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blairamok · 3 months

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Hello Blair!

I am so sorry about you in ER. Hope you will be okay soon!

I have a difficult question to ask and though I would be so happy to have your advice, please feel free to ignore it. (Plus, I am French, so I hope I'll be understandable, so sorry by advance)

Your "On Thin Ice" content is wonderful, I adore everything about it - the fic, the artworks, the "behind-the-scenes" details, everything. But it seems like you need a lot of time for writing the next chapters (and you are so right, please take your time!). And sometimes it seems like writing is difficult for you. So, do you have some advices about how to resolving it?

Let me just explain why I am asking this: I am French and I started to write fanfictions 20 years ago, when I was 15. It was great, it was easy most of the time, and sharing my stories was freeing me. Never have to learn how to write, it was just here, and it worked, people were enjoying my stories a lot and so do I. Music works a lot with me, it helps me, it unleashes my brain and for each story I had written, I can tell there is one or several musics behind it (that's why I am asking you, because you speak about music in your story and I love it)

I have some chronic pain issues, and it will last until the end of my days - it's ok, I am ok with it most of the time. But in 2020, I had a burn out at work and clinic depression. Met several doctors, tried a lot of meds. I was a mess. Didn't write during 3 years, I just couldn't, as if my brain was broken.

Now I feel a little bit better. I can write, but it feels like the spark is gone. Music still helps a lot, but writing is so hard. When I succeed in writing, I am unpleased with what I wrote. Everything seems so bad, or so OOC, or it's too slow, or "readers won't be interested", or "It's useless, what's the point?"

Sometimes I feel lost, I'm scared, it feels like I'll never be the same again. My friends told me it's ok, told me I just grown up and now I am stricter about my stories and it is not a bad thing. People here and there told me to stop to try to write, and to heal first.

I love to write, I love to tell stories. I am just tired to wait to heal, because doctors told me that maybe I'll never be completly healed. So?

Can I ask your advices about it? How will you manage?

Thanks a lot just for reading this. I wish you a lot of courage and a better health.

And thank you so much for shearing "On Thin Ice" and keep us dreaming about our dear ineffable husbands.

Elenthya

first of all, thank you so so much for your kind words and i am so sorry for waiting awhile to answer this (i'm not in the ER anymore!) but i wanted to properly sit down and dedicate all of my brain power to answering because a lot of what you said here resonated with me

yes, writing is very difficult for me. sometimes i just find it very hard to convey what i want to get across, other times it's my own insecurities keeping me at bay. i get stuck in this feeling of being too scared to write because i feel like i'm bad at it and i don't like being bad at things. brains are weird. i don't really have any way of getting over this other than forcing myself to actually sit down and write, and other times i will get a sudden jolt of inspiration (like for particular scenes). i don't understand it! maybe i just don't like connecting the dots lol

and YES, i love music! i think the reason why a figure skating AU resonates with me so well is because music is a sole component of the sport, and i work really well with music in the same way! a lot of my art is inspired by songs or specific lyrics, not every piece, but there is a good chance i had something in mind for certain things. music is a huge part of my AU so i've put a lot of thought in choosing the musical compositions for their programs that are relevant to the current story i'm writing. and i'm really eager to share that at some point

as someone also dealing with chronic pain, i'm really sorry you're going through it as well. i also had a very very low point, i want to say 2018ish. i have a cervical nerve injury that kept me from drawing for almost a year. there was a long time where i also felt lost and scared, as if things would never be the same. and for me, things are still not the same. i have had to learn how to live with a chronic injury, and working around it is one of the most frustrating things i deal with. i had to learn to be kinder to myself, take things slow, listen to my body, and try not to give myself a hard time when i couldn't do things when i wanted to. it's easier said than done because i still have days where i'm just so frustrated with myself. i am at the whims of my body, i can't do things how i did them before and that sucks because that makes finding the balance between the needs of my body and the needs of my mind pretty tricky. and learning how to live with that took a lot of time, sifting through a lot of anger and bitter feelings, at myself and the unfairness of it all. i know waiting around to heal is torturous. my injury will never heal so waiting is out of the question for me

but!! that's another reason i started writing my AU, because i channel all of that frustration into my version of crowley in that story, who doesn't know who he would be without the thing he's done his whole life, who equates his self worth to that thing, who struggles with an injury and being kind to himself. this is one of the many ways i manage, i think

you say that when you do manage to write something, you feel that it isn't good, or there's something wrong with it—i feel this too, and i know the difference between that and what it feels like to LOVE what you're writing, that spark you're looking for. i have a very hard time getting to that point, and i think what helps me here is to just keep spitting stuff out. it's like when i draw, i make a ton a very bad sketches that will never see the light of day, so i also have a ton of drabbles that will also likely never see the light of day, but nine times out of ten something has come from it. for art, sometimes i redo the same thing, sometimes a whole sketch, three or four times to get to a point where i like it, for writing i do the same thing with sentences, paragraphs. it's SO hard and discouraging to look at the bad stuff you make sometimes but the important thing is (if you are able) to keep going, keep trying, but don't push yourself. you do have limits, just don't give up. personally, i know if i just sit down and do the thing then i will at least get something done. progress is progress, after all

i do hope something in this huge chunk of text was useful to you, i'm not as eloquent as i'd like to be on stuff like this, but thank you for sending this ask and i sincerely hope you find your spark again (i have faith that you will) and soon 🤍

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xb-squaredx · 3 years

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B-Squared’s Top 10 Games of 2020

I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that having something to distract me from the genuine horrors unleashed during 2020 was vital to staying alive, and for me that means a lot of video games! I played…a lot of games last year, but I spent a lot of time playing older games, so I didn’t get a chance to check out a lot of high-profile games that launched this year. Still, I do want to shine a light on the games that managed to resonate with me even a little bit, that somehow managed to launch this year. So let’s get to it!

#10 – No Straight Roads

Rarely have I been struck by a single trailer for a game like I was for No Straight Roads. Produced by industry veterans under a new studio, this is a rare game that’s not quite an indie game from a studio full of newbies, but it’s also not produced with the same kind of budget and resources of a Triple-A project. What do we call this? A Double-A game? Single-A? Regardless, I have to give the team at Metronomik some props for delivering a super stylish game in the midst of a very challenging year. No Straight Roads is a rhythm-based action game where two up-and-coming musicians fight to bring back Rock and Roll to the people of Vinyl City. I absolutely adore this game’s presentation, with each major boss being visually unique and having their own feel that compliments the music they bring to battle. There’s some real energy in these animations with character designs that ooze personality, and being a game about music the soundtrack is great! All that being said though, I have to admit I wasn’t a huge fan of the gameplay when all was said and done. It leans way more on the rhythm side of the equation than I was hoping for, and the action felt very shallow. The fixed camera made some phases of some fights a real problem, and the Switch verison, which I played, is plagued with a lot of issues that really brought the game down for me. If the game interests you at all, give it a shot on PC or PS4; I hear those versions are a lot better. Still, I liked the potential I saw in this game and in this studio, so I can only hope they did well enough to continue on. This definitely feels like the kind of passion project that deserves more recognition.

#9 – Streets of Rage 4

OK, so full disclosure: I didn’t grow up with 2D beat-em-ups. I missed out on all of the greats of the genre back in the day. No Final Fight, no River City Ransom, no Double Dragon, and definitely no Streets of Rage. In more recent years I have tried to dip my toe in the genre, as I did in 2019 with River City Girls. However, I came away from that game a bit disappointed by the overall gameplay and wondered if 2D beat-em-ups were for me. Seeing so much praise heaped onto Streets of Rage 4 had me curious, so I knew I had to try it, if only to broaden my experience in the genre. In many ways, this game is the perfect sequel to a franchise that hasn’t seen any signs of new life in years. It retains what made the series beloved with satisfying combat and challenge, but with a modern touch. The overall art style of the game and music work out pretty well, and I found the act of comboing enemies to be really satisfying. It really doesn’t overstay its welcome either, which is very appreciated in an age of endless timesinks. I also struggled a fair bit with the game, even on Normal, and well after some patches that seemed designed for more casual fans like me. Had this game not had online co-op as an option, I don’t know if I could have beaten the final levels. So my time with this game was pretty rough but despite that I can still see this was a game made with care, and if this game DOES do something for you, there’s plenty of reasons to keep playing on higher difficulties, unlocking more characters and even playing online with friends. Let me put it this way; I’m not all that sure I like the genre and I still liked this game, so I think that counts for something!

#8 – The Wonderful 101: Remastered

…this one is kind of cheating, I’ll admit! I had a lot of trouble thinking up ten games that really stood out to me this year, honestly. That said, I’ll definitely use loopholes to plug one of my favorite games from years ago. Seven years ago, PlatinumGames launched The Wonderful 101 on the ill-fated Wii U, where it bombed harder than just about anything on the system. For those that gave the game a shot, however, they were quick to discover a deep, complex, and charming action game that plays like nothing else out there. Controlling a team of 100 heroes at once, players form weapons out of the various Wonderful One’s bodies, smacking around giant robots and aliens far larger than them with the power of teamwork! How could you not love that, right?! Now, years later, PlatinumGames is aiming to become more independent and their first act was launching a Kickstarter as a way to get this game on newer platforms. While we may never know why Nintendo gave Platinum their blessing to release this game on non-Nintendo platforms (being as this is still, as far as I know, a Nintendo-owned IP), I’m just glad more people can have access to one of the most unique action games I’ve ever touched.

To sell it another way, this game combines the overall aesthetic of Viewtiful Joe with the shape-drawing action of Okami but with a bit of Bayonetta flair on the side. Basically, this is the culmination of everything director Hideki Kamiya has ever worked on. The Remastered version fixes some issues present from the game’s original release, and while I do think they could have gone a bit further with some changes, it is likely the best way to play the game for many. All those sections that made heavy use of the Wii U GamePad are a tad awkward though, but that held true even back on the Wii U anyway…d-don’t worry so much about that, though! I’d still recommend this game to anyone looking for the type of over-the-top action that only Platinum (and occasionally Capcom) can provide! So please consider joining the Wonderful Ones and Unite Up!

#7 – Paper Mario: The Origami King

Discourse around the Paper Mario series is…more than a little rough, honestly! Many fans have been quite vocal about not liking the direction the series has been heading with the last few games, but I went into The Origami King with an open mind and ended up really enjoying the game for the most part! What the game lacked in a developed storyline, it made up for with some really strong character moments and memorable setpieces. Bobby and Olivia are among my favorite partners in ANY of the Mario RPGs, easily, and the entirety of the Great Sea section of the game was a really fun adventure. I love the highly-detailed paper-crafted enemies and locales, and the soundtrack really didn’t have to go as hard as it did. While the battles against common enemies didn’t quite click with me, the boss battles throughout the game constantly surprised me with interesting twists on the ring-based combat and are a real highlight for me. I know this game is pretty divisive amongst Paper Mario fans, but I think the franchise has a pretty bright future ahead of it!

#6 – DOOM Eternal

Fair warning here, but I haven’t quite managed to beat DOOM Eternal at the time of writing this, but what I’ve played so far tells me it definitely belongs here. I think Eternal is hands-down the most intense game I’ve played in a long time. It gets my blood pumping as I dash about, shooting and slicing through demons that are extremely eager to rip and tear me to pieces. I don’t play many shooters in general, so I knew I was going to be in for a rough time, but DOOM Eternal brings it to another level right away. In some respects, I don’t quite agree with various aspects of the core game design that makes the game harder than I think it needs to be at times. The scarcity of ammo, and thus the constant need to use the Chainsaw weapon in order to gain more ammo gets tiring, though that somewhat levels off as more weapons are acquired and players learn of more efficient ways to take out the hordes of Hell. The game’s fantastic soundtrack by Mick Gordon definitely elevates the experience, so it is a huge bummer knowing that he and ID Software had a falling out and he won’t be coming back. I really dig the game’s expansive levels and more focus being put on exploring every nook and cranny for secrets, and certain old-school touches like finding extra lives or cheat codes definitely makes the game feel like it was ripped out of a bygone era and given a modern paintjob at times. Doom is eternal, and with it, so is pulse-pounding shooting action!

#5 – Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition

Compared to the other re-release of an old game on this list, I think this particular title had a lot more time and care put into it…and it also happens to enhance one of my favorite games on Wii as a bonus! Xenoblade Chronicles on Wii was a game that almost passed me by but even years later, I still adored the characters and world it introduced, and I’ve been happy to see what started as game that was almost stuck in Japan eventually grow into a full franchise. I consider the first game to the best in the series, though it was held back by a few issues later games would iron out. Chief among the problems was the visuals, particularly the character models and…wow does ten years make a world of difference. The Definitive Edition does more than just clean up everyone’s faces, it also cleaned up the game’s cluttered UI, made it easier to track quests and materials for said quests, and added some fun optional challenge missions for veterans to tackle. The bow that adorns the top of this package, however, is the epilogue story Future Connected that serves to tie up some loose ends and gives a particular character some great closure. If you love massive worlds to explore, a compelling, at times over-the-top story, and a deep, rewarding combat system, I can’t recommend THIS version of THIS game enough. If you’re going to give the Xenoblade series a try, there’s no better place to start.

#4 – Ghost of Tsushima

When Ghost of Tsushima was first unveiled years ago, I didn’t exactly have a high opinion of it. It seemed like a game that put more emphasis on visuals over gameplay, and I was almost certain it would launch as a PS5 exclusive so why bother getting excited when I probably wasn’t going to be an early adopter of the system? To my great surprise, not only was this game confirmed for PS4, it wound up being one of the prettiest games on the platform and well-optimized to boot, even on my old slim PS4. Playing as lone samurai Jin Sakai, players try to repel the Mongel invasion of Japan, but are forced to adopt less-than-honorable tactics to take on this ruthless enemy. Usually when I play stealth games, I find myself frustrated. I feel weak, or limited, and often the games feel overly harsh. If you get caught once, game over and there’s little salvaging being seen. In Ghost of Tsushima however, there’s a great deal more care put into stealth, and at times I’d argue it’s almost too fun to pass up over the sword play. Very few missions in the game force you to go completely unseen, so stealth just because yet another tool rather than a limitation imposed on you.

Swordplay felt a bit less engaging against common enemies (typically just being Simon Says, switching to the appropriate stance for a given enemy), but the one-on-one duels throughout the game were fantastic and I almost wish the game was all about them instead. I can’t overstate how gorgeous this game is either, with a world that feels like it is breathing, as the wind whips through the tall grass, the moon penetrates fog overtaking a creepy forest, or seeing the smoke from an enemy camp wafting over the distance. Hands-down one of the best-looking games on the PS4, and I’m particularly happy that developer Sucker Punch managed to land a hit with a new IP, as those generally feel more risky as times go on. While I’d argue that Ghost of Tsushima doesn’t really redefine how open-world games should be designed, it is an extremely polished experience and manages to do it well, with plenty of opportunities to grow in a potential sequel.

