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bugscrew-diary · 1 year

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I have been away.

A lot has happened since I last wrote a post here. It has been 3 weeks now. I actually wrote a chunk of a post about the kinds of crazy dreams I have, but I didn't finish it so it's just in my drafts now. There definitely is a reason for my initial neglect towards writing posts, but the extended absence is just a product of me breaking the habit of writing every day before it even had a chance to form. I don't really need to expand on that though, because I've talked about the problem of my habits in an earlier post.

The initial absence was caused by the unfortunate fact that I gave myself a little bit of weed induced psychosis. The actual weed psychosis part sucked but really, the bad part was the week long battle with debilitating anxiety and mild psychotic delusions that followed. It got a little better every day, but the first few days were excruciating. I couldn't do anything without it causing a panic attack. However, I think it was worse the first few days because the main source of the anxiety was that I thought I just fucked my brain forever and I was just going to have horrible anxiety and moderate psychosis for the rest of my life. It went away though, so I'm back.

I wanted to write about all of it the first day after it happened, but I couldn't even text my friends a brief, just one-sentence explanation for what happened without triggering a new panic attack. Writing a whole post about it was definitely out of the question, especially because I still believed some of the delusions caused by the psychosis and I felt anxious about the fact that I would be writing about things that I knew weren't true but still somewhat believed. But the anxiety is gone now and I feel inclined to write about the experience and what it felt like to have MIP, a random acute anxiety disorder, and delusions that genuinely scared me.

It started after getting way too high and seeing a tweet about Lily Rose Depp. I didn't know what she looked like, but I know people think she's pretty so I was curious to look at her instagram. I scrolled through a few pictures and quickly became infatuated with the fact that you couldn't see her neck in most of the pictures, and if you could, some other part of her body that I can't remember anymore was covered. It's a weird thing to become fixated on, but I did and the more I scrolled, the more my suspicion was confirmed. I believed she wasn't real. I thought she was some kind of doll or mannequin, being placed in different outfits and poses for pictures. This then sent me down a spiral, believing that no celebrity was real and they were all these mannequins that just get toted around for pictures. I still don't know why, but this thought scared me and led to the craziest panic attack since my shrooms trip went bad, and it actually might have been worse than that.

I finally calmed myself down after about 2 or 3 hours of trying, walking around in my house, seemingly in the clear only to go back to my bed and have another panic attack. I thought I was gonna be like that forever, but after a few hours of spiraling, I realized that I was not in the headspace to be deciding whether I thought that was true. I finally somehow calmed myself down enough to sleep and decided to deal with it in the morning. When I woke up, the first few hours were okay, but then I quickly realized it was just as bad as the night before and I was having constant panic attacks all day. This made the thought that I was stuck like this forever even worse because it was seemingly being proven by the fact that this was now a 2 day ordeal. Plus, I still believed the delusions that I also simultaneously knew weren't true. It's a weird thing to experience, wholeheartedly believing that something could be true when you also wholeheartedly understand it to be factually untrue. It's especially strange when that thought is unsettling or even anxiety-inducing for absolutely no reason.

I think this was all so scary for me because my brain doesn't typically operate emotionally and especially not anxiously anymore. I used to have pretty severe anxiety about everything, but now I think of myself as an extremely rational person. This doesn't mean smarter, I just mean I tend to lead with logic (or attempted logic if my conclusion is wrong, I suppose), rather than emotion. It is very rare that I make a decision, big or small, by way of emotion. It is even rarer that I don't take something I perceived and mentally expand upon it until I've drained all the intellectual life out of it, or I get distracted by something else. Both of these processes were smashed to pieces for almost a week straight because 1) the conclusions I would come to when I would try to expand upon something were completely illogical and deluded and I knew it, and 2) I was completely unable to mentally expand upon anything without it triggering some amount of anxiety because of that, but I was still trying because this is just how I operate. It's not even really "trying," it just happens.

To be fair, the reason the psychotic delusions stayed bad was because they were triggered by the Coffeezilla video about the IShowSpeed crypto scam situation. The part that brought the anxiety back was the fact that he brought a fake Cristiano Ronaldo on stream to promote the scam he was a part of. This was literally my fake celebrity delusion from being put into real life practice, right in front of me, literally 12 hours after it spawned in my mind. This situation genuinely made me anxious almost every day for over a week after the initial break, but honestly I think that was warranted considering what an insane fucking coincidence that was. I ended up watching a bunch more Coffeezilla videos after that though, which is really cool because he's genuinely a great YouTube journalist and it's nice to have that now.

The true saviors of that week were TMG, though. Their podcast has been my go-to safe media for over 3 years now. It might even be 4 at this point. Even on the initial panic attack night, where nothing seemed to be able to make it stop, I used their podcast to help calm down and it actually worked for a little bit. It completely worked every single day I had anxiety after the first night until it finally went away. If I need something to fall asleep to, it's always them. I don't know what it is about them that is so comforting to me, but they encapsulate and deliver true calmness for me. I listen to both podcasts every week and it's still not enough. I've never stuck with a content creator like I've stuck with them and it's not even through any effort. They're just part of my routines now. I appreciate them so much and I hope I have the money to go to one of Noel's comedy shows soon.

Anyway, I think I've said enough considering I'm going on tangents now but I'll have more to say tomorrow or the next day because I have a job interview and my friend who lives far away now is coming home tomorrow. Plus, I didn't even write about how I bumped my car into someone else's 2 days ago and I'm being unjustly held liable for damages I didn't cause <333.

Also, it'll be a slightly more difficult post, and it'll probably take me a few days to write, but I want to write about stan culture and its relationship with mental health and now corporations. I'll be writing a fully fleshed out essay about it, but I don't have my thoughts organized at all, so I think a post on here will be a good place to start that. I also want to write a post about Charles Leclerc soon as cringe as it sounds but I have much to say about my own thoughts, my mindset surrounding him being an actually pretty good thing to frame it around so we'll see if my cringe detectors will let this one slide and let me post that to the internet when I finally write it.

Ok byeeeee.

#personal post #my thoughts #vent blog #vent #writer

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rivaille-13 · 3 years

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Where do you buy your levi collection and merchandise? And can you enlighten us if we want to start collecting? Thankssssss

Hey there!

Hmmm. All of my Levi figures are from Japan (if you prefer to buy original) and China (if you are ok with knock-offs). Anyway, I buy most of my figures in Japan and I rarely order KOs from China (when I don’t have the money LMAOOO)

Where to buy in Japan? This is like my suggestion ahah

Saitama - This is where I got my first RAH doll. The price is so cheap, only got mine for ¥18k whereas the other seller are trying to sell that version for ¥45k. Great finds too, but you need to have a sharp eye when it comes to bargaining and stuffs.

Tokyo, Akihabara - I don’t recommend buying at Tokyo shops at all. It’s overpriced, and… overpriced ahah XD Just think of the price as somewhere close to a ‘tourist’ price. That’s my opinion…

Second hand shops / Recycle shops - Hmm, if you want to buy rare figures at a low price… you could try visit recycle shops. Japanese people are very known for being meticulous and clean so I think it’s no problem purchasing a second hand figure. Just please know the condition if:

MISB - (Mint in Sealed Box) New as fuck

MIB - (Mint in Box) It has been out of the box, but the main wrapping/plastic is still attached to the figure

BIB - (Back in Box) The figure is second hand. Displayed/played

MIP (Mint in Plastic) Could be that the figure includes the hard plastic/mold something

Loose - (No box at all) Be careful when buying loose items.

Flea Online Markets - Yes you could also find me here LMAOOO. My favorite go-to shop is Mercari. The price here are either high or low, reasonable or unreasonable… it’s just that the bargaining and bounty-search is up to you.

If you live outside Japan…

You could use proxy shops to buy at online Japanese stores! There’s a lot of proxy shops that are available i.e, Zenmarket, Buyee, Neokyo, Rabbit, etc… but just be sure to read everything before trying one out.

You could also contact figure hunters! There’s a lot hunter pages that are available in Facebook. Make sure they are authentic and safe.

So yeah… if you want to start a collection:

Know your interest first! Do you want dark-themed figure? Do you want cute figures? Do you want plushies? Etc…

In my case, I opted for action-figures (BJD) and I love to collect rare Levi. I’m not a fan of small things: Rubber keychain, Pinch-bridge, Chim Charas, Gashapons, Clear folders, Can badge and so on… Maybe if I’m going to buy small merchandise/collectibles it’s just going to be one or two.

