But it's criminally underrated because it was different #So it's probably going to get it's own little review thing #Yeehaw

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snowspryte15 · 3 years

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Thoughts on Cruella

Let me ask you a question:Have you noticed the increase in stories about making villains more relatable to us, and even giving them something that seemed to be lacking in all the fairytales we all know so well?

Something like humanity?

Here’s the thing: no one is truly born evil, and to quote a line from Once Upon A Time, “Evil isn’t born; it’s made.” Perhaps the baddies were actually good people who were capable of being happy, finding love, and living their best lives. But unfortunately, a chain of events or even people who wronged them would lead them down a dark path that is often very hard to come back from. In other words, the stories and characters we know isn’t always black and white. (See what I did there?) You can say whatever you want about making villains relatable or even showing sympathy to them, but I stand by my humble opinion that the updated version of the fairytales and stories we grew up not only gives us a glimpse into the heroes and making them more like us, but also the villains because their more than just the 2D stock characters we grew up with over the years. In other words, it gives everyone more DEPTH. The same is true for Cruella. I realize many of you are starting to (if you aren’t already) get tired of films making the villains more relatable or even giving us a villain to show sympathy for. And I get that. But let me ask you this: is the world we see today always black and white to you? Should it always has to be good vs. evil when there are layers underneath the goodness and the evil that’s in this world? Should we automatically assume that all of the bad things that happen on the news are caused by bad people? I think you know the answer to this: no. We’re all capable of being good people, no matter what society tells us. But the fact that we’re all born to be originals and not copies of another individual but being told that we have to be “perfect” or “thin” or “beautiful” or “handsome” or any of those labels is what draws people to the dark side, and that includes giving into power, greed, malice, and hatred. And here’s something else to think about - we’re always told by those around us, whether that’s our loved ones or complete strangers, to hide what makes us unique or even brilliant because it may not sit well with everyone. That’s another reason why some people go towards the dark side. And on another level, they use what makes them unique to stand out in not-so pleasant ways, instilling fear into others by what they say and do. Both cases aren’t right, not by a long shot. Now do you see why not everything is black and white? It’s hard to take the animated films we grew up and breathe new life into them while keeping these thoughts in mind. Especially if we were taught at an early age who’s good and who’s evil, and that the baddies aren’t deserving of our sympathy or even redemption. I don’t know who exactly started this tradition of taking the fairytales, animated classics, and other stories we all grew up with and add more dimension and humanity to each of the characters, including the villains. But I’m glad they did. It gives us something to think about and makes us see that we have a little bit of evil inside of us. I may be in the minority when I say this, but movies and shows like Once Upon A Time, Maleficent, Ever After High, Descendants, and Cruella fascinate me because it allows me the chance to see how capable the villains are to being good people and their external and internal struggles to keep the goodness in their lives while navigating through all of the bad things and people that come into their lives which sets a course towards their villainous nature.

At least take into consideration the hard work the authors, screenwriters, and creators put into formulating the question “what if...” and how much fun they have breathing new life into these characters we grew up with and how much of ourselves we can see in the villains, no matter how much we try to deny it. There, I said it. I may once again be in the minority when I say this (it seems to be a theme lately on Tumbr, which is quite sad), but I enjoyed Cruella immensely. The acting, the costume designs, the hair and makeup, the songs... It was just bloody brilliant. Both Emmas - Emma Stone and Emma Thompson - played their parts extremely well. Ms. Stone navigating through her internal battle to be a good person while facing a conflict with the bad side was a wonderful site to see. And Ms. Thompson, I mean, come on. She’s just fantastic all the way around. To play a narcissist isn’t easy, but she makes it look so simple and enjoyable. I commend both of their performances in this film. And let’s not forget the rest of the cast - Joel Fry, Paul Walter Hauser, Emily Beechan, Kirby Howell-Baptiste, Mark Strong, Kayvan Novak, Jamie Demetriou, Andrew Leung, and John McCrea - such an outstanding ensemble! In the theatre, you know a show is fantastic because of its ensemble. The same applies in the movies as well. They may not get recognized as much as Emma Stone or Emma Thompson, but it was such a joy seeing these talented performers play their parts well, and the depth they played at was a joy to watch. Let’s talk about the costumes, hair, and makeup. This film better get awards for all of those areas (or at least nominations) because the designs and styles were truly epic. It’s hard to get the fashion of the times right without extensive research and a little bit of creativity and imagination thrown in for good measure. But Jenny Beavan and Nadia Stacey deserve all of the praise and accolades for rocking out the 1970s with boldness and some pretty wicked designs. I’ve noticed skimming on here the discontent many of you have for portraying Cruella as being a villain we should have sympathy for, especially since she wanted to skin Dalmatians for a coat. That alone should be cause for her to not be worth an ounce of sympathy, and I understand that. As an animal lover myself, I’m inclined to agree with you. But I’m going to let you in on one spoiler that I ask you take into consideration: no Dalmatian dogs were killed or skinned in this movie. I repeat: no Dalmatian dogs were killed or skinned in this movie. And here’s something else I want you to be on the lookout for should you decide to watch this film. During the end credits, there is a special message out there for those of you who are thinking about owning a dog: “Every dog deserves a loving home. If you’re ready for the commitment of pet ownership, please consider visiting your local animal rescue to find the right pet for you.” That message alone speaks as to how far we’ve come in society, and here’s why. Whenever we see movies or TV shows that feature dogs and cats, particularly puppies and kittens, we tend to rush out right away and getting them because they’re so adorable. But when they grow up, we tend to let them go and leave them in some unpleasant places. And organizations like PETA beseeched the film and the company to take a stand and use their voice to encourage adoption of pets in shelters and rescue centers and not pet stores. Apparently, the film and the company listened because they put this message during the end credits. Well done. I may not be able to convince you to go see this movie or give it another chance if you already saw it, nor should I try. But I do want you to take into consideration the amount of updated versions of the stories we all know and love, and how much the authors, screenwriters, and other creative types are bringing in humanity and depth to these characters. We’re not 2D characters like the heroes, heroines, and villains are often seen as in the original stories, so why should they be treated and seen as such for generations to come? We’re more complex and layered than seen in fairytales and animated movies. Also, I don’t think these stories where the authors give villains a chance to experience goodness before they became bad or even blurring the lines between good and evil are going away. It allows us as human beings to see and try understand that we’re all capable of being good, but it’s the events and people who come into our lives that shake things up and even brings questions of whether we’re truly good or evil that sets us down a path we alone can walk. And more importantly, it gives us as the audience a chance to see a little bit of ourselves in these characters, even if you don’t relate to the villains at all. I suggest you stop griping about the rise in updated versions of the films, TV series, and book series of the original classics and accept that they are here to stay. I’m not saying you should read or watch them if they’re not your cup of tea, but at least try to understand that things were NEVER always black and white, especially where fairytales, animated films, and even more stories are concerned. At least try to understand that part, okay? Is that too much to ask? I’m not here to change your mind. I realize I can’t do that. So many of you are so set in your ways and opinions, and all I can do is pray for you. But I am here to share with you my thoughts on Cruella and how the updated versions of these stories are here to stay, whether you like it or not. And I’m also here to try to help you see that these stories allow us to see a little bit of ourselves in these characters we grew up with, even if it’s through a new set of eyes. You are welcome to disagree with me, or even not say anything at all. But all I ask is that you be respectful of my opinions and what I have to say. I will not tolerate any hate speech or disrespectful language. You do that, and I will block you. If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything. It’s that simple, and yet it’s so hard, especially on Tumblr. I hope I didn’t take up too much of your time.

#disney cruella #emma stone #emma thompson #jenny beavan #nadia stacey #what if #villains #brilliant #bad #a little bit mad #opinion #bekind #be respectful #costumes #hairandmakeup #101 dalmatians #dalmatian #something to think about

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samiha-kabir · 3 years

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So you want to become a better person by building good character traits? Perhaps, you’d like to be more “kind,” “loving” or “generous.” Or, you look up to the heroes you admire and wish you had their “discipline,” “patience” or “grit.”

At this point, the sceptics may say: “But that’s impossible!” or “I was just born this way.” The good news is they don’t know what they’re on about.

Changing your character is not only doable, but also simple. That doesn’t mean the path is quick or easy. It takes sacrifice, persistence and effort.

But the rewards are well worth it.

Because here’s the thing: the only difference between you and your heroes is character. When you reforge your nature, you’ll find their footsteps easier to follow.

But where does this journey begin? What should you take with you? And whom?

By the end of this article, you’ll have answers to all those questions. You’ll also have:

A list of 800 character traits to inspre you;

A set of free value tracking templates to support you; and

A foolproof five-step process to help you develop a good character.

Let’s get started!

What Are Character Traits?

One way to better understand character traits is to define three closely related ideals: core values, personality traits and character traits.

Though often used interchangeably, these terms have distinct definitions:

Core values (a.k.a personal values) are theoretical ideals of thought, word or deed;

Personality traits describe one’s public, external behaviour; and

Character traits describe one’s private, internal compass.

The main focus of this guide is building good character traits. To understand why it’s a priority, let’s dive deeper.

Core Values vs. Personality and Character Traits

I don’t talk much about core values with my clients. Here’s why:

Values describe ideas;

Traits describe actions; and

Actions speak louder than abstract ideas.

Anyone can claim or aspire to “tolerance” or “equality.” But it’s not until those values are expressed through actions that they become traits. And it’s not until they become traits that they impact you and the people around.

When you focus on values, there’s a tendency to talk a lot, then “set and forget.” You decide to be “kind,” “generous” and “loving.” You may even write those words down. But until you change how you act them out when it matters, core values are no more than ideas.

That’s why here, we focus on character traits. Obsessing over values is like getting distracted by the half-way line when your gaze should be fixed on the end-zone.

Personality Traits vs. Character Traits

The second important distinction is between personality traits and character traits.

We all know people whose appearances don’t always match their “true colours.” Who care more about being seen as “modest,” “selfless” or “thoughtful” than about being those things. Who put on good acts but betray their heart under pressure.

This is the essential division between personality traits and character traits. Personality traits describe what you do, character traits describe who you are.

When the stakes are high or your ability to pretend is low, the character always wins.

Character Traits Definition

That’s why I focus on character traits. I’m not here to teach you to say pretty words or become a good actor. The goal is to help you redefine the core of your being.

Core values are theoretical ideas, positive personality traits can be simulated but positive character traits go right to the heart of us. They’re deep-seated, long-term patterns of action, reaction and compromise that become hard to fake when we’re stressed out or tired.

List of Positive Character Traits: 99 Examples and Definitions

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Another great way to understand traits is with a lot of examples.

To that end, I’ve compiled a long list of good character traits from diverse sources: Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations (Summary), Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (Summary), religious texts and even handbooks for aspiring samurai and chivalric knights.

This list isn’t exhaustive – you can download a longer one above. But what you’ll find below is a comprehensive collection of 99 common good traits and personal attributes from high-quality sources. I’ve also supplemented them with definitions, based mostly on the Oxford English Dictionary.

Don’t let this list overwhelm you. Skim through it, let it soak and feel free to make note of any traits that particularly inspire you. When you’re done, we’ll cover a practical step-by-step process to build them into your life.

Here’s the list of character traits:

Active – Alert, lively and ready to engage energetically. 🏃‍♂️

Adaptive – Willing to change in response to circumstances.

Affability – Friendly, good-natured or easy to talk to.

Affectionate – Showing fondness or tenderness.

Alert – Clear-thinking and intellectually active.

Ambitious – Having desire and determination to achieve success. 💯

Attentive – Showing careful attention to the comfort or wishes of others.

Austere – Disowning comforts or luxuries.

Balanced – Enjoying harmony and stability. ⚖️

Benevolent – Being well-meaning.

Careful – Prudent and showing thought or attention.

Characterful – Showing strength and originality in one’s nature.

Charitable – Kind and tolerant in judging others.

Creative – Showing inventiveness and use of imagination. 🖊️

Compassionate – Showing sympathy and concern for others.

Confident – Certain in one’s worth, abilities and qualities.

Considerate – Showing careful thought not to inconvenience or harm others.

Cooperative – Complying readily with requests to achieve mutual ends.

Courageous – Able to do things that one fears.

Curious – Showing a strong desire to know or learn new things.

Dependable – Being trustworthy and reliable.

Determined – Showing firmness of purpose. 💪

Diligent – Working carefully and persistently.

Disciplined – Doing what one knows they should do (even if they don’t feel like it).

Dispassionate – Remaining rational and impartial.

Dutiful – Conscientiously or obediently fulfilling one’s duty.

Encouraging – Giving others support, confidence or hope.

Energetic – Showing or involving great activity or vitality. 🔥

Enthusiastic – Showing intense and eager enjoyment, interest or approval.

Excellent – Being outstanding or extremely good. 👌

Faithful – Remaining loyal and steadfast.

Flexible – Ready and able to adapt to different circumstances.

Forgiving – Feeling no anger or resentment to offences or mistakes.

Friendly – Being favourable and serviceable to others.

Frugal – Sparing or economical with money or food.

Generous – Ready to give more than necessary or expected.

Gritty – Showing courage, resolve and strength of character.

Hard-working – Working with energy and commitment. 👷

Harmonious – Being free from disagreement or dissent.

Honest – Free of deceit; truthful and sincere.

Honourable – Knowing and doing what is morally right.

Hopeful – Feeling or inspiring optimism about a future event.

Humble– Having a modest or low view of one’s importance.

Independent – Thinking and acting for oneself.

Industrious – Diligent and hard-working.

Integrous – Honest and of strong moral principles.

Initiative – Assessing things and taking action independently.

Just – Behaving according to what is morally right and fair.

Kind – Being friendly, generous, and considerate.

Liberal – Respecting behaviour and opinions different from one’s own.

Listening – Take notice of and make an effort to hear others. 👂

Lively – Full of life and energy; active and outgoing.

Logical – Acting based on clear, sound reasoning.

Loving – Feeling and showing deep, selfless affection for others.

Loyal – Showing firm and constant support or allegiance.

Merciful – Showing compassion or forgiveness to those who harmed one.

Methodical – Orderly and systematic in thought or behaviour.

Mindful – Conscious and aware of the present moment.

Moderate – Avoiding excess or extremes.

Modest – Unassuming in the estimation of one’s abilities.

Neat – Tidy, smart, or well-organized.

Open-minded – Accepting of and receptive to change or new ideas.

Orderly – Neat and methodical. 📁

Organised – Structured, systematic and planning effectively.

Passionate – Having, showing, or driven by strong feelings or beliefs.

Patient – Waiting without getting tired of waiting.

Persistent – Continuing firmly despite difficulty or opposition.

Polite – Acting respectfully and considerately.

Pragmatic – Acting sensibly, realistically and practically.

Prudent – Showing care and thought for the future.

Punctual – Doing things at agreed or proper times.

Purposeful – Showing determination or resolve.

Quality – Showing general excellence of standard or level.

Rational – Thinking and acting in accordance with reason or logic. 🤔

Reasonable – Having sound judgement; fair and sensible.

Reliable – Consistently good in quality or performance.

Resolute – Admirably purposeful, determined, and unwavering.

Respectful – Showing regard for the feelings, wishes or rights of others.

Righteous – Acting according to what is morally correct.

Self-disciplined – Doing what one knows they should do (even if they don’t feel like it).

Self-controlled – Managing emotions and desires well in difficult situations.

Self-mastery – Knowing one’s traits and predispositions and managing them effectively.

Silent – More prone to listen than to speak.

Sincere – Free from pretence or deceit.

Simple – Presenting no difficulty to others.

Stable – Unchanging; not easily upset or disturbed.

Steadfast – Resolutely or dutifully firm and unwavering.

Strong – Not easily disturbed, upset, or affected.

Supportive – Providing encouragement or emotional help to others.

Temperate – Showing moderation and self-restraint.

Thrifty – Using resources carefully and not wastefully.

Tidy – Neat, orderly and controlled.

Truthful – Telling or expressing the truth; honest.

Trustworthy – Able to be relied on as honest or truthful. 🤝

Unselfish – Putting the needs or wishes of others before one’s own.

Valiant – Possessing or showing courage or determination.

Vital – Being strong, active and energetic.

Warm – Showing enthusiasm, affection, or kindness.

Wise – Showing experience, knowledge, and good judgement.

(You can send yourself a huge list of 800 positive, neutral and negative character traits (though without definitions) by using the form at the top of this post. And if you’re here because you’re a writer, you might enjoy this awesome post on how to find freelance writing jobs from my buddy Kevin while you’re at it!)

How to Embody Good Character Traits

The secret to developing good character traits is realising that each trait is a constellation of deep-seated habits.

For example, “modesty” describes many small routines of thought, word and deed which create patterns of behaviour that are consistent with our idea of “modest.”

But here’s the challenge. Because unlike big habits, the “building blocks” of character traits are hard to pick out and isolate.

What are “tolerance,” “curiosity” or “acceptance”? Defining the sums by their parts is a challenging task. And, even if we could identidy those thousands of sub-habits, they’d be too many to work on.

That’s why the approach to character traits must be slightly different from how we build habits.

From Input to Output-Based Tracking

What we need is a system similar to habit hacking but more output-focussed. This system measures the results of our actions, rather than whether or not they took place.

The solution (first described in Benjamin Franklin’s excellent Autobiography) is to flip habit tracking on its head. Instead of tracking habits (input) to change your behaviours (output), you’ll track behaviours (output) to alter your habits (input).

Specifically, you’re going to track every behaviour that fails to align with your desired character trait.

5 Steps to Hacking Your Character Traits

If this explanation sounds overwhelming, the good news is that it’s time to get practical. Building new traits into your character is incredibly simple and has five foolproof steps:

Step 1: Identify Character Traits That Inspire You

Step 2: Prioritise ONE Trait at a Time

Step 3: Set Your Trait Up for Success

Step 4: Make Your Character Trait a Habit

Step 5: Repeat the Trait Building Process

Let’s look at each step in more detail.

Step 1: Identify Good Character Traits That Inspire You

The first step in our process is to identify a handful of positive characteristics that inspire you.

Building character traits is a long journey. Starting with those that excite you (rather than those you think you should work on) will make you more likely to succeed.

There are two main ways to tackle this: the long list approach or the hero approach.

For the long list approach – re-read the list of good character traits above and note any traits that jump at you. Don’t overthink it. You should easily find 10 or more ideas in a few minutes.

For the hero approach – make a list of the people that inspire you the most. Dead or alive, fact or fiction, all choices are good. When that’s done, reflect on the two or three traits you most look up to in each of those people.

Both approaches work well, though one big advantage of the hero approach is that it unlocks something I call “hero-based thinking.”

Picturing your hero and thinking about what they’d do in a given situation makes the whole process more fun and inspiring. Many decisions and trade-offs become easier to make.

Step 2: Prioritise ONE Trait at a Time

Although the process of developing character traits is simple, it can also be challenging. Taking on too many traits at once may hold you back from changing anything. The solution is to start with one, then add more as you go.