#3 – Animal Crossing: New Horizons

If there’s any one game that people absolutely needed in 2020, it was Animal Crossing: New Horizons. While there are other games of this type, like Stardew Valley or the Harvest Moon (and later, Story of Seasons games), Animal Crossing is one of the few games that gets mainstream attention while simultaneously running counter to most mainstream gaming trends. No conflict, no combat, no overarching story really…just a game that lets you live your live, day by day on your own terms. I tried getting into the series before with New Leaf but just didn’t stick with it, but New Horizons launched at the perfect time in an imperfect world. Being able to escape the uncertainty and dread that enveloped the world as the pandemic spread for even a little while was a necessity, and thankfully New Horizons had plenty to do to keep idle hands busy. Changes like item crafting and eventually limited terraforming of your island paradise give players so much more agency in decorating their homes and building up something they can be proud of.

We all start as nothing but a small tent on a mostly-empty island, but seeing what people were able to do even in the first few weeks or so was nothing short of amazing. We need more unflinchingly wholesome games in the world, and I’m thankful for Animal Crossing for being there when we needed it, and considering how well it sold and how much post-launch content is expected to be added with time, it remains a sanctuary to return to even now. Just…please let us craft in bulk? Pretty please, Nintendo?

#2 – Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity

Last year, Nintendo released Astral Chain, a game that no one knew about before release, which was revealed and released with very little gaps between them. It was a game I didn’t know I wanted until it was presented to me, and that trend continues this year with Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity. The first Hyrule Warriors was a fun, surprising spin-off of the main Legend of Zelda series, and Breath of the Wild was a fantastic game that shook up the core of the Zelda franchise, so in hindsight it really does seem like a no-brainer to combine the two into one package. Age of Calamity, for my tastes at least, cuts down on the repetition and overall stressful atmosphere of the first Hyrule Warriors and instead focused on fleshing out it’s core combat and crafting more creative main storyline missions. It helps that the game reimagines iconic locales from Breath of the Wild from before their destruction, and really makes you feel like you’re fighting through actual places rather than just a collection of random keeps that most Warriors games use.

Bringing in aspects like the Sheikiah Slate and Elemental Rods allows players to control the flow of combat more directly on top of letting them be more creative. Freeze enemies standing over water with the Cryonis rune or burn some grass with the Fire Rod to distract certain enemies, among many other things. Each playable character is also very distinct, even in cases where I could have forgiven the developers for reusing some attacks or traits. For one, Link has different movesets for his Sword and Shield, Spear, and Two-Handed weapons, but none of his attack overlap with the other Champions who use similar weapons. Some people might be put off with certain aspects of this game’s story and ultimately not everyone likes the overall structure of the Warriors spinoffs anyway, but for my part, Age of Calamity was one of the best surprises of the year, unveiled right at the end of the year in the nick of time. Of course, there was one game this year that surprised me more than any other.

#1 – Hades

I’ve known of Supergiant Games for quite a while and very recently began looking through their catalogue of games. They’re known for well-crafted narratives and satisfying combat, and yet when I first saw Hades when it was released in Early Access I was tepid on it. It didn’t look bad or anything, but it didn’t exactly blow me away and even now, I think a random screenshot or quick clip of the game might not do the game justice in explaining the appeal. I already wrote about the game at-length (as my only real non-retrospective blog post of the year, oops!), which you can read here if you want more in-depth praise, but to summarize…Hades is the total package for me.

Playing as Prince Zagreus your end-goal is to escape the puts of Hell, and more specifically get away from your overbearing father, Hades. It’s a rogue-lite, meaning you’re expected to finish the game in one shot and if you die you lose any upgrades you picked up along the way and have to start from scratch…to a point. Hades does allow you to keep a fair amount of items you pick up which can towards small, permanent upgrades or even gifts for various NPCs that can deepen your bond with them. Unlike most other games of this type too, the story constantly moves forward, even after death. The game is about dying over and over and then dusting yourself off to try again, all the while other characters remark on your progress or lack thereof. I grew to really enjoy this cast of characters, a fun spin on the Greek pantheon, paired with excellent voice acting for the entire cast. From the imposing, if somewhat sultry Megaera, to the nervous wreck that is the maid, Dusa, to the pompous ass Theseus, I looked forward to each new run just to learn more about this world and those within it. For once, death wasn’t really a punishment, but a reward, and just part of the process.

Of course, incredibly satisfying combat is ALSO part of the process and it just gets…addicting; muttering “one more run” over and over as you try out different weapons and boons, discovering what works well together and what doesn’t. While at first beating the game felt like it would never happen, I grew from my failures, adapted and eventually overcame. Multiple times. If you want the “full” Hades experience, this game can really demand a lot of time out of you but at the same time it stays fresh, so I can’t really complain. With new gameplay mechanics unlocking as time goes on, to the Pacts of Punishment players can trigger if they want a bit more challenge (or a lot more), Hades is that rare game that just keeps giving and giving. Before I knew it, I had dumped well over 50 hours into it, and I STILL need to get back to the game if I want that epilogue.

Compared to every other game that came out this year, Hades is the one game that grabbed me from moment one and would not let go until I hit credits. When I wasn’t playing this game, I was counting down the minutes until I could play it again, and let me tell you that is rare for me these days. At this point, Hades is clearly the breakthrough hit for Supergiant and I couldn’t be happier. The fact that this game got to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with industry titans at The Game Awards is kind of surreal, but I can’t think of many who deserve that recognition more. It helps that Supergiant is a studio that actually takes care of its employees, which is way rarer than it should be. I don’t mean to hype this game up like it’s the cure for COVID or anything, but I mean it with all my heart that this was the best game I played this year, and I’d recommend it in a heartbeat. I couldn’t stop talking about it for months after playing it, just ask my friends! So yeah, it’s pretty OK I guess.

CONCLUSION

I’m sure my Top 10 List looks a lot different from most out there, but that’s what’s great about games! So much variety and so much quality no matter where you look! Every year, without fail, there’s always at least a small handful of games that come out that I don’t get to, and try as I might I’ll never trim that backlog down. I want to keep playing games for as long as I can, trying out so many different experiences and seeing what this wonderful pastime can offer. For a good chunk of 2020 I was more than a little down, not just because of…you know, but a lot of games that were coming out weren’t appealing to me. That said, seeing as this was the year of shadow drops and announcing things at the last minute, I ended up loving a bunch of games I hadn’t already spend months hyping myself up for, which definitely helped to lift me up this year. Already, 2021 has a lot of titles I’m anticipating though, so it’s sure to be an exciting year.

Happy Gaming.

-B

#top ten list #gaming #animal crossing #paper mario #xenoblade chronicles #ghost of tsushima #doom eternal #no straight roads #hades #streets of rage 4 #thewonderful101 #age of calamity

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mirandashadowborn · 4 years

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Aside from some (for want of a better term or the know how to execute it) “improved” character design on the Dark Riders and maybe the Soul Riders (I’ll go into this on another post), I think what I’d like to see is their Motivation.

“Evil just cause” don’t cut it for me. And I don’t necessarily mean a tragic backstory to explain away everyones case (used sparingly is fine).

First off, is Katja alien or Human? Jorvipedia says she’s human?? But I heard otherwise so…?! Explain that shit, right off the bat. An alien with psychic powers whose been dragged to earth by her boss and hates humans cause she reads their minds and it drives her CRAZY and she not only learned to block it out but to PROJECT thoughts and dreams to turn it around on them? That sounds like a plausible villain. Otherwise why is she working for Mr Sands? What kind of compensation is there? Doesn’t seem like he’s offering her a very glamorous life out there at DC HQ.

(The way the concept art looks though- she looks like a druid turned bad and THAT would make an interesting backstory too- Did elizabeth find her and try to train her only Kat could read minds and could SEE the lies and deception and BULLSHIT in the Druids, and was cast out?? Inquiring minds want to know!)

Sabine I saw more as like, Bellatrix to Voldemort. Maybe he found her when she was younger and impressionable and offered her Power or status.. Maybe she wanted a Sugar daddy and he seemed wealthy and emotionally aloof enough for her. She may not be living in the lap of luxury but she’s dealt with it for so long there’s no leaving now. Yea her dude didn’t give her everything but - What would she go back to? Competing against younger, better girls in Equestrian events? Uh uh too late for that. So she’s bitter, hates these little up and coming champions, and is eager to follow his orders when it comes to destroying their cozy little island.

Jessica I see as Alex gone wrong. She grew up not having a lot and maybe did some work modeling but didn’t have “it” (the “it” that Anne had- fashion is so fickle), at least not enough to make it big. What was she supposed to do then? Find a job cleaning horse shit? Na Uh- she had a taste of glamour and won’t lower herself back to a simple life. Enter Mr. Sands. He senses an ability in her (The portals? So she’s the opposite of Anne? the Sun but like- eclipsed?) and tells her “don’t get mad, get even”. Its not glamorous but its not simple. He might be a dick but its not as bad as her family who came to depend on her (but she cut them off). He finds Jessica in the midst of her rebellious phase and is exploiting the shit out of that.

Elise is- ok so I’ve read she has the power to cause Discord and Chaos and is the opposite of Lisa- can bring illness and Death (but anyone can kill anyone really so let’s ignore that for now). I don’t think they should make her WANT to really kill people or be a bad guy, and I really really don’t want them to be lazy and use any sort of mental illness as an excuse (lord I beg you).

And wait- tangent. If its Katja/Linda, Jessica/Anne, and Elise/Lisa then its Alex/Sabine? She’s the warrior?? That seems weird to me. I would have done it as Sabine/Lisa (youngest-oldest, English-Western, A giver-a thief) and made Jessica the Lightning/Warrior and then Elise could be the anti Anne. But that’s just me.

Anyway. If Elise is discord and chaos then I need her to be a bit of a mess, asymmetrical, curves and angles, etc. I want her to be a little older but kind of lost (like she is now?? lol) and maybe one of the only ones that can be negotiated with (chaos goes both ways, you know. I can see her being a tiny bit traitorous to Sands if it suits her). Maybe she’s from Jorvik but left to try things and travel but .. can’t finish things. She’s too disorganized. Unlike Lisa, who became an int’l pop star, maybe Elise has failed at everything she’s tried to do. So along comes Mr Sands and tells her she HAS a talent and CAN be successful- just let him take over, like a manager, and then he kept her lazy and complacent until he needs her and then basically goads her into unleashing her powers. But where is she? Is she hiding from him cause she doesn’t really want to be a bad guy?

And I need a little more emphasis on their powers being a foil for the others. Like Linda is psychic and can look into the future, but Katja is projective with it. Cool. Having Katja be pale and angular and cold while Linda is darker, rounder and warmer works for me. I like it.

Jessica and Anne looking similar with a different color scheme works for me too, actually. Sun and Eclipse. Anne more tailored and crisp while Jessica is a little more edgy and (faux) sloppy. (and personally I would have put Jessica vs Alex, since she looks more like a fighter)

Sabine vs Alex is a little weird but would again be the Privilaged vs Poor look and thats redundant lol. What is her power? Again, I would have made her the opposite of Lisa and she can sap energy, cause Sabine as a warrior is strange. She doesn’t strike me as proactive, more like sneaky thief in the night…. I don’t know. Maybe they need to make Sabine a little tougher. But then maybe they’re going with “she plays dirty cause she’s a warrior who isn’t so tough”

Elise vs Lisa? If lisa is pop/rock, make her goth/punk (she’d match her horse better lol). Not cause goth or punk is bad, mind you, JUST so she’d match the horse (its all I got). Also I don’t want her to commit fully to any one thing. (Again- if it was me, I’d have made Elise the anti-Anne in the Group- lost for most of the game, messy while Anne is cool and collected, apathetic where Anne wants justice.)

Also I need Sands to have some hold on them. I need there to be some:

Do you want to go back to your old life?

Do you really want to be my enemy?

You’re only really powerful when you’re here with us, but leave if you want u_u

Otherwise, Why are they there? I need to see the manipulation going on there, cause evil for the lulz ain’t it.

Ok rant over.

(keep in mind all this is coming from someone who hasn’t played the original games but they’re changing old canon anyway so anything goes woop)

#sso #star stable online

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eldunea · 4 years

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Things To Do in Preuzien That Don’t Involve Killing People

because i needed to make this list eventually. with this post i hope to answer two of the questions that have been hanging over the region: what the heck manages to keep all these prussians from revolting? and in lotor’s preuzien, what the heck besides the potential glory of beating the hardest league in the world can draw someone to the region and keep them there? well, my friends, i now have a potential answer. here we go!

take a walk in the tiergarten. in the dark days of wilhelmine, berlin’s tiergarten was one of preuzien’s few safe zones, a place in which no killing of human or human-owned pokémon was allowed. today the park is much beloved as a place to run, bike, hang out with friends, catch wild pokémon not found anywhere else in the german regions and bond with your team amity square-style--except there’s no restriction saying only cute pokémon can participate!

bask in the aura of legendaries at sanssouci and the house of immanuel kant. whether you go to potsdam or königsberg, if there’s a place in your heart for the power of legend, there’s something for you.

sanssouci was the home of preuzien’s legendary queen friedrike the great, the one who merged with zygarde to create the legendary aquilaeon--and her former palace is still one of the places in the world where zygarde cells are the most populous. the great serpent loved their host very much, and so wanted to stay in a place where her presence could still be felt; after getting rescued from wilhelmine by lotor, the blue Z2 core that first allied with friedrike now chooses sanssouci as its home. visitors to sanssouci go there to feel a calming connection not only to their beloved queen, but also to the surrounding world--and those visiting in a post-wilhelmine prussia might even get a rare glimpse of friedrike’s trusted partner. those hoping to catch a legendary for their own will be disappointed, however: attempting a capture of Z2 or removing any zygarde cells from the grounds comes along with some heavy penalties.

immanuel kant’s home in königsberg, meanwhile, has the aura of uxie in abundance, as kant was a vessel of uxie. here you don’t connect to nature, but to the deep knowledge of the universe. it’s a great place to do your homework or clear your writers’ block, as the depth of the philosopher’s divine intellect makes you think more clearly and more quickly--you and your pokémon will see solutions to problems that you never thought of before, and gain a new understanding of things that have always bothered you but couldn’t put your finger on why.