Because there’s a lot of line (i.e, BraveAct, Banpresto Ichiban Kuji, Prize Figures, Medicom, GSC, Sega etc…) to choose and at first it’s going to confuse you like hell! The first time I collected, I have no fucking idea what the hell I bought XD So I also suggest you read a lot of collector review/vlog and so on.

Lastly, NO REGRETS! Being a Levi collector is such a fun hobby/ thing but make sure to balance everything out. In my case, I got addicted to it and reached to the point I don’t have any money to spend LOL

That’s it! Thank you so much and I’m sorry if I talk too much LOL please know that I could talk about Levi 24/7 hahaha. (:

#ask hansu

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natexarnoult · 3 years

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hey all!! my name is mads and i’m 23, use she/her pronouns, and live in mst! i’m so excited for y’all to meet nathan - he’s a char i’ve had in mind for a while and i’m stoked to finally bring him to life! i’ve included some main points about him under the cut, along with his bio and a couple extras for him - please message me if you’d like to plot :D

Nathan comes from a single-mother household... at least, until he was in high school.

Nate knows who his father is and is trying to build a relationship w/ the man but is still hurt from his mother hiding his father’s identity & not hiding the truth.

He is very much a ‘trust-fund’ kid but is working hard to distant himself from his parents’ wealth and build a name that isn’t connected to his parents.

Nathan truly is a sweetheart but has a hard time expressing this to those he cares about - he grew up in a home that wasn’t welcoming to affection and is still trying to break this habit.

He’s been in Heartsdale for several years and I’m so open to creating some pre-existing connections with him! Friends, ex friends, exes, enemies - anything! Please just message me so we can chat :)

He graduated from UCLA with an art history degree but is more interested in actually making art than learning about it - he travels a lot as he likes to make his show room diverse and brings in pieces from all around the country.

Nathan lives above his gallery but spends most of his time outside of both his gallery and his apartment - it’s either a midlife crisis and he regrets his choices or he’s just trying to meet new friends, who knows?

His pinterest is here and is constantly being update; please follow me if you feel so inclined!

Annnnnd: bio here as well:

Nate’s parents met while his father was on a school trip. A senior studying art history at Harvard, he’d taken the trip as an excuse to ‘see the world’ - if that world meant England, sure. His mother was the manager at a museum they visited on the trip & his father found himself returning to her canvas filled institute daily. They spent hours talking, sharing their love of paintings and critiquing some of the pieces her museum had chosen to display. Neither of them wanted to admit that their time together would be coming to a close - his trip was only for 3 weeks over the winter holidays - but on his last day in the country, Nathan’s father left a note within her bedside drawer, his address and phone number scrawled sloppily across a spare receipt & he snuck out before the sun was up. Saying goodbye would be too hard.

He returned to the States. He graduated. He got a job. He went years without hearing from the woman he’d met. One day, when his father was leaving The Met - he’d become a director of programs - his eye landed on a woman who looked so familiar, her hand clutched by a child, no older than 10. That moment was Nate’s first memory of his dad.

He remembers sitting in his dad’s house, a wide and bright space that was 20 minutes from where they’d met on those huge steps. This man had given them a ride and was now setting tea in front of his mother, but Nate was playing with his dog. He remembers snippets of the conversation - his mom was apologizing a lot. Apparently she hadn’t wanted to see him. They were in the States to visit her sister, Nate’s aunt. He remembers that this man kept looking between his mom and him & he looked so confused. Finally, he remembers a silence falling over the room and the man asked a question. Nate couldn’t make it out but his mother’s response was clear, definite; “Yes. He’s yours.”

At the time, Nate had no idea what that meant. He hadn’t yet been given the talk and his mother didn’t explain her relationship to this man. She introduced him - Nathan couldn’t remember his name - and said that he was an old friend from college. But soon, he found himself with this man more often. His mother invited him to join them at his aunt’s birthday party. When they flew back home to England, his mother would often be stuck on the phone with her old friend from college. One day, a year or so after their New York trip, his mother was picking him up from school, nervously pressing her thumb nail into the steering wheel. She asked if he remembered her friend from college, the one they’d seen while in New York. Nate did. She asked if he’d like to take another trip to New York to see his aunt, to see her old friend from college & maybe stay longer this time - like maybe the whole summer holidays?

They stayed the whole summer and when fall came around and it was time for Nathan and his mother to return home, he was sad - he was going to miss his aunt, he was going to miss the excitement of living Stateside. The rest of his year was almost a blur - his school year went by relatively painlessly, though he had begun to feel the hurt of being one of the only brown kids in school - and eventually spring had returned. His mom, again, sat him down and began asking questions. Eventually, and now Nate was smart enough to see where this was going from the start, she asked Nate how he would feel about moving to the States, about living with his aunt for a while. The move itself was quick and before he knew it, Nate and his mother settled in the States. He spent his days at school and his afternoons in extracurriculars - his new school had an art program that Nate was excelling in. They spent nights hanging out with his aunt or his mom’s college friend and for the first time in his young life, Nate felt comfortable. His mom’s friend had begun taking him to the museums, explaining the complexities of the canvas hanging on the walls and asking for his opinion on the work.

When Nate was about halfway through his junior year of high school, his mother and her college friend were both in the car when he was picked up from school. It wasn’t entirely all that weird - he wasn’t dumb enough to think that they weren’t dating, but Nate did always wonder why his mother never broached the subject with him. It’s not like he was a little kid anymore, for fuck’s sake - if your kid is old enough to date, they’re old enough to know who you’re dating. Nate probably couldn’t tell you the rest of what happened that day. He remembered getting home and grabbing a snack, as he always does, and he remembered getting told to sit down by his mother, that she had something important to tell him.

Nate’s life split into the before and the now - before Stephen was his father & now. While typically a rather well-mannered teenager, Nate was furious. Sure, his mom didn’t have to disclose her love life if she didn’t want to, but to know that Stephen was his That they’d known since the start and never told him? He thought back to their first visit to New York, when they ran into Stephen on the steps of the Met - he remembered his mom was surprised, thrown off her guard, but never uncomfortable, never not wanting to be around this man.

He slammed the door on his way out of the house, hopping on his bike and riding off. That night was the first night he ever acted out - Nate made it to his friend’s place out in the suburbs and snuck in their basement window. The rest of his friends, along with a couple girls he knew from his English Lit class, were circled around a small table, upon which sat a small tray & a bong. Nate welcomed the small act of rebellion, in the face of such shocking news, & spent his night testing his limits.

His parents, as he now so affectionately referred to them as, soon regretted telling Nate at such a volatile age. He soon spent all his evenings with his friends, sneaking into the house after midnight (if he’s early) and going straight up to his room. They tried not to push it and Nate was torn between appreciating being left alone and pissed that no one cared how he felt. His mom had tried to address it a couple times but Nate always shut down, refusing to give her more than a two word response.

It went on like that for 2 years, silence, short answers, tension. At 18, Nathan found himself going off to college, moving across the country to attend UCLA. He lived off his parents money, figuring the least they could do after years of absconding from the truth. And he lived lavishly - drinks on him every time his friends went to the bars, new clothes, new shoes, everything he could want.

He graduated with minimal rule infractions, an MIP here, possession of controlled substance there. But his parents always paid for a lawyer, flew out for the week and handled everything for him. After college, Nathan bounced around for a year, spent a couple months in LA, three in New York, and another 6 or so in a van his parents had financed, driving around the US.

Six months on the road proved to be exhausting, however, and Nathan found himself back in one of his first stops at the start of his trip, Heartsdale. It wasn’t long before he signed a lease on an apartment downtown and spent his days as a barista at Legal Grounds. He didn’t necessarily need the job - his parents still financed his whole life - but it was nice to have something to meet people in town. After a while, however, being a barista became boring. Nate spent his time admiring the local work they had pinned for sale on their walls, admiring the fine line work and critiquing in the way he’d spent four year training to do. On a walk, he found himself fantasizing about owning his own gallery, having his space to curate an experience. Nate’s eyes caught on every single ‘For Lease’ sign downtown, pausing and forcing himself not to take a peek inside. It wasn’t reasonable, he told himself. Irrational, at best. He had no experience managing anything, no experience building something from nothing.

And yet… he couldn’t help. One brisk morning, the sun was bright against a For Lease sign, practically screaming the numbers at him. His fingers were typing the numbers into his phone before he even realized what he was doing. It was 4:23am, the downside of an opening shift at a coffee shop, and he wasn’t expecting anyone to pick up anyway. “Morning, uh,” he paused - was he really doing this? “My name is Nate Arnoult and I’m interested in the space you’ve got on 1st and..”