To pick the ONE character trait you should start with, look at your shortlist and ask:

“Which of these traits would most transform my life if I embodied it?”

Narrow your selection to a few candidates, then pick ONE to get started with.

A big part of you is going to want to tackle three, four or five values at once. My recommendation is to strongly resist that temptation.

You can think of it this way. If you could embody even ONE trait like “discipline” or “kindness,” there’s a good chance you’d change beyond recognition. Why let impatience put that opportunity at risk?

Start with one trait to maximize your odds of succeeding. You can always come back for more later.

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Step 3: Set Your Trait Up for Success

Loners don’t last long in the wild. That’s why we all have an insatiable drive to “fit in.” It’s also why the strongest influence on your actions is the behaviour of the people you hang out with.

No matter how driven you are to change, you’ll struggle if you surround yourself with lazy people. Each time you start making progress, your subconscious will try to drag you back in line with the group.

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m-y-fandoms · 4 years

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Rantarou Amami x Ultimate Writer - FLUFF

Request: Hi! Your writing is incredible ^^ I was wondering if you could write Rantaro with an Ultimate Essay Writer s/o, maybe comforting them when they're up late writing? I hope that's okay, and thank you :D

Hey! Sure I can do this! But, I wanna make it just the Ultimate Writer. I’m an english writing major myself IRL, and I have to write essays, non-fiction, emails, resumes, letters, instructional guides, graphic novels, fiction, poetry etc. so they will definitely have essay-writing skills anyway. Ultimate Writer just makes it easier. I hope you don’t mind :) - Admin Kokichi

"Nnnn!" You gritted your teeth in frustration, "NNNGGHH!" Your arm was stretched to its extent, reaching up with all your might. The shelf above was just out of reach. Your fingertips scraped against the spine of the thick brown book above you, but strain as you might, it wasn’t budging, firm and snug against the others on the shelf. "Gah!" You puffed in anger, clenching your fists. Why did the books you wanted from the basement library always have to be so high up? You needed this particular text as a reference for your next piece.

It was going to be a throwaway letter, a confession written to express your feelings then set them free by burning it later. It didn’t matter, really, what you wrote at this point. Anything to get your mind off of all of… this. In this killing game, your writing was the only thing that brought you comfort. You stayed up every night scrawling until your wrist cramped up. Your Monopad had a notes section to type in, but you much rather stick to the traditional ways. The lack of sleep and endless output of creative thought was starting to weigh on you, and now it looked like you weren’t even getting this damn book today, “Man, this blows…” You sighed deeply. "AH!" You jumped, startled when a large, ring-clad hand suddenly appeared in front of your face, bracelets jangling in your ear. Soon, you felt someone's broad chest against your back. The hand grabbed the book you wanted and brought it down. You turned around with your hand on your chest, still a little jumpy. "Oh, phew… Rantarou, it's just you."

"Yeah,” he chuckled gently, “here ya go Y/N." There stood your crush, the rich playboy with a heart of gold. You felt your cheeks go warm. He was often in the library, and you relished every moment you got to spend glancing over your shoulder at him while we has up to his usual antics of planning traps or researching new ways to interrogate your classmates until someone was spooked into admitting their position as the mastermind. Once in a while, he would read for pleasure, and at first you felt like an asshole for being surprised by that. You judged him too early on, seeing a flawless face and a suave personality and assuming he would be the popular kid archetype you’d seen in many an awful young adult novel. The more you got to know him, the more he revealed himself to be highly intelligent, well-rounded, considerate, empathetic, and extremely attractive.

"Thanks, Rantarou," you looked down, placing the book under your arm.

"No problem… it's not everyday I get to do something useful for someone else here," he rubbed the back of his neck, laughing nervously. You laughed too, looking him up and down.

“That’s not true!” you countered. “You’re always helping us all out. You give great advice, too!”

“Well, I try to help, but I’m sure it hasn’t escaped everyone’s notice that none of my plans have really... taken off,” he gestured, moving his hand in a soaring-upward motion. “Also, with me not rememberin’ my talent and all… I kinda have become the expendable background character, yeah?” His eyes crinkled closed with a kind smile.

He laughed again to fill the silence of the dark, empty library. You giggled. You always thought it was cute how could be so humble, looking the way he did, sounding the way he did. He had been that way ever since you’d met him, and are far as you were concerned, it seemed genuine. You couldn’t really trust anyone in this killing game, but you trusted Rantarou. Even in the library past midnight, where no one would know if you ended up dead, you trusted Rantarou.

"Sorry, I uh, I didn't mean to scare you," he leaned against the bookcase, arms crossed.

"Nah, it's fine. You helped me out, so I forgive you..." You joked, playfully punching his shoulder. He smiled a bit sheepishly, an expression you didn’t see often in the confident male.

"Yeah I… haha," He fiddled with a book nearby," I didn't think anyone would be here. I always come at night. Surprisingly, it's pretty boomin’ here during the day, so I come later on to avoid the hassle of a crowded space." You understood completely. Rantarou was always secretive about his plans.

“I know, I see you here sometimes,” you mused.

“Oh, really? I usually sit behind the back shelves, so I guess i didn’t notice you. You’re pretty quiet, huh? Maybe I should be watchin’ my back for you, huh?” He snickered

"I was having the same thought, isn't that weird?" He looked at you with alarm. “I’m kidding!” To that, he relaxed a bit. "So, watcha reading?"

"Oh, um," He gestured behind him to the aforementioned back shelf "I’m set up back there reading. It's just some old, boring, textbook information on one of the small countries I’ve visited. I thought it'd be interesting, but..."

"Yeah, sounds like it," You looked at him with genuine interest, and he smiled in appreciation.

"Wait, really?!"

"Yeah, why wouldn't it be? I think it’s super cool that you’re well-traveled. I guess that’s why you and Korekiyo get along so well, huh?" His feet shuffled in silent excitement at your shared enthusiasm. He bit his lip playfully, and your eyes grew shiny in admiration. He was so adorable.

He noticed your change in expression and coughed, frowning a little in embarrassment. You tried to change the subject, to make him comfortable again.

"H-hey, Rantarou?"

"Hmm?" He looked up from the ground eagerly.

"You're gonna be up reading all night, right? Well.. I will be, too, and... it’s harder for someone to kill us with four eyes on the lookout..."

"Yeah?"

"So, you wanna maybe sit with me here at my table? The vents reach this side of the library better so it’s a bit warmer... haha, it's... it's kinda cold in here," You pulled your uniform’s turtleneck tighter around yourself, shaking a little. Rantarou immediately accepted. He wasn’t about to pass up an invitation from his crush.

“Hell yeah, sounds great! I’ll go grab my stuff, but, hey, I’ve noticed I hardly ever see you in the dorms… you know you gotta sleep, right?” He had a concerned look on his face, and your heart of course fluttered at his attention to detail and knowledge of your habits, but you didn’t want him worrying about you when he had his own safety to look out for.

“Well, I appreciate the concern, but I’d much rather spend time with you than be in my dorm alone worrying.” He seemed to blush at your words, and you thought you’d maybe gone too far, until he agreed, and rushed over to grab his reading material.

You sighed deeply, a yawn slipping out once or twice. At least two hours had passed since you and Rantarou set up your little corner and there he still sat, in the wooden chair across from yours, never looking up at you from his book. A peaceful, relaxed look glazed his face. He had been that way almost the whole time, but you could sense him becoming a bit antsy. Maybe he was just tired?

You were both fast readers, so by now you had already read the best sections of your own books and switched. He now sat reading the yellowed pages of the book you selected: an eclectic compilation of 16th century romance literature, and you were now five chapters into his text on the different ethnic groups of some far-off land.

“Hmm… heh,” he shook his head amusedly.

“What?” Your head shot up anxiously, fearing he was judging your choice of genre.

“It’s just... some of this is extremely cheesy and cliche. You’d think the old masters would have done a little better.” He lifted the book in a referencing gesture.

“Ah, yes, I noticed that as well. I was hoping for a little inspiration, but… it seems Monokuma isn’t the best curator of quality literature.” He nodded in agreement, seemingly stuck on a thought. You could see him stare into space for a second before continuing.

“Inspiration for what… may I ask?” He pressed, waiting with bated breath for your reply. You felt your feathers start to ruffle, the borders of your comfort zone being invaded by the enemy. You didn’t know if you should answer honestly. The letter was a throwaway for a reason…

“I was going to write a letter…” it slipped out, and you quickly regretted it. Apparently, your brain had decided to take the lead for you. You never recalled yourself being so forward or brave.

“Why do you need sonnets and romance novels to write a letter? Planning to sweet talk Monokuma into freeing us?” He chuckled somewhat teasingly, but his haughty words slowly faded to silence upon noticing the wet shine in your nervous eyes, the way your fingers played with the corner of the book as a distraction for your discomfort.

“No…” You coughed, clearing your throat. Rantarou looked away, running a hand through his green shaggy locks. He knew what the letter was for, of course, who it was for. He was a bit nervous, too, eager to play off the tension in the room with humor, but it wasn’t working. He was wondering why you were so apprehensive, so sullen at his inquiry. You two flirted almost every day… did you seriously need to worry about his reaction? Did you think he didn’t like you back? “I-It’s… well it was going to be a um… a confession of sorts… just to get my feelings down on paper and off my chest. Then I was gonna burn it afterward to set those feelings free!” You smiled weakly, betraying your lack of confidence.

“Nah, you should give it to him- them!” He corrected himself, dropping the most obvious hint he could. You still didn’t look convinced, a bit oblivious.

“Y-you think so?”

“For sure, no doubt. Whoever that letter is meant for,” he leaned in to you, clasping his calloused hands around yours. You felt your heart skip a beat at the contact, and you were left speechless, fearing any words spoken now would come out as idiotic babbling, “they are gonna love it. Trust me.” His eyebrows rose with emphasis, and he shot you one of his iconic, heart-melting smiles.

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reginaldvonspiffington · 3 years

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The Curse of Creativity by Richard V Kelly Jr

(disclaimer: This piece is edited by the author’s daughter posthumously. No new words were added, only passages deleted or rearranged)

1. The Wrong Kind Of Creativity

At the advanced age of 59 I found myself in a hospital psychiatric ward full of dejected people. I had reached the point of near catatonia, almost unable to interact with the world, unable to sleep, barely able to speak, spending all day in bed staring at the ceiling. My diagnosis was “Major depression with psychotic expressions”.

Before this, I had composed symphonies and film scores. I had written textbooks, short stories, magazine articles, and half a dozen novels. I had sculpted in wood. I had written the code to create educational and artistic Virtual Reality and Artificial Intelligence applications. I had helped design a new school for creative kids. I had made educational films, created animations to teach Chinese, and written courses in every subject from neural networks to cryptography to architecture.

Most of my existence had been spent in a world of ideas and imagination. My mind had been a sparkler, shooting off scintillas in every direction: fragments of music, lines of lyrical poetry, drawings, sculptures, computer programs, virtual worlds. But that life was gone. And here I was lying in bed fixated on the light of a bulb leaking in from an air vent.

I was still inventive at this point, but it was the wrong kind of inventiveness, the frightening unacceptable form. I had broken the membrane that separates playful imagination from gibbering lunacy. I still made up stories in my head, but they were all dark, bleak, lugubrious tales. The vent I was staring at obviously led to a parallel world where “they” were watching my every movement. I could feel the heat emanating from the wall, a form of thermal ray designed to cook my brain and mold my behavior. I had progressed beyond the creative person's liberation-from-the-mundane to the disturbed person's liberation-from-the-real.

There was no sense in moving from the hospital bed. Movement didn't matter. Nothing mattered. There was no future. And all the things I had created in the past seemed like a colossal waste of time. What was I thinking writing books no one would ever read and composing music no one would ever listen to? What was the point of that? Or anything else?

The disease I was suffering from, depression, is astonishingly common. Almost 10% of Americans are taking anti-depressants right now. In fact, anti-depressants are the most prescribed drug in America. Almost 20% of women between the ages of 40 and 60 take them. And one in five people will eventually experience depression. So, pretty much everyone knows someone who has suffered from this illness.

But there is a level even deeper than the bottomless well of depression. 20% of people diagnosed with major depression (“major” in this case signifies acute, rather than chronic) also develop paranoia or other symptoms of psychosis including delusions and hallucinations. I was one of those people. I was terrified by my diagnosis, not because of the word “depression” – I knew there were treatments available - but because of the word “psychotic”. This was a term I had often used to describe crazy violent people for whom there was no cure. I pondered my possible future life as a babbling derelict.

The new psychiatric resident assured me that the psychosis of depression and the psychosis of schizophrenia “are completely different disease processes originating in different parts of the brain”. And I knew intellectually that paranoia was misuse of my imagination. It was the dark side of the creativity that had sustained me my entire life. It was creativity as self-torture. But, even though I understood that my internal chemistry was creating false stories to misguide my thinking, I still felt hopeless, dejected, and persecuted.

Staring through the fog of delusion, I realized that I had finally reached my secret goal of living in a world entirely of my own creation, but not in the way I had intended. I had hoped to spend every day reading my own novels, watching my own movies, laughing at my own animations, and listening to my own music, comforted by a sensible lyrical self-made universe. Instead, I was enwrapt in a vivid nightmare. My own creative thoughts were tormenting me. I couldn't wake up to escape them, and I couldn't sleep to avoid them.

The onset of depression is a slow process. One day I stopped reading. The flavor had gone from my favorite activity, so I dropped it. Then I stopped listening to music; it no longer provoked any feelings. I couldn't write anymore; creating worlds had lost its joy. I stopped watching TV and movies; they were pointless and unfulfilling. Everything I loved doing slipped away. I felt like crying all the time. The future turned black. I stopped working. And I hardly slept, so I became sleepy enough at the wheel of the car that I stopped driving for fear of hurting someone. This led to a shut-in's existence. I became what the Japanese call hikikomori – someone so tired of the world or sensitive to its vileness that they have pulled themselves inward and withdrawn from all contact, often never leaving their room.

Paranoia crept in. I thought the backyard garden was somehow being tended at night by persons unknown who were fertilizing and weeding it while I slept. I thought the morning bird calls were synthetically generated. I thought black and white cars were following me. I avoided my computer because I assumed it had been hacked by a malevolent villain who presented bad news to me in order to blame me for something I didn't entirely understand. And I all but stopped eating because I imagined that each food had a particular meaning, incriminating me in some crime. After 3 months I'd lost 30 pounds.

As the disease progressed, I spent hours at a time in a swimmy somnambulance, as if I'd been drugged. Think of this predicament for a moment. Imagine being unable to read, write, exercise, work, garden, fix things around the house, chat with spouse or friends, eat, sleep, play cards, surf the net, or watch TV or movies. What would you do? Try it for a day. Eventually, I was reduced to pacing the living room, sitting for hours lost in rumination, or trying to sleep and being unable to. I had always thought of a person's mind as their only defense against a hostile world. Now that my mind had abandoned me, the hostile world came pouring in.

I began to develop severe cramps in my abdomen that curled me up like a baby at night. I felt as if I was giving birth. I developed headaches – a malady I'd never been bothered with before. And I became preoccupied with delusions. I imagined my wife had somehow been divided into different people: a 54 year old, a 40 year old, a 30 year old, and a 20 year old. I spent many nights awake, staring at her as she slept, waiting to see if she would switch to a different version of herself.

By summer's end, my existence consisted of getting out of bed, passing like a weary ghost through each day, void of joy or even interest, enveloped in rumination, miserable at the prospect of another excruciating night featuring nothing but heat, pain, and wakefulness. And it all felt as if it was being done to me. Eventually, I ended up just lying in bed staring at the ceiling.

I knew what was in store for me because my wife's brother had died by his own hand after a similar bout of depression. But, through the miasma of pain and woe, I insisted all was well. My family tried intervening to get me to a doctor, but I refused. And, eventually, my wife, conspiring with my doctor, cried as she urged me to go to the hospital for “just an evaluation”, which I assumed consisted of a casual chat in the emergency room followed by a prescription. I ended up in a locked ward in a hospital bed for a week having horrific nightmares as the medicine kicked in while listening to patients cry out at night for help.

I learned that there are three different psych wards in a large hospital: one for schizophrenics, one for depressives, and one for Alzheimer's/dementia patients. Because there were no spots open in the depression ward, they put me in the dementia ward with people twenty years my senior who had much bigger problems than I had. One woman had no family to look after her outside the hospital: no husband, no siblings, no kids, no living relatives, only a friend. Many people had lost all that was important to them in their lives, and were now losing the memories of their own life stories. The place was frightening, humbling, fascinating, and one enormous eye-opening lesson in appreciation for the wife, family, and friends who came to visit me every day or called me on the phone.

By studying the subject of depression, I learned that the trigger can be many years ahead of the expression, so I may never find out what provoked my downward spiral. Genetics probably had something to do with it. A difficult childhood was certainly a factor. But my guess is that trying to be a creative person in a world that consistently crushes or exploits creative people had the most to do with it.

Depression is like being anesthetized then dropped into a bathtub that slowly fills. The water rises to your back, then your sides, then your chin, then your eyes, then over your head, until all you can do is look at the surface above and blink.

Depression is like having life peeled away from you layer by layer until nothing is left. Wake up one day and there is no literature. The next day music is gone. Then movies disappear, then working, then moving, then talking, until only breathing remains, slow, mechanical breathing.

Depression is like being overcome by an illness, as if a degenerative virus has taken control and sapped the strength of your muscles, then infected your bones, then infiltrated your nerves, and finally seeped into your head so that every part of you is diseased.

Depression is like becoming a statue. A running animated active body slows down and finally stops. Arms, legs, and mind freeze up. The inner armature stiffens. Movement ceases. A shell forms and hardens until only an effigy remains that is gradually overgrown by vines and bramble. It starts with a slow numbing to the world, a withdrawal, a closing off to pleasure until the mind turns to marble, motion stops, the last spark of optimism is snuffed out, reason is suspended, rigid misery sets in.

Depression is like being a sun that slowly burns itself out, gradually losing the coronal fires, the heat diminishing, the plasma churning less and less every day, cooling to a smoldering ember, the flames snuffing themselves into smoke, and becoming quiet until all that is left is a burnt brown rock that gives no light or warmth, a cold stone floating in limitless space.

It took time to recover. After the hospital, I went to a two-week out-patient group with other folks also recovering from anxiety or depression. And, a few months after the hospital visit, I was feeling much better. The two drugs they gave me – one for depression, one for psychosis - worked miraculously. The medicine and the realization that I was actually surrounded by people who cared about my welfare set me back on the road to health. The paranoia dissipated. I gained 14 pounds in two weeks. I started reading again.

I came away with the impression that this could happen to anyone. There's nothing that separates me from the homeless people in the street except a simple exceeded threshold of neurochemicals.

