#and a huge part of staying up and meshing with the community

[rin-and-jade]

Who am I.. : A post about being blurry

I got a few things to talk about here, while some of you are already aware of its struggles and have experiences around it, i’d love to add on more about this (it’s a long post) so don’t mind if i do;

To reiterate, being blurry means you’re in a moment where identifying who is out (at front) and who is currently talking (in co-con) takes huge effort or near to impossible in resolving this cloudy situation,, as well as having hazy + worser memory and lastly, bad internal communication that may occur.

There are some factors that are not limited to:

Exposed to stressors

Exhaustion

Lacking restful sleep

Dissociative mechanisms

Being overwhelmed

etc..

People may have different tolerance level and frequency that also could be out of natural reasons and lifestyles (as well as periods of alertness, yes, it shifts in different hours of the day), when having this once in a while its not a prob at all.. but what if it became more frequent than usual? Do you know what to do? If you do please reblog your own approach so it can help others. And for those who don’t i do have my own and i’ll give some of my approaches after i tell some potential effects that can happen when being blurry:

Having inconsistency in portraying outside

Dealing with confusion, can cause conflicts inside

Harder time in deciding or responding

Trouble around communicating with parts effectively and clearly

Memory gaps and losing track of time

These things aren't lovely, not even a bit.. so i have two ways to deal with it depending on context and situation,, Solve or Adapt. Solve is where you want to end the blurriness for good and Adapt is when Solve does not work or can’t be bothered to at first place.

Choosing Solve:

Using list of alters (especially pk bot) and go through each of them, seeing which one resonates.

Same thing but with music, make sure its the songs you know they (your other parts) listen to or from the provided playlist already.

Pay attention to a distinctive trait that pops out from all the meshed stuffs going on (specific way of talking or thinking or vibes, anything else)

Think of what clothing style you’d like to wear? Then check that with who would dress like that.

Choosing Adapt:

Give up with demanding tasks (unless if it’s important, just use your energy efficiently) and consider relaxing. This helps keeping mental load at bay.

Feeling unsure about who you are can be uncomfy, doing some comfort activities might do the trick.

Prepare a notes app and jot everything down to keep track of chores or work to do or remembering important things, don’t take it lightly because memory won’t be as helpful as usual.

Keep workload and stress at minimum, if it can be done later then put it aside, if not,, try breaking it to easier bits and commit to it with breaks if needed.

Last thing i want to tell is that I’ve seen my friends being blurry but not wanting to resolve it either due to not having enough mental capacity to deal with that, or having brain fog which makes it harder, or having way too much overlapping traits/identities that is beyond confusing which demotivated them, or not cut for it due to not enough understanding yourself/others to discern at the first place.. and thats okay, because im here if you need some help (or you can ask your trusted friend) and i hope this post is informative, stay slay guys.

- j

[god-has-entered-my-body]

🌹🎒for mpind matty

-b / haveyouseenherlately :)

(rose) What does your character find attractive in other people?

both you and matty are very similar, so i reckon he does search for himself in other people. Outgoing, risqué, fun, and definitely more on the extroverted side. Emotional intelligence is something Matty values in a partner, communication being a huge factor for him especially with the kinks the two of you engage in. You're his first proper relationship, and he's yours (apart from phillip, but we don't talk about phillip.), so it's a lot of exploration and both of you make tons of mistakes along the way. Of course, you kiss and make up, the inability to stay mad at each other working in your favor xx mpind girlie is very grungy, think ripped tights and oversized thrift store sweaters (before it was cool), baggy jeans and tight, mesh tops. Matty loves how you dress, mirroring your outfits most of the time, the two of you sharing almost all of your wardrobe. It's part of the reason why he's attracted to you, which might sound a bit vain but its just the way he is.

(backpack) What items does your character usually carry? Do they have a bag?

Matty is chronically under packed for quite literally anything. You're the complete opposite, your seemingly bottomless pit of a purse housing everything from makeup to a spare shirt, endless lighters, crumpled up packets of cigarettes, rolling papers, a book (?), Matty's cd's (metallica, weirdly enough), an untouched packet of cigarettes, hair clips, and even a small travel sized bottle of lube Matty had managed to sneak into the internal pocket Eventually, he does get himself a bag, specifically a massive green GG&L purse with all the buckles and chains you could ever dream of. He loves that bag with all his heart, attaching even more accessories to it and filling it with useless stuff he shouldnt actually need, but still brings with him. That includes not one but two mp3 players, a small box full of rings that are either too big or too small (for "good luck"), tampons (the one thing thats actually saved your life, thanks matty xx), a full sized palette of eyeshadow (literally 24 shades, and for what??? he only really wears blueish-purple shades anyway, making most of it useless), and about six thousand markers to draw on every available surface in the city, despite your protests. He likes to mindlessly doodle on benches and lamp posts whenever you stop somewhere, ignoring the fact that he's vandalising public property (you can only really giggle at the cocks he draws across the metal railing of a park bench, adding detailed ball hairs as he cheekily looks up to see your reaction, cracking a proud smile)

[meanderful]

It Was Manta Be…

Jo is in the building!

Welcome to the Jo-takeover! This is the part of the blog where Helen wisely decides the readers need a new perspective (hence the sisterly takeover), which, by happy coincidence, also means she gets a journalling break. So let’s pick up from where she last left…

At late notice, I decided to join Helen and Sam for a few weeks on their travels and so it was that on New Year’s Eve, I flew over most of Asia to head to the eastern most part of Indonesia—Papua. Indonesia is a vast country, so even from the capital, Jakarta, it was a four hour flight to reach our meeting point in the city of Sorong. I exited the airport in the early morning of 2nd January at the exact moment Helen and Sam stepped out of a taxi to pick me up and sweep me away to their hotel. There I met Etienne, a Swiss traveller who had been on the liveaboard with Helen and Sam and would be joining us for the next leg of the trip. Both Helen and Etienne had health issues on the liveaboard that meant they couldn’t fully dive, so the plan was to head back into Raja Ampat, with myself in tow, to absorb the underwater world.  Sam unfortunately still had his ear problems and so would be snorkelling the waters.

From Sorong, the onwards journey involved a 2-hour ferry, followed by a 1-hour boat ride—plenty of time for me to observe the sad amount of plastic debris floating in the water in this otherwise tranquil and remote setting. Eventually we reached our base for the next ten days—a group of huts built on a random strip of bare sand in the Indo-Pacific Ocean.

Photos Above: dive team ferry crossing; speed boat to our destination

The accommodation was very basic (the most basic Helen and Sam had yet to contend with) with a grass-thatched roof that leaked during the nightly thunderstorms and a bathroom in a separate building with a leaky pipe and distinct lack of flushing toilet. But it had a veranda with a full ocean view in front and a jungle full of lively bird calls behind. All that was missing was a hammock; within one day of being on the island I had successfully negotiated the use of the spare one from the local Divemaster trainee. We hung it up in the communal space, and with that I was declared the best sister-not-in-law around. Also quintessential for our stay turned out to be the vegan chocolate spread Sam picked up in a supermarket in Sorong –a ‘lifesaver’ (Etienne’s words) to accompany the breakfast of fried bananas, occasionally served on top of boiled bananas with a side of fresh banana (safe to say, the vegan memo was picked up by our hosts).

Photos Above: our bungalows; the dining 'room'; morning swim; golden hour

Diving Raja Ampat

We were quick to acquaint ourselves with the underwater world of Raja Ampat, which it’s fair to say, was absolutely drop dead stunning. The coral was colourful and abundant and life teamed everywhere you looked—not that I always found it easy to spot.

There were tiny pygmy seahorses the size of my fingernail and so camouflaged I could barely make them out against the pink coral. And there was a turtle sat under a rock, so big that Helen had to point twice before my vision was able to zoom out and absorb the scale of the creature. We saw electric clams flashing our torchlight back at us, and colourful urchins bimbling along on the sandy bottom. Tiny octopuses buried themselves in the sand, and orangutan crabs with spindly legs and covered in orange fluff wound themselves through the coral mesh. Black- and white-tipped reef sharks flitted in and out of the murky blue depths and two mobula rays flew overhead, silhouetted against the light of the surface. A bizarre looking wobbegong shark, looking like it’d been squashed by a roller, rested on a huge fan of coral. Huge shoals of fish encircled us as we hung weightless above the reef, watching the many individuals acting as one glittering mass.

Video Above: a few videographic snapshots of our (mindblowingly incredible) time in Raja Ampat, with huge thank yous to Etienne Cristini and Mario Kakante for letting us use their footage! And for being generally excellent humans. Music is "Daydream - Dance Remix" by Ash.

On one dive, I heard the urgent metallic tapping sound of Mario our dive guide tank-banging to get our attention, and looked over to see him literally dancing underwater—he had found a rare frogfish, coloured pink and green (and looking very much like coral to me), resting next to the reef.

Photos Above: sisterly diving; coffee time during a surface interval; after a great dive; diving boat team; one of Raja Ampat's small villages

For those on Instagram looking to get an artistic flavour of diving Raja Ampt, I recommend Etienne’s excellent reel.

Is this the Real Life, or is this Just Mantasea?

The absolutely pinnacle of diving Raja Ampat had to be the mantastic moments with the glorious Reef Manta Rays.

My first interaction with them was on my second day of diving and involved dropping into the water on a section of reef called Manta Ridge—a cleaning station that mantas regularly drop by so that the fish that live on the reef can clean the manta’s skin. Once in the water there was a fair current, so we hooked into the rock and floated in place watching as a couple of mantas swept by us, one coming so close to me that I could feel its eye keenly observing and sizing me up.

A week later, feeling much more au fait with this whole diving thing, I requested a trip back to the mantas to absorb even more of them. Little could we imagine what waited for us.

Due to tidal patterns, we set off from the dive centre at lunchtime (an odd time to be heading out diving—normally you set off very early to be in for a chance at seeing mantas). Out in the water near Manta Ridge, we spot a few manta wingtips cresting the waves. We casually looked over—we’re in manta land so we expected to see a few on the surface. But, the more we looked, the more wingtips we saw. Was that 20, 30 mantas grouping together? Surely not, there would be no reason for them to be in a train like this. But there they were! Although itching to be in the water, we couldn’t dive in as they were swimming over deep blue through a strong current—a dangerous (and illogical) place to dive. Instead, we scrambled to put our masks and fins on and leapt into the water to float on the surface at the side of the manta train to watch many, so many mantas gliding in front, around and under us. I will happily admit I completely lost my shit at this point. I watched the back of two beasts receding into the blue, and turned around to find five of the creatures coming straight at me with their mouths open, feeding. My heart stopped, my jaw dropped, and I almost started to cry in pure awe.

Once the manta train had passed and the current swept us behind them, we clambered back on the boat and went back round for take two. Manta after manta after manta passing by—Helen later used GoPro footage filmed by Mario to estimate that there were 40–50 mantas. Un. Be. Lieveable.

After this experience, we descended down to Manta Ridge and hooked into the rock once more. Floating in the blue, watching the busy life of fish on coral reefs, I entered a meditative state, only to be interrupted by Helen enthusiastically grabbing my arm and pointing—enter mantas stage left! There were three males and one female who had swung by for a mantatory clean. Oblivious to the divers, they flew amongst and around us, one even hovering vertically and puffing out its gills right by Helen.

Fair to say, this was an experience to remember.

Video Above: the mantastic experience of snorkelling and diving with a whole load of mantas, GoPro footage courtesy of Mario

A Motley Crew

A wonderful band of people contributed to our time in Raja Ampat. In particular, I enjoyed finding my diving feet again under the guidance of Mario (divemaster and Rubik’s Cube extrordinaire) and whilst in the company of Etienne (who celebrated his 100th dive with us).

Our friend and fellow diver Bodhy nicknamed Helen the ‘Professor’ due to her seemingly inexhaustible knowledge of the underwater world. She would spend the time between dives answering all manner of questions from him and the rest of the diving squad on species of shark, behaviour of crabs, and how to determine the sex of mantas. And special mention goes to Anto also who we hope to see diving again, this time complete with a dive computer.

Photos Above: our lovely diving buddies; exploring the island's jungle

Meanwhile Sam became something of a legend at the dive shop (‘he planned a four-month diving holiday and hasn’t dived since week one?! *dramatic gasp* Oh my god I really feel for him’). Very understandably, he decided that after one week of hanging out in the hammock, his back needed some TLC and so took himself back off to civilisation for a massage and a decent hotel room.

Towards the end of our trip, our fellow travellers headed onwards to their next destination, leaving Helen, myself, and Mario to become something of a dream team both above and below water. I’d very much enjoyed having Helen as my own personal diving mentor and as time progressed, we developed a surprisingly fluid communication style whilst diving so that poor Mario still had to observe our incessant chatter even under the waves.

Photos Above: photobomber!; with our fab guide Mario

Onwards and Upwards

After 19 dives, our time observing the most diverse underwater ecosystem in the world was up. Helen and I packed up our kit and followed in Sam’s footsteps to be reunited with him in our next destination.

Photos Above: it's a hard life; so long Raja Ampat and thanks for all the fish!

[tacticalhimbo]

HOME IS WHAT ME MAKE IT; NOT WHAT IT'S DESIGNED TO BE

WORDS: 2.2K

FANDOM(S): Fallout 3

WARNINGS: Mothership Zeta spoilers, Mentions of Major Character Death, Themes of Isolation and Homesickness

NEOCITIES MIRROR

Now that we got that a-okay, I wanted to post the fic I wrote for the War Never Changes Fallout Fan Zine! [ Official Twitter ]

This zine was started by Chunklet with the goal of uniting the Fallout fandom in fundraising for the PCRF (Palestine Children's Relief Fund) ... and BOY DID IT WORK. The amount of pre-orders for the physical copy* were huge, and IIRC... totaled over $10k USD !!!!!

* Idk when digital pre-orders will start, but they will soon I'd imagine! Right now all the manufacturing stuff is being done :}

But with that said, here's a post-canon piece about my Lone Wanderer and one of my favorite side characters <3

Things could not have been any weirder. Genuinely! It was bad enough hearing whispers amidst the snow fallen camps about bright, blue lights lurking about the night sky. But to see them? To feel the tingling warmth radiating off of them? That was one thing. Feeling your muscles turn to mush, then waking up some hundreds of years later was another. And it. Was. Terrifying. Panic set into frozen bones. Eyes scanned the vicinity to land upon similar pods with very dissimilar folk. The one that’d stuck out most to Elliott, besides the young child who only just reached hip height, was what appeared to be another. A young person who claimed to be from the remnants of D.C., and seemed just as lost as he was.

But they, along with the others, made it through hell together. They fought off the strange spacemen. They navigated Mothership Zeta, or at least that was what they’d dubbed it, and took control of its helm. They, effectively, saved Earth. Then, one by one, they went their merry ways. Some of them had, anyway.

Paulson, the man who’d lost his wife and boy and came from a time long before them, found himself in the Capital Wastes as a daring desperado—well, truthfully he’d found himself bounty hunting. Going after the real daring desperados of the wastes and protecting innocent folk who found themselves outside settlement walls. A real noble cause. Somah, one of the first people the lone wanderer came across, found herself eager to return to the wastes. Space life wasn’t for her, and she had other obligations which needed attending to. What they were was unclear, but whatever it was, the lone wanderer never came across her again. And then there were those that stayed. Toshiro Kago, the samurai, had remained on Mothership Zeta, as it was an odd place of comfort. Generational differences aside, the lone wanderer and he had built a steadfast bond through steady communication, with their own dialect of Japanese just understandable enough to mesh with his. So, he’d figured staying with Elliott would be his safest bet, if the stories they swapped were anything to go by. Sally, the younger child of the bunch, also stayed with Elliott aboard the starship. It was safer among the stars, and she couldn’t deny the awestruck wonder that’d washed over her once she’d seen how unique the technology aboard was. Plus, if parts needed fixing, and they were lodged in some vent… There was no way one of the adults would be able to reach it. It was like a game, a jovial task that her—and her alone—could complete. Then there was the lone wanderer. Tomo was their name. Otsune Tomo. A peculiar individual with an even more intriguing past. Supposedly born in one of those vaults, then forced out by circumstance at the meek age of 19. Traveling alone across the remnants of Washington and its surrounding areas, all to find their father, who’d suffered a horrendous fate shortly after their reunion. A real tragic case, but a real trooper nonetheless. They’d briefly returned to the wastes to finish what they’d started, but as soon as they were fitted with a clean bill of health, they’d returned to the crash site where it all began.

And Elliott couldn’t have been happier.

The two would talk for hours, with Tomo catching the pre-War soldier up on everything going on below. Likewise, Elliott would tell them all about the different things he’s seen hovering above Earth, and all about the skeleton crew’s shenanigans. Yet the more and more he’d heard about life down below, he realized that maybe he’d like to go back. To feel the irradiated soil under his boots and breathe in the sights of the places he’d traveled to whilst under the government’s payroll. He was homesick, and terribly so. So one day, whilst Toshiro and Sally studied the view from the port, Elliott decided to broach the topic whilst Tomo inspected their Pip-Boy for notes they’d taken.

“Say… You ever, y’know, miss your home? I mean, I know you and your vault left off on some pretty bad terms, but… surely ya miss it, right?”

Brown eyes peered past the flickering display.

“Of course I do. Why?”

A pause. Hesitance lingering in his tone.

“Well, I… I know things ain’t the same down there. But with the boys gone and this,” he gestured around them vaguely, voice softening, “being all I have left of them… I think I miss home.”

The words struck Tomo hard enough for them to abandon their search and set the Pip-Boy down on the console beside them. They’d known that feeling more than anything. The only relic of their vault life was, frankly, the very device they’d just set aside. That, and the subtle inking that sat below their shirt collar. A permanent remnant of the trouble they’d get into with Amata in their earlier teen years. A permanent etching of the very thing that, beyond the realm of the vault, kept their mother so near. XXI: VI. 21:6. ‘I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end…’ They could still hear the reverence in their father’s voice as he’d recited the passage to them; it sunk their heart. Wordlessly, they sat forward and set a gentle hand on Elliott’s arm.

“I just don’t know what I’d do. I mean, I got Sally to take care of now, and I ain’t really familiar with D.C. I’d been, but I got no way of knowing how to get back to my home. Oklahoma’s a pretty far trek, and there’s no transport system. Least you ain’t said there were… It probably isn’t even safe there anymore, anyway.” He sighed. “I just… I want to do the right thing by her, y’know?”

“I know.” They patted his arm, nodding. “I know people that Sally could stay with. They’d keep her safe, and she’d be able to access tech that’s… less advanced than this, but it’d be new all the same.”

“Really? You’re sure?” Enthusiasm trickled back to him; revitalized his hope in things. Tomo smiled. “I’m sure. I’ve told you about them, the Brotherhood? They’re the ones that helped me do… everything. Saved me after that deal with the Enclave; saved me again, when I’d activated the Purifier. They’ve got children, too. It’s the safest place she could be.”

“Yeah—yeah, I remember ya sayin’ something about them. Alright. Yeah. When do we head out?”

[…]

The air was stiff when boots hit the ground. A burning sensation wracking the soldier’s lungs as he’d breathed in the lingering radiation for the first time. It hit Sally, too, bringing about a series of surprised coughs which immediately caught the wanderer’s attention. They stopped and crouched to her level, setting a gentle hand on her back to offer a series of steady pats. Around them, Brotherhood soldiers simply continued on their ways, some breaking off to enter the surrounding wings whilst others loitered about.

“I’m okay!” She chirped, taking a deep breath and exhaling to relieve any unease. “It’s not so bad, right?”

A nod. “There are some areas that are still heavily irradiated,” Tomo began. “But many of them are liveable. If you start to feel sick while Elliott and I are gone, I want you to talk to Dr. Li, okay? She’ll help you.”

“Is she nice?”

“Of course. But she’s busy, too. If she can’t help you, then look for Sarah. She’s a very close friend of mine.” There was hesitation on Sally’s face; it didn’t escape Tomo. So they leaned in and grinned. “Want to know a secret about Sarah?”

An enthusiastic gasp, and Sally leaned in too.

“Sarah is the Elder’s daughter. If you ask her nicely… she might show you some of the cool technology they’ve collected.”

“Woah! Really?” Sally beamed and drew back, rocking on her heels.

“Really. Now, we won’t be gone too long, yeah? A couple of days at most, since it’s a bit of a hike to D.C.” Tomo offered a reassuring look as they stood. Sally gave them an enthusiastic wave and sped off to explore all that she could. Like her, the remaining duo quickly prepped their gear and set off on adventure.

The ruins of D.C. still stood before them; still towered over the desecrated streets below. They, too, had their own scarring from the event to end it all, but they stood. And that fascinated Elliott. Blue eyes were wide with wonder as he could point out and recall everything as it was some two-hundred plus years ago. Detail to Tomo how pristinely white the monuments were, their contours shining amidst a blue sky and green grass. Now, they were much duller. Blending in to an almost invisible degree, if not for their sheer size. It was a troublesome sight for the former medic; one that quickly humbled that otherworldly wonder and soured it. Home wasn’t all it was meant to be, it’d seemed, and if a resourceful city like this could be reduced to atoms… He shivered at the thought of what little ol’ Stillwater would look like. And Tomo noticed the shudder, watching as he’d stepped forward and parked himself on the seats of the Museum of Technology. Flushed cheeks puffed as one came to rest on the palm of his hand, elbow balancing on his knee as he’d slumped forward. The exhaustion from walking through the downtown area was more than enough to prompt the gesture, though something more was clearly weighing on him. Tomo lingered on their feet, shifting their weight from side to side as they watched blond locks fall into the man’s face.

“It really is all gone, ain’t it?” He uttered. “‘sides the little bits you can find rummagin’ the rubble.”

“It… has been a while.” They started hesitantly. “But that doesn’t mean everything’s gone.”

Elliott peeked. “How’d’ya figure? Look at it. It’s… I mean, I guess because this was the center of America back in the day, it makes sense it’d be the most impacted. But even when you’re up in the stars, you can’t hardly see nothin’ anymore. It’s all so… empty.” The wanderer found themselves parked beside them, shimmying off their backpack and rummaging about to produce two bottles of Aqua Pura. They extended one to Elliott, who’d accepted it without a second thought. The gesture brought a small smile to their lips, a lithe elbow coming to nudge his side.

“What—”

“That’s proof that not everything’s gone. All the irradiated water people were drinking before…” They paused, biting back the memories that the train of thought conjured; the sacrifices it took to produce that bottle. “The point is, just because things as you knew it were gone doesn’t mean everything has to stay gone. For decades, people looked at my father like he had three heads. Purifying all the water in D.C.? That was pure imagination. But now, people have it in their hands.”

Confusion sprawled across the man’s features, though a spark of recognition ignited in his gaze. Tomo smiled a little more, continuing.

“It’s tough to get used to, I know. When I first left the vault, I thought things were hopeless. That I’d never find my dad, or that I’d die out here because I had no idea what I was doing. But then I found Megaton, and the people inside it. I found Moira, and Simmons, and even Moriarty, even though he’s kind of…”

“A jerk?”

“Yeah, a jerk. But he still led me to Three Dog, and to Sarah. And they led me to my dad. People out here are different than they were before the war… probably…” They spared a glance and Elliott gave a lighthearted shrug. They were; they weren’t. “But at the end of the day, they just want the same things: Safety and community—to belong somewhere. And many of them are more than willing to put the effort in to build it; to rebuild the remnants.”

“Makin’ them something new?”

“Exactly.”

A slow sigh escaped Elliott as he fidgeted with the bottle in his hands. Back and forth he’d moved it, opting to adjust his posturing and lean back against the steps as the bottle moved from hand to hand; as the water within it sloshed quietly and rhythmically. “It still hurts.”

A pause.

“… It’s going to, for a while.” A quiet affirmation, followed by a gentle hand coming to rest on Elliott’s arm. “It’s not easy admitting how different things are.”

A hand abandoning the bottle of water, and opting to reach across and rest upon the other’s. A friendly gesture; an acknowledgment of the homesickness that still shook their cores.

“And that’s what community’s for, yeah?” He smiled, eyes once more bright with motivation.

Tomo mirrored his smile. “Exactly. Now, you want to see if that exhibit’s still running? I’d be amazed if it was, but considering I accidentally triggered it when I’d gone in to retrieve that piece for Three Dog…”

And with that, the duo were on their feet and off again. Off again, with the realization that neither of them were truly lost in the hellish world around them, they both just needed to find someone who’d understood what it was like to live and lose. Someone who, like them, had hope in the future that lay ahead.

[g2ginnovation]

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[canwriteitbetterthanueverfeltit]

I’ve avoided watching stage shows for months bc depression and the lot but now that I watched Black Friday I’m like??? itchin for em

[llazyneiph]

Okay, so! Did not expect that post last night to get so much attention but to clarify: yes it’s real and yes it is a ‘mod’ (i use that term very loosely) that I am working on.

Before I get on with explaining what this actually is, please keep in mind that this is absolutely not a Create a World tool in ANY capacity. This is better described as a ‘World Decorator’. Even then, it certainly has many limitations because this is TS4.

So you’re probably here because you saw this post. I’m gonna address some of the reactions and explain a little more about this mod.

All in all, this mod expands lots beyond their original size, boosting all of them to 64x64. This means that a lot of the neighbourhood is now in the lots editable zone and therefore can be built upon. This pic describes it best (forgotton hollow):

As you can see, the lot perimeter has been expanded to 64x64 and now includes a huge chunk of the town square.

One thing I saw a lot of people get excited about was the possibility of placing the teleporter, and yes, you can totally do that!

And as I posted in my last post, you can definitely decorate the parts of the neighbourhood that fall into the new editable zones. (This is one of the strangerville alleys)

Now obviously this isn’t supposed to happen at all in TS4, so there are currently ALOT of bugs (none game breaking, but all annoying and aesthetically displeasing lmao)

1. Lot Overhang The first and biggest bug is something I can actually somewhat control with changing the sizing and placement 

As you can see, anything over water or a sheer downwards change in terrain will cause the expanded lots to ‘overhang’. This is somewhat fixable by terrain editing but the vertexes at the very edges of the lot will stay in place, causing extreme texture stretching visible from the interior of the lot. They wont be visible from the outside angles of the lot since they have no backfaces.

2. Lower Lots

To explain this, I first need to explain what Z-Fighting is. Z-Fighting is when two planes share the exact same world space (basically just sat on top of eachother and taking up the exact same points in space). This causes them constantly fight eachother to be seen, and causes a flickering effect.

When EA builds worlds, they cut a perfect 30x20 or 64x64 (whatever the intended lot is) hole out of their world mesh, so this doesn’t happen. Obviously we never see this since the lot fits like perfect puzzle piece into the hole. Since I’ve now expanded the lot, it’s constantly z-fighting with the world mesh and causing this flickering, or in some cases, just complete override of the world mesh (so you can’t see the roads and stuff).

To fix this, my only option was to slightly lower the lot so the world mesh would physically be ontop of it. Because of this, sims will be slightly sunken into the ground since they are walking on the lower lot. Fortunately we have the height raising hotkey (9) so we can avoid this with objects and the teleporter, so it wont affect story or modelling shots. 

I will most likely offer two mod versions. One with the lowered lots and one without the lots lowered, which you will have to fix with the terrain tools yourselves.

There are some lots (the flatter ones) that don’t need lowering at all tho! this one turned out great:

3. Unavailable on Apartments Unless there is a mod or cheat that I don’t know about, the fact that you can’t build outside the owned apartment space makes this mod pretty useless on apartments. All hope is not lost for San Myshuno tho, the flat community lots can still be expanded and built upon freely!

4. Re-appearing Public Objects

Once in a lot, there are some (some!!! a lot of the world decor objects are not what the game considers to be actual build/buy mode objects, and therefore cannot be deleted!!!) objects that can be deleted (Vlads statue, the bathrooms). But they only stay deleted for the duration that you are on that specific lot. Once you leave the lot, they will appear again. As far as I’m aware, I can’t do anything about this :(

Now you’ve read this and are probably saying, Seb, thats a lot of big bugs, whats the point? The point is that this mod will allow you to finally get more creative with your empty ass sim worlds and give the more personality. I’m currently in the process of turning Strangerville into the run down town it deserves to be!

I only started on this last night, and it might take me a few weeks to get everything perfect and lined up all nice, since I have to do this manually outside of the game. Please be patient, I will continue to upload progress shots as I work :)

[okay-victoria]

Random Personal Rant

For anyone somehow here not from the original thread, this started off me getting asked what finishing school is and me getting shit off my chest that is only mildly relevant about how I could both be of the social class that gets sent to finishing school and grows up on welfare.

