#all the little tweaks that would be building a different foundation

[ri-afan]

If I didn’t get to keep my knowledge then I would likely have a different answer.

To maximise my friends now while minimising the rest, 6-10 would have to be it. Holding out to the next stage would run the risk of coming into middle school too late even if it turns out I fell back to being in first grade again. Though to think I would still move in with my mother for high school for the few friends I have from then even if I didn’t get to graduate with most of them… y’all are special.

Can’t tag L or E.R., obviously, but can tag @shortiethewolf so I will: I love you guys so much and I would say you’re worth it living there with her even if I haven’t spoken to E.R. since graduation and it’s been so sporadic with both you and L since I moved. (You never met her but I think y’all could’ve been acquaintances at the least.) Also, the experience with M and E.C. years 10&11? I was kinda the catalyst to get them what they wanted and I feel like I dropped the ball on the experiences we had. Definitely have to be there for that to happen because they’re still nice people ❤️‍🩹 It would free me from some of mom’s attention too, even if it’s a crappy way to think about it. I’d definitely be doing more to stay off her radar though.

—Listen, I spent the time I was writing the last paragraph thinking about it and I think I would know the perfect time and plan to get things to work out and I still wouldn’t have to take that damn trig class in high school.

I would move after 6th grade because while I love dad I don’t know about being where they were and I only would have one more year where we were. Probably would still get pulled out of public school for bigotry reasons for middle school though (which, half and half it wasn’t wholly a terrible experience even if it truly was full of not the …best things… I’d do my best to work with what I had between all that but it was a… learning experience for sure. Probably ask if I could join a Spanish class though because it woulda been useful at least), then I would land with shortie in art year 9 (oh! I would change the science classes though my god - AP over regular Earth Science, physics over chem 🙏🏼 no APUSH dear god no I love L but I couldn’t with that class again, but I would change how I took that English class year 11) and meet L in that shitty religion club year 10 (I can’t remember how we met outside of that so I guess I’ll have to go to it for him 🙄😜) and totally skip all of that bs with people making L and me awkward af. And shutdown his shit with N bc that just fed into no good things (god, you remember that? I thought it was weird then and still think it was odd a decade later). Would def still turn him into a WonderWoman fan though because I think that helped him overall 😁 That thing with that guy I never actually met in the end from that one place would not happen year 11, I don’t think I let on just how much of a creep he was but I’m saying no right now. Maybe I actually woulda acted on my thoughts with E.R. senior year though. 🤔 Every once in a while I ponder it when I catch that one photo of us.

Then fucking GAP YEAR before college omg. N and I would likely not happen though 🫤 (all well and good for how it ended but maybe I could have done something different there for communication and we actually get to be friends instead of whatever that bs was…) Still move out to here bc it’s cheaper and just not where I graduated in the end (bc fuck that place, sorry E.R. even though you can’t read this 😅 one year there would be Enough) but skip that first college altogether bc holy shit that was a pricy waste of time, then join the second school (maybe I coulda talked y’all into coming along but I’m doubting it hard you lizards 🦎😄) and get that damn degree I love but sadly don’t really use and work towards what I have at this college still because I still love it. Maybe I could use the first degree when I started the next phase of college at that town. Miss me with those living situations in 2019 though, that ain’t happening again.

Maybe I would fucked around and taken a few other classes that caught my eye too but didn’t consider at the time because sexism? Probably woulda helped.

Now, how would this actually change things? It sounds like I’m on the same path overall.

I’m glad you asked! Connections.

This public thought experiment is over though 😛 but I definitely am going to continue it on my own.

*This poll was submitted to us and we simply posted it so people could vote and discuss their opinions on the matter. If you’d like for us to ask the internet a question for you, feel free to drop the poll of your choice in our inbox and we’ll post them anonymously (for more info, please check our pinned post).

[aerequets]

Do you have any tips on how to draw different poses? Any kind of movement just fucks me up so bad 😭😭

hoo boy poses! an eternally difficult frustrating teeth clenching jaw aching part of drawing 🤩 JK but i def get where you are coming from. i was trying to think of the best way to reply to this and just ended up making a whole step by step of my process LOL

BEFORE WE BEGIN THOUGH i should mention that i am NOT a professional, nor have i learned these techniques anywhere other than the internet and so there's obviously room for improvement and this is not the end-all-be-all, just how i personally draw poses ATM.

now with that out of the way! keep reading for my tutorial on posing :D

i figured the best way to show this would be to take one of my old drawings and repurpose it. so:

rayla. january 11 2020 rayla. she looks a lil smug maybe? a lil confident? her arms are crossed and her head is kinda tilted and her expression seems that way, but all in all it's kinda grey. this is the first thing you should do when making a pose for your character:

what is your character feeling?

define it clearly. are they angry? close their pose up, cross their arms. happy? open it up, give them big gestures. lazy or tired? slouching, etc. posing is pretty much just body language so figure out what you want your character to say when they aren't speaking.

now i'll just show what the base sketch for this drawing looks like:

that's fine and all, the building blocks are there, but now i'm gonna redraw it and show what i would do differently now:

what's different about this sketch from the first one? three main things which i will break down!

The Lines

when i say "the lines", i mean the horizontal lines of the body if that makes sense? i'm sure there's an actual term or something, but basically, the parts of your body that can tilt. don't make these parallel! that can end up making the character look unbalanced and unnatural, or stiff if the lines are just flat. in the 2020 sketch, they aren't parallel, but they aren't exaggerated either. the more you exaggerate the differences in your posing, the more dynamic it will look. so in this sketch, i've exaggerated them more. gotta make rayla look real cocky yk

The Blobs

when i used to sketch bases for my characters, it would be a bunch of boxes and rectangles connected by sticks. i stopped doing that and it helped. human bodies are soft and squishy and curvy, we aren't robots with metal edges. drawing the base shapes as blobs personally helps me with getting rid of stiffness in the pose. lots of ppl make the boxy method work though, so if that's what you wanna do, by all means.

another thing i noted is "forget about the limbs". limbs are basically just branches, so if you get caught up in drawing them before their foundation (torso + lower half) is down, it could look wonky. get the basis down first, and then go on with the joints and limbs.

The Line (Singular)

AKA the line of action, which is a very popular term + method for posing. this is basically a line that runs down the spine, and the more bendy/curvy it is, the more dynamic your pose will look. tbh in the sketch i did right now it's not very action-y, but rayla is also just standing there, so if you want to do a fighting pose or something similar make sure the line of action is hella curved. even for stationary poses though, a little curve is helpful.

so! with these things in mind, i redid (extremely very roughly lol) the drawing. let's see the difference:

eyy hows that? she looks a helluva lot more arrogant! lol jk. but we can definitely get a better grasp of her character from the first image than the second. ofc there are other factors at play here like line weight and expression, but nevertheless, a few small tweaks go a long way.

anyways this got kinda long but i hope i could be of help!

[cyberbun]

Thoughts on Age of Empires 2?

I think you know them quite well by now! But it has been really interesting to go back and play this again after so many years. In a way, along with Starcraft and Warcraft 2 but I have no real memory of that one it was a foundational game for me to get into RTSs back in the day, and there's something really nostalgic going back to it especially considering how ubiquitous it was back in the day!

It was one of those games that was everywhere, in like, every computer lab and every internet cafe back in my Youth (along with other Third World Net Cafe Classics like Tibia online or Mu and the rest of the rotating cast of kmmos), yet I never got the chance to get too to into it, not having stable computer access for a long time meant I could only play it very few times.

Which makes getting back into it now kind of fascinating! because i never learned how the game is properly played or how the competitive metagame is supposed to work feels like taking a new spin on something familiar in a way I really like - especially because I used to find it really hard to get back into these games due to feeling essentially Not Smart Enough to learn how to play it Correctly... Yet, it's been a lot easier than I thought, once I know what I'm doing, and I really like having a framework of actions to take that I can then deviate from as needed! It gives me a really good foundation to build game knowledge on top of and makes me appreciate the little nuances between factions a lot better.

And that's the other thing - as someone who primarily played stuff like starcraft or command and conquer, the idea of a more standardized game where every faction has ~more or less the same roster is very appealing to me, and it really highlights the ways in which they get to be different and unique. It inherently calls attention to the nuances of the game and guides you towards strategizing in specific ways that are very dependent on systems knowledge without actually having to internalize all of that at once - i.e., if you're playing, say, franks, you know your focus will be cavalry, so you'll be building that primarily and then strategizing around that primary focus in order to patch up the rock-paper-scissors weaknesses of your army; which in turn forces you to internalize a lot of unit dynamics very quickly (though, in fairness, i do think the harder counters in aoe3 do a better job of this, but that's a different game altogether).

To put it in simpler terms: I feel like I understand completely why the game has such an enduring presence in RTS spaces and why it has such a vibrant community surrounding it, and I can better appreciate now how well balanced and tweaked the whole thing is, even if this comes in the name of taking... massive liberties with historical accuracy in some places (Incan eagles...), it's a lot like chess, you have to not think about it too much I think, and it makes some of the places where they get to show off their research that much more interesting. Overall, I'm really enjoying it! I refuse to play against another human being, though. I would get crushed.