And I received two great gifts from the experience. The obvious one was the realization that I had a wonderful wife, family, and friends who would help me, people I had formerly taken for granted. But the unexpected gift was the experience – because of the anti-psychosis medicine - of becoming a non-creative person for the first time in my life. That encounter with the non-creative worldview was as interesting an experience as the depression and paranoia had been.

2. My Non-Creative Life

Within a month after starting treatment I had risen from a waking death. I was talking to people, reading, and watching movies again. But the chemical I was ingesting to stave off paranoia had the effect of preventing me from writing stories, composing music, scrawling art, scribbling computer code, building animations, or even thinking creatively. I could ingest the world again while taking the medicine – through books, movies, music, podcasts – but I could not actually produce anything. The portcullis gate had come crashing down. Access to the creative part of my mind had been blocked.

The disease of depression was about closing off inputs. I couldn't read, watch, or listen when depressed. The cure was about re-opening inputs, but closing off outputs. I could take in the world again, but I couldn't write, film, draw, program, or compose. Under the depression, I couldn't take in anything new, but I could still confabulate. Under the cure, I could absorb the world, but I couldn't create any new worlds in my head.

The mechanisms of the brain that allow someone to make up stories in order to become paranoid are the same mechanisms that allow someone to make up stories to write fiction. So, the medicament I took, designed to eliminate the alarming connections of paranoia inside my skull, also eliminated the lyrical connections of story-telling. For the first time in my life I got to feel what it was like to be non-creative.

No more five-new-ideas-before-breakfast. No need to keep a pen and an adding machine scroll of paper beside the bed to jot down nocturnal inspirations. No more getting up in the middle of the night to write a paragraph that had evolved during the murky half-asleep state. No more days spent in animation development. No more running to the keyboard with a new melody in mind. I stopped composing music. I put aside my novels. I stopped thinking in the way a creator thinks. It was as if half of my mind had been carved away. It was as if I were grounded in the material world for the first time. I began to adopt what I imagine the life experience of most people to be. It was fascinating.

I've heard people say, “I don't have a creative bone in my body.” My response to that statement had always been mystification and a shocked wonder at what that must feel like. I thought turning off creativity would be like turning off hunger, joy, or reason. I had experienced exactly that - turning off hunger, joy, and reason - during the depression. But I was still creative then. With depression, I couldn't take in anything new, but I could still confabulate. With treatment, I could absorb the world again, but I couldn't create any new worlds in my head.

This was rather astonishing to me. Ordinarily, I'm only thinly connected to the palpable realm. I live so much inside my own head that the physical world is all but meaningless to me. I eat when I'm hungry. I get cold in the winter. It hurts when I step on sharp rocks in bare feet. But, beyond those links to the realm of atoms and sensation, I don't have much of a relationship to the tangible plain. All of my time is spent with ideas, words, interpretations, interconnections, the embrace of novelty, the prosody of life, everything that is above “the stuff” of existence. I usually live a sort of meta life – in the world, but not of it. For the first time, because of the medicine, I could experience only existence, only “the stuff”.

For a year, I woke up, washed, ate, evacuated, watched movies, chatted with people, watched more movies, poked around in the garden, and slept. Then I got up again the next day and did the same. I had no original thoughts. I wrote nothing. I composed nothing. I invented nothing. I began to wonder if I ever would again. I just walked through life, taking it in, but not putting the pieces together to produce anything new. I responded to the world around me as life happened, but I did nothing more than respond. I thought, “So, this is how other people feel? This is what it's like to not have a creative bone in your body?”

I figured my brain needed time to heal, so I let it heal. And I appreciated experiencing the mental life of an ordinary person. I would not want to live that way forever. But it was restful to live without layers of meaning. Everything was only what it was. I could pick up an orange and think only “orange”. There were no associations, no mental rambling, no blaze of connections, no desire to interpret experience, no wish to create something new, only the requirement to react to what already existed.

Before I knew it, a year had gone by. I began to taper off the paranoia medicine. And then, one day, I stopped it altogether. The day after stopping, my creative mind switched back on. I returned to my usual state of entertaining 40 ideas at once, all jostling for space in a crowded little wet bone box.

I'd pick up an orange and review in my head the discovery of sweet oranges in the New World as opposed to the sour oranges from India that Europeans had always known. I'd ponder the differences in the etymology of the word “orange” across all the European languages (many countries refer to it as a Chinese Apple). I'd consider the place the color orange fills on the visible light spectrum, the fact that cats and dogs don't eat the fruit – and don't see the color - because their bodies make their own vitamin C, the use of the peel in cleaning products, the vesicles holding liquid in pouches divided into segments to encourage sloths and mammoths to eat them in Pleistocene America. I'd dwell on the toxic coloring sprayed on the rind by growers who want all the fruit to appear ripe, the carnauba wax coating to seal out air and preserve freshness, our past family experiments with planting the seeds to grow indoor orange trees. And then thoughts would flow to kumquats and other indoor citrus plants we'd grown that were invaded by rancher ants that carried in aphids to suck the sap so the ants could drink their sweet excrement, to the plum curculios attacking the Asian pear trees outside, to the use of chickens to clean the ground of curculios, to ...

It was no longer just “orange” in my head. It was endless layer upon layer of simultaneous meaning. The word itself led in a hundred directions. The idea of the fruit led in a hundred more. The color led to yet another hundred. Everything intertwined. And I could see all the interlacing between the items. It was like looking at fabric that stretched to the horizon: the tapestry of past experiences, the rococo filigree of facts, the warp and woof of book learning, ideas knitted together by other languages, the mesh of mental images, braided databases filled with concepts. And there were countless sheets of this fabric, one of top of the other, each one interwoven with all the others.

With the medicine, an orange was a unitary experience. A thing was only a thing. An idea referred only to itself. A word had one meaning and no connection to any other words. Life was stark and simple.

Without the medicine, it was all a multi-colored rain of associations that poured, spat, gushed, spurt, surged, and inundated the landscape, tumbled, turned into braided streams, cascaded off cliffs, fed tributaries, swelled into rivers, and emptied into an ocean of sensation, memory, abstraction, fact, and imagination. And each raindrop was itself a kaleidoscope, a shifting hologram that held its own image in its separate pieces and recursed back onto itself and then out into the vastness.

Sooner or later, I'm going to long for the simplicity of “orange”. But when the medicine stopped, I leapt aboard ship and began sailing again on a sea of associations. The waves splashed me. I linked together the drops and began inventing things again, spinning stories, tying together melodies, inventing characters and worlds, re-immersing myself in the act of creation.

Being non-creative meant holding only one thought in my head at a time. Being creative meant having an uncountable number of thoughts and tying them all together to make new thoughts that no one had ever come up with before.

Being non-creative was like listening to one radio station all day. Being creative was like listening to sixty radios at once and making up new songs by dipping into the individual songs being played and selecting out pieces that went together in new compositions.

Being non-creative was like being a lumberjack. I would wake up, see the trees, and cut them down. Being creative was like being both the gardener who plants the acorns and the furniture maker who uses the harvested wood.

Being non-creative meant engaging with the quotidian world on its terms. Being creative meant devising a new world on my own terms.

Being non-creative was like eating and sleeping. Being creative was like having children.

3. The Creative Life

Ride the bus to school and watch the kid drawing manga characters in his notebook. Visit a grandmother's house and watch her sew a dress for her granddaughter. Observe the people who write stories their whole lives – for no other reason than to write stories. Watch the musicians alone in their rooms experimenting with new guitar riffs, new violins arpeggios, new piano chords, new vocal arrangements. Study the people who, unwilling to wait for a real-world teacher, learn from the internet how to make films, video games, and electronic art.

There are people who dance in their rooms at night, trying out new moves in the mirror. There are people who practice story-telling among friends. There are media artists who can't keep their hands off a new technology, who need to twist it to some artistic purpose as soon as they get their hands on it. There are people who make their own furniture to feel the lines of something that came from their own hands. There are people who blow and spin enough glass ornaments to fill the houses of their relatives. There are people who write the screenplays for the movies they want to act in. Creative people are everywhere. But most of us are invisible to the rest of the world.

I am one of millions of people who insert their art forms into the cracks of their daily life. They design and sew their own clothing at night. They compose songs to express their feelings. They draw comics and animations to make the mundane fantastical or the fantastical ordinary. They write books without any audience in mind just to create new worlds. They manipulate photographs because they have the urge to bend reality in a different direction. They fill their closets with water colors because no one will take any more of their paintings. They write fan fiction, invent electronic gadgets, build miniatures, construct robots, act in community theatres, slave over computer programs, and carve decoys, not because they see their obsession as the surest way to get rich, become famous, or entice sexual partners, but because they find a kind of joy and satisfaction in the act of creating that nothing else provides.

I am one of these people – someone who has sat at his sequencer, composing music on a Friday night after work, watching the sun set, dabbling at the keyboard, feeling joy, concentrating, and then looking up to see the sun rising again – so focused on the ecstasy of creation that no memory of time passing remains.

I am one of the people who, while getting paid to write software for financial applications at the state treasury, wrote miniature novels in the comments sections of the computer programs. I would adopt different voices – the cowboy, the cheerleader, the astronaut, the 1940s gangster – and write instructions to fellow programmers in those personae.

I am one of the people who made up stories for his kids every night – a different story each night, composed on the fly, weaving details of ordinary life into tales of talking animals and villains who always got their come-uppance.

I am one of the people who carved a wooden Christmas creche using penguins as models instead of people. I am one of the people who made enough money in the stock market one year to quit work and then spent his free time making animations, writing stories, and composing nocturnal jazz until the money ran out. I am one of the people who spent a lifetime choosing jobs, not for the money they brought in, but because they featured a creative element that could be explored. I'm also one of the people who got fired from jobs for being creative instead of political.

I am not famous. You have never heard of me. To the world at large I am invisible. But I am creative. In fact, the vast majority of creative people are invisible. And it's not because they are less talented or less dedicated to their craft than the famous people.

The famous people will certainly claim that talent, hard work, and persistence got them where they are, but there is an enormous amount of serendipity involved in becoming famous that no one talks about. For every famous creative person there are thousands of others with more talent and more dedication who are invisible. They are less pretty than the famous people. They are the wrong color, gender, persuasion, size, age. They live in the wrong place, in cultures that don't value their art, or among non-creatives who are mystified by anyone who spends their time having ideas or perfecting skills that do not lead to money, power, or sexual partners. Does that stop the no-names from being creative? Of course not.

These people are creative in ways that society does not value. But so what? Creativity is its own reward.

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ficsandcatsandficsandcats · 4 years

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I saw that you do headcanons now. What are some kinky headcanons you have for Jask? I’d really like to know. I absolutely love your fics that delve into the d/s stuff. They’re brilliant and so well done.

Ooh good question! I’m borrowing this alphabet format from Joz in an attempt to be thorough

Disclaimer: these are just my headcanons, my opinions, they do not reflect the fandom at large or canon

A - Aftercare (What they’re like after sex)

Caring and nurturing. He provides some form of aftercare after sex even if it wasn’t kink related at all, making sure they’re cleaned up and comfortable. Most of his partners haven’t been ones where they or he could spend the night but he still tries to make sure he leaves them satisfied in every way. I think he’s very tender in general and if he isn’t too tired out he pens some notes down for his next song.

B -Body part (Their favourite body part of theirs and also their partner’s)

I mean, listen, if he doesn’t really enjoy his chest and its abundance of hair he has a funny way of coping with insecurity so I’m gonna say he likes it. I think his favorite part of his partner changes with the partner (he enjoys finding little unique things about each person whether it’s freckles or an interesting birthmark or scar etc.) but I see him being a fan of a nice ass and a pretty mouth on any gender.

C - Cum (Anything to do with cum basically… I’m a disgusting person)

He tries not to come inside of his partners for obvious pregnancy reasons with uterus-possessing partners and also because it feels too intimate for his casual dalliances (even though yes he loves them he also feels that’s just not really a thing you do unless that is Your Person). He likes to finish on his partner both to spare the sheets (easy cleanup and easier to hide from jealous husbands) and because he does like how his partner looks when they’re panting, covered in sweat and come. He swallows.

D - Dirty Secret (Pretty self-explanatory, a dirty secret of theirs)

On one very memorable day he slept with both a person and their parent in the same 24-hour period. Separate, not together (ew) and neither party ever found out and he intends to keep it that way

E - Experience (How experienced are they? Do they know what they’re doing?)

Jaskier is sufficiently experienced but always eager to get more practice in. He is very adept at pleasing many different bodies but that doesn’t make him cocky. He sees each partner as a new experience and doesn’t assume he knows how to please them just because he’s pleased others. This is one of the reasons he is such a very good partner.

F - Favourite Position (This goes without saying. Will probably include a visual)

Strongly swayed by what his partner likes but I see him enjoying the humble missionary position. Not as kinky as people may expect but he likes the intimacy and the ability to look into his partner’s eyes.

G - Goofy (Are they more serious in the moment, or are they humorous, etc)

He weaves between the two. He knows that sex is a dialogue and he follows it as it goes, staring deeply into someone’s eyes one moment and giggling with them in the next.

I - Intimacy (How are they during the moment, romantic aspect…)

As I said, Jaskier really enjoys intimacy. He likes to focus on his partner and get lost in the feeling without thinking about consequences (hence the courtly reputation)

J- Jack Off (Masturbation headcanon)

I don’t picture him doing this much. He’s on the road a lot and Geralt has that damned witcher hearing. Also I think Jaskier enjoys another person’s body more than his hand and he is cocky enough to know that he can get that companionship if he wants it. He has been known to enjoy mutual masturbation.

K - Kink (One or more of their kinks)

While Jaskier is a romantic I think he also enjoys being dominant. Those two things are opposing roles by any means but I guess I’m just saying it’s not all rose petals and it’s also leather paddles ya feel?

L - Location (Favourite places to do the do)

He enjoys getting to do it in a bed because I think usually he just gets what he gets where he gets it (again thinking of jealous husbands/courtly reputation) but he also enjoys getting creative. It’s like a brain puzzle. We’re in this barn and I Must Have You and sure we could do it on the ground but what if we stacked those haybales just so…

M - Motivation (What turns them on, gets them going)

A stiff breeze?

But actually, I think Jaskier gets really turned on by competence. A person can be lovely but if they’re lovely AND adept at something (even something not having anything whatsoever to do with sex) he really likes that. And the show off in him goes “well let me show you what I do!” Also wit. He trades in words and enjoys some banter.

N - NO (Something they wouldn’t do, turn offs)

I don’t think there’s much he wouldn’t do. I don’t see him being into degradation with his partners, giving or receiving. I also think he is decidedly against knife play after the Djinncident

O - Oral (Preference in giving or receiving, skill, etc)

Jaskier loves to go down on his partners. It’s an understood thing that it will be a part of sex unless his partner doesn’t want it. He also really enjoys receiving but I think giving just edges it out in preference

P - Pace (Are they fast and rough? Slow and sensual? etc.)

All over the board. Usually sex with Jaskier is going to go through a few speeds unless pressed for time or intentionally stretching things out to tease his partner.

Q - Quickie (Their opinions on quickies rather than proper sex, how often, etc.)

Jaskier is the undisputed master of the quickie thanks to experience but he prefers to take his time.

R - Risk (Are they game to experiment, do they take risks, etc.)

Absotively Posilutely

S - Stamina (How many rounds can they go for, how long do they last…)

I think he has decent stamina and if he has the time to go more than one round during the refractory period he’s still doing something with/to his partner even if it’s just a massage or making out

T - Toy (Do they own toys? Do they use them? On a partner or themselves?)

Slipping into Modern!AU here because of course they had toys back in the day but I’m horrified at even the potential concept of splinters There. Yes, Jaskier enjoys toys and uses them on himself and on his partner and has toys his partners use on him (I’m talkin’ ‘bout the strap, lads). He invests a decent amount in quality toys and has a good sampling, some for more special occasions and some used regularly. He has some toys that are like his staple ingredients he will make sure to stock back up on when it dies (a good clitoral stimulating vibrator, for example). Also he has strong opinions about what you do and do not use to tie people up. You do not use handcuffs which can cause actual damage. Instead you use bondage tape or rope designed for it. Perhaps a tie, though that’s still not ideal.

U - Unfair (how much they like to tease)

So Very Much

He is a cheeky little bastard and he loves to make you beg for it

V - Volume (How loud they are, what sounds they make)

I think Jaskier is quiet, mostly whispering and muttering under his breath through most of it (again, somewhat learned through necessity) but he can be provoked to be louder if someone really works at it and he feels safe

W - Wild Card (Get a random headcanon for the character of your choice)

Jaskier never asks his partner to do something he wouldn’t do and he won’t do anything to them that he wouldn’t want them to do to him in return unless they have a specific fetish he isn’t about but is willing to engage with

Y - Yearning (How high is their sex drive?)

Maybe a controversial opinion but I think our boy is a bit of a sex drive camel. He goes decent stretches sometimes without having much opportunity for it and I think he can be sustained for a bit after a really good night. He would prefer to do it more often but it’s not something that drives him to distraction, if that makes sense.

Z - ZZZ (… how quickly they fall asleep afterwards)

I think Jaskier stays awake until his partner falls asleep, or at least tries to just in case they need something.

#Anonymous #Jaskier Headcanons #Jaskier Kink Headcanons Pt II #reader request

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mothmansrevolt · 4 years

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LU Girl Scout AU (and subsequent PTA AU)

LU au where they have to pretend to be girl scouts because Time has to prove a point to the pta board and to the Karen Squad Its basically a bunch of highschoolers and singular college student pretending to be girl scouts because of both friendship and Time just shoved some sashes in their hands and said Y'all are all now girlscouts and offered to get them Chipotle as payment.