With an understanding that in many parts of the world it wouldn't qualify as so, as far as the US goes, my dad is from what counts as a very old money family from Baltimore & Philadelphia. Both his siblings went to college and one now owns a major hedge fund, and his sister is married to a C-level executive at a huge conglomerate. His parents went to college. His grandparents went to college. All eight of his great grandparents went to college. My dad...did not go to college. He was not about that life, and while I don't mean it as an insult, when I say his primary occupation until I was ~5 was a drummer in a mediocre band I mean that he opened for a lot of great acts, and if you lived in the Boston to Atlanta area in the 80s you may have heard him play, but he was never a huge national name. But he wasn't an amateur band playing for free at some random local gig either.

My mom grew up on a chicken farm in a Mennonite family in Pennsylvania but also completely rejected her heritage and became a model, sort of like my father, of mediocre status. Not Giselle Bundchen, but had national contracts and if you have a Graco ad/box from 1990-1993 you might see both me and her on it. They met because my mom's friends placed bets, one each, on who could sleep with a member of their favorite local band first and my mom picked my dad and...my mom was actually supposed to go be a model in Tokyo and found out she was pregnant with me and couldn't go 😂

So, after my parents had two kids back to back with a third on the way and determined they needed lifestyles more in line with having three children, they became much poorer than they originally were because my mom stopped working and my dad, with a barely-passed-high-school education but needing a true "day job" worked day labor in construction. My dad's father was too proud to give us money/help if my dad didn't beg for it; despite having eventually four young children my dad never did so we ended up on all the state assistance programs one could imagine. My grandma jokes that dinners at my parents house were BYOC - bring your own chair, because we didn't own any.

My mother and paternal grandmother had no such pride issues and I live in eternal gratitude that my welfare childhood was not as crappy as it should have been because my grandmother would have my mom accompany her on grocery runs and buy us food without my father or grandfather knowing, and every Christmas and birthday my grandparents/godparents could give us the one big ticket gift all the kids wanted that year. But, on the other side, I once got stung by a bee inside my mouth because my brother threw a hairbrush through a cracked window at me and broke it and we couldn't afford to fix it for about two years and a hornet got in one day and rested himself in my coke can (my parents were the very American type that fed me coca-cola in baby bottles at age 8 when I was jealous of my younger siblings lol).

It is hard not to believe in "toxic masculinity" when two men warring over dumbass pride issues would rather their children/grandchildren go without food than suck it up and decide 'help' isn't the worst word in the English language, and you know you've only been saved by two women who came from totally different backgrounds and entirely disapproved of each other but reached out the hand to shake when it came down to toddlers getting the short end of the don't-bend-the-knee stick. It wasn't that either of the men were bad people, I loved them both and got along great with both, but on a societal level I feel they were socialized in a very fucked up way if that was the end result, as both claimed "male pride" in these instances [my dad took multiple thousands of dollars I'd saved from working during college from me during the 2008-2010 financial crisis and didn't tell me and that was the reason I was given for why I hadn't been informed/asked, because it would be too emotionally difficult for an adult man to ask a young woman. My graduation present was them repaying me 1/3 of the money they'd taken from me without asking because I'd like, trusted them when it had been in a joint account that was a holdover from when I was <18 and couldn't have my own bank account].

While in some ways my parents on the surface achieved the American dream of going from nothing to a bunch of money, the real factor in play was that my dad's father was the bank. My parents had no credit and couldn't get real loans. My dad worked construction and during the two major periods that flipping houses was very lucrative, he never had to get an actual loan or pay actual interest, he just had to ask his father to pay out cash and then repay him at a flat 2% interest rate that didn't even accrue over time, just...whenever you are ready, repay the value of the loan + 2%. Because my father was doing something productive, in these instances, my grandfather was happy to pay, because it wasn't giving away money, it was loaning it. I had a very weird situation of mostly being poor but like also getting taken to the "big donors" events at the Kennedy Center and my grandparents regularly buying me a dress as a child worth more than my mom's wedding dress and also needing to pretend I fit in with these people.

And look. When I say "these people"...honestly, by and large, most wealthy people, whether inherited or not, are not the assholes you want to imagine. Most of them are extremely nice. Most of them are generous when it comes to the less fortunate who are in their personal sphere of being. Most of them are just really out of touch. The 100% kindest of all of them that I know once relayed to me that she thought people would be happier if once a year they did what she did...go to the airport with a purse packed full of absolute necessities, buy a one way ticket to the most appealing destination on the flight board, buy your clothes and book your accommodations after you'd arrived, and come back after you felt you'd 'centered' yourself. She didn't understand why there were so many unhappy people who weren't taking this very obvious route to being happier. I didn't quite know how to explain that saying "most" people couldn't afford to do that either financially or from a job/career angle didn't even cover it, as "most" sounds like 70% instead of 99.7%.

I was both my parents eldest son and eldest daughter in the worst combination possible. I was the eldest son because I was the most stereotypically male of all my siblings, in everything from desire to physically fight the battles I was given to dislike of shopping/fashion to lack of emotional connection to my relationships, so I can now fix your average household plumbing/drywall/electrical issue better than most "city" guys I interact with and remain less clingy to them in the process. I was also very much the oldest daughter from a responsibility perspective, I managed our household and from age 10 - 24 managed the finances of our family business, my mom almost died giving birth to my youngest brother after a ruptured uterus that should never have happened in the first place if we had adequate insurance to get her a non-emergency C-section (I was just past 9 years old at the time) and I was informally withdrawn from school for two years to take care of the family when she couldn't because there is no paid parental leave in the US and we got double-fucked by the medical industry because she got a bad "mesh" put in and then had to have a further surgery to repair that which we also had to pay for and didn't have the money to win a lawsuit over.

I don't know quite how to put this, but in the deepest fuck you of the universe, my rich-immigrant-ggggg grandfather's money led to him owning banks, insurance companies, etc, and the family cashed out in a big way when their ownership was bought by and merged with what is now Cigna, one of the biggest US healthcare insurers, and my nuclear family specifically got screwed by the American health insurance industry, but anyway, we were the people selected for that karmic comeuppance so if you want to feel schadenfreude at my expense, I'll allow it without begrudging the sentiment, my family might have fucked up your family’s life too, not just their own.

I got up twice a night to feed my brother because my dad had to sleep unmolested in my room to get to work and my mom was too weak to carry my brother or even hold him against her while she nursed so I had to hold him up to her. Adjusting to living in a city and hearing lots of random noises all the time was not easy when I'd had mom sound instincts from age 9.

I learned to drive the fall my youngest bro was born because my mom couldn't and I had to get my middle brother to preschool and go the grocery store on my own. While I hold absolutely no ill will towards my father or grandfather for this and given that about 1/3 of my paternal family either has an autism diagnosis or should, I fully feel the struggles they both went through to be communicated with, my father wouldn't ask for help, and my grandmother that lived 20 minutes away couldn't give enough help because my grandfather refused to do a single dish on his own as that was outside their "marriage contract" type agreement and she couldn't ever stay with us overnight when there wasn't a clearly-communicated need, so they let the burden fall on a 9 - 11 year old child and that really shaped a lot of my life in both good and bad ways. My youngest brother is 22, and we have only just climbed out of the medical debt his birth left us with between my dad's life insurance and my oldest brother and I paying for the extra cost of out-of-state college tuition.

The irony of all of this is that because my father died before his father, when my grandmother dies, my siblings and I will all inherit enough money (as a non-blood relative my mom, despite keeping her vows to part at death and not having remarried in eight years, is cut out entirely) to make this a non-issue, but my grandfather couldn't conscience spotting his unluckiest child some money in the end of days to pay for my youngest two brothers' education and take that worry off my father as he was dying. The day before he died I had to hold him down in bed to keep him from trying to climb in his truck to go to work because he was so anxious about trying to provide for us in spite of his father having fuck you money, because his father didn't think it was fair to the other siblings (who, at the time, still owned a major hedge fund and were married to a C-level executive of a huge conglomerate). A day and a half later I went back to my job because at the time I was then the sole provider for the family and didn't want to risk asking for the standard week's bereavement leave when I knew I was capable of showing up at work the next day and was fresh out of college so hadn't built up a reputation yet.

My father worked the day each of us was born, so I suppose it is only fair and he smiled at the choice. In spite of what it may seem, I gave a baller and very heartfelt speech at his funeral to all his rich friends that over and above everything, he'd taught us how to be happy with our own lives no matter what, and multiple of them emailed my mom in the aftermath to say they'd reassessed their relationship with their children in light of it, although...tbh I kind of doubt that lasted and they probably changed nothing 😅. The last good talk I had with him, two weeks before he died [his liver was going and it sent toxins to his brain that de-personed him after that and he no longer recognized me as his daughter, but as his sister], I reassured him that though we would all be sad he'd gone, we'd live on just fine without him because that's how he'd raised us, and according to my mom that was what gave him the final bit of peace he needed. Although honestly, I don't think I will ever see the strength in another human again that it took my grandmother to sit next to him and stroke his hand and tell him to close his eyes and imagine he was happy on a beach and die, for God's sake, because he was unaware and in pain and just prolonging it for our sake by then.

That type of obsession my grandfather had with assessing his children and grandchildren on the basis of economic productivity and a very black and white idea of "fair" is one you don't easily forget, I promise you. My hedge fund uncle is currently positioning himself to screw us out of our inheritance because of janky writing in the will and I'm doing my fuck all best to gain the wherewithal to go toe-to-toe with this cold motherfucker in court as the oldest and representative member of my happily much nicer and softer younger brothers who I want to remain that way not because I even care that much about the money, I know what bills affect your credit first and what you can put off paying and all of us have good enough career prospects to do our own thing, but just because I want to give the middle finger to a man that was a multi-millionaire and drew lines on his milk and orange juice bottles when I came over so he knew if I drank what my parents couldn't afford when I was approximately six. Anyway, ask me why I support major reforms in wealth taxation. I don't care who it goes to, just not that guy, you feel?

Having expendable income was very exciting for a bit after I started working but once I got to the hateable point of assessing my annual bonus and internally complaining that I'd spent the money I should have spent on a Sauternes cellar to drop five digits on bedset materials (to be fair they are drop dead gorgeous, very comfy and the factory pays a living wage for people to handmake the sheets/duvets/pillows to people in San Francisco, which is not cheap, so maybe I did more good than harm with that), I two seconds later nodded to myself and went "the government needs to confiscate more money from me". The narrative is always that the "undeserving" will use it for dumb things they don't need like iPhones or refrigerators...?...but like...I could also have gone to Bed Bath and Beyond and bought a very nice sheet/comforter set for at most a tenth of what I paid so am I really spending it responsibly either....?....who is going to get more joy out of this misspent money....?....not me, that is for sure, I probably would have had more fun going to BBB and laying on all the demo beds and buying something there.

My lifelong dream, which may become possible if/when I do have something of an inheritance, is to provide food security for one of the many towns in the US were most residents don't have it. It's the thing I remember the most distinctly over the years. I never could quite believe it when I got to the point that I could just...pay to eat at a restaurant. One of the most disappointed my mother has ever been in me is when I was twenty five and confessed I actually had no idea how much a gallon of milk cost in a city grocery store besides that it was probably between $1 and $5, because I didn't have to know. For now I make a weekly drop off of my excess produce to a mom group I met under somewhat weird circumstances but I was walking through the cut-through that went through the low-income housing back to my apartment at like 2 AM on a Saturday and these moms were out there partying and smoking weed with their kids all strapped in strollers around or the older ones watched by a rotating member of the group and I felt very safe and like these moms had a very good vibe of both living their own lives [seriously for mental health parents but in most cases specifically mothers need to be able to keep up relationships with people their age] but keeping their children safe and accounted for while doing so and trying their fuckin' best against all the odds to figure out how to make that happen when life had dealt them a shit hand.

...anyway, looping way back to the original question of what finishing school is, when I was almost done with middle school my dad had built a legit construction business that then very quickly took off because we lived in a commutable zip code to the now-rich-in-their-own-right people he went to high school with who trusted him to redo their homes. We eventually moved to that zip code but I stayed and commuted back to my old high school. But, i was a pretty wild kid which my father appreciated for a long while because I would follow him around on jobs and enjoy doing physical labor, but once I was mid-puberty and also he had to maybe show me to his high school friends that did not fly.

I snapped - not broke, snapped - my left thumb and my parents had to trap me like a wild animal to get me to go the hospital. Then I got a deep cut that partially injured a tendon in my leg and at eleven I tried to beat the shit out of my dad to prevent him from picking me up to strap me in the car and go to the hopsital. Next I got a deep splinter due to my eternal-barefoot tendencies and it wouldn't come out so got infected and I refused to go to the doctor [another weird back story but I was minorly sexually assaulted [[to be clear, not raped or anything big traumatic]] when I was eight and had to stay in hospital for a week and my parents couldn't be with me all the time so I have a permanent heebie-jeebie about going to the hospital, not true anxiety, I will go if I know I need to and I don't breathe heavy or anything, and I'm actually not permanently weirded out by sex or anything, just doctors in hospitals specifically I kind of unconsciously try to justify not needing to the extent I can rationalize it] and my dad was tired of my antics so he was like "fine if you don't go I will slice your foot in half with a Swiss Army knife to get it out" and I called his bluff and laid down on the floor, stuck my foot on his lap, and he didn't really know what to do when a barely fourteen year old girl called his bluff so my brothers watched in fascinated but horrified awe as I got my foot sliced open spectacularly so that the infection/splinter could come out and I didn't even make a sound out of spite despite it being quite painful to my recollection almost twenty years later.

They saw me cry from pain exactly one time when while trying to break up a fight between all three of them (it was over ice cream) I got pushed and my ankle got dislocated and what actually made me cry was snapping it back in place and they realized it was not a joke. These dumb assholes that I love have ragged on me for "skipping" chores the day after I was in the hospital because the day before that I had to spend 18 hours running Thanksgiving as a good sub-hostess like I didn't have a serious infection that needed treating and couldn't rest because none of them were up to any task beyond peeling potatoes.

After the Swiss Army knife incident, my dad's discussion of sending me to finishing school became real, which I knew when my mom made me take a walk with her and talked about it. Finishing school is like...etiquette school....? In ye olden day when finishing high school was not the norm for anyone, wealthy men finished high school and wealthy women often went to "finishing" school to have a combined education on being a proper lady but also being able to hold a decent conversation with your presumably-educated husband, so it wasn't entirely etiquette non-academic. It was more just like "what a rich man wants in a wife" school, which was sort of household management and knowing enough about cleaning/cooking to correct the staff if they fucked up, how to be a polite hostess, and how to not entirely bore him when you were alone together and had done your five minutes of sex or whatever so actually had to have a conversation. In modern times it has obviously expanded to be less bleak.

