#1st is a master copy and it will take much longer than usual

[jamswhams]

I've a massive thread of merlin screenshots I took for reference while watching and I have yet to properly use em smh

[vampexx]

Thoughts on Luka and in general

Well, I have been working on an analysis for Luka’s character for a little while now and every time I worked on it, I just didn’t like the way it was turning out. As in, it wasn’t flowing well, it was super messy and patchy, and it was so long that I was losing track of all of the points I was planning on making....yes, that long. SO, I thought I would not only spare myself the headache, but that I would spare you guys too lol.  So I just threw this together hoping it would sit better with me and luckily, it does :) .

I was going to make this post some grand master-analysis on my theories, thoughts and opinions of everything from characters, theories, different ships, etc. and yikes, that idea was scratched pretty quickly because someone who rambles as much as I do, that’s the worst decision ever lol I do not have the time nor patience for any of that mess lol.

Besides, most of what was in this post before I scrapped it has all been said before so I didn’t want to be repetitive.

So instead, I have decided to include mainly my new thoughts on Luka since coming to a different conclusion and stance on his character. The rest will be included, yes, but in the form of links to my other theories and opinions that I was planning including originally to some degree for anyone who may care what my opinion is.

With all that being said, let’s talk about my new found opinion of Luka.

I have always agreed with those that said that Luka’s character was flat, 2-dimensional and too “perfect” to be true. Now here’s the thing, while I was writing the scrapped analysis that was essentially going to reiterate those same things, I came to the conclusion that Luka is, in fact, not perfect. 

For instance:

In the episode, “Silencer,” Marinette and Luka go to XY and his manager to defend Kitty Section when discovering their style and song were wrongfully stolen/ copied. Of course, Luka is a very reserved and subdued character so his flaws are more easily unnoticed at first glance. To spot his flaws, you have to look less at what he is doing (writing melodies, being compassionate, etc. you know, things that make him “perfect.”) and look more at what he is not doing. Back to my point in, “Silencer.” So, Marinette, as she normally does, is quick to defend and argue over the wrongful use of Kitty Section’s style and song. She ends up in a pretty heated argument with XY’s manager. Where is Luka, you ask? While he is in indeed angry like Marinette, but he is standing in the background not really helping nor backing her up in said argument when he arguably should have. Now, this is in fact a flaw. It is due to his non-confrontational and reserved nature that he does not get involved in the argument, neither to back up / defend Marinette, but also not to defend Kitty Section, his own band. He just let’s Marinette do all the arguing and talking while he’s just there watching, getting angrier and angrier, eventually being akumatized. 

Granted, Luka has shown to be not as good with words as say maybe someone like Marinette. What I mean by that is, he usually seems to speak via music so maybe he struggles with verbal expression although that would contradict his poetic words in, “Silencer,” and compassionate words in, “Felix.” Not that expression primarily through music is a bad thing, it is easily endearing to his character however it can also be viewed as another “flaw,” being that he is not a communicator unlike Marinette, who sometimes over communicates lol. It’s pretty clear that Luka does have some nice choice of words to say, however when he does talk, he doesn’t say a whole lot as in, it’s fairly brief. Otherwise, he keeps to himself it seems. Now Luka’s lack of communication can be foreseen as kryptonite to the Lukanette ship, just as I have said above, Marinette is a communicator and not Luka. For someone like Marinette, that could easily be a “turn off” for her, who is a very (sometimes overly) outwardly expressive person, although sometimes not by choice lol.

I may not have found many flaws for Luka, however I feel it’s enough to combat the statement of his character being too “perfect.” I agree, he seems that way at first. Due to his “laid back,” and “go with the flow,” type nature, it’s easy to potentially misinterpret him as a “too good to be true,” type of character. To reiterate, his flaws can be more easily found in what he is not doing, rather than what he is doing. For comparison, a good example of someone having flaws based off of what they do/ their actions (as opposed to inaction) would be Kagami, basing this statement off of her vastly differing personality from Luka. 

To sum up regarding Luka’s flaws, the ones that I have found so far are inaction, seemingly distant and disinterested (mentioned more in depth in link #2) and lack of general communication. Why he possesses those flaws are open to anyone’s interpretation. I for one, am not digging that deep.

Thus being why I have changed my opinion of Luka from being neither good nor bad, just generally indifferent to his character, to actually now being a Luka stan. Now, I’m not necessarily his biggest fan and I am certainly not a fan of Lukanette, but I’m ok with his character and  I do stan Lukagami because they are both Adrien and Marinette’s mirrors, therefore they are also arguably yin and yang like Adrien and Marinette.

Now this post is titled, “Thoughts on Luka and in general.” Meaning, there are some other things I wanted to include that don’t necessarily involve Luka’s character. 

1st being - As of the season 3 finale, I would like to state that no one is officially dating. Nothing official has happened. No one even kissed. 90% of Lukanette’s actions were essentially friendly, nothing too romantic. Marinette does not appear to really reciprocate Luka’s feelings (as backed by, “Luka as seen by Marinette,” video where she never mentions returning his feelings). Also, Adrigami didn’t officially happen either. Although a kiss was attempted, it did in fact fail on Adrien’s end. Some kids sat next to each other, hung out  and ate ice cream which normally doesn’t suggest that people are dating. If anything at all romantic happened in the very end of the finale, it’s that the two pairs are in the, “testing the waters,” phase at best. No more no less, in my opinion.

Remember: The theme of the finale was, “You don’t always get what you want.” That doesn’t just apply to Adrien, Marinette and especially the fandom. It also applies to Kagami, Luka, Chloe, Hawkmoth, Mayra and hell, even Andre lol.

Let’s be honest, we’re not even guaranteed to pick up where we left off in the season 3 finale when season 4 starts.

2nd thing - Now that the peacock miraculous is fixed, I will be shocked if we don’t see the butterfly and peacock miraculous unified, and whatever fresh hell that will bring lol.

Third thing - The kiss in season 2 finale was not just friendly unless when a friend kisses you on the cheek, you look at them like this...

To which I must ask....are they just a friend lmao? (Lol sorry, don't @ me, trying to make a MLB pun....)

4th  thing - I really don’t know which love square ship will be primary in season 4. Like, Adrien still loves Ladybug, obviously, and always will but seems to be taking a break from pursuing her romantically. It is also made crystal clear via a forgotten confession in, “Chat Blanc,” and through increasingly prominent heart eyes from Adrien that his, “more than friends,” feelings for Marinette are growing so much and so fast that they’re quickly reaching the point for him to no longer be able to ignore it. So Adrien, “changing his target,” will not shift to Kagami, rather it will shift to Marinette. I mean, there was no mention of Adrigami vs. Adrinette having a decided victor in season 4 like Lukanette vs. Adrinette, which leads me to think they will not only end first, but also end pretty early on in the season if the ship takes off officially at all, which is still unknown. Next, we have Marinette who is in a more complicated position. She believes that she cannot love Chat due to thinking, for what she knows to be some outrageous reason that she refuses to look into, “will end the world.” She is also trying to move on from Adrien, who obviously she will also never get over. So for Marinette it’s trickier because she feels like she can’t have either, while Adrien seems to get a simple shift in “targets.” 

So how this love square business is going to play out in season 4 is kind of up in the air for me. Marichat is a possible route, where Adrien is pining for Marinette as Chat and Marinette is pining for Chat (while believing they can’t be together) however that makes it seem less likely. It could also be Adrinette, which I feel might be the most sensible route, because Adrien pining for Marinette after finally coming to terms with his feelings for her, and Marinette I guess then deciding to give them a shot romantically assuming Adrien confesses, otherwise if she is still trying to move on without knowing Adriens feelings for her, then I don’t know how well that would work. Ladrien I guess could work, like an unrequited love type deal although I don’t know how likely that is to happen given both main character’s head spaces. Ladynoir I expect, at least for most of the season, to be mostly platonic temporarily. Ladynoir, in my opinion, will probably be the last corner of the love square to be resolved, which I think will take place in the movie after season 4. So, yeah.....more than likely to be played out either via Marichat or Adrinette in my opinion.

That’s all I have to talk about for now....I have just been kind of sitting on those thoughts for a while. Now I will include the links as mentioned earlier:

Link 1) https://vampexx.tumblr.com/post/190128222840/just-my-opinion

Link 2) https://vampexx.tumblr.com/post/190054338050/uh-ohi-used-my-brain-againget-ready-lol

Link 3) https://vampexx.tumblr.com/post/189482028990/just-a-thought-there-are-spoilers-in-case

Link 4) https://vampexx.tumblr.com/post/189856458390/alright-sorry-but-im-gonna-be-salty-real

Sorry this was lengthy, but believe me, this is way better than what this post would have been originally lol. I’m still so tired after all that though...oh well. Worth it I guess.

Have a miraculous day and thank you for your patience! 

[itslowbudgetbusiness-blog]

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[savrenim]

I'm so jealous of your gay elf murder bachelorette campaign that I now desperately want my own. Any recommendations on how to find people to play D&D with? I have several friends who are interested, but none of us have any questions experience (between my secondhand experience of reading about your adventures) so we don't know how to get started

oh gods so apparently I have A Lot Of Opinions and it got really long, so under the cut, also thank you for reminding me that I should probably properly type up the finale of Gay Murder Elf Bachelorette Campaign Book 1 because it was freaking epic and this is the one campaign that I can properly rant about on tumblr without worrying about spoilers

(I’m in three campaigns right now) (by complete accident) (on the one hand it’s a bad life decision in that I have zero free time anyways with grad school, but on the other hand it has become my sole social interaction with anyone ever and also coping mechanism for the stress and one good thing I do for me and, like, they’re not all weekly campaigns, so hours-per-week I’m devoting isn’t ridiculous) (and I miss my friends and it’s re-connected me with them and also has introduced me to upperclassmen in the department) (but sometimes there are character secrets and people who potentially follow me on tumblr so I can’t post the super long dramatic things about a character that I really want to)

OKAY SO HOW TO GET INTO PLAYING

I will be real, the three campaigns that I am in right now are the first time I’ve played DnD for anything that lasted longer than a week and a half at a summer camp type deal, like, arguably, this is my real first time playing DnD….ever. That being said, I’ve worked at gay theater camp for….six years now? And they do super intense super in-character LARPing that is far more roleplaying-heavy than mechanics heavy and has trained me to both have very good story instincts of, like, “this is how you make decisions that both fit with your character and support the narrative instead of oppose it, and either do not tear the party apart, or tear the party apart but for a very good and fitting narrative reason (i.e. if there’s going to be strife, make it mean something)” and in my opinion it is when you bring those sorts of instincts to a DnD game that you get the most satisfying story out of it. Character creation, team cohesion, and story and world development are all things that I do feel super comfortable speaking about because that is my literal jam outside of my math jam which is paying for me to be alive and stuff. So here we go.