Twilight is in college(online). Warriors in a senior. Legend and Sky are juniors. Hyrule and Wild are sophmores. Four and wind are freshmen. Four is homeschooled by his grandfather though. All are in a specila branch called hylia scouts (creative i know). This means they get set uniforms and competitions with other troops over cookie selling boundaries since hylia scout troops are usually very close to eachother. There are two troops in their area including them. Troop 4296 (the Links) and 6669 (the Karen Squad) They are troop 4296 because Time wouldnt let them have either 420 or 6969

Time--a pta mom--rivals with the Karens--tired as all hell but will not hesitate to prank the karens--troop leader and/or chaperone depending on the situation--He has a million bumper stickers supporting his "girls"--honestly he's just here for the cookies--someone get this man a coffee--has two sons according to the law, but has eight in spirit--you mess with his children he will not hesitate to murder you--all his sons are arsonists and he doesn't understand why--will call the links his "daughters". half the town can't tell what children he actually has--loves coupons and discounts "Malon said I'm not allowed to start fights at the pta meetings but I will not hesitate drag her here if you insult my beautiful brats again." Twilight--Time's eldest son--only in this because he doesn't want his friends to get hurt and he loves his parents--a good boy--loves animals and will not hesitate to educate you on them--he wears overalls and if forced will wear a skirt over the overalls--he cant sell cookies for shit because nobody believes that he is a girlscout--sometimes has to duck down behind Four if certain people are around because they'll get suspicious--it does not work--He pretends to be everyone's big brother and they love him for it--perpetually confused by Wolfie "I have command over an army of teenagers and goats, nothing can stop me but gas money and my gpa." Wild--Time's second son--can pass as a girl pretty well--he destroys stuff during craft time--hot glues patches to sash--He has every one of the cooking patches and than some--Often seen with the camera photographing everything--Will help create new badges--give this boy a scavenger hunt and he will find you just about anything--has a tendency to ride on wild animals--isn't legally allowed to drive a car nor own a license. nobody knows why--second most convincing for this whole thing "This is just a glorified gang and honestly I am living for it." Four--from the neighboring farm but Twilight and Malon babysits him sometimes. he is a staple--the karens keeps trying to steal him because he is 'innocent' and 'a little lady'--this leads to ridiculous hijinks--he is small, quiet, not very mentally sound but he tries his best and is brave as all hell--owns the most badges--will rock the skirt always--fashionista or fashion disaster, there is no in-between--he's the most committed besides legend and warriors but is the most convincing--best cookie seller--Often seen handling sharp tools and knives for some reason, who gave this child a weapon?!--tends to befriend bad people--the only one with the fire safety badge even though, he to, is an arsonist--wears a vest because the sash is too big, Malon made it for him--has a bird named Ezlo who sits on his head "Sorry Miss Karen but I've been bribed with my first born child so kindly fuck off." Legend--salty and sassy--will always rock the skirt--also a fashionista and knows accessories--he's really only in this because of a running bet with warriors--he has a soft on the inside sometimes--he will get into cat fights--The other girlscouts from a rival troop HATE him because they will always lose arguments against him--knows the most about girl scouts, won't say how--Often seen blinged out with the jewelry he wins at the local chuck-se-cheese with his buddy Ravio "I have command over an entire troop of shortstacks and will not hesitate to order a strike against your fucking kneecaps. Do NOT question the authority of this skirt." Warriors--pretty boy--in a bet with Legend--also a fashionista--he is a big brother tho-- protection squad and trying his best--he is on student counsel and is a good leader--stand in when Time is busy--Often seen with a sports bag in one hand and a girl scout sash in the other--all the troops think he is a major lesbian because he keeps flirting with the other scouts--he gets more numbers as a girlscout, not that he could ever admit this "I'm a known lesbian among the girl scouts and honestly that is my crowning achievement." Sky--is here because his friends are here--He is the mom friend--second best at selling cookie because of his sweetness--He often tag teams with Four for selling cookies--is slightly confused but he's here to make sure nobody gets hurt--honestly just naps during meeting-- Often seen with blanket and a comforting hug--rival troops actually have scouts seeking out to befriend him--always forgets his skirt and is often seen borrowing his girlfriend Zelda's "Guys, please stop fighting you are all beautiful young women. Karen, you shut the frick up." Hyrule--the camper and nature boy of the group--he loves and has earned every patch for exploration and camping--tends to get lost--needs navigation patch--its been revoked from him twice--Humble and nice--often sleeps over at other peoples houses--nobody knows where he lives--it confuses the shit out of them--He is buddies with Four because Four knows the backwoods and roads the best--Often not seen due to being lost "Legend duck taped a gps to me arm and I think its lost to :(" Wind--baby boy--not as innocent as the others think--he absolutely loves being a girlscout--will play pranks on the other troops during jamborees and campouts--lives by the sea, slightly far away form everyone else--He helps with the nautical patches--hangs with the resident young delinquents, Tetra's gang. she thinks this is hilarious--he owns the troop wagon that they all use--its named King of the Red Lions or just Dave depending on the hour--only here because Twilight babysits him and his sister--also wears a vest because he thinks its cooler--Often seen with a telescope and covered in sand--someone give this child a bath "My first love may be the sea, but my second is that damned burrito, hand me the fucking skirt!" Wolfie--troop mascot--a giant half wolf half god knows what--has his own vest and patches-- has a tendency to just show up--Nobody knows where he comes from nor where he goes--he is the town cryptid and it isn't uncommon to see him pulling the troop wagon with the boys in it--Four still rides on his back--it counts as the horse back riding patch--Twilight is perpetually confused by him and its become a running gag that Wolfie is his fursona--loves cookies, sadly the cookies do not love him--can vaguely say curse words "arf" Shadow and Dark(I'm not sorry)--in karen's troop 6669 (for fun? for rivalry? who knows. they don't)--brothers--edgy bastards who are in a band together--Shadow is best friends with Four, Dark thinks he's pretty rad--Often seen with Four and the other edgy teens--both sassy, both easily pissed but trying to be kind of nice--Shadow is the only one who has achieved this--no those are not their real names, its Link and Link like everyone else in this goddamned town--HI MY nAME IS ebONY DArknESS DEMENTIA RAveN WAY--Dark is the author of My Immortal--both suck at selling cookies--tag team with Four to try and help their sales--rivals of troop 4296, they despise each other--both wear vests because Shadow wanted to match Four and Dark decided he can trick out the vest "Our mother may be a bitch and a dumbass, but at least we aren't petty white boys." "Wait Dark we are petty white boys" "FUCK" Karen Ganondorf Smith, Kaaren Link Johnson, Carhaen Reese--bitches and pta moms--runs the pta--the karen squad--Reese's daughter named Betghyani who is very nice and likes troop 4296--Johnson is mother of Shadow and Dark--they are fucking nuts y'all--they represent the three evils of the pta: the enforcer, the healthy diet extreme, and the bitch against disabled children (quiet hands!!!)--despite popular belief, Four (Link Smith) is in no way related to Karen Smith (legally at least. Karen thinks they are and it doesn't end pretty sometimes)--they all hate Time with a burning passion because he is not afraid to call them out on their bullshit "I've brought up so many stances and rules into this pta and will not have some farming hooligan upstaging the careful work me and the other heads have created!" Malon--couldn't be on pta because she almost murdered a karen with kindness--sweet and kind but can still kick ass--helped make and fix uniforms--acts as chaperone when needed and finds this all completely hilarious--she makes snacks with Wild for the meetings--has adopted all of these children--actively enforces Wind and Four to eat more because whY ARE ALL YALL SO TINY--can lift a cow "Don't talk to me or my husband or my son or my son or my eight fake sons or my lovely eight fake daughters ever again."

#linkeduniverse #linked universe #girl scouts #au #this is so stupid #but I love it #I just wanted to draw these idiots as girl scouts #Four is so done with karen's shit #Time being a dad #pta au #kinda #lu girlscout au #I wrote so much for four #I love him so much #please send help this idea came to me at 3 am #kyle waz here

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desperatelyseekingroleplay · 4 years

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Searching for Discord 1x1

Hello! I’m looking for some skilled, experienced 1x1 partners for Discord roleplays. Please read to the end as there is a password I won't answer messages without.

•General/Writing Style•

I usually prefer sticking at around 4 paragraphs and up, but quality over quantity for the most part. These days I’ve been favoring a bit of a slower pace and writing 8+ paragraphs, however. I would prefer you write in 3rd person, past tense. Please have decent grammar and spelling, varied vocabulary and sentence structure, as well as decent syntax. Please provide me something of substance to respond to in your responses. Please also be somewhat experienced.

•Age•

18+ only, but 21+ preferred (I'm 23)

•Timezone•

EST. I don’t mind what timezone you’re in- waking up to new responses is exciting :)

•Platforms•

Discord is strongly preferred for the actual role-play. I can be convinced to use kik, Reddit, or Tumblr, however.

•Response Frequency•

I'd prefer if you could respond at least a few times a week. I'm a pretty busy student can't always commit to much more than that, so I won't ask that of you. Please try to communicate when you will be gone or significantly less active for several weeks or more. I will try to do the same.

Please don’t contact me if you will be gone for a couple weeks plus very early into the role-play. I tend to lose interest very fast if there’s long breaks at the very beginning. Get me invested and I can wait quite a long time for you, though.

I'm a bit less lenient with this when we're still doing introductions, so if we've barely said hello but a few days pass and I hear nothing, I'll assume you're no longer interested or never were in the first place and close our discussion. You are free to assume the same of me.

•Genre•

I'm a sucker for modern, romantic slice-of-life with a healthy dose of character-driven drama and angst. I also sometimes like to weave other genres in there too such as Supernatural, Mystery, Action, and Adventure. I'm really open to most things if the plot interests me.

•Gender and Romantic Preference•

I strongly prefer playing a female main outside of MxM. Beyond that, I am open to MxF, FxF, NBxM/F, and MxM. Currently, I'm mostly in the mood for an MxF or possibly F//. My apologies, but please note I do not play male in MxF nor do I double up.

I do not engage in dichotomy personality dynamics and like pairings to be close to even as possible in contributions to the relationship. If a scene gets intimate, I'd prefer we fade to black.

•Plots/Creativity•

While I have plots listed, you're more than welcome to share plots of your own. I'd prefer it if you are open to brainstorming plot points and bouncing ideas off each other too. Let's keep this interesting for both of us so it stays alive.

•OCs•

I would prefer not to roleplay with OCs that are excessively shy, Mary-Sues, or OP. Additionally, please ensure your own OC does not monopolize the plot with their own issues and background. Let's share the spotlight.

I tend to play multiple side-characters and would prefer if you did too.

Please do not control my main OC or any named side characters I introduce. It can really mess with my plans with them if you suddenly auto-kill out of nowhere or something... If necessary, I may permit you to control a side character of mine, but please run it by me first. Communication is key.

•Fandoms•

I am willing to roleplay within the universe of several fandoms, but please note I do not roleplay as canon characters and would prefer not to roleplay with canon characters either. Please recall that I am more than happy to do original plots too if you aren't into any of these.

-Corpse Party**

-Black Mirror*

-Death Note

-Avatar The Last Airbender*

-Downton Abbey

-Call The Midwife*

-Dragon Quest(IV-IX)***

-Miraculous Ladybug****(I'd love to delve into the more subtle, darker elements like the consequences of a broken miraculous and time travel)

-Fruits Basket***

-Soul Eater

-The Hunger Games

(The number of * indicates craving)

•Original Plots•

(Muse I would like to play is bolded. If neither are bolded, I can do either. All of these are open to brainstorming and tweaking!)

(This is an older one of mine, but I’ve recently kinda been in the mood to start it up again.) Marianoh’s Culinary Institute is the most renowned school for culinary arts in the country. Any who truly wish to be a master chef would be foolish not to attend. Unless they don’t have the means- the tuition is insanely high. Muse A is part of the lucky few of humble beginnings that has been selected to attend via scholarship. They couldn’t be more excited. Muse B, on the other hand, comes from a family of celebrity chefs. Their spot at Marianoh’s was confirmed before birth. Yet, somehow, they don’t share Muse A’s joy. Far from it, actually. What happens when the two are partnered up for the year?

Muse A has always been at the top of their class since early elementary and thrived on it. They come from a family of high achievers where failure is neither seen nor accepted. Proud and arrogant over their achievements, their grades make them, them. All that changed when Muse B showed up, smashing the entrance exams with marks unheard of. Of course Muse A wouldn’t take that lying down, thus, the classic rivalry begins. What happens when the two find they have more in common than they thought? Life on Muse B’s side is not all it seems as well.

They were the voice in their head. The imaginary friend. For as long as they can remember, Muses A and B have always been there for each other when they needed it. But to everyone else, it’s all in their heads. They was saved from that riptide by pure chance and luck, despite being unable to swim. The bullies were coming for them, but they found that little nook to hide in all on their own. Flash forward to current day, the two are attending the same university. Muse A is an upstart, trying to make a name for themself academically and socially, the latter going much better than the former. Muse B is the opposite, the social anxiety fueled by a rocky past relegating them to basically a shut in. Their grades, on the other hand, are phenomenal despite barely ever attending classes. When a sibling suggests they try working as a tutor to get out more, they have their doubts, but decide to go for it anyway. The first student walk-in, however, just so happens to be Muse A...

Please note the idea for this world is not mine, but I unfortunately don’t remember the title of the original story. If this sounds familiar to you, feel free to comment the details and I’ll credit the story! Anyhow, in a smaller country, tucked away from the rest of the world, people are born into a unique system. They are either Energy Givers or Energy Takers. Their ability activates from a young age and they are paired with the most compatible one of the opposite ability as soon as possible, usually early elementary school. Energy is transferred from the giver to the taker via a kiss on the lips and must be done at least once a day. While partners are not necessarily romantically involved, the two depend on each other immensely. Without receiving energy, the taker will quickly tire, weaken and collapse becoming comatose and at risk of death. If they do not give energy, the giver’s energy supply builds up making them suffer from nausea, lethargy, fevers, and other unpleasant symptoms that will gradually worsen to the point where their life is in danger. Should a pair of partners be separated either through death or other means, the lone individual must visit a donation center where they will be paired with a donor that somewhat matches until a more compatible, new permanent partner is finally found.].

Now for the main plot. Muse A and Muse B are a Giver-Taker pair that has been together since childhood. Their feelings grew from platonic to romantic and by high school, the two were a golden, seemingly unbreakable couple. Near the end their last year, all comes to a grinding halt when Muse B suddenly breaks up with Muse A and disappears. Five years down the line, Muse A is a jaded, lonely individual, known for constantly going from donor to donor. Deciding they need a change, they take a teaching job in a boarding school on the other side of the country. Yet when they walk into the faculty office on their first day, they find themselves placed in a desk right next to Muse A. Not only this, the two are in the same department. How will things proceed?

Contact Instructions: Please either message me here @addienadelaide or email me at [email protected] with BOTH your favorite season and a recently written roleplay sample. If all looks good I will give you my discord and we can move things there. Hope to hear from some of you soon!

#Desperately Seeking Roleplay #Writing Partner Wanted #Roleplay Partner Wanted #Roleplay Partner Ad #Roleplay Partner Search #Original Roleplay Wanted #Long Term Roleplay Wanted #21+ Roleplay Wanted #Slice of Life Roleplay Wanted #submission

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pope-francis-quotes · 4 years

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27th April >> (@ZenitEnglish By Deborah Castellano Lubov) #PopeFrancis #Pope Francis #Remember Our First Encounter With the Lord,’ Reminds #Pope at Santa Marta (Full Homily)

‘The #Lord always makes one return to the first encounter, to the first moment in which He looked at us...’

‘The Lord always makes one return to the first encounter, to the first moment in which He looked at us, He spoke to us and made the desire to follow Him be born within us’

APRIL 27, 2020 17:25DEBORAH CASTELLANO LUBOVPOPE AND HOLY SEE, POPE'S MORNING HOMILY

We ought to remember our first encounter with the Lord….

According to Vatican News, Pope Francis stressed today, April 27th, during his private daily Mass at his residence Casa Santa Marta.

At the start of the Mass, while remembering all victims of Coronavirus, Francis prayed for artists at this time.

“Let us pray today for artists, for those who have this great capacity for creativity,” and for showing us the way to beauty. He continued: “May the Lord give us all the grace of creativity at this time.”

In his homily, the Holy Father commented on today’s Gospel reading of the day (Jn 6:22-29) in which Jesus redirects the crowd for seeking Him after the multiplication of the loaves and fishes only because their stomachs had been filled by exhorting them “not to work for food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life.”

The Pope stressed how important it is that in the midst of all life’s challenges and temptations, that we keep going back to that first encounter, reminding ourselves.

“This is a grace,” he said, “when faced with temptations.”

We must always ask for that grace of “always returning to that first call, when Jesus looked at us with love,” Francis said, reminding: “Each of us has the experience of that first encounter in which Jesus said: follow me.”

Pope Francis concluded, praying: “Each one of us has our own Galilee within us, that specific moment in which Jesus drew close…looked on me with love, and said to me: ‘follow me.’”

The Pope ended the celebration with Eucharistic Adoration and Benediction, inviting the faithful to make a Spiritual Communion.

The Masses in Francis’ chapel normally welcome a small group of faithful, but due to recent measures’ taken by the Vatican, are now being kept private, without their participation. The Holy Week and Easter celebrations in the Vatican were also done without the presence of faithful, but were able to be watched via streaming.

Likewise, the Pope had a private Mass for Divine Mercy Sunday, with very limited participation by others, at the Roman Church of Santo Spirito in Sassia. One could watch via streaming.

It was announced at the start of the lockdowns in Italy that the Pope would have these Masses, in this period, be available to all the world’s faithful, via streaming on Vatican Media, on weekdays, at 7 am Rome time, along with his weekly Angelus and General Audiences.

In Italy where nearly 25,000 people have died from coronavirus, public Masses are still prohibited. To date, in the Vatican, there have been nine cases of coronavirus in the Vatican.

The Vatican Museums are now closed, along with the Vatican’s other similar museums. There have also been various guidelines implemented throughout the Vatican, to prevent the spread of the virus.

For anyone interested, the Pope’s Masses at Santa Marta can be watched live and can be watched afterward on Vatican YouTube. Below is a link to today’s Mass. Also, a ZENIT English translation of the Pope’s full homily is available below:

***

FULL HOMILY [translated by ZENIT’s Virginia Forrester]

The people that has listened to Jesus during the whole day, and then had this grace of the multiplication of the loaves and had seen Jesus’ power, wanted to make Him King. They went first to Jesus to listen to the word and also to ask for the healing of the sick. They stayed the whole day listening to Jesus without getting bored, without getting tired: they were there, happy. Then, when they saw Jesus give them something to eat, something that they didn’t expect, they thought: “But He would be a great ruler for us and He will surely be able to free us from the power of the Romans and take the country forward.” And they were enthusiastic to make Him King. Their intention changed because they saw and they thought: “Well . . . because a person that does this miracle, that gives the people to eat, can be a good ruler.” (Cf. John 6:1-15). However, in that moment of enthusiasm they had forgotten how the word of Jesus was born in their hearts.

Jesus withdrew and went to pray (Cf. v. 15). The people stayed there and the following day they sought Jesus, “because He must be here,” they said, because they saw that He did not get into the boat with the others. And there was a boat there, it remained there . . . (Cf. John 6:22024). However, they didn’t know that Jesus had reached the others walking on the waters (Cf. vv. 16-21). So they decided to go to the other side of the lake of Tiberias to look for Jesus and, when they saw Him, the first word they said to Him was: “Rabbi, when did you come here?” (v. 25), as if saying: “We don’ understand, this seems a strange thing.”

And Jesus makes them turn to their first sentiment, to the one they had before the multiplication of the loaves, when they were listening to the word of God. ”Truly, truly, I say to you, you seek Me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves” (v. 26) Jesus reveals their intention and says: “But it is so, you changed your attitude.” And they, instead of justifying themselves, <say>: “no, Lord, no . . . “ they were humble. Jesus continues: “Do not labour for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of man will give you; for on Him has god the Father set His seal” (John 6:27). And they, <being> good, said: “What must we do , to be doing the works of God?” (v. 28). “That you believe in the Son of God” (Cf. v. 29). This is a case in which Jesus corrects the attitude of the people, of the crowd, because, halfway, they had moved somewhat away from the first moment, from the first spiritual consolation and had taken a way that wasn’t right, a more worldly than evangelical way.

This makes us think that many times in life we begin a way to follow Jesus, behind Jesus, with the Gospel’s values, and, halfway, another idea comes to us, we see some sign and we move away and conform ourselves with something more temporal, more material, more worldly — it can happen — and we lose the memory of that first enthusiasm that we had when we heard talk of Jesus. The Lord always makes one return to the first encounter, to the first moment in which He looked at us, He spoke to us and made the desire to follow Him be born within us. This is a grace to ask of the Lord, because in life we will always have this temptation to move away because we see something else: “But that will be fine, but that idea is good . . . “We move away. <We need> the grace to return always to the first call, to the first moment: I must not forget, I must not forget my story, when Jesus looked at me with love and said to me: “This is your way,” when, through many people, Jesus made me understand what the way of the Gospel was and not other somewhat worldly ways, with other values. Return to the fist encounter.

Among the things that Jesus said on the morning of the Resurrection, it has always struck me that He affirmed: “Go and tell my brethren to go to Galilee, and there they will see Me” (Cf. Matthew 28:10), Galilee was the place of the first encounter. They met Jesus there.

Each one of us has his own “Galilee” within, our own moment in which Jesus approached us and said to us: “Follow Me.” What happened to these people happens in life — good people because they said then: “But what must we do?” they obeyed immediately — it <also> happens that we move away and seek other values, other hermeneutics, other things, and we lose the freshness of the first call. The author of the Letter to the Hebrews also refers us to this: “Recall the former days” (Cf. Hebrews 10:32). The memory, the memory of the first encounter, the memory of “my Galilee,” when the Lord looked at me with love and said to me: “Follow Me.”

The Pope ended the celebration with Eucharistic Adoration and Benediction, inviting the faithful to make a Spiritual Communion.

Here Is the Prayer Recited by the Pope:

My Jesus, I believe that You are really present in the Most Blessed Sacrament (of the altar). I love You above all things and I desire you in my soul. As I cannot now receive You sacramentally, come at least spiritually into my heart. As if You have already come, I embrace You and unite myself wholly to You. Do not permit me to be ever separated from You.

Before leaving the Chapel, dedicated to the Holy Spirit, the Marian antiphon Regina Caeli” was intoned, sung in Eastertide.

27th APRIL 2020 17:25POPE AND HOLY SEE, POPE'S MORNING HOMILY

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littlemisssquiggles · 5 years

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Hey squiggle meister. What're your thoughts on the flood of people on YouTube who are constantly ranting about the series. And how it's dead after Monty died, and how it's so much worst than before. Etc etc

Tobe honest with you Key, I really don't want to answer this question.I mean it's alright that you asked and I'm going to answer you however I'mgetting a strange sense of deja vu here. Wasn't it not too long ago that youasked me to give my opinion on a similar condition that was happening pre-V6?

Thiswas the issue back then and yet here we are again. You may wanna grab yourselfa snack and settle in because this is going to be one long response post. Let’s just say,this squiggle meister had a lot to let off her chest regarding this particulartopic in the FNDM:

Ihave actually had a small listen to some of these critiques on YouTube and toput it bluntly, I couldn't bring myself to finish most of them. I am a RWBY fan whoalways advocates respecting each other’s opinions regardless of whether or notwe share the same sentiments about the series. I am also a RWBY fan whounderstands that the series is not a flawless show and has suffered more than its fairshare of shortcomings throughout its last arc trilogy.

Nevertheless, in spiteof this, I’ve also acknowledged some noteworthy improvements in the quality of the show that honestly deserves more praise.As someone who has been with this series since its humble beginnings, I have beenthere for each transformation the show has undergone and in doing so, I haveseen RWBY evolve.

Whilesome of the show’s changes haven’t entirely been welcomed by its fandom (withits main change being something completely out of the showrunners’ control) I’dbe lying if I said these changes didn’t contribute to the show’s success insome shape or form.

Speakingfor myself, initially RWBY earned my attention because, like most RWBY stans, Iwas a fan of Monty Oum before and when I discovered that he had his own seriesproduced by RoosterTeeth, I was interested. I didn’t care what the story wasabout or what it looked like. All that mattered to be me back then was that itwas something from the creative mind of Monty Oum so I expected somethingepically action-packed.

At the start, I joinedthe RWBY fandom becauseof Monty however as the seriesprogressed, my reasoning for sticking with it and staying loyal to the showtranscended my past loyalty to the franchise as a by-product of anartist/animator I admired so much.

Thisbrings me to my main point. You want my honest thoughts onthe YouTube RWBY Rants, Key? To be frank, I’m tired of it. It is exhausting listeningto the tirades of these proclaimed RWBY YouTube reviewers who do nothing butgripe and express their disdain for everything the show does wrong according totheir standards. I am so fed up of seeing this happen time and time again.

Andwhat’s sad is that I don’t think part of this is even due to the show or theCRWBY’s fault. Do you know you are more likely to find a video shitting on RWBYas opposed to one that genuinely outlines its positive elements or at leastpresents a fair and just constructive argument of the good and bad of the show?Do you know how many RWBY hate videos the YouTube algorithm has recommended to mesince V6 concluded? It’s ridiculous.

ButI also know I can’t do anything to stop it. So long as RWBY exists, there willalways be these so-called ---I guess we can call them the ‘hate parade’ type of fans who wait like vultures to a carcass to pick apartthe show whenever a new season comes out.

Anddo you know what the sadder part about watching these videos is?

Thesevideos try to give the allusion thatthey are coming from a practical standpoint---as if the things they’repointing out in their reviews are genuine problems with theshow and that their personal advice to the showrunners are valid enough torectify these problems they indicated about RWBY.

Herein, lies my personal peeve with these types of reviews. The best kind of criticto me is one who can point out a flaw in something, justify why they believesaid thing is a clear flaw and then use their own understanding to outlinetheir concept for a possible solution to that flaw that they respectfully leaveopen to the creators of said property to take their advice or not.

However,this is not the case with these YouTube RWBY Rants; at least from the few I’veviewed. I’ll admit, there are some genuinely good RWBY Reviewers on YouTube. Ofthe top of my head, Thatkaitodan, MurderofBirds are two and believeit or not, I actually like some of EruptionFang’s reviews from time to time. Imay not always agree 100% with everything he says in his breakdowns but in myopinion, I can’t get too mad at the things he says in his reviews/video essaysbecause he’s able to justify it in a manner that I’m able to see where he’scoming from. Even if that justification comes from a place of unbridled rage.Referring to EF, I know he’s been receiving flak from FNDM members regardinghis recent views on Adam’s conclusion and Bumblebee; however if I’m beingcompletely honest here, I feel some of that bashing is unwarranted.

Inall fairness to EF, at least I’m able stomach his opinions a lot better than thatof other RWBY Youtubers. As I said, EF is able to properly defend his pointswell enough for me to grasp the validity of his statements which is the least Ican say for some of the others I’ve listened to.

Oftenat times, on the adverse side of RWBY YouTube, I find myself listening toYoutubers who spend more time outright bashing everypersonal gripe they have with the show as opposed to presenting a good argumentthan gives hindsight to why these problems are such an issue to them.

Theworst kind are the ones where this Youtubers point out flaws in the show andtry to give solutions to what the showrunners can do to fix these problems. Butmost of the time it’s done so rudely that it comes off more obnoxious thanhelpful. As if these Youtubers are proclaiming to know and understand moreabout the animation production process than the actual people running the showwho have the qualifications and past industry experience

I’llgive you two examples. Not naming names but I recently watched two videos fromtwo RWBY Youtubers---one critiquing the shows character designs while anotherwas a Youtuber’s final video explaining why they were quitting the RWBY FNDMfor good.

Inthe characterdesign critique, the individualexpressed their disappointment in the recent designs for the RWBY girls and thevillains as of the Mistral Arc. They then proceeded to offer their own tips for how the show could have helped to spruce up someof these designs. However rather than attempting to make their own alternatedesigns to the character outfits, this Youtuber just slapped some rather poorlylaid out flat base colours on top of screenshots of the characters in question.Which from a digital art perspective is…admittedly…lazy.

Iunderstand that not everyone in the world is a designer, much less is a characterdesigner or at least knows how to draw. However…if that is the case then whyare you, as the individual who clearly doesn’t appear to have the design skills,commenting on the work of a studio with a full production team of artists whodo have those required skills and experience and can probably rationalize theirreasons for going with the final designs presented in the show. You get whatI’m saying?

Ifone is going to critique the show’s overall character design then the least youcan do is make the effort to back up your claims. Illustrate your own designsfor RWBY character outfits. Create a mock-up 2D/3D screenshot illustration withproper lighting and atmosphere to see how your design ideas holds up againstthose elements of a scene and then compare that to the actual show’s productionwork. This reviewer didn’t even bother to attempt to maketheir own original designs or even redraw the current designs in their ownstyle and test out their suggested colourpalettes to see if it would fit with the overall design aesthetic of thecharacter.

Youmight be asking now: But Squiggles are you saying I need to know how to draw tocomment about RWBY?

To which I say: No.Being an artist is not a requirement that you as a fan need to really have inorder to comment about something you love. HOWEVER, if you are the type of individualwho has the massive chops to try and dictate a production studio with a team ofeducated and/or industry seasoned artists on how they should handle designingtheir characters without you yourself having the design knowledge to supportyour critiques then… you wonder why the CRWBY often get upset with these typesof fans and don’t take their comments seriously?

Contraryto what others might say, I am not a believer that RWBY is dictated by thedesires of its fandom community. That’s a comment I’ve been hearing buzzingabout since V6 ironically in the face of the recent hate crowd to gather fromwhat transpired with the Bumblebee pairing in the recent season.

Iunderstand that there are fans making the argument that the showrunners onlymade this pairing canon because its popular with its shipping community. Thesame can be said about Neo’s return to become Cinder’s protégé.

Admittedlywhile I might find the CRWBY’s decisions to be questionable at times, this still doesn’t prove that they are run by theirFNDM. If something happens in the show, it’s because it’s something theshowrunners and has wanted to do for some time and picked that current volumeto do so. The mere fact that that thing just so happened to correlate withsomething the fans wanted to see is just a matter of coincidence.

Thatbeing said, I will admit that I’ve noticed one or two members of the CRWBY castwho are guilty of encouraging certain ideas without the show itself officially confirming it in its narrative as yet.

In light of that, Iwill admit this. Regardless of whether or not you as a member of the CRWBY teamsupport a particular ship with all your heart, if other fandoms have taught meanything is that as a cast member you should NEVER encourage anything within yourown fan community. It never ends well and I’m seeing this repeated in RWBY. Butthis is not what I’m here to talk about right now. Moving on.

Inrespect to the video from the individual who was leaving the FNDM, I actually didn’tfinish watching their video because the instant they mentioned Monty Oum and their disdain for the CRWBY not living up to hislegacy and all that stuff, I couldn’t.

Ahyes, the classic ‘RWBY Animation hasn’t been the best since Monty passed away and the RWBYAnimation team are terrible because they can’t replicate Monty’s animation’ debate.How many times is this dead horse going to be beaten? According to this RWBY Youtuber, ‘replicatingMonty’s style of animation is easy andit is appalling the RWBY Animation Team can’t replicate Monty’s style afterfour seasons’.

Thiscomment not only annoyed me as a fan but also as someone who has studiedanimation before. Again, how many times will this poor dead horse be dug up tobe bludgeoned? Will these fans everallow Monty’s name to rest peacefully without bringing it up to tarnish theefforts made by the CRWBY to finish the story he started with them?

Iget it. MontyOum was a good animator.He wasn’t the best animator. He wasn’t some genius animation prodigy. He was a creative mind who had his own way of thinking and doing things andfrom that, he established a style about hisanimation that shined through his work. If you were to show me an animatedpiece done by Monty and the same piece animated by another person, I caninstantly tell you which one is Monty’s because Monty had his own style.

That’sthe appeal of Monty’s work, on my opinion. That’s what he became known for by hisfans. However, even though Monty was great at animating fight scenes, his way---hisstyle is NOT the only wayto animate a fight.

Recently,I took the time to go back and count the number of fights that happened overthe volumes. I did this because as of V6, I couldn’t help but feel as if theCRWBY might be shying away including moments where the characters areactually engaged in combat. I omitted the character shorts because onemandatory element of the Character Shorts is a fight scene. I just wanted tohighlight the individual seasons alone.

Someof this numbers might be a little iffy depending on what I counted as a fight,but here’s what I gathered.

THE VALE TRILOGY

RWBY V1C1:2C2:0C3:0C4:0C5:0C6:3C7:0C8:2C9:0C10:1C11:1C12:0C13:0C14:1C15:0C16:2

Totalfights = 12 Fights

RWBY V2:C1:1C2:0C3:0C4:1C5:3C6:0C7:1C8:0C9:4C10:0C11:4C12:4

TotalFights= 18 Fights

RWBY V3:C1:1C2:2C3:1C4:1C5:2C6:1C7:1C8:0C9:1C10:2C11:2C12:2

TotalFights = 16 Fights

THE MISTRALTRILOGY

RWBY V4:C1:1C2:0C3:1C4:0C5:0C6:1C7:1C8:0C9:2C10:0C11:0C12:1

TotalFights = 7 Fights

RWBY V5C1:0C2:1C3:0C4:2C5:0C6:0C7:0C8:0C9:1C10:3C11:5C12:1C13:1C14:0

TotalFights = 14 Fights

RWBY V6:C1:3C2:0C3:0C4:0C5:1C6:0C7:1C8:0C9:0C10:1C11:3C12:1C13:0

TotalFights = 10 Fights

Why I bring this upis throughout V4 and V6’s runtime I’ve seen one or two all-stars inthe new CRWBY animation team. While not all the fight scenes from the MistralArc were the best, there were definitely some good ones that I stood out to me.

OneV4 fight that keeps being overly praised is the Tyrian vs. Qrow dual. Many fanstend to vouch that fight as the best fight of V4. The only reason that fight isso popular is because it was one of the more important fights of thatrespective season.

However,I’m being completely honest, the Qrow vs. Tyrian one on one was good but itwasn’t the only good fight of V4.

PersonallyI took enjoyment in the small sparring match between Yang and Tai Yang.Believe it or not, I felt like that moment, though small, was well animated andI’d actually give props to the animator behind that small scene. There was a nicesense of rhythm to that small fight that I quite liked.

Notmany folks will agree with little ole me regarding that scene but this just goesto show, we all have our own personal preferences with what we consider to be agood fight sequence vs a not so good one.

Often at times, Ifeel really sorry for the series animators cherry picked to handle the combatmoments for the current seasons because I feel like those animators suffer the most pressure and scrutiny in the eyes of the FNDM. I feel like some FNDM members are sofocused on nagging atthe current CRWBY to capture Monty’s old style of animating fights that they aren��t really giving these new animatorswith their own styles a fair chance toshine outside of Monty’s shadow.

Again.I get it. RWBY was Monty’s brainchild. He’s the creator andno matter how far the current CRWBY takes the series, he will always becredited as its creator.

HoweverRWBY has come a long way since Monty’s days. The show haschanged.The overall look and visual style of the series has changed.Even the production pipeline and the software used to animate the series has changed.The CRWBY hasgrown allowing a greater mix of artistslending their talents to breathe life into the series.

Butwhat seems to kind of still be stuck in the past are some members of the FNDMcommunity. The ones who only watch the show because they are waiting to see thecurrent RWBY recapture that essence of Monty thatthey claimed the show lost after he died.

RWBY is dead after Monty passed away? In some ways, this isboth true and false. The truth is that RWBY did die. The old style that the show was being produced on was laid to restafter its creator unfortunately passed. The false is that RWBY didn’t end withMonty because it’s being continued in its current new style by the people whohelped bring it to life in the first place alongside Monty. The same people whoare diligently carrying on Monty’s project in his place. RWBY isn’t dead. It’sstill breathing. Still going. Because a story still needs to be told.

Ratherthan being judged for how well they can interpret a good fight sequence, theseanimators are judged for how well they can replicate Monty’s style. And when theseanimators don’t live up to that expectation, that’s when the shit storm begins.I myself have been found guilty of comparing the past animation to the present.However now I realized that I was wrong in doing that.

Ithink it’s high time some of these fans let go of the past and accept that theaction fight scenes of RWBY are never going to reflect Monty’s style anymore.

Montyis unfortunately not around to guide the current team with this. And they are doingtheir best to find their own style. To some extent, they found it in V6 becausethe fights in this last season were a tremendous improvement from V4 and V5.

Ifeel like there are some genuinely talented animators workingnow on RWBY who know how to create and sell a great fight and if left to theirown devices, they could really dazzle the audience with their own way of doingthings. I feel like since V4, the CRWBY have been experimenting with how they craftout their fights especially in the new Maya pipeline but it wasn’t until V6where I feel they finally found their footing again.

I think most fanscould agree that the fights in V6 were much better compared to theirpredecessors. One of the best one on one fights was the Neo vs Cinder clash. Whoever was the animator responsible for thatscene should honestly be given more opportunities like thatwhere their work can shine through because that fight was well done. Thesame can be said for the Maria vs. Tok oneon one fight despite how short it was. But the thing is, none of those fightsfelt like Monty’s style to me. It didn’t feel like someone was trying to copyMonty but rather it was someone who probably took a little inspiration Monty’soriginal work and the rest was them bringing their own unique spin to it.

Ifthe CRWBY have been trying to replicatethat Monty style in their fights for the past arc then I’m starting to thinkthat that is what’s been holding them back ratherthan aiding them to move forward.

Thisis why I find the whole point about replicating Monty’s style being easy to be ludicrous. Replicating someone else’s style,depending on the medium is not something you can just do on a fly. It’s noteven something you can perfect in a matter of years. It’s something that takes adeep understanding of the art form you’re using (in this case being animation),time, strict discipline and most importantly of all, guidance and critique from theperson who’s style your copying or someone else who is a master of said style and/orhas a great understanding of it themselves.

That’swhy sometimes you might hear behind the scenes tales about animation studiostaking sometime during their production pipeline to train theiranimators on the style or quality of animation they are trying to emulate in acurrent project. DidMonty do that with the CRWBY? Did Montyget the chance to pass his knowledge and technique onto otheranimators? Did Monty even get to see his story grow to what it is now?

Sadly,no. Monty was a creator who didn’t evenlive long enough to see his own idea flourish for the six seasons it’s beenrunning; now moving onto its seventh season. As far as I know, Monty passedaway as early as V2. Most people don’t even get the chance to see their ideascome to life but Monty was among those fortunate few who was given the shot tomake his idea a reality.

RoosterTeethgave Monty that chance after he worked with them on some of their otherprojects like RvB. He had made himself a household name within their companyand among that, he had made friends and had formed an in-house family with thecolleagues he worked with both on RvB and RWBY.