Also give me back the old main menu!!!

[daybreakrising]

What’s the best thing about the canon you are writing?

What’s the worst thing about the canon you are writing?

Have you tweaked the character from canon? If so, what did you tweak?

Would you say that your portrayal is canon divergent or not? 

Are there some things you dislike about how the show/series/etc. portray the character you have picked up? If so, what?

What would you say is the most unique trait about your character?

(do this for wrio vautrin and gallagher-)

canon questionnaire

7. What's the best thing about the canon you are writing?

for wrio: i love the foundations we were given for him. he has such an interesting (and tragic) story and to come through all of that and be the man he is now? i love who he is, what he stands for, and the fact he can be so mature and healthy (for the most part) over what happened to him.

for vautrin: listen, they really just handed me a bare bones Ye Olde Wrio with a soft spot for hydro dragons and melusines, who is both savagely vengeful and devastatingly selfless. beautiful.

for gallagher: the possibilities of it. that's really all i can say for now since his story isn't complete yet, but i am Living for the mystery that surrounds him still.

8. What's the worst thing about the canon you are writing?

for wrio: bad fanon takes. that's it. that's the worst thing fdlkbgh

for vautrin: that there isn't more of it, aka, hyv should definitely hit me up so i can persuade them to bring him back as a funky lil primordial weirdo-

for gallagher: there's almost too much going on for my poor, fatigued, foggy brain to grasp coherently & so i feel like my thoughts are all over the place and have yet to weave together into something that maintains said canon

9. Have you tweaked the character from canon? If so, what did you tweak?

answered for wrio here.

for vautrin: ............. i feel like this one speaks for itself dflkjglkdhnfg- obviously, yes, i have. even taking into account his 'past' verse, i've tweaked him a bit in terms of his background (of which there is none from canon), but obviously the biggest tweak is bringing him back to life 400 years later-

for gallagher: no.... not yet. there is a chance i will once the story is complete, if i don't like the way something plays out or simply want to expand on something that happens or a piece of information we're given.

10. Would you say that your portrayal is canon divergent or not?

answered for wrio here.

for vautrin: again, this one is obvious. absolutely he's canon divergent.

for gallagher: and, again, not yet. i'm holding back on building too much for him until the story is done, bc i don't want to put work into something that turns out to be so wildly wrong that i'd have to scrap it and start over. but....... there's a chance he will be in future.

11. Are there some things you dislike about how the show/series/etc portray the character you have picked up? If so, what?

for wrio: not really, tbh. i like how he's portrayed & i love the little quirks to his personality.

for vautrin: again, i'm pretty happy with it. as i've said before, he's basically just a different flavour of wrio from another time, and whilst we don't get much of him from canon, i love what we do get.

for gallagher: for the moment, no. this may change in future-

12. What would you say is the most unique trait about your character?

answered for vautrin here.

for wrio: this one is really hard for me to answer, not gonna lie. my poor tired brain is struggling. but i guess if i was going to say anything, it'd probably be his capacity to care, to love, to trust even after everything he's been through.

for gallagher: his entire existence, i guess ??? i'd answer this more in depth but he's still a developing character dkflbgdfh

[ramblyngrobyn]

Juvenile (Pkmn/Prsk crossover) Prologue notes extended

Okay! So! This is the start of a little big something I've been sitting on for a while. For the last several months (since at least April 2023) I've been occasionally poking at this ever-expanding AU in my phone's notes, adding ideas for story beats and things to do with the characters and world. I always figured I wouldn't actually turn this into a real thing and figured I'd just keep it to my own imagination but the brainworms eventually won, so here I am!

Uh, so I don't know how "good" this is gonna be? Hell even this first chapter I'm already worried that maybe I tried to do too much at once. As I was writing a lot of extra ideas hit me for how I could better build this as a solid foundation of the rest of the story. I wanted every scene to like, matter, yknow? It might just straight up be too long! But any time I considered cutting a scene just to make things more brief I was like "no, no, I need that part". I could have also cut it into multiple chapters but it's the same amount of content so like, what would the point be. If you're wondering, the break points for a 3-chapter version of this would have been Mafuyu showing up at Kanade's place and Kanade seeing the others off at the train station.

Right off the bat, the prologue is a bit different tonally and I wanna talk about that. There's not a super high saturation of Pokemon stuff in this opening! I hope that isn't too weird considering this is a Pokemon AU! I wanted to ease Kanade into it before dropping her in the deep end for the last chunk. When the next chapter hits, we’ll be in full on Poke-mode. This chapter also has a handful of more serious moments, which is par for the course since y'know, Niigo. I actually cut out or edited some bleaker moments because I thought they felt out of place, lol. It's gonna get a lot more consistently lighthearted from here, I promise! (Mostly!)

I have the broad strokes of this story outlined, both in written notes and a map that I scribbled out. I don't have all the details in-between locked in, I'm being flexible there, but I know where I want this to go and generally speaking what I want to do with the whole cast.

I'm not aiming for anything super profound with this, and I have no practical experience in long-form storytelling. Hopefully that doesn't bite me in the butt too hard. Going forward, some chapters might end up being mostly choreographed action, some might be the characters sitting around talking for a few thousand words. At the end of the day, this is just me having fun with my favorite characters in one of my favorite fictional words. I'm trying to not think so hard that I corner myself.

On that note, I think it's worth noting up front that this is very much my version of these characters in my version of Unova. Not in a "my fic don't like don't read" kind of way but like... you might not agree with every choice?

For the most part character origins will have to be built from the ground up, though as you can see from this first chapter I've tried to keep bits and pieces from canon that I think naturally fit. Niigo's origin story is honestly pretty easy to write and intuit around considering they first met remotely. And while I did do a lot of expositing in this opening I think that instead of every character getting an airtight, perfectly laid out backstory, I'll leave some things to the imagination.

As far as the laws of the Pokemon universe goes, it probably goes without saying that I definitely won't be following strict rules from the games. Some Pokemon might end up learning moves that aren't in their learnset, for example (or at least, if they make sense for the Mon in question). Some moves and abilities might have their function tweaked for this context, or I might go for a different interpretation of how the move manifests physically. There’ll be Pokemon that have more than literally four moves. Stuff like that. I'm inserting some headcanons, some ideas that I think fill in gaps in the world building, and there'll be a lot of changes to the design of the world. I joke to myself that this is a "post-globalism Unova", because there's some locations that are really different, a couple totally original locations, and Pokemon here that don't show up in Pokemon BW/2. You could call it "anime logic" if you want, I just think loosening the rules makes things more interesting and fun to write and read. 

One more little nugget: In case you didn't recognize it, the title is from the Jin song made for the Project Voltage collab! It's my favorite song so far from the crossover, it makes me feel so many things. It just felt like a perfect fit for this story vibes-wise, as well as a fun coincidence since I’d been imagining Kanade with an Eevee for months beforehand.

I may run out of steam eventually, but I'm publishing this first chapter because I'm currently feeling fired up about it. Even if the current enthusiasm wanes over time this'll be here for me to poke with an update whenever I want.

I'd love for you to join me on this silly journey, and I hope you can enjoy it!

[wisteria-lodge]

snake primary (lion model?) + snake secondary (rapid fire bird model)

I am pretty sure I am a snake/snake sorting, with my primary (burned snake) as a rock solid certainty. I am not doing so well on figuring out how models work, and if I have them. It makes me doubt my secondary sometimes. Let me give you a few examples:

Last autumn, I was making a lot of soup from scratch. I started with recipes, but pretty soon I was just throwing things together.

Definitely sounds like an improvisational secondary.

(I'm a Badger secondary, and my baker friends make fun of me, because I treat recipes like spells I follow them so exactly. I only recently learned that the reason you put put in salt in water is to make it boil faster. I'd been doing it, but I might as well have been putting it in there to banish the bad spirits.)

But I always made sure I had some kind of home-made broth to hand, and some kind of soup magic stuff (heavy cream, milk, cream cheese, etc.)

This could be rapid-fire bird (or a rapid-fire bird model.) You feel comfortable improvising, but only because you already know a lot about soup.

I only went back to recipes when I wanted something new or specific. Then I went and posted a kind of improv instruction for soup making (take some meat, any meat, sear it and and pair with some veggies, any veggies, etc.).

So far, I'm agreeing with you. Improvisational secondary, maybe some kind of bird model to give extra structure and support.

I train new colleagues. When I start with a new group, I like to have all the prep-work done so I can concentrate on the social aspects and not get bogged down finding the right worksheets, or shit like that. I plan my first few words, and if there is no better opening, I use them and go from there. I have a general structure of what I want to teach them, what methods to use and in what order. It is adapted from experience, and the more rigid guidelines we are given by our client. I am constantly tweaking it when I'm not training. If I feel my group needs something different, I will abandon the plan, let them guide me on a detour, and bring them back when it feels right. Somehow, it still works out 95% of the time, especially now that I have found my confidence and know it works^^

This sounds exactly like how I teach. And for me, what is going on is the bird model prepwork making me comfortable enough to just vanish into my Courtier Badger. I've only recently been learning that I can... relax on the prep, a little. That sometimes too much prep gets me in my head, and sabotages me a little. Like I can just trust myself in the moment, and things work out just fine.