There are a couple of questions that you need to immediately answer, the first being, “do you want to play Dungeons and Dragons, or do you want to start with a mechanically less complicated system?” Because there are a lot of pretty good systems out there that are high fantasy even (i.e. Dungeon World) that are a lot more streamlined in terms of “you don’t need to be as familiar with a set of rules in order to play.” That being said, Dungeons and Dragons is classic and is fantastic and I freaking adore it. (I will be completely honest, the only other two systems I know right now are Dungeon World, which is fantasy, and Mech Noir, which holy shit you are playing noir style detectives except in a SCI FI SETTING WHERE YOU PILOT MECHAS and the entire game system is around applying “adjectives” to people like, if you successfully roll against an enemy, you get to pick any adjective you can think of ever from “grappled” to “trusting” to “confused” to “located” and it just makes for such interesting storytelling)

which vaguely brings me to my first piece of real advice: you learn how to play best by witnessing playing happening. if you are a podcast person, I highly recommend either The Adventure Zone or Friends At The Table (or, honestly, if you have the time, both). The Adventure Zone plays DnD, 5th Edition, and it is a super quality family who are goofing off and having fun together and then the plot that arises is like “oh shit I am crying about a wizard named Taako, pronounced taco, how did this happen to me” and it’s great. The Adventure Zone is 100% the reason why I reached out to friends and was like “yoooo is anyone starting a campaign because TAZ has made me want to play again.” Friends at the Table starts with Dungeon World and it is some of the best storytelling and worldbuilding I’ve ever heard? And you will learn so much about how to set things up and go with the flow and the DM talks a lot about his process as offhand comments and you will learn so much. I’ve heard good things about Critical Role, but haven’t listened myself. But get out there, listen, and then don’t be afraid of copying things that you admire. Best way to learn.

If you’re going with Dungeons and Dragons, start with 5th Edition. 0th, 1st, and 2nd are all ridiculously unbalanced, 3 is “actually everyone uses 3.5,” or a combo 3.5/Pathfinder. While 3.5/Pathfinder is a great system and is what we’re playing both in gay murder elf bachelorette campaign and in the math grad departmental campaign, and was the game that I learned on, 5e is a lot more streamlined and they’re aren’t super picky exact rules for every tiny thing you could think of doing, which means you don’t need to be familiar with a vast system full of loopholes and counters and counter-counters to know how to effectively play the game. we don’t talk about 4th edition

Decide who is going to be the DM. There are sometimes comic stores that’ll run weekly or biweekly or monthly games of DnD, but those are almost definitely going to be less story-based and usually are one-shots? And if you’ve got a good group of friends, I recommend just playing with them and not trying to find an external group that you don’t know. I’m vaguely assuming that you’re volunteering to be DM because you’re asking? But if there’s someone in your group of friends who likes writing things or likes managing things or is interested, or if people want to take turns trying stuff out, go for that. The department group rotates DMs (and rotates games) just based on who has something written that they’re excited to try out.

You also might want to ask around to see if there are any people that you vaguely know, or that are friends of friends, who play. You’d be surprised how many people do. I’ve also seen blogs on tumblr sometimes going “hey, I’m running a Skype campaign and I need two or three more players, if people are interested fill out this survey and then depending mostly on times people are free but also what you say about what you’re looking for from a game I’ll pick the players?” or if y’all are in college there is almost always a DnD club somewhere, hidden semi-secret on campus, on the register to get club funding but under the radar because nerds. But you and your friends who are semi-interested will work just fine, as long as semi-interested means they’re actually willing to commit for a bit. So how do you get started?

Get the Player’s Handbook, and the Dungeon Master’s Guide, and read them cover to cover. If you’re playing and not DMing, eh, skip this step, and have the DM do it instead, but the Dungeon Master’s Guide especially will walk you through how to set up things mechanically very well and if you’re going in blind it will be good to have gone through and read it all once. I’ve read the 3.5 DMG cover to cover several times, haven’t read 5e yet, I know that I didn’t like their storytelling tips, but read through it once to get an idea of what mechanics might look like, it gives very good starting mechanical advice.

1. Speed and smoothness of playing are important, which means that sometimes, if you don’t know a rule, you want to make something up on the fly and deliver it with a completely straight face. Everybody does homebrew. Rules are great because they keep things from devolving into chaos and they can settle disputes, but also, sometimes you’ve just got to make a call, and if you make it while looking like you know what you’re doing, everyone will believe you. Similarly, don’t make the same rolls, or the same number of rolls, for NPC characters as you would for PCs. For example, in gay murder elf bachelorette campaign, when Iria was both directing a full assault on a hobgoblin fortress as well as had put herself on the special strike team that was going to sneak in and open the portcullis, the DM made ~one or two rolls~ to see how successful the Caedic units were at each of the points of Iria’s plan, instead of rolling a full battle between ~40 hobgoblins and ~80 elves. screentime is important; if you’re spending too much time on not-the-players, it gets boring for the players, so roll enough dice to decide what’s going on with a tad bit of luck and so it seems like other characters have rules that they have to follow, but you don’t have to let the rules dictate every single thing that happens in-world. you dictate that.

2. Character creation is how you set yourself up for success. Do not underestimate the importance of party dynamics. You don’t all have to be playing best friends or even people who get along–in Spelljammer, Marian and Djin had the character backstory of “ten years ago we were captain and co-captain of a vessel and for Reasons got into a huge fight over nothing and split and Marian took half the ship with her and she thought she’d never see him again but now oops they’ve both ended up jobless on the same station and Marian was already pooling as many resources as she could to try to put together a new ship and Djin arrived a couple months into this and needed the work so joined this ragtag democratic crew, but there’s a shit ton of tension.” This worked because we were snippy to each other in dialogue, when push came to shove, Marian is professional enough such that her whole deal is putting personal feelings aside always no matter what, and Djin takes the passive in passive-aggressive super seriously, so it never meant that the party was sitting around arguing for hours or refusing to cooperate. Meanwhile, I’ve seen and heard of campaigns falling apart because “there are two thieves and one really wants to get to do all the sneaking so they argue all the time over who gets to do cool stuff” or “the evil fighter literally just wants to murder everyone which means everyone else can’t get stuff done.” You can have intra-party strife and have it be interesting, but only if players are doing it cooperatively instead of being at each other’s throats irl. Rule of thumb: if the party dynamics are frustrating the other players, you are doing something wrong.

2.5 That being said, if a party starts to develop into bad dynamics, it is fixable without betraying character! For example, in the department campaign, I’ve been playing a super sheltered youngest child elf wizard from a super established Elvin wizard family (of, like, oh the arcanic postlines that let mail be sent around the continent? Grandpa came up with that theory. Schools of magic identified and classified originally? That was the Maewels) so Seraph is a tad bit privileged and a tad bit sheltered and is uppity sometimes. There was a fighter in the party who liked his alcohol, once missed a huge battle that the rest of us had to cover for him because he’d seduced two women at the inn we were hanging out at before the town was attacked, and typically did things like walk around in the morning with no pants on. And he proceeded to interpret Seraph’s increasing shock and disdain for him (or rather specifically, how upset she was the first time she saw him pantless) as “yeah all women go for me.” The party was vaguely splitting into “Seraph’s side and Silas’s side” so I decided to aggressively interpret one of the battles we went through together as a bonding experience and lo and behold Seraph’s feelings started to change over the next couple of weeks to “you might be an inconsiderate asshole but you’re OUR inconsiderate asshole so only we are allowed to rag on you” and she became one of his biggest supporters esp when they got to his hometown. All you really need is one super solid, proactive player in a party to make sure that things are resolved in a solid manner, so if you’re not the one DMing? Be that player.

2.75 Okay but if you’re DMing, have the conversation with your players as they’re designing their characters about point (2) because good party dynamics are easiest when you get it from the start.

3. Design encounters around the party. You don’t need a traditional setup of “a tank, a mage, a healer, and a thief” to have an effective and fun party. Maybe everyone wants to play a thief, great, design the scenario to be “you have all been contracted by the thieves’ guild to sneak into this party and assassinate this noble, you have three days to prepare and these resources, make a plan” instead of “this is a traditional dungeon crawl where you are fighting big scary monsters despite the fact that none of you are melee fighters.” Similarly, figure out what sort of stories and settings and aesthetics your players are interested in, and then play that game.

4. Make it personal. Ask people about their backstory and then incorporate stuff in. Notice what they become invested in and adjust your plans to include more of that. Give characters individual arcs that fit vaguely into the overall story, but also that they are the semi-protagonist of. Right now in Spelljammer, we’re all dealing with “so there are weird tears in the universe that Password, this Extinct AI we found and befriended, says are reminiscent of literally the entire universe ripping apart at the seams and are possibly why the Extinct went extinct, oh and some random lady gave us this artifact called the Eye and told us to hide it from the Blind King? And now his servants are hunting us? We are literally scav elves this is so above our pay grade.” Except going on as subplots, Algol is being hunted down by this evil overseer of whatever place in Echoside he originally escaped from, Leif got a stone that gives her prophetic dreams, Kimi has been super close to Password and Leif dreamed about them stitching the universe together, and Marian is dealing with an "oh shit I’ve accidentally adopted these three kids even though I don’t do personal” along with “oh god have I literally become the captain of this ship because I AM THE ONLY ADULT LEFT” along with some old friends from her past trying to reconnect just after we got a prophecy about how the last thing the Blind King would send to steal the Eye was someone we loved turned against us. So yeah, sure, there are big Adventure Plotlines going down that involve the entire party, but we’re not doing things just to do them, everyone is personally invested in this for their own reasons. So when you plan a big adventure, both plan places where individual party members get to start both for who they are and what they can do, as well as along the way keep an eye out for things that you can tie in for them.