Saywhat you will about RoosterTeeth and the CRWBY. The original CRWBY who workedwith Monty between V1 and V2 were the people who knew Montythe most. They were his friends. His family. This is all the more reason why itdoesn’t give us, as fans looking in from the outside, the right to use Monty’sname to disrespect the people who knew him better.

Imay not always like what the CRWBY Writers do with the story but I respect themboth as writers. I respect Miles and Kerry because they are the showrunners. RWBY’s plotstarted with Monty, Miles and Kerry.

TheRWBY hate parade need to stop acting as if RWBY was made by Monty alone.Monty did not make RWBY by himself. Shit, he didn’t even create the plot byhimself.

Montyis credited as its creator because RWBY was his brain child and he will foreverbe remembered as the man who conceptualized this idea. But Monty did not writethe story of RWBY himself. He wrote this story with Miles and Kerry.

Whatfolks seems to be misunderstanding or downrightneglecting is that Miles and Kerryhave been with RWBY since its start. They are the two people who worked withMonty in developing the story of RWBY

Itis depressing that Monty only got to live long enough to see two seasons of hisbrainchild come to life.

Insteadof honouring Monty’s legacy by showing support to the people who worked with himto make RWBY happen, folks instead use Monty’s name to slander the CRWBY.

Tothe people who are guilty of this, how can you call yourself a fan? Howcan you call yourself decent human beings witha legit conscience by using a dead man’s name to disrespect the people who werehis colleagues and friends just because you were displeased with something theychose for the show? How is mouthing off the CRWBY and claiming that Montywouldn’t have consented to the direction they’re taking RWBY in a definition ofyour loyalty to Monty?

Howwould you know what Monty would have consented to? How would you know whatMonty would have wanted in general?

Didyou know him personally? I doubt any of you did. So why claim that in yourhateful comments?

RWBYis not the Monty Oum show. I've mentioned this before and I will say it again. RWBY is acollaborative effort. Monty may have conceived RWBY on his own buthe birthed this series through cooperation with RoosterTeeth and the talentedpeople who formed the creative team that made this show with him.

Andit’s those same people who are busting their asses volume after volume to keepthe show going. The CRWBY could have easily cancelled RWBYafter V2. It’s not the first time RoosterTeeth has cancelled a series undertheir name. They could have hung up the towel after V2 and called it quits. Butthey didn’t because they wanted tocontinue the show. They wanted to keep moving forward and finish the story theymade together with their friend Monty.

RWBY’sproduction takes time,thought, passion and effort. If the RWBY YouTube Critics community wishto be the type of people who want to tell the showrunners how to properlyhandle their IP, then at least back up your points with the same level of time,thought, passion and effort that is put into the show.

Andbefore anyone jumps at me and is all like, Squiggles, do you know how long it takes to makea YouTube video essay on my own time? To which I answer with, do you know howlong it takes to produce a full season of an animated production on a studiobudget and a strict deadline within a studio that is juggling multiple IPs?

Anyone can point out a flaw insomething or rather what they perceive to be a flaw in something. But it takes morework to point out that flaw, justify why it’s a flaw by your standards and thentake the time to suggest how it could be improved while throwing in your own workto help boast your claims. But no RWBY Youtuber Critics, at least from the onesI’ve seen, wants to do that. They just want to run their mouths and what’sunfortunate is that they will gather an audience of individuals who do the samewhen it comes to the series.

It’salright if you give your opinion but where it crosses a line is when a fantries to tell the showrunners how they should run their show. It’s even worsewhen they try to do it WITHOUT backing up their claims. You want to downplaythe effort and thought that someone else made without producing your own toargue against theirs?

You want totell the CRWBY how they should write the show? Where are your own retellingsof the show? Where are your own plot breakdowns? Your own scripts possibly accompaniedby storyboards and/or animatics to give others a taste of how your ideas wouldplay out?

You want totell the CRWBY that their character designs are terrible and need rework? Where your own conceptsheets containing dozens about dozens of drafts of redesigns that could betaken?

You want totell the CRWBY that their animation is terrible, that animating like Monty iseasy and the animation of CRWBY would look 100x better if they did x, y, z and123?

WellSkippy, why don’t you prove it? Where is your rendered animation that youpersonally modelled, rigged, textured and animated in your own spare time to backup your proclaimed assessments.

Youmight be telling yourselves, Squiggles why do all of that? That sounds like a whole lotof extra work just to prove points for a critique where I’m trying to tell theCRWBY what to do?

Towhich my response will be, EXACTLY.

Ifthe RWBY Hate Parade wish to make a mockery of the extra efforts the CRWBYmembers put into RWBY, then where is their extra effort? If they at least dothat then maybe I can respect them a little more as people who know whatthey’re talking about because they have the skills and knowledge to back uptheir arguments.

But how am I as the outsider listening in on some of theseYouTube rants supposed to take any of these people seriously when all they’redoing is making lengthy diatribes slandering the work of others and trying topass off as someone who knows more about animation and how it’s done thansomeone who does.

Dothese fans believe that makes them seem witty?It doesn’t. It makes them seem very disrespectful.

Idon’t understand the fans that are like this and I’m not sure if I want tounderstand. I don’t even wish to discuss them furthermore because at the end ofthe day, I can’t speak for these fans. I can only speak for myself and I knowwhere I stand as a fan of RWBY. If there is one advice I can give to my fellow FNDMfam is that weneed to stop drawing attention to the hate parade. Too often do Ihear more about the negative side of the RWBY community and their opinions ofthe series than the actual good that show and its FNDM has spawned.

Weas the people who still love RWBY and are willing to accept and stand by it andits showrunners, flaws and all, need to become more vocal aboutshedding light on the positives of RWBY

Eitherthat or just ignorethe haters. Seriously, we need to stop giving these guys anaudience. Similar to how the RWBY Hate Parade spend their time mostly pointingout the negative in the show, we the FNDM often at times draw too much attentionto these folks.

Ina sad way, we’re kind of sending traffic over to them. Giving them moreattention that they don’t deserve.

Thesetypes of fans can talk but we don’t need to listen to them. Because for all theflak they give the series and its showrunners, the RWBY train is still moving;strong and unaffected.

Why?Because I’d like to believe the CRWBY don’t pay attention to the hate paradebut more focus on what they wish to do with the series while looking out to thesmiling fans who help spread good word about their show. And really, isn’t thegood still that’s very much there all that really matters?

Soto conclude finally, this answer took me way too long to write. Sorry to haveyou wait so long Key. This answer took me some time to put together. Apologiesif it’s a very long-winded answer. I really don’t like discussing any negativestuff in the FNDM.

I acknowledge that it exists and it’s pretty much alwaysgoing to be there but that doesn’t mean I should give it any attention. But forwhat it’s worth, I hope I said enough to make my full peace with this topic.Cheerios!

~LittleMissSquiggles(2019)

#squiggles answers: rwby #rwby #oscar pine #ruby rose #weiss schnee #blake belladonna #yang xiao long #monty oum #crwby #roosterteeth #keyenuta

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powerovernothing · 5 years

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The elder boys Hogwarts houses

And it seems that one of the most iconic fandom questions has finally managed to find its way into my askbox in relation to the boys and their story, and honestly, I am both smiling like a complete and utter dweeb, and also feeling quite surprised that such a question has not managed to be asked long before now! Have we, as a collective mindset of angst, and fluff lovers, that spans through many different fandoms, reached an era where we have somehow stopped asking about characters and what Hogwarts Houses they would end up in if they were in the Harry Potter universe?I surely hope that is not at all the case, because even though I’ve only ever read through the first Harry Potter book thus far – although I do own the first three, or four, I can’t really recall the actual number in my collection off the top of my head – I never get tired to seeing the old favorite fan questions being asked now and again! And I get even more excited to have this such question being brought to my attention about my versions of Lucien and Martin and including Korbin in the bunch just as well!

It makes me quite happy, and very eager to answer this in a proper way worthy of those who are interested in knowing, and I think that is the reason I wound up going a bit overboard in terms of details!

Of course, by now, I’m certain there are plenty of you who are not surprised by this in the slightest, but even still… I feel as though I should still warn you guys about the intense amount of information I managed to do for this question.

Not only did I locate the very best quiz for finding the proper houses for Korbin, Martin, and Lucien, and created a chart detailing the points from each result, but I also went out of my way to find out what each of the brother’s wands would be, as well as their Patronus animals, the in depth meaning behind those results, and how they fit for the characters the brothers have become over the years!

But now I’m just rambling on, without actually showing you guys anything exciting! So, without further ado, let’s get into detailing The Knight, The Emperor, and The Assassin’s Hogwarts Houses, wands and what they’re made of, and the animals that would be at their sides, shall we?

(*~*Under The Cut Is Almost 5K Words Describing Korbin And His Brothers in The Harry Potter Universe, As I Went A Bit Overboard…Whoops!*~*)

(*~*Please click for a much better view*~*)

Right, so…

I realize that this looks incredibly intimidating, and that there is a lot of information at the ready from this massive chart, but as I said above… I don’t really do things half way. It’s either all or nothing when it comes to my boys, and when given the choice, I would much rather give my all than the former! In any case, I think it would be best if I explained the reasoning behind two different sets of results in the chart above.

You see, back in August of last year, when I first started becoming serious about Korbin and his brother’s story, there was a Hogwarts House quiz that was being thrown around on the Elder Scrolls Discord server that I frequent for you totake and see which house your characters wound up in.

You can find the quiz that I used behind the clickable link here!

Anyway, this was before I gave proper character development for both Lucien and Martin, and when I was still trying to get inside their head, and figure out what to change, and yet keep the same when it came to Todd’s lore and the rest of the traits that were shown in the actual game.

Because of this, and considering that at some point I chose to all but throw canon out of the window when it came to the vanilla versions of Lucien and Martin’s characters, and create my own spin on them outside of just them surviving their fates in the story, their results from a year ago is remarkably different when you compare it to the results they got when I retook the quiz again to tackle your question properly, my dear Lady La Luna!

Originally, and before character development truly set in, Martin was placed within the Ravenclaw house, and Lucien was placed within Slytherin.

And at a glance, I suppose that it would make sense for them both to be in that house… I mean, when you think about the traits of both Ravenclaw and Slytherin, you would see parts of Martin and Lucien’s character. Intelligence, and self-reliance suits Martin rather well, as cunning and resourcefulness suits Lucien. However, the more you think about them, the more you start seeing that there are parts of those houses that Martin and Lucien are not.

Martin is not arrogant, which is a negative trait for Ravenclaw, and he is not the type of person to be by himself. He is someone who cares dearly of others and does his best to make friends and lasting relationships with anyone that he meets – even in canon alone this is something that is commonplace when you see his relationship with the Hero of Kvatch, and the Blades themselves.

And as for our dear favorite Assassin, the common negative traits of Slytherin are classified as being loose with morals, looking out for themselves instead of anyone else when the need arises, as well as a desire for power as one of the most important things. Now, while Lucien does indeed care little for morals, and may believe that the ends justify the means even in canon… my version of Lucien is not at all hungry for power, nor does he care about himself first andforemost.

He is a very family-based man, cares for the members of the Brotherhood, and his siblings very dearly, and could truly care less whether or not he rose in power.

So, as you can see, whilst both Slytherin and Ravenclaw may have suited the earlier versions of my take on Lucien and Martin, and even their canon selves to a certain degree… it does not suit who they actually are now. Which is why, when I retook the quiz with the boys again, their results were so vastly different!

From the chart, you can see that Martin’s Ravenclaw rating took at least a twelve-number drop compared to his older result, and he gained a thirteen-number increase in his Hufflepuff rating, as well as his Slytherin rating!

Now I’m certain there are those who were surprised about the Slytherin increase, and truly I was as well at first, but when you start seeing that one of the positive traits in Slytherin is actually having a pure lineage, it would make sense for the Heir to the Septim Line to have such a number in that house! But outside of that, when it comes down to Martin as a character in general, and who he became in my own writing as I went on… there is no other house that suits him more than dear ol’ Hufflepuff over all.

With members the golden and black house sporting positive traits such as being kind, friendly, and hard-working, having a benevolence to do what is right, because it is right, as well as negative traits being far too humble, and taking things slow and steady instead of the quick path in learning, or life in general – which are seen in both my version of Martin, as well as in game canon in general throughout the course of the Main Quest – it would only make proper sense for him to be in such a house!

And considering that Hufflepuff members often enjoy food, well… with him being raised by his single father farmer Darius and knowing his way around the kitchen in my Verse, it’s nothing short of perfection.

As for Lucien, one of the things that was most surprising to me in his new results was seeing his Hufflepuff rating go up by thirty-six numbers! I mean, when you think about it, Lucien has very little to do with the house traits that Martin would have, but then I realized that I was answering certain questions with how Lucien normally acts behind closed doors, with his loved ones, or when he drops his hard Assassin like outer shell for the sake of mischievous and playful antics.

He is a different person around his brothers, then he would be when working, so I suppose that is where his Hufflepuff rating goes up by a considerable amount. However, by the end of it, the Hogwarts house that fits Lucien the best when taking into consideration both their positive and negative traits, and the number results from the quiz alone? Ravenclaw.

Even though there are moments in actual canon, and my own, where Lucien often ends up doing something foolish and without thinking – mostly tied to his own emotions – by the end of the day he is indeed a remarkably intelligent man.

Not only that, but when he is on the field and preforming his death craft, he is also incredibly creative, and oftentimes does many different things to help down his target, and never is the type to do the same thing twice unless there is a need for it. He is also quite self-sufficient, which comes from being a prior Speaker of the Black Hand, one of the main heads of the Revised Cheydinhal Sanctuary, and from being the eldest among the siblings.

With a knowledge that could surely rival Martin’s own, he knows how to handle solo contracts, knows how to deal with the Elder Council without his temper getting in the way – for the most part – and knows how to go through the world without getting in over his head.

It’s only when his siblings are involved that he tends to get rather foolish, but I digress.

Continuing onward, the main negative traits that the Ravenclaw house members have I actually listed above when discussing how Martin did not fit within the black and blue ranking. However, when you think about these traits from Lucien’s point of view: being arrogant, and often looking down on others unworthy of their praise or acceptance, and how they often create small groups that stay close to one another… well, that just fits The Dark Brotherhood in a whole, doesn’t it?

So, yes! By the end of the day, Martin wears the golden and black colors of Hufflepuff, and Lucien sports the blue and brown coloring of Ravenclaw!

Now, about Korbin… well, you can most likely tell from both the old and the new results that he was the one that changed the least among the brothers. Which, I honestly didn’t find all that surprising, and I somewhat expected, actually. Because, out of the three of them, Korbin was the one who had the least character development throughout the year, and a few months, difference.

His morals are the same, the way he views the world are the same, and who he is around his siblings are the same.

Meaning that most of his results would change very little, or not at all when taking the quiz, a second time around. Korbin’s Slytherin number actually remained the same as it was from a year ago, which is not surprising considering his morals are often the same as Lucien’s whilst working or in general.

His Gryffindor number went down, because even though he is indeed the Hero of Kvatch, he doesn’t consider himself a hero, would actually deny the title outright when given, and instead looks to both of his siblings as the truly brave, courageous ones with far more strength.

His Hufflepuff number goes slightly up, as even though he is indeed an Assassin and Lucien’s Silencer, he is still a very kind, and friend person to those he cares for, and loves, and is an incredibly hardworking individual when it comes to a certain goal, or he sets his mind on something that he wants more than anything, especially during the course of the Oblivion Crisis and him wishing to reverse time to save his brother’s from their fate.

And finally, his Ravenclaw number goes slightly down, which makes a fair amount of sense as he has a slightly underdeveloped intelligence for the most part, and yet by the end of all of the results, it is in fact Ravenclaw that he finds himself being placed within most!

And as I said, from the traits I listed above whilst discussing Martin and Lucien’s houses, it truly comes to no surprise that this is the house that Korbin finds himself in.

From being creative, in both his Assassin skill, and in general with his mischief making and childish antics, self-sufficient when he is determined and set upon a certain goal and all but refusing others help when offered, and the negative traits of being arrogant, which he is and it is one of his biggest faults, and staying within one collective group that relates perfectly with The Dark Brotherhood, and how he prefers to remain with his siblings…

Well, I honestly see it as a perfect selection just as I did with Martin and Hufflepuff! And considering the fact that Ravenclaw is the same house as Lucien, and the two Assassins would very rarely be seen without the other at their side – not to mention what Korbin’s name translates to, and the ‘affectionate’ nickname given to him by Sheogorath – it simply just makes the most sense!

So, in the end of this very long ramble about traits, and houses… Martin would wear the Golden and Black colors of Hufflepuff, and both Lucien and Korbin would wear the Blue and Browns of Ravenclaw!

But even though I have managed to tackle your original question, that is not exactly where the Harry Potter related information comes to an end, my dear friend! After all, what good is being sorted within a Hogwarts House if you are not going to end up with a proper wand, and a Patronus? It would be quite theboring life without those two, so I thought to go one step beyond and do my best to research whatever was needed to figure out what these would be in relation to the boys!

Now, I don’t exactly have a Pottermore account, and I don’t truly wish to spend my time creating three different accounts, with three separate emails just for the sake of doing this for Korbin, Martin, and Lucien… but, thankfully, this is where the internet and its vast resources come in handy! After a little bit of searching around, I found tons of information and photos of how the Pottermore tests actually work, broken down in a way that I could use that as a means of tackling the questions with the boys!

It was rather fascinating to say the least, and if anyone is curious to tackle this themselves, you can just follow these links here for what you need!

Wand Creating Quiz Breakdown, and Patronus Granting Quiz Breakdown~

But in any case, after a bit of thinking, and answering the questions in the way that the boys would, and the reasoning behind each answer – I’ll go into that shortly – the Knight, the Emperor, and the Assassin wound up with these wands as their means of magic!

Korbin was given a slightly dark brown wand made of Rowan wood and imbued with a Dragon Heartstring type core. It was 13¼" inches long in length, had a ball shaped handle with ridges – to mess with when anxious – and an unbending type of flexibility.

Martin was given a light golden wand made of Hawthorn wood and imbued with a Unicorn Hair type core. It was 14½" inches long in length, had a curved shaped handle with carved symbols – a hint to his royal lineage – and a quite flexible type of flexibility.

And Lucien was given a light brown wand made of – unsurprisingly, all things considered – Applewood, and imbued with a Phoenix Feather type core. It was 12½" inches long in length, had a rope wrapped around it’s curved handle – much like a dagger – and a supple type of flexibility.

Quite an interesting sort of turnout, wouldn’t you say?

How the boys ended up with such results, which you can see broken down in the link provided above, is that when given a choice of items to take they chose, a glittering jewel for Korbin as he enjoys shiny things and giving his siblings special gifts when he finds them, a bounded scroll for Martin as he is always searching for new means of knowledge wherever he can, and a silver dagger for Lucien that should surely go without saying considering who he is, and their very worst fears?