Moving in was quick, it only took 6 months before Nathan settled in the space above the retail spot. He spent his first night with his friends, drinking and dancing. His friends, just as ecstatic as he, commended him - Nate had been hemming & hawing about opening a gallery space for months and to finally have a space, a place to start… Nathan was on cloud nine. And it went better than he thought it did. The art scene extended out of his small town and he was able to show pieces from all over Georgia. He even flew out to other states, offered small artists a space in his show room. The rest, he supposed, is history. He’s been living a comfortable life and still maintains contact with his parents, despite their rocky past - not friendly, but not fatal either.

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jeannereames · 3 years

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Writing Historical Fiction (Well)

From an anonymous ask:

"What advice would you give to someone who wants to write about Alexander?" Sorry I didn't clarify, I was thinking of writing a fictional novel (but do not plan to publish it, lol)

If you’re just writing for yourself with no plans to publish, you don’t have to worry about constraints like wordcount and publishability. Unfortunately, it’s difficult to sell mainstream historicals. Selling a genre historical is easier (historical fantasy, historical mystery, historical romance). But there’s a reason it took me 30 years to get Dancing with the Lion into print. Yes, some of that time I was actually writing it, but much more was devoted to finding a market for it, and notice that I did, finally, have to sell it as genre even though it isn’t really. (It was that or shelve it forever.)

Yet if you’re asking for my recommendations, I assume you want to write something that’s marginally readable. Ergo, what follows is general advice I’d give anybody writing historical fiction.

For historicals, one must keep track of two things simultaneously: telling a good story, and portraying history accurately enough. It’s possible to do one well, but the other quite badly.

First, let’s look at how to write a good story.

There are two very basic sorts of stories: the romance, and the novel. Notice it’s romance small /r/. A romance is an adventure story; in romances, the plot dominates and characters serve the plot. A novel is character-driven, so plot events serve character development. Dancing with the Lion is a novel.

Once you’ve decided which of those you’re writing, you have a better handle on how to write it. You also need to know where you’re going: what’s the end of the story? What are the major plot points? Writers who dive in with no road map tend to produce bloated books that require massive edits. That said, romances will almost always be faster paced, in part because “what’s happening” drives it. Whereas in novels, the impact of events on characters drives it. Exclusive readers of romances are rarely pleased by the pacing of novels. They’re too slow: “Nothing is happening!” Things are happening, but internally, not externally.

Yet pacing does matter. Never let a scene do one thing when it can do three.

You will want to pay attention to something called “scene and sequel.” A “scene” is an event and a “sequel” are the consequences. So let’s say (as in my current MIP [monster in progress]) you open with a fugitive from the city jail racing through the streets with guards following: he leaps the wall of a rich man’s house and ends up in the bedroom of a visiting prince. That’s the scene. The sequel is the fall-out. (House searched, prince hides fugitive, prince gets fugitive to tell him why he’s running.) Usually near the end of the sequel(s) to the first scene, you embed the hook to the next (a slave of the rich man has been found murdered outside the city walls). The next scene concerns recovering the body and what they discover (then fall-out from that). Etc., etc., etc.

That’s how stories progress. Or don’t progress, if the author can’t master scene-sequel patterns.

It also means—again—you need to know where you’re going. Outlines Are Your Friends. But yes, your plot can still take a sharp left-hand turn that surprises you…they almost always do.

When I sat down to write Dancing with the Lion, I knew three things:

1) I wanted to write about Alexander before he became king.

2) I wanted to explore his relationship with Hephaistion.

3) I especially wanted to consider how both became the men they’d did.

With those goals in mind, I could frame the story. Because I always intended Hephaistion to be as important as Alexander, the novel opens in his point-of-view to establish that. And because I didn’t want to deal with Alexander as king, the novel had to end before he became one. History itself gives a HUGE and obvious gift in the abrupt murder of Philip. Where to open was harder to decide, but as I wanted to explore the boys’ friendship and its impact on their maturation into men, I should logically begin with their meeting, and decided not to have them meet too young. From there, I spun out Hephaistion’s background, and his decision to run away from home to join the circus, er, I mean Pages. 😉

IMO, Alexander’s story is Too Big to do in a single novel, or you get an 800+ page monstrosity like Chris Cameron’s God of War. The author must decide on what piece of the story she wants to tell. (Or, like me, view it as a series.)

So that’s (in a nutshell) how you construct a story.

As for the historical side, there are three levels here:

1) What the world looks like (details).

2) The events that take place.

3) How people living in that world understand life, the universe, and everything.

Number two is probably the easiest. Numbers one and three require deeper research on all sorts of things. Sometimes historical novels spend all their time on number one and completely forget number three exists.

The past is a foreign country. Just as you wouldn’t (or at least shouldn’t) write a novel set in Japan (if you’re American) without learning something not only about the physical country but also the customs…same with stories set in the past.

This is why the Oliver Stone movie failed. He put modern people in a costume drama. He didn’t understand how ancient Macedonians (or Greeks or Persians) thought. So he committed crazy anachronisms like the oedipal complex between Alexander and Olympias. Freud may have named his theory after a Greek hero, but it’s largely a foreign idea to the Greek mind. (Whether it’s valid at all is a topic for another day).

The author has to let ancient people be properly ancient.

Problem: what do you do when they’re SO foreign they’re impossible to understand for modern readers—or their attitudes are outright offensive?

Well, if you don’t plan to get your story published, you don’t have to worry about that. Or not as much. But if you want to share it with others, you might still want to consider it.

There are two basic approaches:

1) Introduce your world through a “stranger” who enters it.

2) Spread out more “modern” views among various characters in the story, to give modern readers something familiar to hang onto.

The first of those is by far the most common. So in Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander, Claire Randall—quite literally a modern woman—introduces the modern reader to Jacobite Scotland. As she learns about her new world, so does the reader, and in Claire, the reader has a voice to express both their fascination and their horror of that world. In Judith Tarr’s Lord of the Two Lands, she uses Meriamon, an Egyptian priestess, to enter the Macedonian world of Alexander. Judy can then contrast Egyptian and Macedonian cultural values in order to explain them. Meriamon asks questions the reader wants answers to—or Niko (or Alexander) ask questions of her about Egypt.

The second choice (which is what I did in Dancing) is to identify cultural mores likely to offend modern readers: indifference to slavery, glorification of war and conquest, Greco-Macedonian attitudes towards women, and Greco-Macedonian attitudes towards sexuality. Then to assign one of the characters to voice a more modern view. Alexander gets to be a proto-feminist, and I gave points of view to two women. One of those women, I made a slave. Hephaistion gets to express a more modern view regarding the horrors of war. Sexuality was a bit tougher, but I used the boys’ atypical relationship—that the younger is the one of higher status—to illustrate Greco-Macedonian assumptions about what a male-male relationship should look like.

That approach presents more hurdles, but for my purposes, I preferred it.

I harp on this because it’s the biggest problem for historical fiction: not having historical characters! It wrecks what might otherwise be decent research into the details. No matter how much you look up what they ate, how they dressed, the way their houses were laid out…if you have them behaving anachronistically, it’s a bad historical. Or if you have circumstances that just wouldn’t occur.

Let me give an example. I’ve said before that, when I started writing the novel in December of 1988, Dancing always began with a run-away boy (Hephaistion). But in my initial version, he showed up in Pella incognito. The more I read about Macedonia, however, the more I realized that was virtually impossible. There just weren’t that many Hetairoi. He’d have been recognized, and probably sooner rather than later. So I went back to the drawing board and, instead of having him try to hide, he comes right out and says who he is, and that he wants to join the Pages. It might take away the “mystery,” but set up more interesting dynamics: would Philip let him stay? What would his father do? Etc.

That requires the author know enough about the culture to know what’s possible, probable, and impossible. It also requires the author to be willing to change original plans in order to reflect reality, not insist on doing ___ anyway.

A good example of jettisoning history in favor of “what I want to do!” can be found in David Gemmell’s Lion of Macedon. So many, many things wrong with that book, starting with his choice to make Parmenion a Spartan for no historical reason whatsoever—but (I assume?) because Spartans Are Sexy. Parmenion likely belonged to the royal house of Upper Macedonian Pelagonia. Although even if he didn’t, absolutely nothing suggests he wasn’t Macedonian, and quite a lot says he was. The whole duology (with included The Dark Prince) was essentially Blue Boltz ™ Epic Fantasy Does Greece. The fact he actually included a bibliography in back, and got weird, isolated details right only added insult to injury.