I have found the shc system a week ago, and I have been obsessed ever since. I got curious because a friend mentioned it. They were really into it, and I like sorting people if the system makes sense. I dug in, got hooked, and finally found words to describe everything I had figured out so painfully about myself in the last few years. Especially my snake primary was such a surprise and relief, let me tell you.

It's a good system. And it's... uniquely able to talk about certain kinds of things.

I am thinking there is at least some sort of bird model here, giving my improv some structure?

Took the words out of my mouth.

I was flirting with rapid fire bird as a secondary, but now I have put it into words, not a chance. I like my (contained) chaos too much^^

So far, I don't have too much to add. It's all very well laid out, and well understood. I do like the dramatic structure that happens when someone writes in convinced their a Lion and I start going into why they're actually a Snake but hey. This is nice. This is mellow.

Let's talk about badger secondary model instead. Just to get the elephant out of the room: I hate hard work, it feels slow, dull, and like there should be a better method somewhere. But I know that sometimes, you just have to do it if you want to build a reputation, or you know you need to rely on the goodwill of your community in the future.

This is so like... Rapid-fire bird processing Badger. Just the grudging respect of SURE badger secondary can be a useful tool I GUESS.

I feel awkward keeping shallow contact with my colleagues, I forget if they have kids, and I have been experimenting with discreetly taking notes on what they value.

This is so Bird.

It's not very successful because I can never remember them when it's necessary, so I nod and figure it out by asking "knowing seeming" questions, anyway.

This is so Snake.

What does resonate with me is the part of "becoming what they need" making myself into the tool I need, making myself seem reliable by being relatable. I mostly start a one-on-one conversation by mirroring the other person's mood.

Courtier Badger and Snake secondary can look very, very similar - especially from the outside. This right here could be a description of either.

It is only recently, and only with people I know well, that I have found the seductive power of railroading them instead. I can now cut short a friends whining by summarising what they're saying in a blunt and charming manner, and make them smile instead. Not always, but now I know it works, I use it more and more often.

... but this could only be Snake. Doing this sort of thing consciously and on purpose is so huge and so key. Courtier Badgers do have to believe it, and so they have a way of vanishing that Snake secondaries don't.

And I think I am exaggerating my "go and figure shc out, and be loud and open about it on tumblr" part, because it's what feels right at the moment, but also because the friend who got me into it is a burned lion secondary. They like me charging in, taking it for myself, and they admire anyone who can be honest and vulnerable in public.

Very Double Snake. Using a specific approach, specifically for your friend. Also you say your primary is burned... but I'm not getting burned primary from you. But you're also not really writing about your primary, so.

I guess I am making myself appealing, not just relatable like before.

What a perfect way of describing the difference between Snake and Badger secondaries.

Huh. Fading badger performance as snake gets confident? With another badger performance for work that I do grudgingly.

Performance is right. Just a shallow thing you wear over the top, that barely seems there anymore. You work like Bird, not a Badger.

Now lion. Well, lion is... difficult and easy at the same time? I have to take charge, be the boss, and make split-second, straightforward right-and-wrong decisions when I am leading my group: Call out anyone who doesn't play by the rules (though I usually don't care much if it is not annoying). Decide on, and hand out, the appropriate punishment for someone being late, again. Deal with brewing conflict in a head-on manner. But that is something I am still learning, and I am not very good at it.

Some of this is primary stuff - WHAT you do "be the boss, hand out punishments" versus HOW you do it. It's sounds to me like you're building a Lion primary model over your Snake primary, which is normal. Snakes with safe people almost always model something else. (And I already know you've got a friend that's a Lion primary... Snakes do like to match their People.)

It's possible that you're also building a Lion secondary model, or that one of your Snake secondary masks looks a little like a typical lion secondary, but my take is that most of this is coming from a primary model.

I tend to let conflicts slide, trusting they will work it out among themselves.

I feel that this speaks to the water-like nature of the Snake secondary, and a desire to always go around the problem.

or at least be professional about it and not bring it into the training. Definitely a lion performance here, and one I get frustrated with fast because I am not very good at it.

I have my lion moments, like I described with my way of being open and vulnerable about shc here on tumblr. But I wouldn't do it if it didn't feel right, or more specifically like something I need to heal and get better. I know I need to be vulnerable to heal, and it's relatively safe here, in the anonymity of my internet persona.

Hmm. Interesting. I'm not getting Lion from you... if this is a healing exercise, maybe you're practicing existing in your Neutral state?

I have to write it all out, and some of it just happen to come out as advice for other people's asks. It would be nice if I get some recognition for it in the community, and I love the fact that my friends reads it and tells me they like it.

My take on that sort of thing is going to be annoyingly Badger, so I apologize in advance. For me it's all about consistency. Lay a foundation and then build, one brick at a time.

Now that I have written it all out, I think it's probably the most snake way of arguing myself out of any secondary model I could come up with^^ I guess I don't have one, or if I do, I am dismantling it because I need things to be simple for a while. I am tempted to post this on my own blog, but I know it will get a bigger audience with you.

Yeah, no Lion secondary here.

and maybe help someone in a similar situation. So I will be patient, and I thank you for inviting us all to use you as a sounding board for our own shc issues. I have to stop going through your likes, I'm ruining my obsessive fangirl/shc vibes tumblr with beautiful rl-things and creative human interactions^^

I do what I can. I hope I help. :)

Thankyou, @sevilemar for the submission.

[alaskaayoungg15]

A little advice from a girl who changed her career

Switching careers can be challenging. I was in the same boat a couple of months back and I can tell you - it's terrifying. You have no clue which jobs match your skills, what is the interviewer going to ask, how long is the process going to last. Are you an imposter? Thousands of thoughts rushing through your mind and most of them are not very positive :(

Meanwhile, you are sick of your current job and desperately want to get out of your industry. You see no scope of learning, you're frustrated and can't seem to continue for another day. You're demotivated the whole time, bored, angry and confused about why you're feeling this way. Been there done that.

Somehow, you realize may be you're on the wrong career path. May be you've stopped growing. May be it's your saturation point. And the only way you're going to feel motivated again is when you try something new! Now you feel relieved. You are ready for the big change.

Then comes the big question - How the hell am I supposed to get out of my industry where I've spent all my life and do something different?

Well, the answer is simple. You CAN if you learn this one thing - Identify your skill set. What skills have you acquired in your experience. There are skills which are very specific to a certain kind of job and there are some which can be retrofitted for different job requirements. The former is going to land you a job which is related to your current field but the latter can make you flexible for different types of job roles. So, what exactly are these skills? Let's dive right in. 1. Writing: There are tons of jobs you can get if you're good at writing. Corporate communications, copywriting, social media marketing, marketing communications & more. All you need is a decent vocabulary and a bit of storytelling.

2. Speaking: Client servicing, sales, business development, journalism. If you can talk people into buying your product or service, you've got yourself a high paying job.

3. Project management

4. Marketing: Of course, I'm not talking about straightaway becoming the head of marketing or the VP. But social media, digital is the future. So, it's good idea to learn and do courses in this discipline.

5. Strategy: This is the best one. If you know how to build a strategy and framework around a product or service, you are never going to be jobless. Strategy is a skill which comes with experience. It's a highly satisfying job as it's literally the foundation of everything.

If you're even slightly good at any of these, tweak your resume in a way which highlights these skills, use them to your advantage. You can improvise and brush up later. See how best can you sell yourself and convince your interviewer how good a fit you would be if you were hired.

I did that and changed my career by just tweaking my resume and selling myself based on these skills.

Final notes - be passionate and flexible. Managers love people who are humble, adaptable and hungry to learn. Employers specifically dislike those who think they know it all, exude arrogance and seem rigid. Who are not good team players.

I hope somebody would benefit from this. I wish you all the best!

[writing-with-olive]

A starting place for self-editing your novel

I wrote this in a reblog to one of @boy-who-can-fly​‘s posts, but as I couldn’t add any tags to that that would make it findable to more than just my followers, I figured I’d make the same content in an original post because YAY TAGS!

Without further ado...

1) Take a break.

Some authors have suggested taking a break for six or so weeks, but I find anything longer than three makes me too distanced from my story, and I have to work a lot harder to get back into my protagonist’s head. During this break, don’t so much as look at your story. Instead, focus on something else. Maybe growing your author platform, planning or developing another wip, or researching the publishing industry if publishing is the end goal for your book (this goes for both traditional and self pub). The point of this is that without some distance, it’s going to be a lot harder to see larger developmental flaws.

(this is a very long post, so the rest of the steps are below the break)

2) The first read-through.