adopt a prussian variant dragon. the junker class of preuzien made exactly one (1) positive contribution to the world, and it was in the creation of prussian-specific dragon breeds. in preuzien, thanks to the influence of aquilaeon’s aura, so many things have become dragons when originally they weren’t--and the dragons made and bred by prussia’s ruling class are second to none. not only are they INCREDIBLY COOL-LOOKING and great for battle, with abilities and moves that their regular counterparts could only ever dream of having, they’re also known for their unflinchingly loyal temperaments.

adopt species that were thought to be unviable, and learn hundreds of years-old secrets to unleashing their strength. there was a program in preuzien that stretches all the way back to the days of queen friedrike in the 1700s, geared specifically toward making re-viable a series of species that had been falling into disuse by militaries the world round. now, in the 21st century, the fruits of their ingenuity have certainly paid off. take a trip back in time with the last captive descendants of rare european pokémon, and make these living relics your very own! the program is a testament to the fact that with enough time and enough thought, any pokémon can be a champion.

unlock your pokémons’ true potential with armor. kalos is known for mega evolution, alola for its z-moves, galar for its dynamaxing, and preuzien for its armor. what does it do exactly? not only does it make you look like the battle-hardened warrior you are, it draws on your pokémons’ inner strength to give them more than one ability. whereas in most other parts of the world, armor is so expensive that only the military can afford it, armor is readily available to civilians in preuzien. get a suit and go ham!

meet some old gods up close. prussia didn’t get its name out of nowhere--it took on the name from the old baltic prussians that it conquered. for hundreds of years, the legendaries of those people were chained up and dragged out to be beaten by german prussians who wanted to test their strength, but now that lotor is in charge, a new age is dawning for them. now no longer prisoners, the legendaries worshiped by the old prussians have become ambassadors to the broader pokémon community, telling the story of the old prussian people and their culture so that their struggles, their triumphs, and their culture will always be remembered. plus, meeting them is a great chance to ask the things you’ve always wanted to ask the gods.

visit the vibrant draconid community. preuzien features the largest draconid community outside hoenn, with thousands living in now-bustling neighborhoods and hundreds more traveling the region eager to share their culture.

prussia, along with kalos, hoenn and alola, is now one of the possible host nations of the annual draconidfest, a festival featuring dancing, archery, dragonback riding shows, draconid arts and crafts, and lots and lots of delicious traditional food. though the festival was never previously held in preuzien due to safety concerns, 2020′s draconidfest is the first one held there--with lotor, a proud draconid, hosting it--and it will be the first of many to come.

dragonback riding shows and draconid arts and crafts are also available in the region year-round. draconid merchants sell jewelry, hand-carved statues and elaborate tapestries in bazaars similar to those found in east asia. dragonback riding performances range from street shows to full-on pokémon contest-esque affairs held in stadiums, with each move either masterfully improvised or meticulously rehearsed. dragon riding to draconids is what horse riding is to mongolians, so their talent and their dedication is sure to amaze!

also, did i forget to mention the food? shed dragon skin soup and crackers, greedent meat so fat and succulent that the oil drips down your chin, grapploct tentacles done ceviche-style with a touch of east asian spice, and steelix shell rock candy all await the adventurous. draconids, like the chinese, take pride in their culinary masterpieces. even a casual stall out on the street is capable of crafting a copperajah-class or charizard-class concoction, no problem.

#worldbuilding. || PREUZIEN #worldbuilding. || POKÉMON AU

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glknight · 4 years

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HOROSHIBA HORRIFICA: A Horror themed Magical Girl property

Synopsis: Nera Valakuzo is not the most skilled of the Witch Apprentices in the city of Horoshiba. She’s barely able to ride her broom, she gets easily confused when trying to remember the right incantations and her natural clumsiness makes her potion making skills something to be desired. But her eagerness to learn and Can Do spirit more than makes up for that.

But it isn’t until she accidentally finds the most forbidden tome in Witch Society’s library that she learns that she’ll need more than just motivation. Because when an ancient prophecy is fulfilled, she will need the power of the Horrifica Magnificarum and some new friends to stop the powerful evil that she accidentally released before it takes over the world!

Background: Growing up, I had a lot of things I was really into. Horror is easily my most obvious fandom, as I still try to create things in that genre to this day. But when it came to anime, I was actually a fan of a genre that most boys (particularly straight boys like myself) were always told by others our own age that we’re not supposed to like: Magical Girls. Magic Knight Rayearth needs to be treated with more fondness, Creamy Mami was a bittersweet show, and Sailor Moon was always awesome, To this day, I still say that both Sailor Mercury and Sailor Jupiter are Best Senshi. And I still say that if you want to know about what modern anime’s like, you have to watch certain shows: K-On! for Moe for example, Evangelion for melodrama, and most importantly for this project, PRETTY CURE for how modern shows handle character empowerment.

Pretty Cure is easily one of the best Anime franchises NO ONE here in the United States cares to think or really even talk about. Cute girls in costumes kicking bad guy butt? Come on! That’s like saying “here’s a great pizza from your favorite pizza place, and I’ve got your favorite ice cream for dessert”. It’s just something that most Anime fans would not turn down in a heartbeat. And then on top of that, you add “Oh yeah, and they’re played like actual superheroes and not just poseable dolls, with super strength, martial arts skills and the same level of high intensity fight scenes as some of the best Shounen series”?

JESUS CHRIST, WAS THE ONLY THING GETTING IN THE WAY OF THIS SHOW BEING BROUGHT OVER WAS BECAUSE THE HEROES ARE ALL GIRLS?!

Yes, and that’s an absolute shame.

So, after about 30 years of denying my interest in the genre, my heart started telling me “You know, since you’re trying to be honest about things you actually like, maybe you should, you know, be honest about your taste in Anime by working on something you actually love”. And that’s what Horoshiba Horrifica is. My love of two genres: Magical Girls and Horror (because let’s face it, I have to stay on brand for Horror/Fantasy/Sci Fi Weirdness).

So, mixing Pretty Cure with the iconic manga/anime horror property GeGeGe no Kitaro, I reached the blend I wanted that eventually became known as Horoshiba Horrifica.

But enough of me talking about WHY I’m creating H2. What is this series about?

SETTING: Horoshiba Horrifica’s about a Witch Apprentice named Nera Valakuzo that lives in the city of Horoshiba, home to Witches, Demons, Werewolves, Vampires, Phantoms and Humans who, after a millennia of co-habitation, look almost identical to humans except for maybe one or two details. Nera is, for all intents and purposes, a klutzy girl with a thirst for knowledge and more than a little energy. With her Frankenyan familiar, Francesca Nyancy Porohezora (or Poro for short) by her side trying to convince her to stay out of trouble, Nera is unable to turn a good tome down. And after finding out there’s a SECRET book she had never heard about, she goes and gets her hands on it.

It’s not her fault that her finding the tome is part of an Ancient Prophecy. And that said prophecy would unleash the exact Evil Queen that the Unity of Six Dominions has been trying to erase from History for the past 1000 years.

After unleashing the Dark Queen Zarafine back into the world, Nera must now use the power of the Horrifica Magnificarum to find the other descendants of the Heroes of the Unity that trapped Zarafine in the pages of the tome before darkness and ruin falls upon the world again.

THE CHARACTERS:

-Nera: Klutzy bookworm that is always trying to improve herself. With a bit of a sweet tooth, and more than a little gumption, Nera is always working every day to do better than the day before. As the descendant of the Witch that captured Zarafine, she is the Magical Girl of Light, Horrifica Magi.

-Poro: When every Witch becomes an Apprentice, they receive a familiar. Some receive dogs, others receive regular cats. When it came to Nera, she bungled the procedure so much, she received a Frankenstein amalgamation she gave a really long name to, so everyone calls her Poro. Like all familiars, Poro is able to talk. Unlike most other familiars, Poro can fly and has unusual strength for something her size, being able to carry a full sized adult. Being Nera’s familiar, she is naturally trying to keep her out of trouble, and is more than a little high strung for her efforts.

-Ulya: Calm and collected, the school beauty Ulya is the envy of every other student. Naturally graceful, with some of the highest marks in the school and a legion of fans, Ulya is always the center of attention. Which usually gets in the way of her time with her girlfriend. As the descendant of the Vampire that captured Zarafine, she is the Magical Girl of Night, Horrifica Bram.

-Yagi: Formerly the quiet type, Yagi was the kind of girl who would start off the journey for self improvement in certain anime titles. With an overbearing mother, an overly dramatic sister, and a part-time job at a pet store, Yagi’s schedule is usually filled to the brim on a day to day basis. Imagine her surprise when she’s pulled into the battle against Evil... As the descendant of the Werewolf that captured Zarafine, she is the ferocious Magical Girl of the Wild, Horrifica Howl.

-Vevi: Due to a life of illness, Vevi is not the most athletic of girls, instead choosing a life of books. With dreams of being a writer one day, Vevi voraciously reads any and every book she can get her hands on. Despite seeming dispassionate, the eternally sleepy bookworm can and WILL talk your ear off about any topic (and we do mean ANY topic). As the descendant of the Phantom that captured Zarafine, she is the Magical Girl of Gates, Horrifica Geist.

-Rona: Ever the troublemaker, Rona is the oldest of her siblings but never able to stand out from them. Mischievous and a little antagonistic, the diminutive devil may have a tendency to think or speak before she acts, but never means to actually cause any real harm. As the descendant of the Demon that captured Zarafine, she is the Magical Girl of Fire, Horrifica Inferno.

-Sen: In the same grade as Nera, Sen is the boy that everyone just seems to like. Good grades, good at sports, good at pretty much *EVERYTHING* he sets his mind to, Sen is just competent in every category all around. It’s no wonder that Nera has fallen kinda hard for him. But the eternal thorn in her side in this matter is Sen’s twin sister...

-Yun: Considered the monster of the School, Yun watches over her brother like a hawk in a bid to protect him. If you ask her why, she’ll tell you she doesn’t really know. But no matter what she says, the sadistic smile on her face when she scares people away from him tells you all need to know. But there’s a really good reason why the pair are like this...

-Zarafine: The Dark Queen that was sealed away before. After discovering a means to conquer several realms, she was *THIS CLOSE* to becoming the Lady of Darkness when the Heroes of the Unity put a stop to her plans. Now free once again, she is gathering her power and forces to start a new campaign of terror.

And with that, the initial setup for Horoshiba Horrifica is complete. If you enjoyed it and would like to see me continue working on it, please feel free to let me know your thoughts. I just really want to make this the best I can.

#magical girl #horror #OC #action #Original Concept #horoshiba horrifica #anime #manga

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shestranged · 6 years

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Bellatrix Hecate Lestrange // the devil shudders as she rises ( she’s taking aim for his throne )

She grew up wanting to break things —- toys and hearts and bones and people. Her father indulged her, quietly forming her into the woman that she is today, a weapon, a beast. Someone who finds peace in the destruction, in the chaos, in the violence. People say that she came out a little wrong - something unhinged about her persona already as a child. Those jet black eyes, waiting to devour you. Sharp teeth pulling into a Cheshire cat grin before she could even speak. As she grew older, she became more adept at hiding her… faults, slowly learning how to suppress her anger, her hatred. Instead growing colder, burning less hot ( a ticking time bomb in the making ). But then she met him. And at his side, she became so much worse. As his right hand, she tapped into unimaginable powers, but it all came at an equally unimaginable price. With him, she became less human, more vile. At his side, all she wanted to see was the streets run red with blood.

what up i’m liz, i’m twenty one and i’m here to bring u my favorite villain and chaotic badass, bellatrix lestrange !! this will be a bit long probably bc i could talk about her 5ever. most important parts to read probably are #hogwarts years, #after hogwarts and #personality stuff !!

PINTEREST BOARD: (x)

PLAYLISTS: (x) (x) (x)

BIOGRAPHY: (x)

QUICK STATS:

name: bellatrix hecate lestrange occupation: senior obliviator former house: slytherin date of birth: december 23. age: 32

BIRTH AND EARLY YEARS:

Let’s set the scene --- it’s a cold December night, right before Christmas, and the Black mansion is shaken by blood curdling screams. It’s the kind that leaves you breathless, shivers running down your spine, leaving you with the sense that something is very, very wrong. Which, Druella Black fears that it very well might be ---- because her (expected) son is four weeks early.

The birth process is excruciatingly long and difficult for poor, poor Druella, but when the clock strikes eleven on the night before Christmas, a girl comes crashing into the world. She’s not what they expect, nor what they want, and she never cries --- instead, she just watches them with those big black eyes that always seem to be appraising something.

Though Bellatrix’s birth was mostly an unwelcome surprise ( she came too early, and it was no secret that her parents had hoped for a boy ), she was also the first child to carry on the Black legacy, which was an honor. A necessity.

As a baby, she was small and meager. Nurses whispered about the Black baby that could barely muster a scream, that seemed so frail. Like she might break at any second. But that memory would soon fade and be replaced by a much more unpleasant one - because Bellatrix’s bones hardened, her skin thickened, her eyes grew meaner. Within a few years, any trace of that soft baby was gone, and instead, a cruel toddler took her place.

As a child, Bella was vicious. Biting, clawing, screaming and cursing were things she picked up fast, and she’d terrorize the other kids at the playground ( with an almost scary aim for her muggle born / half blood peers ).

Once she reached the age of seven, she calmed down a bit, and instead started following her father around ( and was lovingly referred to as his ‘little shadow’ ). Eager to prove herself, she learned everything that a son of Cygnus would have learnt. She was determined to show her father that being a girl would not stop her from becoming worthy of the Black throne, to carry his name with pride. Over the years of her childhood and adolescence, Bellatrix forged herself into the golden girl, a respectable heir in the making. Desperate to wear the crown.

Under her father’s influence, uncontrollable rage was switched in for an eerie quietness, anger instead boiling right below the surface, just waiting to be unleashed. She was so eager to please, to sculpt herself into whatever he wanted, so she suppressed her emotions the best she could, even though it never felt natural. And so, the nurses whispered again, but this time, it was about her sweet, sweet smile, matched with those mean, mean eyes. ‘Doesn’t it look distorted? Like that damn Cheshire cat. Something’s not right about that girl, I’m telling you. She came out wrong’.

Behind closed doors, Cygnus also encouraged Bella’s darker side. Introduced her to the dark arts and the chaos that she would later come to love so desperately.

Most of her childhood was characterized by harsh words, strict rules and high expectations. Her family’s reputation weighed heavy on her shoulders, constantly pressuring her to excel. Luckily, she shared her parents’ ambition and values, and had no problems conforming to their rule. Which also meant that she could get away with much else. As long as she remained the golden girl, Bellatrix could run wild and free.

