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woo-san-shine · 5 years

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Our Way

ateez college au

Premise: You and your best friend from high school move away to a university 3 hours away from your small hometown. You find yourself meeting a strange cast of characters along the way that will help you find your way throughout your freshman year.

Word Count: 2k (sorry)

Warnings: slight language, but this is pretty tame

Author’s Note: A work in progress!!! Mostly just for fun

Chapter 1

You thought this day was never going to come. You had been anxiously waiting for this day for the past four years. You could hardly believe that you had made it this far. Moving away to college is a big step in any young adult's life, and you were more than ready to take this next step with a running start.

It's not like you had a horrible high school experience or anything. I mean, yeah, there were times here and there that you'd rather not think about. But as you watched the bright August sunlight beam down over surrounding trees that lined the highway, you couldn't help but feel a slight thrill begin to rise in your chest.

"How much longer until we're there, Dad?"

"About 15 more minutes, Jae. Give or take the amount of traffic there is going to be once we actually get near the university. I'm sure it's going to be packed with everyone moving in today."

"It's all apart of the experience!" Mom chimed in. "Here, let's take another picture"

"Mom, really?" I say reluctantly as I lean my head forward amidst the many boxes that filled the entirety of the backseat of the car except for where I was sitting.

"I'm your mother, and you'll do this for me," she says between clenched teeth already formed into a wide smile. She holds up her arm high in front of her so she can get both me in the backseat and my dad in the driver's seat in the frame of her phone and snaps a picture.

"Did it take?"

"Yeah Mom," I say rolling my eyes. She was still adjusting to her new smartphone that Dad had upgraded her to for the sole purpose of being able to facetime me while I was at school. Dad and I exchange a quick glance in the rearview mirror and both suppress a laugh.

"Have you heard from Sooyoung?" Dad asks looking back at me in the rearview mirror again. "Are they going to get there around the same time we will?"

"I'll text her, hang on," I say pulling my phone from the waistband of my shorts.

Choi Sooyoung had been my best friend for almost eight years. We met when I transferred schools in the 4th grade. She came up to me when I was sitting alone at a lunch table on my first day and said "Hey, you're the new girl, do you want to hear about this new game I've been playing online?" She immediately sat down and told me every detail of this new RPG she had been playing nonstop for the remainder of the lunch period and hasn't stopped talking my ear off since. We found out we liked a lot of the same books, listened to the same emo pop-punk music that was honestly way too mature for our 4th-grade selves to be listening to, and vowed from that day onward to stay best friends. We joined the school band together, were on the same school sports teams, and spent almost every historic high school coming-of-age moment together. Throughout the years we did at times drift apart due to various reasons. Whether it be boyfriends, extracurriculars, or summer jobs. Eventually, we'd always find our way back to each other whenever we needed the other most.

So when senior year finally rolled around, we decided not to tell each other where we had applied to college in order to not influence the other's decision. As fate may have it, we ended up both applying to and getting into our top choice school, a school three hours away from our small hometown that was well-known for each of the programs we were interested in. Sooyoung had gotten a rather large scholarship through the school's Engineering program, and I had been admitted into the school's Arts programs with an intended degree in Graphic Design.

"Are you sure you and Sooyoung are going to be okay this year?" Mom says swiveling around in her seat to look at me in the back. "High school is one thing, but living together is completely different. Are you sure you won't regret not branching out and rooming with someone else? Might have been a great opportunity to meet new people."

"Oh, I think they'll be fine, sweetpea," Dad says placing a comforting had on my mother's knee.

"Yeah," I say looking up from my phone. "I mean, we're going to have completely different class schedules so we'll rarely see each other unless we both happen to be in the dorm."

"I just hope you both do well this first year," she sighs.

"There will be other opportunities to meet new people and do well in school, mom," I say as I type out my message to Sooyoung.

An almost immediate response.

I relay this information to my parents, but before I can finish my mom squeals, "Look! There's the university sign, right there!"

I press my face against the car window and see the large, ornate gateway adorned with the university crest in the middle that welcomed you onto the school's main road. Various ‘Welcome Freshman!’ and ‘Check-In This Way!’ signs were guiding the line of cars that were beginning to pile up.

"Dunby Hall, right Jae?" Dad says scanning the signs for the correct residence hall while slowly inching the car forward as the line moves.