After your break has ended, and you’ve got to be a little stern with yourself not to extend it farther than what you set, or else you’ll never return to it, do a readthrough. This means either just reading it off you’re computer or kindle, or going to somewhere like staples and getting it printed and spiral bound (this costs money, but I found it helpful down the line). Two rules: 1) no editing. 2) look at the first rule. This read-through is going to help give you a general sense of what is and isn’t working in your book; the problems you notice here are likely going to be the biggest ones. (if you want, you can combine this step with step three, but I found it more helpful to keep them seperate)

3) Outline.

It doesn’t matter whether you outlined before, or whether you decided to pants it. By the time you get to editing, you need to have an outline that’s reflective of what you actually put on the page. Go through your story, chapter by chapter, and for each new scene write down

what is your character’s goal in this scene

what is standing in their way

what is the outcome of the scene.

This list should not go into depth; one short sentece per point, MAX. That being said, make sure to keep things specific, so “MC wants to convice X to go with them to Y.” is going to be a lot more useful to you later on than “MC tries to convince them to go.” This outline is going to help you objectively look at your story structure, as you can see a lot more of what’s happening at once, without being quite so overwhelmed by the sheer mass of the words you wrote. Yes, this step can be a bit tedious, but it is so, so worth it.

4) Sort out what you need to fix, aka start making a game plan for your edits.

Now that you’ve read through your wip at least once through, and probably twice, you probably have a pretty good idea of what you need to fix. The key here is that right now, you want to be fixing on the global edits - the things that span beyond just a single scene or chapter. The reason why is that you don’t want to be spending hours perfecting a scene that you’re just going to need to cut later because it doesn’t advance the plot.

In a new document or spreadsheet (whatever you think will work better for you, I liked using a google doc), write issues you see with:

Each of your main cast (regarding character development, motivations voice, etc)

Setting/s (consistancy, realism for your world)

General worldbuilding (consistancy, things poorly explained/set up)

Main plot (following a given plot structure, building tension, etc)

Each subplot (how it intertwines with the main plot, plot structure, building tension, etc)

Other major things you noticed during your readthroughs

These things tend to be larger scope, and generally are worth addressing first.

5) Picking your edit.

Look at the list of edits, and see which one is going to cause the most ripples through your story. This is going to be the first thing you look at to fix. If there are more than one edits that will all have major impacts on the story, think about which edit would make the other ones easier.

For example, in my wip, Project Toxin, my plot was, well, a trainwreck and a dumpster fire’s love child. But my characterization for my MC was also a wreck. Still, getting the overall plot more in order would make it easier for me to edit my MC, so I chose plot first.

6) Make a game plan for your edit.

Before diving in and ripping through your first draft, come up with a game plan. Brainstorm possible solutions to the edit you’ve chosen, and look at what ripples it would cause. You want to make sure that what route you take isn’t going to upset something major or crucial to your story. Most likely whatever solution you choose will cause some other upsets, so just make sure to think through what makes most sense for your story.

For example, when working on my story, I was fixing plot first. Figuring out my game plan meant looking at my scene list and moving things around/adding/cutting content until I had a plot that was much more satisfactory, and that was, in my mind, not a wreck.

Possible game plans for different types of edits:

1. Plot:

Look at your scene list. What helps to advance the plot? What is dragging the pacing. Are there any elements that you are adding or cutting in your overall story that need to be accounted for? With this in mind, cross out scenes that you want to cut, move scenes around that need to come in a different order, add scenes that need to be added, and mark scenes that need to be combined into one.

2. Characters:

For each of your characters, look at their character development. It’s going to be hard to make them come to life better on the page unless you’ve got a grasp of who they are, even if you didn’t plan them out originally. If you have not, consider listing in a spreadsheet or google doc what their backstory is, what their goals are, why they want those goals, and what a few of their strengths and weaknesses are. Also think about their voice: what words do they use more often? Sentence structures? What do they sound like when they’re talking? Stuff like that. If your character is inconsistant, pick one version of them that you want to follow (knowing that they will likely change over the course of the story), and look at what parts of them you will need to change to accomodate that.

3. Setting/Worldbuilding:

I’ve put these together here as they’re somewhat similar. For poorly explained aspects of worldbuilding, look at where you might add in little details so you can better set that foundation (this is not usually a global edit). If things are inconsistant, look at what makes the most sense for your story, and like what we talked about with characters, alter the rest to accomodate that.

7) Making edits.

This is where you really get to dig in and really move things around. Using the edit you’ve picked and the game plan you’ve developed, go through scene by scene and make the changes. I strongly recommend having a seperate doc from your rough draft to store your second draft in. Currently, my process is to have both open at the same time, and if a scene is already fine, I’ll just copy/paste it over. At least for me, however, it’s usually not, and I’ll either make tweaks to fix it up, or, more often at this early stage, I’ll rewrite it. As an added bonus, I also find that rewriting it makes my prose a lot stronger, since I’ve grown so much as a writer since I originally wrote the scene.

Since you know your story better, you may find other elements that you want to change are improving as you edit. If not though, don’t worry - they’ll get their own editing pass.

8) Repeat steps 5-7

You made a list of edits you needed to make back in step four. Now, follow steps 5-7 to make all of those edits and changes.

9) Repeat steps 2-8

Two steps telling you to repeat in a row? Yes. The deal now is that you want to make sure you’ve cleaned up any global edits before moving on to anything smaller. If you’ve been thourough thus far, this will be a very fast step. If not, think of this step as a safety net. There may have been ripples that you didn’t notice earlier on, and it’s a good thing you’re catching them now.

10) Chapter edits

At this point, we’ve cleaned up all the big edits. Now we’re going to look at each chapter. Within each chapter, there needs to be a mini-arc. A beginning, middle, and end. This is the time to really focus on that. Also focus on things like tightening up prose, combining or compressing paragraphs, making sure you’ve adequately set the scene, etc. If you’re over the word count limit regarding your genre, also focus on cutting a certain number of words from each chapter to put your story back within those limits.

11) The little things

This is about combing through your wip to find all of the little errors that have made their way through edits. Typos, weird or incorrect grammar, useless adverbs, things like that. At this point, everything is on a more superficial level.

Beta Readers

Given that this has gotten quite long, I’m not going to go in depth about beta readers here, but around step 10/11, you’re going to start recruiting beta readers (you’re going to want to try and have multiple rounds of somewhere around 10 betas each, which is why having a good author platform is useful: recruiting is easier). Between each round, you’re going to look at their feedback and make the necessary edits. After several rounds of beta readers, you’re going to look it over a few more times, and then if you’re going the traditional publishing route, you’re going to query agents. If you’re going the self-pub route you’re going to look to hire a professional editor. If you’re not looking to publish, this may be the end of the line.

Good luck editing!

[dearestones]

Any tips on how to write a good fanfic?? How do you do to write??

Hello, hello, hello! Thank you so much for your question!

Before I begin, always remember that rules for writing or any other form of art are not set in stone. There are many variables and situations where people can follow the rules, discard the rules, or simply bend and tweak them. If what I'm saying doesn't resonate with you, that's completely fine! Every writer is different and the methods that writers use will always differ and contradict each other so long as creativity and ingenuity still exist.

Anywhoozles, when writing anything, I think you should get the basics down. Basically, make sure you're well acquainted with what language you're using, the grammar and spelling of said language, and how you want to present your story.

Furthermore, you should also have a solid grasp on what fandom you're trying to write for. Are you trying to write for a certain character, fix a plot hole that irks you, or you want to write something that happens to take place in that universe? Make sure you do your research first (unless, of course it's an au or something close to that nature).

What I'm trying to say is that, form a foundation first before building your skyscraper. Once you have your foundation, you can move on to stories that are not only readable, but enjoyable as well.

Writing is a good way to practice your linguistic skills, but make sure whenever you're posting things for people to read, a lot of your readers will thank you if it's written in a way that is meant to be understood, and not just to astound.

When I was younger, I used the thesaurus A LOT. Generally, you don't need to use big or fancy words to illustrate a point, especially if you're writing for an audience that would be far used to language meant for the average person. HOWEVER, there may be times when it is appropriate to use terms or jargon that is far more suited to a niche audience.

This goes back to my previous tip: do your research first. Maybe the character you're writing for is L from Death Note or Dr. Stein from Soul Eater. Chances are, they might use terminology that might fly over the heads of most people (which is okay and completely in character for them!). Just be sure to not overdo it and if necessary, prepare a glossary of terms in an addendum at the end of the chapter or story. (Again, I like to reiterate, it all depends on context, rules can be broken, and every writer is different! Feel free to experiment!)

Know your audience and what genre of story you want to present. If you want to tell a humorous story, use words and phrases that elicit laughter. If you want to make a horror, be sure to use language that accurately depicts the situation. There's probably tons of posts that deal with this tip thoroughly, but the crux of it is this: use language that illustrates the tone, the theme, or the setting of what you want to display to the audience.

Another tip: show don't tell. This is actually something that I've seen time and time again on many blogs dedicated to writing fiction. To immerse your readers, you need to show them the setting, the characters, how their characters behave, etc. It can be hard, but try picturing your story in your head. Use your five senses: what can you see? hear? touch? taste? feel?

Instead of saying that a character felt cold say something like this: She shivered as she opened the door, the sudden gust of wintry wind blowing back her curly locks.