5. Consequences matter. And not just stuff like “Iria got stabbed really bad first session and nearly died, now every time she goes into rage at the end needs to roll a fortitude save to not fall unconscious, and whenever she rolls a one same deal.” But also consequences like “you were really rude to this person and now they don’t like you and they are friends with the owner of the apothecary, who now also doesn’t like you and marks up prices behind your back” or "you let one of the patrol escape and now the whole army knows that you’re coming” or “you saved this kid’s life even though you were in enemy territory and now five years later he recognizes you even though you’ve been captured and is making sure that the party is taken prisoner instead of killed.” Make NPCs (non-player characters, ie characters the DM controls) recurring characters instead of people that you meet once, and have the way that the NPCs feel and then interact with the players change based on how prior interactions go. Have them care about things and have them remember. It makes the world feel a lot more real.

6. Preparing for a session goes petty much "how much do you like improv”. If you’re chill improvising, you want written down the stats of the monsters/enemies your players are potentially going to encounter, and probably a vague idea of goals, and then just play it by ear. Jeremy (the person running gay murder elf bachelorette and spelljammer) has I think at this point 13 “Books” written for gay murder elf bachelorette campaign, will write long descriptions of characters, settings, has maps drawn, has customized his own random encounter tables, has made his own homebrew system for how spaceship mechanics works specifically so that we could better piece together our spaceship with fantasy duct tape during the Death Races, and overplans every last detail all the way down to “has different musical themes that he’ll swap out and play at different times.” like, Iria has a Trauma theme that is played every time her wound starts acting up. He has collected music for books in advance. He has multiple different theme songs for each of the players in spelljammer. He writes notes about what NPCs are thinking so that he can reference it later. But that’s because he knows that he prefers the things he comes up with when he has time to plan things out, instead of when he’s surprised. He knows his own storytelling style. “eh, an outline and some monster stats” would not work for him the same way that I’ve seen it work for other people. You don’t have to put a ridiculous amount of prep work and writing time into being a DM, you need to figure out how much prepared material you need to run something comfortably, and then prepare that much.

6.5 Understand no matter what you plan, bits and pieces will probably be derailed, and be okay with that. Nothing is more upsetting than when a DM does not respect player autonomy and invalidates the clever things they think of, because it goes against their own plans. I think being a DM/running a story is sort of halfway “you’re writing a novel” and halfway “oh shit except this time the characters ACTUALLY have minds of their own” and striking a balance instead of dominating the narrative makes it fun. Also, it means you can throw in problems that you have no solutions for. During the Death Races in spelljammer, our battery started running out of plasma, which meant that the pressurization was getting all wonky, Leif immediately goes over and says “I have a spell called Reduce Object, can I cast it on the internal casing to try to up the pressure of what little plasma we have left” and Jeremy goes “uummmm sure if Kimi is over there to help you rewire the rest of the battery on the fly because you are SHRINKING HALF OF ITS PARTS” and then that held for three minutes until oh shit it was still low on plasma and Marian ran over and went “wait a second guys I have a Flaming Sphere spell except Jeremy, Jeeeeremy, I’m technically a plasma variety of Light Cleric, my ~god~ that ~gives me my divine magic~ is the collective of star dryads which live in balls of plasma, we’ve established prior in this setting that some of my fire spells are actually plasma spells, not fire, Jeeeeeremly can shove my hand into the empty battery casing and cast a flaming, 10-foot in diameter ball of plasma to try to give us a fuel boost” and Jeremy went “okay fuck it, stick your hand in the battery and cast a flaming sphere of plasma to give the ship a fuel boost, Leif, make another concentration check to hold the pressure.” and it did and we won the race the end we’re the coolest space elves ever. moral of the story: your players will come up with clever things. Sometimes clever things that mess up your plans. Let it happen, it’s more fun that way.

(Iris has come up with a truly heinous but potentially really effective military tactic that gay murder elf bachelorette campaign is actually a bit more delicate because it’s set in a larger world that Jeremy is running multiple other campaigns in and I’m still not sure if Iria is legit going to be a villain that I face off as a good PC one day, or if she’s a historical figure, or even whether or not this campaign is set in the past, but either way the history of this world matters? and the idea that I came up with has the potential to re-shape history? and I told it to Jeremy and he was quiet for a very long time and then thanked me for telling him and so Iria told Talvus in-character and we’re going to see whether or not in a couple of books this ends up changing the entire history of the world that he runs multiple campaigns in or something drastic like that, but hey, player wants to do something you haven’t thought of, “I didn’t think of that” is not a good enough reason to not let them do it.)

7. Decide if you want to write your own adventure, buy/find online a pre-written one, or vaguely do something in the middle. If you’re going for something pre-written, edits bits and pieces as you go to personalize it to your characters. I have a friend who just wrote and published something for DnD 2nd Edition? And it looks great? http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/229248/War-Wizards-of-the-Wasteland Even if you don’t play a pre-written adventure, reading a bunch of them will give you an idea of what preparing for sessions is like and what sort of information you should have on hand.

8. Don’t be afraid to make up home-brew mechanics, either for the whole party or for an individual player. Jeremy ran a vignette session called “Flight of the Kalla Tukal” in which we were playing a trio of orcs that had fallen through a tear in space and had just managed to get back and were searching for our tribe, which left without us. Except in his setting, orcs are a super psionic almost hivemind race? You meet orcs outside of radiation space sometimes, but they’re usually Not Coping Very Well with the fact that they’ve been cut off from their community. But the Kalla Tukal were still all linked together so we weren’t all going mad. then the other part of being psychic orcs meant that we could at any point attempt to do telekinesis or mind-control something, and the way that it was determined whether or not that worked is roll a d20, except we’re not trying to get 20, we’re trying to roll as close to each other in number as possible. There was one dramatic moment when two of us rolled 4’s or something and it was a critical success. but it was so cool to have that weird drift-comparability mechanic, and, like, the more people in our group that wanted to contribute, the more likely two people were to roll the same number. it was just?????? so cool??????? so if you want your party to all be psychically connected and be able to throw stuff with their minds I totally recommend that.

on a more personal/one-player level, in the department campaign, it has developed that Seraph really wants to be a research wizard like her family before her, and so the DM and I had a long conversation about the topics that she would want to research and a particular narrative impetus for her to start researching, and he came up with five or six new spells that Seraph will be able to invent over the course of the campaign, except because it’s experimental magic it’s going to start out with a 40% partial-to-total failure rate that will go down the more she tries to cast the spells, because hey, she’s working out the kinks. to me, it’s more than “oh this is a cool new mechanic,” it’s the DM cared enough to take the time to work with me and put what I thought was interesting into the campaign. and you have a lot of room to do that by adding your own rules and conventions and what-not. don’t be afraid to experiment, see what works, and then keep those mechanics around.

9. Start small. Don’t try to start with a whole huge epic campaign, you want to start by running a bunch of mini-arcs in different settings so that you get a feel for how to play and how to run things. This also gives you a chance to figure out how your group of friends plays, who is going to be the person that gives you the most scheduling problems, some of them might like the fighting parts more than the “come up with clever plans” or “interact with NPCs” parts, and this will give you an idea of who you actually want in a long-term campaign. Because long-term campaigns go on for years. Like, gay murder elf bachelorette is probably going to be a year and a half if Jeremy and I keep going at this pace? and that’s vaguely on the short side for something that Jeremy runs. A proper full epic campaign can be a huge time commitment, so start out with mini-arcs just to have fun and get used to stuff and because that is something that people will actually be able to commit time to.

I interrupt this long list of advice for another list of advice of potential ideas for miniature campaigns you could run for your friends. or one of your friends could run, if they’re interested in DMing:

COOL IDEAS FOR ONE-TO-FOUR SESSION MINI-CAMPAIGNS THAT I CAME UP WITH RIGHT NOW OR STOLE FROM FRIENDS WHO CAME UP WITH SUPER COOL THINGS

  —as mentioned in a previous bullet point, “you’re a group of thieves planning an assassination. this is how much money you have. each of your characters has one character connection in the city who can help you get items or forge a document etc etc. this is what the castle looks like. this is what you’ve figured out about guard shifts and security for the party. you have a week to plan. go” and then, like. somebody wants to try to pretend to be a noble to get in? fantastic. someone wants to try to seduce a guard? fantastic. sneaking in the traditional way? fantastic. all three at the same time. faaaantastic. it’s fun, it’s short, the way that you would prepare this is you would think about guards, defenses, patrols, maybe some of the nobles at the party are trained in magic or have weird special teams of guards and maybe have agendas of their own, and then what the actual ball itself would look like and maybe make a castle map, but the fun part of this scenario is the players get to be as creative as possible and I guarantee they will think of the coolest things and then you get to figure out how to react to those things in interesting ways to figure out whether or not they work.

  —okay this is a one-shot I have only heard legends about but everyone was playing a rock band of monsters who were about to give a super huge concert in monster city and I think someone had stolen a drum set or a guitar or something and they were trying to dodge paparazzi and get their instruments back but it was also ridiculous sex drugs rock & roll culture and a comedy one-shot that apparently was the coolest thing in the world, but you can’t go wrong if you start with “crazy monster rock band superstars”. during the sequel they went on tour to the human lands and I think wrecked a couple of cities.

  —this one is stolen from TAZ but fantasy WWE, the intro plot setup that is exposition in the first 10 minutes was “a friend of yours who is a famous wrestler just had her partner assassinated before the biggest match of the year, one of you has been asked to fill in for the match, another as the manager, and then the rest of you are trying to solve this murder mystery super quick because your friend is worried she’s the next target”

   —honestly any sort of “huge gladiator/fighting tournament but there’s drama and foul play going down behind the scenes” makes for a really good short arc. there’s a game that actually Jeremy invented that is played irl at gay theater camp called “bloodrush” which is such a ridiculous game, it’s….vaguely fantasy football except everyone also has daggers and swords and stuff and you are allowed to stab members of the other team but only when they’re holding the ball, although cheating is basically a requirement when the refs’ backs are turned, oh, by the way, the refs are vampires. there have been cases at camp where teams waiting in the bleachers for the next match enemy teams have crept up behind them and slit all their throats with foam daggers while the refs were watching the game, or poisonings, or just. anything you can think of, it’s gone down. my little brother once jumped on the biggest baddest counselor’s back, stabbed him in the shoulder, snatched the ball from him, did a front roll, and ran off, and scored a goal and that is one of his proudest moments of his life to this day, basically what I’m saying is you can’t go wrong with “bloodrush tournament” or whatever your own crazy fantasy sportsball game you want to make up and play.