I said miss me with that, I can be a girl on my own, so I went full throttle into the girliest sport they offer in high school and ever since have gained the inestimable advantage of knowing how to also use femininity to my advantage, which I am very grateful to my parents for making me learn. It would be great if we lived in a world where that didn't count, but it did/still does, and they really set me up to operate in all the worlds.

It is weird for me to tell the story to Internet strangers because it's one of those things that makes your parents sound terrible and abusive in the general tone of the Internet nowadays, and while I support gender nonconforming children I don't remember my childhood or parents that way. But, I feel like the bits and pieces of my life I've given don't always make a ton of sense together without the context, so here it is, and in the end, I think a number of parts of it are areas where you can probably understand where it makes me have the opinions I do when I write.

Anyhoo, this makes my life sound far worse than it is, I actually have a great life and I am not unhappy with it at all and feel I was on the whole blessed with many more turns of luck than unluck, so, please, do not take this as a depressed artist rant, it is more like a rant of a very energetic person who rants about a lot of things all the time and didn’t need to come out but just did because the question was asked and the time was right with my life being in a bit of flux to think about how I got where I am and where I want to go and why.

Always remember no matter what problems it seems like I have, if I didn’t solve them on my 2 year round the world traveling hiatus I took from working, it’s my own fault, I definitely had the time and money to solve them and just chose not to.

[kthstrawberryshortcake]

BTS Reaction: They didn’t know you speak another language

A/N: This is about it being a surprise that you speak a third language (other than Korean and English) that they didn’t know about. I hope you enjoy!

UNEDITED at the moment, will go back and edit.

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Namjoon: Greek

Because Namjoon was such an avid reader, he had a great appreciation for Greek history and literature, especially classic works like The Odyssey. He was sitting in a chair in the living room with his laptop, reading about ancient Greek mythology. He’d had a particular interest in it lately as it had even been incorporated into performances. Namjoon being as he was, he wanted to be sure he had a full understanding of the context and intricacies of the subject. He was clicking through articles about it on the internet when he came across a website that looked like it could be useful, but it was in Greek, and Google translate was little help. He gave an exasperated sigh, prompting you to lean over his shoulder from behind him to see what was frustrating him. “I can help.” You said with a small smile. He blinked at you in confusion. “You know of a better translating app?” He asked, trying to figure out what you meant. You shook your head “No but I speak Greek. I can read it.” You explained, watching Namjoon’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise. After a moment he grinned, turning his head and pressing a quick kiss to your temple. “You’re the coolest girl."

Jin: Italian

Jin was trying to book a trip to a cooking retreat in Italy. Both of you agreed that the best way to spend his rare time off was learning to cook in Tuscany. He’d found a slightly more obscure option than the touristy ones that were the first search results, deciding that smaller would be more specialized and authentic. Unfortunately the retreat in question had a terribly sparse and unhelpful website. It wasn’t even clear how to book a stay, or how to check availability. Sighing, he resigned himself to the fact that he was going to have to call by phone, despite knowing that communication would be difficult. After watching him pace nervously around the kitchen preparing to make the call, you just sighed and picked up your phone, calling the retreat company yourself. When you started speaking Italian beautifully Jin looked at you like you’d grown another head, totally floored by the revelation that you spoke the language. After the call was finished Jin was grinning, nearly ready to start jumping up and down with excitement. He confessed that knowing you would be able to clear up any communication challenges had made him twice as excited for the trip.

Yoongi: Japanese

There was a particular new manga that was getting a lot of positive attention online and Yoongi was dying to read it. It was part of a series he already liked and he had heard only good things about this next installment. Unfortunately there was no translation available yet as it had just been released in Japanese. He was frustrated to have to wait for the translation to come out. You noticed that he was in a bit of an annoyed mood, so you immediately asked him what was going on. He explained the situation to you, adding that he felt a little dumb for caring so much but he was actually rather annoyed by it. He stared at you quizzically when you grinned at him, looking excited. Had you misunderstood what he was just telling you? This was a pain, not something to be happy about!. Then you offered to translate it for him yourself. This was a huge surprise, as he hadn’t even been aware that you knew Japanese. After getting over the initial shock of this new information, however, he eagerly accepted your offer and ordered the manga right away. He knew you were full of surprises, but he found this one to be especially cool. “I’m really impressed. What other amazing things do I not know about you?”

Hoseok: Spanish

Your boyfriend Hoseok had become friends with Becky G when they worked together on Chicken Noodle Soup and had stayed in touch after that. While the boys were in the US on tour (and you with them) he took the opportunity to meet up with his friend, looking forward to introducing you to her. The three of you met up for lunch and while Hobi was sure Becky would like you, he never anticipated that the two of you would hit it off the way you did. Not only did your personalities mesh well, but you also spoke Spanish with her, a skill Hoseok didn’t even know you had. While you were careful not to leave him out, the two of you chattered away in Spanish on and off, and by the end of lunch you had become friends yourselves, planning to keep in contact beyond just her staying in touch with Hobi. He was very impressed and he wouldn’t tell you this exactly, but he found your capability with the language and the beautiful way you spoke it to be incredibly sexy. Just another reason he was so enamored with you.

Jimin: French

When Jimin had decided to whisk you away on a romantic weekend trip to Paris, he wasn’t expecting to discover that you were fluent in French. First of all it made getting around in the city, asking for recommendations, and speaking with locals infinitely easier than it would have been otherwise. Its unintended side effect was your boyfriend staring at you adoringly looking like the heart eyes emoji every time you spoke. You were always amazing to him, but there in the beautiful city speaking the language you had never seemed so cool and sophisticated. Jimin was very impressed, and he loved hearing you speak French so much that he repeatedly asked you how to say certain words or phrases just to hear more of it. Your understanding of the language had made you comfortable and at ease in Paris, and Jimin thought to himself that you seemed lovelier than ever at home in the city of love.

Taehyung: Spanish

Going on tour with the boys was always an awesome experience, but going to South America was an extra cool adventure. After the end of another great concert, this time in Argentina, you came across a little girl lost in the crowd as people were leaving the stadium. The adorable tiny kid was probably no older than 6 and was sobbing uncontrollably, looking around in confusion and fear. Taehyung was witnessing the scene with you and was distressed by the poor lost child, but he didn’t really know what to do other than let a staff member know. In the meantime, you strode over and squatted down next to the girl, speaking to her in Spanish and asking her who she had come with and where she last saw them. When she explained how she had wandered away from her mom only a bit but was swept up in the chaos of the crowd, you nodded in understanding. You soothingly reassured her that she would be back with her mom in just a few minutes, holding her hand and walking to somewhere out of the way of the mass of people. Taehyung was staring at you in wonder, having had no idea you could speak Spanish. He was fascinated by your language skills but more importantly, he was so very endeared by your careful handling of the little girl. Seeing you being so caring, especially towards a child, had him falling in love all over again.

Jungkook: German

Jungkook came home from practice to find you sitting on the couch watching a movie. He was tired, so at first he wasn’t paying attention to what you were watching. He gave you a quick kiss on the cheek, careful not to get his post-practice sweatiness on you. He was about to go shower and change when it finally occurred to him that the movie wasn’t in Korean or English, but rather in German. He smiled at you with a quizzical look. “You know there’s a thing called subtitles, right? Don’t you want to understand the dialogue?” he asked, amused by the idea that you’d be watching a movie you had no way of understanding. You shook your head at him. “I don’t need them. I understand perfectly.” He was still confused, at first thinking you meant you could infer what was happening just by watching. Then it struck him what you meant. “You speak German?!” he asked incredulously, totally surprised by this revelation. You nodded and shrugged. Jungkook gave you a look like you were the most endearing and surprising creature he’d ever met. You smiled snd rolled your eyes, turning back to the movie. He chuckled quietly to himself as he finally left the living room and headed to take a shower. You never failed to surprise him.

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I love feedback, let me know what you think! :)

[astrologysvt]

Seungcheol’s Ideal Type - Natal Chart Reading

For ideal types, I’m not going to be doing specific placements of their ideal partner. Instead, I’m gonna be listing personality traits I think would mesh well with them, as well as focus on their needs and the kind of person who could meet them. what this reading cannot account for is the compromising the members would do on their end for their s/o. so just keep in mind this is only half of the whole picture!

he wants a charmer. A CHARMER. 

his leo venus and libra mars want to be WOOED. 

someone really cute, really playful. 

he’s such a romantic guy. 

that leo venus wants all of the grand, romantic gestures and drama in love.

like, lifting his s/o while they kiss in the rain and all of that rom com fluff. 

and that libra makes him very attracted to people who are cute, unique, creative, but kind of wrapped up in this classy package if that makes sense? 

while that leo has a love for the extravagant and beautiful.

not to mention these placements want to have fun in love. 

there’s going to be a lot of passion in his relationships. 

his leo is very fast to express his dedication and loyalty, and with all of that fire in him there is bound to be a strong sense of excitement and intensity. 

his s/o should be very receptive to his passion and very willing to validate/reciprocate these feelings when they boil over in him. 

this is all INCREDIBLY heightened by the fact his venus is super well aspected to mars and jupiter. 

he is very boundless with affection. 

he shows it in a very physical manner as he simply can’t contain it sometimes, and so he’d want someone whose very open and willing to be smothered in love 😂

his sun in soft aspect to mars and jupiter heightens his fire influences through his sun’s relationship to aries’ and sagittarius’ planets. 

he’s extremely energetic and optimistic. 

his s/o should share his love for life and people, and be just as reactive and enthusiastic as he is. even if they aren’t as energetic, they should still be able to validate those feelings in him. 

this also creates a very active chart!! 

lol he’s made it very clear to us that he loves sitting around and gaming and that leo honestly loves luxuriating, but there is also a lot of energy in him and a desire to travel and experience new things! 

his s/o should be someone who is active who can keep up with him when he needs to find an outlet for this energy, may it be something so simple as taking a walk, playing a sport, or going out and experiencing the world! 

his leo also makes him want to be with someone he can be proud of. 

this isn’t necessarily meant in a solely superficial sense like appearance (though it certainly is a factor), but he wants to be able to brag!!! 

his leo (and libra now that i think about it) is so romantic and attentive that he’ll find almost anything about his s/o to boast about, but he’ll definitely be attracted to people who are very well put together, accomplished, and confident from the get-go! 

he actually has a lot of air in him! with a (supposed) libra rising, this also puts his sun, venus, and mercury in the 11th (aquarius’) house! 

so this makes him very communicative in love. 

this also draws a great deal of his attention towards his friends and community.

this would make allowing him to be all-in with his partner while also reporting to his friends a very important thing to maintain in relationships. 

his s/o shouldn’t misconstrue his dedication to the relationship as one that’ll take absolute precedence over everything else, especially his members.

i feel like this is very obvious and shouldn’t need to be said, but there is something in how unrestricted in love seungcheol wants to be that this needs to be reiterated. 

while he wants to make it 100% clear to his partner that he is loyal and willing to drop everything for them, they should also understand that his friends are a priority as well and that this courtesy also extends to them. 

he’ll truly feel a great deal of turmoil if he felt he couldn’t freely offer his commitment and support to both sides. 

not only that, but he’d really love it if he was able to integrate his s/o in his circle.

i don’t think he would stay long with someone who didn’t get along with the members, or someone the members didn’t like as he doesn’t see love and friendship as completely separate entities with separate sets of values/expectations. if his s/o didn’t vibe with his friends, there is bound to be a reason. 

this is also reinforced by his libra influence that would feel really fed and content if his love and social life were harmonious. 

this aqua influence also tinges his attraction a bit more towards someone more individualistic and unique in how they look and live their lives.

though it’s important that this person isn’t detached and is very much accessible a majority of the time.

that leo in him needs to feel a constant thrum of company and presence in his partner. 

not even just in the sense of them being physically there — he’s pretty quick to notice a mental absence in his partner thanks to how needy that leo makes him for reactions. 

so they shouldn’t be so intellectually focused that they struggle to be present, or overly self-focused/independent that they don’t see an importance in doing check-ins. 

he’d also need to be with someone who doesn’t retreat in moments of intensity, either emotionally to be in their feelings or intellectually to assess the situation. 

he needs his s/o to be reactive because how his s/o is feeling is a HUGE factor in how he proceeds both generally and in moments of crisis. otherwise he’ll feel helpless. 

not only that, but they shouldn’t think they’re too cool for school!! seungcheol is a super cheesy, romantic guy. they should be really open to this!!! 

they should know how to lean into his eagerness and passion. 

so seungcheol is super interesting because he has this super capable chart that really wants to feel like he’s got everything handled.

his leo is naturally very confident and likes feeling like people are depending on him, and not to mention that cap moon that is naturally very competent and doesn’t really allow himself a single millimeter of slack. 

he’s going to naturally put a lot of pressure on himself to show up for his s/o and ensure that he’ll take care of any fallout there may be, or logistics that must be seen to. 

and so he’d like to be with someone he can take care of, but also someone assertive enough to put him in his place when he’s either too confident (leo) or too hard on himself (lol tho that cap is gonna make sure it’s the latter most of the time). 

boy just needs some sense talked into him every once in awhile lolol.

not to mention, there’s a part of him with that leo that wants to be taken care of and babied as well, even though he wont make it very obvious to begin with. 

so i definitely think he’d benefit being with someone who is ready to exchange these energies with him, while also being pretty receptive to his own desire for control/composer in relationships and life. 

someone who would understand that he isn’t trying to be this “alpha male.” 

it’s important they’d try and see his desire to care and protect as a way of validating to himself that he is doing his part in the relationship.

so he actually has such a soft aspect to him with that libra mars and (supposed) libra rising.

as assertive and confident as he is, he isn’t a take or leave it kind of guy. 

this libra in him makes him incredibly reactive to people and surroundings, and gives him a strong ability to mediate and convert energies in very affective and constructive ways. 

he’s capable of understanding where people are coming from and creating compromises, and is forceful and outward enough in his expression of this to control and influence environments while optimizing outcomes. 

this is why libra influences are so charismatic!

so this kind of creates a very interesting duality in him that is very capable of making compromises, while also giving him a very strong set of principles on how things should be done and what is considered right or wrong. 

it also creates two kind of unexpected situations where he struggles to act as his desire for balance is so strong, while also making him pretty set in his ways in principle. he has an idea of how things should be done, but may to struggle acting in time to be able to enforce them. 

so i can definitely see him being very receptive to someone who is more instinctive and spontaneous, as it allows him to be more divisive than his libra instinctually is.

where he may spend time hesitating thinking of the most logical/effective solutions thanks to that cap, and that libra that is taking in every single person involved and their perspective — his s/o could help him lessen that mental gap, allow him to live more in the moment, and embrace the parts of him that are far easier and less delayed. 

especially since that leo wants to be boundless in the expression of his humor and spirit — being with someone that can relieve this part of his consciousness will allow him to feel more like himself. 

with that beings said, he wouldn’t want to be with someone too impulsive. 

there is still a desire for tact, responsibility, and maturity in his partners thanks to that strong capricorn influence as well as that libra. 

he doesn’t want to constantly be cleaning up after someone, or to feel that he can’t level with his s/o. 

but going back to that desire to care for someone, he wants to provide the basics in care and comfort while that leo really wants to lift people up to a really high and positive place. 

his s/o should be equally positive and equally ready to lift him up when necessary. they should allow him to feel more free and spontaneous, while also sharing with him his values that bring a sense of order. 

he also actually has a surprisingly strong water influence as having a libra rising would put his moon in the 4th house. 

so his cap IS INCREDIBLY focused on being a place of comfort and stability for his s/o. 

he wants to contribute so badly, and putting his cap moon in cancer’s house really emphasizes that he doesn’t really let himself rest in this regard on all fronts. he needs to contribute but also needs to be emotionally available, which isn’t the most easiest thing for him with that cap moon.

i think what’d be great for him, is someone who acknowledges it and returns this sentiment back to him tenfold. 

it’d also be great if this person were capable of doing so in less concrete ways, mainly to prove to him by example that he doesn’t always need something to show for as proof of how he takes care of his partner. 

it’d be good if his s/o could prove to him that his presence alone was contribution enough. 

i think in general he’d really go well with someone who is very feeling and present, equally passionate and enthusiastic. 

doesn’t allow him to get overly self-conscious, and creates a very safe environment where his emotions are allowed to play out, he can let his fire run free, and can be as affectionate as he wants without fear of coming off too strong. 

again, this is great for his leo to have someone to bounce off of and feel validated in his passions and intensity, but also allows him to put to rest the part of him that puts so much pressure on himself. 