Again, tons of posts dedicated to this, but I would also like to say that sometimes you don't need show, don't tell. Sometimes, you have to tell the audience what's happening. This is dependent on context, pacing, etc. (Try to moderate between show and tell aspects of the story, but in general, if you want to immerse the readers in the story, use show. If you want the plot to move forward, move from showing and sprinkle in a little telling).

I actually have problems with pacing, hehehe.

Hmm, what else?

As for the things taken straight from the material you're working with... Let's play with the characters.

Research.

Characters, no matter the format (be it in visual or written form), will always have their specific traits, mannerisms, and behaviors. Do they curl their hair around their fingers when bored? Do they pace and fidget when bored? Do they have specific tics or an accent when speaking? What are they like?

Now, you don't always have to stick to canon traits. In certain circumstances, characters can evolve and form new behaviors and mannerisms. Perhaps you evolve your character from a shy person to one that has grown and had become braver. Maybe a villain becomes redeemed. How would that reflect on their personalities and their mannerisms? Their way of speaking, their thoughts?

When in doubt, try imagining how they would act and react in your head. If you can hear their voice and seemingly imagine them, then you might be on the right track.

Lastly...

HAVE FUN.

Seriously. There's no wrong or right way to write fanfiction. Write for fun. Write for yourself. Follow the rules, break the rules, make your own rules. As long as you're having fun, then do it! Don't be shy to post your work! Share your creativity with others! Trust me, you might be more talented than you think.

But above all else:

Write for yourself, but edit for your audience. :D

Thanks again for your question! I know it's a bit long, but I'm truly passionate over the art of creating fanfiction. If you have any more questions, feel free to ask or check out some famous writing blogs. There are a lot of resources: don't be afraid to reach out! Or experiment.

[thesevenseraphs]

[Bungie Weekly Update is pretty light today but has some neat tech info that makes me very excited for the future of Destiny. I am gonna just post that part here.]

TALKING TECH – PREPARING FOR BEYOND LIGHT

With Beyond Light on fast approach, it’s time to shift our TWAB gears a little. Today, we’ll be talking through some of the back-end changes that will be coming to Destiny 2 on November 10. To guide us through this process, we’re passing the mic to Destiny Engineering Director David Aldridge.

DAldridge:  When Destiny 2 launched three years ago, we had no idea that in 2020 we’d announce a new trilogy of expansions (among other 2020 surprises we didn’t anticipate).  At the time, we thought Destiny 2’s arc would look a lot more like Destiny 1 – a couple of expansions, and then a sequel.     We learned many lessons from the transition to Destiny 2, and from shipping Curse of Osiris, Warmind, Forsaken, the Year-2 Seasons, and Shadowkeep. When we evaluated those lessons, we decided not to pursue a Destiny 3, but instead to reinvest everything in Destiny 2 and make it all that it can be (check out our longer writeup on this choice here). To support that strategy, we’ve made several tech investments to help us sustainably evolve the game for years to come, and some of those investments are arriving in Beyond Light.

Many of these changes are under the hood and won’t affect your experience (except insofar as they help us deliver you more and better Destiny in the future), but some may result in neat improvements, curious behavior differences, or bugs. This means that, on November 10, some places and things will feel a little like Sliders (only 90s kids will get this), so we’d like to give you a rundown of some of the changes and possible side effects. 

We shifted our mission scripting model to run on the Physics Host instead of the Mission Host (more details on this split here, in the interview with Matt Segur). In the long run this change will give designers options to create more novel mission mechanics by giving the mission scripting environment full access to the game state, instead of the much more limited access the Mission Host had. For example, the Physics Host knows exactly where enemy combatants are and what actions they recently performed – while the Mission Host only knew how many combatants were alive in a squad and what that squad was generally trying to accomplish. In Beyond Light we’re only launching the foundations of this system, and we look forward to evolving and leveraging it in the future.

What you might notice:  

The new scripting environment changed many behaviors in complex ways, and you may see interesting behavior changes or bugs in pre-Beyond-Light missions (and public events, and similar) that were originally built and tested on the previous system.  We’ve tested these missions heavily and stamped out many bugs, but some will undoubtedly slip through. We’ll be monitoring and fixing remaining bugs over time. In some cases, these issues were more severe – for example, they caused the Prophecy dungeon to be unavailable temporarily. We’re all excited for its triumphant return, slated for the end of this year!

One other cool new feature in this area is face-to-face joins in social spaces, so you can now fireteam up with Tower friends without a long Tower reload!

We revamped our content building and patching pipeline for speed and install size. With the tremendous size of Destiny, our complete shippable content builds were frequently taking north of 24 hours. We made investments to bring that down to sub-12 hours, which resulted in a bunch of changes to our content and patching formats. We also took on work to allow us to cull content that we’ve upgraded or replaced – our previous patching system had limited capabilities here (due to trying to minimize patch sizes and other constraints), and the current Destiny 2 install has a significant amount of accreted ‘dead’ content (e.g. assets in the base install that were replaced in later patches). 

What you might notice:

Due to all these changes, Beyond Light will be a full re-download on all platforms – we know this will be painful for those with slower or metered internet connections, and we’re sorry about that. To help mitigate this, we’re planning to enable Beyond Light preloads sometime in the evening of November 9, Pacific Time, which should give everyone at least 10 hours to download before the gates open.

Destiny 2's install size shrinks by 30-40%: Due to a combination of culling unused or replaced content, install size optimizations, and moving some content to the Destiny Content Vault, Destiny 2’s install size will shrink to between 59 and 71GB (depending on platform), a reduction of 30 to 40%. These improvements should also help us control install size better in the coming years.  

We hope to use these much faster builds to accomplish two things:

Help us ship mission-critical fixes faster when game-breaking bugs arise.

Reduce our overall ship pipeline depth, enabling us to work on Destiny releases closer to their ship dates, so we can react to fresher information about what’s happening in the live game. For example, historically each of our Seasons has had to get deep into production before the preceding season launched, preventing us from reacting to learnings from that preceding season. These tech improvements should give us 1-2 more weeks of flexibility on a Seasonal scale, helping us pivot more quickly in some cases.

We rebuilt our character face system. We know that how your Guardians look is important to you, and we’ve long wanted to add more player customization to Destiny. Our original system for player faces had some combinatoric content authoring problems – for example, every decal had to be authored completely custom for each player face permutation. This prevented us from extending this area of the game with more content and features. We’ve upgraded to a significantly more capable system (with e.g. runtime decal projection), which we hope to leverage for more player customization options in the future. As part of this process we reviewed the existing player models with our Diversity Committee and Employee Resource Groups in the studio to make small tweaks to existing player heads. We’re also building a list of Guardian face shapes we should bring to the game in the future in order to increase Guardian diversity in Destiny, with the long-term goal of enabling everyone to imagine themselves as their Guardian.

What you might notice:

Your Guardian’s face may look a bit different.

We relit portions of EDZ and Nessus. During the early stages of Beyond Light production the Lighting and Skies teams had a desire to provide a visual refresh to the two remaining D2 Year 1 destinations, EDZ and Nessus, as they enter their fourth year in rotation. To that end, the teams performed relights and global lighting updates to a number of locations on both destinations.

What you might notice:

Different lighting on existing destinations! The changes are intentional and are meant to bring the visual quality of these spaces up to our current lighting standards, while providing a fresh coat of paint for some of our Year 1 locations. We hope you enjoy these updates to some familiar locations when you explore EDZ and Nessus this November.

[theyellmanfan]

Random hizashi headcanon??

hell yeah, here’s some off the top of my head!

under the cut bc I went absolutely hog wild.

- his radio show tends to get a lot of calls from villains and people in dangerous/bad situations, so there is a hired team of people to vet calls before they are allowed to air, and will redirect them when necessary. there is a team of crisis workers there to help people who are calling because they are in a hard place or at risk of hurting themselves, a team with the equipment necessary to trace calls in the case of villains, and his show is paired up with many local hero agencies and the police so that details about emergency situations can be sent to the right people as quickly as possible!

- he doesn’t actually do patrols due to the destructive nature of his quirk, it’s part of how he is able to balance 3 jobs, his hero work isn’t a part of his regular schedule. he’s just on call for more serious situations.

- he would be a high ranking hero if he didn’t spread himself so thin. he focuses so much on building the foundations of a more unified, better world for people to live in that things that would bring up his statistics tend to fall to the way side. he honestly doesn’t care as long as he’s popular enough for people to be interested in hearing his voice.

- he’s vegan! and before anyone says anything about his hero costume, environmentally friendly vegan leathers exist sdlfjsdf. idk I just see him as the type of person who is so passionate about wanting everything (people, society, the planet) to be better than it is presently that I can’t picture his values not bleeding into his personal life. I wouldn’t be surprised if every decision he makes has others or the greater good in mind, thus his decision to live a vegan lifestyle.