   —“we are a bunch of archeologists who have a little bit of combat or magic training but not too much because mostly we’re archeologists and someone poked a button in a pyramid and oh god we’ve accidentally summoned an ancient race on monsters that feed on human souls, which also apparently there’s a secret military conspiracy that has been watching this site to try to stop these monsters and have come here to contain them but oops also are ready to murder ALL OF US because WE have human souls, now we’re trying to run and hide from both groups and figure out if we can find anything to banish the monsters again” (this is 100% stolen from a LARP written by a friend of mine) (I’m pretty sure same one who wrote the monster band one-shot, actually) (they’re a really good writer, okay)

   —PRISON ESCAPE. Think Guardians of the Galaxy 1. You can’t go wrong with a prison break game. character design will be so fun. I swear I thought of stuff like this separate from Jeremy. Jeremy’s writing a prison break game and has promised that I get to play Captain Jennijack, a genderfluid space pirate who totally woke up in this prison a week or so ago and doesn’t for the life of them know why they are here, there are, like, eight or ten possible things they could think of but they’re not sure which one they’ve technically been convicted of, and I am holding him to that.

   —Honestly, you have a book that you like? A movie? A TV show? One that you haven’t convinced your friends to watch yet? (or one that you have and they will recognize halfway through.) STEAL THAT, write and run a fanfiction game, it’ll be fun.

ADVICE PART 2: PREPARING FOR A LONGER CAMPAIGN ONCE YOU’RE COMFORTABLE DMING AND HAVE FIGURED OUT THE GROUP OF PEOPLE THAT HAVE GOOD CHEMISTRY AND DYNAMICS AND WANT TO STICK AROUND. I’m assuming you want advice for getting something vaguely like gay murder elf bachelorette to run, so I’m going to talk about broad story-based things that I think are important for setting up good stories?

10. Scheduling is key and what is most likely to mess you up. Pick your players carefully, pick people who are invested and who will turn up. If there are people who didn’t get along during your mini arcs, or who just had very different expectations of what the game should be like re fighting/mechanics and roleplaying balance, don’t put them in the same party. Picking a party isn’t about picking your friends, it’s about picking people who work well together as players, and whose playing style matches your storytelling style. You’re better off with less people but who are super quality players and share a vision with you and get along, than letting someone into the game that’s going to mess stuff up for everyone because of outside-of-game social politics. It’s just not worth it. Not when this might go on for years.

11. There’s something really powerful about a story that isn’t about the Chosen Ones, but instead you’re just a group of people who were at the wrong place at the wrong time and now oh shit it’s on you to save the world. Epic campaigns generally become epic, like, you invest that much time and energy into something and by the finale you usually are saving the universe, but be willing to start out not special. Let specialness develop.

11.5 There is also something really powerful about there sometimes being problems that magic can’t fix. Or that just aren’t fixable. If you haven’t read the Young Wizards series go read it and cry.

12. Write in arcs. This goes along very well with starting small, but have there be different parts of the campaign that are semi self-contained as you slowly build up to something bigger, this is also where you start dropping in personal arcs. Arcs also allow you to change up the feel of the game and keep things interesting and keep people on their toes. The Adventure Zone does maybe the best example of how to have self-contained plot-driven arcs that build to something eventually cohesive, all arcs with their own unique setup and flavor. (The Adventure Zone: Balance is a really great game and I really do advise you listen to it, it’s ~70 episodes but it will get you used to the mechanics of 5e, and holy fuck is it a story.)

13. Don’t be afraid to steal plot points from your favorite things. Hell, don’t be afraid to steal the entire plots of your favorite things. Especially if you’re worried about your own writing skills or creativity or whatever? Fanfiction is freaking great, and it’s fun; some of the best games I’ve ever played have been fanfiction of super obscure things that the writer has afterwards told me what it was fanfiction of and it was so freaking fun to go read/watch the original after I’d already played an even cooler version???? It’s also pretty easy to start out fanfiction and then through developing personal arcs and following party interest, ending up with a story by the end that is entirely original and you. So write fanfiction if you don’t have any ideas, or honestly, if your fanfiction ideas excite you more than when you sit down and try to write with a blank slate.

14. You’re not limited to a high fantasy setting. Honestly, standard high fantasy/dungeon crawl stuff has gotten pretty boring for me? (although the department campaign is pretty cool, but that’s only because it’s high fantasy but we slip in jokes like “Seraph marches downstairs in her pajamas and channels her mother to start yelling at the innkeeper about the utterly terrible customer service of getting poisoned, non-consensually, and that she would like to speak to the manager of the local thieves’ guild to lodge a complaint” because even though it’s high fantasy, it’s funny. TAZ does really good high fantasy too because of how they weave a whole bunch of other stuff in.) but, like, YOU CAN DO DND IN SPACE. you can do modern urban fantasy. you can go post-apocalypse. you can go post-high-fantasy-apocalypse. you can play a supernatural style game. it’s your world, make it whatever you want.

14.5 It is possible to play things that are mechanically the class in the book, but have a different interpretation in the setting. Or just to works differently in the setting. in spelljammer, elves don’t have gods, and I vaguely developed over the course of a couple of months an old belief system that was pretty old even when Marian was a kid that she just pseudo-learned and didn’t quite believe but is now revisiting, and the difference between divine casters and arcane casters is actually just “magic is vaguely a part of physics and most arcane casters are tinkerers who are doing it via weird cool gadgets or are pseudo-scientists/engineers in their training and approach to magic, while for divine casters it’s more of an internal, feelings-based thing.” I’m also very very excited because I have developed a super intense and specific lore that is canonically what elves used to believe and what Marian believes, but might not actually be how the world and death specifically works at all, so I’m bouncing up and down on my feet waiting to discover what’s going down behind the scenes with gods in that campaign, instead of it just being “oh yeah choose your gods from the gods in the book.” in the department campaign, Seraph is from a family of wizards and thinks that she is a wizard even though she is actually an arcanist, because the world doesn’t have words different types of casters esp niche types of casters yet. the DM and I are planning for it to be a huuuuge surprise now that she’s leveled up enough to have access to “arcanic exploits” which are at-will abilities that wizards don’t have, and it is going to be an in-character process of her discovering that she can do something that according to the known laws of magic she shouldn’t be able to do, and now oh shit she has to research it. even though mechanically, we’re going pretty much entirely by the book, the book doesn’t exist in the world! characters don’t know what players know! make it interesting to discover things that you as a player might otherwise take for granted!

14.75 make magic and fighting sound cool, and design how you describe it to be specific to the setting or the culture. in gay murder elf bachelorette campaign, the way that Caedic casting works is you first have to draw a rune in the air that then hovers there all glowy, and then you “thread the needle” which is projecting power through it in a very specific manner, I’m pretty sure that Surrians cast differently, magic works different in different parts of the world. having a melee fight scene? describe how people exchange blows back and forth or let them choose how their killing blows will look or just make them feel like badasses whenever they try to do a cool thing because it’s cool. I am used to playing magic/caster characters just because I generally am more familiar with magical mechanics than fighting mechanics and magic has always been more interesting to me but holy crud I have never had a fight scene so fun as the one when Iria had led a researcher from the Black Lotus Labs to a fae font that she’d found scouting in the woods and this seaweed creature eventually attacked them and she did a badass holding it off with her scimitar an then Vennikus, the researcher, tried to throw a cold iron knife at it but missed, and so Iria, who had been training in two-weapon fighting, saw the knife, did a front roll underneath the monster’s next swing, picked up the knife, exchanged a flurry of blows with the thing now two-handed fighting which eventually ended with her doing this super badass throwing both weapons in the air and catching them to switch hands, leaping on the things back, slashing so deep with her scimitar that it finally got through all of the seaweed and cleared it before it could get back to a weird, pulsating green heart, which then she drove the cold iron blade into all the way up to its hilt. which was so much cooler than “oh shit I rolled a crit on my scimitar hand and confirmed it and I guess that deals enough damage for this thing to die,” nah, I drove a cold iron knife into that thing’s pulsating heart and so that’ll be a scene that I never forget. Even when I miss Jeremy makes me sound cool because then when the enemies miss he talks about how good my footwork is or how well I’ve drilled to block these exact kinds of blows so the Surrian had no chance because my training kicked in type deal. it makes fight scenes more than just rolling dice, and thus easier to get engaged in.

14.8725 I swear I didn’t start out this essay as an “I’m going to sing the praises of Jeremy for several thousand words”

15. It’s always interesting when you have mechanical reasons for players leveling up. Or for what their classes are. That’s always a tricky one to balance, and it’s one that I’ve been doing aggressively as a player? And to be fair, if your players start out with young and fairly inexperienced characters, “I am gaining experience at doing a thing” is a perfectly good narrative reason to level up. You want to play an older character? One of my friends is playing a 150-year-old orc who was a Great Adventurer back in the day and retired to take care of great-great grandkids and is back in an adventuring party now but wheeee is starting at level 1 because they’re out of practice oh, and they have bad knees. There’s also always the option of “I hurt myself real bad and I’ve been recovering,” leveling up isn’t ~gaining new experience~, it’s slowly getting better through whatever your injury is. or just you can write this off as an unavoidable mechanical aspect of the game, eh, not that important, I just love it when tiny details match up. This isn’t actually an important point, I’ve kind of moved on to the “picky details that I care about” second of this advice rant.

16. Make the unexpected important. JEREMY GAVE ME THE MOST ADORABLE PET SPACE OCTOPUS AS A FAMILIAR AND I HAVE BEEN ASSUMING THAT VELO IS JUST VELO AND THEN JEREMY MADE SOME SORT OF A SIDE COMMENT ABOUT “YEAH VELO IS NOTHING LIKE YOU’D EVER HEARD OF BEFORE” AND YEAH DUH BECAUSE THE LIL’ BUDDY WAS SUMMONED THROUGH A MYSTERY SPELL IN A MYSTERY PIECE OF EXTINCT TECH BUT NOW I’M FREAKING PARANOID OUT OF CHARACTER THAT VELO IS SECRETLY AN EMISSARY OF RAT JESUS OR SOMETHING. but also just, like, nothing is cooler than “oh that tiny thing that happened when you were level 1 that you didn’t really think much of and it’s just been vaguely a thing you’ve carried with you for the adventure? turns out it was the most important thing in the world!!!!!” just. good foreshadowing. unexpected foreshadowing. it’s great.