HOGWARTS YEARS:

Bellatrix had been duly prepped before arriving at Hogwarts. She was the first of their children to walk the halls, so it was important to both Druella and Cygnus that Bellatrix knew how to behave. Who to fraternize with. Who to avoid. Who was worthy of her time. Her parents had also made sure that she already had the appropriate friends — and play dates with other pureblood kids were a common occurrence when Bellatrix was younger.

At school, Bellatrix was popular ---- the resident cool girl. The type of girl that hardly ever objects to anything, because she is always down to have a good time. The type of girl that loves Quidditch, dirty jokes and cheap beer. The type of girl that hides her true colors, at least for a while. Until she explodes.

So Bella kept out of trouble, for the most part. There were a couple.... incidents, with muggleborns. One or two may have been turned into rats and toads ( under the guise of it being a joke --- can’t you take a joke, come on now? ). More serious things have been strictly forgotten by everyone involved. Powerful parents will do the trick. Mostly though, Bellatrix kept to her fellow Slytherins... biding her time. Waiting to strike.

She played for the Slytherin Quidditch team, as a beater, and was eventually made captain ( nothing less for a child of Cygnus, she must excel ). During her time on the team, she was notorious for her cruel playing style, her foul tricks, the constant smirk on her lips as other players fell to the ground.

And during her sixth year, she was eventually recruited into the Death Eaters. And with them, she found a second home, quickly rising through the ranks.

AFTER HOGWARTS:

After graduating from Hogwarts, Bellatrix took a year off from her studies. The official reason was that she needed to “find herself”. Whatever the fuck that meant. Obviously, it was a lie to hide what she was really up to. In reality, Bellatrix was at Voldemort’s side, learning leglilimency and occlumency, all the while developing her dark magic and her shitty personality.

Quickly became Voldemort’s personal attack dog, always willing to do his bidding, no questions asked.

At the age of nineteen, Bellatrix found work as an obliviator. Though the choice had ultimately been hers to make, the dark lord was always whispering in her ear, encouraging her to infiltrate the ministry. The goal was to have sleeper agents of death eaters in every department once it was time to go to war. It also helped that becoming an oblivator just made sense — fucking with the minds of muggles could already be counted as a hobby (albeit a twisted one), and she had always been good at taking things that didn’t belong to her… Memories would be no different.

Will occasionally throw pureblood galas, but isn’t too invested in them. They’re just for show, and she couldn’t care less.

Among the Death Eaters, Bellatrix is in the inner circle. She considers herself the dark lord’s right hand, and prides herself on being his most loyal servant.

Bellatrix also has a pet snake, lovingly named Medusa.

Today, Bellatrix works as a senior obliviator at the ministry of magic. She handles a lot of paper work, but is also out in the field a lot.

PERSONALITY:

First of all - Bellatrix is a fucking shit show and we all know this.

She is like night and day ----- and her temper switches incredibly quickly, which makes her unpredictable, a little scary. She can go from the girl her family forced her to be - the Socialite, the Sophisticated Woman, the Cool Girl, to something far more sinister in the matter of minutes.

When she’s at her worst, Bellatrix is cruel, sadistic, self righteous, impulsive, angry as hell, deranged, unstable, manipulative, a little bit unhinged, ruthless, playful, childish and absolutely lethal. It’s always brewing right below, so close to the surface, just waiting to come out.

But she’s also calculating, clever, quick on her feet, intensely passionate, fiercely loyal (until she’s... not), adaptable, intuitive and assertive.

Bella often contradicts herself — she has grown up believing that it’s best to be cold and devoid of emotions (#thanks dad), but she’s a highly emotional person by nature. She tries to suppress that as best as she can, but she usually boils over pretty fast. Other emotions are usually translated into anger as well, so that’s fun. I think the best way to describe her is that she’s just fire, always burning hot or cold.

Voldemort’s influence on her is also really important!! His influence poisons her mind, her soul, her heart. The darkness that was already there is amplified, becomes a thousand times worse. Though already a skilled witch, he introduced her to magic she could only have dreamed of --- and that power became corruptive, addictive. For power, Bella would gladly pay the steep price of sacrificing her soul, her humanity.

Bellatrix really does think that she is in the right.

Also probably thinks that she’s better than everyone else at all times. There’s definitively an air of arrogance surrounding her.

Mrs Lestrange thinks that she’s invincible, and likes walking a little too close to the cliff’s edge ( playing with fire ). Will occasionally drop hints that she COULD be a death eater, but never goes too far with it. And if someone suggests that she is one, she acts like that’s absolutely outrageous. How dare you imply that I am affiliated with anything... !

Okay so, I am convinced that Bellatrix doesn’t reach peak evil + instability until after Voldemort’s fall and Azkaban, so I’m really trying to tone her down a bit and give the influence of her upbringing ( + her nature ) a bigger role in the person that she becomes. Hence why she is a little better at hiding her true colors, a little more refined. : ~ ) Though, she’s still the hammer ( doesn’t have the most finesse, mostly just likes getting things done, her technique isn’t exactly intricate, but ALWAYS effective ).

Even if most people probably don’t know that she’s a death eater ( though some probably suspect lbr ), she has a very intimidating presence. That’s her brand. And she still has that Weird Aura about her, like there is something that isn’t quite right, so that could also weird people out.

STYLE / FASHION / APPEARANCE:

Bellatrix has jet black eyes and the hair to match. It falls in soft curls over her shoulders, down her back.

Usually wears dark red lipstick.

She hides her dark mark with a concealment spell while out in public.

Dresses mostly in black. Has to wear clothes that can fit into the muggle world while at work ( since she is often out in the field, interacting with muggles ). While there, she wears a well worn leather jacket ( with shoulder pads, in true 70s style ), and wide, black pants.

Files her nails into long claws, and paints them black.

Is tall. Likes towering over people.

AESTHETICS / VIBES:

black dresses, whispered hexes, broken champagne glasses, the calm before the storm, bullets caught between teeth, a constant paradox, skin stained black and blue, a devilish grin, ‘is that wine or blood on your carpet?’, snakes wrapped around wrists, mean eyes, always running hot and cold, a cheshire cat’s smile, soft laughter as the light leaves your eyes, divine violence, a taste of the approaching revolution / the new world order, quiet desperation, family heirlooms, unwavering loyalty, sudden fits of rage, emerald lockets, double lives, ‘would you still like me with my hands around your neck?’, no conscience, silent promises, taunting you with her very last breath, the hardest of hearts, dried blood on expensive clothes and a quiet conviction that this will all make sense in the end.

CHARACTER INFLUENCES:

amy dunne ( gone girl )

katherine pierce ( tvd )

jamie moriarty ( elementary )

glory / glorificus ( btvs )

villanelle ( killing eve )

jennifer blake ( teen wolf )

klaus mikaelson ( tvd )

kilgrave ( jessica jones )

lilith ( supernatural )

drusilla ( btvs )

cersei lannister ( got )

helena ( orphan black )

faith lehane ( btvs )

mazikeen ( lucifer )

FAVORITE CHARACTER TROPES:

SLASHER SMILE - a smile in anticipation of pain or death // a cheshire cat grin.

THE DRAGON - a monster the hero has to get past to get at the big bad. the top enforcer.

TORTURE TECHNICIAN - takes the heroes and turn them into screaming, shinned shambles.

LADY MACBETH - frequently more crazy than her husband, quite the sociopath, in the business of turning men towards evil.

EVIL WEARS BLACK - duh.

DISSONANT SERENITY - someone smiling gently in the middle of death and carnage, seeming almost enlightened as they slit throats left and right.

THE BERSERKER - throws herself into battle with such reckless abandon, that it seems like she wants to die. never, ever retreats.

THE BARONESS - a female baddie with a chilly disposition and more than a touch of the dominatrix about her.

WICKED CULTURED - evil is intellectual // basically an evil aristocrat.

THE CHESSMASTER - thinking three moves ahead at all times. manipulating, planning, plotting.

DADDY’S LITTLE VILLAIN - shares dark father’s ambitions and cruelty.

BERSERK BUTTON - always ready to fucking snap.

SOFT SPOKEN SADIST - occasionally. a monster who might describe just how horribly she’s going to mangle you, while speaking in a voice that’s anything but monstrous.

DARK ACTION GIRL - likes beating the hero to a bloody pulp. good at it too.

AMBITION IS EVIL - has grand plans. ends justify the means, always.

#YB:intro #snake cw #violence cw #blood cw #death cw

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da-can-draw-stuff · 6 years

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You seem to have your own version/interpretation of Goro since you write for him a lot. Can you explain what it is?

Wow, I didn’t think I would get this question, but let’s go! I’ve been working on this since the game was released in Japan.

Let me preface this: A lot of the art I’ve drawn shows him

pretty happy and adjusted. That happens through the years (but I can’t pinpoint an exact moment) since it’s gradual , but it’s also fun to draw. It’s a lot less difficult to draw than him by himself angsting and clutching his head the whole time tbh (how often can I draw him wallowing?).

A lot of my interpretation isn’t that far from material that has been released since, I believe.

I’ve heard my interpretation called human, romantic and possible.

And my writing was visceral and raw emotion. And that’s really what I think it is: human--folly and all.

...Also, sorry about the long reading but I can’t think of a way to sum it up without cutting things out. Sorry, mobile users!

Overall, he feels like a work in progress in that he’s trying to figure out things for himself as he goes. His cunning doesn’t mean that he's completely sure of himself, after all, he isn’t deemed an adult yet by Shido, among others.

He’s never really had choices for himself in his childhood, so when he comes to live on his own, it’s so many choices. Yabadabadoo (I don’t like to call his real name unless I gotta) monopolizes on that, seemingly lining up his goal of having a player with Goro’s goal of pursuing his own revenge. It’s callous since he has at least some inkling of an idea that this is a dangerous path and that his goal will ultimately end up in toppling the government.

This is where Ayana comes in—a stubborn question to that previous statement.

Well that’s fine. The system failed him. He’s about 14ish at this point. This is what he thinks he wants. This is something he can foresee in his (currently) blank slate of a future.

He’s actually a bit awkward outside of his celebrity personality. This kind of lines up with the OA app S.Link. He prefers to have a few close friends, and keep mostly to himself without having been pried into—which lines up with the translation of his taste in romantic partners (I can’t remember what the magazine or blog was, but he wanted someone who knows how to keep their distance). And he has a love-hate relationship with stardom: he loves it at first, getting ‘affection’ from it, but eventually he starts to detest it for the intrusiveness on his life. Not to mention: obsession, hypocrisy, artificiality and superficiality.

As a result, he doesn’t trust most of the stardom personnel he meets. He’s always aware, but always pleasant.

Sometimes scathing with a smile. He only deals with them as he must, but he’s always known this dirty side of business. This is how he views most of his jobs’ interactions: necessity. And he knows that his good looks, charm and mannerisms will get him far.

Surprisingly–he’s also impulsive sometimes, and searching for his own answers. He thinks he could have it all–the life he envied of others, being seen by the public, vengeance on a man who gave no shits about his consequences. And so, he’s meticulous; he keeps an eye on the lines and tries to ensure they don’t intersect. So because of that, it takes a huge mental toll on him the more and more pressure that puts on him. I write that lightly, but he definitely suffers trying to keep it all together. And by P5, he realizes he can’t have it all together and not have them be intersecting. He’s used to being what others ask of him and then abandoned.

He’s not adverse, but he isn’t so open to the change she elicits in him. And it’s slow, but sure. They ask themselves what they want from this, how they see themselves, how they see each other. He comes to truly love her. He tries to learn from the positive influences he does have, whether or not he realizes it. (Hell, he appreciates that her older family friends treat him well and offer him advice on normal topics sometimes.)

As a result of time and perseverance, he feels very comfortable around her and gets to explore a self he didn’t have the freedom to before. Playful, sometimes a bit childish, but welcome to share his thoughts without betrayal. So Ayana knows some of his more cynical thoughts and encouraged him to get professional help at some point. He trusts her a lot by the P5 year, considering she still remains by his side and the one time he accidentally unleashed all his insecurities about being used/abandoned at her.

And he is very soft where she’s involved.Talking about her shows an obvious soft spot and more sincerity, but he definitely hates when people try to be nosy/manipulate/kiss up to him. He treasures their everything together, he is protective of that normalcy and he will not be kind if you try to encroach on that for your own use. He recognizes that she has her own choices that he cannot machinate or save her from, i.e. she’s actually a Phantom Thief. Goro also realizes that she needs her own closure, without his help. Doesn’t stop him from keeping an eye out for her safety, naturally.

He really does love her with all his heart, and he never imagined that it would come this far, so he’s eager to keep it safe. He’s come to taste the simpler pleasures of life that we might take for granted. And that’s why his trying to get her uninvolved with the plans is so urgent to him, selfish and yet unselfish.

But that doesn’t change the fact that he still has his own goals he wants to accomplish. Ultimately, his desire for vengeance is still one of the things he clings to. He really wanted to be good for her, but as Shido’s plans and the Thieves change, he finds he can’t have it all, after all. His lives are all connected and he’s struggling to keep them separated. But now…he can’t even pull them apart! It’s agonizing for him when he realizes how badly he screwed up and panicky when he tries to rig it. A diffuse-one-of-the-bombs situation.

So he does own up to the fact he fucked up his own life. Heck, if he’s already locked into being a pawn, what can he do now that there’s no exit button without severe consequence? Yaba has convinced him that his path will always end with Shido.

In the future, he’s definitely more well-adjusted.

It’s a balance between Robin Hood and Loki. He’s not acting for anyone’s sake anymore, and he’s not going to go out of his way to be more or less cynical or showy either. So it’s definitely more genuine. You’ll definitely get a mix of his Palace battle facial expressions in there. He’s not happy with his past, but he’s grateful for the chance to start anew in a simpler life and to be able to earn that second chance. He is honestly happy no longer having to always wear a customer service smile. That said, there’s definitely bouts of depression, anxiety and guilt that keeps him up at night, but hey, he did finally get professional help.

#Anonymous #persona 5 #goro akechi #da rambles #da answers stuff #ayana nomura #Solace in Broken Things #queue the squirrels

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douchebagbrainwaves · 6 years

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I'VE BEEN PONDERING TOPIC

To say that a certain kind of machine, or using a certain programming language. The thing is, art isn't apples.1 Conditionals. That just breeds laziness. Later, when you want to avoid, not relative poverty. They're not Goody Two-Shoes type good. You might think they wouldn't need any more motivation.