- he can’t cook for shit. he just doesn’t come across as someone who would have the patience/self control to follow a recipe. he would just randomly come across a spice while looking for the one the recipe called for and be like hM I love this flavour, I think I’ll add it! or, oh shoot the measuring cup is in the dishwasher... hmm this mug is probably about the same size, I’ll use it to measure this ingredient instead! and he ends up with an inedible dish by the end of it after all his little tweaks and mistakes.

- he hosts, makes appearances at, and contributes to charity events regularly. at least once a month, though he makes announcements for them and non profit organizations practically every show and over his social media pages daily.

- he was a gen ed transfer alongside Aizawa, as he didn’t have access to the equipment/facilities necessary to train his quirk before being admitted to UA and wasn’t able to destroy any robots without risking hurting other examinees. after getting in, as a student he had access to UA’s training grounds and honed his quirk with the help of Aizawa.

- his quirk doesn’t actually give him the ability to amplify sound waves, nor is it a mutation of the human vocal chords. theoretically, if he were producing sound waves that destructive, the vibrations would damage his body (not just his ears). instead, his quirk gives him the ability to manipulate the chemical composition of the atmosphere around him. depending on the medium you are in, sound travels differently, so he has been unknowingly just altering the atmosphere around him when using his quirk. if he knew this is what he was doing, his quirk would be a lot more powerful, as he could focus on increasing or decreasing the concentration of certain molecules to do much more (ex. increasing the atmospheric water content to produce and shoot water out of seemingly no where, lowering water content when underwater to produce a breathable bubble around his head, increasing the carbon dioxide content around a villain temporarily until they pass out for easy capture, lowering the content of toxic gases and other dangerous materials from the air, ect).

- he was raised as an only child by his grandmother.

- said grandmother was his biggest ally growing up, supporting him through everything unconditionally and with so much love. when he came out as bi/pan and nonbinary, she was the type of guardian to get one of those shirts that say I love my lgbt+ grandchild! her influence is part of the reason Hizashi conducts his hero work as he does, largely through advocacy and support, since he knows how much his own grandmother’s support helped him.

- he is the most outwardly spoken hero about social issues in japan, and is always the first to contribute and bring attention to causes. he will often use his radio show as a way to educate and inform the general public, bringing in actual experts on topics and those with experience to let their voices be heard.

- loves watching cartoons!

- he hates it when people make assumptions about who he is as a person and assume they know who he is and what he wants/thinks. and an extension of this, he hates when people treat him like a one-dimensional caricature instead of a person. though he has definitely used it to his advantage in his hero work, it still hurts him. think class clown stereotype amped up. he initially presented himself as the goofy, ditsy guy who would always be happy despite everything because he wanted more than anything to make people smile and make the world a better place, but when he was younger he didn’t know how he was supposed to do that. he resorted to allowing himself to be the person everyone laughed at, going out of his way to be ridiculous, and though it hurt, it was worth it to put a smile on their faces. as he got older, he didn’t know how to stop even after he had the presence and resources to make a positive difference through his careers, so the reputation kind of just stuck with him. Aizawa was the first person he figured out how to be himself around.

I feel like this all says a lot about how I see Hizashi’s character haha.

If people are just going to make fun of him for being loud and annoying, he’ll own it and be loud and annoying in a way that helps others!!

he’s a good boy and he’s only so angry and feral bc he’s sick of all the awful things in the world.

[javic-piotr-thane]

Torchwood Soho - the entire VORTEX article

TORCHWOOD HAS had the honour of being populated by larger than life characters over the years. We’ve met Captain Jack Harkness and Yvonne Hartman, plus Gwen Cooper, Toshiko Sato, Owen Harper and Susie Costello on television. And Big Finish has given us Mr Colchester, Ng and Orr – as well as the one and only Norton Folgate.

We had a glimpse of bygone Torchwood in 2018’s audio release, Goodbye Piccadilly, in which Norton dragged his friend Sergeant Andy Davidson back in time to Soho in the 1950s. And now we turn back the clock again to witness Norton accompanied by Andy in Torchwood Soho. Tom Price reprises his role as Andy, joining Samuel Barnett (Dirk Gently in the BBC series) as Norton. Gangsters are vanishing from the streets of Soho, there’s a deadly Nazi secret on the loose, and something’s moving in the smog. Norton Folgate should be sorting this out, but the Torchwood agent is in disgrace. Who’s going to save London this time?

Torchwood Soho – Parasite contains six stories: The Man From Room 13, Meet Mr Lyme, The Mould, The Spread, The Dead Hand and The Liberty of Norton Folgate.

Vortex asks writer/producer James Goss at what point did he think that Andy and Norton should get their own series? James explains: “Actually, everyone’s been so kind about the relationship between Norton and Andy, that it really didn’t take much arm-twisting to convince Big Finish to let us spend three blissful days in studio with Sam and Tom.

“The fabulous thing about Torchwood as a franchise is that it spans a huge period, and there are chunks of it that are just worth exploring. We vaguely glimpsed 1950s Torchwood in the Doctor Who TV episode, The Idiot’s Lantern, and this new release is a real peep under the murky, awful bonnet.”

James has been particularly pleased by the reception Norton has had from listeners: “Thrilled, blown away, boggled – and that’s just in reaction to some of the fan art on Tumblr! Seriously, it’s weird to have sort of created a Torchwood character that wasn’t on TV who the Big Finish listeners are dying to hear more of and who has a following of his own. I’d love to say it’s all down to the writing, but really it’s down to Sam’s performance and his rapport with Tom. They’re just audio magic, aren’t they?

“As it’s set in the 1950s, it was obvious to follow the rhythm of the Quatermass serials – so there are six half-hour episodes. And, in the tradition of Quatermass, we start out in an office and end with the world in peril.

“We get to see Norton hunting down alien artefacts stolen by Nazis, escaping from a timetravelling pub, and battling zombies in Margate. We get to meet Norton’s boss (played by Dervla Kirwan) and the hapless leader of Torchwood Soho (David Troughton) – who both share a terrible secret. And we get to discover why Torchwood hid the Skylon at the Festival of Britain. Norton’s also trying to avoid the attentions of a journalist (played by Joe Shire) who is determined to uncover what Torchwood is. Norton’s in a whole lot of trouble – and this time he needs Andy to help him.”

Scott Handcock has been responsible for directing the series. How did he find bringing this volume – effectively a period piece – to life? He grins: “Maybe it’s just because I’ve done a lot of Doctor Who, where you’re constantly flitting all over space and time, but I’m not sure I really register the difference! Obviously, you’re aware of the period and need to convey that in the world you build and characters you cast, but it’s the same approach as creating a civilisation of reptilian aliens in the far future. The script sets up the rules and everyone plays by them. If anything, period pieces are often a bit easier because everyone has a frame of reference. Though having said that, it also means you have to really do your homework.

“The 50s is a fascinating period. Yes, you have a bit more Received Pronunciation – especially with Norton, who throws in a dash of Polari every so often – but there’s a lovely mix of characters in this script, covering various classes and backgrounds. Belle Epoch (gloriously portrayed by Franchi Webb) is a character who you could probably only bring to life in this era. People own those identities more – a lot of them are hiding things and putting up barriers – which makes characters like Andy and Gideon more relatable as our identification figures.”

Tom Price is delighted that not only does Sergeant Andy continue to feature in Torchwood, but he’s also a series lead. He admits: “The listeners really like what Big Finish is doing with Torchwood, which means we can rock up and do more. It’s amazing that the world of Torchwood has been built on good foundations and we can keep adding to it.

“I watched The X Files back in the day, and Star Trek: The Next Generation, as they can reboot and keep going forever and ever. If something is built well, it will last, and that’s exactly what’s happening with Torchwood. It’s got a good engine, and you can tweak it here and there so we can take the cast and put them into a new setting.

“Norton is such a great personality – he was never on TV and I think Sam Barnett is slightly annoyed about that! Characters like him have just got that thing, where they’re big and funny and very memorable.

“I love our team of Scott and James. James is a magnificent writer – he has such a brilliant ear for a story and putting these worlds together. If he was writing music he would be Guy Chambers! And Scott understands the characters better than you or I do. A lot of directors throw way too much stuff at you, but Scott has a good hand on the tiller and will give you a couple of points that can change your performance. I just love going into this created world, and having such fun.”

SCOTT ENJOYS the dynamic between Sam and Tom, in particular. He says: “I think it’s fair to say that Sam and Tom hit it off instantly. Even before Ghost Mission (their first Torchwood together), they met at the recording of Doctor Who: Nightshade and it was clear they enjoyed working together – and that’s only grown the more we’ve done. There’s a shorthand between them that comes from having recorded a lot together, and that trust means they can push the material further. It also means when we get new characters coming in, and the actors see what Sam and Tom are bringing to it, they relax and feel able to give that little bit extra, which is kind of what you need when you’re projecting an entire performance through your voice.”