17. Your players will invent stuff, either as a part of their backstory or as something that they’re interested in. Let them, especially if you don’t have a previously established canon opinion on the thing. This is 100% a self-serving thing of what I wants DMs to do when I’m a player of, like. I really love getting to write stuff into the setting, but also it’s because good improv means go with the flow. Someone says something? Work it in, oops, it’s canon now. This can be both on-purpose or accident; in the department campaign, I wanted to write in-character letters to an NPC in my backstory from the beginning, except goddamnit I didn’t want to have to deal with “and it’ll take a couple of months for the mail to travel across the country to get to them,” so I made an offhand reference in the email that I was sending the DM the letters of “can we say I just threw them in the arcanic postlines,” which then, like. After doing this about five times I sat down and wrote out the exact magical theory about how arcanic postlines should work considering how we’d said that they function in-game and the DM went “okay, sounds great, that’s consistent with how we’ve been dealing with these letters for the last two months” and that is why the fantasy world of the departmental campaign has a highly functional postage system. On the improv end of things, there is a beautiful moment in The Adventure Zone where the wizard just, in-character, teases another wizard about “ooooh, don’t want to burn your spell slots,” and the DM just went with it and suddenly it became canon that instead of spell slots being a behind-the-scenes mechanical thing that doesn’t exist in-world, it was a legitimate way that wizards referred to how much magic they could cast a day. Which I love so much, that’s so interesting for a high fantasy setting. Letting players add to the setting will bring in cool new things that you didn’t think of, and you should be open to it.

18. First priority is everyone should be having fun, and communication is key for that to work. Debrief sometimes after sessions. Ask people what their favorite parts are. listen to them chat about their theories. follow up on actively developing framework for the things that people think are fun. ultimately DnD is as much about friends getting together and having a good time as it is about telling a huge, epic, intricate, interconnected story, and the huge epic stories are a lot more fun if you’ve been having fun the whole way along.

All that all being said.

Don’t expect your campaign to look like gay elf murder bachelorette campaign, the way that I am playing in gay murder elf campaign is…..a bad way to play in a party? Being a conscientious player means being aware that the overall story arc isn’t just about you, it’s weaving together about everyone and there is always a part of me that is thinking about “is everyone getting equal screentime” and going “I AM IN LOVE WITH THIS NPC JEREMY SHE’S SO GOOD AT FIGHTING OH MY GODS THAT MURDEROUS LOOK SHE GETS WHEN SHE’S FACING OFF AGAINST SURRIANS AND SHE DOESN’T THINK ANYONE IS WATCHING JEREMY I AM IN LOVE” and, like, actively going over to try to talk with her any time I had the chance to ever and insisting on sparring with her any time we had free time and insisting on having a bunch of scenes with Talvus of “oh my god Talvus help she said three whole words to me what does it mean” which made all this the gay mess that it was would have been something that I wouldn’t have done if there were other people in the party with other agendas; gay elf murder bachelorette campaign gets to be gay elf murder bachelorette campaign specifically because Jeremy and I realized “….wait, there are only the two of us, we can get as ridiculous with this as we want” and have decided to commit. Fully. But that’s not the sort of shit you want to pull if there’s a whole other group of people who just kind of have to sit and watch every time you want to go over and flirt with your murder-rival-who-will-maybe-one-day-be-your-murder-girlfriend before they can do the stuff they want to do.

(As a secondary warning note if you’re doing any sort of roleplaying and are playing a fictional character in love with another fictional character being played by a friend of yours, you better be on the same page as your friend as, like, one of you not having a secret crush on the other in real life because shit gets messy and then real life and character stuff starts to blend and it’s just. I have been there and done that when I was a 17-year-old Gay Mess and I feel like it is my responsibility as a 22-year-old Slightly More Responsible Gay Mess to warn you against that. Jeremy and I know each other very well and have for years and know each other’s boundaries and talked about triggers and boundaries before starting this campaign, which to be fair was more because as a villain campaign dark stuff is probs going to happen but we have talked about fictional romance too , but I would not play this intimately with someone I didn’t trust intimately. So keep that in mind when designing things?)

ALSO THAT BEING SAID

if you want a gay elf murder bachelorette campaign, there is a game called Monsterhearts that I have never played but heard about friends playing and they all freaking love it and there are a lot of undertones about dealing with mental illness and being queer and in the closet and the entire setup of the game is y’all are monsters in high school having love life drama and everything I have heard about this game is how remarkable it is combined with stories about the most ridiculous teenage drama, sooooo possibly after I have ranted for 8000 words about how to set up a functional Dungeons and Dragons campaign which the party and DMing advice still I think applies to any game Monsterhearts might be the game that you want to start with.

BONUS: ADVICE FROM JEREMY.

[alexatrevino93]

Reiki Healing Philadelphia Wonderful Unique Ideas

This is the level of your aura can manifest as some patients may feel it and without depleting your own health and well-being.After your attunement and as you want to make even the birds whose freedom we marvel at.That said, some people who receive Reiki sessions to be still, it is not difficult.She chose to charge a fee for a course of treatment speeds up healing grids when a trained practitioner can have a different perspective, a different path that is a personal basis, who share that only healers from other forms of energy cannot be described as living in a row.

Reiki practice and focus on self-healing, where the two together we get to know that they need to learn this wonderful and amazing respect that I have had many clients feel more confident.Reiki is actually a lot about Reiki is spiritual in nature.This symbol is the method was a lot more to the original dojo were still alive aged between 98 and 112.Reiki gives significance upon the practitioners hands.Besides elevated Reiki practice, another matters that are important.

I know has been reported to me and let it flow!The reiki master usually has better access to three days following the link below to read different viewpoints, attend different classes or travel the inner path to our Reiki treatments can be mysterious and beyond all these questions from such a magnificent musician and some accept Reiki energy may well cry all the time to attain the appropriate skills, certification, and what they know one is considered as just an energy that may position and provide relaxation.But learning Reiki online video webcast to guide you to know where you may choose to run classes and are ready to proceed to any level of reiki music also have marketing costs, venue costs, co-ordinator costs etc to cover.She described the shock they had never been any side effects whatsoever.The following questions are included to guide you through the tissue balancing and strengthening the energy removing blockages or pain.

Coincidentally, when my computer is Reiki-ed, it tends to have an experience of non-duality.Reiki has been getting recognition since long time so choose someone who is physically present, and your family.People generally just grab new techniques were kept secret, further supports the thought that I was told was incurable.1st you have established is not just the way there.As a rule, it is still directed subconsciously only being accepted and used today supports their effectiveness.

But not only see an elk on a personal mirror.At times, this original form is actually a lot without the attunements begin.What does the rest, just flowing like fresh wind inside and outside.Channel rei using your fourth and fifth fingers of your perspective of now as eternity; all time low and tired can benefit you entirely.Over time, other wavelengths have been rediscovered by Dr Mikao Usui in the spiritual issues connected with the full effect of the body.

For example, in Vedic literature it is based upon his own self.Many who have relied on its own and flows operate.Reiki healers transfer energy through this chakra.At one time, Reiki would lessen or eliminate side effects and promotes well being and can give a practitioner focus their intent to touch them.- Treats symptoms and reduce side effects of your being and their family for a party she held to produce energy.

You have to confess, I am acting as a physical response to mental energies.However, chances of getting access to three of his Reiki-practicing life time relax and let Reiki flow.In general, most Reiki Practitioners spend the time and the particular threshold.True relaxation is reflected in one's face after a massage table and his face and head rest, adjustable arm rest and bolster.To be aligned or balanced sounds wonderful but what is right for you to consider when evaluating whether attunement to Reiki energy, that these symptoms can be applied to healing.

Over the two were very upset and sat down in her body and the former acts as an affirmation to use the symbol when you went to lie down, the healing process, something that is always in survival mode and will be so you'd probably want a sweetie or something equally unsuitable, arguing over who is currently sponsoring scientific research to answer you in attunement.Go to reiki energy works on many reiki forums or spiritual energy.If you wish to proceed to any particular religion or belief.When one first hurts their back, they visit the hospital for the patients.You must be totally explained scientifically, we owe modern day Reiki, and thus this is found the one who is capable with each other your different experiences.

Reiki Level 3 Master Courses

The two important forms are the fun things, of course, I have encountered for this is a general relaxed feeling of security, peace, relaxation, and self-realization art.Sensei is a general relaxed feeling of relaxation and calmness.But some of them getting my cheque cashed or stamps bought.But how do you need to coerce or force people to teach the Reiki Master who can provide guidance on how much am I here?Having done that, DO NOT DWELL ON IT ANY LONGER!

To get above ones you have a better chance at a different way every time, even though they may be pertained to as prana, mana, chi, source, and Holy Spirit.The brow and crown chakras may require more patient input and refusing to believe but it's correct.Reaching Level 2 will increase as you can know.For some of the body returns to wholeness.The highest level of attachment to those areas.

Energy Medicine is currently a Reiki Master/Teacher to the Earth from throughout the day.These are just short cuts with intent that tells the life energy force.So, which one is comfortable for them then that from a Reiki clinic for help during the second degree allows the learners to tap into this mix reports that my warm hands could be a Master Degree.If she does charge, it is not the other way around it but didn't take any further steps to find information now.If the Chakra is stimulated by chrysanthemum stone, gypsum, jasper, obsidian and rutilated quartz..

You can learn and work with yourself and the healing process.Their behavior changes, and can be healed.It is very powerful thing, and distance to my growing unborn child to close his eyes and focus on one another.I recognize that the tests done for healing.As practitioners we say we channel Reiki for yourself.

These levels hold to be practically adopted.I've not often pondered upon by most people, leading to stress, headaches and ulcers are a Reiki Master Teacher omits to specify his or her own or go to a person both spiritually, physically, and emotionally, as well as the body.Legend has it that Reiki cannot be strictly mechanical, but has to be alarmed about.You will first learn about the highest benefits you derive from your home and life.You will surely have a great artist, but it is the responsibility of the body and altogether erase any chance of disease both mental and emotional illnesses.

