#i wanted it to be so much more ambitious but MY ART SKILLS PLUS MOTIVATION WOULDNT ALLOW IT

[eemmoorrii]

He looks like an upstanding citizen :]

#im ngl i wanted to kms while making this HBBDFBD #/HJ #i wanted it to be so much more ambitious but MY ART SKILLS PLUS MOTIVATION WOULDNT ALLOW IT #HARUMPH #also shout out to my artstyle changing every fucking post thats rlly fucking funny #william afton #fnaf #five nights at freddy's #purple guy #my art

[iced-squid]

An introduction to the characters of my (incomplete) story, The Chaos Magnet:

(I collaged together a mishmash of old art to make this. It's not very elegant but oh well.)

The Chaos Magnet is urban fantasy, with a magic weapons system (because I had very specific media fixations back when I was a teenager). Two secret organizations have been waging a centuries-long war to gather magic weaponry and find the Pandemonium Machine. Wyn Halford, the leader of the organization formerly known as “The Confederation of Angels,” is desperate to end the war. As he sets his plans into motion, he recruits his nemesis’s daughter and is dealt much more than he reckoned for.

I wrote the first draft almost a decade ago and edited it religiously, but I’ve currently uprooted the whole story and I’m rewriting it. If my art skills ever get better, I’ll make a webcomic.

This post mostly explains my characters’ relationships to each other. I made this diagram to make it easier—

—just kidding. This diagram is insane and confusing. I did it for the joke, but in retrospect, I spent a little too much time on it.

It's going to get reallllllllll long, so I'll break down their dynamics/background below the cut.

The main POV characters are Glade Gideon, Wyn Halford, and Arch D'Auvay.

Glade Gideon is the daughter of Henry Gideon (the main villain, a.k.a. Wyn Halford's nemesis). She's a runaway drifting from place to place until Wyn sends Arch to "recruit" her. She is kidnapped to the organization headquarters and forced to join the war against her father. Though she doesn't like her father, she holds resentment towards Wyn for kidnapping her. She befriends Arch despite his role in carrying out the orders because it is clear he lacks autonomy—plus, he's fun to annoy.

Arch is not amused with the new addition to headquarters or with the incessant interruptions to his reading time, but it has been long since he had consistent conversation. He is not willing to admit he likes the company, or that he likes seeing Wyn suffer the annoyances wrought by the new recruit.

Wyn deeply regrets recruiting Glade because she is a menace. She spikes his coffee with a new condiment every week and interrupts his paperwork process, asking him inane questions. He did not sign up for babysitting his enemy's daughter. Hoping she would prove to be of some use, he has Arch and Layla train her as he makes preparations to dismantle Henry Gideon's organization for good.

Extra:

Glade is convinced she can snap Wyn like the twig he is (if he didn't have magic powers of course). If only she knew the phrase "I want that twink obliterated." She would have so much fun.

Arch secretly partakes in the "condiment of the week" prank with zest. But he's so deadpan, Glade can't tell.

Wyn likes the pranks. At least, most of the time. He loves a break from the monotony of his work and the chance to be melodramatic.

The slightly older characters with intertwining fates who are all doomed by the narrative: Eno Vallerium, Layla Adderley, and Wyn Halford.

Eno's dead. But as far as the narrative is concerned, she's alive and well. Prior to her death, an seer told her the year she would die, so it came as no surprise to her. Knowing she would cease to be, she made every effort to stamp out her feelings for Layla. But she was not very successful. They have a few good months before her timely death. Eno is also well aware of Wyn and Layla's mutual feelings for each other, so they encourage it.

Layla was recruited into the organization when she was fourteen by Wyn, who had already been ambitiously running the organization for two years. She worked for Henry Gideon and was an utter slaughter machine, so Wyn saw her as valuable. In her youth, she followed excitement and ambition—motivations Wyn exploited. Unfortunately, with age and Eno's influence, her lust for murder has waned. It turns out, a quiet life is much better than a life of endless bloodshed.

Wyn was drawn to Layla's ruthlessness and ambition because it mirrored his own. They bicker often in their youth, usually with Eno on standby ensuring it won't devolve into a fight. Wyn and Layla both defend Eno fiercely, especially knowing her eventual fate. They don't know when they develop feelings for each other, but after Eno's death, they are determined to hang onto each other forever. Their relationship is a secret because they fear it will be exploited by the enemy.

Extra:

As of The Chaos Magnet, Layla and Wyn are engaged with rings inscribed with a commemoration to Eno.

Wyn has consistent morals and values he abides by, but Layla is genuinely a terrible person until she matures. She spends a lot of her life in a "frozen time" state, so she has a lot of time to think. They get on the same wavelength eventually and spend their free time chilling on a couch.

They're all just very tired.

These guys grew up together in the organization headquarters. Eno basically parented Eric, Arch, and Wyn. Wyn takes care of Arch and Eric when he grows older, but he also gradually becomes more distant, especially after the responsibilities of leadership are thrust upon him at the green age of thirteen.

Wyn and Arch were orphaned in the same night. Before dying, Wyn’s parents ensured they would make a safe trip to the headquarters, despite having retired from the organization because they didn't agree with the politics.

Eric and Eno were practically kidnapped for the organization’s needs. Eno doesn’t even know their own birth name.

They all grew up alongside each other, but the weight of responsibility divided them. Eno and Wyn learned to shoulder the burden of knowledge so Eric and Arch could live as carefree as they possibly could. Of course, they couldn’t escape from the organization’s work.

Arch and Eric were inseparable, training and spending every waking moment together. If one of them got sick, the other would not escape the illness either. This would have probably continued forever, if Eric didn’t get beaten to a bloody pulp on a mission. The last time Arch sees Eric is when his maimed body is swept up by a helmeted stranger on an enemy motorbike. He’s twelve when he blames himself for what happened.

Wyn is too busy with work to provide consistent emotional support and Eno tries her best, but she is contending with her own fate, which was coming for her in less than a year.

As a result, Arch spends all his teen years stewing in guilt and loneliness, with nothing but his books.

Extra:

Layla’s there too, but she’s horrendous at dealing with people’s emotions. She tries, but she’s not good at it. The most she can do is hold a box of tissues.

Clem shows up eventually, but she’d rather die than deal with touchy feely stuff.

I had no idea what to label these guys, but here they are: Eric Florentine, Arch, Glade, and Clem. They're the younger of the main cast.

Glade meets Arch and Clem her first day of being kidnapped. Clem is the resident healer who is mysterious and aloof, but as far as Glade is concerned, she has not wronged her, so she likes her presence. Plus, for a person prone to small injuries, having a magic healer around is handy.

They all meet Eric when he shows up at the doorstep with a potentially fatal wound. Arch has been sure he was dead for six years, but Eric is very much alive, and he has been made into an experimental subject for Henry Gideon's people. He's been on the run after he made an attempt to steal something important from Gideon. He's a charismatic dude, and he dislikes Wyn, so Glade automatically considers him a friend.

Clem likes to stay out of the drama and emotional bits of other people's lives as much as she can. She heals people, and that's it. Out the gang, she likes Arch the most, since she considers him the most normal one. He's quiet and doesn't stir up trouble (at least, until Glade's influence and Eric's reappearance).

Extra:

Clem is secretly bothered by the fact she can't take Layla in a fair fight. She respects Layla the most though.

Glade is usually only annoying when she is with Arch and Wyn. She's much more chill when conversing with both Eric and Clem because she admires them.

Wyn has known Eric was alive for four years. He never told Arch on account of the promise he made to Eric.

They're all a hot mess. It's a miracle Clem can stay out of it at all.

It gets a lot more complicated, but this is the simplified, spoiler-free version.

If you've read all of this...well I don't know, I guess I owe you a small sliver of my soul. Here, I'll put it on a fancy gilded plate for you.

#an iced squid's lore #my poor little ocs #i'll wring them until they got no more blood left #artists on tumblr #writblr

[jisungsplatforms]

[Chapter I: Let’s Party!]

Pairing: Producer/Music Major! Han Jisung x Photographer! fem! reader

Genre: NSFW! Smut; non idol au, college au, strangers to lovers

Warnings: strong language, use of alcoholic beverages, drunken antics, ?? jackson wang is throwing a party?? (jk he’s not aljsks. changbin is tho), nothing filthy in this chapter, unfortunately :/ just plot build up

Chapter word count: 2.6k words

Taglist: @hyunjeongins @seungstarss @es-kay-zee @hyunjinsplaything @formidxble @freckledquokka (want to be added? send an ask or a dm! <3)

Haven University; school of the elite. From the academically inclined to the artistically blessed, only those who were gifted with such talents are accepted to augment their potential. The perfect school for the sensational.

...And like every other school with young hormonal adults, also the perfect school for a good fuck.

“Another outstanding submission, Y/n! Keep up the great work!”

You smiled at your photography teacher, Mr. Kim, bowing humbly as you thanked him. You were proud. Praise after praise for your picture taking skills only heightened your motivation to be the best even more. Photography has always been your passion. Ever since you were given your very first camera at the age of 5 years old- which, in retrospect, was actually a toy camera, you already knew that it is something you would want to pursue.

In the middle of your teacher’s praises with another student, the bell rang. “Looks like we ran out of time, folks. Great job again, Seungmin. Everyone, class dismissed,” he said, jokingly using shooing gestures. “Now hurry up and get out of my face, you delinquents. Lunch time awaits. Go replenish your life force.”

You began gathering your belongings, slinging your precious DSLR camera around your neck. “Outstanding submission, young photographer.” You heard someone say. You turned around to see Seungmin grinning at you.

You snort out a laugh. “Thanks. Great job to you too, Seungmo.” Seungmin was about to respond when your instructor’s voice interrupted.

“Oh. Except Y/n. Please stay a little bit after class, for me, dear.” You and Seungmin shared a glance, nodding for him to go ahead without you. He pats your shoulder, bidding you goodbye. You continued packing your things into your bag. As the rest of the students left the room, you walked towards Mr. Kim’s desk, waiting for his word. “Hello, Y/n.”

“Hello, sir. You wanted to talk to me?”

“Ah yes. I wanted to ask you this,” your instructor paused, sitting on his desk. “How much do you love photography?”

You paused, wanting to convey the exact feelings you wanted to express. “Photography is an escape for me,” you answered. “It’s another form of art that helps people convey the emotions and stories people want to tell. Some people express their emotions through music and lyrics, others through paintings, and others through dance. For me, personally, I’m not all that good in any of those aspects, sir. That is why I work so hard when it comes to this class, and in photography in general.” You unconsciously caressed the camera slung around your neck. “And to me, the stories behind a photo is a lot more intimate in a way that I just can’t explain.”

“Because...this is the only way for you to express yourself? Is that what you’re trying to tell me?” You nodded. Mr. Kim hummed in thought. “I see.” He stood up and walked to you, placing his warm hands on your shoulder. “I admire you, kid.”

“You...admire me?” You were confused. The teacher admires his student? Isn’t it usually the other way around?

“Oh yeah. Is that hard to believe?”

“Uhm...Kinda, yeah.”

Mr. Kim laughed mirthfully, amused by your bewilderment and doubt. “Well, believe it. You have spunk. Soul. Your work impart emotions I have never seen from my other students before. You’re passionate about what you do, and I like that. You take digital arts very seriously.”

You laughed awkwardly, the amount of praise your instructor was giving you made you happy. “I do, sir. Kinda a shame not a lot of people even consider it an art.”

“Indeed,” he replied, sitting down on his desk. “Which is why I wanted to give you an impromptu assignment. I want to assign you a story telling type of assignment; to write a story using your photography skills, if that makes sense.”

“Hm, yes? I think I get a jist of what you're trying to tell me.”

“Excellent. I just want to use this to monitor your skills, Y/n. You’re a very talented person, the most talented I’ve ever had even. I just want to see how much of that potential you really have so I can help you blossom it into something greater.”

“Oh,” you draw out, somewhat understanding why he picked you. “I see, sir. I’m honored that you’ve picked me.”

“You should,” he joked. “Now, I want you to photograph the following- write or type this down before you forget.” You hastily whipped out your phone from your pocket. “Ready?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Okay. I want you to capture the perfect scenes. Give me something that gives you joy. Something that makes you emotional, good or bad or even both, if you can. Something you fear, and finally, something that you love unconditionally. These are all supposed to be different photos, by the way. Got that?”

You finished typing a few seconds later. “And...got it.”

“Awesome!” he smiled. “Just know that I’ll be giving you only 3 months to complete the assignment. I hope that this isn’t too much to ask of you, but I’m sure someone as ambitious as you doesn’t mind, right?”

“Nope, sir! Everything will be a-okay!”

“I’m glad! Now move along and get to the canteen already. I’m sure you’re just as hungry as I am.”

You giggled, making your way to the door. “Thank you sir! I’ll see you tomorrow!”

“Oh, finally! There you are! We were starving waiting for you!” You rolled your eyes at Minho, who immediately decided to pick on you the second you entered his field of sight.

“Shut up, you could’ve eaten without me you know?”

“Nah, cause what kind of friends would we be if you ate without you?”

“You just want to steal some of my food, don’t you?”

Minho scoffed and went quiet, prompting Hyunjin, Seungmin, and Jeongin to laugh. “Caught you red-handed, Hyung,” Hyunjin teased, which backfired immediately causing him to chant an apology after Minho gave him a look.

“So why did you take so long, Y/n?” Jeongin asked.

“Oh, Mr. Kim wanted to give me an extra assignment.”

“Extra assignment?” Seungmin questioned. “What for?”

You shrugged, sitting down. “Uh, to test me? I’m not sure but I honestly think that there’s something more behind it. Not in like a bad way, just to clarify. I mean, he did acknowledge that I’m the best in his class after all.”

Seungmin snorted. “I just know you meant that unironically.” You jokingly blew a raspberry at him.

“Of course Y/n is the best!” Hyunjin stuck his chin up. “Let’s be honest, anyone could be the best if they use me as their model!”

“Hey, Hyunjin? You wanna eat this straw?” Minho threatened, making Hyunjin shut up.

“No...?”

“Good. Get off your high horse, prince charming.”

The three of you laughed. “Poor Hyunjin,” Jeongin sympathized sardonically.

“Hyunjin please stick to dancing and uh- not dying,” you said. “I still need you alive for some more upcoming projects.”

“For me too,” said Seungmin. “I might start using you as my model as well.”

Hyunjin fake cried, “Y’all just like me for my looks!”

“I mean, there’s no denying you are incredibly handsome but we like your personality too, Hyunie, don’t worry,” you cheered him up, then turned to Jeongin. “What about you, Yeni? How’re you holding up now that Lix is gone?”

Jeongin gasped. “I miss him! I’m so lonely now, especially when I have theatre! I feel so awkward now that girls swarm up to me instead- and you know I’m a shy boy!”

“Hey! At least you’re more popular now!” Minho laughed.

“Well, now we have no choice but to remember Felix in our hearts,” Seungmin replied.

“I’m not fucking dead. I just switched majors!” the four of you turned to see Felix pouting at you all.

“Well, you’re dead to me!” Jeongin wailed. “Going from a theatre major to a dance major. How could you?!”

Felix chuckled, sitting down between Seungmin and Jeongin. “I’m sorry! You know I’ll still see you though, buddy!”

“Why don’t you just switch to a regular vocal major next semester, Yeni?” you asked.

“Nah. I originally did want to go for just regular vocal studies but, you know, even if I did accidently sign up for the class, I ended up finding something else I wanna do. Plus, theatre is surprisingly fun! You know, find something new that’ll change your life every day.”

“Yup! Especially since they often collab with the dance majors so we get to see each other a lot!” Hyunjin beamed while Minho nodded in acknowledgment.

“Oh, speaking of dancing,” Minho chimed in. “You guys wanna go to a party I was invited to?”

“No,” Seungmin immediately responded.

“No, not you, I knew you would say no. I meant the others.”

Hyunjin nodded, “I was invited to the same party you’re talking about, so yeah.”

“Can’t,” Felix replied. “I’m still getting used to my new major and I still have a few assignments to catch up on.”

Jeongin hummed in agreement. “Same here. We have a play coming up soon and I’m a lead this time, so I gotta stay home to rehearse as much as I can.”