At the moment, when in fact you'd worked it out the day before. But I think the effect of such external factors on the popularity of programming languages is not as great as it's sometimes thought to be. The Chinese and Greek words we translate as happy didn't mean exactly what we do by it, but it is a huge one. Whereas I suspect over at General Motors the marketing people are telling the designers, Most people who buy SUVs do it to seem manly, not to drive off-road. I know drive the same cars, wear the same clothes, have the same kind of furniture, and eat the same foods as my other friends. He thinks you should write it in Java. If good art is that it involves more risk.

Then you're saying that it's unjust that certain kinds of apples and others like other kinds, but how can you say that one kind of work in which problems are put before them and they have to do is start a startup that has nothing more than the founders, and there needs to be done mostly with standardized agreements. Since it is a standard, I won't get in trouble for that. Even colocating servers seemed too risky, considering how often things went wrong with them. They don't even start paying attention until they've heard about something ten times. Fortran into Algol and thence to both their descendants. The winds of change originate in the unconscious minds of domain experts. So the worst thing you can do in a lot of new startups may not decrease. But I think there is room to beat languages like Perl and Python, the claim of the Python hackers seems to be regarded as the rule rather than the exception. This recession may be different from the skills you'd learn to get a big program is to start with what goes wrong and try to trace it back to the painting over and over in technology.

The only thing technology can't cheapen is brand. What popularity it retains dates back to the stone age. In fact, faces seem to have made investors more cautious, it doesn't occur to most kids that wealth is something that you expect to write in an hour. So one widely used trick, especially among illustrators, is to work somewhere that has a lot of situations, but has to rely on Q for the ones that succeed. It's just as well that it usually takes a while to gain momentum. The advantages of rootlessness are similar to those of poverty. You have to decide which we prefer. When the economy bounces back in a few years and they're ready to write checks again, they may find that founders have moved on. That is the future of web startups is pretty straightforward: there will be a good idea—but we've decided now that the party line should be to increase students' self-esteem. In the time of Confucius and Socrates, wisdom, virtue, and happiness were necessarily related. It was as if someone had brought up the topic of lung cancer in a meeting within Philip Morris. For both Confucius and Socrates, people seem to have just humiliated them technologically.

This is especially true for math expressions. S;; This falls short of the spec because it only works for integers. The way to do it: as well as grad students? There is no good answer. That doesn't erase the advantage of increased cheapness, however. The big bang guys. The language offers abstractions only as a way of saving you work, rather than as a way of telling you what to do in a big program. At the other end of the spectrum, we'd be the first to see signs of a divergence between founders and investors, and they were actually a lot happier now that they didn't have room.

Notes

Reporters sometimes call a few percent from an eager investor, and unleashed a swarm of cheap component suppliers on Apple hardware. Something similar has been in preliterate societies to remember and pass on the spot very easily. Cit.

#automatically generated text #Markov chains #Paul Graham #Python #Patrick Mooney #S #art #investors #age #sup

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morsmordrehasbeensaved · 6 years

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CONGRATULATIONS JOSIE, YOU HAVE BEEN ACCEPTED AS BARTEMIUS CROUCH JR. WITH THE FACECLAIM OF BILL SKARSGARD!

Josie, all of us admins here absolutely loved your application! In particular, we loved the detail put into his character traits, as well as your interpretation of his relationship with his mother. The headcanons were a nice touch as well! Barty freaks me out, but I mean that in the best way possible! I’m so excited to see Barty on the dash. Welcome to Morsmordre, Josie. We are so happy to have you!

Check out our acceptance checklist right here on what to do next!

♔ OUT OF CHARACTER INFO ♔ NAME/ALIAS:

Josie.

AGE:

23.

PREFERRED PRONOUNS:

She/Her.

TIMEZONE & ACTIVITY:

EST – activity would be a 6 out of 10. I try my best to be online as often as I can, but I have a full-time job that takes a lot out of me as well.

TRIGGERS:

REMOVED.

ANYTHING ELSE:

REMOVED. Request approved.

♔ IN CHARACTER INFO ♔ FULL NAME:

Bartemius Crouch Jr. However, calling him Bartemius could land you on the wrong end of a hex. Only his father calls him Bartemius, you see. Barty is muchsafer.

BIRTHDAY AND AGE:

April 14, he is 16 years old.

PRONOUNS:

He/him.

SEXUALITY/ROMANTIC ORIENTATION:

Barty is asexual and biromantic. While he can handle physical affection, he much prefers a match of the minds and needs no physical contact to reassure him of his relationship with anyone.

EXTRACURRICULARS:

I love him in Knitting Club, though if possible could we add him to Chess Club? He enjoys showing off his intelligence and especially enjoys beating blood traitors and befriending possible allies.

PERSONALITY TRAITS:

POSITIVE (+): Intelligent, Perfectionist, Driven

Intelligent - Barty was placed in Ravenclaw for a reason and that was because the hat immediately saw the desperation for knowledge and thirst for learning as soon as it was placed upon his head. His mind moves at an incredibly fast pace, taking in situations and details and calculating the right actions in reply to this. He sees through facades and anything of the like with ease – and has long since put school work and the frivolities that come with it aside as irrelevant.

Perfectionist - Never a detail unseen, never a stone left unturned, Barty’s keen mind has never allowed for anything other than perfection. He works systematically, mentally categorizing new information for later use (his eidetic memory is a big help with this, too) – and makes sure there is never any flaw to be found in his works. Another positive aspect of this is that Barty can always sense whenever there is anything off when it comes to others, he picks up on lies and mistakes easily because he always remembers the little things.

Driven - There was a second of doubt from the Sorting Hat when it came between the choice of Ravenclaw and Slytherin. It could sense the ambition inside of him, the determination to become something even greater – in the end, his intelligence won out, but being placed in the house of Eagles did not quell this part of his personality. Barty enjoys improving himself, driving himself to become smarter, better and stronger. He was well aware his genius was above most of his peers from a young age on, but still, he pushes for more.

NEGATIVE (-): Obsessive-compulsive, Desperate, Manipulative

Obsessive-compulsive - The negative side to his perfectionism shows through in this side of his personality. He needs everything orderly, neatly sorted and coordinated the way he wants it to, or the chaos messes up his mind – it pushes him towards something that could almost be classified as madness. Barty absolutely cannot stand when things are unorganized, messy and chaotic, it makes him feel like he’s losing control – like he’s losing the grip on his sanity, and sometimes, that might actually be the truth.

Desperate - His father always seemed so disappointed in him, nothing Barty did was right, nothing Barty did was good. Compliments were rare in the Crouch household, but he craved them more than he did air. His mother, sweet as she was, tried whatever she could to satiate her son’s need for his father’s – his namesake’s – affection, but it did not work. Only last year did he find someone who’s praise was good enough to replace that of his fathers’, a man who branded him with a mark on his forearm and fed into his madness. He will do anything, anything at all, to please his Dark Lord.

Manipulative - Barty has always found it easy to toy with his peers. He could see through their petty little games and start one of his own, where he pulled the strings and have them dancing like puppets. While it is not something he occupies his days with, these manipulations are something he occasionally enjoys when he’s bored, running plays and watching the reactions they gave, things he could use in the future, the information he gathered. Ironically enough, something that has always been nothing but a game to him has quickly become one of the skills the Death Eaters find very promising in Barty.

BIOGRAPHY:

Bartemius – or Barty as he was affectionately known by his mother was born to a slightly dysfunctional family, of which became very apparent as he grew up. Whilst doted upon by his mother, and he to her his father was someone that had always been cold, distant – almost as if he had expected more of his son, and his only heir. Within this household, Barty came to be aware of the phrase that he as a child was to be seen but not heard. It was almost as if his father had been disappointed by the child he had, that he wasn’t good enough.

This affected him so much as a child that he strove to reach his father’s attention in any way possible. Encouraged by his mother, Barty began to work studiously in his work, reading any and all old textbooks that his father contained in his library so that he could become a son that his father was proud of, so that he would be acknowledged more than just Bartemius Crouch Junior; that he would be recognised by his father to be someone he was proud of. Unfortunately, this seemed to not be the case when he seemed to not reach his father’s attention even at the young age of five when he seemed to be displaying a natural talent for wandless magic.

His mother, on the other hand, showered him with praise. Whenever he picked up a new language, she let him babble on for days, listening intently to every word rolling off his tongue. Whenever he learned to play a new instrument, she clapped loudly, much to the annoyance of his music teacher. Whenever he showed a new piece of magic, she watched on with bright eyes, amazed by her son’s prodigy. Fiona Crouch absolutely adored her little Barty – and some part of her resented her husband for not doing the same, which was evident in the heaps and heaps of owl’s she sent him. Begging him to come to a recital, to read the recipe for a Potion he’d reinvented, anything at all. He never replied.

Fiona blames her husbands’ negligence for the attraction Barty quickly grew towards the Dark Arts. Even before Hogwarts, he had put aside normal spellwork and turned his eager eyes towards forbidden things; curses, hexes, and potions that harmed instead of helping. He’d whispered the word ‘Imperio’ at the neighbors’ boy when he was only ten, having him take the blame for a mess he’d caused. He’d screamed ‘Crucio’ at a rat, hiding in their cellar at home, his curiosity to see how the animal would react to pain like that too strong to overcome. There was only one Unforgivable he saved – one he refrained from casting until he could use it on the person who deserved it most. Despite the eagerness for his praise and love, the Dark Arts had unleashed in him the strong desire to kill his father.

There was not much mentionable for his first six years at Hogwarts. Barty was well above his peers when it came to his studies, he didn’t care much for social activities, and there was rarely anyone worth his time when it came to friendship. The only thing that pulled him through the bore that was school came with the approach of Lord Voldemort. A cousin from his mothers’ side had first come to Barty with a promise to be more, to stand above others and step on those of filthy blood. He’d never paid pureblood supremacy much mind before, but as soon as they started whispering in his ear, he quickly agreed with their views. In fact, it was one of the few things he felt strongly about since – though from the moment he met the Dark Lord, he knew that he would agree with anything that left this man’s mouth.

His mother had a faint expression of disappointment as soon as she realized what her son was getting himself into, especially with his fathers’ profession. It were mostly worries that crossed her mind, not wanting to see her precious Barty hurt. Fiona had learned to keep her lips sealed, however. She loved her son, and if this was the path that made him happy, that made him feel content in his life, she would not stand against it.

In Voldemort, Barty found more of a patriarchal figure than his own father had ever been to him. No one’s praise had ever been good enough to satiate his need before, but whenever this man told him ‘well done, Barty’ – he finally felt it. Satisfaction.

ADDITIONAL INFO:

Some more traits are:

Analytical (+), Cynical (-), Intrinsically Motivated (+/-), Intuitive (+), Sneaky (-), Systematic (+/-).

Songs I associate with Barty:

MUSE ––– MADNESS / THE PRETTY RECKLESS ––– MY MEDICINE / WOODKID ––– RUN BOY RUN / HOZIER ––– ARSONIST’S LULLABY / BLUE FOUNDATION ––– EYES ON FIRE / STEPHEN ––– CROSSFIRE / X AMBASSADORS ––– UNSTEADY / JRY ––– PRAY / HALSEY ––– CONTROL / ST VINCENT ––– ANTIDOTE / CIVIL TWILIGHT ––– HOW’M I SUPPOSED TO DIE / DAVID BOWIE ––– LIFE ON MARS.

Some headcanons:

ONE ––– In the summer before the start of his Third Year, he developed a tic of sorts. It was uncontrollable and unmanageable and the harder he fought it, the worse it became. His mother pretended she didn’t notice it and his father tried not to appear as visibly disgusted as he was by it. While it gets worse when he is around his family, it is still present every day in Hogwarts.

TWO ––– His OCD reached a meniscus, bubbling over into an obsession with the number five. He has to shake people’s hands five times, nod his head five times, shut his wardrobe door five times, and every night before bed he has to tap his wand against his bedside table. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.

THREE ––– Since the start of this school year, Barty has decided to break off all contact when it come to his father. He stopped writing him letters, and made sure to tell his mother to do the same. The worst part about this is that it seems the lack of interaction hasn’t even been noticed.

#morsmordre accepted #bartemius crouch jr #hp rp #marauders rp #hogwarts rp

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dancekickboxcardio · 5 years

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I like the attitude but I made a deliberate and a little loose mental calculation 🧮 and I decided to the best of my ability to give myself 🤨 more time. It was an independent choice. The premise was I am always there on a Monday when no one wants to show up. Like showing up early to the gym 🏃🏼‍♀️ 💪🏾, I want to not be there today to alter the forces fate thrust upon us. Change it up. I really didn’t want to get out of bed 🛏. It is so cozy. I had difficulty falling asleep 💤 —surprise. I had my alarm ⏰ on at 600a and I feel that everybody is enjoying 😊 the weekend and I want to get going. I had plans to wake up fairly early and be on my art 🎨 desk to do some conceptual writing ✍🏾 plans 📓. Instead, I made some pumpkin 🎃 spice fit Americano ☕️ to get my start of the 7 day going. I found it really sweet 🥄. I am not sure 🤔 if it’s the same about you it really depends on how cluttered, busied, full, the mood and the wirings in your brain 🧠 if you are a thinker 🤓 like something is always going in on like perpetual knowing of what’s to do or just random stuff that needs to be done ✅. Sometimes, I turn that gear ⚙️ off and I am like what do I feel like doing, oooh 😯 that is exciting or I might forget let’s follow on that, hold that thought 💭 or it presented itself. Things are hanging around me and they are proceeded for accomplishment when I get to it. When I feel like it. When my executive functions get going, mmmmhm, I can be scary manically formidable. The only l snag is it is to without methods 😏. I shall make you find the answer if at all in like years spend in the clinical area and hours pored over on books. I did a lot of self- care yesterday. Today, I want to contrast and point self-management. Those are two different things and I shall drive the point. So what are the stuff that I did to kindle 🔥 my spirits, passion, creativity, inspiration, energy ⚡️. In an essence not look 👀 like crap.

(1) Nutrition

It might not be the most balanced diet but I made an effort to eat 🍽 my breakfast 🍳, enjoy 😊 foods that I like and not skip a meal 🥘 at all.

(2) Intellectualize

I am a thinker 👓 without a doubt. I was humoring myself that I am not in a cognitive decline because a lot of academic stuff really gets me going. I have my reasons and natural liking towards them and I simply follow my inclinations. Without touching on them I feel like crap as if the nap 💤 was a total easy waste of time. Nothing is going on.