Scott adds: “It’s a lovely change of pace for Torchwood. I remember the old BBC Sexton Blake dramas, and that slightly pulpy, serialised style they had, so when James first mooted this I suggested we do it as a six-part serial of half-hour episodes. It moves along at one hell of a lick! And as always with James’s scripts, the humour is contrasted with some genuine horror and drama. It’s a really strong character piece and, as a director, has some fantastic set pieces that test you as you leap around the schedule. One of the biggest highlights was getting Dervla Kirwan in to play Lizbeth Heyhoe. She fell in love with the script and said it’s absolutely the kind of part she’d never get seen for on screen – and we just had an absolute blast. It was our first Big Finish together, though obviously when I had to recast Miss Quill in Class, she was my immediate first choice. She’s simply amazing. The entire cast just got it…”

And James concludes: “Honestly, it was just three days of bliss in a studio with a great set of actors.” VORTEX

[maxparkhurst]

How did you create your characters? What was your process?

TMI Tuesday:  How did you create your characters? What was your process?

// <offers out a chair> You’re going to want to sit for this. It’s going to be a LONG story. For those who’re looking for a short answer: I’m actually in the middle of creating these two. Edits and tweaks are always being made to make them appear real and true. And it’s thanks to everyone on here and in-game that they’ve progressed so much. 

Now for the long version. 

<buckles seat belt> 

Evolving as an Author:

Maxinora and Augustine Parkhurst are a culmination of ideas inspired by a myriad of things. The process of creating them isn’t linear. It has a lot of pit falls, unexpected twists and turns, and a ton of hills. To understand how we got the current versions of these two, we need to go back a couple years ago. 

It’s the summer of 2012. In efforts to get me off of his account, my Dad gifted me my own. This was when I made my first ever serious roleplay character- a hunter named Evelon Holmwood. Well, at the time I spelled it like Evavllyn but...Yeah. We’re going to gloss over that fact. Now, Eve was my pride and joy for the last several years. I played this character nonstop, refusing to play or write about anyone else. In retrospect, I used this character more as therapy than anything of creative merit. 

Eve’s story was basic at best. But I got better with story-telling the older I got. Unfortunately, her story got so convoluted that I had hard time salvaging anything from it. Now, you’re probably asking: How does this relate to Max? Fear not. I’m getting there. It was around this existential crisis that a mutual friend of my boyfriend and I convinced us to leave WoW and hop on SWTOR. My boyfriend was more than eager to make the switch but I was skeptical. Leaving WoW meant leaving Eve. And was I ready for that? 

He assured me I was and helped me make a character on SWTOR. This was the first iteration of Max. A bounty hunter from Nar’Shadda named Maxinora Fenrik. My intentions was to make her a lowkey copy of Eve. At this time, I wasn’t very confident in my writing abilities and liked to stay in my lane. But, the more I roleplayed this character the more she took on a life of her own. She evolved past Eve and exceeded my expectations. Playing a new character bolstered my confidence and while I no longer play SWTOR -due to OOC reasons- I still have fond memories with this character. I enjoyed this character so much that I reused several components of her design when making Max. Some which include her name and being blind in one eye. 

I flipped between the MMOs when Legion dropped. Expenses started to pile up and between the two subscriptions I didn’t have the time to play both. In the end, WoW won my affection and I made a Blood Elf because I had friends on Horde Side. Rorien Hawkthorne was her name. A drunk artist and master assassin. She’d be the second iteration of Max. She had an older sister complex, an affinity for being melancholy, and it was my first experience with playing a character who could kept secrets- or tried to at least. Another new character under the belt and I was feeling a little more confident in my story telling abilities. I’d probably would’ve kept playing that character if not for OOC drama happening in a guild I was in. The fallout had me jump back to the Alliance where I indulged in creature comforts. It was back to Eve. 

Tumblr made an entrance in my life around then as I ventured forth with a refreshed look on my hunter. I salvaged what I could and made a half-decent story. A lot of her misadventures are still posted up on her blog @evelonholmwood​ On the side I made the third iteration of Max. A fire mage and blacksmith combo by the name of Rowan Celwick with her younger brother Thomas Celwick.  They were just two orphaned kids trying to make a life in Stormwind. Rowan was an arcane drop-out and blacksmith wannabe and Thomas...Was...Well? Thomas? A glorified side-piece? A way to garner pity for Rowan. I didn’t place a lot of emphasis on them or their characters. My main focus was Eve. But these two would be the underlying foundation of Max and Auggie’s characters. 

I eventually took a hiatus from WoW and focused on more personal writing. The details are boring so I’ll gloss over it by saying that creating a character completely from scratch was the final push in the right direction for me. Fast forward several months to a year aaaaaand BOOM! Pandemic. 

Writing is an escape for me. It’s one of my best coping mechanisms during trying times. And when nothing else works, I over indulge in some Warcraft. So, I resubbed. There was hesitance when re-entering the RP scene. I didn’t leave Eve’s story off on an convenient note. For lack of better phrasing, I wrote myself into a hole I couldn’t get out of. So, with the help of my boyfriend, I decided it was time to give Eve her happy ending and shelf her for good. 

Which put me in a dilemma! Who was I going to RP? Well, you remember the Celwicks? They became my newest project. 

The Creative Process: 

I knew the Celwick story was weak and read much like a middle-school fanfiction. Revising was a must. But there were integral pieces to their story which I enjoyed: 

Familial Sacrifice 

Juxtaposing concepts

Intertwined Fates

These were themes I could work with and evolve. Keeping these in mind, I started to deconstruct the Celwick story line. They were no longer Gilnean but Kul’tiran. This prompted a name change from Celwick to Parkhurst. And I won’t lie, I like the sound of Parkhurst better than Celwick. Thomas became Augustine and Rowan became Maxinora (Mainly because I actually HAD the name Maxinora and not Rowan). The little changes got me hyped for the characters. 

Next, I started to trim away the unnecessary details that bogged down the narrative. Things that either didn’t fit or made the timeline too convoluted were replaced. Pyromancy was a great example. The age I wanted Max to be wouldn’t yield to her understanding of Pyromancy. At least, not to the level I WANTED it to be. SO, I turned it into lament’s magic. Alchemy. (I also always wanted to play an alchemist since watching FMA) 

A girl with two professions seemed excessive as well. I had to look at why I wanted her to be both an Alchemist and a Blacksmith. The answer was simple. I just liked the juxtaposition of an intelligent woman being rough and tumble. Which made me ask: Was Blacksmithing necessary to achieve that imagine? The answer was no. To pay respect to her previous iteration, I made their parents blacksmiths. It also let me keep themes of fire in her concept. The change in profession brought on a change in her appearance. I made her a little more slender to fit with the alchemist appeal. 

Max’s aesthetic was brought on by my previous characters.  Rorien inspired more internal facets of Max while Fenrik inspired outward appearances. Max’s auburn was strictly a decision made on the fact that I had one too many character’s with black hair. There wasn’t any other reason for it. 

Designing Max was easy. The real challenge was with Augustine. Up until that point, all I had to go on for his character was Tommy Celwick and...Well. There wasn’t a lot there. He wasn’t much more than a poorly used trope and I considered doing away with him all together. But I realized that I REALLY liked the trope and I liked what he did for Max’s character.  So, I buckled down and made myself think through all the reasons why Thomas Celwick -AKA Augustine Parkhust- needed to exist. 

I decided that I needed him in order to present themes in Max’s story. He was the foil to her character. Cynic older sister? Meet optimistic brother. He also appealed to not only the three themes listed above, but also the newest one I wanted to explore: two sides of the same coin. Max and Augustine are simultaneously the same, having similar traumas, and yet different. If for nothing else, Augustine could help propel Max in the right direction. Be her moral compass, you know? With a bit of half-assing here and there, I managed to get a decent character out of Augustine. Took the cliche nerdy brother idea, physical design and all, and ran with it. Shortly after I  made their Tumblr account. In no way did I expect this BOY to take on a life of his own. Like, Auggie knocked on my brain’s door and was like, “Yeah. No. I’m not a side character. Give me my own story...” 

Which will bring me into my final point! 

The Characters Write Their Own Story: 

I’ve never been able to sit down and plan a story. My mind doesn’t work in such a structured fashion. It wanders and explores. When I’m creating, I’m watching. Watching the scenes play out before my eyes as these characters take what I’ve given them and grow into something almost independent of me. The basic pieces of Max and Auggie’s back story, along with character design, were purposeful. Yes. But everything that came after was THEM.

It’s cliche, I know, but I can’t describe this experience any other way. These two grew outside of my influence and now dominate a space in my brain. They talk, work, and interact without me. I mean...Not REALLY. But...It feels like that. It feels I’m watching through a keyhole and just recording what I see as their story plays out. 

I guess a better analogy is me being the director. I’m watching the movie in the stands as two actors improv. On good days, I’m in control and rework scenes until I’m satisfied with the results. Try this. Move here. Say this. On bad days, I don’t see anything. My actors went home. The lights are off. Show’s cancelled for the day. These days make me sad...But they’re worth it because on the BEST days...The best days Max and Auggie run the whole show, and I am watching through the keyhole as their story unfolds little by little. 

It’s truly magical. 

The last part of their creation was the voice. Character voice, for me, is like building muscle. You need to work out. Start small and work your way up in weight. Every little piece I wrote made their voices stronger; and that’s including asks and threads. Interacting with other characters helped to flesh them out as people. And while it was hard and intimidating at first, it’s started to become easier. 