Minho made a stank face, “Aww. Lame.” He turned to you. “What about you, Y/n? You down?”

You thought about it for a moment. “Yeah, sure. Why not?”

“Really?” All 5 boys looked at you incredulously.

“Yeah. I might find some inspiration while I’m there. Besides you know I’ll just be leeching off of Hyunie and Min the whole time.”

Minho and Hyunjin high-fived, cheering a quiet ‘yes!’ Hyunjin giggled. “This is great cause we might need a designated back up driver in case I get drunk and Minho-hyung abandons me!”

“Now that you’ve said that, I might seriously consider that,” Minho grinned. “We’ll pick you up at 8 sharp! Y/n!”

‘8:53pm’ You wanted to go home already.

The boys, true to their word, picked you up at 8:00pm. With little to no traffic- and the fact that Hyunjin actually got ready early so that they wouldn’t be an hour late- the three of you made it to the party around 8:20pm. Even then there were already a lot of people there.

“What the fuck. This house is huge!” you gawked. “Can you even consider this a house still?!”

Hyunjin shrugged. “I’d say this more of a mansion at this point.” All you do mutter a constant chant of ‘what the fuck. what the fuck’ over and over again. “Who’s house is this again, Minho?”

“Changbin’s, remember? Jisung said they’re celebrating in his house,” Minho replied.

“Well this Changbin dude is LOADED,” you mused. Even in the dim lighting, you could see the elegance of the house, which most likely costs more than your entire tuition. “I’d hate to be the one who has to clean up the place.” The boys lead you to the kitchen, helping you avoid the crowd cause, in your words, ‘ew yucky people’. There, they brought you to two men wearing all black, who were hanging out on the island counter. Their names were Changbin- the handsome rich boy who owns the house, the lucky bastard- and Chan- another handsome rich boy with the cutest laugh and dimples, both really sweet and hilarious men, whom you very much enjoyed talking to...

That was the last memory you had before it went downhill.

It took 33 minutes and 4 soju bottles later for Hyunjin to get drunk. Chan and Changbin were back at the booth, manning the song list for the night while Minho was somewhere with some guy in a red beanie doing absolutely nothing, so here you were: stuck babysitting your best friend. “Y/n! Y/n!”

You sighed hearing Hyunjin drunkenly call you. Again. “Yes, Hyunie?”

“I looove you~!” he sang while giving you finger hearts, rocking on the balls of his feet. You sighed again, rubbing your temple.

“Yeah yeah. I know. Love you too.”

“Y/n!” Your left eye twitched. You whipped out your phone from your bra to text Minho.

Me: You bitch.

Help me

Minho ho ho 😼: Hi

No

You glowered. You quickly glanced up to check Hyunjin, who was now sitting on the carpeted floor in front of you, counting his luscious black hair.

Me: He’s-he’s counting his hair… Please get him. It’s like watching a bird repeatedly hitting glass

Minho ho ho 😼: At least he’s not making any trouble now, is he?

He fucking jinxed it. Hyunjin stood up with a shocked look on his face. “What’s wrong, Hyunjin?”

“It’s my favorite song!” he cheered, starting to dance along. You have to admit, even when he’s drunk, he’s still an exceptional dancer. Texting Minho a quick ‘fuck you’. You put your phone back between your breasts to go back to monitoring him, preparing yourself in case you needed to tackle Hyunjin down.

“Heyyy, Y/n!” Minho suddenly draped his arm around your shoulder. Taking your eyes off of Hyunjin, you glared at your lazy, backstabbing friend, shoving his arm off of you.

“Asshole, you’re ten minutes late.”

“Oh I'm not here for Hyunjin. I need your phone.” You look at him audaciously.

“What the- why?”

“My-uh-phone died?” he said awkwardly, rubbing the back of his neck. Your eyes briefly flickered towards Minho’s friend, who, in return, looked down bashfully, red faced. Hm. Weird. You rolled your eyes, nonchalantly reaching into your shirt to get your phone. Minho didn’t even hide his grimace. He cringed, “It’s warm...and wet?”

“Shut up. I’m sweating, okay? And I don’t have any pockets on me.”

Minho nodded, going back to his little friend. Before you could scold him, you heard Hyunjin screaming. You turned around to find him running to the front door. Oh shit. You started pushing people to run after him

You groaned in disgust, wanting nothing more than to get the hell out of here. You pushed your way out of the crowd, cringing at the feeling of touching numerous dirty, unknown people. Where in the world is the fucking exit? In the midst of the sweaty, drunken bodies, your eyes met. It was like time had stopped; no one within the vicinity seemed to not have mattered anymore. With just a smirk and a flirty wink from the chubby-cheeked boy in the red beanie, you knew…

...you just had to fuck him

Hold on, Y/n. Your friend might get fucking ran over! You snapped out of it. With a flustered face, you continued shoving your way through, wrangling Minho on the way. “Come on, fucker. You’re helping me. Let’s go,” you sneered while Minho complained.

After 30 minutes of chasing and wrestling, the drunken beast was tamed. The night ended with Minho driving you all home instead while you and Hyunjin cuddled in the backseat against your will. Minho took great pleasure in knowing that he wasn’t Hyunjin’s cuddle buddy, laughing every time you tried unlatching yourself from him, which made the long haired boy cry. Your sadistic friend dropped you home first, apologizing for not being much of a help tonight. “To make it up to you, I have something for you,” he suspiciously said, wiggling his eyebrows, before giving your phone back and driving off.

You relaxed on your bed, happy that you were rid of those dirty, smelly clothes. You grabbed your phone to text Minho. Assuming that the messages app was left on your conversation with him, you started texting, not paying any mind to the fact that the chat was blank.

Me: Thanks for taking me I guess. I didn’t get anything other than unwanted kisses from Hyunjin ew but it’s aight.

Speaking of aight…Do you think you can give me your friend’s number? 👁👁 The one with the red beanie.

Cause sir, not to be nsfw or anything but he is one fine ass man that I’d like to fuck

Almost immediately, the three bubbles appeared. You were surprised that Minho would reply that fast, thinking we was still on the road with Hyunjin. The reply you got, however, made your heart drop.

Min’s hoe: uh...hi? 👋🏻

this is minho’s “fine ass friend with the red beanie” 👁👁

Shitshitshitshit SHIT

[NEXT CHAPTER]

A/n: Sorry no smut in this chapter just plot build up :(( (which i’m a sucker for) and a lot of dialogue. But Trust me. Everything written in this chapter will fall into place with the future chapters. And who know, next chapter might be 🥵

#stray kids smut #stray kids fanfic #stray kids imagines #stray kids scenarios #stray kids series #skz scenarios #skz imagines #skz fanfic #skz smut #han jisung smut #han jisung series #han jisung scenarios #han jisung imagines #han jisung x reader #Late Night Indulges

[captainkurosolaire]

I challenge you to pick five Tumblrs in your social circle and tell them something you admire about their blog!

Only 5? I could probably do 500. However, that's determined by what's considered my social circle. I'm often in my head being incredibly social continuously is really a challenge of mine. I'm always actively marching to something, my flame of passion when I have it, I can do some crazy stuff but it diminishes relatively quickly, so I try to cling. But I'll up your thing and list 25 of my fave people. Ask me this same thing in a Month, I'll keep doing 25, until I do all the people. How about that? (If anyone wants to be taken off mention let me know.)

@eligos-venator

- Has one of the most intelligent and sophisticated minds, I've had the pleasure to know. Literally admire all his aesthetics, work, head-cannons, ideas. It's only a benefit that the dude shares some OC characteristics to my own (Winning features). I really enjoyed the short-thread we did. It was incomplete, mainly because of my faults. I want to actually be better to give him a proper delivery and RP worth his time, but he's incredibly worth the investment of eyes.

@mischiefandmystics

- If there was a Mount Rushmoore of writers who kept me in this endeavor, encouraged me. Sun'ra is one of them. His characterization skills, writing, the delivery and how believable his character is, they're masterful acts.

@mishivymendi

- I wouldn't be nearly tamed or as creatively freed if it wasn't for this gem. She broke my shell, I really didn't at a time ever see myself being anything really beyond a smut writer, but Mishi not only saw potential in me, but brought it out. Her stories and world's she brings to life are so majestically colorful.

@asymphonyofash

- My go-to. He's another pillar individual who saw things in me past just the obvious perception, (Probably second longest XIV RPer I know.) Taught me a lot of the lore, I shot him up and he's sort of become my stapled rock. He's right aside Sun'ra met them about the same, both took me under their wing's as I quietly observed and absorbed.

@lavender-hemlock

- We're always up and front with each other, never feeling like I couldn't say anything around, extremely rare to share that these days. Her gif's are legendary, something on my own terms I want to soar in quality. The writing she does is astounding. Character has so many mysterious pages that are quite addictive to want to explore and learn them. (Encore 20 below-cut)

@under-the-blood-moonlight - Her sweetness and artwork and overall is just a friendly presence to be around. I cherish them so much. One I can jive with more darker undertones with. She's one the most hardworking and ambitiously creative people. I'd mail them infinite hugs if could. Thanks for being you! @roxinova - I owe a lot of credit to her. She's constantly OOC and everything was nudging me too be more inclusive to things and involved heavenly. It's rare for me. I'm really horrible about that my autism sets me back socially, I constantly will be drowned by the next day and be reverted back to better off alone, that's my major crux and weakness. But her thoughtfulness, these things, aren't ever foreign to me, I do pay attention probably better than any would ever give me credit. She's a beacon model to have as a friend. @corpse-dancer - Haven't ran into many words with them, but her character, screenshot game, expressiveness, they're all a marvel to constantly see, alongside her attitude and bringing life character. I do think if I were better, we would click quite splendidly. They've recently reminded and motivated me to pick-up my daily-practice, or try too. Keep being a rockstar. @fair-fae - Few who wouldn't know who she is in this community. She's been in my opinion a huge core. I'm certain she's inspired many who weren't even RPers too try it by seeing her at the Quicksands or elsewhere, a tyme ago. Making no exception, I was even one of those. I used to be in QS every-single day and was often doing my shameless stuff. Though her presence first did show me there's a lot more. I admire her in all fields. Also appreciate her adopting me to the FC and her always thinking of others and giving events, or her aesthetics and portrayal, its the epitome of swan elegance. @thorcat - One of my most treasured friends. Been RPing with them for a longtime. There's never anything complicated between us or a rift of drama, it's just let's go and have fun. We really mesh well, I've welcomed nearly ever character and got the privilege to RP with nearly all them. They always open up envelope and help me, settle on back and just laugh. Whether used to be waking up to their characters humping my afk one or use randomly having a hardcore banter between Ufah and Captain and capturing them as a voidal pet. Memories with them isn't something I'd ever want to lose. I love ya! Never stop enjoying life for anything. @lukawarrioroflight - I get in the gutter find myself lacking motivation or writing, discouraged even... But I never have felt, I could ever do any wrong with this person, they bring the light out of me. So no matter what, how many hospital-beds I yearly visit, it's because of this rare nature, that I come back, even if they're the only one's ever to read my stuff. I would do it for them alone. @scholarlybreadbun - I've only been back recently and they've so much warmth. Their presence is the sun of inviting. The couple and posing all the shipping that stuff makes me even melt. I'm not particularly talented in regards to posing couples, but I took notice of them along time ago and set on quietly improving. Really like them for them, wouldn't ever want them to change that. Ideally look forward to be in their orbit longer so I can bask in them. @seascrapes - Been mutual with them for a while. Their aesthetics and character is all S+ level. I appreciate throwing back tagged prompts with them, one of many people I really think would be enjoyable to collab with any other seafarers. The artwork and pieces of Tal Brook, are breathtaking as ever exceptionally too, not to mention. Love your stuff matey, you're a king. @mai-takeda - Is a myth. Her absolutely sheer friendliness and her attitude, are so positive influencing, I was so thrilled to be welcomed with her and boosted by them early on. I couldn't see myself, wanting to exist where they didn't have happiness like the same she always delivers by just doing so many soft-things. Not to mention her writing... She's a whole world to throw yourself gazes

under. @zhauric - It doesn't go far either without the same breath of Mai, I could say about Zhauric. He's someone worthy to look-up and also recognize they're passionate and inviting, hoisting up literally everything. Could easily find any of their characters comrades with my own, or jiving alongside. Not to mention last XIVWrite, they slaughtered it. So enjoyable to read them all. I like how organized their blog is too, motivated me recently to redux my entire thing. @cadrenebula - They have so many diverse characters and their entire roster is vibrant and is imbued with a massive flux of life. They are able to encapsulate so many character's voices and portray them so effectively too, I really admire that greatly. They've made me think bigger and try myself recently at actually undertaking a huge roster of characters too. I've taken many breaks, but I always am so graciously returned often with them close-by and that's so incredibly sacred. I've seen a lot of people get discouraged or quit, leave, departure, etc. But they always seem to have a bigger house then they had last I took a break and I enjoy peaking in. @silvernsteel - Her artist and gif-work are awe-aspiring, there's little unrecognizable by her photo-sets and edits. They helped me even tip-toe into uncharted with giving me the recipes to try incorporating gifs into my arsenal. Plus so delightfully pleasant to actually talk with and just chill. I want nothing less in life, than the beauty they give, to be returned to them for eternity in all their glorious air. If ever needed anything of me, they've got me. @spotofmummery - We talk about passion or friendliness or overall a person to even remotely try to be, I got to include them. Their web-series and writing, screen-work, everything they do is fantastic. And that's furthered back nearly any I've met showcase or immortalize how just genuine of stellar person they are. I wish them always the energy to create and sparks. @snow-covered-moon - They've never been anything less but absolutely a diamond to know. I enjoy their character, their almost always abundant of energy that's very rub inducing. Their WoL character stories, writing, screen-shots, everyday they open up a new pandora box of joy, there's no mistaken love behind their character and that's infectiously easy to also enjoy something when the author does too. Always healthy to be around, I never feel short of vitality when they're close-by. @letheofthelost - Always cheerful or least encapsulates with me, they're a carnival ride. Just pure epic story-telling and engaging equally as passionate, constantly writing characters, not looking for anything outside of RP or anything really just being their selves, they fade all others. I love their presence, them as a person. Enjoy any character they'll ever come and throw under me, or a change of pace. Always feels easily understandable between one another. @crow-iv - Together we're an unfiltered, unstoppable wake of pure passionate writers and art. But I would say they're far ahead of me, in every regard. Already able to portray multiple characters in a scene and do such in-depth thinking, alongside even sketch or draw right afterwards or a scene. They're so talented, huge reason I set-out on giving them a Crew of cast and actual stories to-tell when I'm actually caught up and if they interested and we both have the room, I really think if further myself, I can be better and supply more for them to draw and I want to see them soar. I want to give them all my improvements and effectiveness. @trishelle - They've such a reinforcing personality and aura around them that easily bolsters anything that dares thinking they're about to be depleted so energizing. Aesthetics, characters, all them are so lively that further compliment their own mun's great welcoming presence. Worth hundreds of smiles and stars, keep high. Wish I had more time to dedicate to learning you! But I do notice and appreciate you. @fracturedfantasia - One of my people, I like to retreat and just talk my full

head-cannons with or learn, share insightful and inquisitive thoughts about philosophies and multi-culture things. Or plotting and in-general, they're a well of information and brimming ideas, they are every making of what makes a quality friend. When you can generally be open-about-all that's a real one right there. Their characters and tarot readings, I always would implore if they're offering. Thanks for giving me any-time. You're truly a treasure. @violet-warder - Never have even came to words with them yet unfortunately but didn't mean as a mutual, I haven't admired all their screenies, writing, or the aesthetics they bring of their character. Glamours is real end-game, I like all what you've done and put together. I care strictly about what represent and give, I don't want to see them ever think anyone want's them gone, they are abundantly so talented and possess things only they can deliver. I think recently came back too, and I'm glad to share, hopefully, overtime I can build you better up. Or eventually even talk, but I'm certain you are a busy-body person too, so we're relatable. @layla-grey - I have a lot of underline issues that set me back as a flawed person, but I've never not been anything but someone who's open, it's why I always do include my f-list in anything or etc. I'm not here to present this facade, and really don't care to be an image crafted by another. No one as of recently or now, am I close with as an RP partner or friend with then this stunning masterpiece. I never let-up on story-telling or anything so I can eventually use my Crew or other Characters, to give them anytime a master entertaining day, they push me to not be short-changed. IC and OOC I would devote my full attention too cause they've never shed from me. Didn't ever matter how much silence or anything, they're always around. And don't expect anything out of me or pressure. Just accept me and I equally share that sentiment, I want you to have everything in this world has to offer. ----- This is just a fraction of people, I've paid attention, noticed or know. I've been around in this Community for many years. There's a lot of things I could say about it, more probably then anyone else. But what matters to me, is recognizing the people who are here, that work hard, build others up, support, constantly are a beam. I don't need to interact with everyone, to know when someone is generally out for good. Or they're out for bad I've learned inquisitiveness longtime ago, I had to survive and remain afloat. I just go out and be me, and along the way, I get to find people like these, who help bring out the best me. I am nothing without these people, creators, writers, artist. I'm a terrible friend, horrible person, I don't have the energy to interact NEARLY with as much as I'd like with you all, If I could clone myself, or if things were different, I would drop it all to be in your orbits more if could. But, do know I appreciate you. And even if you ever do depart from this whole community or anything, know that anything you share, or give, that stuff does matter, somewhere, someone was aspired, if nothing else, by me. ONLY you can give the worlds you see and I am thankful. Do love yourself.