Yet Gemmell was a best-selling British fantasy novelist who knew pacing and how to spin a good yarn. For a reader with zero knowledge of Alexander, it would stack up as a predictable but tolerable fantasy set.

Remember that as an historical fiction author, your job is to practice the art of getting it right. If that isn’t important to you, please God, write something completely made up.

At the spectrum’s other end is Showing Notecards on Every Page. You’ve done ALL that hard research, and you’ll be damn sure the reader knows it!

Um, the reader doesn’t care. The reader wants to be transported to another world. How locals in that world shoed horses (or if they shoed horses at all) is irrelevant. It matters only if your main character’s a farrier. And even then, it matters only if said-farrier is having a conversation with someone else while shoeing a horse.

If people want all the little details of history, they’ll read a history book.

Now, how much detail is “too much” can vary from reader to reader, and often has something to do with the genre.

Regular readers of historical fiction are fans because they enjoy history. So they’ll expect proper world-building. But they don’t want the Dreaded Information Dump. Weave in details. The Dreaded Information Dump is a common beginning-author error across the board, but especially bad in certain genres, such as historicals, fantasy, and SF.

What’s an “information dump”? It’s where the author provides details the reader doesn’t need at that point in the story. What the character looks like, is wearing, their family background, what they had for breakfast….

As mentioned, details should be woven into the story organically. What your character had for breakfast matters only if, later, it’s giving him/her gas: “Damn those beans in my breakfast burrito!” Some details may be useful to set a scene and prevent characters from walking around, having conversations in a void, but again, a light touch.

Similarly, One scene, One head. We do NOT need to see everything from each character’s point of view. No, really. We don’t. And dear God, please don’t “head-hop” inside of scenes (unless you’re writing omniscient, but be sure you know what omniscient IS). Drives me BUGGY.

Anyway, back to the Notecard Showing Problem. As noted above, genre expectations and reader preferences often dictate what IS “too much detail.” Generally, historical Romance (the genre) and historical mysteries go lighter on detail than historical fantasy or plain historicals. That’s because the former two have genre conventions that work against it. Romances preference the love story front-and-center at all times, and mysteries have a mystery to unravel. E.g, they’re plot driven. By contrast, historical fantasies tolerate more world building because world building itself is a feature of fantasy (and science fiction too). And the appeal of mainstream or literary historicals IS the world building, so you get massive novels like Ken Follet’s Pillars of the Earth.

I’m blathering now, but hopefully this gives pointers not just about writing Alexander, but writing fiction period, and historical fiction in particular.

#historical fiction #writing #the writing life #writing how-to #Alexander the Great #Dancing with the Lion #ancient Greek fiction #scene and sequel #asks

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trackerhunter995 · 3 years

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Almost Done With Darlingtongames123 Nr2003 Designs

Darlington Designs is the leading residential design & build firm in New Jersey. Specializing in major home renovations from landscape and hardscape projects to. Nov 16, 2014 - FREEBIES - Darling Designs 4 U - Merry Christmas Tree. Nov 16, 2014 - FREEBIES - Darling Designs 4 U - Merry Christmas Tree. Craft Instructions For Kids. Saved from darlingdesigns4u.com. Saved by Brenda Liston.

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Well as I am almost done with the original track update, someone on this forum sent me 2 tracks asking to take a look at them. They are basically broken and useless for now. I got to thinking, maybe just MAYBE I can take my track editing to another level. I want to try and fix the 'broken' tracks of NR2003. So i wanted to see if you guys could send me tracks via links on this thread. Maybe this can bring some of the other nr2003 players back to this community or even new people to the game. I'm not sure, but I would like to try and fix these tracks! Not sure when or even if I can fix them but I am willing to try over time. Also, tracks that need graphics updates or mips and such might be last on my list. I've been wanting to learn how to do all of that and I have somewhat of an idea not am not experienced with that yet. So with that being said send me any links you have! The message I received was for Melbourne. So i am working on that track and it is a pain! Haha.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know I haven’t blogged in months. It should be expected by now, lol. There’s been a ton of things that’s happened since my last blog, much too many to write about here. Basically in the end, a bunch of things went down, none of it really bad, and I just neglected the blog for a while, and I’ll end up neglecting it again. But as the title of this post suggests, I’m slowly returning to my old ways. What does that actually mean to anyone that reads this? Well, let me think here…

I’m a fan of the racing sim NASCAR Racing: 2003 Season (NR2003), this blog was intended to showcase work I do for the game, provide me a private space to share files, and allow me to blog any ongoing projects. Instead I kinda posted a lot of stuff on other topics, which I’m sure I’ll do in the future as well, but hopefully not as much. So with that said, I’ve been working on a project that is mainly intended for NR2003, but anyone can enjoy this one. I’ve been making some new Sprint Cup Series models. It’s a big project for me, 5 makes in total. I just got tired of not having something that was much more accurate to the real cars to play with. Originally I wanted to get back into painting a few cool cars I seen from the 2016 NASCAR season, and I found out the models we had, just were not accurate. It forced me to change the scheme a bit, much of which was a pain because it really was quite a intricate paint job. so much of what I recreated after using photos for reference didn’t fit on the model. This was the reason why I quit painting cars in the first place. So instead of doing a half-ass conversion and ruining the original artist’s interpretation, I decided I’d just go ahead and make my own damn model. I made the Chevy SS and was just gonna leave it at that, but I had a lot of fun that I haven’t had in a long while so I decided to make even more models. In the end, I made 5 models total, the 2016 Chevy SS, 2016 Dodge Charger, 2016 Ford Fusion, 2016 Toyota Camry, and even the 2018 Toyota Camry. The models were a blast to make, especially the Charger. Seeing Dodge pulled out of NASCAR a few years back, I had freedom to kinda freestyle how I think it would look in NASCAR trim. And I feel I nailed the look. Even if I didn’t, the model looks bad ass nonetheless.

You can’t be a NASCAR fan and not love the looks of that, lol. So far, the bodies are complete, the mapping is mainly complete, though I might have to add a couple of things before release, and I’m almost done with the chassis and interior for the Chevy. These models, once finished, will be posted online for all to enjoy. I will be including the models (3ds Max 2009, 8 formats and obj), textures, and whatever else is required. They will be free to use for non-commercial use only, so you can use them in other games, apps, or whatever as long as you’re not profiting from them in any way, shape, or form. And you can bet your ass, they work in NR2003, I’ve already tested them in there. I did this once before with the Xfinity Series cars. only difference is they did not have any textures, it was just the bodies, rollcage, and wheels. In fact, here’s the link if anyone wants them…

These weren’t perfectly modeled, but they’re pretty damn good. In fact, I’ve actually started updating the models a little because I came across some reference to help make them way more accurate. But I won’t be able to get to them all till a while after I’m done with the Sprint Cup Series models.

Almost Done With Darlingtongames123 Nr2003 Designs For Beginners

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So for now, this is what I’ve been doing with my time. I’ve returned to my NR2003 roots, and man I can’t wait till this project is finished and people can get a up close and personal look at these models. I hope people get to enjoy them as much as I enjoyed making them. Catch ya’s later. 🙂

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alarawriting · 5 years

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Inktober #5: Build

The Diwar are famed throughout the galaxy (well, to be pedantic, the general area of the Local Arm) as engineers and inventors. They are well known for the quality of their work, their scientific advancements, and the skill with which they implement theory into practical reality. (Also, their great love of beer, which has led to an unlikely friendship between the Diwar and the newest species to develop spaceflight in the Local Arm, Humans.) Their interest in engineering and creation is so great that, where Humans, Kai, Luffen and other species celebrate competitions of physical skill, the Diwar’s great planetary competition is The Great Build, an engineering competition.

Remember that the person at the bottom of the medical school graduating class is called “doctor”, and you will have some idea what the Proud-Crested Hyperpurples are like. Every competition has a large number of teams involved, and someone’s got to be on the bottom.

The Hyperpurples are the team of Fillit Province, a northern, rather chilly and rocky demesne on the homeworld which is primarily known for fishing. Yes, this is not a bad Human speculative fiction where all the people of a planet have the same professions and behave the same way. Not all Humans work in the fiction industry, not all Kai are warriors, and not all Diwar are great engineers. The people of Fillit Province are proud of their Build team, though; despite the fact that the Hyperpurples have literally come in last in the last four competitions, Fillito are loyal. After all, for a tiny fishing province without even a great university to be able to field a team at all, let alone one that even made it into The Great Build, is an amazing accomplishment. The accomplishment is not that the fisher-Diwar are great engineers in comparison to the rest of their people, but that they are engineers at all.