[keelywolfe]

Drabble: Home (baon)

Summary: All small towns aren't created equal.

Tags:  Spicyhoney, Established Relationship, Domestic Fluff, Andy(Jeff)

Part of the ‘by any other name’ series.

~~*~~

Read in on AO3!

or

Read it here!

 ~~*~~

Jeff hadn’t been living in New New Home very long, only a couple months and he'd learned a few things since then. For one, the Monster community wasn’t very large and New New Home couldn’t be properly called a city. It was more of a town and a small one at that.

He’d grown up in a small town, where everybody knew everyone, including all their personal business, and when he’d moved to Ebott for college, Jeff had been pretty sure that was exactly the kind of life he didn’t want to have again. Funny how it turned out that the town wasn’t the actual problem, only the people living in it.

In New New Home, he could take a walk down the street and know that everyone he saw would smile and wave. People still knew him by name but absolutely none of them would be on the phone in moments, vindictively eager to blab to his parents about what they’d seen him doing or where he went or who he was with, and they could couch the words with all the false concern in the world. The truth of it was they were hurrying to share malicious gossip before anyone else could and waiting for the inevitable fallout.

Not that there weren’t plenty of wagging tongues in the Monster community, heck, Blue was a champion at it, but somehow, it was different. His tidbits were always wrapped in fondness and if he mentioned that so-and-so started dating whose-their-face, it was always with the greatest hope that the date went well and that a second would follow, and if his worries for Stretch might be over the top, well, he kept it mostly to himself.

Jeff never knew before coming here that gossip could be kind.

The Bun Bakery was within walking distance of their house and it was an uncommonly warm day for spring, sunny and bright. Perfect for a leisurely stroll. Edge’s baking would always be Jeff’s favorite, but he guiltily admitted that the Bun Bakery was pretty damn close second. Plus, Edge didn’t make the little cinnamon bunny bites they did, always fresh and warm right from the oven, the sugar and cake almost melting away on his tongue.

The older Bun lady behind that counter didn’t even ask Jeff for his order anymore, already scooping the treats into a paper bag the second the doorbell jangled as he stepped inside.

Today, though, he decided to change it up. “Can I get two bags this time?”

“Hungry, are we?” Gemma laughed, shaking out another small bag. Her long ears were folded down underneath a mesh hairnet. The Bun family was huge, and Jeff was still getting the hang of it, but he was pretty sure this was Edge’s assistant Janice’s cousin. Pretty sure.

“I could probably eat ten bags before I got sick of them, but I’m trying to keep my girlish figure,” Jeff said wryly. “This one is for a friend.”

A minute to swipe his card and Jeff was back outside in the fresh air, heading back the way he came as he started in on his own bag of goodies.

Edge and Stretch lived on the same road as Blue did, all Jeff needed to do was hang a right instead of a left at the intersection. The garage door was open and he could see the vague outline of Edge inside. He was sitting on the concrete floor next to his motorcycle, his bad leg stretched out in front of him, all velcro-ded into that knee-high boot that acted as a sort of splint.

“Good morning, Jeff.” To Jeff’s not at all surprise, Edge didn’t even look up from what he was working on. Dark fluid was running from the engine into a shallow pan on the ground.

"Hiya. Just stopping by, thought I'd bring Stretch a treat." He held up a bag of cinnamon bunny bites, his own empty one crumpled guiltily into his fist.

It really was fascinating to watch Edge whenever someone mentioned Stretch. Edge always looked sort of fierce, his skull was sharply angular where the others were more rounded. His visible teeth were jagged and sharp, the crack through his socket adding an aura of danger, and his bearing tended towards aloof on a good day. He made Jeff sort of think of a lion, standing alone on the savanna, fierce and proud.

But one mention of Stretch and his entire expression sort of…softened. Not literally, but Jeff couldn’t think of a better way to describe it. His intense crimson eye lights went fuzzy at the edges, the corners of his mouth turned up in an almost smile. Maybe people who didn’t know him couldn’t tell, but to Jeff’s eye it was practically a physical statement of adoration. It never lasted long, vanished back under the stoic pretty quickly, but Jeff knew it was there, lurking under the surface.

“I’m sure he’d appreciate that, he never turns down sugar,” Edge said dryly. “He was napping, last I saw, you can knock on the door and see if he’s awake.”

“I’ll text him in a minute,” Jeff decided. He hunkered down, instead, peering at the motorcycle curiously, “What are you doing?”

“Maintenance.” Edge wiped away a trickle of sweat from his forehead with the back of his gloved hand where it wasn’t smeared with grease. “I won’t be able to ride it anytime soon, but the engine still needs maintained. Hand me the socket wrench?”

Jeff hesitated, not wanting to admit he didn’t have half a clue what a socket wrench was. Edge only pointed patiently, and Jeff handed it over. He watched as Edge used it expertly, and his mouth, like it so often did, decided to run off without him. “Can I ask you something personal?”

“You can ask.” The implication being that Edge might not answer. “Now the new filter.”

Jeff handed over the rounded, ribbed thing Edge pointed out. “When did you know you were in love with Stretch?"

At first, he didn't think Edge was going to answer. His hands kept moving, screwing in the new filter, then picking up a funnel to add fresh oil to the tank.

"That's a difficult question," he said at last. “You know I love him. I can say that now. When we first started dating, it wasn't so easy.” His eye lights flicked briefly to Jeff. “Being with Stretch is like not knowing I was colorblind my entire life and then looking into the sky after a storm to suddenly see a rainbow.” That softness went over his face again and his voice dropped until Jeff had to strain to hear. “Colors I never knew existed until I knew him.”

Not really an answer to the question, but Jeff let it go. That was a better answer to an unasked question, anyway.

“Done,” Edge said decisively. He stripped off his dirty gloves and set them with the pile of oily rags. “All right, then, let’s go in and wake up my husband, shall we?”

Jeff stood and automatically held out a hand to help Edge up. He faltered at the last second and almost drew it back; metaphors aside, he didn’t know much about proud lions on the savanna, but he knew that Edge bristled over showing even minor weaknesses and he wasn’t big on touching either if it wasn’t Stretch doing the feeling.

Edge never hesitated, setting his bare hand firmly into Jeff’s. The bones of his hands were cooler than Stretch’s, rough with scars, the sharpened tips didn’t so much as graze Jeff’s skin. He let go without undue haste when he was back on his feet and if Edge realized the import of that one small action to Jeff, it didn’t show. He only grabbed his cane and headed towards the door. “Are you staying for lunch?”

“Um…yeah,” Jeff said weakly, then stronger, “Yeah, sure. What are we having?”

He followed Edge into the house, into the living room where Stretch was starting to stir on the sofa and as predicted, his sleepy smile turned to pure delight when Jeff handed over the bag of treats even as Edge scolded him affectionately not to ruin his appetite for lunch.

A different small town, a different family, and for the first moment in an achingly long time, Jeff felt like he was home.

-finis-

[marlalarraz]

SEA Games 2019: PHL VS VIE Volleyball Women's Opener (Full) | Volleyball

Court Dimensions

Indoor volleyball

The playing court is 18m long and 9m wide and is surrounded by a free zone 3m wide on all sides.

The space above the playing area is known as the free playing space and is a minimum of 7m high from the playing surface.

For FIVB, world and official competitions, the free zone measures a minimum of 5m from the side lines and 8m from the ends lines. The free playing space is a minimum of 7m high from the playing surface.

Playing surface

The playing surface is flat and a light colour. For FIVB, world and official competitions, only a wooden or synthetic surface is allowed.

White colours are required for the lines. Other different colours are required for the playing court and free zone.

Line markings

All lines on the court are 5cm wide and are a light colour different from the colour of the floor.

The boundary lines are the two side lines and end lines. The centre line divides the playing court into two equal courts, 9m x 9m each. This line extends from beneath the net from sideline to sideline.

On each court the rear edge of the attack line is drawn 3m back from the middle of the centre line and marks the front zone.

Zones and areas

The front zone on each court is limited by the axis of the centre line and the rear edge of the attack line. The front zone extends beyond the side lines to the end of the free zone.

The service zone is a 9m wide area behind each end line and extends to the end of the free zone. It is 15cm long and drawn 20cm behind the end line as an extension of the side lines.

The substitution zone extends from both attack lines to the scorer’s table.

The Libero Replacement zone is part of the free zone on the same side as the team benches, extending from the attack line up to the end line.

A penalty area, 1m x 1m, is located in the control area outside of the endlines.

Nets and posts

The net is 2.43m high for men and 2.24m high for women. It is placed vertically over the centre line. It is 1m wide and 9.5m‑­10m long and is 10cm square black mesh.

The height of the net is measured from the centre of the playing court.

The antenna is a flexible rod, 1.8m long and 10mm in diameter and made of fibreglass or similar material. It is fastened on opposite sides of the net. The top of the antenna extends 80cm above the net and is marked with 10cm stripes of contrasting colour, usually red and white.

The 2.55m high posts are placed 0.50m‑­1.0m outside the side lines. The posts are rounded and fixed to the ground without wires.

Equipment

Runners/Court Shoes:

Any indoor athletic shoe is adequate for the beginner volleyball player, however, the use of runners versus court shoes can lead to more ankle sprains due to the higher heel height (made for shock absorption) in the runner

Socks:

Due to the repetitive motions required on the volleyball court, blisters are common, but you can avoid blisters by both choosing the correct shoes as well as the correct socks.

Knee Pads:

Knee pads are commonly worn by indoor volleyball players to protect the knee from the impact of the floor when diving for a ball or going down onto one knee when passing a ball.

Ankle Braces:

Ankle sprains occur often in volleyball due to the frequent action near the net with many players in a small space at one time

Hydration Gear:

Keeping hydrated will help you stay alert while playing volleyball. It may also help to prevent muscle cramps and will help your post game recovery.

Basic Skills

The six basic volleyball skills are passing, setting, spiking, blocking, digging, and serving.

Passing is often thought of as the most important skill in volleyball. If you can't pass the serve, then you won't ever put your team in a position to score a point.

The importance of serving is often undervalued. Many coaches don't teach players to serve aggressive and use this opportunity to give the team an advantage for scoring points.

Blocking is perhaps the least taught skill in volleyball. Players can get away with poor blocking skills because not blocking isn't going to hurt the team as much as being poor at executing other skills in volleyball.

Digging is another skill that isn't focused on quite as much as most skills in volleyball.

Rules of the Game

Basic Volleyball Rules

6 players on the floor at any one time - 3 in the front row and 3 in the back row

Maximum of 3 hits per side

Points are made on every serve for wining team of rally (rally-point scoring).

Player may not hit the ball twice in succession. (A block is not considered a hit.)

Ball may be played off the net during a volley and on a serve.

A ball hitting a boundary line is in.

A ball is out if it hits an antennae, the floor completely outside the court, any of the net or cables outside the antennae, the referee stand or pole, the ceiling above a non-playable area.

It is legal to contact the ball with any part of a player’s body.

It is illegal to catch, hold or throw the ball.

A player cannot block or attack a serve from on or inside the 10-foot line.

After the serve, front-line players may switch positions at the net.

Matches are made up of sets; the number depends on level of play. 3-set matches are 2 sets to 25 points and a third set to 15. Each set must be won by two points. The winner is the first team to win 2 sets. 5-set matches are 4 sets to 25 points and fifth set to 15. The team must win by 2 unless tournament rules dictate otherwise. The winner is the first team to win three sets.

Basic Volleyball Rule Violations

Rule violations that result in a point for the opponent

When serving, the player steps on or across the service line as while making contact with the ball.

Failure to serve the ball over the net successfully.

Ball-handling errors. Contacting the ball illegally (double touching, lifting, carrying, throwing, etc.)

Touching the net with any part of the body while the ball is in play.

When blocking a ball coming from the opponent’s court, it’s illegal to contact the ball when reaching over the net if both your opponent has not used 3 contacts AND they have a player there to make a play on the ball.

When attacking a ball coming from the opponent’s court, contacting the ball when reaching over the net is a violation if the ball has not yet broken the vertical plane of the net.

Crossing the court centerline with any part of your body is a violation. Exception: if it is the hand or foot. In this case, the entire hand or entire foot must cross for it to be a violation.

Serving out of rotation/order.

Back-row player blocking (deflecting a ball coming from the opponent) when, at the moment of contact, the back-row player is near the net and has part of his/her body above the top of the net. This is an illegal block.

Back-row player attacking a ball inside the front zone (the area inside the 3M/10-foot line) when, at the moment of contact, the ball is completely above the net. This is an illegal attack.