(3) Prepping

Self-management is sort of preparation although much or it is making sure thing are not just done ✅ but in the best possible way and the are actually check off. You are not doing them automatically and just doing the work in the advantage of place. You listen 👂🏾 to yourself. You know where you stand. You can tell what you care about. You realize where you fall short and commit to doing better and sustaining those changes. I have been putting my dish 🍽 🧽 washing. My Dad recommends that I do them daily because it’s helpful. I live boho. Whatever occurs to me. I have a sore throat today and it makes me wonder what dirty stuff I came across that made it’s way to my oral surfaces. This is putting a seamless week started because I have the things I need ready.

(4) Pampering

When I was a nursing 👩🏼‍⚕️ student, I wondered if my skin was as horrible as my sister when she sat for me in the facial 🧖🏼‍♀️ chair in Sephora. Even when I was a kid I spend Sunday masking my hair. I do my nails 💅🏾 when I am watching TV. Do I scrub? I had tons of moisturizers and of course Victoria’s Secret lotions 🧴. Ooh 😯, sweet 🥰 perfume. Nothing has change. But life has. Scrubbing my skin has enliven me. It wakes you up and depending on the brush strokes and the heaviness of your hand, you can feel the tingling and the texture of the bod bristles on your bod. All I can think 🤔 of is tighter skin, better tone and texture, smooth, exfoliate and do something while you wait for your derm medication 💊 to take effect. My sunspots improve like by 50% each time. I chose a dark and black glittery was appropriate to dec my hands. I put on a long satin slip after shower 🚿. I checked my nose 👃🏾 first thing in the morning 🌞 and it was bad clogged. My gawd, what a difference after I applied the pores strip. Mmmmhm. It’s an essential. I remem I have this Clinique soap 🧼 I got that takes care of balckheads. Perfect. I am my own facial spa technician. I complimented my sister at her bright face. It improved. She looks so much not work worn like any person with tons of busy repsonsibilities.

(5) Find the joy is simple things

My sister only got me a $75 💵 giftcard with my parents. I was expecting $100 and that means I have to spend half more to cover a regular not wireless AirPods. I inquired with my Mom the money 💰 for my birthday 🎁. I shall get a lot Thanksgiving like a coat 🧥 and $150 so I should not blow it over proportion. I am getting a lot as it. But when I can, I share. I allowed my sister to get my complimentary hydra skincare service because I want to show how great it was. I am putting my Mom on the chair too. She has great skin. I offered her my birthday 🎂 freebie which I am not going to use because I am on strict big C soap 🧼 regimen. She grabbed some of the stuff the gal use on her face. Her hair money for Santo’s. She didn’t want it so holiday 🎄 give aways for me. Jammy 🐈 was checking it out and he was so cute like always. He likes pulling away now because Inalso give his bros like a lot of attention. But he knows I love 💕 him and I remember the first day we met. It softened my heart ❤️.

Yup, I saw stuff that I have been meaning to give my sister. I have been holding off on getting her part of her birthday 🎁gift and I wanted to give these extra gym clothes that once fit me. I am getting her something different, so I decided like what I always say, “There is no such thing as perfect timing.” It feels good to be kind to others 💕.

(6) Organize

Jamesicle 🐈 and Sparky ⚡️ was partying in my room. But of course, the little one more so. He was playing with me as I change the sheets and look 👀, his territory. I feel more at ease that I can more freely and I have some room to move. It’s a great thing. I was itchy coming from my 🥳 birthday party and I wondered if I ate something that cause hives. Could I also be stressed 😫 out unconsciously. I showered 🧼 and lotioned and it was a little better. Being neat sometimes relieves that emotion that nothing is going right. Anyone learned to let go of things not being exactly where you want them to be and moving forward on an unexpected turn of events and these things happening more than once or twice in your day. Mmmmhm, reactions and being mindful. I remembered I want more clothes and I am like I have only worn these GAPs and Abercrombie once. Yes, I have nothing with tags 🏷 anymore but why can’t I wear them again. I could pitch my long sleeves and get new ones and I should consider letting go of my is scarves 🧣 to let new things in. I have a desk to unleash my creative 🖌🖍✂️📏✒️ endeavors. There are new sticker book 📚 sets some for them are $50, most at $20. I want to expand my already big collection to decorate my notebooks 📓. Right, I need more writing 🖊 utensils. I have a lot of Nudestix from last year 💄. I love 💕 the consistency. They are sticky lipglossy. But I am eager to receive and get more of the 👁 eyeliners. I adore ❤️ the make. I can see more pillows on my bed 🛏 and I should consider sheets to no. The tray I wanted has sold out 💲💲💲💲 but they always come up with new things and sometimes you get what you exactly want when you have the allowance allocated for them. I have tons of cold 🥶 weather gears and they are arranged straight for easy reach. Do I need to do laundry 🧺. We are again, administrative today. No execution. More strategy. Formulating goals 🥅 is more like it. You have to know and have some idea 💡 to make smooth check off ✔️ of things accomplished 🏆.

Life is not passing you by. I so want to be you right as if you are like a graduate student 👩🏼‍🎓 of computer 👩🏼‍💻 science. The last time I check you didn’t have CEOs, doctors and lawyers asking you out. I hear your man went to community college not like Miami because you guys are rich. 😂 Don’t forget like brainy. He’s what making $4k wiping butts and you some low administrative work at $3k. That’s a combined $7k. That’s a lot. Childcare is like covered. Yeah, I am like good for nothing.

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superemeralds · 7 years

Text

my take on forces

this is gonna be a long and complicated read but bare with me.

I tried to make this as accessible as possible, using images for visualization and very generous spacing between topic paragraphs.

The question I ask is...

Who is this mysterious villain that people call “Infinity” or “Infinite”? What are their powers? What are those cubes? What may have caused Forces to have happened? What will happen in Forces?

I’m going to present multiple theories that I have come up with in the last few hours since the trailer was aired.

Check TLDR at the end of the post if you are unable to keep up with my thought jumping or the way I type. This theory is about 10 or 11 pages long on word.

Going off physical resemblance this villain looks a lot like proto-blaze (as shown with this redraw of the original prototype art)

(the picture shows the villain in comparison to proto-blaze and current blaze)

They have the exact same eyecolor when color-picked, they have resembling hairstyles, they both have a gem located on their chest. The markins on the tail resemble blaze to an extend, but the tail of the villain is broader. Moreover is Blaze not confirmed for forces yet, maybe that would be the big plot twist?

Why would Blaze suddenly be a main villain? Does this even have to be the real Blaze? I mean. The weird hair/quill thing on the head is white, and the mask has bat ears. White fur, bat ears? That is rouge. But it can’t be rouge because of the missing wings and the fluffy tail.

wait. Big ears. Fluffy Tail.

(picture of a fennec fox)

It might be a new character, perhaps a fennec? Huge ears. Typical canine tail. The face shape fits almost too well.....

oh shit guys I’m. I’m onto something here.

Set was a god associated with chaos, storms and the desert. Originally, he served as a powerful protector deity of Upper Egypt. [...] When Egypt was unified and the worship of Horus became dominant, Set was increasingly villainized, particularly after Egypt was invaded by a people who identified him with their own chief god. The most famous story about him is his killing of his brother Osiris for the throne of Egypt and his contests with Horus over it.

Animal Motifs: [...] Possibly a Fennec fox, otherwise it's just called the 'Set animal'

Adaptational Villainy: Originally a protective deity, he was demonized into a God of Evil [...].

(source: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Characters/EgyptianMythology )

But wait.... Gods? Chaos??? The sonic world is made up of Chaos Energy! And who else is a God? Solaris and Mephiles!

Hold on guys.... Please hear me out on this one, because I might’ve figured this out to an extend.

When i first saw them I immediately got a Mephiles and Solaris vibe. Why? Because of that red eye and the what seems to be green iris. Another hint to Mephiles and Solaris in general is the shape of the quills/hair or this character which looks a lot like a popular perception of the sun vriewed frontal.

and (thanks to @sh4dzi for the hint) who do we know is the sun? Solaris the sun god. Mephiles is one half of solaris. And he said it himself!

He is the sun. He is a being that stands above time. A bridge to other worlds? Mephiles is probably very similar to dark matter. We can’t grasp it, its beyond our capabilities to comprehend because it probably exists within another dimension. As time itself is “the forth dimension” we live in. We can notice the effects that dark matter has on our universe by space time disortions like curved spaces. And as we know, Mephiles is capagle of time travel! Just like that. No chaos needed.

Those cubes that the villain is holding up remind me a lot of the shadow of a four dimensional cube: The Tesseract, also called Hypercube.

(image of the shadow of a tesseract)

(image of the cubes the villain is controlling)

You can clearly see that there is a cube within those cubes, but it is reflected on each side. The confusing part is, that even though we see 3D reflections on each side, we dont see the rest of that 3D object beyond the face of the cube they are reflected on. This is a way to symbolize the fact that there is another dimension within this three dimensional object.

But wait! Didn’t I say it was called a tesseract? Have you heard that somewhere before? I bet you did!

(image of the MCU tesseract)

In the MCU there is an artifact called the Tesseract! What is the tesseract? Simple! It holds the infinity stone of space!

This cube is pure energy, which a mortal cannot hold without crumbling to ashes by the sheer amount of force this relic possesses. This cube controls space itself. It can be used to warp to another place. It can also be used to defend oneself off of enemies energetic attacks. Moreover can it be used to achieve visions from the past, present and future.

How is this possible? Time itself is not a physical dimension, but a dimension of itself. It flows in only one direction and it is ever present. The past present and future exist all at the same time! Does this sound familiar? I hope it does!

(part of the script of the final story in 06, summary below)

Silver wants to destroy Solaris, a creature existing in the past, present and future, a creature standing above time itself. A creature that sees more dimensions than we can comprehend, a creature that sees the multiverse unfolding before themselves. (Hence it wanting to destroy “all existing timelines” ! )

Yes, the multiverse! There is one theory that says that every possible timeline in the universe is possible. every second another alternate universe, and alternate timeline is split from the one you are currently in. Each and everyone of us exists infinite times, in infinite different scenarios, no matter how small the differences!

(the infinity symbol as shown in the trailer)

Infinity. the symbol shown in the trailer. isnt that the name people give our mysterious new villain?

Our villain has access to the multiverse. Their powers reselble the tesseract, they surpass the power of chaos control. This villain has Solaris’ power. to warp and bend space time at their whim. To access the infinite different universes.

This is how they were able to summon all the death egg robots into the city, despite eggman only ever having made one of them!

The time eater only had the power to travel through time, much like Mephiles. I theorize Mephiles to be the god of time itself, and the time eater may perhaps be a part of him. An alternate form? His shadow? We just don’t know. All I know is that Iblis must be the god of space, for iblis and mephiles to fuse and create solaris: The God of Space-Time.

HOLD YOUR HORESE I JUST REMEMBERED SOMETHING

(jet holding the cubic key of babylon garden)

Look at what Jet is holding. The symbolic of the tesseract has been in the games before! The babylonians were an ancient civilization with immense advanced technologies. perhaps they had the key to unleashing the manipulation of space-time? As we can see in riders the babilonians managed to create an infinate space in a castle.

In zero gravity, we see that the Babylonians had the power to defy gravity. We get to know that they had built an engine (the ARKs of Cosmos) that was rendering their Babylonian Garden afloat. (We would know more if Jet had not told wave to shut up)

The ARKs or Cosmos have enormous powers, which the ancestors of our rouges possessed. These powers are: Direct convertion of Mass-energy into other forms of energy and the control over gravity itself.

Together they induce a black hole. Black holes are immense amounts of mass converted into minimal space, making a force so strong that it destroys time itself...... It Destroys space time by compressing everything into a single point in space, into a single point in time. Basically stopping time.

So to think....

Space-Time is the very fabric of our observable universe. If you control space time, you control every possible time line, every possible outcome, every possible universe. Everything.

( “I will be able to control everything and rule the world.”-Eggman)

and

( ”Capture mephiles, you must bring him to me” - Eggman )

This is why Eggman wanted both, iblis and mephiles, in order to complete his machine in 06. To be able to fully control space-time.

He can’t use chaos control himself, and chaos control would never be able to aid him in the massive way he wants things to go down. No. He needs the power of a god.

It is very clear that Eggman has a liking for mythlogy and ancient creatures, possessive of immense powers. (just like his grandfather.. huh)

Eggman is trying to find a way to control space and time. He’s been doing so ever since the beginning of the franchise.

Ever since Sonic 2 he was eager to get the chaos emeralds. In sonic 3 he first learned about Chaos itself and just how much energy it possessed. In sonic CD he already wanted to conquer time and space, hoping that the time stones would aid him.

in every big title that follows, eggman is always out to gain access to mythical power in order to fulfil his wish. Perfect chaos, chaos energy, solaris, dark gaia, wisps, the zeti (or in the end just life force itself). The ARKs of the cosmos from te babylon rouges......

But he always needs someone or something else to control that power for him, because he is unable to himself, being a mere human being.

Hold on. He needs someone else to control the power. He can create the means to control, but he lacks the certain something. Thats what the villain is for....

Did Eggman straight up create them? Did he follow into Geralds footsteps and created his own ultimate life form? Or did he manipulate another being?

I just got a message reminding of those “clues” the sonic social media posted and was reminded of the myth of icarus (thanks @auranon )

(image of crypic message )

The secret lies in the Empire; the Eggman Empire. Which is now the world. Its real. Eggman is the emperor of the world.

We can get it back; the world. The world will be freed from eggman.

The son of Daedalus is Icarus. The Man that used Wings made of wax and featers to escape prison. He was so blinded by his euphoria that he tried to reach the sun. His wings burned away and he fell to his death.

What id this is what happened to our villain? What if this is the point this game is leading to. They are blinded by the power eggman (the father in this analogy) gave them (or improved), trying to either unleash solaris’ full potential, or reach solaris’ level of power.

Even if Solaris was not involved, the Sun symbolic (their head being shaped like the sun) makes sense, because of the analogy to Icarus.

I dont remember the numbers the sonic social media is referring to but if you can find that please add on to this post!!!

You might think: hold on! What does this all have to do with sonic forces?? How does this all make sense? How does this all add up?

Alright my unknowing children i’m gonna present you a summary and a conclusion here.

TLDR; only related to what this all has to do with forces.

I’m strongly going off symbolism here. The villain resebles a fennec fox a whole lot and that mgiht be the key to understanding them and the story, also leading us to the clues as to who that might be, or who they might’ve been inspired by.

Them being a fennec fox might be very well symbolic for their evil being, as Set was later seen as god of Chaos and Evil. Maybe this is foreshadowing what will happen.

Eggman is onthe throne, he rules the world, and that villain is his pawn. He was somehow able to convince this creature to work for him, perhaps by granting, or improving, the incredible power to control the multiverse, and aid him with his goals.