Both Lucien and Korbin feared isolation, which plays into their nightmares of either being abandoned(Korbin), or losing those they loved because of their own mistakes(Lucien), and Martin had an ironic fear of fire, which played into his fear of Akatosh and the power he has over him that he hardly understands.

Both Korbin and Martin are the tallest among the brothers, thus they wound up with the tallest wands – although Martin has the longest, which is from his more control of magic and the power he has over it – and unfortunately, just like in my actual Verse, Lucien is the shortest of the trio – despite being the eldest – and thus wound up with the shortest wand.

As for flexibility, that is determined by their day of birth, and the trait that they are most proud of when it comes to themselves.

Lucien and Martin were born on an even day – Lucien was born on May 7th, and Martin was born on July 21st – and Korbin was born on an odd day – December 14th – and the traits that they chose for themselves was Determination for Korbin – as he never gives up without a fight, and always continues to seek out a result even if it seems impossible which works with Unbending – Kindness for Martin – which should go without saying, consideringhe is indeed the friendliest, and most loving out of the three which works withQuite Flexible – and Lucien chose Resilience – as it takes a lot to break him, he, too, hardly ever gives up, and his brothers can always turn to him whenever they need him which works with Supple.

Amazing how the Pottermore quizzes actually work, and what actually determines what you receive in the end, huh? I went into a bit more detail about the reasoning behind those choices, and how I thought they suited the boys most, but here’s a bit more information based around their given Woods, and the Cores they have, taken from the official Pottermore website.

Rowan wood has always been much-favoured for wands, because it is reputed to be more protective than any other, and in my experience renders all manner of defensive charms especially strong and difficult to break. […] Rowan is most happily placed with the clear-headed and the pure-hearted, but this reputation for virtue ought not to fool anyone – these wands are the equal of any, often the better, and frequently out-perform others in duels.

Hawthorn wands may be particularly suited to healing magic, but theyare also adept at curses, and I have generally observed that the hawthorn wand seems most at home with a conflicted nature, or with a witch or wizard passing through a period of turmoil. Hawthorn is not easy to master, however, and I would only ever consider placing a hawthorn wand in the hands of a witch or wizard of proven talent, or the consequences might be dangerous.

Applewood wands are not made in great numbers. They are powerful andbest suited to an owner of high aims and ideals, as this wood mixes poorly with Dark magic. It is said that the possessor of an apple wand will be well-loved and long-lived, and I have often noticed that customers of great personal charm find their perfect match in an applewood wand.

Rowan wood is meant to be more protective than most? It is oftentimes difficult to break, happiest with the pure-hearted, and yet has a secret strength? That seems to fit Korbin quite perfectly, wouldn’t you agree?

Hawthorn wands are best suited for healing magic, but also curses – in other words, destruction – just as well? Hawthorn wands are most at home with those of a conflicted nature, and not easy to master such power? Why, that sounds exactly like our dear Heir to the Septim line Martin to me!

And the fact that Lucien got applewood at all is hilarious enough, but applewood wands mixes poorly with dark magic? As in, someone with a cold heart wouldn’t be able to handle this, and they would have to contain a hidden light, and softer side? And those who carry them are often long lived, and well loved?

Such as how his siblings love and care for their eldest brother, and how he indeed lives longer in my Verse because of Korbin’s deal with Sheogorath, but also because of being of Imperial race?

It’s almost as though Pottermore is too spot on.

As for the Cores themselves, it states those with the Dragon Heartstring cores, which Korbin has, are often easiest to turn to the Dark Arts, although not of their own accord. Somewhat like how Sheogorath influences and torments his dear Little Raven because of how he offered himself up as a future vessel for the Mad God so that he would turn back time to save his brothers?

Unicorn Hair, which is a part of Martin’s wand, is actually the hardest to turn to the Dark Arts, and the most consistent with magical uses, with hardly any error. Which makes perfect sense for Martin’s Holy Light, and his powerful Akatosh blessed magic that he wields!

And as for Phoenix Feathers, which belongs to Lucien’s wand, it is said that they are the pickiest, and their allegiance is usually hard won without a fight.

Such as Lucien who is stubborn, and cares very little for the opinions and thoughts of others outside of his own Dark or Chosen family? Like I said, it’s almost too uncanny, and I’m starting to wonder about the true magic behind these little quizzes!

As a side note for the brother’s and their cores, I like to see it as though they each got a piece of each other. Korbin got a Dragon, possessive, and protective - Lucien - whilst strong with unknown powers - Martin. Lucien got a Phoenix, fire based - Martin - and rose from the ashes of its destruction and found freedom in its wings - Korbin.

And Martin got Unicorn, soft a glance, but with a hidden edge in its horn - Korbin - and the direct opposite for Lucien. A hardened edge but with a softer side.

In any case, as for the boys and their Patronuses, the actual quiz that you’re meant to take on Pottermore is based on a random number of different sets of words, and you’re meant to choose the one you like the most… and at first, it seemed as though I wouldn’t be able to figure out their animal guardians – but thankfully, once again! – I was able to find a proper breakdown of the quiz, as I linked above, and was able to sort through the questions, and found out whichanimal would spring forth from which brother’s wand!

Korbin ended up with a St. Bernard, which is something that I found incredibly adorable, and ironic, as there are times those who are familiar with his character – and even myself – refer to him as an overly affectionate, and oversized puppy!

And on Pottermore itself, the St. Bernard Patronus is described as follows:

Despite its large and intimidating size, the St. Bernard is known to be kind, loving, and gentle. Great with families and very loyal, the St. Bernard will always be by your side. They are quick to protect family members who may be in danger and often act as a guardian for those around them. Strong and powerful due to their size, the St. Bernard will fight off Dementors and stand by you, come what may.

Despite its large and intimidating size, it is kind, loving, and gentle? Great with families and very loyal? Quick to protect family members who may be in danger, and act as a guardian to them?

Well, now, isn’t that just the perfect description for Korbin?

Martin ended up with an Osprey – which I’ll readily admit that I had never even heard of until I started doing this research – and its description on Pottermore is stated as being:

The Osprey is a fish-eating bird found across the world. These birds have incredible vision and can spot underwater prey from the air. They brave the depths of water, diving completely beneath the surface, unlike any other bird, and this courageousness makes them a powerful Patronus indeed.

At first, you would think that such a Patronus would be quite strange for Martin to have, considering it doesn’t really seem all that similar to Martin’s own character in either my Verse or actual canon.

But then you stop and consider the fact that it is a winged bird of prey – I once considered Martin an owl when speaking of his animal counterpart – and that Martin is blessed by the Dragon Divine Akatosh, and it goes on to speak about its bravery, courageousness, and the power it holds… then it suddenly all starts to click into place, makes it quite perfect in the end, after all!

And as for Lucien, he ended up with an Ocicat. Another small bout of irony, just as Korbin, as there are times where myself, and others, consider Lucien to have many traits similar to a cat, or see him as a cat loving person. And this adorable little guy is described on Pottermore as:

While the Ocicat is a house cat, it looks like a small wild cat due to its crazy coat of spots and stripes. It has the athletic personality to boot! This cat loves to be active. It moves through its environment confidently and energetically. This cat will chase that Dementor and run it to the ground!

A cat that may seem wild at first, but is actually quite the homebody? That works perfectly considering that whilst Lucien is most certainly an Assassin and devoted to the art of life taking, when you strip away the dagger, the robe, and the stern expression – he is dedicated to his family and their wellbeing first and foremost. And when you mix that with the Ocicat’s love for being active and athletic, and how it wishes to hunt and chase things… well, doesn’t that work as an alternate description for an Assassin?

Just as I said above, these little Pottermore quizzes, and the one I took to sort the boys Hogwarts Houses were almost too on point, almost too uncanny, and honestly, I’m starting to wonder if there aren’t some magical link to my brain being seeped through onto the website! I wouldn’t put it past Harry Potter considering all of the other magical stuff that the universe has!

But in all seriousness, I have to say that I really had fun with this sort of question! I know that I went above and beyond in terms of details and discussion, as well as length, but I was having too much fun actually learning more about the universe and how it works – as I said, I’ve only read the first Harry Potter book thus far – that I couldn’t force myself to stop while I was ahead, and I just continued on and on until I was able to consume as much as I could!

Which is what led to the Wand and Patronuses, and everything else that is in this massive monster of a post! Regardless of such, I hope you have a very fun time reading this over, and hopefully learning something as well! I know a lot of my friends and followers, if they’re not into Harry Potter, will probably pass this reply over… but that’s quite all right! I had a really fun time making the charts, going into detail, and figuring out what it would be like if the boys was in that world!

So, I hope that you, my dear sweet Lady La Luna, and those who enjoy in depth talks about Harry Potter ideas, will enjoy reading this post and all the details I posted within! Thank you so very much for sending this message my way, and for reminding me of the early days of fandom, and how many times I saw this question pop up innocently back then, as well as all the other messages that I will tackle soon!

You are awesome, your ideas are awesome, your characters are awesome, and I just want to hug you and give you as much appreciation for your amazing concepts that you so rightfully deserve!

Thanks again, with tons of hugs and kisses from me and the boys on top! ♥

#lady-la-luna-of-the-omniverse #The Knight The Emperor And The Assassin~#Long Post~#Very Long Post~#Ponnie Rambles~#This wound up turning into a massive monster of a post but as I said I'm honestly incapable of doing things part way.#It's either tons of content details or otherwise or little to nothing in a very simplistic post and that's just not how I go about things!#One thousand percent or nothing I say!#Especially when related to the boys and different scenarios revolving around them!#I mean the brothers in the world of Hogwarts? How on earth could I say no!#In any case I hope you enjoy reading this over Luna!#I had a very fun time creating this reply for you and doing all of the detail and informational work so I hope you enjoy the outcome of this #Thank you so very much once again for sending me these amazing messages scenarios and prompts and I look forward to the next one #that I will tackle in your honor!#Hugs and kisses and thanks again my sweet! ♥

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ofsoras · 5 years

Text

I’VE ARRIVED ! yes - i’m totally late - but i went out right after acceptances & took forever to conjure this little intro up ! anyways, i’m jada, and this is my baby miss MOON SORA. she’s 23, a fashion youtuber, and veeery ( secretly ) messy !! right now i only have a PROFILE and PINTEREST for her, so i’m sorry but more options will be coming soon ! i intend to have tons of fun plotting with you all, and maybe even having her create some chaos ! but i’ll save that for under the cut, so . . . if you’re interested, click that little read more ! and, as expected, you can always LIKE THIS for me to come & plot with you, and i have a discord if it’s what you prefer ! without further ado, let's go !

yes a lot of this is from her app but look !! a girl is tired 🤧

she’s from gwangju, south korea ! she was so very eccentric, most definitely the weird kid in class who’s always doing things a little differently haha !!

people didn’t really appreciate it and while she wasn’t exactly bullied, she tended to be avoided by others because she wasn’t like them.

her parents were not happy with this at all bc they’re super traditional and wanted her to marry into money since they were pretty poor so they were like ?? you’ll never find a man like this ! even though she’s like ... 6 lmao but that becomes more important later in the story !!

she liked fashion before, but wasn’t good at it AT ALL. similar to now she was always experimenting and creating new outfits, but none of it really … looked good lol !!

no one asked but it was almost this bad !

but time skip. she got accepted to a college in seoul and was ECSTATIC because she got to live in the city !! but her mom, blunt as she is, sat down sora and was basically like … sweetie. i’m not letting you go if this is going to be, bc you’re weird and you’re going to be bullied. try blending in ?

parent of the year, right ? anyway it hurt sora’s feelings reeeeally bad but it was kind of also her first “reality check” ? a twisted one at that, but for most her life she didn’t think much of how she lived but that’s when she became more conscious of how others saw her … and the start of the “ new ” sora !

so in college, everything changed. she actually made a conscious effort to upkeep her appearance, and began getting into fashion !! the only thing was, she didn’t have funds to go to high end stores or any of that like a lot of her friends did … so she got creative ! started shopping in thrift stores, seeing what she could find, then dolling it up to make it her own !

so then - boom ! after a bit of practice she started getting better, and it showed ! she still had that unique sense of style, but it was more “trendy” i guess sksks, and people really started paying notice ! because it was cute but included a lot of rare finds and just had that retro vibe ??

sidenote please do not follow this advice of changing for others sksk i DO NOT condone !!

anyway she grew to like the attention and wanted to do something with it ! her friend had suggested she start a youtube channel but she was a little iffy about it, until she realized her creations may be liked !

so in may of 2015, she started up her youtube channel which is now known as “sora styles” !! it’s mainly fashion, centering around her upcycling endeavors !!

it’s a lot like youtuber bestdressed’s setup, but a little more small scale ! showing you how to make something out of nothing, styling ideas w / the occasional casual discussion video !

her fanbase is relatively small in the grand scheme of things, but she has a loyal bunch who primarily like her for her “relatable” content ! her channel is catered to those who might not be able to afford things retail, and she always comes across as very humble & sweet in her videos !

but behind the scenes ?? things have been falling apart. she always talks about her subscribers allowing her to live comfortably, but it’s not really the truth ! being a smaller youtuber isn’t a very profitable career, so she has to compensate by putting twice the effort on her two part-time jobs ! by the end of the day she’s usually burnt out & it’s a struggle just to even get her videos up.

recently she’s just been tired of struggling to get by, and envies the rich ! her mom seems to be pressuring her into marriage more & more as the days go by, and just wishes she didn’t have to go through such a hassle to look as fashionable as everyone around her ! she’s become less accepting of who she is and more angry with her situation, and in turn channeling her frustration out on others.

but !! just recently she’s been invited to the reality show and she’s just … in awe ?? she didn’t think she was big enough to be discovered, and plus - who really wants a thrift fashion vlogger on tv ?? to be honest she was going to decline the offer because she thought they were basically using her as a gag !

but she saw that cash prize ?? and her eyes lit up ! she’s pretty dead set on the fact that she needs it more than everyone else, whether true or not, and is more serious than ever to get it !

while she was pretty sweet in the past, the stakes are up and she is willing to do anything to get that cash prize. she hates having to live such a stressful workaholic life in private behind the cameras, and really wants to run away with the money to live comfortably on her own without a reason for her mom to pressure her to get married right now because she’s a free spirit !! she doesn’t want it !!

so she is the show’s illusory because in a way she’s perceiving herself as the underdog, the sweet girl who happened to land herself on the show ?? mainly to gain favor of the audience, especially since her persona on the internet makes it believable ! and instead of going straight for everyone’s throats like some may, she’s definitely going to be more of a behind the scenes girl ?? digging dirt on people, spreading rumors she’s created subtly, and all that !! all while smiling at everyone she’s trying to take down & making a big deal about how she’s some small youtuber who’s just excited to get a little exposure !! in short - a snake !

but deep deep inside, she’s really not that bad. she is really doing this bc she hates being dependent on her parents & needs the money, but she ony really becomes like this when she reeeally needs something !

but yes she’ll be very fake about it ... going around and watching all the tea behind her tea cup lmao !! someone come collect her & expose her !!

just some random facts below !!

heir hair was short for the longest, but she literally only grew it out for the show !

she’s got a vlogging channel over at “sorasays”, which isn’t uploaded as frequently but includes all videos whenever she goes to fashion conventions or just out in her daily life !

as for where fashion takes her, she hopes to have her own brand for clothing that matches her aesthetic !

her dog, cheonsa ( angel ) is her . . . well, angel ! she looks like this and honestly looks a little weirder in the face wfwoih !! she is literally a diva and the worst behaved if she doesn’t want to listen but this is sora’s heart and soul everyone !

no one actually knows about her 2 part-time jobs because she finds it embarrassing !! at least from the outside, most youtubers she sees seem to be just working on videos, but she has to work a lot to afford her lifestyle.

naturally an introvert, who tends to force extroversion ?? she’s often lost in her own thoughts - one of the reasons she’s so conniving & good at plotting things - but because she wants to make a good impression, she tends to put herself more out there than she would otherwise !!

ok i’m running out of things to say ... i think you get the gist ! if you need more info i can assure you that i will scream about my kid in the ims !! but as for right now ... i am going to Sleep !! au revoir !

#( sora w / mun ! )#also as a sidenote i will be sleeping soon & getting to mssgs tomm !

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raisingsupergirl · 5 years

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Havok Publishing Hits Realm Makers 2019!

I'm in shock. Or maybe it's awe. I'm humbled, for sure. And tired, too. Definitely tired. But all the other things are overpowering the sleep deprivation, like they usually do post-conference. But this year it's different. I didn't come home with a head full of mush and a bag full of notes. No, this was not a "learning" year like those in the past. Not in the strictest sense, anyway. Though, I certainly am still processing all of the unexpected happenings and possibilities. But to understand what I'm talking about, you first need to understand what I've been up to.

The last few months, I've been talking about how I've been so busy, and stressed, and overwhelmed, and blah, blah, blah. Some of it had to do with my day job as a physical therapist, but most of it revolved around my writing and editing career, the majority of it being work for my company, Havok Publishing.

Yes, I have a publishing company. But it's not "mine," exactly. Not completely, anyway. Almost a year ago, I took the reigns from its previous owner (Ben Wolf) with one stipulation: I'd have gobs and gobs of friends helping me run things. And after splitting the managerial strain with two spectacular women (I run the editorial department while a kraken runs the marketing and tech departments and a jackalope runs the operations department… that probably makes more sense to them than it does you…), I "hired" on almost twenty more volunteers to fill out the ranks. And since then, we've been busting our tails to create something that's so much bigger than any one of us.

But you may be asking why in the world twenty-something people would volunteer for anything so involved as a publishing company. Well, it's because of the spirit of said company. And I was reminded of that in a big way this past weekend.

The Realm Makers writing conference is the summer highlight for a very specific group of about 300 people. You see, we're all Christians, writers, and… kind of weird. That is, we're geeks and nerds. We collect Marvel comics, write dragon stories, and wear ridiculous costumes. And we never feel more at home than when we're among our own people.

Becky Minor and a faithful few created this conference several years ago, and I've been a part of it since the beginning. Which means I've formed some deep friendships with some amazing people, most of whom I don't see in person anywhere other than this conference. And over the years, I've had the joy of watching them grow from scared, flightless writers to bold, soaring authors. So many of them have forged their own path into the wild world, and many more have joined the ranks as wide-eyed newbies. And we all continue to have the same spirit of inclusiveness and excitement for the craft and industry of fiction stories, but unfortunately, we often also share the pain of rejection in said industry. And that's exactly where Havok Publishing comes in.

You see, there are a lot of readers out there. And there are also plenty of writers. But sometimes, getting good stories from writers to readers can be tricky. Polishing stories takes time. As does packaging them and delivering them into the right hands. And time is money, so many writers simply don't have the resources to get the job done, which is exactly why publishers exist. But publishers need to make money, too, which means they're often only willing to offer publishing contracts to the biggest and most well-established names in the industry. And only to the most exciting and well-packaged novels. And all of this leaves a very big hole in the process: providing new writers with an opportunity to improve their craft and put their polished stories in front of readers (other than their grandmas). And when I almost let Havok die last year, that was the only reason I didn't. We truly were a company that provided the bridge for those new writers. And we were one of the only ones in our corner of the industry doing it.