The problem is that the competition keeps itself from getting stale by kicking out any team that is in the bottom 10th percentile for five competitions in a row. If the Hyperpurples don’t perform better than at least ten percent of the other teams this year, they’re dead in the water. Loyal followers in their hometowns will be deeply disappointed. (Diwar are known for their passion as much as for their love of engineering. Disappointing a Diwar usually results in unpleasant consequences, such as finding that your personal conveyance has been disassembled and its parts strewn about your property.) Family members will declaim at length about the tragedy… and how members of the team who scraped and saved to leave Fillito Province to get a good education at a decent engineering school should have stayed home and caught fish for a living. Funds that were flowing into the Hyperpurples’ bank accounts from the sales of merchandise to their loyal fans will dry up.

“We could try to do something safe. Something respectable,” Irta said, nervously pulling at the feathers along the shoulder of his large-arm. There weren’t many left. Irta, like all of them, had been under a lot of stress lately. “Maybe a conveyance for a non-standard environment? Something that would work in, I don’t know, 20 g?”

“Boring!” Bakoon declared, with a wide wave of his own large-arm and a fluff of his crest. “We need to capture the imaginations of the public! To come in 11th percentile or higher, we can’t do something mean and pedestrian; beyond a contest of engineering skill, this is a contest of ideas!”

“Besides, it’s not as if we can win on our engineering skill,” Rikwaal said sardonically, her small-arms busily occupied with inputting because Rikwaal liked to look as if she was so important to the team, her work never stopped. She was actually a project manager, so the truth was, without a project to engage in, she didn’t have anything to do either.

“Speak for yourself,” the team’s other female, Enshru, snapped. “You can’t win on engineering skill because you are not an engineer.”

“Judging from our performance the last four years, neither are the rest of you,” Rikwaal said.

“Guys, could we stop arguing? This isn’t getting us any closer to the prize,” Le’ir said. He was young, and very earnest, but well-respected for his comportment, his friendliness, his alcohol tolerance, and his ability to go for three days without sleep at crunch time and still have his work come out as competition-quality. “We need a really new idea. Something to shake things up.”

“I agree!” Bakoon said. “Regardless of our skill at engineering, one of our metrics is viewership. Get enough Diwar to follow us and it won’t matter if we fail spectacularly and blow something up. We’d at least come in higher than 11th percentile, if everyone following the competition followed us as a focus-team.”

Enshru snorted. “It sounds like you think this competition is one of those Human things where the Humans with big muscles pretend to wrestle each other! This isn’t about show business, it’s about making something that makes people take notice of us!”

“Which we have never accomplished before,” Rikwaal said, “and therefore, it really seems implausible that we’d manage it this time.”

“I like the idea of making a conveyance,” Irta complained. “We could make it a really sleek one. Give it some real power and maneuverability.”

“We’re not manufacturers of conveyances, dear boy,” Bakoon said in the most patronizing tone imaginable. “We’re manufacturers of spectacle. We’re here to impress! To have audacious ideas that no Diwar has had before – or has succeeded at, or has done as well at – and then to implement them in a tremendous way!” Every time he spoke with emphasis, Bakoon’s crest fluffed. His large-arms gesticulated wildly as he strutted. “We need something fantastic, something spectacular!”

“So that, even if we fail miserably, everyone tunes in to watch us blow ourselves up?” Enshru said.

“Well, by preference I would rather not explode, but yes, that’s the idea.”

“Can I make a suggestion?” Le’ir said. “This may sound like a stupid idea…”

“Oh, go ahead,” Enshru said. “It can’t be worse than Irta’s conveyances.”

“Hey!”

“I think we should bring in a Human.”

Bakoon, who’d been dipping his beak-like snout into his wine glass, spat out everything that was in his mouth. “What?”

“You’re right,” Irta said. “That does sound like a stupid idea.”

“Hate to agree with Irta,” Enshru said, “but when he’s right…”

“Please share with me the name of your supplier,” Bakoon said. “It’s evident that your drugs are of the highest quality.”

Rikwaal cocked her head to the side. “Well, now. You wanted spectacle, and let’s be honest; it’s not as if adding a Human could make this team any worse.”

“Hear me out,” Le’ir said. “All sarcasm aside, we know our skills aren’t up to 11th percentile; we’ve come in last for four years.”

“We did better five years ago,” Enshru said.

“That was five years ago. Either the competitors are getting tougher or we’re getting weaker. Not the point. Now, the metrics are based on three factors, right? The creativity of the idea, the skill of the implementation, and the degree to which the audience is following us specifically.”

“Thank you for explaining things we all already know.” Enshru lifted her head and tilted it sideways, her sharp eyes focusing on Le’ir. “I am sure none of us had any idea how this competition we’ve been performing in for nearly a decade now works.”

Le’ir huffed. “Let me talk, Enshru.” He glared back at her. She reached her left small-arm over to her left large-arm and began grooming the feathers there, backing down while pretending not to have lost face. “So. Skill of implementation’s worth the most, obviously, and that’s where we have our greatest weakness. But if we could do really well on the other two, we’d have a chance. And Humans are well known to take shortcuts, and use, mm, creative means of getting around limitations.”

“You mean human-rigging their stuff?” Irta smirked.

“That’s racist, Irta,” Rikwaal said coolly, making it clear that she didn’t care but as the project manager she had to pretend to.

“Oh, come on, they’re so known for it we named it for them.”

“Yes, that would be the racist part.”

“So they’d be a focus of interest just for that. What crazy idea will the Human come up with? What stupid and yet feasible methods will they implement? Will they go the long way around in a really entertaining way? Will they use nonsensical materials and overengineer it so they work? Or is it going to blow up in their, and our, faces?”

“Hmm,” Bakoon said. “I’m beginning to see where you’re going with this.”

“Plus, a Human has never been on one of our teams before. I think we’ve only ever had two aliens, ever, and neither of them were Human. So they’ll be interesting for that reason.”

“Do you think we can possibly get enough points just from views that it’ll compensate for poor skill and lack of creative ideas?” Rikwaal asked – not sarcastically, but as if she genuinely thought he was considering that idea, and wondering if she should too.

“No, because lack of creative ideas won’t be a problem. We’ll have a Human. Creative ideas are what they’re known for.”

“Creative, completely impractical ideas,” Enshru said.

“But gloriously impractical!” Bakoon said. “Yes, I see what you’re thinking, Le’ir. A Human’s creativity, plus the engineering skills of a team of Diwar… even if our implementation fails spectacularly, we’ll gain enough from creativity and from the curiosity value of a Human competing that we’ll stand a chance! And if we should not fail at implementation, because the Human gives us ridiculous ideas that work nonetheless and then we work them out with Diwar rigor, we may enter the 20th or 30th percentile. Comfortably.”

“I don’t like it! It’s making a mockery of the whole competition!” Irta complained.

“Well, let’s vote on it,” Le’ir said reasonably.

Le’ir, Bakoon and Rikwaal all voted yes. Irta and Enshru voted no.

“That settles that, then,” Rikwaal said.

“Wait!” Irta said. “We never asked Mip! For something like this? Working with a human? Having to make sure they have the right food and the right bathroom facilities available? We have to give Mip a vote!”

Mip was an engineer of a completely different type – he was the facilities guy, managing the computational arrays, the food service, the cleanliness of the workspace. Irta had a good point – Mip would be one of the ones most impacted by the presence of an alien.

However, when they brought him upstairs to vote and explained the situation to him, he said, “You dragged me away from my work for this? Unbelievable.”

“But you get a vote,” Irta said. “You’d be the one to have to do all the extra work if we bring on a human!”

“I’d be doing extra work if you expanded the team to add another Diwar, too,” Mip said, “and don’t pretend you care about my workload, Mr. I’m-going-to-shed-my-feathers-all-over-the-arrays. Do whatever you guys want, I don’t care if you want a Human or a giant frog.” (Technically he did not say frog; the creature he was referring to was an aquatic reptile rather than an amphibian, and usually the size of a Human head, but in most other respects it strongly resembled a frog.) “Just let me get back to my work.”