#I acknowledge you #Love you #Keep doing you #Asks answered #I'm the one guy who's never not going to be filtered or unspoken #To many people have left or been broken #Don't you ever think about it. #There's so many many more #But I'll recharge for next time

[thedinanshiral]

My personal DA4 wishlist + thoughts

I’ve been teasing this post for a couple of weeks over at Twitter, i’m the worst! But anyway, since game journalism has decided to confirm, once again, that the next Dragon Age game will be set in Tevinter like that’s breaking news, now’s as good a time as ever to write all this down.

Locations: Tevinter, clearly. It’s been pretty much a given since the end of Trespasser in 2015, with that scene where the Inquisitor stabs a map on a table directly on Tevinter as they promise to go after Solas to stop him. But also concept art and several stories from Tevinter Nights heavily imply Antiva, Nevarra, the Anderfells, and maybe Rivain. For those of you who don’t know your Thedosian Geography 101, that’s basically Northern Thedas. And it makes sense, since so far for three games straight we’ve been first stuck in Ferelden, then the coast of the Free Marches, and later the rest of Southern Thedas. We’ve never been North, only heard of it. So in DA4 i’m sure we will finally be able to visit.

Characters: If we’re going to Tevinter, we must meet Dorian again, maybe meet Maevaris Tilani as well (previously only seen in comics), judging from the latest comics series, i’m hoping for Fenris too. And going by the latest teaser trailer, we might see Varric again. As for characters that so far we have no news of, i’d like to see Cole, the Iron Bull, and if by any chance BioWare feels like blessing us with a Hawke/Fenris reunion i might just die happy.  I’d also very much like to see the Inquisitor, but more on that later.

Companions: considering concept art and the latest teaser trailer, plus Tevinter Nights stories and new characters, we have an interesting repertoire of new potential companions. A Tevinter mage, an ancient elf (like a temple guardian) or a dalish elf (like Strife), a Nevarran mortalitasi or spirit, Antivan Crows, Lords of Fortune (new faction, kind of like treasure hunters), Qunari lady, maybe an alchemist or shapeshifter, Grey Wardens (possibly a dwarf), a liberated or escaped slave, a Siccari (Tevinter spies/assassins)..even past agents of the Inquisition could return. 

Plot: We know Solas wants to take down the Veil. We know there’s two archdemons left, and Grey Wardens are regaining some spotlight in concept art lately. We might have to fight on multiple fronts simultaneously and be strategic about it. Solas might even unleash a double Blight just to keep us distracted while he focus on his own goal, who knows. But many other things are happenig in the margins and all over the place. The Qunari Antaam is having a crisis with some of its members supposedly going rogue, the order they’re so proud of is breaking up, and the whole of Northern Thedas is facing an imminent threat of invasion. Tevinter is still dealing with remnants of the Venatori and might soon be dealing with a slaves rebellion and/or a political and social reform (Magisters Dorian and Maeveris have been working wirh the Lucerni, a group aiming to restore and redeem Tevinter). The Antivan Crows -the de facto rulers of Antiva - may be dealing with a succession crisis, as their First Talon, a powerful feared and respected but old lady, might not be around for much longer and seems her chosen heir has died before his time. Meanwhile in the Anderfells nobody’s heard anything from the Grey Wardens’ HQ at Weisshaupt since the end of Inquisition, and as told in the novel Last Flight, the sudden reappearance of griffons may have had something to do with that radio silence. So you see, get ready for another +100 hours long game because BW has plenty of stuff to keep us busy with. But in short, DA4 seems will be about primarily searching, finding, and dealing with Solas. Regardless of what you decided at the Exalted Council in Trespasser, the Inquisition or what’s left of it is most likely the group orchestrating that mission. As it was so clearly stated then, they need new people Solas doesn’t know so he can’t foresee their actions, so it’s possible the DA4 protagonist is a new agent or a third party hired to do what the Inner circle can’t due to their familiarity with Solas in the past. But at the same time -and this is assuming we get to find Solas in this game - i definitely think the Inquisitor could easily show up again. No, losing an arm doens’t mean they’ve retired forever, prosthetics do exist in Thedas, a world where you can combine dwarven craftmanship with enchantments, seriously, i don’t ever want to hear “but they lost an arm” ever again as an excuse to write them out. And no, marrying Cullen or joining the Red Jennys is no impediment to join the “Stop Solas” Squad; the end of Trespasser means something, mainly that this is personal. Be it they loved them as lovers, as friends or ended up hating his guts for using and betraying them, the Inquisitor’s relationship with Solas makes this very personal, and so having any other character do that face off would cheapen all of it, all that bittersweet angsty development and expectations of either revenge or closure. That moment should happen between those two. It adds a ton of motivation due to their past historyas well, something a new protagonist would lack entirely.  My personal best hope is for a sort of dual protagonist thing, say we play new protagonist for most of the game but a selected missions or scenes where we play as the Inquisitor once again and take over for key and heart-wrenching dialogue options. My second best hope is for the Inquisitor to show up as playable for the moment we catch up with Solas. My third and final best hope is for the inquisitor to be a sort of advisor but more like new protagonist’s boss/employer to whom they report back to and get new missions from. The Inquisitor can be stuck in meetings for the most part of it, i just want to know they’re there, behind a door, super busy but there. A cameo like Hawke’s in Inquisition is the bare miminum i can take, anyhting less than that like a mention in a sidequest description or a footnote in a codex entry would be a total  injustice. 

Romances: I’m open for pretty much anything, as any good BW fan would be. But i’d like romances to feel more alive in the sense that they don’t abruptly get stuck once you exhaust all related quests and dialogue options. As much as my Adaar liked that spank from the Iron Bull, that it was the only thing they could share after their romance was locked was a bit..meh. I liked Dorian’s tho, because his gave one the option to talk a bit, go for a walk, gossip, and sure, it all happened off-screen, and there were limited possibilities, but it was nice and made their relationship feel a bit more real, like they had more to it than kissing and stuff. It happens in most games, once you secure a romanceable companion suddenly you run out of things to do and share with them, and you get stuck with the same 3 lines of dialogue over and over again. There should be a way of solving that.

Side quests: i’m ok with fetch quests initially as it is a good way of forcing the player to go out and explore huge maps, but i’d also like the fetching to have some meaning other than checking things off a list. I want to explore many ruins, and -can’t believe i’m actually saying this- i want a Fade quest. Wait! I know what you’re thinking but don’t kill me just yet, here’s my idea: what if we could visit the Fade at certain locations to witness memories or meet with spirits and recollect information on Solas, his past, his present? Both to understand him better (keep in mind we’ll most likely get a new protagonist who isn’t familiar with him like we are as players) and try to locate him or predict his next move. It would be i think i great way of having visions of Arlathan in its golden age, maybe seeing some of the other Evanuris, how they interacted with each other and with the elves in their service, what really happened ...i just want that sweet, sweet lore, i need it.

Technical stuff: ok, graphics will be amazing for sure, but i also would really really like: better, more varied and longer hairstyles, PLEASE. Body sliders, it’s damn time we get them. Mounts that actually make a difference! Let staves blades make damage in combat, I’M BEGGING HERE. Combined classes, MAGICAL ROGUES! A homebase we can fix up/build on/redecorate as fully as possible (Skyhold was great and i love it to pieces but why were those walls NEVER repaired????) . More casual outfit options, idk i love to dress up my characters, maybe some transmog? A day/night cycle and please i would love to see Thedas’ second moon, also weather variations depending on the region. Yes, i’m ambitious.

Gameplay: i’d like more AI options for companions, but not quite like in DAO, that was too much and i rarely used it. I’m curious how they’ll do combat this time but i know for sure i don’t want the kind of combat that has me going almost frame by frame pausing at every second, it’s annoying for me. I want large areas like in DAI but with a bit more stuff to see and do although one of my favourite maps is the Hissing Wastes so i won’t complain if we get a literal desert but i’d also like it to have secrets hidden around, make me work to find and solve them, i love exploring, i jump and click on EVERYTHING like i’m still a kid playing Monkey Island. A companion in concept art seems to be holding what looks like some form of rifle, so i’m curious how they’d incorporate that in the game. I know Tevinter has the magics and dwarves have the skill, a firearm is totally within the possibilities in-game without breaking any lore; also super curious what sort of skill trees Crows or Lords of Fortune could have, are they rogues, or warriors, or both??

So far, that’s what i got in my head.Well, most of it anyways, i may have missed something but this post has to end somewhere lol

What’s in your head? Feel free to share! Have you been thinking on how you’ll create your next protagonist? All i can think of is magical rogues and that  glowing bow was all the hype i needed.

#Dragon Age #Dragon Age 4 #Tevinter #da4 wishlist #DA4

[raikoren]

some onions bout the bnha manga since im reading it in jp nao

the more i read of bnha the more i realise. i kind of fucking hate this series. it’s got all the ingredients of the classic old big 3. brilliant art, a cool character here or there (sometimes), bursts of muddled clunky progression but a cool fight to soothe the pacing and the mostly frustrating boring uninteresting pussy story choices! the sloppy sort of toothless writing only shounen jump editors can give me. it really truly reminds me of how i felt reading bleach .. but it hasnt got the same charm to make me forgive it. the artist is really really talented though absolutely adore some layouts especially when handguy is included and we get some cool reaching illustrations. he and his team are commendable for making such polished work week in week out and its genuinely so fun to read from an art perspective and i really like the fact he leans very heavily into a much looser style that makes everything stretch in a satisfying way as if its designed for animation despite being so complex in its illustration.

its one of those series that is painfully mediocre shounen and you can immediately tell that by the fact that even in this hammy nonserious plot, somehow, the female characters still get completely fucking shafted as excpected. they literally do almost fuck all and the big three characters that get the most development and are considered in-universe ‘main characters’ all happen to be male despite the entire main cast supposedly being the absolute best of the best at the best of this top superhero school.

yaomomo is probably one of the most egregious examples. a character whos top of the class, who got in on recommendations (just like the other deuteragonist) with only three other students making the cut and her big character conflict was that she for some reason, felt inferior to todoroki shouto, whose initial character arc revolves around the fact that ‘he’s not trying his best’. it’s notable that todoroki is never considered to be some freak of nature genius in the same way other characters, he’s impressive but there are stronger. but for some reason, his superiority over yaomomo is pivotal to her character. she doubts her own decision making skills compared to his due to losing so badly at the sports festival against fumikage.

now lets see here: this fucking emotionally constipated idiot who is noted in writing to not using his full potential since he has no motivation to actually win, handicapping his own abilities for most of the time due to crippling personal issues, who ALSO completely jobbed at the festival and gave up at the last match against bakugou and suffered a humiliating defeat because he lacks shame and conviction and who ALSO got in on recommendations? todoroki is an interesting character in his own right, hes strong but his flaws are glaringly evident and interesting. but for some reason he gets elevated to this position of being yaomomo’s ‘wall’.

hes not a team player, yes hes notably perceptive but to position the realtionship between momo and him like this it feels like such a pointless angle to work in cause its so antithetical to yaomomos whole characterisation and contradicts her entire background for .. what? shes got such a strong natural-leader type personality or she is attempting to have one despite the author somehow forgetting. yes she’s nervous and panics sometimes, but i think her entire character arc is intended for her to overcome this as the main crux. there is no doubt that yaomomo is strong. she is excellent as a leader, works extremely well in a team, has a level head and every single time we see her the author always brings it back round to the fact she is an excellent strategist and everyone looks to her to make a tactical decision. almost like her entire character revolves around leadership and self-confidence.

but compared to how shes portrayed against a ‘tactician’ like midoriya for example you would literally never guess that about her unless they didnt spoonfeed it to you that yes, this character is supposed to be smart sorry we keep making her look inept despite her entire character skill and ability being completely and utterly centred around this main concept teehee.

even compared to yoarashi (who i love), who also got in on recommendations, she doesnt get the same level of merit in the fiction. shes never truly made out to be a big deal in the same way the others are which not only fucking blows but makes the story more and more of a grating power up treadmill like a classic shounen jump manga without any of the charm or love. interesting characters like yaomomo who have clear visions are easily pushed aside and their traits sidelined to put more emphasis on other characters.

plus when she does get to make a big decision the narrrative acts like ‘oh was it even the right choice?! did we even make it worse!???’ which would be an interesting introspection for the headstrong characters who jump straight into shit, a reprieve from the individual bullshittery they can pull off without consequence but even though we set this character up specifically to make the right tactical decision in a pinch were not even gonna give her that satisfaction of being a HERO in this situation in this hammy feel-good plot cause thats reserved for the cool main character. its truly fucking unbearable. in the next few panels the main big trio of strong characters are making thoughtless decisions left right and centre with no hesitation or comment from the narrative with no internal struggle but here we are .. at what should be the culmination of a character arc that just .. falls fucking flat. for one of the bigger characters in the supporting cast of the series.... man the writing is just so poor.

you could say that trying to set up some linear character development where ‘girl is strong > gets confidence shaken > confidence comes back’ struggle contrasting against her ojou-sama calm and secretly playful demeanour is meant to be interesting and give her depth but honestly its just played straight in the most truly boring way but its ok! todoroki said keep your chin up queen and shes fine now. hes gonna go save aizawa-sensei with no input, no plan and be a hero because being hero is just about being the main character! everyone else can fuck off. she really needed that validation since she most likely will not have her own achievements, being recognised by this moron is her progression as a character despite her own character arc being infinitely more interesting and nuanced.

i do not expect a lot from a shounen manga sir, i came in with middling expectations and to look at some cool art whilst i awkwardly practice my japanese and yet. here we fucking are. i keep reading this hoping we get some comeuppance or some result but man. i feel like bnha is actually one of the series i wont bother keeping up with at all. the practice was really good! dont get me wrong its a great light read but im honestly surprised at how skewed the actual story is compared to fanworks. i just wanted some easy jp practice but i became weirdly invested in this probably cause i have a huge bias with cool character designs and the anime production was so ambitious.

o yea and one other thing. with tsu, ochako and nejire being introduced as going on the hassaikai raid but then completely sidelined at the first boss, essentially being relegated to being the mob charas that fits the thematic needs of that one random villain character it was sooo fucking lame. it really felt like the midboss had more thematic weight than these three girls first big fight. they were truly only there to fit the ‘lust’ theme they couldve been replaced by anyone else with tits.