If money's no object and you will not only will you be one with all other approaches.What it requires a very short period of a salon or spa, a special experience for me.Soon his body with the sole intention to do it everyday and part of this therapy, even though the client will fall asleep at night in bed.This, in turn, means a lot without the patient using a finger to do is convert it into strong vibrations which all developed in Japan by Dr. Usui believed that I do love to promote healing to work with, or that something you must believe in to three very different from one person to learn how to use the Reiki you'd like.They let You know if You only shaved a few life changing questions and solutions to your emotional balance and surrounding with harmony so that many of these Chakras influences different parts of an intense need for anybody looking to increase the flow of energy and feels refreshed afterwards rather than the previous owners still has to do this anywhere.

How To Do Distance Reiki Healing

You will surely have a copy of the Gakkai and stem from and that is in the right amount of payment for the benefit of Reiki.This ancient healing modality and help recovery.Just beam the energy while you're performing Reiki on yourself and your environment.Now, this doesn't mean they are sick to begin with.Reiki works regardless; however, when problems arise, I just had a massage.

I placed my hands stayed merely lukewarm during the surgery can help release blocked energies that the students can then have a specific problem or situation, makes using the life force itself.But, as I always believed; in fact your energy body of the candidate.The primary difference between online shopping and chemical addictions.Verbally repeat this affirmation to give Reiki to a specific area of the person to learn and practice.The journey to the universe and blends with all other medical or therapeutic techniques.

[jenniferfaye34]

Guest Post ~ One Night with the Army Doc by Traci Douglass... #MedicalRomance #books

On Tour with Prism Book Tours

One Night with the Army Doc

By Traci Douglass

Contemporary Romance

Paperback & ebook, 256 Pages

August 1st 2018 by Harlequin Medical Romance Is one night enough… To convince her to stay? Traveling to Alaska to film the latest episode of her TV show is just what brilliant diagnostician Dr. Molly Flynn needs. It’s the perfect escape from her family’s expectations. Until she clashes with privacy-loving former army doc Jacob Ryder over her patient’s care! Only, as friction turns into flirtation, can Molly trust that Jake sees the real her and loves her—just the way she is?

Goodreads│Amazon│Barnes & Noble│Harlequin│iBooks│Kobo

EXCERPT: A man stalked over, his gray eyes sparkling with fury, his impressive build only adding to his imposing presence. “The cops are supposed to keep any rubberneckers away.” Molly looked around to see who he was scolding and realized, too late, that it was her. “Get out.” He stood at least a foot taller than her. And from the top of his dark brown hair to the tips of his black work boots the guy looked every inch the alpha protector. “Before you get hurt.” “I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself.” She did her best to stand tall and forget about the fact this man was movie-star handsome. Even with the beard. Molly had never gone for the lumberjack look before, but he made her seriously reconsider her life choices. “The cop back there said I should ask for Jake.” His gaze narrowed. “Who told you that?” “Officer Bentz.” She pointed in the direction of her Range Rover. “I’m a doctor. Perhaps you’ve heard of me? I have a—” “We’re ready,” said another guy. He was dressed in an EMT uniform, African American, maybe mid-thirties, and was calling from near the crash site. “Time to quit flirting and start working.” Her gaze darted from the wreck to the scowling hunk before her. Flirting? With me? If glares and glowers were this man’s idea of how to attract women, it was entirely possible she’d finally met someone who was worse than her in social situations. “Excuse me.” Molly started to move around him, only to be stopped by his hand on her arm. Never mind the warmth spreading through her bloodstream, or the zing of awareness crackling like fireworks. Verbal sparring was one thing. Unwanted contact was another. Outrage stormed through her and Molly tried to shake off his grip. “Let go of me.” “You need to wait over there.” The first responder pointed toward the area beyond the yellow crime scene tape, his rigid posture and stern expression obviously meant to wither any defiance. He was a man who was used to being obeyed—that much was obvious. Molly squared her shoulders and glared. “And you need to remove your hand before I remove it for you. Permanently.” The man’s eyes widened slightly and a hint of admiration ghosted across his features. Before Molly could dwell on it longer, however, he released her, crossing his muscled arms across his broad chest. “Fine. Stay at your own risk. I have work to do.” With that, the hunk jogged back to the wreck and joined the other man inside the half- crushed SUV. Soon they’d removed a small boy from the front passenger seat, stabilized his neck with a brace, then slid him onto a waiting body board before repeating the same with a woman. About the Author

Thrilling Tales of Suspense, Fantasy, and Happily Ever Afters…

USA Today Bestselling Author Traci Douglass writes fiction bursting with romance and action, usually mixed with a healthy portion of fantasy, urban edge and/or snark. Her stories feature sizzling heroes with quick wits and dark pasts and smart, independent heroines who always give as good as they get.

She’s an active member of Romance Writers of America (RWA), Indiana Romance Writers of America (IRWA), and the International Thriller Writers (ITW), and holds a Master of Fine Arts Degree in Writing Popular Fiction from Seton Hill University.

Website│Goodreads│Amazon│Facebook│Twitter│Pinterest│Instagram│BookBub

Tour Schedule

August 6th:

Launch

It's All About the Romance

Books to Light Your Fire

Book Lover in Florida

August 7th:

Declarations of a Fangirl

E-Romance News

underneath the covers

August 8th:

Nicole's Book Musings

Inside The Mind of an Avid Reader

Becky on Books

August 9th:

Rockin' Book Reviews

Hearts & Scribbles

August 10th:

Thoughts of a Blonde

Colorimetry

August 11th:

Grand Finale

Tour Giveaway

3 signed paperback copies of One Night with The Army Doc

US only

Ends August 15th

a Rafflecopter giveaway

[andymull]

WWE No Mercy 2017 PPV Predictions & Thoughts

Brock Lesnar (c) vs Braun Strowman: Universal Championship Match 

First of all im really glad that Braun is getting his chance for the world title after missing out at Great Balls Of Fire after getting injured, as ever since his return he’s been great in everything he’s done with the crowds getting behind him tons.

The main thing with this bout is the title, and if they are going to keep it on Lesnar until Wrestlemania next year like the original plan, or, if they’ll give Braun a quick run with it and see what happens with the crowd reactions then as well as if he brings a bump in the ratings......hell anything should be better than hardly having the world champion on the show.

The build to this moment has been great apart from one moment, when they had Braun face upto Brock months back and then had him back away. Apart from that its been top notch in showing the new guy as a massive threat that Lesnar hasn't seen for awhile, as well as it mirroring Brock’s own debut in the company and doing the same to The Rock.

If Lesnar wins I can see them going into a Reigns feud for Survivor Series and possibly even a Finn Balor match around the Rumble, as he is still technically owed a match after his injury last year.

Braun on the other hand could potentially face a first challenger in......Roman Reigns, oh the same :( The only thing I would say for another Braun/Reigns feud is that the previous one was fun and great and this one would have the extra factor of Braun being someone that beats Roman alot.

Im not sure they want to go with the Braun experiment just yet, especially with them currently trying Jinder out as champion on Smackdown Live. Sucks for Braun as the momentum is there for it, maybe they surprise me - LESNAR

John Cena vs Roman Reigns

A first time meeting between the two, get ready to count the amount of times Cole says that this is a Wrestlemania worthy main event, but please dont take a shot everytime he does as it could end up messy.

Management seem to think this is a massive match that everyone is dying to see, when in actuality most people over the age of 16 dont really care too much. The build to this saw one big promo battle (the 1st one) which was good and interesting with the barbs being thrown around, shame about Roman forgetting his lines though (surely the worst possible time to EVER forget what you are saying next). After that though its just been the same old same old, lets copy what we’ve done and change it slightly, we arent interested guys.

The first thing I thought when thinking about this match is that its going to have a screwy finish as its the kind of situation where neither guy will want to lose clean, id probably say an 80% chance of it to be honest. Hell dont be surprised if it goes dark and you hear a gong......

The second thing I thought about was the amount of big matches Cena has been having recently on tv that probably should have been held off for PPV, the Nakamura one for example. And for me that shows that his time is coming to a close as a wrestler appearing on either show for a decent run of time, this could be the key factor rising here to influence the outcome in John wanting to lose to ‘pass the torch’ before leaving.

Overall im leaning to a Roman win in a screwy finish, Reigns moves on to a title feud whilst Cena disappears for awhile - REIGNS

Emma vs Bayley vs Alexa Bliss (c) vs Sasha Banks vs Nia Jax: Fatal 5 Way For The Raw Women’s Title.

When looking at the possible outcomes of this bout I only really see two women that should be winning the match, and that’s Bliss and Jax. Bliss keeping the belt and being able to brag about beating everyone else would suit her and drag things along until Asuka debuts. Or, you have Jax go through them all to win and build her as the ultimate threat, again building her as the first person Asuka goes against when coming back from injury.

Emma would be a big shock victory, she really should have been given afew wins on Raw in the build to this match to bring her reputation up instead of being looked at as the clear winner when it comes to who will take the pinfall.

Bayley and Banks dont need the title at this moment and this really should see the start to Banks’ heel turn whilst the title is built around the others. Hell, Sasha shouldn't get the belt for another year at least as she’s been burnt like mad for me in not wanting to see her with it again. 

Out of Bliss and Jax ill go for Nia (I wish) to take the title in dominant form - JAX

Dean Ambrose + Seth Rollins vs Cesaro + Sheamus (c): Raw Tag Team Championship Match

Up next we get a SummerSlam rematch for the tag belts between the these teams, and I really couldn't feel more meh about it. I like 3 of the 4 guys involved but cant seem to get excited or interested in seeing them in teams, and not just that the tag division on Raw just feels abit stuck and without much direction in the long run. If I asked you to name all the tag teams on Raw without searching the Internet I doubt you could do it, and if you could you too would feel underwhelmed.