"Yeah, that's it," I say distractedly as I take in my new home. Being one of the largest universities in our country, I can barely take in the vastness of this new place through just the car window. Each building was unique, with both old and modern architecture seamlessly incorporated in-between tall trees and brick roads. We passed a large, almost pool-sized fountain in what I assumed to be the middle of the university. There were people everywhere. Students, parents, and people in bright red t-shirts with "move-in staff" written on the back.

"Well, it looks like this is it!" Dad says excitedly as he pulls the car up to a rather tall brick building with large windows on all sides.

"Wow, Jae!" Mom says looking back at me with a huge smile. "Why don't you hop out here while we find a place to park and get yourself registered."

I eagerly tumble out of the car, making sure no boxes come out with me, and make my way over to the check-in line. As I wait my turn, I can hear the excited chatting of students and parents waiting ahead of me and the squeaking wheels of the carts being used to carry new student's belongings up to their rooms.

"Hello first-year student!!!" an overly excited girl wearing one of those red shirts practically shouts at me as I approach the check-in table labeled with the letters ‘K - L’. "Welcome to Dunby Hall! Can I get your name please?"

"Kim Jaemin."

"Ahhh another Kim, what a surprise," she says, with a slight grimace as she begins to rifle through some foulders.

"Well, I mean you are at the 'K' table, can't be too much of a shock," I say before I can stop myself.

The girl stops her search and looks up at me. "Wow we got a funny one here today folks," she says. One of her eyes gives a slight twitch.

I give her a slightly apologetic smile. It must be tiring dealing with all these new students all day, and me being a smart-ass probably didn't help. Dad says I get my sense of humor from my Mom, which is probably why he has a full head of grey hair dealing with the both of us for all these years.

"Alrightly Jaemin," the girl says after a few more seconds of rifling. "Here is your room key, and a folder of all the information you need to know about living in Dunby Hall. You are on the 7th floor, room 71024. You can now start bringing all your belongings from your car and begin setting up your dorm. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask." She says all this very fast, hands me my things, and begins to usher me aside to help the next person in line.

I hurriedly make my way over to my parents who were both standing next to the opened trunk of our car. "7th floor!!! Let's get moving!" I say excitedly waving my new room key in the air.

"YAY JAE!" Mom exclaims bringing me in for a tight hug.

"Before we start celebrating we should find one of those carts. There's no way we can carry all these boxes ourselves," Dad says and he begins to scan the area for a cart.

After a few minutes of searching, we can't find a cart anywhere.

"They must all be in use, I guess," Mom says as we head back to the parked car.

"I mean, we could start making some trips with whatever we can carry," I say.

"It might take a while, but I guess that's all we can do," Dad says wiping the sweat off his brow. "Plus we need someone to stay here with the car until all your stuff is all out."

It was rather hot outside even though it was still early in the morning. I could probably lift at least one box at a time, maybe two. But with how much stuff I had managed to fit in this car it probably would take all day.

"Excuse me, but do you all need any help?" a voice asks from behind me.

I turn around, expecting to see another red-shirt-clad student worker eager to help, but instead, I am met by a boy with thick brown hair with big brown eyes looking at me.

I stare back at him, slightly dumbfounded. He wasn't super tall, but he was built like a wrestler. You could see the outlines of his arm and shoulder muscles through his black t-shirt.

"Oh my, would do that for us, honey?" my Mom cooed from over by the trunk of the car. Ever so trusting was my mother as she stepped forward to get a better look at the stranger.

"And who might you be?" my Dad sternly asked, also stepping forward to stand intimidatingly next to me.

"I'm Jongho, sir," the boy said as he bowed to my Father. "Choi Jongho, miss," he said again bowing to my Mother. "I live in this dorm too, 7th floor. I'm actually all moved in and was walking back down here to return my cart when I saw you all looking for one, so I figured I could give you this one," he said gesturing to the cart that I hadn't even noticed was next to him because I was too busy staring at his muscles.

"Awww he called me miss," my Mother whispered in my ear with before moving forward past me to address him. "Well would you look at that, our Jae is on the 7th floor as well! You'd be doing us a big favor, Jongho."

"I suppose if it's not too much trouble" my dad added, still giving Jungho the once over.

"Of course not, sir," Jongho replied.

"Well let's start loading the cart and go from there," Dad says, in full business mode. