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vanherst · 4 years ago

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Vher98 Update 5

I know it's only been a couple of weeks since the last blog post about my recent updates towards developing Vher98, but trust me it's for a good reason, I'll split it up into chapters to sorta give a bit more of an explination towards developments and get a bit more in depth about it for once.

Display properties.

This has been delayed for SO long, and finally I've gotten around to doing it. Finishing the display properties menu. The display properties has been the bane of my existance about this website but yet my best feature, just from the schemes feature alone. But this week I have a new addition, and that is to say I now have desktop icon schemes! Inwhich, allows you to change the desktop icons based on preselected spritesheets (Which you can also change by the command prompt!).

At the moment there are 6 presetswhich you can select, I recently did a massive sprite redesign for desktop icons based on my new character, Petra! But that's for a future update, for now I've set the default spritesheet and included all of the old ones, which you can select from, alongside being able preview them at a smaller resolution to be compatiable with the display properties window.

I've also added a few other settings which you can see previews of, not all of which are programmed yet, so at a future date I'll either change them around or program them. But for now, I've added the ability to change desktop icon sizes to a more native modern scale, but leaving the default setting as the classic windows 98 recreation.

I've also added additional wallpapers, only accessable through the effects tab and "CSGO MODE" which was featured in the background of the preview blog post, which recreates the settings for my counterstrike mainmenu, along with adjusting the desktop icons and wallpaper to fit.

As previewed above, designed to be a slight nod to my recent "Neon Genesis Evanjollion" video, featured on my youtube channel. I've recorded and animated my counterstrike character with loopable animations which play continuously in the background.

Now, I know this is a lot of text for what seemingly is a minor update, but the main reason I was able to design the latest additions to the effects tab was because of the recent massive rewrite I've had to do in order to fix a bunch of problems I was coming across, one of which being how unoptimised themes were reletively.

Left: new code which include schemes selection and the new effects menu toggles. Right: old code, only including schemes selection.

This entire re-write revolves around basically storing arrays of data rather than manually switching values of variables, along with tons of adjustments to unneeded variables and how theme data is required to be stored, as CSMODE needs to store the theme data to be able to toggle from the data needed to switch from the current scheme to CSGO mode.

I cannot understate howmuch of a rewrite this is, and as much as I would like to say "I really don't get why I ever did it otherwise", I would be lying. But this is a super incredable optimisation and looking at this comparritively makes me super pleased with how far i've come from knowing nothing about HTML/JS to this. Jquery is a godsend.

Start Menu

On my newly found optimisation craze, I've also done tons of rewriting to the startmenu, another long overdue reform. Even though I've recently done a rewrite on this thing, I knew there was still tons of improvements with my new knowledge of jquery.

Top image: old code in Javascript Bottom image: new code in Jquery

I've also put aside a few hours of time to dedicate creating new assets for the start menu. It became REALLY hard to find a nice and consistant style which windows 98 used, but it was really hard to find sources of any of the original assets but also have the levels of details I knew windows 98 for, especially when tons of the assets from windows 98 came from windows 95, which still relied on 8 bit colour in some instances.

So I did a bunch of digging and found the assets Windows 98 used at the end of it's lifespan and modified them a bunch to put into Vher98, giving my own personal touch and hopefully to keep the art direction of icons a bit more consistant and unique to look at and use.

Task management

Alright, last big one. Task management. Another long overdue reform was needed for this thing. Prior to this month, tasks relied on whatever manual order I decide to create the task and assign a number to, the number will dedicate placement on the taskbar depending on which value was the highest.

So for example, the Display Properties will ALWAYS be the third task on the taskbar if you was to open everything up, simply because I didn't know how to calculate the placement prior to designing tons of assets. Especially when the original conception of the site RELIED on myself manually creating the visual look of the taskbar as the entire site was designed based on images. From windows, taskbar to the starrtmenu. It was awfully inefficent.

Top image: Example of windows being opened from oldest (left) to newest (right). Bottom image: The new optimised and redesigned code for calculating taskbar placement and task assignment.

Anyway, that being said I now have automated calculation for taskbar task placement. If you open a task, it will open and remain in the order of the task being ordered. Writing this makes me have a smug little grin on my face just from how happy I am I was even able to get this to work properly, and it's only a few lines of math to even get the result I have.

Conclusion

There's tons of other stuff I wish to go on about, but that's why I have patchnotes. if you wish to read them, you can check them out on my github, or in the Startmenu of Vher98.

There's a few bugs I need to get around to fixing, but I've invested a few hundred hours into this thing over the past month alone and I really should take a break to get onto other projects I wish to get around to completing.

I recently started developing a mod for Terraria and some drawings I want to get around to finishing sooner or later. But, the most important thing I REALLY need to get around to is branding. Over the past month or two I've been growing more and more displeased with how I present myself and the fact I have stagnated a bit within the realms of my carear and I need to get around to sorting these personal matters sooner rather than later.

I'll be back with a couple of projects. It might take a while but I promise it's for a good cause.

#Theme #Tumblr #Tumblr theme #website development #website #site #vher98 #branding #update

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pawnshopsouls · 5 years ago

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things a new rp partner should know about me !

fun new meme here ! write 3-5 things a new rp partner (or those who want to be) should know about you and tag 3-5 people! it should be related to rp and not to other interests.

tagged by: @saintedsin tagging: @daylightisminetoconsume @strickjagger @hannah-the-small @trollhuntersstuff @moonfrost-614-queen-of-darkness @ask-dictatious-galadrigal @hodgxpodgx @ anyone who wants to

I. First thing anyone should know is that I am slow. Yes there are times when I can reply quick as a flash, but those are often the exception and not the rule. I take a long time to write stuff and my rl only sometimes allows me more than a couple hours to write. My stamina is also not the best and as fun as it is, writing is very taxing (not as much as art but still taxing) - which means that some days, I may become even slower at replying and rping than other days. So pls be patient with me and I will do my best to do the same for you

II. I actually have a hard time writing/viewing heavy nsfw/smut related things, so when it comes to writing dark elements, I’m more into combat/war horror stuff. As such, I will admit that I do have my days when I do indulge in light citrus content, but I’ll only be doing/sharing said things with muns I trust and feel very close to. (My muses are strongly demi-leaning anyways so there’s that too)

III. I LOVE SHENANIGANS!!!! I love comedy and being able to laugh at things - it’s inspiring, motivating, excites me to the highest degree! If our muses can get into dumb shenanigans while keeping in character, we have the makings for comedy gold of the highest meme quality! Honestly, one of the best things to do to get my attention is to message me and be like “Hey, I had a thought and I think [xyz scenario between our muses] would be really funny~”. (( Great examples of this happening on my blog: Bonely pranking his best bud @bigmisteak and literally scaring him out of his M!A skin, accidentally popping off @katanamasako‘s tail while scolding her; Salem being casually adopted by @hornedheathen-2‘s imps & shenanigans when Salem fused with the Inkwell Devil, and numerous shenanigans between both brothers as trolls with @daylightisminetoconsume. Basically, if we can make something that we both can laugh at, we probably will~))

IV. Now, as fun as shenanigans are and can be, also be aware that I won’t always jive with stuff. This not jiving thing is becoming a bit more prominent with me with my ever increasingly limited writing stamina, and has led me to consider dropping more than a few threads. Somethings I jive with one day, some things I jive with some other days. Somethings I don’t jive with at all.

V. This one’s a bit of a new discovery but I don’t like unplotted angst - especially angst with long lasting negative effects on our muses. Having loosely plotted angst with a good resolution to it is something I live for, as it gives opportunity for character growth and muse relational development. However, if something happens that is an unexpected deal breaker for our muses, we need to talk it over. I’m one of those that has dealt with unresolved conflict destroying mutual relationships and is still mildly affected by them even years after. So if something happens and it becomes too angsty in a negative way, we’ll need to discuss it until we can find a good resolution or it may need to be dropped/scrapped from our story/timeline. Otherwise, it may just be hard on both ends of the rp and end up with neither one of us wanting to continue interactions. On a similar note: please, when I do something with my characters that upsets you, let me know so I can fix it, ok? I’m human and am prone to making bad decisions, but I also do my best to make things comfortable for everybody.

VI. (Yes I know this is an ectra one but I think it’s important) — A friend of mine brought up in their rp funfacts that RP/writing is not the end-all-be-all with them and honestly, I’m going to adopt this. I am 100% up with doing ooc chat stuff/shenanigans. Memes, plot bunnies, “hey what ifs”, “hey this made me think ofs”, “Dude check this outs”,and so on are 100% the most effective fuel for bringing rp things and shenanigans together. So even if we can’t find a groove to rp in or if our muses just don’t jive, we can still chat ooc and share things we’ve come to share a love for (Such as fandom cutes, music, and crack shenanigans). Very little is off limits when it comes to ooc chatting, and in the end, we’re really all just here to have fun!

#¢::Passin'Gossip::¢#ooc #¢::OutOfSpooks::¢#about the mun #pointers #//this took a lot of thinking #//not all of it good but enough to make me realize some things #//Hope you enjoy!

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theamberfang · 5 years ago

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Outlook 19: Resolution

Preface

It feels a bit late to be writing about my New Year’s resolution—I had intended to write this post last week, on the first Monday of 2020—but I was experiencing some stress and anxiety at the time that I needed to address. Speaking of, it may seem like I’m skipping Outlook 18, but I’m going to count my “Substitute Outlook” for that, in which I address those anxieties from last week, just as part of my daily journal (because it felt easier to write it there.)

Anyway, I’ll just get into the actual topic of this post.

Writing Schedule

My New Year’s resolution for 2020 is to regularly work on the story I’ve been building up for several years, but especially through the last two years of NaNoWriMo (2018 and 2019). I’m not going to go into too much detail about the story here; this post is more specifically about what “regularly” even means, and how I might go about establishing such a routine.

Technically, I’ve already been working on this story regularly: once a year for NaNoWriMo. At the least, I want to increase that frequency. The main options I have in mind are: daily, weekly, and monthly—though I’m open to some modification, like “every 2 days” or “every other week.” At the moment, I’m leaning towards every week: specifically on Tuesdays. (Yes, every other week there’s that online trans support group, but that occurs at night and I figure I can manage writing earlier.)

I’m not especially committed to this schedule either. I’m definitely open to modifying it as necessary. I trust that I’ll be especially tuned to noticing if the thought of creative writing is too stressful to deal with once a week and I need to reduce it to every other week or something. (Or if I need to move it to another day because of the online support group.) Something I that I also want to look out for, though, is any opportunity to increase the frequency of my creative writing. I want to take the time to reevaluate and see if I might be able to handle writing more, and luckily, I do have monthly Outlook reviews that can help with that. (I could probably also do with reevaluating my ability to work more on some other stuff too.)

Procedure

Now that I’ve covered the “When,” it would be a good idea to also cover the “How.” If I don’t give myself some sort of direction, I’ll most likely find myself overwhelmed by the possibility of doing anything. Too much choice just leaves me paralyzed, so it would be prudent to settle on a specific set of choices—maybe even a flow-chart of choices.

One might expect that I would obviously be putting my writing here on this blog, but I’ve previous identified that doing so during NaNoWriMo 2019 may have contributed to my dropping out of the challenge. To have the highest chance of success at establishing a regular creative writing routine, I believe it makes the most sense to look towards NaNoWriMo 2018, when I actually completed the challenge [of writing 50 thousand words in one month.] Most notably, I wasn’t focusing on anything other than the challenge, not even a journal or a blog—in fact, it was the precursor to this blog and functioned, at least in part, as my journal at the time.

Now, this doesn’t mean I want to stop writing to this blog in order to write more creatively. As I pointed out, a lot of what I wrote for NaNoWriMo 2018 was very journal-like, so it’ll just be like I’m offloading that stuff out of my creative writing endeavors. More specifically, I just want to remove the pressure of putting my work somewhere that people can see it, especially since I know that one or two people, at least, regularly look at my posts. (Not that you should stop; there’s plenty enough value in feeling like I’m being seen. I just may not be comfortable with everything I write being seen.)

So, at least at first, I think I’ll just be writing to Google Docs privately. Of course, I can always transpose anything I’ve written there over to this blog if I change my mind in the future. I actually do feel like there’s value in presenting the rough iterations of a story before it looks anything like a completed [potentially] publishable work. It’s similar to the way I feel it’s valuable to write my journals publically: in the hopes that it might help someone else better think through their own problems.

Content

As for the actual content of my writing, I have three main options in mind. First is to review what I’ve written in the past and basically write a new draft of that stuff; one might call it a new draft of the “world bible.” Second, I can basically do that same thing, but without the “reviewing old writing” part, especially if it turns out to be anxiety-inducing to read my old writing. Third, I can attempt to set out writing things as an actual story.

At the moment, I’m actually leaning towards that last option. I want to try out being very loose with things. I want to try simply describing what I want a scene to be about without committing to making it read well at all. For example, I might want to try writing: “I want to open with a description of the city. Make sure to include some things that point out class disparity: describe some slums maybe, juxtaposed with skyscrapers perhaps”—instead of trying to write something eloquent from the very beginning. I want to set the framework and foundation of a story without being mired in the details.

Wrapping Up

I think that’s about it really. So for tomorrow, I plan on opening up Google Docs and trying to write something. I’m not setting any sort of word count goal. I’ll be happy with just sitting down and having Google Docs open for a few minutes, even if I don’t write anything.

Week’s Schedule

Tues: Creative writing on Google Docs

Wed: DBSA support group

Thurs: Shower, break

Fri: Night in the Woods

Sat: Start “Habit-Free time” back up again?

Sun: Shower, also break

Mon: Extended Outlook

Extended Goals

I still need to work on a D&D character, or, alternatively, determine if I’m simply uninterested for now

Generally try to talk more to people, regardless of medium

Read Dune

Read The Conquest of Bread

Talk to Mom about stuff

#Extended Outlook #personal #new year's resolution #writing

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coldtomyflash · 7 years ago

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Hi there, I thoroughly enjoy and admire your writing! :) Since you sometimes mention in your author's notes how the rest of a fic is already mostly outlined, would you like to share some more insights into your writing and outlining process? E.g. What do your outlines usually look like, what level of detail are they, do you outline oneshots differently than multi-chapter stories? Did your writing process change over time? Do you outline whole stories before writing or just a few chapters ahead?

Hi there!

I’ve got a tag for writing advice that I think addresses a bit of my writing process, if you want more insight. I’m happy to talk about here at a broad level, and if you have any more specific questions, feel free to poke me here or at my new blog @phyn-writes for details.

Now on to your actual question, about outlining. This is going to sound convoluted, but I’ll try to keep it coherent. There is a tl;dr at the end though, because this got long as hell.

Broadly speaking, I have a few different ways of outlining.

For really short pieces, I don’t do any conscious outlining at all. I just sort of start and go, and see where it lands. With fanfic that tends to be easy? Drabbles and one-shots are short and scenes end up with a natural conclusion. I stop as soon as the ‘end’ feels right. With a smut scene that tends to be an obvious place - the characters do their thing, get off, and then flirt or there’s some establishment for what this means for them and where things are going next, and then it’s over. For not smut pieces, it’s similar in that there’s a central tension, and as soon as it’s resolved, I like to figure out the final emotional beat the piece should leave on and cut it there.

(Endings establish a lasting emotion. You can intuit as you go through a piece what the ending should feel like and what you’re building toward. It shouldn’t create a sense of whiplash for the reader, though it can be abrupt or sad if that fits the tone of the piece).

But let’s talk about longer stories. And let’s talk first about the beginning/opening original outline.

Outlining for longer pieces sometimes starts by following the same logic as one-shots and drabbles – that is, no outline at all. This is true for a few of my longer works, like Seventy-Three Seconds and These Violent Delights. With those works, I just jumped in. I didn’t have an outline in mind at the start, I just let my fingers type out words and it just sort of unravelled into the opening of a story, with a conflict built in that would have to be solved.

I say this only to highlight the fact that if you don’t have a full story idea in mind when you start - that’s okay. You can still start. It’s alright to jump in, if that’s what you need to do, and if outlining is causing you grief and getting in the way of just getting words out.

Because even when I start with no outline, and no real concept of where I’m going, I automatically end up with an outline quickly. This is probably the case for most people. And for most of my longer workers (AATJS, Tumbling Together, Melancholic Temperate, and Needs Must), I do start with an outline, one that looks similar to what the other stories’ outlines end up as.

And what that “outline” looks like, when I start, is just ideas in my head. Sometimes jot notes or conversations I’ve had with others about story ideas that I saved, but really, there’s no solid “A will happen, then B will happen, then C will happen” flow the way you might have an outline for an essay for school. There’s definitely never ever a “chapter 1 will have X, chapter 2 will have Y” right at the outset.

Instead of a concrete series of events, what there is is a series of what I call “milestones”. These milestones are scenes I imagine in vivid detail that I want to see happen in the story. A lot of these scenes come up earlier on in the story, but not always. And my original “outline” for a story involves basically these scenes connected by a string. I know the story will have to bridge the gaps between them, but I’m not fussed, I just know that I want the story to head in the direction to make them happen.

After I’ve got the milestones, I start to fill in the blanks. How do we get from A to B? I can do this mentally, or in writing. I don’t stress early on in the narrative about outlining the chapters, I just sort of let them write themselves and see what comes out, knowing that I have a specific scene or milestone that I’m building toward and all the words on the page are explicitly or implicitly working toward that scene.

And then I get to that scene and - sometimes it happens exactly like I planned. And sometimes I have to completely change it because the narrative changes once you put it on the page and that scene no longer works the way you planned.

And when I talk about outlines changing, that’s a big part of what I mean: that in the process of building toward what I had planned, something has changed, and my plan no longer feels authentic to the narrative. And when that happens, I change the narrative. It’s that whole idea of “kill your darlings”. I might’ve already written out that milestone scene (more than once, if I really like it) but that doesn’t mean it actually works with the story I’m trying to tell. And liking that scene doesn’t mean that scene likes itself.

And so the outline updates. And writing becomes this beautiful iteration of imagining scenes and milestones for the narrative, filling them in and the blanks between, then editing and updating and changing it because it’s necessary, as the story has grown beyond what’s in my head.

As to how I decide what to change? Well, most of everything I write is in the service of the characters. They guide their stories. They have to be consistent in some manner within their core selves, and if they’re not then I’m doing something wrong. I write for and about people. With that in mind, when I hit a roadblock and realize something doesn’t work, I ask myself what would/should the characters be doing in this situation. I ask myself if there’s enough tension, enough release of that tension.

And I work hard - and I mean well and truly - I spend a lot of my outlining energy on narrative build. I only discovered this past year that not everyone learns about this in grade school, but narratives tend to follow this standard form, which apparently is called ‘dramatic structure’, and I use it strongly in my story scaffolds:

Exposition / Setting / Introduction

Initial incident (introduce the conflict and characters)

Rising action (build tension into the story)

Climax (highest point of narrative tension)

Falling action

Resolution

I adhere to that like it’s my writing bible when it comes to how I set up a story. Except with fic, I get to skip the vast majority of the exposition and setting when it comes to introducing the characters. Which suits me well - I really like jumping right in. And even when I do have an AU or exposition to bring in, I still aim to jump kind of straight to the initial incident then give exposition throughout. I like to open with a ‘hook’.

But anyway, when “outlining”, I have to have some idea, even if I don’t put it into words, of what the climax of the story is. Everything else in some way needs to be in service of that. All the tension and release and everything else needs to build, ultimately, to that moment, where the conflict is resolved and it all clicks. Then I speed through the falling action and resolution quick because after the climactic moment of any given story, my own personal attention wanes with it (when I’m reading, I mean). After things are resolved at the climax, you know it’s just housekeeping, so if the falling action drags on and on and on, why would I bother continuing to read? I know they get to have a happily ever after (or whatever the case is) so this doesn’t matter except to give me a bit of closure.

So when my outlines change, it’s partly because I’m fucking up something to do with this dramatic structure. I’ll realize that I’m resolving a major aspect of the conflict too soon, and have to turn it into a more minor release of tension. Or I’ll realize that I have a scene planned for later in the story but if I keep it where it is, it’ll be after the main conflict is resolved. It might be the resolution of a more minor conflict, but at that point, something is out of order. For me, personally, I don’t like to leave too much to mop up after that climactic moment, and I don’t want to have other semi-serious conflicts left that are going to be creating any real amount of tension in the reader still.

Final notes before I get to some examples: I have a strong tendency for my stories to unfold in three clear acts. Almost all of them can be separated that way (though Tumbling Together is a little meandering and doesn’t fit quite so well, but that’s half because the conflict of that story changes about halfway through in a weird way…). And each act tends to have it’s own minor conflict and resolution, to help give the readers a build and lift to buoy them through the story to the major moment of climax. And though those aren’t explicitly part of the outline in a conscious way, I have outlined my more complicated stories as being in three acts before to help me figure out where to place scenes and how to have things build.

Now, to bring some of this down to earth in a more concrete way, I’m gonna use some examples of how I outlined different fics.

I’ll start by talking about AATJS, which had the most outlining I’ve ever done. In that story, Len and Barry are soulmates and it creates a massive clusterfuck lasting 275k words. I had hashed out the story idea/outline with a friend as a quick conversation, and the basics of it were them bonding and Barry panicking about it, Barry avoiding Len and hiding his bond, and Len doing increasingly vexing shit to more or less get his attention, the military getting involved and kidnapping (and torturing) Len because of his connection to Barry.

Those were like, the basics. And led to a few especially vivid mental milestones for me in the early stages of writing: Barry panicking after bonding was very vivid and narratively essential, a scene where Len gets in a bar fight and gets his knuckles cut up and bruised and Barry goes to comfort him about it, even though they’re not on good terms, but it creates some softness between them, a scene where Len steals something halfway to get Barry’s attention and Barry is really pissed at him for it, and a scene where Len’s tied to a chair being interrogated by Eiling, and his bond with Barry is being used against him.

If you’ve read the fic, you might recognize that not all those scenes happened, and didn’t all happen like that. What did happen is that I had to answer the question of “how does Len see Barry’s soulmate mark and thus bond with him?” and the answer was that he’d have to fight alongside Barry to be in a situation where he sees it, and the obvious answer to kick Barry’s ass and also tie the narrative to the military was Grodd, so I just kind of threw Grodd into the story without thinking.

And then things built with Barry hiding the bond from his family and friends, and I needed to introduce more shit going on on Len’s side as he’s kind of spiralling, and other Rogues accidentally wrote themselves into the plot. And Len does steal something which pisses off Barry, but instead of being to get his attention, he does it with Mark Mardon and completely different motivations. And the fallout from that created a whole different mess for me to solve. And shortly after I started working on the fic, a new milestone presented itself as necessary: the moment where Barry and Len actually come together, and start being honest with each other, which is a really poignant scene where Barry basically offers himself to Len because they’re both suffering in this toxic way, and they realize a lot about each other and realize how much they each care about the other. And it was pivotal for the narrative, but built itself into the outline only after I began to work on the story.

And things changed and updated from there, all leading to a central climactic moment that combined the main and sub storylines into a single moment of resolution. The main storyline was Barry and Len’s romance, with a key conflict being their ability to be together authentically and in a solid, forever kind of way, because even though they’re soulmates, Barry has this hesitation through the whole story that evolves into not being able to say he’s in love with Len. And the subplot of the story (or one of them) revolves around the military, and Grodd, and it creates so much conflict throughout the story that I realized eventually that I couldn’t resolve it before (or after) resolving the other, that both of these narratives had to be resolved simultaneously. And every edit in the outline from then on was about making sure the story was building in a direction of resolving these tensions at once.

Okay, whew. This post is getting long.

Final bits - with Melancholic Temperament, my outline consisted of a couple of milestones scenes, and with a basic structure / scaffold in place. I wanted the first 2/3 of the story to involve de-aged Len, and the final 1/3 to involve grown up Len, and I had a few pivotal scenes in mind (young!Len misreading Barry’s intentions and propositioning him, adult!Len at the moment of re-aging) when I started, and most of the in-between outline was like “here’s the villain. Is she really a villain? Let’s explore that later. Also do young Len and Barry get together? It adds to the conflict and tension, let’s build to that. We need scenes where they get closer, and have this poignant kind of connection, possibly with Len having nightmares or with midnight conversations”.

Some stuff wasn’t in the outline at all, like Mick just hijacked the plot and wrote himself into the story and I was like “huh, okay, hi Mick, what are you doing here?” but I didn’t let it change the ultimate narrative.

With Needs Must, things have been bizarre in terms of outlining. Originally, the story was just an idea in my head that I never planned to write and it was just coldflash. I had some milestone scenes in mind, a lot because the fic was rolling around in my head for a long time (the first time they get together, the second when they realize it’s not cured and the sense of dread that sneaks into the narrative, a scene at some point in the story where Barry was going to go too far and Len was going to freak out, and Barry was going to back off and this was going to lead to them having to shift gears).

But a lot wasn’t in the original outline in my head, and was only added once I switched to coldwestallen and started writing. Like the villain? Wasn’t in the original, and in the first version, was an actual villain. Kat in the current version is contrite and out of her depth and while not innocent of wrong doing, never intended for this to happen. But as soon as I pivoted to coldwestallen, a really important milestone the narrative (and thus outline) had to build toward was the moment at which they realize what’s going on with the ‘curse’.

And in terms of dramatic structure, I also had to make sure that moment didn’t feel like a resolution. Normally that would be the climax of a story, or come shortly before it: catch the villain, find out how to fix things, then fix them. But this story is a bit different, and the central conflict has never been the sex curse (though it’s tied up in it), it’s about these three characters falling in love. And the story can’t be done, and the tension can’t be released, until that happens.

So I used that scene to up the ante rather than letting it release the tension. And because it needed to go that way, if the real underlying conflict is these three people falling in love, then the curse itself had to lead them there and be resolved by that. I didn’t decide the curse was about falling in love until I decided that the story was going to be all three of them, and until I realized that I wanted a scene where the truth is revealed to them but doesn’t fix a damn thing and only makes it potentially worse.

And then there are a bunch of other outline changes within it. That scene where Mick finds out about the curse? There was a long debate about whether to keep or kill that entire piece, or move it in the story, and deciding what purpose it serves to the overall conflict and resolution. It almost replaced the potion Barry drinks, because I almost shortened the story by a good deal, but ultimately decided I wanted to extend the narrative and let it build a little slower so that Iris has more time in the narrative.

And Iris and Len slowly orbiting and falling into each other was originally only going to happen as / after the curse was broken. But then I realized, back to that dramatic structure, that if the central tension of the story comes from Barry’s ability to love Len, I had to move Len and Iris up. The conflict was originally going to be more about them being able to be together and getting together, but because of how the story naturally wrote itself (with the love as the central conflict moment), it started to feel unnatural if I were to resolve the curse and still have a chunk of the story and a conflict left afterward. In the original outline it would’ve been a whole act (act three) but the story wasn’t writing itself that way and I had to tie Iris and Len into the build up to the narrative climax that exists in the actual story, rather than the one in a bygone outline. And thus the current version of events in the story has unfolded.

So - major tl;dr here.

My outlines more or less consist of knowing what the central tension or conflict of a story is (which sometimes changes a bit as it goes) and making sure everything else works in the service of building to the moment that’s resolved, then being able to wrap up really quickly afterwards with no major sources of tension left over. I pick scenes as narrative ‘milestones’ that act as a scaffold or guide for the rest of the story, and these scenes can change the but idea in them, of tension or of conflict, of what they accomplish for the broader narrative, tends to stay the same.

Sometimes I write down a formal outline, sometimes it’s just in my head, but it always evolves in iterations as the narrative unfolds and everything in it acts in service of a satisfying climax and moment of resolution.

#redhead vs. writing #writing advice #dramatic structure #phyn writes #there's probably typos in here but #ah well #Anonymous

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maebimhere · 6 years ago

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2019 February 3

Hi All,

So, I tried to blog biweekly, but obviously It’s been a month. Life got busy, I’m sorry. I’ll try to get better at this. A little update on my new years resolutions:

Write blog posts biweekly - I’ve, as I’ve stated, not done great on this.

Journal by hand in Portuguese once a week - I may have missed a few. Two, to be exact. But I made up one today. And am on track to write the next one on Tuesday.

Journal by hand in Spanish three times a week - Again, I missed 1.5 weeks of this. The first week was finals week, which I just let myself skip. This past week, I missed two entries, but have made up one, and will probably just write two tomorrow.

Leave the country twice in 2019 (I have a school trip to Cuba for March, so I need to do something on my own) - Still planning on going to Cuba. The second trip is looking pretty likely!! More on that later.

Get into 4 colleges - Yes. It’s only been a month and I’ve succeeded in this!!

Be able to hold a short conversation in Portuguese by Dec. 31 2019. - We’ll see. I was just scrolling through twitter and saw a tweet in Portuguese and understood it, so I guess that’s progress.

So.... I’ve gotten into some colleges already (more that half). This is sort of expected. All the UK schools are ‘rolling’, so I could hear back from them literally any day, and three of the six US schools were also rolling, all of which I’ve heard back from. So, because I obviously like lists, let’s go through how I’ve been doing.

Schools I have yet to hear back from

Columbia University

Boston University

University of Chicago

University of South Wales (TV and Film Design)

Birmingham City University (Design for Performance)

There’s not much to say about these, other than I don’t really care about how I do with Boston or Birmingham, I’m definitely now not going to them, since the schools I’ve already gotten into are better.

Everything else is good news (so far... knocking on wood though).

SLU Madrid: I got in!! And also got the highest merit scholarship available without a separate application, so that’s extra awesome. I’ll be applying for their director’s scholarship, and hopefully I’ll get that. I

Cornish College of the Arts: I don’t know how I feel about this. I guess I’m not as excited about it as I was when I applied, but it’s good to know that my art is good enough for a school. They also lowered their tuition by quite a bit, so that’s good, I guess.

Western Washington: This is my safety, but it’s a great school. I got in (with distinction!) and now need to apply to their honors college. Again, not super psyched about this, but if my parents told me I couldn’t leave the country, I’d go here instead of Cornish, so that’s something. (Nothing against the school, it’s an amazing place, with amazing facilities, it’s just not perfect for me).

University of Wales Trinity Saint David (Set Design): This is the first college I got into, so it holds a special place in my heart. They also gave me their offer 3 days after submitting my portfolio, which is impressive.

Nottingham Trent University (Design for Film and Television and Theatre Design): Okay. So I’m super excited about this. It’s my first choice school and I got into both programs and I already know that I want to do Film and TV, and I’m working on the scholarship applications because they give full scholarships to international students which is absolutely amazing. I was shocked that I got in. They’re pretty selective (idk about their arts program though), and I thought that it was a reach, and I got in and I’m feeling great. It’s probably a bit bad though, because now I can only think about ntu and how much I want to go.

Anyways, I’ll leave you with that.

#blog #life update #nottingham #nottingham trent university #ntu #college applications #college acceptance #language learning #holy shit #i got in #i'm so ready to leave my high school #i just want to leave #school #and the country

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hirakdesherrani · 7 years ago

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I was going through your blog, and you seem to criticize Shivaay a lot. But you don't seem to criticize Om as much who is no good either. I know Om started out good but after his character was butchered, there is no difference. At least Shivaay has shown a great character progression, and as of now he is the better man and husband. Not to attack you, 'cos I know everyone has their favs, but Omkara has flaws too.

Okay, so this ask has been licking dust in my inbox for weeks now. At the cost of seeming rude, I didn’t answer it ‘cos I just didn’t know what to reply, and tbh, didn’t feel like replying either.

Anyways, I’ll try now.

First things first anon, this is the first time someone has implied that Omkara is a fav of mine, which is farthest from the truth. Most of the times, I’m accused of hating on him ‘cos I’m blind Gauri stan, who’s white-knighting on her behalf (or so ppl believe). Secondly, LMAO anon, if only you had bothered to go back to posts I made last year, you would’ve seen how much I’ve criticized Om, much more than Shivaay, believe me.

Coming to your statements, lets see.

(Disclaimer: I’m in no way comparing abuse and saying who’s the worst among the two. Both are pathetic and don’t deserve the blessed presence of ‘any’ female in their lives, AniRi toh bahut dur ki baat hai.)

For the Shivaay v/s Omkara thing you mentioned:

As a husband, Shivaay >>>> Omkara. No explanations needed. (Post-their resolution of conflicts)

As a man, Omkara >>>> Shivaay, for the simple reason, that when Gauri told Omkara to GTFO, he accepted her decision and left. Unlike Shivaay, who took it upon himself to decide Gauri’s fate, because he thinks that he knows what’s better for Gauri than Gauri herself, which is damn patronizing. That Gauri chose to forgive Om is her prerogative, Shivaay orchestrating the kidnap was wrong. What if Gauri did not want to return to the Oberoi hellhole, then? Would he have kept her in the Oberoi mansion against her will, just to make his brother happy? I found the whole thing hard to digest, it was funny no doubt, but the underlying message was problematic.

As for character progression, well of course Shivaay has shown greater progression, because in the beginning of the show he’s a damn sociopath. Shivaay starts out as this Lucius Malfoy kinda character, who has rules about blood and lineage, who is proud about his ‘Naam, khoonn, khaandaan’ (just like pureblood nonsense) and calls Annika “road trash” (‘Mudbloods’?). Shivaay starts out from the very bottom, so obviously his growth will be greater. Omkara has his flaws, but as a character he was always better than Shivaay. Even in DBO when he was at the very worst of his graph, he still intervened to save a girl’s life, who he judged and hated, because that was the right thing to do.

Both Shivaay and Omkara were put in the same situation re: Tia and Gauri. Both of them suspected that Tia and Gauri are lying about the pregnancy, and both had just cause to suspect. However, Shivaay never took any interest in Tia’s pregnancy, which made sense, because Tia was trapping him and he knew the child wasn’t his. It was Annika, in fact, who saved Tia from a miscarriage and actually cared for the baby indirectly, when she had all the reason to hate Tia and the child, because Annika is a kind soul.

Compare this to Omkara, who though acted as the judge, jury and executioner and decided that Gauri was not fit to mother that child (asshole!), but still actively cared for the unborn child who he suspected was not his own. We, as an audience, knew that Shivaay is right in his place, and Omkara is wrong in accusing Gauri. But as characters both Shivaay and Omkara were at the same situation, that is, they were unaware of what the other party had in mind.

Another reason why Shivaay’s character progression or redemption, has better sketched out, is because he is acutely aware of all the wrongs he perpetrated against Annika. Each and every instance, from suspecting Annika of selling the video to the media to the Daksh fiasco, every single misunderstanding has been cleared. But Omkara is not even aware of all the wrongs he committed against Gauri. Till date Omkara does not know the whole truth about Kali Thakur. He still only has a vague idea that he misjudged Gauri, that maybe she was forced into the wedding. The fact that Gauri was kept in chains, she was about to be married to three grooms, they were planning to make her their common sex slave for life, all this is still unknown to him. Even the buamaa truth, that Gauri was not lying when Kali captured Buamaa or even the fact that Gauri was not attempting to drown Buamaa in the swimming pool (for which he called the cops); all this is STILL unknown to him. How can he make reparations for everything he did in DBO, when he doesn’t even know the extent of all his sins in DBO?

And again, at the cost of repeating myself, even at his worst, Omkara did not derive any diabolic pleasure in ruining Gauri’s life. Unlike Shivaay, who put Annika in jail just because she refused to apologize for his arrogance. Annika would still be rotting in prison, if Dadi hadn’t bailed her out and Omkara hadn’t knocked some sense into Shivaay. Shivaay repeatedly fucked with Annika’s life and tried to make her miserable only for his ego. Annika was always at Shivaay’s mercy because Shivaay always used his power to abuse Annika.Contrast this to Omkara, Gauri was never at his mercy. Gauri was held hostage by the situation and had to return to the Oberoi mansion to save his dumb ass, but she was never at Omkara’s mercy. He did not make it a hobby to make her life difficult because that gives him sadistic pleasure. Omkara just wanted to get rid of Gauri and throw her out of his life. Which still makes him an asshole, but in all ways better than Shivaay. It’s just that Shivaay appears better than Omkara during DBO and after, because Shivaay was at the highest point in his character arc that time, while Omkara was at the lowest.

Coming to the last thing you mentioned about character flaws in Omkara. Sure, Omkara has a LOT of character flaws, you’re absolutely right there, anon. And those flaws are there even in IB 2016, its just that the audience puts him on a pedestal without analyzing his character properly, which is why the fall in DBO seems much more evident.

His biggest flaw is that he is STUPID. Like all the other problems and minor flaws emerge because of his sheer stupidity. Okay, that came out wrong. Omkara in the beginning of IB, is a Kalidas kind of character, who cuts the branch on which he is sitting. Unfortunately, stupidity is not seen as a character flaw, so most of the audience let it go. No wonder Om gets conned all the time, by Roop bua, Ishaana, Riddhima, Ranveer, etc.

Because he is stupid, Omkara cannot understand the nuances of human beings. All his associated flaws, be it seeing things in black and white, or truth and lies, is because he cannot see the ‘grey’ or the ‘in-between’. To see and understand the grey, one needs brains and that Omkara does not possess.

Another thing is that most of the fandom thought that Om is more gender-equal than his brothers. But he has always been pretty misogynist from the beginning.

Omkara put women in boxes. One was the good but victimized women (Box A): Jahnvi, Annika, even Pinky to an extent, who tolerated a lot of BS from their partners. And the other were women like Riddhima, Ishaana, Tia, who lied or used men for their own benefits (Box B). Of course, the worst was Svetty who was the ‘home breaker’ in his eyes. The first time he was confronted with this issue he chose to break up with Riddhima and Shivaay had to intervene and explain him that people are not good or bad, there is also the grey. The funny thing is that Om, who judged women harshly, never held Shivaay to the same standards. If he judged Shivaay in the same way, then he would have to put him in the category of bad people, which he refused to do. Hypocrisy much?

The second time when Omkara faces a similar choice, is when Mallika ran away from her wedding. Omkara categorically says that what Mallika did was wrong, even though he understands what compelled her. Again in that situation its Annika who makes Shivaay see sense, because Annika is an empathetic person.

The thing is, whenever Om clashes with a ‘bad’ woman a/c to his judgments, he reacts badly. He was about to hit/get violent with both Ishana and Riddhima when he came to know of their betrayal. In both the cases, his brothers intervened and stopped him. Similarly he manhandles Svetty, after the whole engagement fiasco.

The audience never held him accountable that time, because these women were wrong/used him. But the point is that even if these women were wrong, Omkara was also wrong in misbehaving with them. Manhandling or threatening assault to any woman is never right.

This flaw comes in sharp focus only when Omkara meets Gauri, because unlike the other women before her Gauri is blameless.

You mentioned the butchering anon. I know we all talk about how Omkara did a 360 degree in personality in DBO, even I say that. But in all honesty, he wasn’t butchered in DBO. His dark side which was suppressed in IB, came out in DBO. Like I explained before, Omkara was always violent with women who fell in category B. That coupled with his stupidity, which is why everyone cons him, spelled disaster for his equation with Gauri.

If I have to be critical, Omkara was butchered badly only four times in the show (IB+DBO). When he throws money at Gauri’s face and crashes his car into her shop, when he leaves her to die at Kali Thakur’s hands after Chulbul reveal (which undid the very fact that he saved her from the villagers in similar situations the first time), when he shows complete lack of regret/guilt after Gauri leaves him post-inspiration argument and when he was drinking hot chocolate and going off to sleep after returning from Bareilly (instead of properly angstying and expressing regret in solitude)

Coming back to the misogynist flaw, Omkara by the end of DBO did not know in which box to put Gauri in: due to all the lies and what he saw in Bareilly, he wanted to put her in Box B, but Gauri also put her life at stake multiple times to save his ass which confused him. On top of that, Gauri is not like Jahnvi or Annika who will stay with him despite all the shit he pulled. Gauri leaves immediately after the inspiration fuck up, which puzzled Omkara because Jahnvi never left despite the shit Tej did or Annika did not leave despite how Shivaay continued to insult her after their forced wedding. Annika in fact asked Omkara and Rudy to forgive Shivaay for the forced wedding BS that he did. [One reason why Omkara and Rudy misbehaved with Gauri, Soumya and Bhavya was because they internalized Shivaay’s behavior, ‘cos they saw that Annika forgave him despite everything, so they never expected these girls to dump their ass.]

I know a lot of people felt Omkara was OOC in many scenes in DBO. But actually on second thoughts he was like that in IB too, its just that in Ishana’s or Riddhima’s cases it was a one-off incident, but Gauri was forced to continue living in his presence to save him from Svetty and Buamaa, which made Om even more suspicious and thus, even more violent/verbally abusive.

Baar haal, when you say character progression, sure Shivaay has progressed a lot from where he began. Omkara by comparison, had character flaws which he overcame post-break up with Gauri, when he realizes how wrong his stereotyping has been all this while, and how messed up his ideologies are. He learnt his lesson, and tried to implement that too, when he himself resorted to lies (as Dilpreet) to win back Gauri’s forgiveness. Character progression is more marked in Shivaay’s case because he started as a villain and went on to become a decent human being, whereas Omkara was in general a decent guy, with faulty judgments and anger management issues, which he sorta overcame. Of course, his stupidity cannot be cured. If one is stupid, then when is stupid, iska koi iilaaj nahi hai. Which is why he has a smart brother and wife to take care of him.

I know you were not ‘attacking’ me for my choices, anon, but I thought to make it clear anyways. And hopefully, after this longass reply, nobody sends me an ask about the Obros, because writing about them just shoots my blood pressure.

#anon #answered #omkara singh oberoi #shivaay singh oberoi #ishqbaaaz #ishqbaaz #character flaws and comparison #my stuff

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exxar1 · 4 years ago

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Chapter 12: “The Solitary In Families”

3/9/2021

- 1 -

Last week, one of my Facebook friends posted a Lent devotional that was centered around Psalm 68. The title caught my eye as I scrolled through my feed. “God Sets The Lonely In Families.” That phrase grabbed me, and, after reading the short devotional (which was quite good), I opened my Bible app and looked up Psalm 68. Verses 5 & 6 made me pause.

“A father of the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in His holy habitation. God sets the solitary in families; He brings out those who are bound into prosperity; but the rebellious dwell in a dry land.” (NKJV)

The verse that my friend quoted was from the NIV, and it had substituted the word ‘lonely’ for ‘solitary’. God sets the lonely in families.

As I announced in my New Year’s resolutions back in December, one of my goals for 2021 was to join a church. Unfortunately, due to the current pandemic restrictions still in place in this blue communist state of Nevada, my Google search only turned up the larger churches with congregations of more than a thousand. Thanks to a recent battle with the Nevada supreme court, COVID restrictions were eased in December to allow group meetings of no larger than 250 or 25% of the allowed legal capacity of any one place. (Or something to that effect. All I remember from the headlines was that this was a victory for local churches.)

However, the two Baptist churches that Pastor Sjostrom and I thought might be a good fit for me – based solely on the info from their websites – were only offering the live stream option. Their auditoriums were – and are – still closed for in-person services. So, for all of January, I contented myself with enjoying Grace Baptist’s live stream from Twin Falls, Idaho, every Sunday morning in my pajamas, with my coffee and my Bible close at hand.

But then, one Saturday morning, as I unlocked my front door, I saw a small flyer tucked into the bars of my outer screen door. It was from a small Baptist church right in my neighborhood. From the brief outlines of introductory info on the card, it appeared to be exactly what I was looking for! I immediately plopped on the couch, woke up my MacBook, and pulled up the church’s website. The info there was even more encouraging, so I emailed the pastor. I introduced myself, asked him if he was holding in-person services, and if so, I would love to come visit.

I didn’t hear back from him. The first week of February passed, and every day I would check my junk mail folder several times to make sure I hadn’t accidently missed his reply. So I emailed him again, and this time I caught his response the following morning. This church was indeed holding in-person services, and the pastor said he would love to see me that following Sunday. I emailed him back with a couple other questions based on the info from his website, and he responded later that day. His answers were what I had been hoping to hear, so I told him I would see him on Sunday!

Now, I’m going to pause here, and tell you something you already know about me – both from my previous blog entries and those of you who know me in real life. But, for those who don’t know me, or haven’t read my previous posts (and why wouldn’t you? My journey started back in September of last year. You should start there as well, or a lot of this isn’t going to make sense. Why would you start a book in the middle anyway?), let me tell you something important about me.

I’m an introvert of the highest order. My current rank is Grand Admiral. I really don’t like people, especially when I’m forced to meet and interact with total strangers in anything more than the cursory “Hi, how are you, how can I help you?” part of my daily job. My work doesn’t require me to actually get to know strangers and befriend them. Nor do I really want to. At least, I didn’t used to want to. (Again, read my previous posts on being born again and God’s changing of my old attitudes.) And yes, I have been more cordial and polite with the people that have crossed my path every day in the last few months, and there are a small number of them that I have chatted with enough to get to know them somewhat. Turns out not everyone is as annoying or uninteresting as I used to think.

But (and this is a big ‘BUT’), there’s a HUGE difference between helping a customer at work and strolling into a totally strange place with a strange crowd on Sunday morning and having no idea whom I will meet or what I’ll find there. Forget butterflies. I get a damn fleet of moths, lizards, birds – basically a whole frakkin’ jungle of nerves in my stomach – just thinking of doing something so extroverted as that! And that’s not much of an exaggeration. I’m like Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory. I have my customary spot on the couch that no one else is allowed to sit on, and I don’t like large, unknowable social situations or interactions.

But, unlike my old life, I had no choice here. God was giving me my first real test. Hey, son, I know you don’t like this, but this is necessary, and I’ll be with you the whole time. You know that.

“Yeah, God, I know. But do I really have to? I can just keep watching Grace Baptist’s live stream every Sunday, and I don’t have to leave the comfort of my house. I don’t even have to get out of my pajamas! I’ll just wait until one of those larger churches opens up, and then I’ll go. I promise!”

Umm…no. You need to do this. Now, go.

“Ugh! Fine.”

So I did. And, truth be told, I was looking forward to it, but I was so, SO nervous and anxious that second Sunday in February. (Which was, by coincidence, Valentine’s Day.) And, of course, it turned out to be better than I had been expecting. The pastor was quite warm and welcoming, and he gave me a short tour of the cozy, one story building. (He wasn’t kidding in his email. This church was indeed small – both in physical size and in congregation.) The service went great, the preaching was rather good, and I left for work afterwards feeling very excited, hopeful, and spiritually nourished.

See? God said. I told you you would be fine. And this will get even better as you keep putting yourself out there until I let you know if this is the right family for you.

I replied with a short prayer of thanks and then ordered my usual iced coffee from the Dunkin app on my phone while waiting at the red light.

He was right, as usual. In the last three weeks, as I’ve spent more time with the pastor, and as I’ve gotten to know his small flock, I have felt even more keenly the working of the Holy Spirit within me. God wasn’t kidding when he commanded his believers in the New Testament to gather themselves together in order to spiritually nourish and sustain one another. It’s also been nice to get out of my introverted shell and meet new people. It’s not enough yet to change my ranking in that highest order of introverts – I’m still calling myself Grand Admiral of the Lonely yet Happy Brigade – but it’s a start. I will be probably be demoted to captain in the near future.

Which brings me back around to Psalm 68. Yes, I’ve been keenly aware of my loneliness for the past several weeks. Or rather, God has made me feel keenly aware of my loneliness. I have had a strong desire to be placed within a new family, and, until just a few days ago, I had hoped that this pastor and his very young church would be the family that I was seeking.

It turns out that God may have a different, better family in mind for me.

- 2 -

There’s a couple reasons I haven’t told you the name of the pastor or his church. Those of you that follow me on Facebook will know, and I was probably premature in my post a couple weeks ago about the one night I joined this pastor and some of his congregation for an hour of street preaching. But since this blog is probably going to reach a wider audience than just my family and friends on Facebook, I’m now reluctant to give specific names here because of what I’m about to say next.

The other reason that I’m not naming names is because I will probably not be staying with this church (hereto after referred to as Church #1). The main reason for that is because, as I have listened to the pastor’s preaching (hereto after referred to as Pastor #1) for the last three Sundays, I’ve heard some points and/or comments that have caused a few warning blips on my spiritual radar. Pastor #1 asked us during his sermon a couple weeks ago where in Genesis did we think that Lucifer’s fall occurred. The general consensus from the congregation was in the first chapter. The pastor confirmed this by saying that it happened between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2.

“Does God make anything that is not perfect?”

Well, no, of course not.

“So then why does verse 1 state that God created the heaven and the earth, and then verse 2 says the earth was without form and void?”

Wait. Say what again?

Yeah. Apparently, Pastor and Church #1 believe that God had created a perfect earth and heaven, and then Lucifer’s fall destroyed that first paradise and God had to start all over again.

Ummmmm. Yeah, that’s not how I read verses 1 and 2, nor was that what I was taught at Grace Baptist Church when I was a kid. Although God does not say specifically anywhere in the Bible, it is believed by most theologians and pastors that Lucifer’s fall occurred between chapters 2 and 3 of Genesis. The proper way to read Genesis 1:1 and 2 is that verse 1 is a statement of the end result, and verse 2 begins the story of how God created that end result stated in verse 1.

That’s the biggest warning blip thus far. Some examples of minor blips:

1) Pastor #1 used the verse of 1 Kings 18:28, which talks about the prophets of Baal, “And they cried aloud, and cut themselves after their manner with knives and lancets, till the blood gushed out upon them”, as proof that God does not approve of Christians getting tattoos. Doesn’t matter what kind of tattoo, they’re all a sin. (You’ve all seen the pic on my Facebook page of the tattoo of the cross and date that I had done last month as a way to commemorate my salvation.)

2) Pastor #1 is not a fan of C.S. Lewis or The Chronicles of Narnia. In his opinion, the fact that Lewis used the half-goat, half-man creature as one of the main Narnian characters proves that Lewis was not a true Christian. The faun – who was named Pan in Greek mythology – is actually one of the many symbols of Satan. (And, apparently, the English word ‘panic’ comes from the Greek root word of the name of that mythological character.) Also, for that matter, is the symbol of the fish that many people put on the bumpers and rear windows of their car. That symbol is actually connected to the pagan god Dagon. (No, I promise I’m not making any of this up.)

3) Pastor #1 believes that Hell is actually at the center of the earth. This was from a sermon three weeks ago, and it was mentioned in passing with no specific scriptural passage to back up such a claim. I’m fairly certain, however, that there is no Biblical proof for such a bold statement.

4) This pastor is also a vehement opponent of ‘Christian rock’. Now, this isn’t a big deal to me, as there are many Baptist denominations that believe Christian music should be separate from anything that sounds like secular rock music, so I wasn’t surprised when this comment came up in a sermon two weeks ago. (Also, Grace Baptist is a church that has always held this view. I had many, many arguments with my parents about my love for Amy Grant, Michael W. Smith and Steven Curtis Chapman when I was in high school.) I only bring this point up here to show how dogmatic Pastor #1 is turning out to be.

I should also note here that Pastor and Church #1 believe that the ONLY acceptable translation of the Bible is the 1611 King James version. All other translations (NKJV, NIV, NLT, etc.) are false and pervert the true Word of God. This belief is something new to me, and I asked Pastor #1 about this stance in my second email to him after he responded to my introductory email to let me know that his church was hold in-person services. He listed and quoted a few verses from both the Old and New Testaments, including Revelation 22:18-19 where God says no one shall add or take away from the scriptures, lest their names be removed from the Book of Life. (Which is what all other translations, especially newer ones supposedly do when they substitute specific words or phrases in order to match modern English in order to make the Bible more readable and accessible for today’s generation.)

I’m not sure that I totally agree with this belief. I was raised on the King James version, and, therefore, those words are what have stuck in my memory all these years from the verses that I had to memorize in Sunday School and the various other youth programs that I was involved in throughout my childhood. And, now, as I have begun to re-read the Bible, I really love the poetic beauty and the formality of the old English.

However, I am also reading the MacArthur Study Bible which is published in the New King James version, and it is a little easier to read, especially the Old Testament, where specific phrases and idioms have been updated to be a little more closer to modern English. In his introduction of that Bible, John MacArthur states that when the NKJV Bible was first being produced in the late seventies (it was first published in 1982 by Thomas Nelson), all translators had to sign a statement of integrity, faith and belief, saying essentially that they would remain faithful to the true Word of God, and that they would not change or omit any part of the scriptures that would in any way, no matter how small, alter the spirit and message of that Holy Word.

In my reading of the NKJV, I have not seen any huge difference between it and the KJV, other than that the former is a bit more readable, mainly because it doesn’t have a lot of the ‘thee’, ‘thou’, ‘begat’, and so on, that the KJV has. It’s only minor details like that that have been changed. Also, the translators of the NKJV used the same original, preserved Hebrew and Greek manuscripts that were used by the translators under the reign of King James in the first decade of the 1600s.

So, to claim that ALL other translations except the original KJV are absolutely false and perverted is a bit of a stretch for me. It’s a little too dogmatic, but if that’s the only issue here, then I have no problem being part of a church family that holds this view. Unfortunately, due to the some of the other concerns I listed above, I feel that God is leading me away from Church #1. It appears that family is not where he wants to set me.

- 3 -

This past Sunday, as I drove home from Church #1, I felt very discouraged and, frankly, emotional. Why in the world would God lead me to this church only to tell me a month later that this wasn’t where He wanted me? I felt disappointed and despondent, and I called Dad as soon as I got home, unloading all of this on him in what he must have thought was some kind of breakdown. (And, in fact, I was near tears. That’s another thing about this whole sanctification process. My emotions lately have been living very close to the surface, and I never know what will set them off. Some days, all it takes is a cat food commercial or a particularly poetic verse in Psalms. Go figure.)

My dad, to his immense credit, was able to talk me down from the ledge, and I felt much better after hanging up the phone. I took a nap, and then, as I was fixing a late lunch, I remembered something that Pastor #1 had mentioned to me when we were on the street corner a couple weeks ago. I was asking him about his church, specifically how he knew God was calling him to form his own church. He replied that he and his congregation separated from a church (hereto after referred to as Church #2) about six years ago after that church’s elderly pastor had passed away. Though Pastor #1 didn’t give a lot of details – and our conversation was constantly being interrupted as we handed out tracks to passers-by – it sounded to me like the separation was caused by the congregation’s vote to have someone else besides Pastor #1 lead them.

After lunch, I Googled the name of Church #2. Their website looked promising (yes, they too believe that the KJV is the only acceptable translation of the Bible, as well as all the other typical Baptist beliefs – i.e., Pro-life, the traditional Biblical views of marriage & sexuality, etc.), so I immediately emailed the pastor (hereto after referred to as Pastor #2) to ask if he was holding in-person services. He responded almost right away that his doors were indeed open, and the evening service was at 6. I told him I would be there.

Once again, that whole jungle of critters and nerves was back in full force as I pulled into the parking lot of Church #2 (which was also in the same general of area of North Las Vegas as Church #1.) This church building was much larger than that of Church #1, and the congregation was very warm and welcoming. Within just a few minutes of chatting with Pastor #2, I learned that he was originally from Nampa, Idaho, and an alumni of Boise State University. Wow! Talk about a small world. When I told him that I, too, was a former BSU Bronco, he immediately called his wife over to introduce her and pass on the good news.

My visit only got better from there. By the end of the night – which concluded with an ice cream social in the fellowship hall behind the auditorium – I had met, shook hands, and chatted at great length with no less than a dozen fellow believers, all around my age. From what I could estimate during the worship service, the size of the congregation appeared to be about a hundred and fifty, and there was a good mix of old, young and in between. (There was also a good number of elementary and high school age kids.) In many ways, this church reminded me of Grace Baptist back home, and I drove away feeling much more excited and spiritually refreshed. I said a quick prayer of thanks to God, and I really can’t wait for this upcoming Sunday morning service!

- 4 -

All of this church scouting has only intensified my homesickness for Grace Baptist Church back in Twin Falls. Ever since Aaron’s passing a few months ago, my mind has been wallowing in memories of my childhood within the halls of that church and its school there. What I had once upon a time despised in my adolescence and couldn’t wait to get away from I now yearn for with all my heart and soul.

As a kid, there were two places I spent the majority of my time: home and church/school. If I wasn’t at one, I was at the other. My parents were married in Grace Baptist on June 18, 1977, and I arrived on the scene a year later. My earliest memory of Grace Baptist was the hideous shade of orange that was the carpet in the auditorium. It was a burnt orange that was most assuredly made only in the 1970s, and there were no pews at that time either. Instead, we all sat in plastic, yellow chairs that, to my amazement, are STILL being used in the gym for special events. (I sat in one at Aaron’s funeral, and boy, those things are NOT very comfortable after a half hour or so.)

I have many fond recollections of me and my brothers tearing up and down the main hall of the church building, racing one another while waiting for our parents after evening church on Sundays. More often than not, we were scolded by one of the older ladies (I will not name names here, either, mainly just for privacy’s sake, not because I resent them now) who would order us to go find our parents. At one end of that hall is the nursery, and back then the door was separated in two so that the lower half could be closed while the upper half could remain open. In junior high, my friends and I would try to run and jump that door when just the lower half was closed. Again, one of the adults would scold us as they walked by.

More often than not, my brothers, friends and I would be out on the school playground during Sunday afternoons when dad had choir practice before evening church. On one particular Sunday, my brother Jeremy and I were playing tag with a couple other boys, and Jeremy ran headlong into a steel bar at one end of the playground. He had been glancing behind him to see how close his opponent was, and he turned his head back around just in time to slam it into the bar which was at just the right height for his forehead. To this day, I can close my eyes and hear, as clearly as if it had happened only a few minutes ago, that sound of flesh, bone and steel. I was on the other side of the playground, and that THRANG! resonated like the peal from a steeple bell. It’s also the only time in my life that I have seen that much blood at once. Needless to say, mom and Jeremy spent that evening in the ER instead of church service.

(Come to think of it, that was not Jeremy’s last bloody incident. He was around eight or nine, I believe, and during the remainder of his youth he would go on to experience the following: tearing up his face when he crashed headlong into the gravel of the alley behind our house while trying to jump a poorly constructed ramp on his dirt bike; shooting himself in the leg with a gun that one of his friends borrowed from the dad’s unlocked cabinet; breaking that same leg a year or so later during a soccer game – due, in part, to the way the gunshot wound had healed around the bone; and, finally, having his right foot shattered when the third baseman jumped to catch the ball and then landed on Jeremy’s foot with just right angle and weight as Jeremy slid into base. That incident occurred just last year, in fact. My brother has never been one to shy away from living life to the fullest, amen!)

There were numerous weddings, funerals, high school graduations, afternoon potlucks, and other such events held within the halls of that church over the course of my childhood. When my second grade teacher, Miss Sherri Bohne (pronounced ‘Bonny’), was married, I asked her for a picture of her in her wedding dress. I thought it was the most beautiful gown ever, and I’m sure I still have that photo somewhere in an album in one of my closets. (Once again, it shouldn’t have been a surprise to anyone when I emerged from the proverbial closet roughly twelve years later.) There were grade school plays, piano recitals, and high school choir performances that make up the bulk of both my fondest and cringiest memories. (I absolutely HATED the glasses that I had to wear for all of junior high and most of high school. I was never so happy as when my parents’ medical insurance finally allowed me to get contacts halfway through my sophomore year.)

My dad believed that our family should be in church anytime the doors were open. Sunday morning, Sunday evening, Wednesday night youth group, Cubbies, Sparks, Awana, Vacation Bible School in the summers, week long special revival meetings throughout the year – you name it, we were there, front and center for every service and/or event. The only exceptions were if we happened to be out of town on our annual summer vacations. When I was a kid, I didn’t resent all this church attendance that much. Everything that was church – all the services, songs, rituals, preaching, teaching, Bible verse memorization, family devotionals every night before bedtime – it was normal life for me and my brothers. It was in my teen years that I really started to resent and dread all the weekly services and activities. And, especially, when I started to realize I was gay and I had to keep that a secret it was even harder to find a good reason for all this religious nonsense. I was never happier than when I left high school (no, never graduated, see previous posts), and I could finally be free of all that hogwash.

Now, twenty-four years later, I feel much differently. I believe that, if we are truly lucky, the places where we grow up become part of us. Their essence weaves itself into the DNA of our very souls through the lifetime of memories and experiences that we carry with us, no matter where or how far we walk in the world. In 1998, when I was in the army and stationed in Hanau, Germany, there was a knock on the door of my barracks room one weekday evening. When I answered it, I found two gentlemen who were from a local non-denominational church. Their congregation was primarily U.S. service members from the base, and they invited me to their upcoming Sunday service. I agreed, though at the time, I couldn’t say exactly why. Looking back now, I know why. I was halfway around the world, very far from home and from almost anything familiar, and I was lonely. I had only just arrived at my posting, so I hadn’t yet become acquainted with my fellow soldiers.

I attended that little church for only a few weeks. It was a taste of home that I had been desperately craving, and I sang along with the traditional hymns, allowing my childhood memories of Grace Baptist to comfort me. But, once I got settled into my new life on base, I no longer needed the weekly church service. I was fine without God once more, and I quit attending. I had better things to do on the weekends. A year later, after my courts-martial, when I arrived back home in Twin Falls, I continued my life without God or religion. Eventually, I found a place of my own, and I lived my life as I wanted. I finally came out to my friends and family, and charted my own course. I would occasionally attend Grace Baptist as a courtesy to my parents, but I hated every time that I had to cross that threshold. It dredged up nothing but bitter memories from high school, and I had to force a smile and a handshake whenever one of the older folks was happy to see me.

You all know the rest of the story. While 2020 was the year that the world fell apart and went off the rails, it was the year that God woke me up and saved me. Back in January, when I started to watch the weekly service from GBC via the live stream on their Facebook page, I felt like I had come back home. The orange carpet and yellow chairs have been replaced by a lovely gray-blue flooring and more comfortable pews, but the spiritual essence is the same. For the last couple weeks, as I’ve attended church services here in Las Vegas, my homesickness has only intensified. I have been fortunate to reconnect with many of you from GBC through these blog posts, and I feel so blessed because of that. That’s what I miss most about Grace Baptist. My brothers and I weren’t reared by just our parents. We were brought up by a godly village of people who believed in Proverbs 22:6: “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old he will not depart from it.” Boy, ain’t that the truth??? (This also, unfortunately, meant that it was a rare victory for me, my brothers, and my friends whenever we actually got away with some form of mischief or trouble.) Many of those ‘godparents’ have long since moved away from Twin Falls to serve the Lord in other ministries in other states, but their impact on my life is being felt anew. Others are still there, now teaching their grandchildren the same way they taught and nurtured me.

I miss that church family terribly, and I yearn more than ever to find a family of that caliber here in Las Vegas. I sincerely hope that church #2 is it. But, if not, I know that God will eventually lead me where he wants to place me. It’s not His desire that anyone should be solitary for very long.

Until then, I’m content to be Grand Admiral of the Lonely yet Happy in Christ Brigade.

Okay, maybe just captain.

#Christian #personal growth #God #church #family

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activebodi-blog · 6 years ago

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How to Find Free & Paid Stock Photos Online (Updated)

If you want to make your website more visually appealing, you need to be adding images to your articles and posts.

Images help tell the story before a single word has been read, make the text more understandable by adding a visual reference and they’re worth a 1000 words – according to everyone I speak to anyway :)

So where do you get images from?

Without a doubt, you should always try to use your own images when it’s suitable. A photo of you or what’s going on in relation to what you’re writing, screenshots from your computer if you’re writing a computer-based tutorial, or even simple diagrams and graphs is more personal and effective than a stock photo.

But you can’ possibly supply every single image, there’s too much out there to cover.

What really sucks is that most of the best images are protected by copyright, so you can’t use them. But this is completely understandable if you took an awesome photo for use on your website alone and everyone copied it – you’d be verbally abusing your computer screen!

So you’ve got to find solid resources for images you can actually use freely.

This means public domain images, restricted use or royalty free. Public Domain can be used as you see fit really, but royalty-free or restricted use may carry certain limitations you’ll have to check at the source (when downloading) and may even have to leave attribution to the photographer.

This may be reason enough to go with a premium stock photo site so you can simply pay your tiny amount of cash and have free reign over the image you bought – understanding, though, that other people can buy and use the same image.

But enough blabbering on and boring talk (sorry guys!) let’s get down to business.

First, I have a video below, followed by a written list.

Please Note: By playing this video, you hereby consent to the use of YouTube’s Cookies.

Below is an extensive list of photo sources, starting with my top 5.

Top 5 Places to Find Photos online

Below are my personal recommendations, where 99% of my images come from if I don’t have any of my own:

Shutterstock

Yep, the premium service is without a doubt the best source of images, that’s why it’s premium. Shutterstock does have an excellent selection of 40 million plus photos.

You can signup for a handful of images or one of their subscription services (if you use a lot of images, a subscription could be the best value) and then you’ve got a solid resource of professional images you can access at any time.

This is where you’ll find the highest quality images, and like all other premium stock photo sites, you can use the photos as much as you want without attribution.

Check out Shutterstock

Free Images.com (formerly sxc.hu)

If you don’t want to pay for stock photos, then freeimages.com is a great place to start looking.

The photos are 99% high resolution, all you need to do is sign up and you’ll have unlimited access to these images. Different images do have different licensing and restrictions and you may have to reference the photographer.

This place rocks, check it out.

Pexels

This website has a tonne of quality, non-stocky looking, images that are completely free.

The images there are high resolution, easy to download and I quite often get pictures there better than Shutterstock or other paid Stock Photo sites.

They also offer some royalty-free video footage! This place has it all :) Check out Pexels

Flickr Creative Commons

Flickr is a great source of images, but you can’t just use any image you find. Instead, you can search through the Creative Commons.

When you arrive on the site, search for a photo in the top right corner.

Once you see the results, click on the menu item ‘License’ above the results, and click ‘Creative Commons only’ (and ‘commercial use allowed’ if you plan on using the image commercially).

Then click on the image and it will be displayed on the screen as below, then click the download symbol in the bottom right, click a size and you’ll have the image!

That’s it! You’ve got your image :)

Just make sure you show attribution to the photographer with a link to his Flickr page somewhere – under your post is fine!

Google Image Search

Google, once again a terrific source but not all photos can be used. Just visit Google.com and click the images link at the top right, then search for your image.

Once your results show up, click ‘Search Tools’. You can choose image size (resolution) and a few other options to filter the images, but you want to click on ‘usage rights’ and click the appropriate option.

You can then save any image you want by clicking on the thumbnail, then ‘View image’ to see the raw image – then right click and ‘Save As’.

Premium Stock Photo Sites

There are countless premium stock photo websites out there, but there’s no point in signing up for several. It’s best to just pick one and stick with it, so here are the best choices out there:

Shutterstock (mentioned earlier) As I mentioned earlier, Shutterstock has possibly the best selection around, with several options from ‘per image’ to subscription based. Definitely worth checking out!

iStock iStock would be my second choice. iStock also delivers top quality photos through as per credit system or via subscription.

Deposit Photos Another top choice for premium stock photography, once again both subscription and per image based pricing.

Can Stock Photo Another big stock photo site with a few good options – either pay by credit or subscribe!

Free Stock Photo Sites

There are bucket loads of premium websites out there, but these days just as many free stock photo sites are popping up. These websites all have their own selection of free images well worth looking at if you’re willing to spend time but not money tracking down your image/s.

Some of these are collaborations, uploaded by hundreds or thousands of photographers, and a few are from a particular photographer. Either way, the websites below are a valuable source of free photography, just double check the license before using.

Free Images (mentioned earlier)

Unsplash

Canva Photos

Stock Vault

Image Free

Gratisography

Pexels

Pixabay

Image Source

RGB Stock

MorgueFile

Free Digital Photos

Free Range Stock

Free Media Goo

Designer Pics

BigFoto

PicJumbo

Super Famous

Unsplash

Can We Image

Also, we have Every Stock Photo – which searches a number of free stock photo sites all at once.

Free Stock Photos by Email

The following websites offer a selection of stock photos by email. If you subscribe you’ll receive the images in your inbox!

Death of the Stock Photo

Little Visuals

Pickup Image

Public Domain / Commons

These images are public domain, which means the copyright never existed or has since expired. So check these websites out for free photos!

Public Domain Pictures

Flickr Creative Commons (see earlier)

Wikimedia Commons

New Old Stock

Ancestry Images

The list is always growing.

A simple Google search for “free stock photo site” will list more free photo sources than I ever could. But these websites listed will get you good results.

These websites make decorating your posts very easy, so check them out! I’m certain you’ll find a few which seem to cover all of your needs (like the top 4 at the beginning of this post).

If you have any suggestions, please leave a comment below! Otherwise feel free to share this post below or subscribe for more useful tips! Thanks for reading.

source https://wellbuildyourblog.com/find-free-stock-photos-blog-posts/

#blogging #internet marketing #social media

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actionfigurebullshit · 6 years ago

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Worlds of the Wonderverse

Not sure where to start... and I have garbage I need to take out. It smells like a damn cat box in here!

(A few moments later...)

Aaaand...

So, um... yeah.

It’s been a week since learning of Jane’s passing. I still don’t know much about the details, and I’ve accepted that nothing good can come from knowing more than what I already do. It’s still so much to process- and there’s a lot of processing to do. I lost my movie making and world building partner. I don’t pretend to fully understand what drove her to create, but she felt the calling, too, that need to take something in your head and convert it to something tangible, and sometimes, even if it’s just a silly or stupid video, it has to be considered a high priority. It’s a madness, and it was a treasure to share in our sickness.

I went back and watched some of the movies she made with some help from me. There were so many of them I wanted us to follow up on. I had said as much, and in a few instances, Jane gave me her blessing to do so if the spirit moved me. I don’t know if there’s time to do anything like that anymore, when my free time is so rare and so many other things are in the queue- it’s not just like sand in the hourglass, it’s like wet sand. Some of this shit has been waiting patiently for years to see daylight. Does any of Jane’s stuff get to cut in line?

I’ve been bugged by an idea that began a few nights ago when I discovered some assets for her 2013 video “Starburners”. It’s disappointing that the version of it on YouTube is so low in video quality. The one uploaded in 2016 isn’t the original, so I’m not sure if the original was at a higher resolution or what, but it seems like this one had some generational loss to it, but even the original didn’t have a high resolution to it. I’m not knocking her work- here I am taking web cam quality pictures from a 2007 digital camera, and I still use Paint Shop Pro 7. Sometimes, for better or worse, you get married to old stuff. Being poor encourages it, too, and I’m sure it was that way with her.

Anyway, what a shock it was to find out that some of the special effects I did for her were in 1080p- because I, too, dabble with low resolution videos most of the time. It’s also necessary when your computers are old or under powered. What’s really funny is that it includes live action, but the live action was shot with that camcorder, and that thing was barely 480 on its highest setting, and yet with all the filtering on the images to turn a flabby dude in a woman’s Zentai costume into a sentient human shaped cloud of nebula gas, I wound up with a genuine high definition shot of three of these aliens standing together.

It got me thinking how cool it would be to make a little short video on the special effects work that I contributed to this movie, showing all the clips of video that went into building these aliens. As I have low end equipment, getting the right filtering on it required filtering one copy of the raw video, producing a video file of that editing, and then edit the image further. What’s left is a long trail of “in between” videos, which could be used to illustrate the process of making these aliens.

It feels like a pointless project, though. Who’s gonna watch it? It’s almost a funny thing to ask because of how small an audience I was having for AFB- you’d think that wouldn’t stop me, but this wasn’t something Lacey or Matt was involved with, and the one person who might have interest, or at the very least, a reason to watch this isn’t here anymore.

Maybe I should make it anyway as a way I can honor Jane, and share a little about our 93% film-making and Star Trek friendship. I’d love it if some of the people involved in the original production found the video- and they’ll have to because I don’t know how to contact them, and I’m just a total stranger to them, anyway. I don’t have any behind the scenes stuff of Jane’s anyway, so it would be that much more irrelevant to them.

Still, I feel a compulsion- a creative one, to have Jane live on in videos and digital media. I can make some follow ups happen. Others, probably not, but definitely the ones I was most involved in. I’ve been wanting to expand on her ASStronauts video shorts for years now- it’d be worth squeezing into those old suits again to film, or do as she did, just recycle footage. One of the benefits of filming a creature who has no mouth is that you can put any kind of line in there, but I think I would want to film new stuff as well.

I wonder if it makes sense to try to continue someone else’s work like that- like there’s some part of me scolding me for having these ideas. Maybe I shouldn’t pick up this mantle, maybe Jane wouldn’t have wanted that, maybe it’s not my place? Or maybe I shouldn’t worry about any of it. Maybe this is just the exact way I’m supposed to grieve over a lost friendship such as this?

But there’s more to it than just making sure something “stays alive”- there’s a fun tendency in what remains of my social circle where ideas are constantly being built on other ideas- this creative force is like a Borg cube, or a Katamari ball, it just picks up everything in its path, assimilating it into this... monstrosity that’s showcased on this appropriately named blog “Total Communication”. The Wonderverse is about to have it’s artistic and technical distinctiveness added to its own! It was inevitable, anyway, as I had let Jane use some of those TC assets for her work, and Jane found herself involved in some of the posts. Whatever I end up doing, I intend on adding it to the mix. Jane’s characters and settings will live on to some extent, and be allowed to grow and evolve like so many other things I’ve worked on. Even if I could never actually finish things, I did have a knack for keeping them going... or in development Hell, I dunno! But some of this stuff has been going on since we were kids...

God, this is too rambling, but my thoughts are still too much of a jumble.

So I’ll just say this for now and wrap things up:

AFB will continue. We’ve brainstormed a few wacky ideas on how Moxie can continue to have a voice down the road, but I’ve got enough lines from Jane over the years that I can probably work on AFB (at the rate I’m going) for years before I run out of audio.

And, if nothing else, I can share some of those video assets here. There’s probably some styles in there that will be instantly recognizable in AFB. It’s my blog, why not expand things a little here?

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unoeducationabroad-blog · 8 years ago

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Photo Set 1 of 2 [x]

Click the photos for higher resolution + captions!

Hello all! My name is Chris Riedmann. I am a Junior (almost a Senior!) in UNO's College of Business Administration, where I am concentrating in the Marketing and Management disciplines. So far, I have been in Innsbruck, Austria for about a week, studying at the Management Center of Innsbruck (MCI). So much as happened so far! Far more than this introductory post is going to cover! I'm not even going to focus on Innsbruck all that much this post, because I've already taken a short trip to Vienna, which will occupy the other half of this entry. Innsbruck will get plenty of coverage by the time my contributions to this blog are over.

Chris Riedmann

1 Starting off with a pretentious self-portrait on the train to Innsbruck from Munich, Germany. Traveling alone for the first time in a foreign country is complicated and stressful! There are approximately a bazillion metal boxes that will take you to different parts of the world, and it's up to you find and get into the ones that take you were you need to go. It's a miracle that I made it from Munich's airport to the main train station. I'm so inexperienced when it comes to public transport, but I'm loving how reliable it is when you need to get somewhere. Anyway, please don't take this weak attempt at being artistic seriously.

2 Innsbruck! The western half of Austria is full of mountains, and the city is surrounded by them. This is a view from the base of the Nordkette (or Northern Chain).

3 And here is a view roughly in the opposite direction as the previous photo. Right from day one, my favorite thing about Innsbruck is being able to look up from almost any point in the city and witness the Nordkette in all her majesty. It's such a sharp contrast from the lack of views you get in the Midwestern United States. I have yet to hike to the top of the Nordkette, but it is absolutely on my agenda of things to do before my time here is up.

4 Same subject as the previous shot, but here is how it looks when it's cloudy. As someone not from a mountainous region, it's so weird to see clouds not being completely above the highest ground. Sunny or cloudy, the view does not get old.

5 I'm including this shot only because of how obligatory it is. This was taken at the restaurant/bar Vaca Loca (right across the street from my dorm), which was celebrating it's first birthday as an establishment. My drink was free because of it. :) I don't particularly drink a lot, especially not beer, but so far I've found the beer here to be much easier for me to consume (despite the drink's cultural significance around the world, I still think that wheat is a stupid flavor for a beverage.)

6 This is just something I walked by in the touristy part of the city. Tired of wine pouring not being absurd enough? I've found the solution!

#student blog #chris riedmann #austria #vienna #innsbruck #management center innsbruck #travel photography #photography #mavsabroad #wanderlust #photo blog #study abroad #education abroad #study abroad blog #unomaha #mavspirit

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gobigorgohome2016 · 9 years ago

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Staying Injury Free

A few days ago one of Dave’s former college teammates stayed with us. He and I talked shop, and he was especially curious about my high mileage and durability, given that he had been plagued with mileage-related injuries for most of his running career. He made the comment that I must be very biomechanically sound, and I laughed. While I have worked hard to fix a lot of my inefficiencies, 15 of the past 17 years of running I had pretty bad form.

On a shakeout the other day, Dave and I were talking about possible reasons why I have been fortunate to be relatively injury-free, drawing upon my 7-years of being injury-free in middle school and high school, my 5 years of being mostly injured in college, and then the previous 6 years where I have had two injuries: a calf strain that was directly related to rolling out of bed, hungover, and going immediately for a dehydrated run in high heat and humidity after 4 hours of sleep, and an “up the chain” injury that resulted from poor dorsii flexion in my ankle, causing compensations in my knee/hip. I consider both of those to be somewhat freak injuries, different than if I were to have sustained a stress fracture or tendonitis.

Anyway, I noticed that a lot of people have posted on social media that one of their new year’s resolutions is to be injury free in 2017. Listed here are some of the factors that I think have helped me be pretty durable throughout my running career.

I Have Good Genes First and foremost, I’m sure genetics play a huge role. If you know my family, you’re probably like, umm, really, good genes? Isn’t everyone in your family sick? While the answer is yes, my dad has regenerative super healing powers that have made him last much longer than he probably should have. For instance, 5 years ago he had congestive heart failure. This past year, cardiologists at mayo clinic announced the heart failure to be a fluke [this is not normal]. His primary mayo clinic doctor has also marveled numerous times that he seems to have super healing abilities when it comes to surgeries and other procedures. I am convinced that I have some of his recovery abilities. My mom is also pretty hardy, which shouldn’t be surprising considering she claims she was a pioneer in her past life and will be a farrier (horse shoer) in her next life. (note: my mom is afraid of horses). If you don’t have good genes, it helps to figure out your deficiencies. Do all of your family members suffer from low bone density? Calcium supplements and strength training may be a good way to mitigate these issues.

I Run on Soft Surfaces In middle school and high school I only ever ran on soft surfaces, thanks to the nearby Indiana Dunes and a coach who was willing to drive us out there every day. My only injury-free year of college also consisted primarily of soft-surface running. I do think that one reason for my injuries the rest of the time in Milwaukee was due to running on A LOT of concrete. Post-college, I returned to trails and crushed limestone, and it was a great transition for my legs. Now, 75%+ of my running is on trails or crushed gravel.

I’m Lazy I have said it before and I will say it again: I don’t love running for the sake of running. For me, training is a necessary evil so that I can do what I truly enjoy, which is race. Therefore, my brain is always looking for a way out. If I have the slightest niggle, sniffle, or prolonged muscle soreness, I take a day off or cut my run short. The focus is on being able to race for me, not painfully powering through a run just so that I can write it down in my running log.

Good Coaching The more that I talk to others, the more I am realizing how much a coach shapes the early stages of a runner’s development. I was very fortunate that my high school coach (who is also my current coach) preached the importance of getting to the starting line healthy. I have always understood that health > hitting all of your workouts. I distinctly remember my junior year of high school going over my running log with my coach and being proud of the fact that I had run 100 days in a row. I told him about how I almost didn’t make it because I had a week where my calves were absolutely destroyed and I didn’t really want to do my Sunday run, but didn’t want to give up my streak. In my 16 year old dumb head I thought I was being smart and awesome, but instead he told me I should have called him that day and he would have told me to rest. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that my junior track season was relatively my worst out of all of high school.

Sponsorship One thing that has surprised me is that I’m more cautious with my training now that I have sponsorship and am on elite ambassador teams. I truthfully would have thought it would be the other way around. But, while no sponsor or ambassador program has said this to me, I know that I am worth more as an athlete to be running high level races than to not be running at all. If that means taking a day off here or there to rehab an injury, then I am more likely to do so than I was 5 year ago. I also realize that getting invited to run big events sometimes depends on whether I have raced recently, and staying healthy & racing often is as much a business decision as it is something I enjoy.

I Ignore Pace I, like 99.9% of runners, don’t need to be told to speed up. I will run the pace that’s right for me and my body on any given day. So, unless I’m running a long run or a workout, I don’t wear my GPS. I simply map a route for the mileage and run. I see it way too often where people don’t like the pace they see on their watch (even though it’s the right pace for the day) so they speed up and stress their bodies unnecessarily. If I am wearing watch, I tend to run “Badger Miles,” where I just assume I’m running 8 minute pace. Most times I’m running faster, but sometimes I’m running slower, too. Since I run primarily on trails, it’s silly to keep a GPS going anyway.

I’m Flexible Case in point: over the weekend, I raced a 5k, lifted afterwards, and then ran a 20 miler in the mud the next day, which usually doesn’t bother me but left me very, very sore come Sunday night. Instead of doing my planned 20 x 200 m on Tuesday, I am heading out in an hour to run the workout, feeling way better now than I did yesterday. While there are times you should run on tired legs, I’m not at that part in my training cycle. Being flexible in terms of when I train, and allowing myself ample recovery, is a huge part of staying injury-free. This is also why I purposely don’t train with others. If there were set workout days, I would have a difficult time putting the needs of my body over my ego.

I Sleep I 1000% get that not everyone has the luxury to sleep as much as I do. But, a lot of people could stand to cut back on mileage in order to increase sleep, and this wouldn’t hurt their fitness (it would do the opposite). A rule of thumb that I love: add 10 minutes of sleep for every 10 miles of weekly running. Therefore, if you run 50 miles per week, add 50 minutes of sleep each night to your base level. For me, even when I’m not running, I need 7 - 8 hours of sleep. That means I need 8.5 - 9.5 hours of sleep per night, which is pretty accurate considering I tend to average 9 hours of sleep when I don’t set an alarm. Figure out the best balance of sleep and mileage for your routine.

I Eat More and more I realize how lucky I am that my mother never restricted her diet, never restricted my diet, and planned our meals based on the dessert she wanted to serve that night. Growing up, I subsisted on a midwestern diet based on the strict GI needs of my father (who no longer has a colon and can only eat easy-to-digest foods). We ate a lot of simple foods: meat, potatoes, fish, cooked veggies, and gravies, as well as apple crisps, pies, and shortcakes. Baking powder biscuits, of which the primary ingredient is crisco, was a staple in our household. 2% milk was served with every meal. I grew up strong and well-fueled, with a healthy attitude towards meal time.

I Get the Science A big aggravating factor I see in athletes when it comes to injury is not wanting to take a day or two off due to fear of losing fitness or gaining weight. Both of these points are moot, and there is plenty of science to back them up. For one, if you take 7 days off and do absolutely nothing, you will only lose a negligible percentage of your VO2 max, which won’t matter unless you are an elite athlete at the very peak of your training cycle. Two, you are more likely to lose “weight”, in the form of decreased inflammation, if you take a short period of time off and rehab your body.

I Make the Right Investments Self care is important, whether that means going to yoga, foam rolling, doing stretching/strengthening activities at home, going to PT regularly (and keeping up with the exercises), or massage therapy. For me, all of these are important in keeping myself injury free. While paying for all of these can be difficult at times, it is definitely worth it to me to take care of my body.

I Have Poor Pain Tolerance To go along with making the right investments, I have to pay for those things because my pain tolerance for every day training isn’t very good (races are another story). I get legit depressed if I’m in pain while I run, so I just take a few days off so that I can only run pain free.

I Had a Long Build Up If you follow my blog, you only know part of the story. I was NOT always a high mileage runner. In fact, I never hit a 70 mile week in my life until 2011, and I didn’t hit a 100 mile week until late 2015. In college I never got above 60 mpw. Unpopular opinion: I take issue with the year-end “I ran x number of miles this year” posts because, IMO, they cause more harm than good. If you didn’t run your highest mileage ever, you’re going to be down on yourself. It also perpetuates the idea that more is more, when more is not more. I ran 600 fewer miles in 2016 than 2015 and was arguably more fit. Mileage doesn’t tell the whole story, and starting the new year hell-bent to beat a previous mileage high is a great way to get injured.

I Strength Train I will be the first to admit that I have never appreciated the art of strength training until recently. I stopped doing any form of strength completely between 2010 and 2016, and I will be the first to admit that I was VERY lucky not to have more serious problems than some hamstring tendonopathy. Now that I’m back to regular strength and core work, I can say with absolute certainty that it has helped me overcome some biomechanic issues that have contributed to aches and pains in the past.

#injuryfree2017

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suzannemcappsca · 7 years ago

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Ethics in Mediation: Caesar’s Wife must be above Suspicion

Martin Svatoš

In one of my recent cases, the question of impartiality appeared in quite an irregular way. It happened when I entered the mediation room where both parties were seated together with their lawyers. They were drinking coffee and making small talk. To my surprise, one of the lawyers looked quite familiar. Just for a moment, I had a hard time to sort out the situation. And then, I realised she was my classmate I had not seen for ages.

Surprise in mediation room

Her name would not help me a lot as she was married and, as is the Czech custom, she adopted the bridegroom’s surname. Yet anyway, did I underestimate the preparation and of the conflict check? This was just one of the questions the silence was suddenly fraught with. Is this circumstance influencing my impartiality and independence? Should I show my surprise or pretend nothing extra happened? What should be my next step? To reveal? Not to share this? What would the other party think of me? Would they suspect me of behaving unethically? Would they think this was intentional?

Ethics in mediation (Photo: Martin Svatos)

Unfortunately, there are no universal guidelines leading a mediator through this area full of pitfalls. One has to rely on himself and I believe that sincerity is always the best cure for likewise situations. Thus, after a moment of hesitation, we exchanged greetings, I sat down and revealed the circumstances: “As you might have seen, I am really surprised to see Ms. XY here. She used to be my classmate at the law school. Since then, we have seen each other occasionally, and I did not know she was going to represent this party today. Of course, I am impartial and independent, however, you might consider choosing a different mediator if you have any doubts or if you do not feel comfortable in this situation…” The other party, to my ease, took it well: “Oh, thank you…Ms. XY told us already when we were considering you as our mediator…It is definitely alright. However, we appreciate your frankness…” The case was settled in two hours.

Partial neutral?

As illustrated by this case, impartiality and independence are really crucial for mediation and other ADR. Stick to those principles and you will be valued as a good mediator. Break them and you will be held in low esteem not speaking about legal consequences. Yet, this approach is not uncontested. For some of the scholars and practitioners, transparency and party control are by far more important issues due to the nonbinding nature of consensual alternative dispute resolution. According to those opinions, the term of neutrality is imminent to the power. Since there is no power of mediators towards the parties, there is no need for impartiality and independence. According to this opinion, the control of the procedure is much more important, as it is a parties’ consent that produces the outcome of the said procedure. Quite surprisingly, the following discussion appeared between me and my classmate from the opening example after the conclusion of the mediated settlement agreement: “How can a mediator, no matter how partial, influence the outcome of mediation?” “I believe that every experienced mediator would be able to provide you with a set of examples of tiny tricks and techniques that would be able to achieve that aim…” She did not hesitate and started a rebuttal: “OK, however, as soon as the parties discover this, they might interrupt mediation and change the mediator or just stop taking part in it…” “Indeed, supposing they realised…” “Wait a minute, with due diligence, you can discover it…” “Well, in the case of dependence, you might get a chance, while impartiality is invisible…!”

Virtues lost in self-interest

I was not talking about some magic. The terms independent, impartial and neutral are sometimes used as synonyms though they do have a different meaning that needs to be distinguished. As such, the impartiality is the neutral’s real absence of preference in favour of one of the parties that is a condition sine qua non of real neutrality. It is a state of mind of not being interested regarding the outcome of the procedure. In other words, the presence of bias causes absence of impartiality and vice versa, the absence of bias means impartiality. By contrast, the term independent means absence of objective links between persons: Absence of control or influence of another, the absence of association with another entity and absence of dependence on something or someone else. The relation between impartiality and independence can be expressed as follows: There cannot be a partial neutral, but there can be a dependent one. However, the later would neither be acceptable for the parties nor would be in accordance with the law.

Graphics: Martin Svatos

As in the majority of ethical topics, the crucial term to be observed is a conflict of interest which might be described as a real or seeming incompatibility between one’s private interests and one’s public or fiduciary duties. The problem of ethically difficult questions is not hidden in search for definitions and rules but rather in their practical application. The main obstacle was aptly described by the French author François de La Rochefoucauld: “Virtues are lost in self-interest as rivers are lost in the sea”. Indeed, it is quite easy to denounce certain behaviour once it is discussed as a theoretical example in the class or with the colleagues. However, the true trial occurs only when there is a real conflict of interest – when there is something at stake. Let’s take an example: Imagine a certain person is considered to be appointed a mediator in small claim case with a fixed fee. Now, another person is about to be appointed an arbitrator in multimillion USD case. Both are considering revealing the same information that might cause doubts of the parties as to their impartiality, such as that one of the lawyers is a classmate. Obviously, both candidates are putting at risk their appointments and consequently certain financial incomes. While for the first person, the decision is quite easy, the decision of the later one is much more difficult as she is risking to lose much more. Her financial interest is in seeming conflict with her public duty to disclose and inform the parties. There is a real conflict of interest. Only in cases like this, one can really prove her moral standards.

To divorce or not to divorce…

In 63 BC, Gaius Iulius Caesar was elected to the office of the Pontifex Maximus, the supreme priest of the Roman state religion. One of the benefits of this post was the entitlement to the official residence on the Via Sacra. Today, its ruins can be still spotted in Forum Romanum in downtown Rome and one has to admire its really convenient central location. According to some critics, this (and not the religious zeal) was the only reason why the young politician went after the office of supreme priest.

Source: Wikipedia

At this time, Caesar was married to his second wife, Pompeia. As Pontifex Maximus’s spouse, she was obliged to host the festival of the Bona Dea (“good goddess”), which no male was permitted to attend. However, an enfant terrible of then Rome, Publius Clodius Pulcher, managed to sneak into the house dressed as a woman, apparently for the purpose of seducing Pompeia. This adventure turned into a disaster. He was caught, got some beatings and was later prosecuted for sacrilege. In fact, with the highest probability, there was no affaire between Pompeia and Clodius. Anyway, the other day, Caesar divorced the poor woman. During the trial, he supposedly stated the reason in the following way: “Caesar’s wife ought not even to be under suspicion.” What does have this classical story of the ancient divorce and impartiality and independence of ADR neutrals in common? In public (and not in private) life, mediators should take some inspiration in the approach of the famous Roman and take the issue of conflict of interest really seriously. A general saying “Better safe than sorry” is to be followed. Or, in other words, “A mediator ought not even to be under suspicion.”

TO BE CONTINUED…

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