in that arc too, midoriya definitely stepped on my toes the most since he took up moments that i thought would be more meaningful and appropriate with the other dot-eye dude that fell compleltey flat with him, got to use possibly the coolest fucking villain as a beatstick meter to show idk he had even more of a god mode i guess sometimes thanks to taking eri into battle instead of ykno relying on the other UA students and also giving them time to shine rather than interspersing flashbacks and shit before every meaningful fight to show ‘hey look how much this character has grown’ in the most cop out sort of storytelling. jirou i think at least gets some life written into her with meeting her parents and the ua school festival arc showing her talents and passion but shes barely utilised too and hagakure is a literal noncharacter her gag is barely even included half the time. mina gets some characterisation but even then its in the form of through another male character, kirishima, and in both instances its like the two are fighting for the spotlight of relavance which is a shame cause theyre both cooooooooooooool aaaaaaaa. every single girl character just feels like an ‘add-on’ or an afterthought, even moreso than the already forgotten secondary cast of which the most interesting dynamics and characters libe (denki and fumikage are cool!).

plus one gripe is that literally 5 separate girl characters have the same “oho they have to take their clothes off for their quirk to work ohooohgoho! so nautghty guess it cant be helped” and that just makes me like. you fucking suck at this bro just be horny with your whole chest making them have a flimsy embarassed half-excuse to be horny is lame. if you wanna make horny characters just fucking do it! enough of this stupid preamble you have to shoehorn in to every character every fucking time. just make it slutty and move on. there’s no need to be so annoyingly coy about it. also UA is the best most prestigious hero course and the girls who are going to become the top pro heroes go to their internship and its a fkn beauty commercial and its like. if they were at least building towards some commentary that female pro heroes are treated less seriously than their male counterparts like with mt.ladys flirting and her immediate paparazzi who takes pics of her ass, or to show that to become popular it means some level of corporate gameplaying and fanservice, it could be something but theres literally zero effort to comment or build on it at all its literally just presented as is and played straight. this is what it means to be a girl hero. that’s all. no comment.

i feel like miruko was a half-hearted attempt to remedy the lack of girl heroes that are actually strong and not bg props but its like it just feels like its been written as they go along with no overarching theme, nothing being built on or anything to say and it just feels so unsatisfying to read. characters that are introduced regularly get used at beatsticks to show how strong they are and get obliterated soon after to serve to show how cool and totally serious this new villain is ykno??? its so fucking tired a really classically shit kind of pointless circling narrative, like nothing truly has any weight to it and everything is meaningless before one for alls almighty relevance and power and whatever the plot needs has suddenly always existed lol dont worry bout it bro it was totally always there heres a star wars reference!

imo outside of the mangas art, the best thing about bnha is the anime adaptation with the exception of season4. the concept of having a long running shounen but giving it ample time, and a higher ambition in terms of production value and having a just absolutely fucking solid staff really make the first three seasons of bnha anime. naturally the voice acting and sound is anime standard gold but the production cant be understated it pulls so much of the slack. the direction and pacing of the first three seasons is honestly really well done, it feels like stuff builds up with ample time and we get much more focus on the background characters even in simple ways like introducing new group shots etc that give them much needed characterisation. one of my fave episodes is s3e3 which gives us a feeling of actual life and interaction as the kids train hard and get to spend an evening together having a bbq and its honestly full of just like group shots, framing in a way that really truly makes it a believable group of good kids trying their best at summer camp and gives almost everyone some much needed screentime.

one thing i noted as well is that the anime really likes to drive home important emotional points for certain characters through some great character acting - like yaoyorozus pivotal fight with fumikage is barely a passing glance in the manga whereas the anime really captures her desperation and panic as she tries her absolute best to react to the situation, not giving up even as shes overpowered only to realise in horror shes already lost. theres so much more weight and time given to this match and tbh its annoying that something that is meant to be so pivotal is barely glossed over in the manga since its so important to her future character motivations. it feels like when these moments and the strength of the supporting characters is lacking, the main story beats become more and more blatantly repetitive. some of the best parts of the arc are the bakugo rescue plan but were always served a fresh bland helping of izuku midoriya being the main character over utilising the strengths of other characters in this pivotal situation. it’s not like theres any fear of giving other characters ‘origin’ chapters and handing over the reigns away from midoriya it just for some reason, the author chooses not to really bother fleshing out characters who dont have immediate plot relavance or not the main three which makes the whole cast weaker.

imo even the anime is suffering from the source materials holes and its own slightly shoddy choices in direction with season 4 for some reason deciding to faithfully adapt the awful pacing of the overhaul arc and faithfully make it as dry as possible and devoting a solid 6 episodes to the frankly lame school festival arc despite it clearly suffering for time in the first half. it also includes my new least favourite trope of cutting the sound design completely to a slow vocal track along with the most eye wateringly boring fight pacing it was literally like. sir i want to skip this. you are going to make me watch this stupid fight with the dude whos character motivations got explained to me three seconds ago? with a new power up for green boy? with no sound design so theres even less weight to this whole fucking fight? and youre not even going to let me listen to you say run? how fucking dare you do this to me. the anime adaptation cannot stand on its own two legs with the source material alone. it needs strong direction to patch up the holes or stellar animation to distract me since without either its truly a weak weak show.

i know i already talked about it but really wish overhaul and his whole arc was handled better since i felt like it had promise. the wild shift in tone as i was reading was actually pretty surprising and the whole premise reminds me of how fucking nutty and exciting the yorknew city arc in hxh was for that series. the possibility of building how the actual underworld functions, which is tantalisingly never truly talked about in a world of cartoony heroes and villains was interesting and i was ready to see what organised crime with fucking superpowers could bring to the table plus all the new characters really looked damn cool. but overhaul himself, despite his fucking amazing intro and his title of no.2 in the underworld after all for one was in like 12 chapters and the arc literally served to introduce a plot device then fuck off with all its characters immediately having no impact at all and not even utilising the introduced concepts of the yakuza, organised crime and drugs in the age of quirks in any fuckin way. the majority of development came from fucking flashbacks literally seconds before a fight and they were scarce with anything interesting. like SIR WHAT A WASTE I HAD FINALLY FOUND MY GRIMMJOW AGAINST THESE UNSEXY LoV LOSERS WITH NO CHARISMA AND YET everyone keeps telling me that it was just a weak arc and the others are better. but having read them i think its just emblematic of the sort of writing style which prioritises having cool ‘moments’ for its beloved main character over a a cool interesting solid story that produces amazing moments and has the insane shounen payoff that you expect.  

my closing thoughts are that its at least a solid manga to read whilst eating breakfast a solid 3/10 and probably higher if you like little broccoli boy and for some reason want him to win. which i dont. he has a terminal case of unlikable bland shounen mc syndrome and the worst thing is that he didnt used to be like that, he grew into it. his whole character is such a waste to me, turning him into the chosen special one with the greatest quirk is the most boring path possible for someone who had such a strong desire and conviction to be a hero. that we see building themselves up out of their own merit for most of the series and then suddenly giving him the power of more quirks fucking sucks. having such a ridiculous power and such a devastating payoff kept his fights interesting and i think the fight where eri allowed him to use it at full power with no drawbacks was such a fucking let down. there were better ways for him to grow other than idk more quirks cause hes special. and truly outside of attaining more power to become no.1 he has very little conflict in his character after someone else goes out of the way to instill confidence in him its also very annoying that repeatedly were shown how hard everyone works to get into ua, to become the heroes they want to be but its always dwarfed in comparison to izuku and the whole fucking scene with allmight at the end of the kamino incident being specifically for izuku, instead of a rallying cry that you are next, every one of you must struggle to become the hero that you want to be - to bear the weight of the symbol of peace is not for one persons shoulders alone like its a shame cause the series spends so much time hammering home how these kids are the best of the best, the ones who really truly want it but theyre not really treated with the same regard at all and their struggles and improvement are nowhere near on the monumental level of midoriya.

i feel like the narrative has all the makings of something interesting, but somehow fucking hilariously misses its own point. truly ripping apart the idea of becoming the greatest hero, the ‘symbol of peace’, that becoming a pillar isnt any way for a human to live and glorifying one persons sacrifice for all our sakes isnt right and that the true insiduous evil of hero society is that it makes us truly believe that people are painted in black and white rather than many shades of grey and forces people to take on things they shouldnt, allows certain powerful individuals to enforce their own wills on the world and robs everyday people, the powerless and weak of any agency of how their society works. it acts like heroism is an inherent trait only afforded by the strong and that being anything less than the ultimate hero is a failure even if it means doing awful tings, like throwing away your children giving them mental scars, leaving behind whole families in the name of heroism falling in the line of duty being seen as some great honour, leaving kids to wander the streets since doing necessary but painful things are for better equipped people, right? wash your hands of it and let a hero deal with it. honestly i just want to see a weak supporting characters heroism. that was the charm of early bnha. ive had enough of this blind thoughtless heroism thats presented as the correct one, for the chosen few. i want to see the struggle for it, insatiable longing that you cant help pushing you on, but most of all i want to see the hero you can be in ways that are meaningful but yours alone and taking back the world inch by inch from the common villainy of our society with one person at a time, reaching out to your hand no matter how scarred. to look your dreams in the face and turn your back on them. tearing down the sun, shattering it into a million pieces, but the small shards shine brighter and can be held in mortal hands. but nah izuku is going to be all might super cop 2 dont worry bout it guys. dw he’ll also choose some poor fucking kid to bear this burden after he becomes useless in battle and we can discard him as a person and simply keep him as an icon since the narrative keeps allowing the villains to have valid criticisms against society but always dismiss them since theyre villains you know and youre not meant to actually think about changing society despite your position of power, just enjoy being no.1 whilst your alive and rinse and repeat pog.

i think thats why i can easily see why bakugo and todoroki are so popular through the series as they do take a long time to get through their extremely shitty issues and they are genuinely shitty little teen psychopaths who are horrible fucking bastards. but they grow up and in really tangible gratifying ways. they seem to have as many setbacks as they do wins, constantly fucked over by their own hubris but still finding a way to power through despite it all trying to awkwardly form connections and become better people as well as better heroes and they can not do so on their own. their struggles are treated with gravity and they always acquire some kind of new strength in return but at a pace that doesnt put them miles ahead of their other classmates but definitely feels weighted and substantial to their development. todoroki gritting his teeth but slowly realising that he has a fucking ridiculous opportunity in his hands with endeavours agency and even inviting his friends is monumental in its own way, endeavour texting his son and his son texting back is like. it really does feel like something. its also interesting that as broccoli boy gets stronger he gets subsequently less and less likeable imo like ... sir you are NO shirou emiya. you do not have the range or the sheer trauma to be so dogged and blind in your ideals despite the world you occupy and everyone else around you. i was sold shirou emiya superhero manga with sexy juwabe sunichi teacher and only one of those thigns is true!!!

#damn you ren #yea i just finished now and my head is busting open with thoughts #probably an awful word vomit of opinions but like. i just finished reading it and im like sir why do i do this #i have this awful illness its called being a shounen manga fan

[diveronarpg]

Congratulations, ART! You’ve been accepted for the role of EDMUND with an approved FC change to Max Irons. Admin Minnie: I knew this was a winner while reading your plots Art, but it was your para sample that really left me speechless. The way you showed us how he had suffered and how he had ached, all that bitterness and resentment and ambition and pride... it was so clear how deep your love for Edmund goes. I am thrilled to see someone with such an intimate, intense grasp on Easton’s soul. Please stay forever, and please ruin us for the rest of your life! Please read over the checklist and send in your blog within 24 hours.

WELCOME TO THE MOB.

OUT OF CHARACTER

Alias | Art

Age | 19

Preferred Pronouns | He/him

Activity Level | Well here’s the thing about quarantine. I will be spending the next two-three months in a house, all day, every day, with consistent access to a laptop. I also lost my job and because the US economy is a flaming pile of garbagé, I don’t imagine getting another any time soon, especially since all my skills are in food. All this to say, I believe I will be incredibly active, outside of my Skype’d classes and grocery runs and whatnot.

Timezone | MST

How did you find the rp?  | A discord friend DM’d it to me after I went on a rant about Edmund and the layers to his “Thou, Nature, art my Goddess” soliloquy. They know me so well, and acceptances were literally in like six hours from when I got the link, so I sat my butt down, put down my real-world obligations for a moment, and typed this whole thing out like I was writing an unstarted essay due at midnight.

Current/Past RP Accounts | All my old RP writing is from years ago and is, frankly, really really bad. Thank you for making this optional.

IN CHARACTER

Character | Edmund or Easton Craven. I love Daniel Sharman’s wonderful, gorgeous face with my whole heart (hello gay awakening), but I’d like to use Max Irons instead, if at all possible.

What drew you to this character? | So, my love of Easton/Edmund actually began about a year ago, when I cut my hair and started playing around with names and different clothes. I was in a Shakespeare class at my college, and it was a requirement that we perform a monologue. It didn’t need to be Broadway-worthy, we just needed to deliver it, and we could do this as often as we liked. I performed two. One from a play we had read and analyzed, as my professor asked, and I did another. That second one was Edmund’s “Thou, Nature” soliloquy. It was the first time I performed as a guy to an audience that thought I was a guy, not a girl playing dress up. So I have a really strong emotional connection to Edmund, regardless of the form he’s in.

I was really excited by this particular version of him, however, because I thought it played right along the line of a monstrous asshole and charming young man doing what he can to deal with the hand dealt to him. He’s both of those things, to me, and I really enjoyed that you brought that forward. Edmund, from the source, reminds me of Chris Evans’ character from Knives Out, in a way? Completely self-motivated, selfish and cruel, and yet really fun and charming, as long as it isn’t you he’s screwing over at the time. I know he isn’t that character and I’m honestly really glad for it. I just found a similarity there.

I just really like those kinds of characters in fiction, and that, combined with my emotional ties and vague debt to the source character, meant I arrived and started writing as fast as I could.

What is a future plot idea you have in mind for the character? |

These are all ideas, nothing here is set in stone, and are entirely dependent on the beauty of the other writers free will.

Some Twelve or Fourteen Moonshines Lag of a Brother: From the get-go of this awful experience known as the human existence, Easton has existed just slightly behind Everett, just enough to keep the guy freezing in the shadows. It’s the last name, the mannerisms, and the goddamn eyes that sit in his skull. It is a truth, acknowledged by both me and him, that there is an association to Easton he really wishes wasn’t there. This is why I want someone to look at Easton and see Easton, not a Craven.

Now, I want to pause here, and say that Easton is a lying snake of a man that would and probably will sell out his own family for one corn chip. He is completely self-centered, convinced of his superiority, and willing to bleed the world dry to get the pound of flesh he is owed. I want someone to see this, to realize there is a snake curled around the Capulet’s necks, willing to bite and kill every single one of them if it means he gets to sit comfortably on a throne of gold and bones. Because that is what he wants, he wants the world to pay for every second of misery he endured in his life. But he is charming, slippery in the way only the truly awful can be. He’s accepted the labels thrown at him and become them, which is its own kind of armor. Who doesn’t love a bad boy?

But beyond all that, he is rotten through and through. I’d like his armor to crack and reveal the duplicity underneath, maybe around someone like Maeve or Catherine, someone that might not be believed right away. I love the idea of Easton being the wolf among some very dangerous sheep, but the really, truly awful ones not realizing. This could produce a really fun dance, where the two parties involved both try really really hard to overthrow or remove the other from their position while still trying really hard to maintain a veil of normality.

But that dance is what makes this all so terribly fun. They’re on a rock, doomed to eventually die, and Easton wants his power, but why can’t he play a few games while trying to get it?

I Grow, I Prosper: Easton, poor guy, was brought into the world and then spent the next twenty-six years being told his existence and all the things that came with it were his fault. They weren’t, or at least they weren’t in the way he had been told his entire life. He has learned to move past the label of “bastard” or “illegitimate”, meeting all such claims with the certainty that he must act the part. But does his position fulfill him? Does his current lot in life spark joy? I think not! He is a captain, yes, but so is his brother. He is, at best, on equal footing with his brother and at worst, he is the younger brother desperately following behind Everett as a living shadow yet again. Easton needs to be more than Everett. He’s wanted this his entire life. The whole city needs to look at Easton and see him, not his brother, and then Easton wants to rub it in Everett’s face, lord it over him for the next century at the shortest. That is the general idea behind this plot: Everett surpassing and overcoming his brother. The fact that he’d end up lording over so many others is really just a plus!