As he stomped off, making sure they could hear every clatter of his talons on the deck plating, Bakoon said, “So, Le’ir, my boy. Let’s talk. How were you planning to recruit your Human?”

“I hadn’t really thought that far,” Le’ir said. “I wasn’t sure you guys would agree.”

“And personally, I don’t,” Enshru said.

“Yes, yes, we know, Enshru. You’ve made your opinion abundantly clear,” Bakoon said. “Well. My family has trade dealings with Humans; I’ve dealt with them often. Let me be the one to find a Human for the team.”

“This is a bad idea,” Irta said, “and it’ll probably end badly.”

Rikwaal smirked. “But it’ll be such fun to watch before it does.”

#inktober 2019 #alara original writing #kai diwar universe #humans are weird

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natpeabct · 5 years

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broken nose, broken dreams

Yesterday Roxy, Ella and Shel manned the “test for a treat” stand in the main foyer of WG. This was a great opportunity to get lots of non BCT students checking out our project. The main feedback we got was “I want to know more”. And now that we have all the components necessary for the NFC element, we can give users the opportunity to dive deeper. The surface of the tags can only say so much, and is that necessarily enough to convey the value of the garment? It’s hard to say. But what we can do is use the digital back end of NFC to give the full story in detail.

With this in mind we’ve begun work on implementing the “deeper” stories into the website. Some of the current stories on the tags don’t have a larger context we can dip into so we’ve had to axe four pieces because of this. Even so, we can bring more in, however, we are going to aim for every piece on the rack to have both a tag and NFC chip sending users to the deeper story. It’ll be important to have a section in that “deeper story” that details the importance of valuing our clothes and the impacts of fast fashion. If this is missing then the purpose may be misinterpreted and the communication of our message is lost.

I’m going to be writing these expanded stories by going back to the owners of the garments and breaking down all the little details of the situation. I have a two sport related t-shirts that have some strange and sad stories woven through them that I’d like to contribute. One of these is the story of my token season of rugby. Yes, all 60kgs of me played rugby for a full season. And in my third game I broke my nose in the first half, but thanks to the southern grit I toughed it out and scored my first ever try in the second half; right in front of Mum. There is much more detail to that story and context I can add, but if the tag said something along the lines of: “Broken nose, first try, MIP tropy… Scan for more” then people will hopefully be enticed to find out what that garment went through. I feel like with this new element to our project we have a more rounded and complete thing to present, it’s using technology in a creative way that has a strong context and reason behind it.

#ctec503

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supersecure-blog · 5 years

Text

Something awesome - assembly research

For the reversing chapter in my guide, I needed to do some prior research on low level languages, specifically assembly. I have had experience with MIPS in COMP1521, so concepts like registers, code segments, and control flow are all very familiar - I just need to learn the syntax!

What is reverse engineering?

Reverse Engineering in a CTF is typically the process of taking a compiled program like machine code or byte-code and converting it back into a more human readable format. Challenges will often include looking at programs looking written in low-level programming languages.

Low-level vs high-level programming languages

High level programming languages typically allow users to write applications which are portable across various platforms, and are irrespective of architecture.

Low level programming languages are what is called ‘assembly code’. These languages are more appropriate for developing operating systems and typically take a lot of work to learn and understand how it works.

Assembly Breakdown:

As we’ve said before, learning assembly takes a lot of time and effort to try and understand as it is extremely different from a lot of the programming languages that most people are familiar with like Python or Java.

We’ll be covering some of the basic concepts in assembly below, but for a more in-depth tutorial, visit this site.

An assembly program can be divided into three sections:

The data section

The bss section

The text section

The data section

The data section is used for declaring initialised data or constants. This data does not change at runtime. You can declare various constant values, file names, or buffer size, etc

The bss section

The bss section is used for declaring variables.

The text section

The text section is used for keeping the actual code. This section must begin with the declaration global _start, which tells the kernel where the program execution begins.

The syntax for declaring text section is −

section.text global _start _start:

Registers

In assembly, registers store data elements for processing without having to access the memory. A limited number of registers are built into the processor chip.

Four 32-bit data registers are used for arithmetic, logical, and other operations.

EAX - is the primary accumulator; it is used in input/output and most arithmetic instructions. For example, in multiplication operation, one operand is stored in EAX or AX or AL register according to the size of the operand.

EBX - is known as the base register, as it could be used in indexed addressing.

ECX - is known as the count register, as the ECX, CX registers store the loop count in iterative operations.

EDX - is known as the data register. It is also used in input/output operations. It is also used with AX register along with DX for multiply and divide operations involving large values.

Instructions:

The MOV Instruction

The MOV instruction is used for moving data from one storage space to another. The MOV instruction takes two operands.

Syntax:

The syntax of the MOV instruction is:

MOV destination, source

The MOV instruction may have one of the following five forms:

MOV register, register MOV register, immediate MOV memory, immediate MOV register, memory MOV memory, register

Note that however:

Both the operands in MOV operation should be of same size

The value of source operand remains unchanged

The ADD and SUB Instructions

The ADD and SUB instructions are used for performing simple addition/subtraction of binary data in byte, word and doubleword size, i.e., for adding or subtracting 8-bit, 16-bit or 32-bit operands, respectively.

Syntax

The ADD and SUB instructions have the following syntax:

ADD/SUB destination, source

The ADD/SUB instruction can take place between:

Memory to register

Memory to constant data

However, like other instructions, memory-to-memory operations are not possible using ADD/SUB instructions. An ADD or SUB operation sets or clears the overflow and carry flags.

Control Flow

Unconditional Jump

This is performed by the JMP instruction. Conditional execution often involves a transfer of control to the address of an instruction that does not follow the currently executing instruction. Transfer of control may be forward, to execute a new set of instructions or backward, to re-execute the same steps.

Syntax:

The JMP instruction provides a label name where the flow of control is transferred immediately. The syntax of the JMP instruction is:

JMP label

Conditional Jump

If some specified condition is satisfied in conditional jump, the control flow is transferred to a target instruction. There are numerous conditional jump instructions depending upon the condition and data.

Following are the conditional jump instructions used on signed data used for arithmetic operations:

JE/JZ - Jump Equal or Jump Zero

JNE/JNZ - Jump not Equal or Jump Not Zero

JG/JNLE - Jump Greater or Jump Not Less/Equal

JGE/JNL - Jump Greater/Equal or Jump Not Less

JL/JNGE - Jump Less or Jump Not Greater/Equal

JLE/JNG - Jump Less/Equal or Jump Not Greater

#somethingawesome

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omgkatsudonplease · 6 years

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hmmm how's about....Hunger by Florence + the Machine w/ Viktuuri?

day 4, part 2!

Viktor remembers the year he first became eligible to be bonded. He still had long hair back then, still had a face clouded by childhood chubbiness. Being paraded in front of the Candidates, many of which were older than him by several years, felt less like he had been sent to inspect them and more like he himself was being inspected.

At the time, all he had wanted to do was get back to his meditation exercises. As a natural-born heir of the Nikiforov line, he had taken it upon himself to become the best in emotion control and manipulation throughout the galaxy. So he rushed through each Candidate, rejecting all of them at the end, clearly in a hurry to return to his books.

Every evaluation after that had much of the same bent. People come close; some of them even catch his eye for a couple minutes or so. But ultimately he’d walk away empty-handed, and then the Candidates return to their own wing in the palace grounds, to await the next member of the royal house who may seek a bondmate for whatever reason.

Viktor remembers the year the cracks in the system had clearly shown through. He’d grown older then, cut off his childish locks in a wild bid to appear more mature. The Candidates stepped out as usual in their perfect line, waiting for him to stride among their ranks, testing their bonding abilities from afar.

He’d noticed that some of them were new faces. One in particular had been very new, and very young.

“What is she doing here?” he asked, nodding towards the child – for she could not be any older than one.

“She’s eighteen, Your Highness,” Lilia, the Royal Matchmaker, intoned.

Viktor’s eyes narrowed. “I doubt that,” he said. “She’s young enough to be adopted.”

“Her papers say she is of age,” replied Lilia tersely.

“She can’t be here,” Viktor said, and hoped that that would end the conversation.

The young Candidate was nowhere to be seen on his subsequent visits, but he did not see her with the other wards, either. At that time, Yuri had been with the wards, sullen but incredible even at that age. Viktor had been more preoccuped with overseeing Yuri’s ascendance to the direct line of succession.