Officiating the Sport

Referees

The referee is the individual at the center of the court, dressed in black and white stripes. A referee’s duties include signaling when a rally begins and ends. The referee is responsible for officially recognizing team requests, substitutions, time-outs and communicating with the coaches at the appropriate times.

Scorekeeper

The scorekeeper creates official records of volleyball games.

Assistant Scorekeeper

The assistant scorekeeper or libero tracker is responsible for updating the scoreboard and keeping an eye on the libero.

Line Judges

These officials often use flags to signal when a ball is in or out, hits the antennae of the net, or when the server commits a foot fault, or steps outside the line as they serve.

Technical and Tactical Skills, and Analysis

Bidding to end a 14-year medal drought, the Philippine women’s volleyball team starts its uphill SEA Games climb against dangerous Vietnam. The Philippine women’s volleyball team put up a good fight but Vietnam proved steadier in the deciding set to hack out a 21-25, 25-23, 25-19, 20-25, 15-8 decision in the 2019 Southeast Asian Games at the PhilSports Arena. Sill locked in a 6-all tie in the 5th set, the Filipinas got undone when the Vietnamese staged a game-sealing 7-1 run capped by back-to-back blocks on Alyssa Valdez to take a huge 13-7 lead. Valdez then ended the match as her crosscourt hit sailed out for the 15-8 finish The Filipinas, though, stunned the favored Vietnamese in the opening frame, 25-21, but the visitors came alive off the leadership of young star “T4” Thi Thanh Thuy Tran, escaping the 2nd set, 25-23, then taking the 3rd in convincing fashion, 25-19. The Philippines, however, then started off strong in its comeback attempt at the 4th, netting a 10-4 edge off the lead by Jovelyn Gonzaga and Valdez.  Although Vietnam tied it up, 13-all, the Philippines eventually ran away in the 4th, 25-20.  Vietnam then cranked up the defense in the final frame, with 4 of their first 6 points coming off blocks. T4 stamped her dominance on the Filipinas with a triple-double of 27 points, 13 digs and 13 receptions as Valdez led the losing effort with 22 markers.

Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gm4kGC_d-i8

References:

AOC Volleyball. (2018, November  23). Retrieved from theartofcoachingvolleyball:  https://www.theartofcoachingvolleyball.com/basic-volleyball-rules-and-terminology/

Barclay. (n.d.).  Retrieved from barclayphysicaltherapy:  http://www.barclayphysicaltherapy.com/Sports-Activities/Volleyball/Guide-to-Selecting-Volleyball-Equipment/a~2855/article.html

Callaway, C.  (2011, August 17). SportsRec. Retrieved from SportsRec:  https://www.sportsrec.com/504918-how-to-officiate-a-game-of-volleyball.html

Kuhl, R. (2019,  July 12). DLGSC. Retrieved from dlgsc: https://www.dlgsc.wa.gov.au/sport-and-recreation/sports-dimensions-guide/volleyball#:~:text=The%20playing%20court%20is%2018m,high%20from%20the%20playing%20surface.

Strength and  Power for Volleyball. (n.d.). Retrieved from  strength-and-power-for-volleyball: https://www.strength-and-power-for-volleyball.com/basic-volleyball-skills.html#:~:text=The%20six%20basic%20volleyball%20skills,of%20serving%20is%20often%20undervalued.

[daily-dose-of-imagines]

(っ◔◡◔)っ ♥ Matchup ♥

Heyo!! Hope you are all doing well! and I HOPE YOURE TAKING GOOD CARE OF YOURSELVES ♡︎ 

Heyooo! I would like to request matchups for Inuyasha, Fairytail, and Fire Force, please!♡´･ᴗ･`♡

I am a heterosexual female!

I’m a Leo, and a combination of ENFP/ENTP (if that helps with characterization), but I’m becoming more ambivert as the days go by. But I still act like a crackhead (making up new words, making random sound effects out of boredom and roasting people playfully, having airhead moments, for examples) and a lot of people irl do get put off at how “obnoxious” I can get, but I do know when to “flip the switch” and become serious/quiet.

I have really low standards for humor idk I laugh at my own jokes it’s honestly astounding, but cursed memes/images are somethin else💀 Dark jokes are always open in my ally👀

Ironically, I canNOT stand horror, I will legit be so paranoid or freaked out and start overthinking and just cry and DIE—

I’m very open, almost TOO open, but ask me literally anything and I’ll usually tell everyone my honest opinions/thoughts, but I know how to deliver words tactfully and articulately. Debating, (public) speaking, writing, and understanding concepts are my strong suits; likewise I suck ass at math (I have no idea how tf I passed my Calc ap exams, I just— 😭)

Speaking of writing, I write poems whenever I feel like it, I have a whole collection HAH. My love of expressing comes from my tendency to play the devil’s advocate in interpreting and arguing for almost all perspectives in topics. So you can probably guess how I don’t get offended really easily and welcome both playful and serious banter (despite the crackhead persona, I’m very observant of people and their values expressed and how they tick, so I know when to back off especially when they get uncomfortable with my aggressive debating/personality). Need advice? I can use what I’ve gathered from different people and help anyone in their particular situations.

I know I can be overwhelming to alot of people at first impressions and I CAN get very passionate when talking about many things that might scare the hell out of people, but if they tell me to tone it down, I’ll gladly do so; again, I’ll honestly notice if they’re not comfy with it/are overwhelmed based on body language and even from the way they text…. super intuition or something?

And speaking of expression, I love fashion and makeup! I love being able to express myself through use of presentation and have fun while doing it! hehe (k-fashion, asian beauty 👀) HELL YEAH I’M DOWN FOR SHOPPING—

I like to dance yeehaw, and I was on a competitive dance team (well that was before when the corona hit the milly rock a little TOO hard and put all the dancers out of commission😔🤝😭) I’ve also been in my own highschool’s dance club for 4 years!!

I’m a console gamer :0 Big fan of winding down with video games, but books are the best if games aren’t an option.

Music is a huge part of my life; I played the flute and the viola for years before and been surrounded by music through dancing as well; while I’ve been in a choir before, my vocals aren’t stellar oof, but at least I’m not tone-deaf.

Can’t cook to save a life ooooof, that’s where my airheadness REALLY kicks in. I literally burn myself making instant :>

I’m not phased by sexual innuendos/conversations/kinks because I see them objectively as unique characteristics of every person, but I’ll crack up at a sex joke or a cringe flirt line with friends. And like I’ve said, I’ll share them myself without objection if ANYONE asks. But the moment someone actually TRIES to make a move on me (like what!!¡¿), I’ll first play it casual but then bolt for the door because it’s hard for me to actually imagine that ANY guy would see me in a romantic light LOL but i’d get used to the advances quick and if it’s someone i liked back, i’d tease them the same or raise up the antics ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ

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Hello and thank you for submitting with us! I hope that you are also taking good care of yourself as well, and I also sincerely hope that you like who I match you up with!

I’m sorry this is so late!

>Admin 𝕋

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𝐼 𝓈𝒽𝒾𝓅 𝓎𝑜𝓊 𝓌𝒾𝓉𝒽…

I ship you with the sweet Arthur! I feel as though with your energetic personality and his somewhat energetic yet dimwitted personality could really mesh well! If your humor is everywhere and lowbrow, then you should see Arthur’s! Your and his sense of humor are quite alike, and you both can definitely laugh at the weirdest things, but it’s cute! He will think you are cute because of it! And Arthur, he is open minded too, he is a very accepting person, and he would be very accepting of you and your quirks! And he will also be impressed that you can be so articulate, unlike him lolol. 

He will think it is so cool that you write poetry for fun, and how you love expressing yourself through the arts. He may not fully understand the extent of your content, but he will understand that they are very important to you, and will cherish them too! Arthur will love the fact that you are so intuitive and observant of people, because well, he isn’t. That’s why he think you are so cool, because he wouldn’t be able to pick up on those types of cues! He will also be so impressed with your fashion and how you express yourself through clothes! Arthur will definitely like if you wear medieval inspired clothing! A queen for his king!

He will think being in a dance group would be so cool! He himself can’t dance to save his life, but he would love for you to teach him, so that he can get good enough for you to dance with him! Arthur will also love the fact that you love games! He loves playing them, and would like to play with you! He would show off his favorite video games to you! 

You’d tell him that music is important to you, and how you play the flute, and he’d definitely relate it to the medieval times in some way, and would want to hear you play something from that time. And when you do, he would find it amazing, impressed with how well you play!

All in all, with his own airheadedness and bravery, Arthur would be such a good fit for you! He is kind, and warm, and someone that you can rely on when you need someone to lean on! He will be impressed with everything you can do that he can’t! Arthur will treasure you as his Queen!

I choose manly and chivalrous Koga as your Inuyasha boyfriend! I know this might seem like a good pair, but when I was reading through your description the first person that came to mind was Koga. He is someone that can be super serious in one second and super lighthearted in the next! He will see your airheadedness as something that is cute and charming, but he will also appreciate the fact that you are super observant and have great intuition! He would love for someone like that to be his wolf tribe leader wife! He would love to use your power to help the tribe communicate better! He will see it as a very beneficial characteristic and will be quite impressed!

Koga wouldn’t understand the notion of poetry, or reading, or writing, but when you explain to him, he will then think that it is pretty cool. Something that he wouldn’t actively pursue, but he will see that it is something that you very much enjoy and will do anything in his power to make sure that you have the tools you need so that you can properly be artistic! He will also see that your artistic expression also goes to your clothes and makeup and would be very impressed with the fact that you work it so well! He would comment saying that he could never look that good in makeup, saying you are the most beautiful he has ever seen in it, you just do it so well!

I believe that once Koga founds out that you dance and play flute, he will get super happy. Seeing as he the leader of a big demon tribe, he will have the need for entertainment in his down time, and guess what! You’re the entertainment, but in a good way! He will want to listen to you play the flute, and see what kind of melodies you play! Later on, he will have someone else who can play, so he can dance and teach you traditional demon wolf tribe dances!

All in all, Koga is more serious and calm, but with your loud energy and kind-hearted soul, he will just be sucked in by it. You will be the one to show him how to really have a good time, and you will be able to show him that sometimes you just need to take a breather and forget about the difficulties in life, especially when you are a demon leader!

I chose the loud and energetic Natsu of Fairy Tail to be your boyfriend! Seeing as you are super energetic and he is super energetic and loud, you guys would be the perfect pair! Natsu will see that you are so boisterous and can’t stay in the same place for a long time, because he is the same. So he will feel a sense of bonding! When it comes to you being serious and quiet, and knowing when to be, he will think it is really cool of you, only because he doesn’t have a filter, and doesn’t know when to shut up, so maybe you can teach him a few tricks! 

When he sees how open you are, he will feel happy about that! He has been in dark times, and so have many of his friends, so when he knows that you are accepting of any type of person, he will love that, and would feel comfortable introducing you to his friends! Natsu will also be surprised yet impressed with the fact that you are so observant. He is only really observant when it comes to battle, and not really when it comes to people in everyday settings, so when you show him what you can do, he will have a shocked expression the entire time! He will also love the fact that on the other end of the spectrum you can be very loud and passionate!

When he sees you are very artistic with poetry, writing, and reading, and even with your makeup and fashion, it would show him that you aren’t afraid to express yourself and be yourself, and he would absolutely love that! He will want to see the things you write, and the things you read, and the things that make you you, so he can get a better understanding of you! And when it comes to the dancing and the music, and the fact that you can play the flute, he would be impressed and hella jealous that you can do such amazing things! He would definitely ask you teach him in the future!

All in all, I think that he would be a very loving and very accepting boyfriend for you! He will take you on all of his adventures and tell you all of his secrets, and treat you like treasure, like you deserve to be treated!

[cchilyoja]

THE POSITIVE & NEGATIVE; Mun & Muse - Meme.

fill out & repost ♥ This meme definitely favors canons more, but I hope OC’s still can make it somehow work with their own lore, and lil’ fandom of friends & mutuals. Multi-Muses pick the muse you are the most invested in atm.

tagged by:   tagged by the always wonderful @foxcharmed tagging:    anyone that follows me, sees this on their dash & wants to do it :)

MY MUSE IS:   canon / oc / au / slightly canon-divergent / fandomless / complicated.

IS YOUR CHARACTER POPULAR IN THE FANDOM?   YES / NO. Well, he is the main character of the show, but seeing as there’s only me & @legcndreportr that write character from the show, I’d say, the RP fandom for it is tiny, but I think a lot of people that watch dramas like the show & the characters.

IS YOUR CHARACTER CONSIDERED HOT™ IN THE FANDOM?   YES / NO / IDK. [ I mean, he’s played by Ji Chang Wook, I mean, obviously yes. Have you seen just how many fan JCW blogs there are on this site? Understandable. Honestly, and truly.  ]

IS YOUR CHARACTER CONSIDERED STRONG IN THE FANDOM?   YES / NO / IDK. [ I’d say he’s very skilled & flawed. There are many things that he can do, many things that he is good at, but the slew of both traumatic and just plain shitty things that had happened to him over the early years of his childhood, combined with HUGE abandonment issues that he has never really dealt with. All of that can make certain mundane things a lot harder than any 007 stuff that he sometimes does. ]

ARE THEY UNDERRATED?   YES / NO / IDK. [ I think, even though I love the character, obv been RPing him for years. I hate that people don’t STAN the other characters as much, especially the other main female characters that are just as interesting, complex and worth loving. But alas that is the world we live in. ]

WERE THEY RELEVANT FOR THE MAIN STORY?   YES / NO,he is the main story, if you know what I mean. But no, seriously, he is the main character. 

WERE THEY RELEVANT FOR THE MAIN CHARACTER?   YES / NO / THEY’RE THE PROTAG. [ Yeah, but tbh, I find it that in the show, the two main characters are equally sorted in the first place, Jung-hoo is nothing without Young-shin. There would be no development, no revelation about his life, childhood and interesting complex storytelling and showing without her.  ]

ARE THEY WIDELY KNOWN IN THEIR WORLD?   YES / NO. [ One would assume that I should put YES for this, buuuut, while HEALER is known to the criminal underbelly, police and those that would want or need to hire someone like him, the general public has no idea. Which is exactly what he wants, because attention isn’t really a useful thing in his line of work, or just the way he lives his life.  ]

HOW’S THEIR REPUTATION?   GOOD / BAD / NEUTRAL. [ Good when it comes to how skilful he is, but bad as a person. His character arc really goes a looong way from where he is in episode 1. Like the first thing we see is him playing a tennis VR game, complaining that he can’t pick the character he is playing against to have less clothes (that being a computer-generated character but still), which isn’t really all that interesting and for sure not someone I’d be all into writing. And also his lack of care when it comes to what he does, like the guy he was protecting also in ep 1. Ends up dead, and he’s annoyed bc the police think he killed him, the fact that he’s dead, he couldn’t care less. ]

HOW STRICTLY DO YOU FOLLOW CANON?   —   I’ve been writing him for over two years, and it’s just no fun to just follow the canon. He has developed overtime on his own, and besides that, I just never really like any CANON fully. When it comes to the show, bc there are only 16 eps, and as with most dramas there is only one season. So I’ve taken the liberty to expand on the canon and to create Jung-hoo as I think he’d be, away from the scenes we can see him in.