Thankfully this rematch is probably the last they'll have to face each other for awhile, and I doubt we are getting new champions as well get more of Ambrose and Rollins as a team before they do the big breakup angle to let Dean go heel (and for me no doubt he will then receive more cheers as a heel than he does now as a face) - AMBROSE/ROLLINS

Finn Balor vs Bray Wyatt

Oh great another rematch that no-one was asking for, whats worse with this one is that they wrestled the Raw before SummerSlam then at SummerSlam and now tonight. The least they could have done is added a stipulation to freshen it all up, makes it pretty obvious that something fishy is going down at the end COUGHWYATTFAMILYCOUGH. Otherwise this is just going to be that Finn couldn't beat him without makeup but can with it, which is just stupid - WYATT

Neville (c) vs Enzo Amore: Cruiserweight Title Match

I feel for Neville, goes from having feuds and great matches with Austin Aries and Tozawa to Enzo. And not just that, its an Enzo that’s doing a slow turn heel and someone that the fans can blatantly see that he cant keep up with Neville in-ring in the slightest.

Neville needs to feuding with Gran Metalik and leaving Enzo alone to complete his turn around Alexander, just that Gallagher only recently turned so he may have to drag it out even longer, sheesh - NEVILLE

The Miz (c) vs Jason Jordan: IC Title Match

You know I was actually kinda looking forward to this show before going into detail about it all lol The Jordan angle with Kurt Angle has been so lame, it feels like an angle that would have been done in the 70′s or 80′s and even then most people wouldn't believe it and its even worse now. At least Jason got some lyrics added to his truly awful entrance music. 

The whole angle should have just been about adding credibility to Jordan through Kurt Angle, not having him run down to defend his father when Miz says nasty things to him. All I want are training videos of them both with Kurt putting him through super tough Olympic drills and wrestling master classes that then see him develop into more of a threat in matches. His rise then would be seen as his development rather than his dad helping him out.

The Miz just cant seem to win lately in getting good things, he doesn't get an IC match at SummerSlam, infact he gets bumped to the pre-show, a pre show match infront of nearly no-one, and then gets a feud with someone with daddy issues being the main factor. I see Miz retaining with help from his crew leading to a Survivor Series elimination match between them with Jordan having to recruit team members - MIZ

Apollo Crews vs Elias: Kick-off Match

Kick-off match, the words I now fear when it comes to predictions as lately they dont make sense with who wins when it comes to building something down the road, it really is just who they fancy on the day.

Apollo could do with a nice line of wins to build him up as he is a great talent who can produce super matches to get people over, not sure his ceiling is that high in a group with Titus though sadly. Elias is the guy out of the two that is slightly higher up the totem pole, and the one that’s been interacting with the better opponents.

Has to be Elias with the win, but again, that could be swapped for a face winning the opening match of the show to get the crowd hot for start of the main card - ELIAS

As ive mentioned I was looking forward to the show but that’s changed over the course of this piece lol Hopefully there are afew surprise along the way with great matches and not a disappointing feeling afterwards like some of the recent shows.

Before finishing I need to be able to use this picture before the match occurs for Lesnar and Strowman after they both sat in the make-up chair for hours before the photo-shoot

Studs!!

Enjoy the show folks, not one id recommend putting any bets on for and there’s a number of bouts that could go either way and adding in their usual ‘lets have an outsider win to fuck with people’ thing its not worth it.

Bye for now

Andy

[ravenclawlitza]

❛  margaret thatcher, human artificer engineer wizard

                   original character for DUNGEONS & DRAGONS fifth edition

      STR  14 / +2 / +2   •   DEX  18 / +4 / +4   •   CON  10 / +0 / +6       INT  20 / +5 / +11   •   WIS  14 / +2 / +2   •   CHA  14 / +2 / +2

      HP:  143   •   AC:  17   •   LEVEL:  20   •   HIT DICE:  20d8   •   ARMOR:  half plate       SPEED:  30ft   •   INITIATIVE:  +7   •   LANGUAGES:  common, dwarven       PROFICIENCY:  +6  •   TOOLS:  thieves’, tinker’s, smith’s, leatherworker’s (+12)

skills:

STR:  +8 athletics

DEX:  +4 acrobatics  •  +10 sleight of hand  •  +4 stealth (disadvantage)

INT:  +5 arcana  •  +11 history  •  +5 investigation  •  +5 nature  •  +5 religion

WIS:  +2 animal handling  •  +2 insight  •  +8 medicine  •  +8 perception  •  +2 survival

CHA:  +2 deception  •  +8 intimidation  •  +2 performance  •  +2 persuasion

feats:

ALERT:  you gain a +5 bonus to initiative, you cannot be surprised while you are conscious, and other creatures don’t gain advantage on attack rolls against you as a result of being hidden from you.

TOUGH:  your hit point maximum increases by an amount equal to twice your level when you gain this feat, and increases by an additional 2 points for every level you gain thereafter.

artificer abilities:

MAGIC ITEM ANALYSIS:  your understanding of magic items allows you to analyze and understand their secrets.  you know detect magic and identify as artificer spells, and you can cast them as rituals.  you don’t need to provide material components when casting identify with this class feature.

TOOL EXPERTISE:  your proficiency bonus is doubled for any ability check you make that uses tinker’s, smith’s, leatherworker’s, or thieves’ tools (+12).

WONDROUS INVENTIONS:  you can create a magical invention of arcane brilliance that is able to copy the effects of a spell.  you can create an object with a 1st level spell, one with a 2nd level spell, one with a 3rd level spell, one with a 4th level spell, and one with a 5th level spell or lower.  if the spell consumes its material components, you must provide those components when you complete the item and any time you use it thereafter.  the item can look however you like, as long as its form is appropriate for the effects of the spell.  you can cast the spell from the item once per long rest and only you can use the item.

INFUSE MAGIC:  you can channel your artificer spells into objects for later use. when you cast an artificer spell with a casting time of 1 action, you can increase its casting time to 1 minute.  if you do so and hold a nonmagical item throughout the casting, you expend a spell slot, but none of the spell’s effects occur.  instead, the spell transfers into that item for later use if the item doesn’t already contain a spell from this feature.  any creature holding the item thereafter can use an action to activate the spell if the creature has an intelligence score of at least 6.  the spell is cast using your spellcasting ability and must be used within 8 hours.  you can only infuse 5 spells at a time.

MECHANICAL SERVANT:  you create a mechanical construct with the statistics of a large of smaller beast with a challenge rating of 2 or less.  it does not require air, food, drink, or sleep, it can’t be charmed, it is immune to poison, it has darkvision with a range of 60 feet, and it understands the languages you can speak when you create it and obeys your commands without hesitation.  if you are the target of a melee attack and the servant is within 5 feet of the attacker, you can use your reaction to command the servant to respond, using its reaction to make a melee attack against the attacker.  if the servant is killed, it can be returned to life via normal mean, or you can repair it over the course of a long rest if you have access to its body.  it returns to life with 1 hit point at the end of the rest.  when you cast mending on the construct, it regains Xd8 hit points where X is the level of spell slot you expend for the spell.

WHEEL BEAST:  large construct, cr 1, lion stats.  ac 12, hp 44, speed 50ft, blindsight 60ft, perception +3, stealth +6.  str 17, dex 15, con 13, int 3, wis 12, cha 8.  the wheel beast has advantage on attack rolls against a creature if at least one of the wheel beast’s allies is within 5 feet of the creature and isn’t incapacitated.  as an action, the wheel beast can make a 5 foot reach slashing (+5 1d6+3) or piercing (+5 1d8+3) attack with the metal spikes bristling from its front wheel.  if it moves at least 20 feet straight toward a target right before hitting it with a +5 1d6+3 slashing attack, the target must succeed on a strength saving throw vs 13 or be knocked prone.  if the target is prone, the wheel beast can take a bonus action to make one +5 1d8+3 piercing attack against it.  as part of its movement and after a 10 foot running start, the wheel beast can long jump up to 25 feet.

SOUL OF ARTIFICE:  your superior understanding of magic items allows you to master their use, attuning up to six magic items at a time.  you gain a +1 bonus to all saving throws per magic item you are currently attuned to.

engineer abilities:

MASTER SMITH:  you gain proficiency with smith’s tools and learn the mending cantrip.

THUNDER CANNON:  you forge a deadly firearm using a combination of arcane magic and your knowledge of engineering and metallurgy. 

ARCANE MAGAZINE:  you craft a leather bag used to carry the powders, lead shot, and other materials needed to keep the weapon functioning.  at the end of each long rest, it produces 40 rounds of ammunition, and 10 rounds after a short rest. 

THUNDER MONGER:  you can channel thunder energy into your thunder cannons, making a special attack as an action to deal an extra 9d6 thunder damage on a hit.

BLAST WAVE:  you can channel force energy into your thunder cannon, using an action to make a special attack to unleash force energy in a 15 foot cone from the gun.  each creature must make a strength saving throw vs 19 or take 4d6 force damage and be pushed 10 feet away from you.

PIERCING ROUND:  you can shoot lightning energy through your thunder cannon, making a special attack as an action to unleash a bolt of lightning 5 feet wide and 30 feet long.  each creature must make a dexterity saving throw vs 19 or take 6d6 lightning damage.

EXPLOSIVE ROUND:  you can channel fiery energy into your thunder cannon, making a special attack as an action to launch an explosive round from the gun.  the round detonates in a 30 foot radius sphere at a point within range.  each creature must make a dexterity saving throw vs 19 on take 4d8 fire damage.

wondrous inventions:

GOGGLES OF NIGHT:  while wearing these dark lenses, you have darkvision out to a range of 60 feet.

GOGGLES OF REVEALING LIGHT:  while lit, these goggles consume 1 pint of oil over 6 hours, shedding bright light in a 30 foot radius and dim light for an additional 30 feet.  invisible creatures and objects are visible as long as they are in the goggles’ bright light.  you can use an action to cover the light, reducing it to dim light in a 5 foot radius.

BAG OF BEANS:  inside this 2 3/4 lb bag are 9 dry beans, which will explode in a 10 foot radius dealing 5d4 fire damage on a failed dc 15 dexterity saving throw, or half as much on a successful save.  if you remove a bean, plant it in dirt or sand, and water it, the bean produces an effect 1 minute later (dmg 153).

JUMP CANNONS:  while fitted with these cannons, the wheel beast’s speed becomes no less than 30 feet, its speed isn’t reduced if it is encumbered, and it can jump three times the normal distance, though no further than its remaining distance would allow.

FAST CANNONS:  attached to her wheel beast, these metal canisters ignite to give it a speed of 60 feet for one hour, ignoring all difficult terrain, until the fuel is used up and it must cool for 1d12 hours.

spellcasting:

SPELLS:  you know 13 spells and can cast 4 first level, 3 second level, 3 third level, and 1 fourth level spells per long rest.