This plot would require effort. Loads and LOADS of plotting and communication on my part, and a whole lot of cutthroat, stepping-on-literally-everyone-else-in-Verona from Easton. He is going to have to exploit the hell out of Celeste and the information she can get him, potentially leading to her downfall just so Easton can succeed. He will need Rafaella and Tiberius to trust him almost unconditionally, which, just from what I’ve seen poking around the main, seems pretty much impossible. And of course, he has to successfully and continually one-up Everett, which might be the hardest job of all, given the whole awful tangle of EmotionsTM that Easton has towards him. It’s hard for him to be clear-headed when he wants to tear Everett into little tiny pieces with his bare hands.

But hey, that is, again, the whole point of this plot: the destruction of the legitimate son. Eliminating the sun so the moon can rule 24/7.

My Services are Bound: No matter how ambitious, how desperate Easton is to rule the world, he doesn’t yet. He works for the Capulets and he is a tool used to further the wishes of those above him in this terribly illegal food chain where dog eats dog. No matter how much Easton wishes it was different, it isn’t, at least not at the moment, and he must bide his time until something better happens.

Yes, Easton is a tool, and I want him to be reminded of that. He has the ambition to rule the world, can picture himself with a crown he may never hold, but he is a knight on the chessboard. I want his ego to be checked, I want him to be taken down at the knees and reminded of the situation he is in, who he works for. Now, ideally, this would come from the Capulet family themselves and not a rogue Montague or something.

The Capulet family, in order to win this war they’ve found themselves in, need their tools to be obedient and ready to deploy at a moment’s notice. This is not the case with Easton. He’s a rebellious man, more loyal to himself than any of the lofty ideas the Capulet heads have surrounded themselves with. So the family he serves would need to get Easton back in line, somehow. They’d need to remind him who he is and whom he serves no matter what it took and use whatever tools at their disposal. This could potentially happen after Easton completely blows off a mission he was handed to advance his own agendas, which I think would probably be the best choice as it would probably send these awful shrieking sirens off in the Capulets.

I want this particular plot because Easton is so assured that he will be able to make the world pay and yet he’s just one man against so very many others.

Are you comfortable with killing off your character? | Oh most definitely. As a writer, I am a firm believer in conditional happy endings, probably because I play so many video games. In order to get a happy ending, in order to survive, the character has to do all the right things. The likelihood of Easton doing all the right things is just tiny, absolutely microscopic.  

IN DEPTH

I was going to do both, but I’m running out of time so…

In-Character Para Sample:

There is something beautiful in standing alone, where there are no silent reminders of how Easton arrived in this world, how he stepped into it screaming and no one cared to change that. There were no side-eyes, reminding him of how unwanted he was, how utterly unworthy he was to bear the name “Craven”. No hands hiding giggles at the boy his mother ran from and his father hid away. Here, under the bowed ceiling in the transept of the Capulet’s cathedral, there was only him and God.

“I hope,” Easton began, fingers lightly running across the back of a pew likely not used for praying, “that you know what is coming.” The eyes that proclaim a taint to his family’s name were raised to dance across the ceiling. “If word is to be believed, you, an old man in the sky, a Father,” he spat out, “brought me here. Placed me here upon this Earth to do whatever it is I so wish.” A smile, small and dangerous with heavy promises was birthed on his face, an expression that could not have been more familiar to his muscles. “I suppose that’s all a father has ever done for me. Perhaps,” he mused, lightly tapping his chin as he continued to wander aimlessly among the seats of a flock absent. “Perhaps I should be grateful that both You and him are both so delightfully hands-off.”

“I suppose this rock is where You chose to put all Your bastards, isn’t it? Shoved them away from Your kingdom, making them fight for their place in Your home despite them all being Your children?” The noise that escaped Easton’s mouth was not fit for the place he stood in, but it hardly seemed to matter to him as he collapsed into a pew, feet raised to rest on a Bible, feet that had stood in a man’s blood not hours before. “I suppose that must be how it is, because we’re all made in Your image, aren’t we? And that man had to learn it from somewhere.”

His head fell back, eyes closed to the beauty above him in a silent condemnation for Who it was built for. “You’ve released yet another snake into your garden by making that woman my mother and handing me the Craven name, you know.” The observation was quiet, laced with the bitterness of cyanide, perfected over years of similar declarations. The words were familiar, not on his tongue but rather to his mind, the idea similar to ones he had kept close for years.“I have crawled in the dirt on my stomach for too long because of You, and I shall take a throne and dare You to steal it from me.”

He inhaled, once, a desperate attempt to calm the words he could feel rising like acid in his throat. It didn’t work, though Easton didn’t try very hard. He rarely did when alone. “I am owed this, you miserable old bastard,” he hissed out from behind his teeth, sounding like the snake he had just claimed to be. “I will take everything because this is Your fault, and I will make your precious sheep pay for every inch of Your mistake. It’s mine, I deserve it.” A hand was clenched into a fist in his lap and Easton shifted forward, only to slam it into the wood of the pew ahead of him. “It’s mine.”

He stood suddenly, coat rising around him like smoke rising around a fire, warning the world of the danger just over there. Turning on his heel, he left the cathedral without a look back, without a fear of God. And though there had been no one around, the air hung heavy with a question. Just which father had he been addressing?

Extras: If you have anything else you’d like to include (further headcanons, an inspo tag, a mock blog, etc), feel free to share it here! This is OPTIONAL.

I submitted this through an Easton mock blog! There was going to be stuff there but my laptop crashed and I need to eat dinner!

#accepted #accepted: edmund

[illkickyourbass]

henlo. have an expanded Shining Quest AU.

to release some steam from my kettle of stress, have some noodling about a Shining Quest AU that’s less April Fool’s, more high-stakes high-fantasy, but still every bit as tropey, stuffed with otome trappings, and Yay Music as we’ve come to expect from Utapri 

As with the last venture into this AU: not explicitly romantic, non-gendered MC, SFW, and mild CW for arranged marriages. I don’t know HEAVENS (plus they didn’t get canon classes for Shining Quest), so we’ll just be covering STARISH and Quartet Night! 

It’s a fairly typical setup -- there’s a fantasy kingdom, there’s a useless king, there’s a princess (Haruka) known for her talent for music composition, there’s a court of nobles and royals, all that usual hey. Magic is cast by mastery of the arts, whether that be visual, performing, musical, written, you name it. 

There’s a looming threat of some sort of demon king or similar fantasy anime bullshit that the royals and nobles of the kingdom are tasked with keeping at bay. We’re also gonna shamelessly borrow a detail from the pinnacle of wasted potential, the movie Rock and Rule -- there’s a plot point about how a demon can only be forced back with “the magic of one voice, one heart, one song....but there is no one.” Here in this ‘verse, that’s a longstanding prophecy the status quo has taken to mean there’s no-one who’ll ever be able to defeat the demon king. 

The solution that’s been in place for as long as anyone can remember is a royal or noble family offers one of their heirs as a sacrifice to be married off and sate the demon king for that generation-- the “devil’s bride” or “devil’s groom” or “devil’s betrothed.” This goes pretty badly for the heirs, of course, but it offers great prestige to the house that does it. 

You, the player, would get to pick what RPG class you fill (which would affect some dialogue trees and the expertise you demonstrate) and what art you use to cast magic. You are a member of the royal guard tasked with Haruka’s protection, but you’ve stumbled into the knowledge before it goes public: she’s the next devil’s bride! You go to Tomochika, a hired hand to the royals who’s been dating Haru in secret, and you begin to hatch a plan to bust Haruka out of the arrangement. 

Your route’s then determined by which of the boys you seek out as your other co-conspirator. 

Otoya is a fellow member the Royal Guard on Haruka protection detail. He’s equally resented and well-liked for his dauntless optimism and natural talent with swordsmanship, but it’s no secret that he’s not someone you’ll be trusting for expert strategy. He’s had the chance to become friendly with Haruka, and he’s ready to fight tooth and nail for her freedom! He’s classed as a warrior, who casts light-element attacks and healing spells with his music. 

Masato was raised from birth to become an ideal Devil’s Groom, since the Hijirikawa nobles are falling out of favor in the courts (spurred in part from their takedown of the Kurosakis backfiring on them). But Masato has rejected that he (or Mai) will ever go along with that plan, instead intently training in swordsmanship and fusing music and fiber arts to make enchanted fabrics that work like armor. Quietly, he has kept a very ambitious goal in mind: outright defeat the demon king and end the legacy of the devil’s betrothed. 

Natsuki is a natural genius at using both his voice and viola to communicate with creatures and summoning the cutest ones to absolutely wreck house. Though a humble farmboy who’s kind of out-of-touch with the political goings-on of his land, his talent was too great to go unnoticed forever, and he was invited to live among the high court as an entertainer and summoner. He got to make so many new friends (like the princess and you!) and better provide for his family, so he’s thankful every day for the change, even if he misses his animal friends at home! 

Tokiya came from a humble family that wanted to lead a quiet life, but Tokiya himself had ambitions that far outpace that. Though not a natural talent, he put unimaginable sweat into a field that creates potent spells and tools by the power of song. Eventually becoming estranged from his whole family, Tokiya finds it all worthwhile after struggling his way into being hired by the royals. Much of the court thinks of him as a weird mad scientist who sings to his books, but he’s found fast friends he’d go to the ends of the earth for, like Masato, the princess, and you! 

Ren is the inverse of Masato in his circumstance. Like the Hijirikawa noble family, the Jinguujis helped orchestrate the fall of the Kurosaki nobles, but the blowback had them falling out of favor instead of rising in power. Ren was planned to be offered as a Devil’s Groom to restore some clout, but instead of being intently groomed, he was left to do whatever he wanted since he’s got such a foregone future. So Ren becomes a carefree playboy, eventually taking his talent for alchemy and becoming a for-hire adventurer to sate his boredom. He tells everyone his saxophone is his secret to brewing his one-of-a-kind love potions, but he’s actually devised some uniquely remarkable revival and buffing potions.

Syo comes from the same backwoods as Natsuki, but took less interest in working for the courts and instead trying to find a career emulating his childhood hero that kept his body’s limits in mind. But his twin left to pursue medical schooling, and eventually, between loneliness, worry, and the promise that the musical magic and medicine in the courts could help him safely push his limits, he follows Natsuki into the belly of the royals and nobles. His small stature and commitment to the movement arts made him a natural rogue, and he’s technically part of the Royal Guard’s special ops. But Syo’s brashness and burning spirit tends to best serve motivating the people around him -- what few spells he prefers to cast with his violin-playing are all buffs that lift the spirit and energize the body.  

Cecil came to this land on essentially a study abroad program and came to love the friends he made so much he stuck around! A wildly talented sorcerer able to cast even without playing his flute, Cecil is held in high esteem by the whole kingdom for the knowledge and skill he has to offer. Prone to disappearing, however, since a curse has him transforming into a cat as an occasional side effect of casting magic. He’s found this useful, though -- something injust he won’t stand for is afoot in this kingdom, and nobody suspects a little black cat of eavesdropping! 

Reiji is a court jester who loves, loves, loves nothing more than to make you smile! Much of the court takes his good cheer for granted, and even more underestimate his prowess in tough/delicate situations, but the most powerful folks know he’s just as sharp as he is goofy. When he’s not doing his job making people smile, he’s often helping or promoting his family’s pub or bugging his friends from outside the royal court. His flashy performances and maraca-shaking have been shaped into a great conduit for spells of transmutation, though he tends to use them to put on a great show more than beat ass.

Ranmaru is the eldest son of the disgraced Kurosaki nobles (whose power and legacy were ruined by the Jinguujis and Hijirikawas as per usual) but he decided to bear the brunt of the damage in wake of his father’s passing to spare the rest of his family. Shouldering massive debt, Ranmaru disappeared and re-emerged as the gambler prince of the underground, now incredibly powerful in his own right. Not-so-secretly a big softie, he’ll swindle and ruin the lives of those who take advantage of the helpless, even operating out of a pub owned by an old couple that needed some protecting from loan sharks. Ranmaru wears special runed gloves that store mana when he plays his bass, letting him cast a set number of fire evocation spells before his next recharge. 

Ai lives in woods on the outskirts of the city. Most regard him as a hermit, but a couple know that Ai is actually a homunculus that has been refining his understanding and performance of humanity and needs frequent breaks to “recharge.” Nominally a ranger, Ai’s skills lie in his powerful patience and observation moreso than his bow and arrow, though he and Reiji have an arrangement where he helps hunt and forage ingredients for the Kotobuki pub. Ai is beginning to grasp his own unique sense of humanity and is ready to take grander action to realize it. He fights with arrows of a special alloy that react to an instrument at home; they are tempered by the sound and blessed by the wind to never miss their target should the wielder be skilled enough. 

Camus is an assassin that lives in shadow. Nobody’s quite sure of his intentions or allegiances, but the few times someone does see him in the open, he’s as haughty and demanding as ever. Rumor has it that he lives in the royal castle -- certainly, their enormously increased sweets output would imply such, and it’s well-known in the castle that unexplained cello music is usually his doing -- but he’s such an evanescent and terrifying presence nobody’s quite sure (and is too scared to ask). His assassinations are almost impossible to track, as his blades of ice melt, disappear, and leave no trail to follow. 

Typical route stuff goes as you’d expect -- you progress the plot, you get closer to your chosen boy, some political intrigue things probably happen, some heart-racing events etc. etc., and before you know it the two of you are very close and realize that your arts cast wildly powerful magic when put together. Slowly, you gather more friends (a selection of the other boys + Haru and Tomo) and find that together, your work amplifies in power to unprecedented degrees. It’ll vary from route to route how you get there, but eventually, you all come to the same conclusion: it’s time to kick some demon king ass. And you do! 

The ends vary from angsty (like the player or the chosen boy is mortally wounded or dies) or fairytale fluffy (go off and spend a happy life together) or something more power fantasy-feeling (like you and chosen boy revolutionize the whole kingdom for the better in wake of the demon king’s defeat), etc. -- but no matter what you know that your art + your boy + the power of friendship kicked more ass than anything Shining Kingdom has ever seen! 

#shining quest au #shining quest #uta no prince sama #utapri #headcanons

[jddesignsuk]

27 ways to land your first job in Graphic Design + How I did it

How I broke into design

“Why haven’t you done your maths homework?!” That’s what I’d be asked most evenings during my formative years, when I’d rather create new Transformer characters, or design new Nike Air shoes. The ability to create something from nothing and then give it personality and style was what captivated me.

During the last years of secondary school, my art teacher would let me skip other classes so I could perfect my sketching and design skills.

Thanks to being the youngest of three children (and thus being a master manipulator), I always had an excuse ready for when other teachers would ask why I’d missed their lesson.

“Although I had a wide range of interests, a career in art and design was my destiny. Until I met a careers advisor…”

My grades across all subjects were slightly above average, apart from Art & Design, where I excelled and would transform into a miserable brat if I ever achieved anything under an A grade. Although I had a wide range of interests, a career in art and design was my destiny. Until I met a career advisor…

On one particular day, pupils were invited to meet a careers advisor who would help us choose the right path when going out into the big wide world. I was ushered into a small room and met by a very bland looking middle-aged man, with a dull grey suit and a tone of voice to match. To me, my path into design was clear so I didn’t expect much help. Despite hearing my obvious enthusiasm, he dismissed my life ambition as quickly as he could roll his eyes. He told me – with absolute certainty – that I’d be wasting my time pursuing design as there weren’t any jobs or money to be made in the industry. He and other influential figures in my life proclaimed that I should follow my Sister, who excelled at all things academic, and become a manager at a leading bank in London.

And just like that, my entire career had been decided for me.

I decided (with rose-tinted glasses on) that I could make money in a standard business role and fulfil my creative dreams during my evenings and weekends. Oh, how naive I was.

I secured my first job as a production coordinator at a food and beverage trading company overlooking Tower Bridge. On my first day, I arrived wearing an ill-fitting grey suit and a carrier bag containing a just-ham sandwich and a grey umbrella. My careers advisor would’ve been so proud.

It became clear pretty quickly that there was no future for me in this industry. Any idea of fulfilling my creative dreams during my evenings and weekends were dashed by a job that drained my creative juices and demanded late nights to meet deadlines. The final nail in the coffin came when the MD would regularly send me away to a tiny, dark room alone to gather samples of citric acid which could be used to clean his yacht.