Wrap-Up

My method is messy and untrained. I don’t claim to have any secrets. My knowledge of writing is mediocre at best. But I’m having fun. And that’s were the real magic of any character comes in. Fun. Because if you aren’t writing about something that sparks your soul- either with love, happiness, hatred, etc- then it’s nothing more than a forced, hollow husk. Writing is meant to evoke emotion. At least in mind. And want to express complex emotions and share them. In a perfect world? My characters -any of my characters- resonates with someone. They become the escape someone needed. That’s the ultimate goal. 

It’s thanks to all of you that Max and Auggie have come this far. It’s from their interactions with others that they’ve managed to evolve into something incredible- especially Augustine. He just kept shining brighter and brighter until I felt obligated to make him an in-game character. So, you all are just as much a part in the creative process as me. Thank you! 

And a special thanks to my boyfriend for always being a sound board for my rambling ass <3 

THANK YOU FOR THE ASK, ANON! Sorry I posted an essay...<3 

[lady-miya]

Paradox Live

With all the “Paradox Live Opening Show” songs released on YouTube I wanted to write another post with my updated thoughts. If you would like to read my previous thoughts from before they released the full songs, I’ll add a link here. [x]

Starting off with BAE’s “BaNG!!!”, I think it’s a nice song to introduce people to what パラライ (ParaLive) is. This song introduces us to the characters and what they think of themselves. They make it clear that they see themselves as a group that’s ranked at the top. The song also reveals a little bit of their group dynamic showing with how they split the verses among themselves.

Yeon Hajun starts off strong. It’s awesome that he raps in three different languages. That’s versatile and unique to this group. I love how hyped Allen Sugasano sounds when he’s the one rapping. He builds on what Yeon laid down for the foundation of the song, and it works wonderfully. When Anne Faulkner begins, they take the sound to a different direction, almost as if they’re trying to bring us back down to where we started. The twist is that they do what Yeon and Allen did together: lay a foundation and build it up. This helps the song enter the chorus once again. It almost seems like Anne is their group’s trump card. Their solo part is nice and smooth, and it really works to balance their sound. Overall, their song was great.

Moving forward onto The Cat’s Whiskers’ “MASTER OF MUSIC”, I cannot believe they’re seriously meowing in their song. Unlike, BAE’s song I couldn’t really understand much of their lines and honestly, I did not want to try. I still don’t understand much of their group and its dynamics.

The song begins with some beautiful piano scales and it sounds lovely and jazzy. There’s not much I can say about Naoakira Saimon. He does his part and raps along to it. It doesn’t feel out of place, but at the same time it didn’t feel like it fit into the song. However, when Shiki Ando did his part, the lightness of his voice and the flow merged perfectly and sounded great. I think his part was the strongest in the entire song. He felt reminiscent of Doppo Kannonzaka from Hypnosis Microphone (yet again). Yohei Kanbayashi’s part felt like he was just throwing words in my direction and I didn’t really know what to do with what I was hearing. I was trying to take them in, but I was just sitting there confused. 

I think the same can be said about Ryu Natsume’s part. Personally, I found it hard to listen to his part because of how high his voice was in comparison to everybody else’s. When he sang in a much lower voice, I think it worked better for the song. I think their song needs some tweaks for there to be a better flow. Overall, it’s not favourite, and I’m a little disappointed especially given that I was excited to hear a hip-hop and jazz fusion. I stand by what I said previously, this is the weakest group.

Next is cozmez’s “Where They At”. This is such a good song to bop along to. Like I said in my previous post, this is a song I can hear at a club or the radio and want to dance along to. This song also does a good job at showing the bond between these brothers.

We already knew that Kanata and Nayuta Yatonokami were close to each, but their voices blend well together which implies they spend time together and know what works for each other. Their voices also bounce of each other when it’s their solo part. They work to fill the gaps that the other leaves behind and this creates a full sound. When I say gaps though, I don’t mean gaping holes where there needs to be major work done to fill it, but something more along the lines of passing the baton back and forth between each other and knowing when to work together. I don’t have much else to add because they really did deliver when it came to their music. Overall, I’d say this was a solid release, especially after the letdown from The Cat’s Whiskers. Great work cozmez, great work.

Finally, we get to Akkan Yatsura (悪漢奴等 | AKYR) and their song “BAD BOYZ -悪漢奴等 Underground-”. I think out of all the groups their song was the strongest. I may not understand their dynamic too much, but it’s clear that the five of them consider each other family, and I am here to support that.

They start of with their Caribbean-esque beat which is banging. It jumps straight into their chorus and that energy carries throughout the rest of the song. From Satsuki Ito to Iori Suiseki to Zen Gaho, their energy was super upbeat. The sound changes a little when it’s the back and forth between Reo Maruyama and Hokusai Masaki and that’s probably because of their voices being higher or deeper than the other three members, but it was a fun little shift in the sound. Unlike The Cat’s Whiskers, the shift in sound wasn’t awkward or misplaced. If anything, it added a little more character to their song. Overall, I think out of all the songs, theirs is my favourite. Also, out of all the groups, I find that AKYR has three solid rappers.;

As it stands I think my current ranking for the groups is something like:

AKYR

cozmez

BAE

The Cat’s Whiskers

Now something that I found a little annoying about the first three groups is that their videos on YouTube are all in 480p—AKYR’s is in 1080p. I want to know why that’s the case. AVEX should really fix that. It’s almost 2020, how is the highest setting for those first three groups still 480p?

Anyway, what are your thoughts? 

[laughawayeternity]

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[roll-for-world-building]

The choice of a familiar’s form is not necessarily a permanent decision; the wizard can change it as many times as they like simply by casting the spell again. Whether or not it is considered acceptable to do so, however, varies considerably among different traditions. Some wizards change the form of their familiars frequently and casually (or as casually as one can do anything that requires an hour-long ritual); others will only do so under specific circumstances, and some believe it should never be done at all.

Wavesinger wizards—who, in common with the culture their order arose from, place a great deal of importance in luck and superstition--believe that one’s familiar should be in the form determined by the star sign the wizard was born under, and that to change a familiar out of this form is not only terribly bad luck, but will put the wizard out of sync with the natural rhythm and cause their magic to be less effective. Wizards of the Wheelstar have a similar outlook: to change a familiar from the form that was divined for them is akin to going against the path of fate, something anathema to the entire belief system of the order. The only exception to this is if the wizard’s fate itself is changed, something that is only believed to happen to a person under very rare circumstances, such as dying and being resurrected.

Among other orders the obstacle to changing a familiar’s form is less a matter of fate and luck and more a question of societal taboos. For orders in which a familiar’s form is indicative of something about the wizard, it is only considered acceptable for the wizard to change their familiar if their status has likewise changed. A drow wizard, for example, would change their familiar if they became part of a new house, or ascended from a junior page in the clergy to a full priest, but to change it without an accompanying change in social position would be extremely taboo. (Which is not to say no drow wizard has ever done so for reasons of subterfuge or general sneakery, but they would be risking serious consequences if caught.) Among dwarves, changing a familiar’s form from the one decided upon by the wizard’s mentor or elders is considered to be flaunting the wisdom and guidance of those elders, an act of disrespect that is a serious transgression in dwarven society.

Other cultures are rather more flexible on the matter. For orc wizards, the form of a familiar has great symbolic significance, but not one that reflects anything about the wizard themselves. Rather, the form is a way of invoking the qualities of one of the great orc heroes, and asking for their favor and guidance. An orc wizard will therefore change the form of their familiar if they feel they will need the assistance of a different hero for the coming situation. For example, a wizard who is preparing to travel through an unknown and treacherous forest might change their familiar into the shape of a dog to invoke the steadfastness and keen senses of Kyanygach the Tracker, while one about to enter a contest of chance might choose a cat form in the hopes that Njatchka the Trickster will favor them with her luck and wit.

For some it is simply a matter of practicality. Halfling wizards, ever practically-minded, will change their familiar’s form whenever it is useful to do so. Many halfling wizards use their art in service of their community, with the result that they must respond to a variety of situations, and thus often find it a very useful aid to be able to change the shape of their familiar. Such a wizard might, for example, have their familiar take the shape of a soft cuddly cat to soothe a sick child while treating them, then return to their study and re-summon their familiar in the shape of a mole to help examine the foundations of a building for damage after a storm. Other wizards are often shocked at how frequently and casually halfling wizards re-form their familiars, but halfling wizardry, like most halfling arts, is a patient and practical business which thinks little of spending three or four hours a day casting and re-casting the same spell if necessary. Things take as long as they take, after all, and if it’s a worthy job then it’s the worth the time and no sense rushing to the end.

Other wizards might change the form of their familiar simply because they want to. Gnome wizards in particular are prone to re-casting the spell just to tweak their familiar’s appearance slightly or perhaps make it a different breed or variant of the species it already was. There are also a few wizards who keep the much rarer practice of only changing a familiar’s form when the familiar themselves expresses a desire for it.