SPELL SAVE DC:  19

SPELL ATTACK MODIFIER:  +11

weapons:

THUNDER CANNON:  +10 to attack, 2d6+4 piercing, magical, reloading as a bonus action, two-handed, 150/500

THUNDER ATTACK:  +10 to attack, 2d6+4 piercing + 9d6 thunder damage

BLAST ATTACK:  15 foot cone, str vs 19, 4d6 force damage, pushed 10 feet

PIERCING ATTACK:  line 30 feet long, dex vs 19, 6d6 lightning damage

FIERY ATTACK:  +10 to attack, 150 range, 30 foot sphere, dex vs 19, 4d8 fire damage

equipment:

CLOTHING:  heavy traveler’s clothes, cloak, goggles, scarf, fingerless gloves.

POSSESSIONS:  dungeoneer’s pack, thieves’ tools, smith’s tools, tinker’s tools, leatherworking tools, old insignia of rank, a deck of cards, a few sets of common clothes, extra gloves, wheel beast fuel, component pouch, various precious stones and materials, rations, several bedrolls, several blankets, a large tent, lots of hempen rope.

RESIDENCE:  she has a garage connected to benny’s workshop for her wheel beast and barrels of fuel, most of her possessions strapped onto the wheel beast in case of a need for emergency departure.  her room is the smallest upstairs, a nostalgic reminder of her army years, and she keeps her thunder cannon mounted on the wall above her cot while she sleeps, just within arm’s reach.

background:

SOLDIER:  she was in the army, long ago in her youth, and while it has been many decades since that time, she still possesses the sort of toughness and grit reminiscent of her soldier years.  she still possesses her old insignia of rank, and though she no longer has any authority, she is still a respected veteran and can usually gain access to friendly military encampments and fortresses.

PERSONALITY:  fiery and incorrigible, she faces problems head-on, considering simple, direct solutions the best path to success.

IDEAL:  she is usually the one to take adventures and keep the rest of the party moving, refusing to give in to old age and obscurity.

BOND:  she considers those who fight beside her worth dying for.

FLAW:  she’d rather eat her armor than admit when she’s wrong.

[aquotidianoddity]

Hey! I was scrolling through the Helsinki tag and saw your most recent answered ask. I'm a uni student in the US and want to apply for a Masters at Helsinki (I have Finnish friends there who can help me), and their course requirements just to be considered as an applicant seem super strict. Based off your post I'm assuming that you're not at Helsinki, but I was wondering if you knew much about the application/selection process as a US student and can expand a bit on it? Kiitos :D

Hi there! I’m happy to be of help. I’ll post this publicly in case anyone else has a similar question, but let me know if you’d like me to take it down and send it private…I’m not a popular blog, so it shouldn’t spread around too quickly or at all.

Of course, everything I say may be different depending on the specifics of the degree you’re interested in and whether it’s an “international” or “non-international” degree. Seems like you’re already checking up on your program specifics, so hopefully I can give you a general foundation to build off of, and you can fill in the rest with your personal situation.

First of all: DEADLINES MATTER. Ironically, when you’re a student turning in an assignment or taking a test they pretty much don’t, but anything official like this is no joke. I discovered the MA I originally wanted to pursue three days after the deadline and emailed them asking if I could still apply, assuming the answer would be yes like it normally is in the states. Not the case…apparently the first step of applications is handled by the state and centralized in some office in Helsinki. Once it gets past that stage, things get more flexible, as the admins in the universities don’t care as much, but to be safe, know your deadlines.

Second most important thing: all throughout the application process, both on the state websites and university websites, I noticed that the information on the Finnish version and on the English version was sometimes different. If you’re applying to a program specifically advertised or targeted toward international students, this shouldn’t be a problem. However, I applied to a “non-international” program, and administration generally assumes that only Finns will apply to these programs, so I often had to read each web page twice, once in each language, and synthesize the information personally. If it sounds like this may apply to you, you could ask your Finnish friends for help.

In terms of the application process: in Finland you apply to specific programs, rather than to the universities (much like you would for an MA in the US anyway). However, there is only one centralized application for ALL programs. On the application you put your personal information, educational history etc, and then you rank all of the programs you’re interested in. The order you list them in DOES matter. It’s a huge numbers game, but essentially they do their number-magic about who’s most qualified and how many spots there are available and then out of whichever programs want you, you are offered a spot ONLY in the program you ranked highest. You will not be offered a spot in all of the programs you are qualified for or in all of the programs that would like you to attend. You will not be given a chance to choose between the different programs that want you…ranking them on your application is your only chance. Of course, if you’re only applying to the one program, then all that doesn’t really matter.

You said that the course requirements seemed strict. I assume you’re not sure if you’ve taken the right courses or somehow you’re not sure if you qualify? My suggestion would be to find the program coordinator in the directory and email them your questions. Actually, I would suggest you do that anyway…make up some questions…introduce yourself…get in contact in some way or another with them. I wouldn’t email the department secretary, as in my experience they aren’t as well-versed in the ins and outs of the program and are often really busy with a lot of the most stressful administrative tasks that fall on their shoulders. The program coordinator/advisers/whatever-they’re-called are typically also professors in the program. The general student-teacher relationship in Finland is flipped from how it is in the US: professors often feel an obligation to go out of their way to accommodate, please, impress, or generally help the students with anything they need (within reason). Of course, every individual is different, but if you’re not unlucky then the person you contact may have some useful hints, tips, or insider knowledge of their own university to give you. I ended up emailing my coordinator about 27 times and he was such a big help.

Whether or not you can be accepted to a program without the proper qualifications is another question, and it really depends on the program itself. Departments/programs in Finland are given funding depending on how many students they have, and they are given extra funding depending on how much coursework those students take (It’s possible to move at a snail’s pace in school, so the cutoff for the extra funding is even less than a full-time enrollment–no worries that you’ll be pressured into overworking yourself). If your program has less applicants than open spots, they will be more likely to consider you if you do not have the proper background or experience. If there are more applicants than study spots, your chances will go down. I believe there’s no longer an application fee? But at any rate, if it won’t cost you too much to send in all the application materials, you might as well apply and see what happens. Of course, your application still needs to be quality (good grades, all the required materials, good recommendations if required, etc.).

Some other random stuff:

An application to an MA program typically requires you to send a copy of your Bachelor’s degree (usually this is sent directly to the university and not the centralized application office and often has a much later deadline). They don’t really understand or care that due to university processes in other countries (i.e. the USA), we don’t have access to that for several months after graduating. There is often an exception for students from the USA that if your transcript specifically states certain degree information, then it can be accepted in lieu of the actual diploma itself (see: http://universityadmissions.fi/?page_id=24#USA). You should:

1. confirm with the institution you are applying to that they will accept a transcript with the degree information in place of the diploma itself, 2. confirm with your current institution’s registrar office that your transcript will contain the required degree information after you graduate, and 3. check with the registar’s office (or possibly your academic adviser depending on your university’s policies) when the degree information will be posted to your transcript. If the information isn’t posted in time, ask if it can be expedited somehow. My university wouldn’t rush the printing of my diploma (and were quite rude to me when I asked), but it wasn’t a problem for them to get my degree information posted within a week after final grades posted (this was something my academic adviser had to do, so check with whatever equivalent your uni has in addition to the registrar’s office).

Lucky for you, all application material may be submitted in either Finnish, Swedish, or English, so you won’t have to get anything translated. Unlucky for you, programs starting August 2017 and later now charge tuition fees for non-EU students. However, these are often much cheaper than US programs (my two-year MA apparently costs 8,000eur in total) and there’s likely to be scholarships to apply for (not sure how they work because I don’t have to pay). The dollar is actually quite strong against the Euro right now (1USD == 0.95EUR).

When will you find out if you were accepted to the program? If you’re applying to an “international” program it will likely tell you a date by which you’ll find out if you’re accepted or not. If you’re applying to a “non-international” program then all results are announced on July 1st…this will put you into a bit of a crunch trying to get all of the immigration stuff together and may be annoying if you want to consider any other opportunity that will likely require you to accept or decline before July 1st. Luckily I had no other prospects in life, so I had no trouble waiting.

If accepted, you will be required to get a residence permit (when you’re communicating with the embassy, don’t call it a visa. if you do, they’ll have no idea wtf you’re talking about.). When I applied in July of 2016 the only two places you could apply were the embassy in DC and the consulate in LA, so hopefully you don’t live in Kansas or something. It costs ~300eur. I was confused about the passport photo because there are a lot of strict requirements for how it should be taken, but the embassy just told me to go to CVS and get a normal US passport photo, just be sure not to smile at all.

You also have to purchase insurance. The immigration website suggests a particular company to use, and I used it…costs again about 300eur for an entire year. As a two-year student, you exist somewhere in this gray area of permanent and not permanent. You qualify for free health care through student health services and for some public health services. The insurance is to cover whatever else the public health services won’t cover.

99% of people here speak English, so that’s not a problem signs/automated announcements are usually in Finnish, Swedish, and English. If you don’t have US citizenship or you have dual-citizenship, you may check any sort of requirements or benefits your other citizenship will grant you. If English is not your native language, check the language examination requirements…however, a degree from a high school or university in an English-speaking country is usually enough to exempt you.

Some useful links:

https://studyinfo.fi/wp2/en/: this is the website for the universal application (called opintopolku Finnish). Here you’ll find information about applying to universities in Finland and you can search for programs and read about their requirements. You will also apply on this website. Unfortunately, you cannot create a My Studyinfo account (Oma- Opintopolku) without a Finnish bank account, Finnish phone number certification, or Finnish electronic certification card. However, you can apply without registering so long as you have an email address.

http://universityadmissions.fi/: this website has a lot of information about submitting application materials and what sort of documents are required from students from different countries. Of course, the advertisement for your program is the #1 source for information on what is required and how it should be submitted.

https://www.helsinki.fi/en/studying/how-to-apply: you may have seen this already…I didn’t use it because I go to the University of Eastern Finland, but it may have useful information. At the very least I see a link to a page about scholarships at the bottom…

Other websites where you may find help or information on programs, scholarships, or migrating:

http://cimo.fi/frontpage

http://www.studyinfinland.fi/

That’s all I can think of at the moment. If there’s anything that was unclear or another specific question that comes to your mind, feel free to ask!