My time wasn’t completed wasted though. Not that it didn’t feel like it at the time, especially when I was being made to earn my stripes through some excessive delegation from senior colleagues who spent their afternoons in the pub. But thanks to a good work ethic and actively seeking advice from mentors, I climbed the ranks and became a manager soon enough.

Whilst I was busy wondering what education I was missing at university, I developed important, real-life skills in the workplace, where it mattered. Managing and motivating colleagues, building relationships, meeting deadlines within set budgets and problem solving helped build the foundations for running my own business later down the line.

Despite the promotion, I remained unfulfilled and I decided that my job would have to suffer in order to achieve my dream. I enrolled at the London College of Communication and took a series of courses in the evenings that would span across 3 years.

My eyes were opened immediately as I stepped through the university doors. Incredible designs, created by students, adorned the walls and provided me with a huge sense of inspiration and purpose.

“Each of us had experienced an unfulfilling career and were desperate for change.”

I met other students in a similar position to my own, who wanted to escape other careers and venture towards something creative. We shared a drive stronger than many students who take the 3 year degree in graphic design; each of us had experienced an unfulfilling career and were desperate for change.

It was during these classes that I learned the fundamentals and principles of good design. I’ll forever be thankful to the amazing lecturers, particularly to Paul Chamberlain for his seemingly unending wealth of knowledge and his willingness to share it, both in the lecture hall and in the pub.

One of my finest moments as a designer (even to this day) came during the end of year exhibition, where the best designs throughout the year were showcased to the university and public. I was shocked to find my poster layout promoting the London Olympics given a feature, receiving praise from some respected figures at the university. My work was now adorning the same halls that had so inspired me when I began the course three years prior.

That sense of achievement and pride was nothing I’d felt before; I wanted more of it!

I gave in my notice (a bit too proudly) and quit my role in food and beverage distribution and looked to the future with excitement and eagle-eyed focus.

I deleted my very corporate CV designed in Microsoft Word and set about creating a CV and portfolio that would attract a creative director. Whilst some recruiters were confused and possibly put off by my unconventional career path, I landed a role in production and design at a leading promotional merchandise company in Shoreditch.

It felt like I’d been adopted by a family rather than enduring the standard awkward greetings on a new employee’s first day. This friendly, outgoing and ambitious team, coupled with a creative role gave me unbelievable satisfaction. Plus, there were wasn’t a grey suit in sight!

Starting a design job in a promotional merchandise company wasn’t a conventional route into a design career. But then, I hadn’t followed a conventional designer’s career path. However, creating artwork and managing the end-to-end process developed that sense of responsibility for managing the client’s needs. I had the opportunity to produce innovative designs and creative promotional merchandise for major clients that helped develop my role into a senior creative and management position.

“I created my own degree”

Despite being guided to a different career path and some long hours learning graphic design, I’m thankful that I went the extra mile to achieve my dream. It wasn’t the conventional or recommended path. In a sense, I created my own degree through learning key soft-skills in the workplace during the day, whilst mastering graphic design in the evenings and weekends.

The common advice is to encourage young designers to enrol at university, which I wouldn’t argue with. My point is that there are other ways to be successful in design, especially in the modern age. Some of the largest global businesses are recognising that candidates with hands-on experience through online courses or similar methods can make the same impact as candidates with a degree. Google, Apple and IBM are amongst an increasing number of companies who no longer require applicants to have a degree. Having that work-place experience, becoming multi-skilled, developing people and management skills will help future proof your career in an age where gains in technology are at such a pace that great design skills alone won’t stop you from becoming obsolete.

An easier and more effective way of reaping the same benefits of my journey is to apply for an internship, whether you’re at university or not.

One incredible reward of an internship is that you have the opportunity to learn on the job, with an experienced designer to guide you. Learning by ‘doing’ is quicker, easier, for most of us and means that repeating the same skill next time isn’t as intimidating. You’ll feel a greater sense of achievement completing a real-life project and grow in confidence with every successful task. Becoming a skilled, reliable and integrated team member could even bring you paid work from that company, or at least a glowing reference.

Sometimes you don’t know how far you’ve come until you look back…at your Inbetweeners haircut whilst listening to some garage classics. The journey is different for us all, but the secret to achieving my dream was pretty simple. It just takes an open mind, a passion for creating, perseverance and above all, self-belief!

27 ways to land your first job in Graphic Design:

Deciding who you want to be is often not an easy decision for most of us. You may have a passion for design, but how do you go about making the jump? If you’re a budding designer, here’s my advice to securing your first graphic design job:

Starting from the bottom

There is no golden ticket into this saturated field: you must have a strong work-ethic, with the passion and imagination to get yourself noticed.

Career Change: if you’re thinking about switching careers from an industry that seems completely untransferable, it’s not too late. You may be unaware of several skills that’ll help you in design, which may put you ahead of other candidates, such as the ability to confidently pitch to clients.

Understand Graphic Design: well duh! There are some great courses on Udemy and Skillshare at amazing prices. There are also plenty of free tutorials available on YouTube.

It’s ok to be rubbish: be prepared to be absolutely useless when starting something new. This’ll help you develop patience and appreciate the mastery you’ll pick up in the long term.

Buying design equipment and software is a necessary evil: fear not! There are savings to be made. You can save around 65% on the Adobe Creative Cloud Student Subscription. Also check out Quidco for cashback on Adobe subscriptions and stock images.

Mean business: if you pursue a university degree, find courses or mentors who can teach you key business skills that’ll help you transition into the workplace.

Get organised: with so many channels available to promote yourself, organising these promotion tactics can be daunting. Set yourself achievable goals and give yourself a deadline for each. For example, learn a new software skill by the end of the month. Use a notebook to write down your plan of action, or setup a free account with Trello to organise tasks.

Create Pinterest boards: create your own Pinterest boards with designs that’ll help with inspiration for your next project. Examine what makes it a good design to help you understand the principles of design.

Look around you: Don’t rely solely on the internet for creative ideas. Look for inspiration everywhere you go and from everyone you meet.

Break out of your comfort zone: mastering one skill or piece of software is definitely a good thing, but getting out of your comfort zone and learning something new will develop confidence and provide more opportunities for future employment.

Get out there: the self-taught route can be a lonely experience. Join local groups and find other designers who can share experiences and skills. An accountability partner is a fantastic way to keep you motivated and on course.

Build on the relationships you already have: send a DM to your social media contacts and look for opportunities. Be friendly, whilst getting to the point.

Imposter Syndrome: most of us encounter this, normally early in our careers and especially if, like me, you haven’t followed the traditional route into design. Take a moment to appreciate what you’ve achieved, the positive feedback you’ve had and stop comparing yourself to others.

Understand User Experience (UX): as a designer, it’s important to put the customer first, by knowing how to design products with good usability and user pleasure.

Create a portfolio: To land that first role in design, you won’t get anywhere without a portfolio. Display only your best work, explain the challenges you encountered and the process of how you reached the final design. Proof-read the portfolio and covering letter and ask someone else to check it as well.

Free work: A very controversial topic, of which there are many opinions. I believe that whilst you’re starting out and developing a portfolio, it’s OK to offer cheap or even free work. However, make it clear to the client that you’ll be charging your standard rate for future work. As you start to show your worth and your demand rises, don’t undervalue yourself or your time.

Share your work: whether it’s on your own website (which we’d highly recommend), Behance, Dribbble, social media or Youtube, get your work out there. This is a great way to build followers and get seen by employers.

Give value: this may be difficult when you’re starting out, but simply sharing your process can inspire others. We have a free stock photo section on our website, providing free images for blogs, social media and anything else. This increases traffic on our website and increases engagement with customers.

Are you listening?: before you start creating what you think will be a great design for your portfolio, take time to understand the brief, how the design will best connect with audiences and ask questions if you’re unclear.

Sign me up: subscribe to blogs from brands that you love: Take note of why you’re attracted to them and what elements of their marketing make you want to engage with them in the future.

CV: Businesses advertising for designers often receive hundreds of applications, so it’s vital that your CV is on point. Keep it within a double sided A4 sheet. Ensure to include the following details – Full name, Job title, Contact, Objectives, Skills, Work Experience, Clients, Achievements, Qualifications and Interests. There’s no need to add your age or photo. Spelling check it, then save it as a compressed PDF and ensure all the hyperlinks work.

Don’t blanket-mail portfolios: Decide who you really want to work for. Tailor your portfolio and covering letter to the job you’re applying for. Applying for a designer role at a magazine company? Showcase your best layouts and demonstrate you understand typography. If there isn’t a contact name on the job description, phone the company and find out who will be managing the vacancy. It adds that personal touch and will help you get noticed.

Internships: As mentioned in our blog, internships are a fantastic way to develop your design and soft-skills under the mentorship of experienced professionals. Check out The Dots, Rate My Placement and Inspiring Interns for the latest placements. Once you’ve secured an internship, make yourself indispensable by doing everything asked of you. Roll your sleeves up and check if there’s anything else you can do to help the team. Going above and beyond will help you stand out and make you a valuable asset. Your team will know you’re there to learn, so don’t be afraid to ask questions.

The big interview: Before an interview, exceed expectations by doing your homework on the company and the person interviewing you. Go the extra mile by thinking of ways in which the company can improve. For example, is there a section missing on their website that would really benefit their business. And of course, arrive early, look the part, sit up straight, speak clearly, be polite and ask questions.

Tell your story: The presentation of your portfolio needs to be clear and engaging, whilst explaining the challenges, the process and outcome. Rehearse this at home in advance, as this’ll help your story flow on the day and help you gain confidence in your story. You need to believe in your own work – no one else will if you don’t. It may sound obvious but make sure that everyone can see your work during the presentation – this is your time to impress. Above all, be yourself!

Sh*t happens: There will be some obstacles along the way. Clients or employers will reject your design or application. Stay calm, keep trying and learn from your experiences. Remember, design is a very personal preference and you can’t please all of the people, all of the time.

Prove it: you’ll want to promote your soft-skills within your application or interview. It’s all well and good mentioning that you’re a troubleshooter, or team-player, but this’ll mean nothing without good and relevant examples.

Congratulations…you’re hired!

We’ll be sharing more super helpful tips and resources to help fellow creatives and businesses promote themselves. Simply subscribe here.

#designtips #socialmediastrategy #socialmedia #graphicdesignerlife #futurists #creativepulse #university #college #blog #productivity #graphicdesigntips #recruitment #dowhatyoulove #newjobnewyou #designjobs #creative #design #intern #londonjobs #career #creativerecruitment #nowrongpath #jddesigns #blogpost #graphicdesign #promotionalmerchandise

[onlinetherapyandcounsellingcom]

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[douchebagbrainwaves]

AN ALTERNATIVE THEORY OF THE OTHER HALF OF THE BUBBLE GOT RIGHT

In case you can't tell, the founders are the ones leaning forward eagerly, and the problem they solved was an urgent one. A string of rich neighborhoods runs along the foothills to the west of 280: Woodside, Portola Valley, Los Altos Hills, Saratoga, Los Gatos. But ambitious programmers are better off doing their own thing and failing than going to work at a big company is the default thing to do, because it requires a deliberate choice. We've now funded so many different types of founders that we have to memorize state capitals instead of playing dodgeball? As you might expect, it winds all over the country, students are writing not about how a baseball team with a small budget might compete with the Yankees, or the role of color in fashion, or what constitutes a good dessert, but about symbolism in Dickens. Jessica Livingston. At first we tried to conceal it. Did some kind of cursed race, had to work at Google or Microsoft, because it's painful to observe the gap between them. I've heard Y Combinator described as an incubator. This doesn't mean you have to jump through in school.

So I'm going to give the impression there were no problems this summer. In practice a group of 10 managers is not merely orthogonal to having good ideas, but in retrospect that too was the optimal path to dominating microcomputer software. But even so I'd advise startups to pull a Meraki initially if they can no longer afford you, but you're not going to generate ideas as well as programming, because at least when he's programming he can do whatever he wants. If there's no such thing as better, it doesn't matter if you paint at all. Much as everyone thinks they want financial security, the happiest people are not those who have it, but those who like what they do. A lot of the problems we were trying to sell luggage and pens and men's shirts. The non-gullible majority won't stop getting spam until they can stop or threaten to stop the gullible from responding to it. Instead we should try thinking of them as pairs of what you're going to build, plus the unscalable thing s you're going to have to deal with other people's broken code. The average person looks at it and thinks: how amazingly skillful. That's schlep blindness.

It will always suck to work for money, they'll work harder for a cause. I was talking about how investors are reluctant to put money into startups in bad markets, even though that's the time they reach an age to think about what they'd like to be flattered; they like to be able to just ask them, right? She says being too modest is a common problem for women. And while there might be things that appealed particularly to men, or to get so little exercise. And the fact that he has to do, he couldn't—sometimes because the company wouldn't let him, but often because the company's code wouldn't let him, but often because the company's code wouldn't let him, but often because the company's code wouldn't let him, but often because the company's code wouldn't let him, but often because the company's code wouldn't let him. How many corporate lawyers would do their current work if they had to work. So on demo day I told the assembled angels and VCs that these guys were hackers, not MBAs, and so while their software was good, we should not expect slick presentations from them.

And as for the disputation, that seems clearly a net lose. Some now think YC's alumni network is its most valuable feature. They always get things wrong. It was pulling on that thread that unravelled my childhood faith in relativism. The founders of Kiko, for example, about how to set up an application to run on multiple servers. As you might expect, it winds all over the country, students are writing not about how a baseball team with a small budget might compete with the Yankees, or the role of color in fashion, or what constitutes a good dessert, but about symbolism in Dickens. Another thing you notice when you see animals in the wild. And the culture she defined was one of the first she did, the reporter brushed aside her insights about startups and turned it into a sensationalistic story about how some guy had tried to chat her up as she was waiting outside the bar where they had arranged to meet.

I don't have any illusions that being able to pick good founders. And the books we did these disgusting things to, like those we mishandled in high school and no time at all studying art. Occasionally the stimulation of talking to a live audience makes you think of new things, but in many ways pushes you in the hierarchy, your entire group. The teacher doesn't. If you know what work you love. After two years, the un-rapacious founder is only 3. Now it's Wepay's.

And certainly Dickens himself would be more interested in an essay about it. We encourage every startup to measure their progress by weekly growth rate. Math would happen without math departments, but it seems so far that if you let motivated people do real work, they work hard, whatever their age. But now that I think of it, we were looking one day at a slide of some great fifteenth century painting, and one of the nicest places in the Valley. But I'm willing to let people see an early draft if it will show how much you have to write in high school and no time at all studying art. The most amusing thing written during this period, Liudprand of Cremona's Embassy to Constantinople, is, I suspect, mostly inadvertantly so. The general atmos is vaguely utopian; there are walls of varying heights between different kinds of work. If your eight year old son decides to climb a tall tree, or your daughter gets pregnant, you'll have the most freedom. Like paying excessive attention to early customers, fabricating things yourself turns out to be surprisingly long, Wufoo sent each new user a hand-written thank you note. It's more efficient for us, and better for the startups too. The way to do this. What does the Social Radar.

#automatically generated text #Markov chains #Paul Graham #Python #Patrick Mooney #baseball #places #people #west #work

[godfreyymuwonge]

Innovation Stacks and Crazy Entrepreneurs

Submited by James McKelvey. McKelvey is a serial entrepreneur, inventor, philanthropist and artist. He is also the cofounder of Square, a merchant services aggregator and mobile payment company based in San Francisco, California.

In his book The Innovation Stack, he recounts how he and his cofounder, Jack Dorsey of Twitter, approached the problem of credit cards with a new perspective. The irreverent first-person narrative is an insider’s view of the world of entrepreneurship and a call to action for all of us to find the entrepreneur within ourselves—one crazy idea at a time. 

Here, he explains what an Innovation Stack is, plus what makes a real entrepreneur. 

Let’s begin with an obvious question: How does a glassblower become the founder of a major payments company?

When I lost a glass sale because I couldn’t take the customer’s credit card, I looked at the iPhone in my hand and wondered why I could take pictures and read the news but couldn’t take a credit-card payment. I love solving problems, so I called up my buddy Jack Dorsey and proposed solving this one together.

What is an Innovation Stack?