Assuming they derive their power from solaris, or any other ancient relic that would be able to grant this immense power of maybe advanced/enhanced chaos control, they can warp space-time and access the multiverse to retrieve multiple items, such as death egg robots and villains that are not meant to exist anymore, not in the way they are presented in the trailer.

But if we go by the symbolism of Set and Icarus, then the villain will throw Eggman from his throne and claim it for themselves, blinded by power, essentially having used Eggman for their means by obeying him just long enough to reach their goal.

But following the myth of Icarus, something will go wrong. Something is going to go terribly wrong. How? Maybe it’ll end in a black hole, like it did in zero gravity; maybe there will be a space-time rift like in 06. We don’t know yet.

What we know is that we can look forward to this story, if my theory turns out to be even just somewhat true.

Wow that was a lot. Thank you so much for reading! I’ll gladly appreciate to have everyone engage in a discussion by now. I’ll be very happy to answer any questions you might have concerning my totally all over the place theory.

Sources: (in case you want to read up/check the facts or just understand what im saying and where im coming from better)

(some sources are in german im sorry but you should be able to change the language of wikipedia articles)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dprxYd_16Ck (the trailer itself)

http://de.marvel-filme.wikia.com/wiki/Tesserakt

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Characters/EgyptianMythology

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ywn2Lz5zmYg

http://www.sonic-cult.org/dispart.php?catid=3&gameid=18&subid=1&artid=4

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ikarus

#sonic forces #sonic forces spoilers #sonic forces theory #sonic theory #idk how to tag this sakjdhksajhkasj #shadows logbook

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spottedtoad · 5 years

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Freud, in the only book of his I’ve read, The Interpretation of Dreams, argues that every dream, no matter how unpleasant, represents an unarticulated desire. This has always struck me as more convincing (and useful) as a description of fictions like books and movies than for interpreting my own dreams. Whose unarticulated desire is being represented is a matter for debate of course- the protagonist’s, the author or director or performer’s, the audience’s? Hard to say. Karl Popper said of Freudianism that it wasn’t science because you couldn’t prove it wrong, but literary criticism isn’t astrophysics and a certain malleability goes a long way.

But accept for the moment that movies represent desires (not always unarticulated: I’ve heard multiple four-year-olds say they want to be Iron Man.) What kind of desire is represented by the new movie Joker, comic book in origins but resolutely art house in style? This question was taken to have some social import even before the film was in wide release. A story in which a man (the appellation “young” often added by critics beforehand, though more about that later) finds actualization through psychopathic violence was warned to be a potential instigation to more real life instances of nihilistic violence, of the mass shooter type we’ve seen with great regularity over the last several years. This fear was not, I thought, entirely groundless: a showing of an earlier Batman-related movie, The Dark Knight Rises, was the scene of a 2012 mass shooting, and while as it turned out that killer had not intended his dyed hair to mark himself as “the Joker,” the rumor that he had has persisted. The earlier incarnation of this character by Heath Ledger, in the 2010 The Dark Knight, seemed indeed to embody exactly what makes mass shootings a potent source of terror, in spite of their low aggregate frequency and body count relative to other forms of homicide: The Dark Knight‘s Joker was motivated by chaos for its own sake, often contradicting himself in discussing his motivations and “how I got these scars.” Heath Ledger’s death at 28 prior to The Dark Knight‘s release from a cocktail of abused prescription drugs put a seal on an indelible performance, suggesting the darkness of the character (in a movie that, to be honest, I find kind of a slog whenever Ledger’s Joker is not on screen) came at least in part from real life internal torment as well as the actor, director, and screenwriters’ craft.

If this backstory gave some cause for concern, media outlets were eager to magnify it, with dozens of articles warning that the Joker movie could set off copycat (copying off of real or fictional violence unclear) killings, to the point where it became ambiguous whether these articles were intended to forestall violence, use its threat to boost ticket sales, or, for the benefit of an ideological narrative, call it into existence. Fortunately, we have been spared any accompanying violence related to the film; even last night, there were two uniformed local policy prominently standing at the entrance to my local megaplex when my wife and I went to see the 9:45.

The genre which Joker forms a part of is both an unusual one- the art house homage to Taxi Driver and King of Comedy that is also a comic book movie- while it is also immediately adjacent to the preeminent commercial production of our time, the superhero origin story. Almost every superhero franchise and reboot now begins with a portrayal of how the hero gained his or her powers, how he or she became- by magic or mutation or training montage- a god sent to live among men. The origin story is, it would appear, the audience’s entry-point into identification with the superhero; it is not enough that the great ones of the earth have our interest at heart, but that we learn how they were once weak and helpless like us, whether as babies saved from Krypton or as young orphaned billionaire heirs.

More precisely analogous to Joker is 2011’s X-Men: First Class, which sought to portray the origin not of an individual superhero (though it is really antihero Magneto’s film) but of the broader social world of the other X-Men films, of Professor X’s School for mutants as well as Magneto’s competing band of outlaws. What was distinctive about First Class was its temporal setting: casting backwards before the era of the earlier movies of the series, it sets itself in a mythic Kennedy Era of Cold War intrigue (unleashed in the film by mutants rather than ideology) and of mutants’ Civil Rights struggles substituting for black Americans’. While to me one of the most artistically successful of recent superhero movies, First Class is notable in how comfortable its alternative history feels to us; we are used to viewing the era immediately before the 60s counterculture as an ancien regime both glorious and unjust, as Mad Men was fond of showing- we are eager both to revel in the aesthetics and grandiosity of the world of the Baby Boomers’ childhood and deplore its moral failures and unequal civic ethics.

Joker is more unfamiliar and unsettling in its setting. The disintegration of urban America prior to its partial rebirth in the last 30 years is easily remembered, and in the case of New York, where Joker is more-or-less explicitly set, is often if incompletely discussed. But it is an ambiguous and incompletely mythologized portion of our collective narrative. What exactly led to American cities being riddled with garbage, graffiti and crime, near abandoned by middle class families, aesthetically blighted and seemingly spiritually bereft? Why were there over 2,000 murders a year in New York City (when there have been under 300 per year in a larger city in the last few years)? My precinct in my last neighborhood in Brooklyn had 99 rapes in a single year in the early 90s, and only one the year I lived there, 2006. To say that this descent into Tartarus was due to lead poisoning, or white flight, are clearly incomplete; to say this was due to a collapse of civic authority and popular morality begs the question.

Joker is, in its own way, eager to answer this question. The Gotham of Joker is not Tim Burton’s cartoonish 1940s Gothic of his Batman movies, or Christopher Nolan’s Bloombergian circle of shiny glass and steel from the Dark Knight trilogy. It is, instead, an exaggeratedly decayed, almost shattered, version of the 1970s pimps-and-pushers New York of Taxi Driver, with an endless garbage strike reminiscent of several from 1968 to 1977 piling refuse in every exterior shot, over which giant rats crawl, and the filming locations drawn from the sadder and more austere corners of the Outer Boroughs. The movie’s most deliberately iconic image, of Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker dancing on the steps leading to his apartment building, is a real staircase in the Bronx several blocks from the school where I taught and which I described in 13 Ways of Going on a Field Trip.

In fact, in an ill-fated field trip that didn’t make it into the book, I led my students to and from Crotona Park past those exact stairs to dig up and observe grubs and earthworms. (On the way back, a boy was accused of slapping a girl’s butt, leading to hours of recrimination, between me and the students and between the principal and me). I lived at the time next to a similar, if slightly less filmic set of stairs in Washington Heights, and spent a lot of time in apartment buildings identical in design if slightly less poorly maintained to the one where Joaquin’s character Arthur Fleck, lives. The subway stations and trains are similarly familiar to anyone who has lived in New York, even if the names are changed.

All of which is to say that Joker wants itself to be set in a real-seeming, if mythically nightmarish, New York-turned-Gotham, a 1970s megalopolis collapsing under its own refuse and under the burden of hatred and collective ill will. The first image of the film is a faded, deliberately dated version of the Warner Brothers’ logo, flickering and faltering. The human elements of Gotham are, in general, shown through a similarly harsh lens; while many reviewers describe the Arthur Fleck character as an alienated young man, Joaquin Phoenix is shown as anything but; his face, on screen for practically every shot, is made to seem every minute of his 44 years:

His wasted torso, for which the actor lost over 50 pounds, is similarly contorted, abandoned, presumptively worn down by the character’s nonexistent diet, constant chainsmoking, and cocktail of pharmaceutical meds. There’s something interesting about this visual emphasis on the character and actor’s age. Compare, for example, to Robert De Niro’s Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver, a youthful 32 playing 26:

De Niro’s Travis Bickle is, implicitly, the “all American kid from New York City,” explaining other characters’ frequent positive affect towards him, and his own social incapacity and descent into violence is, visually at least, the result of the fallen world impinging upon him rather than his own intrinsic corruption. He amiably convinces Cybil Shephard to go out with him on a date, before his incomprehension of the world leads him to take her to an X-rated film. Joaquin Phoenix’s Arthur Fleck on the other hand, is not only visibly aged and incapable of ordinary conversation, passing into peals of barking laughter and incoherence, but evidently has an inner life constructed only of darkness and destructive images, as shown by the ink-scribbled journal and alleged joke diary he writes in, into which pornographic images are taped and from which inopportunely fall out.

What exactly is Arthur Fleck- or Joaquin Phoenix- doing in this 1970s world, we might ask? While X Men: First Class substituted youthful James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender in telling the origin of the characters previously inhabited by Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen, Joker is about a middle aged man trapped in perpetual boyhood, searching pathetically for father figures, resentful of his mother’s injuries to him, yearning for women with whom he cannot speak. It seems not coincidental that both Phoenix and director/screenwriter Todd Phillips are of an age to have been born roughly at the time of the film’s setting, and that the film’s central axis finds Fleck trying to understand the mystery of his birth, becoming the Joker only when this question is revealed to be unanswerable. In other words, Joker is a Generation X origin story, an attempt to find, in the inscrutable dirt of urban blight, the origin of an inconvenient and extraneous generation like Fleck’s inconvenient and extraneous man.

If the viewer is cast backwards into the past to find their own origins amid 1970s decay, Fleck is equally out of temporal step with his world. A clown is intrinsically a dated persona, even in a 1970s milieu, and much of the film emphasizes that Arthur’s world is itself locked in an inaccessible and unrealized past. Arthur first appears dancing to a ragtime piece, watches Fred Astaire on TV, and the songs referenced up until his transformation into the Joker are either old (“Slap That Bass,” “That’s Life,” Jimmy Durante’s “Smile” ) or deliberately dated despite their 1970s provenance, like “Send in the Clowns.” When Arthur tails Thomas Wayne to the theatre, it is Charlie Chaplin’s 1936 Modern Times that they- and the rest of the city’s fat cats- are watching and laughing to; just as we as viewers are caught off from the mystery and dishonor of our origins amid 1970s decay, Arthur cannot come to understand his origins in the forgotten and unlearnable disgraces of the 30s.

At the same time, Arthur is, like Charlie Chaplin’s tramp, incapable of speech, but expressive in movement. While Travis Bickle’s social missteps are mitigated by his youth and external amiability and the measured tone of his voiceovers, Arthur Fleck is redeemed only in a few moments of physical performance- in the moments before a gang of kids intercedes to attack him or a gun falls out of his pocket, he is clearly a gifted physical performer when in make-up as a clown. While the film concludes with him becoming the Joker, his acts of violence having merged the darkness of his inner verbal life with the grace and self-possession of his clown performance, self-actualized in psychopathy. Suddenly, the film’s dissonance between temporal setting and cultural signifiers disappear- the Joker dances to Gary Glitter’s 1973 “Rock and Roll (Part 2)” on the stairs, and as Gotham descends into the fire and chaos that delights the Joker’s heart, that universal cliche of unchained liberation, Cream’s “White Room” plays a few distorted guitar bars of freedom.

A hidden tension in our culture- starting to become less hidden- is that once Baby Boomers took over the culture, historical consciousness became somewhat fixed and recent eras have been mostly exempt from the myth-making and revisionism that dominate our views of the world before Watergate. My guess is that both MeToo and some of the media controversy over Joker are partly driven by this closed book starting to open and people angling to grab control over what can be written in it and what cannot. For now, it seems telling the story of the costs of post-Sixties liberation and urban blight is allowable, as long as these costs are presented as result of empowering the rich, white, male, and straight to indulge temptations, not a broader breakdown of order that encompassed multiple types of culprit and victims. This creation of historical myth is perhaps what distinguishes the prominent generational cohorts from the marginal ones.

The supposed political controversy over Joker is at one level strange; the film takes a basically left-sympathetic view of the horror of Gotham, with canceled social services and rich, sadistic or narcissistic businessmen primarily to blame, and the racial dynamics of Joker are at least at a surface level politically correct. While Arthur is assaulted by a mixed-race group of young hoodlums at the movie’s onset, he explicitly forgives them, in a way he doesn’t the three rich white men who attack him later. The riots by which Gotham is consumed at the film’s end is shown as outsider white men rising up against insider, rich white men. The four main black characters- his social worker, his next door love interest, a clerk at the insane asylum he convinces to share his mother’s file, and a psychiatrist he meets with at the end of the film- are not only sympathetic and kind. They are essentially the only characters, apart from a colleague with dwarfism, to show Arthur attention and concern, and with whom he finds himself eager to express himself in humane terms and show himself to be sane. Not coincidentally, they are filmed in a forgiving and gracious light, at odds with the washed-out and unforgiving appearance of almost all the other (white) characters.

If there is a racial subtext to Joker– and this is America, how could there not be- it is likely that it is, in fact, the desire to sideline racial conflict from the paroxysms of post-60s urban life, to present black Americans as patient, sane, wisely enduring bystanders to class and civic conflict and crime rather than primary participants and victims. Arthur’s visible fantasies- or hallucinations- of a love affair with his next door neighbor are exaggeratedly chaste, in spite of the cutout pictures of naked black women in his notebook. While 1970s films themselves often wished to juggle the social role of blacks and whites in collective consciousness (as Rocky did), or to offer white men a role as instruments of reactionary vengeance without explicitly invoking racial revenge (as Taxi Driver did by making the main target of Travis Bickle’s bloodshed the white pimp played by Harvey Keitel), Joker takes place in a different kind of dream-like world- there is a reason Arthur’s six-shooter revolver shoots nine bullets in his first burst of violence. The dream desire I would guess it seeks is to find an origin story for our own incoherences, inequalities, injustices, that does not make race determinative of whether one is inside or outside the circle of privilege, in the present and in the past. If fictions are defined by pretending to be someone else, perhaps Joker is an attempt by middle aged white guys, to be sure to say that, while they may be- perhaps definitively are- the villain, they can at least choose what kind of villain they wish to be. This choice amounts, according to many in media, and an increasing segment of our most prominent institutions, to the Joker dancing on concrete steps following bloody deeds, an ornamentation of psychopathy that does not and cannot change its character, whether we used to think our story a comedy, but now realize it is a tragedy, or the other way around.