SELL YOUR MUSE! Aka try to list everything, which makes your muse interesting in your opinion to make them spicy for your mutuals.   —   For me personally, I really found it interesting that the mother that abandoned him, married someone else and had a whole new family, after his father died. Jung-hoo cares for her, meets with her, gives her money etc. He doesn’t hate or resent her, I think that shows a lot of compassion but also emotional intelligence. He has this me vs the world outlook, way of life, mentally, however you want to call it, but is in desperate need for someone to SEE him. Like acknowledge his existence, to stay, to love him. He is incredibly skilled & capable, everything you’ve seen 007 do, he does it better. Also I’ve made sure to include diverse verses so there is a way to explore pretty much anything under the sun that you could think of.

Now the OPPOSITE, list everything why your muse could not be so interesting (even if you may not agree, what does the fandom perhaps think?).   —  I think he can’t really move past the whole I hate everyone & I need someone. So he goes back and forth, it is difficult to create a meaningful connection. I’ve been lucky to do that but that’s also bc I’ve written with some people here for years. 

WHAT INSPIRED YOU TO RP YOUR MUSE?   —   I had taken a few years break from RP, which used to be like one of my main interests, writing in general. And then I was getting into just watching Kdramas, watched HEALER, and I was instantly like I HAVE TO WRITE HIM, and never looked back really. 

WHAT KEEPS YOUR INSPIRATION GOING?   —   Auditory stimuli, be it music or just sounds. For example, when I write I tend to use programs or websites where you can put different sounds in the background like thunder, rain, wind, chatter etc. Watching yt clips, seeing people on my dash tbh, like people that I follow also inspire me bc they make me go I WANNA WRITE WITH ALL OF THEM.

Some more personal questions for the mun.

Give your mutuals some insight about the way you are in some matters, which could lead them to get more comfortable with you or perhaps not.

DO YOU THINK YOU GIVE YOUR CHARACTER JUSTICE?   YES / NO / I SINCERELY HOPE I DO? [ I think I tend to have all of these feelings, sometimes I’m like, yeah, this is Jung-hoo, this is exactly what I wanted, sometimes I’m like who am I writing? But I just focus more on me enjoying writing him, than thinking if people think I write him as they think I should.]

DO YOU FREQUENTLY WRITE HEADCANONS?   YES / NO / SORT OF? [I have a bunch of headcanons about like the smallest of things, like the fact that I don’t think he likes wearing socks is one of them, but,  I don’t write them or post them on here. I’m not sure why, I guess I prefer to sort of just sprinkle them in the threads??? ]

DO YOU SOMETIMES WRITE DRABBLES?   YES / NO [ Kinda. I also write fanfiction & I had started this original one with sort of Jung-hoo in mind but not really him. I realized I really like writing starters, I think that’s probably like an unpopular opinion or way of thinking but I really enjoy starting the thread, and I kinda sometimes think starters are like drabbles, I’m not making sense. ]

DO YOU THINK A LOT ABOUT YOUR MUSE DURING THE DAY?   YES / NO

ARE YOU CONFIDENT IN YOUR PORTRAYAL?   YES / NO / SORT OF? [ Depends on my mental state. Like sometimes 100% and then other times it’s like what am I even doing?? ]

ARE YOU CONFIDENT IN YOUR WRITING?   YES / NO / A LITTLE BIT. [ I enjoy how I write, if that makes sense. I’d like to think that I can switch it up now and again, keep it fresh, I def know that I’ve evolved over the course of the years I’ve been RPing ]

ARE YOU A SENSITIVE PERSON?   YES / NO. / SORTA.

DO YOU ACCEPT CRITICISM WELL ABOUT YOUR PORTRAYAL?   —   Sure. I’m fine with that. I just think that the INTERNET does not know how to compute that, or people on the internet. It’s either, you can do no wrong or you should die a horrible death. It’s like either STAN or HATE. And it’s also somehow part of the rp community here on Tumblr. Where there’s just either fake praise or just unnecessary hate. And then there is a bit in the middle where like you can talk and exchange ideas and thoughts. But it is not the main focus by any means. If anyone wants to tell me to change something, or to do something diff, sure, let me hear you out, you might inspire me to improve. But that rarely happens. 

DO YOU LIKE QUESTIONS, WHICH HELP YOU TO EXPLORE YOUR CHARACTER?   — Of course, I think a lot of people are like this. Talking about my character gives me muse for the character. Like we could be talking how he’d eat a salad and I’d be like, okay now I have to write a novella about this other thing I’m inspired about. 

IF SOMEONE DISAGREES TO A HEADCANON OF YOURS, DO YOU WANT TO KNOW WHY?  —  That’s weird to me just bc I feel like when I read someones headcanon, this is how they, and them uniquely see the character, so I can’t really disagree with that, I can have an opinion for sure. But that’s like someone being I like this band, and you say, no you don’t, it just doesn’t make sense to me.

IF SOMEONE DISAGREES WITH YOUR PORTRAYAL, HOW WOULD YOU TAKE IT?   —  Same with the previous one. Like I often find blogs where they are writing a character that I either love from a show, move, book whatever, or it’s a canon type character that I find really interesting, like the idea behind it, but then I read their writing and then I go, aaaah okay nooo, no NO. And it’s never personal, it’s like, we ain’t gonna mesh, which is fine. And if someone is like that with my writing, fully understandable, just don’t be a dick about it, and we’ll be cool.

IF SOMEONE REALLY HATES YOUR CHARACTER, HOW DO YOU TAKE IT?  —  Couldn’t really give less of a shit really. RP to me is this little bubble where I am this fictional person that can do and try everything. It is in no way connected to any other aspect of actual reality or my life. The only connection is if I have to take a hiatus or smth, but like even if I write OOC things, it’s about IC stuff. I have other social medial for real life, this is just my RP bubble. So if someone is wasting their time hating a fictional character, they have bigger fish to fry. 

ARE YOU OKAY WITH PEOPLE POINTING OUT YOUR GRAMMATICAL ERRORS?   —   Sure, English isn't my first language so mistakes happen. If I see someone make a mistake and the write with me, I just change it when I reply to them, but I don’t point it out bc you never know, someone people could be okay cool thanks, and someone else could really feel down on themselves, which would be bad, and I wouldn’t want that to happen.

DO YOU THINK YOU ARE EASY GOING AS A MUN?  —  I’d like to think so, especially that I’m easy to approach and talk to. I don’t take many things seriously, not just on here but like in life. So I’m always open to any idea anyone might have. I’ve been lucky with the people that I’ve been following & those that have followed me, a huge percentage is just really dope people, nice to read their writing, nice to talk to, great to write with. And I hope that it stays that way, so we can also have this as some kind of mental break from life :) 

[heartfeltheart]

Alchemy: Magic Vs. Science

Chapters: 4/25 Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist/Harry Potter Rating: T Relationships: Edward/Winry, Lan Fan/Ling, and May/Alphonse. Primary Characters: Edward Elric, Severus Snape Additional Tags: Crossover, Teacher!Edward, BrOtp Edward/Severus. Sassy beyond measure. Series: Part 1 of 9. Summary: Magic and Science, are they the same or are they completely different? It just takes one person to point out all up and downs. Along with breaking the stereotypes that come up with being a wizard, alchemist and most of all being human. Thank you, @amynchan! D/C: I do not own Harry Potter or Fullmetal Alchemist. Discord: La Red(Mesh Mash of… stuff.): https://discord.gg/KYjmVAb Alchemy Series: https://discord.gg/DejEYNJ

“English and Edward’s accented voice.” “Amestrian or another foreign language.” “Written notes.” ‘Thoughts.’ First Name: Informal Last Name: Formal (Or used to annoy others)

"Just how much did you actually make in three months?" Snape could not help but ask in total awe, all disregard of appearances at this point. He stood next to Elric and Kavex inside Elric's new personal vault within Gringotts. Right in front of him are multiple mountainous piles of Galleons, Sickles and Knut's. He had previously visited faults of families with money, and none of them could even match Elric's riches. "What did you do exactly in the military?"

"Hm?" Elric looked over his shoulder to see Snape's gob smack expression puzzled. Why do people keep making that face whenever he mentions something about his money? He hardly uses it as it is, making good financial decisions (Aka: his brother Alphonse), and 'borrowing money' from that bastard Mustang. "I haffe changed it from months to a zingle year. I do not vant to end up broke and not be able to exchange it later on."

Elric eyes seemed to dull when he though over Snape's second question. He wondered how he should answer that one, after all even though he told Snape a lot of things from his past. Said past should remain under lock and key. "Rezearch and field vork. A lot of the field vork required me to traffel effervere and fix many problems...Dat and I got a bromozioin."

"You are not going to give me a straight answer aren't you?" Snape deadpanned.

"Nobe." Elric grinned at him, albeit his grin did not quite reach his eyes.

-.-

"All the other supplies you require are not going to be sold here," Snape muttered under his breath as he and Elric left the Magical Goblin run bank.

"The nodepooks, bens, and bencils?" Elric asked he kept his gaze down as he walked down the stone steps. "I vould haffe thought as much conzitering hov the contract vas vritten. The ink, paper, and hov it vas vritden."

"That is highly perceptive of you, Elric." Snape mused following after Elric.

"It is bart of the job descripzion." Elric muttered bitterly, taking the last step of the steps of the bank. He stood there waiting for Snape. "It zure as hell help me stay aliffe out dere...sort of...Is dere anything elze I should go zee?"

Snape thought for a moment and wondered what else Elric would need or show him about the Magical Wizarding World. Robes? No, Elric will probably scrunch his nose at it. Wand... no. Quidditch...no. Snape went the mental checklist on what exactly they should do next. Nothing came up to mind per say. Fortunately for him, Elric's stomach answered for them.

Elric flushed in embarrassment, he covered his stomach. "Zorry, I did not haffe a full breakfast."

"Leaky Cauldron it is then." Snape said curtly, he signaled for Elric to follow him through the busy area.

"Hov does your community communicate?" Elric asked as he walked along side of Snape while avoiding running into anyone or accidentally hitting them with his suitcase. Even though some of them look like they deserve it. "I not once zaw a telephone, mail post or anything of dat manner."

"We use owls." Snape pointed at a shop that was just ahead of them.

"Ovls?" Edward asked, his eyebrow arched upward at the thought of using an owl as a mode of communication. Wouldn't there be a worry of someone taking the owl and get the information that said the animal was carrying. "Is dat effen zecure? Hov long does it take for dem to deliffer mezages? Hov much could dey carry?"

Elric blasted question after question about the mode of communication that wizards have. Fortunately for him, Snape answered him fully without much of a hassle as Elric took in his own words...the majority of his previous and, unfortunately, future students.

"...Hov much do dey uzually cost?"

Snape stopped mid-stride nearly causing Elric to tumble over him.

"Vy did you stop?" Elric complained trying to regain his balance again.

"Do you want an owl?" Snape acquired, looking over at Elric who looked rather embarrassed about it.

"Vell...I vant to get in condact vith my friends and family." Elric explained, he had his head turned towards the direction of the shop that sold owls. He unconsciously gripped the handle of his suitcase harder. "But...I do not knov hov I vould once I get to dat school."

"There are a going to be a few restrictions on what you could and could not write..."

-.-

Edward stared into a cage, his eyebrows slanted downward, and lips pursed in concentration. The owl in question seemed to be copying his expression. One would tilt their head to the side and the other would copy. This seemed to continue on for what seemed like forever.

Edward stared at the owl now with a scowl, to his amusement, the owl attempted to replicate it. With a grin, Edward leaned away from the cage and called out to the owner of the shop. "Vat kind of ovl is he?"

The owl ruffled its feathers at Edward.

"She?" Edward asked he grinned when the owl seemed to understand his words. "Vat kind of ovl is she?"

"That is a Boreal Owl..."

The Boreal Owl that Edward had asked about is about 9 inches long, has brown feathers with white and copper feathers flickered around it. It has a disk-like face with yellow eyes that gave the owl a surprised look. She is a tiny owl compared to a lot of the owls in the shop and the only one that caught Edward's attention.

-.-

In the back corner of the Leaky Cauldron Elric and Snape, along with Elric's owl sat around a table waiting for their late lunch to arrive.

"Your name is nov...Xerxes." Elric cooed into the newly named owl cage that was placed in the seat next to him. His suitcase along with a bag filled with items and a book to take care of Xerxes, along with information he would need to take care of her. Severus sat across of him with a half amused expression. It was rather amusing to see Elric get his fingers get pecked out and not learn his lesson just a moment later.

"Since you are officially going to be teaching Alchemy at Hogwarts." Snape started off to say, as Elric place his travel coat over Xerxes cage. "You are provided with your own private quarters which is already available for once the school year begins. Or would you prefer to move in immediately?"

"Er...ven is dat again?" Elric asked flexing his fingers in an attempt to regain some feeling of them.

"September 1st," Snape replied.

"Hm...hov do the students go to dis school?"

"They go by train."

"Ah...trains..." Elric mused remembering all the times he had to use a train to transverse during his journey to regain his brother's body. A lot of those times made him grumble in dismay at how 'eventful' they were. "If ve vere to go dere nov, hov vould ve get dere?"

"Two ways, floo powder or apparition."

"Vell it be alright if I go py train..." Edward asked, he suddenly felt sick to his stomach for some strange reason at the mention of the mode of transportation. He didn't even know what they are or how they get a person from point a to point b. All he needs is some normalcy at this point. "I do not dink my stomach could handle anything elze at dis point."

"Hey, it's him!"

"You're right, George!"

"Boys come back, don't run!"

Elric and Snape's heads turned to see the Weasley Twins running towards their table. Their sights focused on Elric. "Mr. Elric!"

"Fred, George, are you poth finished vith your shopping?" Elric asked as both boys stood in front of him. They were holding onto the same books he bought for them earlier.

"We are taking a break." Fred started off saying.

"Getting a quick lunch before we continue." George continued on saying.