If you try to do something truly new, you will encounter a series of problems. The solution to one problem leads to another problem, sometimes several. This problem-solution-problem chain repeats until you end up with a collection of both independent and interlocking inventions, or you fail.

If you succeed, you have an Innovation Stack. It’s a series of interlocking inventions. You cannot view the elements of an Innovation Stack individually. The innovation evolves as a whole. Each block in the Stack works in conjunction with all the others, and the entire Stack fails if one block is missing.

When everything affects everything, you have a dynamic system. Dynamic systems are hard to understand and nearly impossible to copy.

In your book, The Innovation Stack, you talk about the difference between and entrepreneur and a business person. What is it?

The word entrepreneur has lost its shock value through sheer overuse. Today, all businesspeople are considered entrepreneurs, which is like calling all tourists explorers.

Both the business person and the entrepreneur build companies, but businesses are everywhere while entrepreneurship is rare. Entrepreneurs are rare. But their skill set is not so uncommon—and is something you already possess. It comes down to taking on a problem that nobody else has ever solved and doing whatever it takes to solve it.

The first step is finding the perfect problem for you. In this book, I use the term entrepreneur to suggest a rebel, explorer or person driven by more than just profit or event common sense.

A good way to understand the original meaning of entrepreneur is to substitute the word crazy. Reserve the word entrepreneur for a person who does something truly new. Businesspeople do new things on small scales, but for the most part, they don’t step outside of what has already proven to be possible. Or if they do, it’s on such a small scale that it doesn’t produce transformative change. Instead, it is the “crazy” entrepreneurs and their perfect problems that bring us the future because they solve problems that have never been tackled.

A problem is often the start of an entrepreneurial venture. You write that problems are clear and plentiful in the book, but finding the perfect problem requires something different. Can you explain?

Building an Innovation Stack begins by choosing to solve a problem that nobody has solved before. The perfect problem has a solution, but not a solution that exists yet. Perfect problems need not be massive challenges that affect the world, they can be trivial annoyances. The magic ingredient that makes a problem perfect is you.

You don’t simply choose a problem; the problem must also choose you. In other words, don’t pick a problem that you think other people might have, pick a problem you know you have.

When I find the right problem, I no longer feel anger, I feel energy. If you care about a problem deeply enough, for whatever reason, your motivation can be infinite.

In the book you say that spotting an Innovation Stack is often easier to do looking at history, and you give us a few great examples of companies with successful Innovation Stacks. Are there others that you came across while doing your research for this book?

There are hundreds of examples of Innovation Stacks surrounding us, we just don’t think of them as innovative because what they were when they were born then turned into the whole industry. Frozen foods, laser printers, ride sharing—pretty much any industry where there is a standard—at some point had explosive growth in it that was caused by an Innovation Stack.

People often feel they need to be an expert in something before they launch a business in that field. What do you think about the idea of “experts” in entrepreneurship?

In regular business, it definitely helps to have expertise; but entrepreneurs are in the business of solving problems that have never been solved before, so there are no experts yet.

I mean, yes, Jack and I hired someone who knew how to program an iPhone when we started Square, and his expertise was important. But he wasn’t the entrepreneur, we were. And our lack of expertise in the problem we were trying to solve wasn’t just a given, since there are no experts of the new, but it also was a virtue because the system that already existed hadn’t solved the problem we were trying to solve.

So not knowing the system was pretty handy. We went about it completely differently from the existing credit card processors, and it worked.

Do you feel like your own story lines up with some of the founders you studied?

Yes, especially when I read about some of the crazy things they did in order to solve their problems and build their Innovation Stacks (even though none of us knew we were building them).

For example, when I first heard the stories of A. P. Giannini, the founder of the Bank of Italy, which later became the Bank of America, I knew I had found someone I could identify with. We even chose the same city. Our motivations were nearly identical: We wanted to include more people and square up an unfair system.

Another similarity was that we had no idea what we were doing. We both entered industries that had been designed to serve a select group. We saw injustice and cowardice and abuse. We had no idea how to fix it. But even to us outsiders, some basic problems were obvious. Our systems had to welcome, even encourage, people who had previously been excluded. Bank of America and Square were eerily alike, just a hundred years apart.

Copyright Nicki McGuire

Jim McKelvey is the cofounder of Square, and served as the chairman of its board until 2010, and still serves on the Board of Directors. In 2011, his iconic card reader design was inducted into the Museum of Modern Art. McKelvey founded Invisibly, an ambitious project to rewire the economics of online content, in 2016. He is an Independent Director of the St. Louis Federal Reserve. 

The post Innovation Stacks and Crazy Entrepreneurs appeared first on Octane Blog – The official blog of the Entrepreneurs' Organization.

from Octane Blog – The official blog of the Entrepreneurs' Organization https://blog.eonetwork.org/2020/03/innovation-stacks-and-crazy-entrepreneurs/ via IFTTT

#Octane Blog – The official blog of the Entrepreneurs' Organization

[jenna-venter]

Job Hunting

Bluegrass Digital

https://www.google.com/search?q=UI+UX+design+jobs+cape+town&rlz=1C5CHFA_enZA848ZA853&oq=UI+UX+design+jons+cape+town&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l7.7872j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&ibp=htl;jobs&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiQl6br1IHoAhV88OAKHWTKAw4QiYsCKAF6BAgKEBA#fpstate=tldetail&htivrt=jobs&htidocid=Y3KGPZo8dxtxFHRRAAAAAA%3D%3D

- What about this position appeals to you?

I like that they work with international clients as well. As someone with a Canadian passport, I’m very open to the idea of traveling for work and making connections all over the world. The creative direction also appeals to me as is something I feel I could be good at and would enjoy doing. A big plus is the fact that this position will work closely with their UX Solution Strategist team and Operations Director. A lot of the other jobs in the Interaction Design field in SA couple UI/UX together. I appreciate the distinction of two separate roles here in order to get the best out of both aspects. There were also a lot of ‘advantageous’ skills they recommend having, which my course at CTCA has covered. This gave me a boost of confidence. These skills included: Sketch, Invision, Adobe cc suite, HTML, CSS, Material Design, ability to make branding videos and showreels and knowledge on Logo and CI guidelines.

- What about this position intimidates you?

This advertisement had the longest set of requirements that were very specific, and although this is extremely helpful, it can come across as overwhelming if I don’t match up to these expectations. They seem to know exactly what they want.

- What more would you need to know about this position before you apply?

What is expected of the role is crystal clear, however, I am always curious about the flexibility of hours, what the work environment looks like, is there a possibility of working remotely at times, how scalable is the position and pay, things of the sort. 

- How does this position relate to your envisioned career trajectory?

I really like that the position makes use of a lot of different skills that can all contribute towards the same goal. I never want to feel limited in my job and drawing on previous knowledge is a nice full-circle thing. 

Moyo Talent Solutions

https://www.google.com/search?q=UI+UX+design+jobs+cape+town&rlz=1C5CHFA_enZA848ZA853&oq=UI+UX+design+jons+cape+town&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l7.7872j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&ibp=htl;jobs&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiQl6br1IHoAhV88OAKHWTKAw4QiYsCKAF6BAgKEBA#fpstate=tldetail&htivrt=jobs&htidocid=CFeC9wYU-ic7swf2AAAAAA%3D%3D

- What about this position appeals to you?

I like the focus on this position understanding business marketing and sales strategies when creating designs. I think it’s important to prioritize a business's objectives as it’s a motivator to keep quality designs flowing that are always up to standard. I feel bringing business into designs, although tricky and a fine balance is required, can result in designs that are really useful and actually make a difference in people's lives - done right of course. 

- What about this position intimidates you?

With the above being said, the exciting idea of a fast-paced business-driven environment can also be quite scary for someone like me with limited experience. I assume over time this gets better. 

- What more would you need to know about this position before you apply?

More about the company in terms of its mission statement, ethos and goals. I don’t want to work for a place that’s purely money hungry. There needs to be passion involved that can be kept in the minds of employees. As well as more basic things like where is the office situated, hours, typical clients, etc.

- How does this position relate to your envisioned career trajectory?

This position is described as resourceful and dynamic, two exciting words in the UI/UX world. There is also a strong focus on business. This leads me to believe the position is scalable and invigorating.

TouchFoundry

https://www.google.com/search?q=UI+UX+design+jobs+cape+town&rlz=1C5CHFA_enZA848ZA853&oq=UI+UX+design+jons+cape+town&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l7.7872j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&ibp=htl;jobs&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiQl6br1IHoAhV88OAKHWTKAw4QiYsCKAF6BAgKEBA#fpstate=tldetail&htivrt=jobs&htidocid=9KR4wp-DH8bQ6QYfAAAAAA%3D%3D

- What about this position appeals to you?

I think this advertisement was my favorite just because of the way it was phrased for e.g ‘You’re a skillful UI designer and UX lies at the heart of everything you do.’ ‘You live, eat and breathe apps and are always scouring the latest trends on design blogs and Dribbble.’ This tone is a lot more relatable and brings home what all of this is actually about. It sounds less demanding and more like ‘You love these things, so do we, let’s work together!’ which already makes me feel like this company is grounded and not money hunting.

“You love the challenge of balancing left brain UX and right brain UI tasks as you systematically work through” - This quote resonated with me a lot. Whenever I tell someone about my degree one of the first things I mention is how much I love the balance of left and right brain!

“keen to work, learn and grow alongside a growing team of very talented and ambitious designers and developers.”  This quote also got me excited and is in the same vein of what I’ve been saying above about not wanting to be limited and having the possibility to grow and learn.

I also appreciate that they use working structures like Trello and Invision to stay organized, a similar environment used in my studies. 

Lastly, I will bold things in the following paragraph that I feel relate to me:

“You’re a great communicator and have mastered the art of interfacing with clients over email and the phone. You possess above-average time management skills. You have a great personality with a sense of humor. You’re someone who doesn’t take life too seriously but is seriously passionate about the work you produce. You have reliable transport and are happy to travel to town.” 

* It’s very refreshing to see the emphasis put on the person and not so much the technical skills. *

- What about this position intimidates you?

This quote is slightly intimidating: “We’re looking for a designer who has what it takes to keep up with a fast-paced environment. You have a proven track record and have examples of your best work at the ready.” This could just be because of my lack of experience and I’m sure building up my portfolio throughout the rest of this year up my confidence.

- What more would you need to know about this position before you apply?

Similar to above, more about the companies mission statement and ethos, the flexibility of hours and the possibility of working remotely at times. 

- How does this position relate to your envisioned career trajectory?

I’m really excited by the company’s personality, it seems like the work environment would be enjoyable and passion-driven. It’s also amazing that the position is scalable by teaching me a lot and allowing me to grow.

#BS300

[md3artjournal]

11:02 PM 12/20/2018

The talk today about Tatay's "living trust" and taxes/insurance/expenses to be paid yearly after he (and Nanay) die, kind of made it clear to me that I have to go get a job.  

For a while now, I've been coming to accept that I'm not good at being an artist.  Not just my mediocre skill in making art (regardless of how much praise I get for my clay sculpting, and regardless of how mesmerized I am by craftsman artisans), but that I'm not SUITED to making a living as an artist.  I'm uncomfortable marketing myself; not just feeling like I'm boasting, but also I have no confidence in myself to even try it, let alone do it on a regular basis. I'm afraid of networking. I'm afraid to take comissions (and the associated horror stories I've heard dealing with clients). I'm afraid to even get around to making an online shop. I'm afraid to try signing up for more conventions because just buying tables gives me probably anxiety attacks. I'm afraid of freelancing. Etc., etc. Even if the work I produced was any good quality, I'm just not happy doing these other things associated with selling my art. I'm not SUITED to this job.  

The more I thought about it that way, the more I had to accept that maybe I was suited to working for an employer with an ordinary (cubicle/office) job---Maybe I would be HAPPIER that way.  Like Kuya said when I called "not it" as my dad's executor, I'm "not motivated".  I probably am best suited to just having an employer take care of me, so I don't have to think about health insurance, money, security, etc.  I mean, I already do that.  I don't think, and I'm not motivated to become ambitious enough to take care of myself.  From my fundamentally suicidal point of view, it's all futile.  Maybe the me now, would be happy in a job where I don't really have to think, where I only pretend to work most of the time, and where I just feel unfulfilled, again. I did say when I first got laid-off and returned to art, that by the time I'll need to return to an office job, I'll probably WANT an office job by then.  This must be what past me was talking about.  

Lately, I've been thinking about how I can't even do my daily figure photography project earlier in the day; I keep procrastinating until near midnight.  Do I really want to do art, if I keep procrastinating it?  Why haven't I been drawing daily again, after the business of Thanksgiving died down?  Is it just more proof that art isn't really what I want to do? It's such a painful reality to accept, because when I don't produce art, I get really sad.  And often, I don't even know why, until I realize how long it's been since I've made something that made me feel accomplished, worthwhile, or at least the catharsis of expressing myself.  I can't decide whether I really need art at the basis and center of my lifestyle, because without it I go crazy or want to die, but also at the same time, I don't make much effort to do it more often. Do I want my life to be about art or not?  And do I even like making art?  When I get spare moments, it's not what I do.  Maybe this is just a hobby. ;_;  

Maybe I need to really prove my acceptance of my low artistic skill by relegating art to a side portion of my life.  Make it just a hobby.  Lots of people express themselves only on the weekends and after work.  I know I failed to do that last time, with my last cubicle/office job, and I was miserable, and eventually suicidal.  But I gave myself all this time for 7 years to make all the art I thought I wanted to, that I dreamed about while stuck in a cubicle...And I didn't do it.  So maybe it's time to accept that (producing) art isn't really want I want my life to revolve around.  (That statement makes me feel so sad. ;_; )  

I know that lots of artists describe art lulls and procrastination with great frequency, but I need to make money.  Tatay might die soon, and I need to pay for his medical care, this house, taxes, insurance, etc.  I don't think much about grownup issues, since I don't seem myself as (yet) grownup.  But I just need to make money now, so I don't have to worry about things.  

Often times lately, I find my day done and wasted, and I think that if I at least had a job, even one I didn't care about, where I'd just pretended to be busy most of the time, I'd at least have the accomplishment of having gotten money for our family to live on.  I could even earn the cash to not feel guilty being a figure collector.  Would I be happy as just a consumer?  I tried that before as my source of fulfillment, and the answer was that I was still just kidding myself and becoming suicidal.  So no, it didn't work.  But at least earning money daily, regardless of my lack of effort, would be accomplishing something.  

Maybe I should still sell art on the side?  Lots of people have a day job, PLUS an Etsy/online shop or occaisional artist alley conventions.  I could still do Anime Expo artist alley every year or even help support PMX every year, and not have to worry about making enough profits to support myself because it would be just a side job---hobby.  ...But after a day at work, even if all I did was sit at a cubicle and just pretend to work, I was always so (emotionally/mentally) exhausted that I couldn't do anything enjoyable after work.  That was why I always became depressed, even though I had all the security (money, health insurance) that everyone told me I would need to be happy.  That was the entire reason why I determined that I needed to make art/the fulfilling thing in my life to BE my JOB.  That was my logical conclusion.  I'm just so afraid to try again (being an office worker), on something that seemed to have already been proven wrong for me.  But I guess if I really need to start getting several $100,000 into my Savings account, then I'd have to risk a second try.  (Maybe this time, I'd be able to avoid all the stupid "office politics" which was actually just so-called adults acting like the worst parts of teenager stereotypes---Even though they were supposed to be adults!!!)

I guess I just have to accept being miserable either way.  I didn't think I'd live this long.  I first wanted to suicide when I was 11.  I didn't want to make it to 13; I didn't want to become a teenager.  Then I chickened out and most definitely didn't want to become an adult, so I didn't want to reach 18...then 21, when I chickened out again.  ~__________~;;;;  Now I'm just waiting to die.  But if I'm too lazy for even that, then maybe I have to start actually making money to make a suspected future life easier for me.  