Since then, we've grown at a staggering rate. We've flipped our production and delivery model on end. We've turbo-charged our marketing. And we've been met by hordes of supporters that continue to push us forward toward great things. But, as I said, we're all volunteers. So twenty-something hours per week of pouring in without getting much back except "Good Job" stickers can take its toll. So when we were starting to feel beat down, I encouraged us all to wait until that always-magical Realm Makers weekend before losing heart. And, if I must say, I was right.

The weeks leading up to the conference were a blur. We were busy curating the best stories we'd acquired over the past six months into our first anthology, and unless you've ever published your own book (correctly), I can't possibly tell you how involved the process in. But just know that we barely made it in time. We didn't do everything right, but the final product looked amazing, and seventy-two copies of it came with us for sale in the conference bookstore.

And less than twenty-four hours after the conference began, we sold out.

Yes, all seventy-two books that we ambitiously printed, loaded up, and put on display among so many other amazing novels, anthologies, comics, and crafts completely sold out in less than a day. And I was completely floored. And through the rest of the conference, other writers and fans continued to ask how they could purchase our anthology. They bought t-shirts and went online and bought the anthology there (which you can do by clicking on this link to amazon.com). And it took me a while to figure out how in the world that could have happened.

But slowly, it dawned on me: it was the spirit of Havok. We foster and nurture eager young writers. We build them up. We guide them. We give them hope. And we set them up for success in what is oftentimes their first real publication. And they, in turn, are the ultimate rockstars and advocates for what we're doing. Probably half of those seventy-two anthology copies were bought by authors who were published in it (for gifts for their friends and family), and the other half were snatched up by Realmies (the affectionate name for the Realm Makers tribe/attendees) who felt the palpable excitement generated by those of us involved in the magic.

I think there were eighteen of the Havok Hive (the name for Havok's collective volunteer staff… you will be assimilated) in attendance at this year's Realm Makers. And as a small token, Cerberus (the name for the aforementioned three heads of Havok, myself being one of them. Yes, I know. We have a lot of strange titles. Didn't I warn you that we're weird?) gifted them with bright orange Havok lanyards. And as the Hive busied itself about the conference, helping here and there where needed, it unwittingly lightened the tensions weighing on those young writers whom we love so much. As one woman told me on the last night of the conference, "Every time I see an orange lanyard, I know the person wearing it will be encouraging. Like I can actually do this thing."

And that's when I knew we'd won. We'd accomplished, for the moment, what we set out to do. We'd given back to a conference and a culture that had already made such a difference in the lives of so many. We'd played our small but essential part in the process. And we will continue to do so. We're acquiring hundreds of stories each year. We're putting the best of those stories in beautiful anthologies alongside some of the industry’s biggest names. We're putting our energy and resources directly back into our authors and projects that will benefit them. And we're doing it all because we love it. And we love them. And we couldn't do any of it without that constant reminder. So, thank you, everyone, who has supported Havok Publishing along the way. You're helping us make a difference in the lives of so many creatives. And, in turn, you're helping their stories make a change in this world.

We're doing good work here at Havok, and it takes a village… or in this case, a Hive… or a Horde. I don't know. Maybe we do need to reconsider how many strange labels we're putting on everything. But you get my drift. Together, we’re weird. We’re writers. And we’re wonderful. Write on!

#realm makers #realm makers 2019 #havok publishing #flash fiction #amwriting #amediting #short stories #science fiction

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mysticsparklewings · 5 years

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Starfall Mountains

Alternate title: Reasons Not to Buy the Dirt-Cheapest Acrylic Paints You Can Find I normally do like to keep an inexpensive stash of acrylic paint around because even though acrylic paint is not a medium I dabble in often, it much like fabric/puffy paint can come in surprisingly handy. And every once in awhile I will use it for it's intended purpose just to stretch my artistic muscles. Well, one of my art students recently started asking questions about acrylic painting and through giving them what advice I could (knowing arguably too much about acrylic painting for someone that rarely if ever does so) I felt that familiar artistic itch settle into my brain. And then I remembered that between my own one-off projects and a couple that my mom borrowed my small paint stash for, the stash that I had is down quite a few tubes that are just completely gone/empty. And what colors are left (mostly browns and greens, maybe a yellow) are not terribly pretty or useful colors. Thus my wandering art supply eyes started watching for some cheap acrylic paints to add to and replenish the stash. And admittedly to a certain extent, I wanted to take the rare occasion to take a stab at making a proper painting, partly just to see if I could do it and partly so I wouldn't just be throwing my student to the wolves with my advice. I found such paints in the form of an 8-pack set of 9.5 ml. tubes from Dollar General. The set was $4. Now, I know and can accept that this set was not meant to be artist-quality by any stretch of the imagination whatsoever. What bothers me is that my pre-existing stash was a very cheap set that was probably at best meant to be student-quality paint (and there's a good chance that's being generous) and you can get craft paint from Walmart for less than $1 for much larger tubes, and both options are more pigmented than these paints were. Do not be fooled by the results before you; I am fortunate enough that I have a moderate amount of artistic skill, pretty good knowledge of the medium (at least for someone that doesn't use it often), and I've done enough experimenting and encountered enough problems before to be comfortable trying to power through and work with what I had. If I were a humble beginner with much more limited knowledge of art supplies and how to use them, I highly suspect this would be one of those supplies capable of turning someone away from that type of art supply, if not art as a whole, in its entirety. If you've ever used finger paints for kids--you know how in the container and one congealed drop of the paint it looks like a nice, solid color, but then when you start to spread the paint around it's way more transparent and you have to really commit to get the color pay-off you were expecting? That's an accurate description of these paints. The thing is that they aren't totally lacking in pigment. They're about as pigmented as cheap watercolors or gouache. The problem with that is that they are still acrylics at the end of the day--the paint binder is a plastic, which means they dry relatively quickly and typically will not reactivate after they've dried. So if you want the same experience but a medium that's easier to work with, watercolor or gouache would be a better option. But it gets weirder. I noticed that these acrylics dry a little on the slower side compared to what I'm used to, which is a mixed bag. It helped with blending a little, but it also made the lack of pigment more frustrating, as it meant I had to wait longer for the paint to dry between layers, which I needed in order to make sure I was A. covering the canvas and B. getting the color payoff I wanted. Additionally, it is probably a very good thing that I was using a small 4"x6" canvas board and not one of the 8"x10" canvases I have on hand, because the size of the paint tubes combined with the lack of pigmentation means I very likely would've run out of one or some of the colors. (Almost definitely I would have run out of white because white is always my most overused color). To a certain extent, I did expect to have to layer and do a lot of "put paint on, cover it up. put paint on, cover it up, put paint on--" you get the idea. Acrylics, even when they are better pigmented, can be a more challenging medium to work with because of the aforementioned quicker drying time. But even so I feel like the work I had to do to get good color pay off, decent coverage of the canvas, and smooth blending all at once was still a little more than I should've had to put in. The most egregious and obvious offenders of this would be the orange behind the mountains and the snow/ice caps on the mountains, the latter of which I'm still not totally happy with, but I kept going back and forth with it and eventually just said "y'know, that looks pretty okay, I'm tired of messing with it, and I'd love to not use up the entire tube of white on this one small painting, so I'm done with that." The orange I think turned out fine, though the transition between it and the rest of the sky is a little harsh for my liking. (I'd say it doesn't match the reference photo but that's not really fair as overall I took quite a few intentional and unintentional creative liberties between my reference photo and the final product.) Anyway. Once I had layered enough various shades of purple and bluish-white on this thing to make an eggplant and blueberry salad jealous and fed myself up with the mountains, it was 4 a.m. and I was tired and so I decided to let what I had dry overnight and then finish it the following day. I did wrap my tiny 6-well palette up in a plastic baggie to preserve the mixed paint that hadn't already dried just in case I looked at the painting with fresh eyes and couldn't help but touch it up some more. But fortunately, that didn't happen. Instead, I used some washi tape to make a mask over the mountains and then broke out a bottle of white ink to splatter some stars across the sky, because I knew the white acrylic paint was a serious risk that was likely to not work out the way I wanted it to. (In this case. I have used white acrylic paint before that would've probably worked just fine using the same splatter method, but I didn't want to take the risk with how not-pigmented this white was.) And then I went in with white gel pens to emphasize a few stars, add some white spots in that I wasn't able to do with the paint, and I did end up adding a little extra highlight to some of the mountains in the vain hope of making them look a little better. This is where the title comes in; I think I got a little carried away with the highlight on the mountains vs. the stars in the sky, and so instead of the traditional "snowfall/snowy" mountains, I thought calling them "starfall" mountains might make more sense based on the visuals. One that was done and I was confident that everything was dry, I went over the whole thing with some gloss-finish ModPodge (which smells horrible by the way; the matte-finish ModPodge has a way less offensive smell to me), in two coats, and then re-applied my gel-pen signature in the top corner because for some reason the ModPodge just kinda wiped it off. I don't like ripping on a supply so hard, and I'm sure if you look at some other supply tests of mine that it's pretty obvious I try very hard to give the benefit of the doubt when I can. These just disappointed me on so many levels. Don't get me wrong; the end product still turned out decent, but that's because I more or less know what I'm doing. As I said before, I'm not confident that a beginner wouldn't be totally frustrated by these paints. And yet I can't deny that they're probably fine for younger kids that don't really care about proper acrylic painting, and that's really who they're probably for anyway. If nothing else, I can say this experiment has pushed me towards getting a better quality, wider color-selection set of acrylics to keep in my stash, because I really don't see these working out as a good stash set for me. It's going to be a tricky decision though, because I want something that'll give me the option to do a proper acrylic painting like this if I want to, but has a price I can justify even if I don't use the paints terribly often. So we'll see how that turns out for me further down the road. I really don't think I'll ever be primarily an acrylic painter (not because of this particular experience--there's just something missing that doesn't draw me into the medium like other mediums have drawn me in before), but sometimes you get an artistic itch and you just have to scratch it, and I have to admit that I don't think I've fully satisfied this itch just yet, so there may be more acrylic paintings to come out of me yet. ____ Artwork © me, MysticSparkleWings ____ Where to find me & my artwork: My Website | Commission Info + Prices | Ko-Fi | dA Print Shop | RedBubble | Twitter | Tumblr | Instagram

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gg-astrology · 5 years

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could u do a brief looking of nam taehyun too? I wish all winner, but I know you're tired. thank u!

Hey there! 💛💛 haha I probably won’t have time to do everyone in Winner, but I think Nam Taehyun is the one who’s solo now right? 💛 I can definitely do a brief look at him for you! 💛

[Below Cut: Nam Taehyun Brief Outlook]

Note: This is very brief and also just my own lil overview of everything, everyone can have differing interpretations, so please read with ur own discretions 💛

First of all we have a Taurus Baby!

Taurus Sun/Moon – Gemini Mercury/Venus (Mercury at 0′31) – Mars in Aries and Scorpio Jupiter rx

With Taurus Sun/Moon this is someone who is incredibly dependable, often resilient and has a good head on their shoulder.

Taurus Sun/Moon are often people who wouldn’t think twice about protecting those that they love, they have a hard time even giving up/separating themselves away from routine/habits that can sometimes be bad for them.

Mostly because both the ego/self-esteem, and the emotionality of the person (Sun/Moon) is incredibly stubborn and relies strongly on routine.

They look out for other people, nurture and care for them (Taurus as a Venus sign) — these people are inherently very giving, and may humbly decline any success/attribute that comes their way (depending on what it is).

They are – also, very fixed on finding comfort and security within their life. That’s part of the motivation with Taurus/Taurus— as ‘peace-loving’ as they can be they are always motivated to work-hard and get success– their measurement is in their stability, an apartment, a lifestyle outside of work, small hobbies/details in their life that fulfills them internally.

These people often need balance to live, and often compensating too extremely into something (like work, or lifestyle) causes them to feel dread/stagnant in themselves.

They need a life outside of things, y know? That’s part of the Taurus ‘happy with the little things’ motive/ideas. They want to have a life just outside, able to manifest/take control over their own security and comfort.

These people don’t do well with others pushing them to change their ways OR mind, they’re often too resilient and tenacious in their own ways to change.

Unless they made up their mind for themselves (which they’re often pretty cautious and slow in doing so– because they hate upsetting a routine more than anything) – no one could make them budge.

Considering his Aries Mars as well— retaliation to his self-protection, or attacks on others in his field of visions would drive him into action to ‘stop it’ immediately (physically or just, emotionally invested in other’s well being. Protective and sensual Taurus)

Food takes priority for Tauresean. But so does artistic expression, often these people have magnetic voices or musical abilities (Taurus rules the throat traditionally) having that in his ego and emotional gratification— both of these things hold an importance to him on a personal level.

Having the ability to express it out is always part of who he is– regardless of entertainment industry or nah.

The thing about Taurus is that they are inherently hard-working and tenacious, often expects hardship and to face it with stead-fast-nature that they have. This is because they desire results, or the ‘good burn’ of working that comes from being treated fairly/justly.

When the ego/self is in Taurus (Sun) that means that the material result/wealth (money/statues) is also important to an extent. Their self-identity comes with that, and often builds up based on their self-sufficiency, their independence away from others and what they can ‘make’ for themselves.

Their own ‘comfort’ is their driving force, being able to live the way they want to, comfortably balanced between working autonomously and having a life besides of working/grinding for themselves. Thus– you can kinda see why his mental health is much more important than money. It comes with comfort that Taurus thrives/seek. And it takes a lot to break a Taurus’s routine, honestly.

A note on aspect: he has his Sun-Neptune aspecting which – again– talks about his ego being tied to his musicality and expression. Honestly you can find a lot of artists with this placements, especially in personal planets and a tight conjunction.

With Taehyun it’s trine– so in a way, he’s always had this intuition for his career/musical opportunity for him at the front of his mind. Considering his Neptune in Capricorn, he dreams about making it big (which he did) but within that– he also desire to have balance/personal popularity that Taurus sun brings in as well. Wants to be respected for his musicality, and often times admired for his hard-working spirit/charm.

One of the biggest factor is his Moon opposition Jupiter– since we talked about Taurus I feel like that’s a good base to talk about this too right?

When his emotionality is in opposition to Jupiter’s social popularity, often time he’s emotionally at odds with the darker side of fame, of obsession.

Scorpio Jupiter brings a deeper search, especially sacrifices made and having an unorthodox view/belief/ideas as opposed to the norm. It can make the person’s emotionality uncomfortable having to be ‘tugged/forced’ on the leash of Scorpio Jupiter to ‘be’ a certain way, ‘act’ a certain way, ‘charm’ a certain way.

Scorpio Jupiter in opposition to the Moon can bring someone who slowly but eventually– emotionally distance themselves from obligations/things they have to do. The social/public obsession drains the Taurus emotionality, often times demanding more and more paranoia over the Taurus Moon until they can’t help but just be– numb to it all

It’s kinda like going ‘hey this is me :)’ and then someone going ‘ok but they said ‘hey’ so that obviously means SOMETHING’ and you explain yourself over and over until you’re just left….exhausted… because you just said what you said you know?

Moon-Jupiter as an aspect can also speak about over-indulgence in comfort as well, things and obsession over something else that they could ‘escape’ from the public/tension with. Especially combined with Sun-Pluto that can often live in fear of change, of feeling uneasy and that their life goes through so many tumultuous change (also in Scorpio).

The Taurus native with these aspects to Jupiter and Pluto may often find themselves more and more ‘complacent’ in their luxury, their comfort and become more ‘lazy’ over time.

Not to say that he’s lazy, just that when ones get drained over and over again you lose motivation to ‘pursue/push’ and do something about it.

Taehyun with his Moon sextile to Saturn– is quite capable of keeping his feelings on hold/in control until he can’t anymore. And that’s when he breaks.

Alot of his passion/drive has to do with his Gemini placements– Mercury and Venus. A lot of varieties and interest, often a healthy stimuli and uplifting spirit. These people are animated talker, jokester, can be a lil unconventional with how controversial they are- yet at the same time, they endear people to them because of their inherent honesty and forth-right nature.

Mercury-Uranus (trine) Supports his Sun-Neptune from earlier– with this marks a great singer/song-writer, since Gemini is domicile in Mercury (and Taurus is exalted in Moon) – Taehyun has a lot of romanticism and creative splurges, able to think and create visionary ideas and crafts.

Often a person who ties dreaminess of the imagination to the commonality of the world in a way that lets people ‘escape’ their life for a moment. It fuels him personally, and often can lead to someone being well-spoken, well-read but also inherently a lil scattered at the same time (a fool)

Mercury-Pluto makes him a little impatient, this is the only ‘change’ he can satisfy. It’s when his thinking and vision change, to a point sometimes that he doesn’t wait for anyone else to ‘catch up to him’.

Gemini can be a little like that, a little selfish and self-serving especially when they’re intrigued/interested in a new venture/venue. It can lead them to pursuing it rather aggressively, or rather – obsessively to some extent.

Same goes with Venus-sextile-Mars— often someone who has to ‘do the work himself’ in order to see it happening. Considering Aries Mars and Gemini Venus — he’s often temperamental when it comes to ‘getting things done’

Even though he’s patient and respectful, there’s a part of him that is stiff and doesn’t know how to ‘let up’ and get things down harmoniously.

Venus-square- Saturn often points to someone who can have a hard time ‘opening up’ sometimes.

Think about Gemini and consider that they are all sharp edges, fraught and cutting. They can sometimes cuts too deep into others and thus, ‘breaks down’ any stability that they’ve built because of it as well. Impulsivity is their worst enemy, yet at the same time he’s addicted to the motion/progression he makes when he ‘takes action’ for himself.

With Taurus talking about patience, comfort and grudges, while Aries Mars talks about emotional release, impulsivity and self-assertion. You get a combination of someone who’s quite contradictory.

Sometimes when others are looking in— his Gemini Venus/Scorpio Jupiter rx makes him seem unreliable or untrustworthy. His honesty can sometimes be seen as a ‘front’ because all the contradictorian nature discredit his hard work.

Despite how hard he tries to prove himself over and over again, he doesn’t see how change and learning/listening to others could benefit him (a disadvantage of Taurus-Scorpio opposition) he makes the same mistake over and over (behaviorally/routinely)– because he can’t understand/identify the underlying message others want him to take/make an effort to change.

Other placements: Virgo Chiron, Gemini Ceres, Libra Juno rx

Alrighty! 💛 Sorry for replying so late but here ya go! 💛💛 I hope you like it! 💛

#taehyun #nam taehyun #south club #winner #winner astrology #kpop astrology #anon #asks #winner scenario #winner imagines #winner reactions #taehyun imagines #taehyun reactions #taehyun scenarios

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