"How much longer are."

"You going to stay here?"

"I am chust going to eat my lunch and leaffe," Elric said as a waiter came and gave him and Snape's food.

"Excuse me?"

Looking over the top of the twins, Elric saw a woman that looked similar to the twins. Their mother perhaps...

Fred and George turned around to see their mother standing behind them. They could see Charlie standing along side of their mother, and the rest of their siblings were are the other side of the pub.

"Ja?"

"Are you the one that bought the twins their books?" Mrs. Weasley asked she stared at the young man. He seemed far different than what the twins had told her. She would have assumed by their talk, which mostly compromised of a Mr. Elric being a huge bookworm, intelligent beyond comprehension, vastly knowledgeable in Alchemy and not even from the area by the sounds of it. An old age magic that the only person she knew that branch of magic is Dumbledore.

"Mrs. Weasley..." Snape stated, catching the older woman out of her thoughts.

Mrs. Weasley broke out of her thoughts and saw who was sitting with Elric. Her eyes widened at the sight of Snape. "Oh, Professor Snape, I didn't see you there."

Elric shot Snape a look which made the Potion's Master bite back a snarky remark. "This Edward Elric, he will be teaching Alchemy the upcoming year. He was the one that bought your...boys...their books."

"We told you." The twins said to their mother, then they turned their attention back to Elric. "Mr. Elric, this is our mum and that is our brother Charlie."

Elric gave him a short wave. "Hello. You must pe Fred and George's mother, and you are...Charlie right?"

"Ah yes er...Professor Elric." Charlie replied unnerved by Elric's golden colored eyes. He has seen different colored eyes but that is because a good friend of his could turn her eyes into whatever color she wanted them to be. Elric eyes seemed...different. Not in a sense of color but the emotions that range within them. Or lack of for that matter. His accent didn't help for that matter.

Elric waved him off about the title. "I do not like dat term...makes me feel like...."

Elric shook his head as his mind shifted towards memories that made him feel pissed off or a huge sense of dread. "Mr. Elric vill do for nov...Is dere zomething you need?"

"We wanted to say." Fred began.

"Thanks for buying us." George continued.

"Our books." Fred and George finished together. "We promise to study the books you got us to get into your class."

"Heh, dat inclutes all of your clazes, especially...Brofesor Snape class." Elric pointed at Snape, his nose scrunched up when he said Snape's title. "Dat zounted zo veird...pozions vill help you further on your studies in alchemy."

"Really?" Charlie, Fred, and George asked at the same time.

"Really."

-.-

"I'll come by within the week to give you your tickets to the train," Severus said as he and Edward left the Leaky Cauldron. He is helping Edward carrying Xerxes cage as Edward held onto his suitcase, Xerxes items and a paper bag that contained the blonde's dinner for that night. "If you have any more questions, write a letter and have your owl mail it to me."

"Hov vill Xerxes knov where to go precisely?" Edward asked as they crossed the street.

"It is one of the many secrets that this world holds, Mr. Elric." Snape droned.

Edward eyed him from the corner of his eye, scrutinizing him. Several moments later, Edward snorted and looked away from him. "I vill figure it out one vay or another."

Severus' lips curled back in hidden mirth. "Of course, Mr. Elric."

"Could you stop calling me dat!" Edward huffed out while he rolled his eyes. "I do not like it ven my friends calling me dat."

Severus stared at Edward momentarily before he looked away and changed the subject. "Do you have anything you need to ask before we part ways?"

"Vill my letters be monidored?" Edward asked in a low mummer that his lips barely moved as he spoke.

"As long as you do no make it obvious and to not inform anyone that could use it towards their advantage," Severus responded just as quietly. "Am I to assume you are going to tell your brother?"

"Hm..." Edward grinned weakly. "Vat vill be the rebercuzions if ve get caught?"

"Considering that he is your brother, an alchemist and part of a world where no magic exists, just like you." Severus thought over the situation in his mind. What would usually happen involves going to court, or having your mind obliterated. The current case is...different. This time, it is dealing with people that are from a country that has no trace of magic but they deal with something far different. This country, Amestris, have alchemists and it is public knowledge. From what Edward had told him, everyone knows about alchemy and it is not exactly a secret. Unlike the Magical World where everything about magic is hidden away from anyone that does not have a magical background. "Ensure he does not speak it to anyone else about this...However there is the possibility that the government will attempt to read your letters..."

"Do not vorry about dat last part." Edward grinned, a glint of mischief sparkled in his eyes.

Severus stared at Edward wondering if he should be worried for a second. "You already thought of something didn't you?"

"It is zomething dat alchemist knov and share," Edward explained to Severus. "Ve all vrite in a ferze dat ve only understand."

"What?"

Edward only laughed as he quickly picked up his pace when he saw his hotel in the distance. "Dink of alchemy as a...riddle."

Severus only shook his head as he also quickens his pace. "Are all alchemist like you?"

"Combared to all the other alchemist I knov...I am rather normal...zort of..." Edward laughed.

"I am going to regret this aren't I...how normal are they?" Severus asked, deeply regretted when he saw Edward stop walking and shiver excessively.

"You do not vant to knov." Edward shivered in total fear. "Zo much sparkle..."

"Sparkle?"

"You do not vant to knov..."

-.-

 Al...

 Winry...

 Granny...

 Hawkeye and Mustang...

Edward sat at the desk that was in his hotel room writing letter after letter, to his loved ones and close friends. The letters covered about his travels so far and only sharing the bare minimum depending on who he was writing to. Some of the letters seemed straightforward or seemed like total gibberish. The only thing was, to someone with an alchemy background will know that the letter that seemed straightforward is total gibberish and the one that is gibberish is straightforward.

Edward looked over his shoulder to see the open window and the curtains are softly billowing by the wind. He had let Xerxes out for the night to allow the owl to stretch his wings and look for a quick midnight snack. Resting his chin on the palm of his left hand, Edward allowed his mind to wonder. Just how is he going to go about teaching a bunch of kids alchemy when they come from a total and different background than him. They all grew up in an environment filled with magic or not knowing about magic and alchemy. At least back in Amestris, everyone had some knowledge of what alchemy is. Here... Nope. Zip. Nada. Zilch.

Picking up the letter that is to be sent to his brother, Edward quickly wrote for some advice about said situation. On how he should go about it. If he does not find a way soon, those kids are going to end up the middle of nowhere. Only given a knife and a riddle to solve... That would only lead to problems on both sides.

'I knew I should not have agreed to this.' Edward thought dropping the pen he was using against the desk.

Plop. Plop.

Something hit the back of Edward's head and it quickly landed on the floor. Edward blinked trying to comprehend what just happened. He turned around to see Xerxes sitting on the bed staring at him and down at the floor repeatedly. Looking down, Edward saw something soft and... oh, Truth...

"GUAH!" Edward screamed and jumped on top of his chair in fright. "Stupid bird, what the hell!"

On the floor is a small mouse staring up at Edward with wide eyes.

-.-

Several countries away...

Alphonse Elric sat crossed legged in the middle of a forest, his eyes closed, shoulders loose and a look of total concentration. Like a switch, one of his eyes cracked open looking out in a seemingly random direction. "Hm...seems like Brother is having a good time."

"What was that Alphonse-sama?"

"Nothing Mei."

-.-

"I wonder what that idiot is doing now?" Winry said to herself as she works on her latest blueprints of an automail someone had ordered for her to make. Her mind did not seem to be fully into it as she kept thinking about her...fiancé. She only shook her head at the thought, Edward asking her to marry him and she agreeing to it. "About time Edward...about time."

"He better come back home in the same shape he left or I'm calling it off." Winry seethed under her breath, tightly holding up her trusty wrench menacingly.

-.-

"Where is it...?" Granny Pinako looked through box after box inside her home. Looking for something she had packed away for safe keeping and perhaps for a future use. Said use is coming up the next spring or summer, and her only hope is that what is in the box managed to survive after so many years being away from the sunlight. "Here it is."

Pinako pulled out a box that was well over her height and brought it out towards the light. With a cutter, she opened the box and attentively took out the contents of the box. A photo album, a small decorative pillow, a velvet box and finally...a white wedding dress. "Good as new."

-.-

"Sir..."

"No."

"Sir."

"You can't make me."

Click.

"Do I have to?"

"Yes. Yes, you do."

Roy Mustang picked up a pen and continued off with his paperwork that was way overdue. His second in command inwardly smiled as she put away her gun and went back to doing her own paperwork. In one or more occasion, Riza would catch Roy staring at her and to ensure he would go back to his work she would pull out her gun. Needless to say, Roy still hasn't gotten the message.

Tag List Below:

Permanent Tag List: @runestarchild​ @princesskitomi​ @fanfictionpromptsblog​ @souleateralicestein​​ @vixen-uchiha​​ @okami-knight​​ @legendaryneckjudgestudent​​ @weird-homosapien​​ @justafanwarrior​​ @vivilakitty​​ @ravennightingaleandavatempus​​ @if-you-give-a-chat-a-cookie​​ @moonwatcher04​​ @darkshadowguardian​​ @two-faced-biatch​​ @kris-pines04​​ @mewwitch​​ @edwardhatori​​ @kuroko26​​ @tall-and-angry​​   @bloody-no-kissu​​ @crazylittlemunchkin​​ @tbehartoo​​ @worlds-tiniest-spook-pastry​​ @melicmusicmagic​​

[houseofvans]

ART SCHOOL | INTERVIEW WITH PANDR DESIGN CO.

Obsessed with typography, bright colors and painting, art duo Phoebe and Roxy banded together after a meet-up group for other lettering enthusiasts to form Pandr Design. Known for their bright colored and beautifully lettered murals, these two bad-ass muralist have painted pieces on various businesses as well as the Albuquerque Mural Fest. We’re excited to chat with them to find out about their motivations, process, and upcoming projects!

Find out more about this dynamic painting duo by taking the leap below! 

Photographs courtesy of the artist. 

Introduce yourselves. Our names are Phoebe and Roxy and together we run Pandr Design Co., Drunk on Lettering, and Ladies Who Paint. Pandr is our design business...we mostly paint murals! Drunk on Lettering is our crazy podcast where we interview different creatives each week over drinks via Skype. Ladies Who Paint is the non-profit we recently started. It's the first all female mural walk set to take place in San Diego this September!

Tell folks a little about the work and artwork you both make and what do love about what you do? Our work consists of different styles of lettering and bright colors. It's usually in the form of a mural, but we also do a lot of social media graphics and wallpaper. We love painting murals because it always has such a "wow factor". Seeing the rendering on a screen is ALWAYS different than seeing it larger than life, in-person. 

How did you both start collaborating with each other? What was that like, and why did it justmake so much sense? We started collaborating when we started a meet-up group for other lettering nerds in San Diego. We were planning and hosting lots of events, and then started creating little products here and there like stickers and post cards. Our styles meshed really well, and we had a lot of fun working together! Then we started getting commissioned to do bigger projects, and it quickly turned in to a business. 

A lot of your artwork focuses on typography, color and design. Can you tell us what initially drew you to explore this particular aspect of art, and what was the most interesting thing you discovered as you explored it as artists?

We both were obsessed with lettering on the side of our full-time jobs. We were posting to Instagram constantly and very much obsessed with what other lettering artists were doing on the platform. We used to work with pencil and Sharpie before iPad Pro times, so that's definitely helped to streamline our process and allow more experimentation with color. It used to be that we spent so much time drawing on paper and vectorizing. Now we can draw it instantly on our iPad, mock the design up on a photo of the wall, and boom we have a mural! We're always trying to push the envelope with color in our murals. 

When working on a mural or collaborative project for a client, what is your process like? Do you start with research and then fill up your notebooks? What is your approach? It's always different. Sometime the client has an idea of exactly what they want and other times they have no idea. Our job is to make their dreams come to life in the most successful way possible. Our goal with our murals is to draw attention to the client's business via social media. A lot of the time education has to happen that the mural cannot be an advertisement, otherwise people aren't going to want to take photographs with it.

As for the actual design process... we start with mood boards. The client will tell us which images they're drawn to and that serves as inspiration. Then we start sketching. We provide the client with three finished renderings, mocked up on the photo of the wall. Roxy designs one, Phoebe designs one, and we collaborate on one...that way they're getting three different looks! 

What particular collaborative project was your personal favorite and why?We really loved our mural that we did for the Albuquerque Mural Fest this fall. It was a feminist piece and we got to use all the colors we wanted! It had a mixture of different type styles and also played around with transparency.

Finally, what medium haven’t you tried that you’d definitely like to get your handson? We have never used spray paint and we know that we need to learn. It's a whole different animal than painting with a brush.  

What art tools are your go-to?  We would be absolutely lost without our iPads. Pen and paper is great but it is so slow. We're businesswomen so time is money and the iPad saves us hours. Other than the iPad we use FrogTape and whatever house paint we can get our hands on. We're not loyal to any paint brands! 

What do you love about where you live, and what is the art community like in your area? We live in San Diego so there really is no better place on the planet! We were just painting in the rain and wind in Philly and that was pretty miserable. San Diego has year-round amazing weather. The art community is also pretty great. As we said, we've started a non-profit and the community has been amazingly supportive. We're excited to see it take off! 

Who are some artists that you’re inspired by and have influenced you throughout the years? Gemma O'Brien, Ashlee Jones, Georgia Hill, Jennet Liaw, Cyla Costa, Tierney Milne, Pepa Ivanoff, Jessi Raulet, Alli Koch, Mary Kate McDevitt, Rachel Joy, Lauren McElroy, Lakwena... the list could go on forever! 

What’s been the most challenging part of your art careers? What’s been the most rewarding? The first year of our business together was pretty rough. We had no idea how to price, negotiate, sign contracts, etc, However, we figured it out and now it feels pretty rewarding to be financially stable. We moved up tax brackets this year and that's something we could have never fathomed before! 

What do you do to keep the balance? We try to unplug and take off when we can. It's easy to work 24/7 when you own your own business. We also get a lot of massages! 

What’s your advice to folks who see what you do and want to pursue it as a career? There is no certificate for mural painting that you need to have before you get started. The worst thing that can happen if you screw up is that you have to paint it over. So many people get in there head and are too scared to try, but that's a waste of time! You learn better by doing. Just try it out. 

What are your FAVORITE Vans? We are both huge fans of the classic black Sk8-His.

Finally, can you tell us about any exciting things you’ve got coming up? Many exciting things! We have a goal of painting in all 50 states and we're about to get number 17, we have a book deal in the works, we're doing a TedX talk, and we're about to paint for our first NFL team. Stay tuned!

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