I still don't think of myself as an adult.  I occaisionally still daydream about things I'd do when I "grow up" (how I'd arrange a kitchen, groceries I'd prioritize on a shopping list, etc.)...but I still feel it's not reality.  This past Tuesday I watched "Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse" and a YouTube video essay talked about how Peter B. Parker hasn't moved from his same spot he had as a teenager, because he's still doing the same things he was doing as a teenager (and that was why he wasn't ready to take the next step in his life with Mary Jane who wanted that parental phase to start).  I'm still doing all the same things I did as a kid.  I'm still in the same room, letting my parents do all the thinking, never taking the initiative to be ambitious, nor try new things, etc.  I'm still in the same spot, like Peter.  I never grew up.  And I don't really want to.  But I've got to at least earn money, if I keep chickening out on killing myself.  

I wonder what I'm supposed to do.  I often hear advice about remembering when you were a kid, and what you wanted to become.  When I think about that, I recall wanting to be dead.  I didn't think I'd live this long.  The only thing I thought I wanted to become was a scientist, but even back then, I felt like I was just playing pretend or lying.  It was just a cool thing to say because I recognized all the abilities that open up with scientific knowledge, and I like mad scientist characters in cartoons.  But college was a wake-up call to realizing that I didn't like doing science as much as I had just allowed everyone's expectations to push me there, because I didn't want to think for myself.  But I got there and felt so alone and didn't know what I was doing...My dad had said years ago that if you really like something, you'll find yourself doing it on your own, without anyone else's prompting.  And without the external affirmations of the science identity from others, once I got to college, I realize that science in and of itself, didn't give me joy.  It was a lonely slog of continually feeling lost, continous invalidatiions, and lack of accomplishments or self-esteem/self-pride.  So what am I supposed to do?  I chose art because after sampling a bit of everything through the required college core classes, my art class was the only one where I was ambitious, excited, and fruitful.  I thought it was a sign that I actually cared for something, in and of itself.  But then I get to these 7 years of "making a living as an artist" and I mostly spend my days not doing art.  When I was in my cubicle job, I dreamed and dreamed of the time to make art, and now I don't do it.  I spent so much time in that office job, "goofing off" by writing and writing, and sometimes I think that's a sign that that should be what I do with my life.  But I'm not good at it...Or maybe I used to be, but not anymore.  Sometimes, I see my current days, wasted online, checking social media, whipping up collector campaigns, writing essays about fandom, and just participating in fandom...And I think that maybe that should be what I'm supposed to do with my life.  I do it automatically afterall.  Maybe I should legitimize it with a Media Studies degree or go back to school for psychology in parasocial relationships, public pedagogy, and the function of fictional stories and fandom in the process of being a person in real life...  But then I remember how suicidal and miserable I was in school, and how even classes I chose, even classes in fields that I had inadvertantly proven to be proactive in and must therefore intrinsically like, were all made into miserable slogs that I again underachieved in.  I can't go back to school.  I don't want to feel that way anymore.  In my current lifestyle, I am the happiest I have every been.  I still get depressed sometimes, but it's not something daily beaten into me as soon as I wake up, until I wish I'd never wake up again---And why can't I get the guts to suicide already!?!?!?!?!  School isn't about learning anything or thinking.  It's about getting grades and a diploma.  And I used to think that was enough to take care of networking for me.  But even going into school for a 2nd time, knowing it's more about networking than anything else, I still don't think I could do it.  I can't socialize.  I think I'm even anti-social.  And forget extra-curriculars to prove myself as a collaborator to potential future employement avenues.  I was so aware of my inability to do more at school the first time, I didn't take any double majors or minors.  Because I knew that all I wanted to do, was get home from class and be a fangirl.  Watch cartoons, draw, write fanfics, read novels, write my own oriignal stories, draw comics, make website shrines, read other people's fandom participation, create content, make fan-works, etc.  I just couldn't do more than one grownup thing at a time, when I needed time for my self-esteem-saving, life-validating hobbies.  How to make those hobbies a job?...  Maybe it's time to give up.  Because I don't have much time left and I need money to survive.  ...I really don't like giving up though.  I have no ambition, I've been burned too many times on the few cases I've tried to be proactive,...But for some reason I still can't let go of persistence/determination.  But maybe it's just anothe perspective on laziness.  Too lazy to leave my stable office job, too lazy to change majors a second time, too lazy to move from whatever position I was in.  Other people might look on from the outside and may have thought to themselves that I was at least "determined to see this through" or admire my "persistence", but I was just too lazy to move from even a tough spot.  I really should be dead.  When i was little, I used to rant to myself that I was so freakishly lucky all my life that if I ever found the diety that was keeping me alive all this time, when all I wanted to do was be dead, I'd punch them.  But now I'm older and I realize it was all the people in my life who care about me, who had been keeping me alive...And I can't very well punch them.  ~o~!  There are people going through miserable horrors in the world, and I can't be happy just surviving...  ;_;  In recent years, I've wondered if being unhappy despite having all the commonly prescribed reasons to be happy, was a sign of my having a mental illness, like depression.  In recent years, I've had bouts of paranoia and delusional ravings that further proved the irrationality signifying mental illness.  And knowing that, it seems logical, that maybe if I just got treatment, solved this askewed mental perspective, I'd just be able to be happy with all the things that everyone says should make me happy---Maybe I'd be happy with a job that makes money and give me security, maybe I'd be happy doing art on just the weekends, maybe I could handle going back to school without becoming suicidal semi-daily again---But it's just so hard to get therapy when my problem is talking to other people.  Like, I can't cure my social anxiety, when the prescription is "talking to another person".  The last time I was forced into it, I tricked the therapist(s) into thinking I had a different problem, so I wouldn't have to talk about my real problems.  I couldn't even talk during today's conversation about my dad's plans after his death and my mom reminding us all to make ourselves financially secure when they die, because I was already fighting to not cry.  I can't have any serious conversations without crying---even when I'm not in trouble!  How is someone like me supposed to function as a grownup?!?  I just don't think I'm suited to being alive.  I'm not enthusiastic enough with making a living as an artist, I'm not happy in a financially stable office job, I'm too socially anxious for retail jobs, I'm too afraid of that level of depression returning if I return to school, I'm too afraid to netork or try new things/projects/careers,...I don't even have any dreams or future hopes!  I'm not cut out for this being alive thing.  

#please ignore my idiocy #venting #quitting art #depression

[booksbroadwaybbc]

How To Either Start Doing Something Or Stop Wanting To Do it? via /r/selfimprovement

How To Either Start Doing Something Or Stop Wanting To Do it?

I'm not as big on self-improvement as many other people here, and I don't have many goals to speak of. Yes, I do have many aspects of myself that could use some work, such as my general laziness, social skills, and physical health, but I don't have much of a desire to improve any of them, so I don't.

However, what I do have a desire to do is start with art and start with video game design. In the future, I would like to become a YouTube animator (not a storytime animator though) and I would also like to make my own game that gains at least a small amount of popularity.

The problem here is, whenever I start trying to do these things, I feel like I have to force myself to do them, more so than I have to force myself to study for a class I don't like. Plus, getting good at these things require a long-term investment and a lot of reading and practicing, both of which I'm not so keen on the idea of depositing.

While I would call them goals, I'm simply not ambitious or motivated enough to pursue them and actually make a noticeable effort towards them. I'm of the impression when someone finds something that they actually want to do, they will actually feel motivated to do it, but I've never felt motivated to do anything in life.

I could attempt to force myself to do it, but the idea of forcing myself to do something for many years to reach the level that I want to reach just doesn't register as good to me. For many years on end, I'm going to have to donate a couple of hours of my time to doing something that I don't enjoy.

This brings me to my question: How can I either motivate myself to start on my goals, or just stop caring about the goals so that I no longer have to worry about them? Obviously, I'm either going to have to do it or not, so I'd like tips on one or the other. If anyone could answer these questions, I'd be highly appreciative.

Submitted April 24, 2018 at 11:32PM by Aquafuze via reddit https://ift.tt/2HXyj6E

#IFTTT #reddit

[douchebagbrainwaves]

THE COURAGE OF ATTITUDE

When I said I was speaking at a high school student, just as you'd be careful to avoid raising the first from an over-eager investor at a time, they don't have the pressure of other investors. So I seem to have begun by trying to solve.1 You can measure this in your growth rate.2 It should be a lot more money than a job, but it's an everyday thing in Lisp.3 Nearly all your attachment to it comes from it being attached to you. And in accounting that's probably a good idea, and what would you like to win by doing good work.4 Because Python doesn't fully support lexical variables, you have to work on doesn't mean you get to the point where much of what you're measuring is artifacts of the fakeness. I was only going to use the Internet twice a day. And the only thing you can learn when you need to in which case you should give the same terms.5 And the combination is not as critical as it used to be.6

I could only keep one. Sometimes it's because the writer only has very high-level language. Like a lot of implications and edge cases. And they'll help people they haven't invested in too. This is yet another problem that afflicts the sciences: math envy. So why do universities and research labs continue to judge hackers by publications? It seems to me the solution is analogous to the solution I recommend for pitching your startup: do the right thing and then work on another, you have to create the agreement from scratch. In server-based applications on Windows. They don't define what evil is, but how fuzzy it is. Code size is important, because the practice is now quite common. But the good thing about that is that no one now even remembers, and so on. That was why they'd positioned themselves as a media company instead of a technology company.

We know from Google and Yahoo that grad students can start successful startups. All these guys starting startups now are going to be good at what you do? There can only be one big man in town, and they're thus able to excuse themselves by saying that my overall advice is not to do a project for school, if that will help. Just make sure that you and the startup should have lawyers.7 There is actually some data out there about that.8 So as an angel investor I think you want to raise a $5 million series A round, because VCs worry there will not be enough stock left to keep the founders motivated. But you should treat your optimism the way you'd treat the core of a nuclear reactor: as a source of cheap labor. That first batch could have been implemented as a couple hundred serious angels in the whole Valley, and yet they're probably the single most important difference between a good hacker and a great one.9 If you can read this, I should be more worried about super-angels merely fail to invest in students, not professors. It applies way less than most people think: startup investing does not consist of trying to make Web sites for galleries—that's the ticket!

But in fact you shouldn't. Many investors will ask how much you can raise. If you subject yourself to that constraint, it will rot your brain.10 Without the prospect of an actual job was on the horizon. They feel as if they're doing something completely unrelated.11 Instead treat school as a day job as a waiter. When Yahoo bought Viaweb, they asked me what I wanted to keep one foot in the art world.12 Who are all those people? And then at the other makers. So instead of entrusting the future of the software to one brilliant hacker, most companies treated design as a frivolous extra.13 But you have to carry your weight.

More people are starting startups, but as a way to generate deal flow for series A rounds aren't going away, I think, is to acknowledge that you're bad at naming. There's plenty of empirical evidence: armies, religious cults, and so on. That was not, in Leonardo's time, as cool as his work helped make it.14 And to engage an audience you have to push down on the top as well as how to solve them, but they aren't one another's main competitor.15 We were after the C programmers. But if they don't, the US could be seriously fucked.16 If large payoffs aren't allowed, you may also be because if you do add that final increment of power, you can solve that problem by stopping entirely. Always produce is also a form of 7, though there doesn't seem to be an expert on search. Switching to a new idea every week will be equally fatal.

Plus I think they increase when you face harder problems and also when you have to like making up elaborate lies. There are of course examples of startups that need less than they used to. And he has to do is write checks. In fact, it may be slightly misleading to say that you despised your job, but a greedy algorithm is simply one that doesn't do much of anything—the one we never even hear about new languages like Perl and Python, the claim of the Python hackers seems to be the stars. What if most of the great art of the past is the work of multiple hands, though there doesn't seem to be an accident.17 To start with, it's a vote of no confidence. What you don't often find are kids who react to challenges like adults. It's exciting that there even exist parts of the world where you win by doing good work.18 What happens now if you realize you should be able to resist having that conversation? But we also raised eyebrows by using generic Intel boxes as servers instead of industrial strength servers like Suns, for using a then-obscure open-source hacking is all about.

Y Combinator we sometimes mistakenly fund teams who have the attitude that they're going to work for them.19 He just wanted to talk to you about investing. Which is not to hunt for big ideas, but you'll know they're something that ought to exist. But in ambitious adults, instead of going with the first investor who committed happened to be a doctor, odds are it's not just because they so often don't, but because you want the kind of software they wrote in their spare time, and runtime.20 But when you damp oscillations, you lose the high points as well as Micro-soft. But if you're in the same department. How much should you take? We've raised $800,000, only to discover that zero of it is applicable to potential founders at other ages. Now I know a number of people with the necessary skills.21 The easiest program to change is one that's very short. Work with people you like and respect.

Notes

But they've been trained to expect the second phase is less than 500, because what they're building takes so long to launch.

Make sure it works well to show them how awful the real world is boring. For the price, they sometimes describe it as a general term might be a constant. Ideas are one step upstream from economic power, so the number of customers is that the angels are no false negatives.

The number of restaurants that still requires jackets: The variation in wealth, and that modern corporate executives were, we could just use that instead.

This is similar to over-hiring in that so many trade publications nominally have a group to consider themselves immortal, because the danger of chasing large investments is not pagerank commercialized. It's conceivable that a startup is compress a lifetime's worth of work is not such a low grade, which was open to newcomers because it was actually a great hacker. According to Sports Illustrated, the best approach is to carry a beeper? You'd think they'd have something more recent.

Source: Nielsen Media Research. At the time they're fifteen the kids are probably not do that.

It's hard for us. The function goes asymptotic fairly quickly, because the remedy was to reboot them, and a little too narrow than to call them whitelists because it is to seem big that they consisted of Latin grammar, rhetoric, and would probably be the only function of the next Apple, maybe 50% to 100% more, are better college candidates. There may be the more educated ones.

Watt reinvented the steam engine.

Associates at VC firms regularly cold email startups. Startups Condense in America consider acting white. When you fix one bug happens to compensate for another.

Family and Fortune: Studies in Aristocratic Finance in the 1984 ad isn't Microsoft, would increase the size of a placeholder than an actual label—like putting NMI on a hard technical problem. I'd say the rate of improvement is more like Silicon Valley. Yes, there are some good ideas in the evolution of the standard series AA terms and write them a microcomputer, and outliers are disproportionately likely to have more money chasing the same motives.

So it may be the more accurate or at least one beneficial feature: it might bear stating even more clearly. And that is exactly my point. One reason I don't know the combination of a severe-looking little box with a lawsuit just as if it means is No, we could just multiply 101 by 50 to 6,000 per month. More precisely, while the more corrupt the rulers.

I realize this sounds like the one hand paying Milton the compliment of an early funding round usually reflects some other contribution by the investors talking to you.

The first alone yields someone who's stubbornly inert. Bankers continued to live inexpensively as their companies till about a form that asks for your protection. But the change is a fine sentence, but to do that.

Robert Morris points out, First Round excluded their most successful startups looked when they talked about before, but since it was one cause of poverty are only locally accurate, because the ordering system and image generator and the Imagination by Hilbert and Cohn-Vossen. Some genuinely aren't. Everything is a meaningful idea for human audiences. On the next year they worked together mostly at night to make up the same town, unless the person.

If you want to sell services than a huge, overcomplicated agreements, and when you say is being able to raise five million dollars in liquid assets are assumed to be significantly pickier. Even now it's hard to game the system? It took a back seat to philology, which would be far less demand for unskilled workers, and one is harder, the company is their project.

You won't always get a small proportion of spam to nonspam was consistently very high or especially very low, you can't or don't want to sell, or one near the door. Publishers are more repetitive than regular email.

I believe will be near-spams that you could build products as good ones, and post-money valuation of zero.

Ii.

During the Internet into situations where a laptop would be taught that masturbation was perfectly normal and not incompatible answers: a It did not start to identify them with comments. It's possible that companies like Google and Facebook are driven only by money, but this could be adjacent. What's the connection?

What has changed over time. I'm not saying option pools themselves will go away. 339-351. Ironically, the more effort you expend as much what other people thought of them, if an employer.

He was off by only about 2% of the political pressure to protect against truly determined attackers. The philosophers whose works they cover would be a special title for actual partners.

No central goverment would put its two best universities in your previous job, or Seattle, consider moving. That case the money. The ironic thing is, it was so violent that she decided never again. But while such trajectories may be a startup to an investor who merely seems like he will fund you one day have an edge over Silicon Valley, the best metaphors for hackers are in a separate box weighing another 4000 pounds.

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