He found out the fate of the young Candidate at the next banquet. She’d been caught trying to flee, having been abducted into her candidacy and desperate to be reunited with her family instead of entering into a bond with an older member of the Royal line. Her mother came to the palace gates during the banquet, screaming about how all they had received in compensation for their daughter’s sacrifice was her little blue scarf.

Now, as he gazes down at Neva from the observation panel, he thinks about the little blue scarf tied to the palace gates until he himself had untied it, bringing it back to his rooms as a reminder of what should be changed.

Yuuri, you have a request to report to the bridge, NICA announces suddenly. Next to him, Yuuri clears his throat, rising to his feet.

“You can come with me if you want,” he says. Viktor nods, rising to his feet and following him out the door.

The walk to the bridge is largely quiet, punctuated only by the hum of the ship and the faint snippets of music echoing from workrooms all along the way. Viktor catches snippets of Nevan crooners, Kerri trills, Terran melodies of all sorts. The pleasant cacophony reverberates inside him long after they reach the bridge.

“Seung-gil’s here,” Phichit says without preamble as Yuuri nods at the Mandalan observing the screen. “We’ll be departing in the morning, but in the meantime we’ll be trying to trace his ship’s signature and discerning its flight plan from the spaceport logs.”

“Whoever stole his ship isn’t going to follow the original flight plan,” Yuuri says.

“It would be logical,” agrees Seung-gil, turning back from the screen. “The criminal took the effort to try and make the attack appear to have Mandalan roots, exploiting the current political discontent back on Miraia.”

“I don’t know why any intelligent being would be discontented with peace,” grumbles Phichit. Seung-gil’s lips quirk up by an infinitesimal degree, which on other creatures would probably be a scream of agreement.

“The Imperial Fleet have been displeased with the terms of the peace treaty since its inception,” the Mandalan explains. “They believe that it favours the Federation too heavily, that it prevents the Mandalan Empire from even being able to explore the galaxy under the assumption that we will conquer all that we discover.”

“Yeah, but you’d think the Emperor’s dedication to peace would appease the Federation,” Phichit complains.

“The Emperor’s words are nice, but the actions of the Imperial Fleet are still what many still think about when they think about the Mandalan Empire,” Christophe rejoins. “Countless civilisations still haven’t gotten their reparations yet; where’s the Emperor’s words on that?”

Seung-gil’s eyes flash, his hackles obviously rising as he opens his mouth to retort something, but Phichit pushes in between the two of them, one hand on each chest. “Really, guys? Can we talk about politics later? Right now we’ve got a prince-napper on the loose who just murdered a bunch of people on Neva at the Armistice Ball last night –”

“A big political statement,” Christophe points out, but Phichit’s hand moves up to place a finger against his mouth.

“And they passed it off as the work of Mandalans, which is already doing so much fucking damage to the Empire’s careful rebuilding of its public image on the interneb.” Phichit looks over at Seung-gil. “What are the odds that the perp stole one of the power cells from your ship to blow up the ballroom?”

“Inconclusive,” replies Seung-gil, looking down at Phichit’s hand on his chest. “And please –”

“Sorry.” Phichit removes his hands from both of them. “Well, if they did use one of your power cells, they can’t get very far. How many do you have in your ship?”

“Two,” replies Seung-gil. “Mandalan power cells are very efficient.”

“We know that,” Christophe bites out. “I’ve crunched the numbers for a ship running on only one Mandalan energy cell. Only about two or three jumps. Not enough to get out of the Nevan system.”

“The ship is pre-programmed to have ready access to the jump coordinates between Neva and Miraia,” Seung-gil chips in helpfully. “It is one of the benefits of being in the exchange programme.”

“We said there’s a chance the perp might deviate from the flight plan,” Phichit points out.

Viktor watches Yuuri take in the conversation, his expression thoughtful as he considers each angle of the argument. After a moment, he clears his throat, and the three of them turn to him. “Phichit, remember when we had to hijack and return a stolen ship from that one Mandalan trader?”

“Yeah, you were cursing at the ship’s nav the entire time,” Phichit says, before making an ‘ah’ of realisation. “You don’t think the perp knows how to pilot a Mandalan ship?”

“The trader told us that all Mandalan nav systems are set to the Miraian Interplanetary Positioning System instead of the Federation Standard, meaning it’s impossible for someone who hasn’t studied it before to pilot the thing. So unless the perp is Mandalan or has studied the MIPS, they’re probably just going to let the ship’s nav do its job. They might deviate from the flight plan, but they’re not going to deviate from the jumps if they decide to jump.”

“They’ve definitely jumped at least once,” Christophe adds. “The Nevan Police have scoured the immediate area just before the jump point.”

There’s the sudden sound of an incoming communication. “That’s an Allegrian signature,” Sara says.

“I recognise it,” Christophe agrees. “It’s Leroy, or someone in his mediatorship.”

“NICA, identify incoming comm,” instructs Mila.

Otabek Altin, Beta of the Leroy Mediatorship, announces NICA. Mila nods, and moments later Otabek’s face fills the screen, looking fairly bruised and cut up from the attack but none the worse for wear.

“Captain Babicheva, I was informed you are searching for Yura?” asks Otabek.

“Altin, what a sight for sore eyes,” says Mila, smiling. “Do you have information for us?”

“I saw the person who took him,” replies Otabek. “She was Nevan.”

Silence fills the bridge at that. After a moment Mila thanks Otabek, closes the communication with a shaky little nod. Viktor’s stomach drops somewhere to his feet as the eyes of everyone on the bridge turn to him and Mila.

Yuuri steps closer to him. “Do you know who it could be?” he asks gently.

Numbly, Viktor shakes his head. “I think… she was angry,” he says, remembering the twisted metal in his hands. “Panicked. Desperate.”

Mila’s expression grows wan. “An escaped Candidate?” she wonders, sinking down into the captain’s chair. Next to her, Sara takes her hand, squeezing it tightly.

“Then she couldn’t have gotten far,” says Christophe. “And she couldn’t have been able to use the nav system. Mila, let’s call in the crew and go find her.”

Mila nods shakily. “Send the notification,” she agrees. “We’re leaving at 2300 standard hours.”

#yoi #yoiroyaltyweek #viktuuri #victuuri #lily's dabbles #rewrite the stars #day 4 #the katuki niliforv #ask #sorry this doesn't have as much viktuuri lol #kidnapping mention