The Generation X Origin Story Freud, in the only book of his I've read, The Interpretation of Dreams, argues that every dream, no matter how unpleasant, represents an unarticulated desire.

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rixmatthews-blog · 5 years

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Adeste+ Lisbon 2019, Day 3

After the day of seminars and masterclasses yesterday, I went down into Lisbon’s beautiful old town and had a wander round with Lizzy & Dilek from the Mercury Theatre Colchester, followed by a lovely dinner with Anne, Penny and Jonathan from The Audience Agency (an organisation who are more helpful and brilliant than I can even begin to describe, and one of the partners on Adeste+), Ben (formerly of Ministry of Stories, a fab organisation based just upstairs from us at Graeae) and Lucy from the Arts Marketing Association (another brilliant place who do lots of great work). We went to the Buenos Aires Cafe (pictured below) - I resisted the urge to unleash my inner Eva Peron, jump up onto the table and burst into “What’s new, Buenos Aires?” from Evita - and for some reason I ordered a load of deep fried cheese, so had a major case of food envy when other peoples delicious looking steak and fish arrived.

Anyway, it was all in all a lovely evening, plotting future ideas for collaborations, partnerships and ambitions over wine, and reminding me that the learning and ideas exchange outside the lecture theatres is just as important as that which goes on inside.

On our way back to the tube, we passed a shop selling guns, but it didn’t feel like the right moment to buy my first Pistolas 😳.

This morning, I needed some stillness and quiet time to process the week so far, so had breakfast in the beautiful Gulbenkian Gardens, soaked up some sun and nature and caught up on some emails.

For the rest of the morning, I went to a session about “Giving the Stage to Citizens”. The case study was led by Miriam Tscholl, from Staatsschauspiel in Dresden, who have been running a very similar programme to Public Acts (run by the National Theatre in London) over the last few years; massive productions performed by members of the local community. One of the recent actors was a disgraced local priest, who had jumped at the opportunity to play God in a production of Faust. 😆Brilliant.

A strand of this programme is a public dinner with participants in front of an audience, who also get involved. Some of the target audiences are shown in the photo below - certainly no shortage of diversity! Two other photos show some of the participants getting involved, including a bike repair workshop run by and for refugees - truly awesome work.

The afternoon Audience Engagement case study that I went to was led by four brilliant women: Katarina from the National Theatre in Croatia, and Lizzy, Dilek and Abbi from the Mercury in Colchester. The Croatian NT are doing some very cool initatives to engage with their audience (including ‘Family Dinners’ between the theatre and the public to find out what people want, which I think is fab), buses around the city where actors and public get to meet and talk, and a new time capsule idea after they found a time capsule from when the theatre was first built. They also regard the relationship with their audience as being a partnership, which I think is a really smart way of thinking and a good reminder.

It was also really fascinating and insightful to hear from the Mercury (run by my old friend Steve Mannix who was the boss at Shape when I was there) as well about their redevelopment project, branding and the challenges/strategies of programming (how to involve the audience in programming decisions was a group exercise I was involved with as part of the session). Also how they’re taking the audience on a journey (literally and figuratively) from the old theatre (just closed down) to an enormous tent in the nearby Abbey Field (the branding for which I love - below), which is helping them to engage with the local Garrison Community.

This session - as per each day so far - ended with a wrap up summary, including a giant selfie with everyone at the summer school, to wish the Mercury good luck for their production of OLIVER! opening tomorrow. I’ll try and find the picture and share it tomorrow.

So another great day - I think we’re all tired and slightly at the halfway point slump, but everyone remains cheerful, in good spirits and eager to listen and learn (including me).

To end for today, here’s a selfie of me and my friend Calouste Gulbenkian (the original Mr G), who seems to be looking down on me - even though my CATS T-shirt remains safely at home. But maybe it’s the indoor wearing of the hat he disapproves of....

Boa noite chickens xxx

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annvassadress · 5 years

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Smart Women Invest Workshop by FAMI

I value events or workshops that doesn't only feed my insights but also help me get motivated to reach greater heights. I am glad to have attended this Smart Womek Invest Workshop as it also celebrates Women's month last March 2019. I have said to myself, "This event is for me, this event is ME".

FAMI also known as First Metro Asset Management, Inc. is the fund management subsidiary of First Metro Investment Corporation, hosted Smart Women Invest, a financial and investment literacy workshop specifically catered to help Filipinas transform from savers into investors.

There is totally a big difference between saving and investing. It is a positive thing to save but I guess it a brilliant idea to invest knowing that would also benefit us in the future. We all do not want to let our money stuck in one place knowing that it won't progress that much. I am glad to say that at my age, I haven't only invested into travels and car but also to health, life and death insurances. In addition to these, I am happy to say that I've opened my first FAMI investment account last month.

I have learned to be more wise on where to keep and invest my money.

I really do believe that smart women invest and I'm proud to say I'm one of them. We are the women that only do not think of spending without gain in the end.

Remembering my mom, she let me opened my first bank account at a very young age. Now that I'm a grown up, I would like to advise my future kids to invest into something that would not only give them present gratification. It is still best to invest for the future.

Money Mavens

Besides the women-centric learning in finance and investment, the attendees also received a free investment in First Metro Consumer Fund. Roa said, “This is our way of thanking the women who attended our workshop. The First Metro Consumer Fund is invested in industries that benefit from the Philippine family consumption and expenditure pattern. These are industries supported by women and mothers in our country. This is a great way to start their investment journey.”

FAMI president Karen Roa said, “The event was intended to motivate and empower women through the discussion of financial intelligence. This allowed the audience to learn not only how to protect existing resources, but more importantly how to grow one’s assets. By doing so, women are transformed from savers into investors.”

FAMI tapped two of the country’s leading female finance experts to help their fellow Filipinas in their journey towards investing.

Ms. Rose Fres Fausto on the other hand, is known as FQ Mom. She was an investment banker turned full-time homemaker and now a writer, speaker, and resource person on money and family. Her career draws its roots in banking as an analyst at Far East Bank and later on as assistant vice president for Corporate Finance at one of the country’s leading investment houses. She also had a consultancy stint for a USAID renewable energy project. Today she discusses money, parenting, women issues, and the use of Behavioral Economics principles in different aspects of life in her books, columns, online shows, talks, and workshops.

Roa and Fausto engaged an eager audience of fellow go-getting women in an animated discussion about finance. Roa said, “Finance doesn’t have to be as daunting as it seems. Women can do it—and excel in it, too.” Both agree that part of self-determination is mastering the art of handling money.

One of the highlights of the workshop was the online FQ Test, which determines the participants’ standing in terms of Financial Intelligence Quotient (FQ). Fausto said: “In order to have a high FQ, women must first understand their relationship with money. She also added that those who didn’t fare well in the test need not worry because their FQ scores are not cast in stone. They can be improved by tweaking some of their money habits and unleashing the female characteristics that are actually good for investing, allowing them to go beyond saving.”

Figuring Out Finance

Leading the workshop is FAMI’s first-ever female president Karen Roa, a 25-year expert in the field of finance. With a career that spans both domestic and international banking operations, she has a wealth of experience that fuels her financial skills. She has worked with some of the most renowned global companies in banking and asset management, such as Chase Manhattan Bank, SunGard Asia Pacific, trust banking groups of Philam Bank, and Citibank NA. She also served as President and CEO of Philam Asset Management, Inc. (PAMI). Roa was also a lecturer at the country’s top universities, Ateneo de Manila and UP, teaching business courses on strategy, investment management, and financial services.

The best part about a healthy FQ is that its concepts can be learned and, in turn, shared with the family. Fausto said, “Women are large influencers in their community so a woman with high FQ can be a driver in raising children with smarter money sense, build a career and investment life that is fruitful and lucrative, and even lead a household and home that is sufficient and stable. Again, with fortified FQ—women have proven once again that they’re on top of their game.”

Securing a Financial Future

As a member of the Metrobank Group, FAMI holds a veritable reputation in asset management. FAMI’s mutual fund business is adept at promoting savings mobilization and advocates investment literacy, making it the perfect partner for women to learn, live and start loving finance.

It was a life changing afternoon as we've learned a lot from the workshop. I'm grateful to be part of this event with a purpose!

#lifestyle #philippines #fami #fami4women #smartwomeninvest #investment

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thebandcampdiaries · 5 years

Video

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Chad Skiz releasing new, exciting music.

Check out the artist’s new songs on Spotify, and stay tuned for an upcoming album to be released very soon!

Chad Skiz is an artist with a strong and powerful vision. Many performers out there might feel comfortable in being grouped into categories. This is certainly not the case for Chad, who has a broad creative scope. His music is not about being stuck under the umbrella of a single genre. On the other hand, it is really all about creating a genuine, positive and realistic expression of his personality, as an artist and more importantly, as a human being.

Chad’s work is ever-evolving, and you can really see the artist’s constant and ongoing growth, one release at a time. Recently, he actually unleashed a set of new songs, including tracks “Freak Flag,” “Spirited Away,” “When Boys Kiss Boys.” as well as “Daybreak,” which is going to be released as a single, and it also serves as the title track of Chad’s upcoming album.

As the title of these tracks might imply, these songs are bold and outspoken, revealing Chad’s strong sense of aesthetics and individuality. He has a firm grip on who he is as an artist and individual, and his tracks are all about portraying his true self with the audience. As a result of such a remarkably honest approach, Chad is really able to create songs that connect with the audience on a much more profound level. There is much more to it than entertainment. These are engaging tracks that defy creative and conceptual boundaries, establishing a thought-provoking and dynamic listening experience for the audience.

On “Freak Flag,” Chad stands out for his ability to combine thoughtful lyrics with catchy melodic ideas, going for a very energetic twist. “Spirited Away” has a different pace and texture, really showcasing the versatility and range of Chad’s songwriting chops. “When Boys Kiss Boys” is a heartfelt, yet upbeat tune with a lot of emphasis on great hooks and infectious rhythms, yet retaining a somewhat intimate mood. Last, but decidedly not least, “Daybreak” is a stunning song, and it is totally worthy of being the album’s title track. The track is actually very representative of Chad’s kaleidoscopic attitude. This mercurial artist effortlessly infused this tune with a lot of influences, giving listeners a taste of his outstanding artistic sensibilities, and going above and beyond to leave his mark and make music that actually matters. One of the things I like the most about these tracks is actually Chad’s ability to convey his feelings and express himself through these songs. Not many artists are able (or willing) to go as deep with their music, and it’s a true privilege to hear artists who actually are eager to take the risk and expose themselves, challenging their own creative progress, as well as their listeners!

These songs are a great introduction to Chad’s open-minded and unique style. The artist himself is prone to talking about his music as “schizophrenic” in a sense that it really escapes traditional boxes, and it is always veering towards different directions and ideas as time goes by. Chad’s songwriting is immediate and catchy, and his performances are always very organic and honest.

In addition to the personable and edgy performance value, these tracks are also quite distinctive because of the sheer quality of the production. The mixes are very balanced and quite detail-oriented, making for a lively, edgy and stark sonic approach. In other words, there are many subtle nuances in his tone, which really add to the richness of the track when summed up together. The frequency spectrum of the mix is also very balanced, with a tight, yet deep low end working wonders along with a smooth top end, which adds a sense of clarity to the music.

Ultimately, these songs stand out for their modern sound, but although the production is quite polished, it is never overproduced, allowing a lot of wonderfully organic and “human” elements to really add liveliness to the mix.

If you enjoy honest music that blurs the lines between art and entertainment, Chad Skiz’s work should be right up your alley!

Find out more about the artist, and do not miss out on his new music, releases, activities, and events:

https://open.spotify.com/album/1FzCB0vUme3InPhKvBJvwx (Freak Flag)

https://open.spotify.com/album/1iocRaFq2AtQDOy1bQrb1z (Spirited Away)

https://open.spotify.com/album/6kYV80xaVOs3NiO6OQDijC (When Boys Kiss Boys)

Don’t forget to check out our Interview with Chad! Keep reading to learn more.

I love how you manage to render your tracks so personal and organic. Does the melody come first, or do you focus on the beat the most?

Answer: It's usually the lyrics for me. I start with the idea, what I want to say and then everything else sort of comes to me at once. I'm not very good at playing anything, unfortunately. I've tried guitar and piano but I've found that's not really how I'm wired. The lyrics, creativity and everything else is my forte. I work alongside an incredible producer just outside of Minneapolis Minnesota and I present all of the ideas, feelings and what I 'hear' in my head. I tell him the melodies I've come up with, the vibe I want it to invoke and what I'm going for. He and I have this incredible connection and he usually gets exactly what I'm thinking. He physically makes the music and essentially brings what I hear in my head to life.

Do you perform live? If so, do you feel more comfortable on a stage or within the walls of the recording studio?

Answer: I've performed live a few times before. I'm still getting used to it. Honestly, I still get a little nervous on stage - so for right now, I'm more comfortable creating in the studio. Though I feel like once I get a few more performances under my belt, the stage will become my home.

If you could only pick one song to make a “first impression” on a new listener, which song would you pick and why?

Answer: Definitely the title track Daybreak because it's written from more of an autobiographical standpoint. I wanted to add personal snapshots of who I am because I feel they're not only honest but relatable too. I wanted to point out that I'm willing to show you what's in my heart but sometimes it's not easy, I want to run headfirst and experience all aspects of life and despite everything, yes - sometimes I feel like I'm not enough but in the end, I believe in myself.

My hope is that whoever listens to this will hear the points I make and hopefully can interject their experiences, wants and desires and go for their own personal “daybreak”.

What does it take to be “innovative” in music?

Answer: Exploring who you are as an artist and figuring out what you want. Be different, don't sacrifice your ideals and don't be afraid to fail.

Any upcoming release or tour your way?

Answer: I'm about to release Daybreak on January 17 and I'm super excited to see how people respond to that and then I will be releasing my debut album down the line. I'd love to tour and I will eventually but right now, the releases are what my sights set are on.

Anywhere online where curious fans can listen to your music and find out more about you?

Answer: Absolutely! I'm on iTunes, Spotify, Google Music and pretty much every other place music is found.

My official Instagram is “chad_skiz_official”

Facebook is “/OfficialChadSkiz”

And I'm going to be announcing an official website soon that will be the central hub of anything and everything I'm doing.

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