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daily-klingon · 6 years

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wotmey wej

mach be small v magh betray v maq proclaim v maS prefer v matlh be loyal v matlhHa' be disloyal v maw offend v maw' be crazy v may be fair v ma' accommodate v mech trade v mej leave, depart v meq reason v meQ burn v mer surprise v meS encrypt (slang) v meS knot v meSHa' decrypt (slang) v mev stop, cease v mIgh be evil v mIl be formerly honored (loss of honor is implied; an adjective to describe one who has fallen from grace; not applicable to 'utlh, which implies a voluntary, honorable retirement) v mIm delay v mIn yuq perform magic (referring to a stage magician) v mIp be rich v mIQ deep-fry v mIS be confused, mixed up v mISmoH confuse v mItlh forge (metal) v mIy brag v mI' dance, run in place, do calisthenics v mob be alone v moD hurry v mogh be frustrated v moH be ugly v moj become v mol bury v mon smile, grin, sneer v moq beat (something with an implement) v morgh protest v moS compromise v mot be stunned, be knocked out (in the sense of "rendered unconscious or into a dazed state as a result of being hit (by a fist or a projectile, etc.)". Like being hit by a "phaser set to stun") v motlh be usual, normal / standard v motlhbe' be unusual (abnormal, non-standard) v mub be legal v much perform (music) v much present v mugh translate v muH execute, put to death v muj be wrong v mul be stubborn v mum taste, sense flavours v mun intervene v mup impact, strike v muq have a volume of v muS hate, detest v mut be selfish v mutlh construct, assemble, manufacture, construct, put together v muv join v muvmoH recruit v nab plan v naD praise, commend, approve v naDHa' discommend, disapprove v naH be hostile, malicious, unfriendly, antagonistic v naj dream v nan gouge v nap be simple v naQ be full, whole, entire, complete v nargh appear v nargh escape v naS be vicious v natlh drain v natlh use up, consume, expend v naw' access v nay marry (wife does this) v na' be salty, be brackish v nech be lateral, move laterally v neH want v nej look for, seek, search for v nen be mature, be grownup, be an adult v nenchoH mature, grow up v nep lie, fib v nIb be identical v nID attempt, try v nIH steal v nIj leak v nIl be grassy v nIq weave, knit v nIS disrupt, hinder, interfere, interfere with v nIt be plain, be pure, be uncorrupted, be unsullied v nIv be superior v nI' be long, lengthy (duration) v nob give v nobHa' give back, return v noD retaliate v nogh writhe v noH judge, estimate v noj lend v non be rotten v nong be passionate v nop omit v noS eat in small mouthfuls, nibble v notlh be obsolete v nov be foreign, alien v noy be famous, well known v nub be suspect v nuD examine v nughI' twist knuckle into someone's forehead v num promote v nung precede v nup decrease v nuQ annoy, bother v nuS ridicule v ngab disappear, vanish v ngach debate v ngaD be stable, be steady, be balanced v ngaDmoH stabilise v ngagh mate with v ngaH squeeze (an object) v ngaj be short (in duration) v ngal be chewy v ngaQ be locked, be secured, be sealed, be fastened v ngaQHa'moH sign in, log in v ngaQmoH sign out, log out v ngaS contain (have inside) v nga'chuq sex (i.e., perform sex; "always subject" probably refers to the concept that all involved parties collectively make the subject of this verb.) v ngeb be counterfeit, false, fake v ngeD be easy v ngeH send v ngej infect v ngel attract, lure v ngep override v ngeQ bump into, run into, collide with v ngev sell v nge' take away v ngIj be rowdy, unruly v ngIl dare v ngIm be putrid v ngIng be negatively charged, have a negative charge v ngIp borrow v ngIv patrol v ngI' have a weight of, weigh v ngI' be pressurized v ngoH paint using fingers, smear v ngoj be restless v ngol move bat'leth from horizontal to vertical orientation v ngom be geeky (This describes someone who is "into" a subject and knows a lot about it, but does not necessarily participate in associated activities the way a qatru' does. It could be a less intense version of ven.) v ngon bubble (The verb ngon describes what water does when it's boiling: It's bubbling. Also, if you blow with a straw into a glass of water, then it's also bubbling. The person does not ngon, they ngonmoH the water.) v ngong experiment v ngor cheat v ngoS dissolve v ngotlh be fanatical v ngoy' be responsible v ngo' be old (not new) v ngun perch (if bird lands on land, use Saq, on water, use tlhot) v nguq be arrogant, haughty, conceited (an undesirable trait) v nguv be dyed, be stained, be tinted v nguvmoH dye, stain, tint v ngu' identify v pab follow (rules) v paj resign v pan spark, emit sparks v pang pluck (a stringed instrument) v paQ meditate, cogitate, reflect v par dislike v pargh be synthetic, artificial v parHa' like v paS be late v patlh be ranked, have a status, be graded v patlhmoH rank, assign status, compare, sort v pav be urgent v paw arrive v paw' butt heads (slang) v paw' collide v pay regret v peD snow, fall slowly (like snow) v pegh be secret v pegh keep something secret v pej demolish v pep raise v peq slaughter (connotes intention, targeting specific victims) v per label, ascertain, specify, designate v peS supply, furnish, provide, dispense v pet be welded (together) v pe' cut v pe''egh keep score v pIch blame v pID coat (food) with herbed mixture) v pIH be suspicious v pIH expect v pIjHa' infrequently, seldom adv pIl be inspired, be motivated, be stimulated v pIlmoH inspire, stimulate, motivate v pIm be different v pIQ be direct v pIQHa' be indirect, roundabout, devious v pIv be healthy v pI' be bold v pI' be fat v poch plant v poD be clipped v poDmoH clip v poH time v poj analyze v pol keep, save v polHa' discard v pon persuade, convince v pong name, call v poQ demand, require v poS be open, opened v poSmoH open v potlh be important v pov be excellent v po' be expert, skilled v pub boil v puj be weak v pujmoH weaken v pul be ground up v pum accuse v pum fall v pup be high resolution v pup be perfect, exact v pup kick v puQ be fed up v pur inhale v puS be few, be several, a handful v puS sight (with gunsight) v puv fly v puy wreck v

#The Daily Klingon #Star Trek: Discovery #tlhIngan Hol

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maydaymemer · 2 years

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Smiling Friends Season 1 first impressions – It’s good, but is it?

These were what I wrote down after watching each episode as it aired. Late to posting it but I might rereview the season now I’m close to rewatching all of it. This also isn’t a review of the pilot as I watched that when it was new and really like it already, so I don’t have any first impressions to share

Episode 2-The premiere at first I was disappointed by. The funny moments of Mr. Frog were the ones I had seen in the trailer and clips other than the cutting of that woman's hands with the cheque. I think if they cut the Glep b plot entirely they could've really focused on the more interesting idea of a psycho who is beloved by people for his psychoticness

Episode 3-Shrimp’s Odyssey was pretty good. I liked that thing with seeing Pim imagine himself growing old with Jennifer and then seeing the old versions of the cast. Liked the screaming and that talk about the posture. So far, these episodes have been below the pilot

Episode 4-The Halloween ep I missed half of and will have to go and watch the beginning of but it was both funny and genuinely frightening of a character design

Episode 5-The murder mystery had some good gags with the shake guy's body, and I just think calling things iconic is funny. I think I would put it below shrimp though because it wasn’t as funny in a vacuum. I think the shrimp episode is funnier if you don’t have a specific sense of humor of liking silly words used incorrectly and the mystery wasn’t all that funny of a payoff

Episode 6-The quest ep was fantastic, about on par with the pilot. Mip was great, loved the scenarios they came up with and that payoff of Mip being a stalker was great. I like jokes where characters get randomly gay and then don’t aknowledge it again, like the iconic big lipped alligator moments from Doug and Lindsay, so I liked that. The Rankin/Bass thing is a reference that I think really works because it's deliberately esoteric. Someone in a livethread mentioned there should be a moment where they just take a smile and go even if the whole plot is not resolved and they kind of do that

Episode 7-Frowning Friends was also excellent. loved the little characters they came up with, the frowning friends were good antagonists and the improv seeming conversations were good too. I wish they didn’t kill off the frowning friends because what I like about this show is how anti-nihilist it is, and I think murdering them randomly does negate that but I will acknowledge it was funny and set up beforehand

Episode 8-the Charlie in hell one was also great. I loved the grandma sucking the lollipop bit and the weird little hell critter that had a good three acts of its joke. I also once again liked how genuine it felt. I like the discussion of dopamine and how long the argument is rolled out. The episode felt like it brought the series full circle without being meta. They didn’t say remember the pilot or remember the fast food joint they just mention the events or have the logo like it’s a normal thing

I think a big thing I disliked about this season is the pacing and the use of characters. With the pilot I felt this pacing was so brilliant because in every scene the story was forwarded, you were told something about each character and there were quick gags and long gags in equal measure. The new episodes feel like they don’t have many long, uncomfortable scenes like the breastfeeding gag from the pilot. The new episodes also don’t give us much of the character dynamics other than Charlie and Pim together. Alan is more of a straight man in these new episodes where his primary shtich should be his weirdness. They could also try deepening the dynamics of the characters like having alan and Charlie in an episode’s plot, or pim and glep, or Charlie and glep or alan and pim. The pacing I think could be solved with longer episodes. I don’t think smiling friends would work with 22 minutes but I think fifteen would solve a lot of the problems with the pacing being too quick. Though I also think with smiling friends pilot the reason why the pacing was so great with eleven minutes is because it was worked on as a solo thing. If you’re working on seven episodes at once your first time you’ve now got an issue of the episodes your most passionate about will be on the same level or close to the quality of the pilot, the initial promise you made and the rest will fall to the wayside. And I think that’s a bad thing in a series. The pilot should be the worst episode of the season

That being said, overall I enjoyed more of it than I didn’t. probably about a 70 percent of the show I liked, including the pilot, with half of it being stuff I adored. That’s okay for a first season of a show but I was expecting then to hit home runs right off the bat because these are funny people and I don’t think they’ll have nailed this show until a season two if that happens. Because a double edged sword of the acclaim of the pilot was there was nothing to improve. I feel like if they get the chance to make more they need to incorporate more of their characters, stick to the premise more often, less re use of gags we already know and like - for example the rotoscope character returning in the haloween ep – and either extend the run time or learn to slow down the pacing to build more contrast. It’s a soft recommend from me

#smiling friends #first impressions #review #spoilers #joke spoilers #smiling friends spoilers

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t-m-n-t · 6 years

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Why It's Suggested to Hire An Air Conditioning Repair Service?

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#Ac Repair #air conditioning repair #heating repair

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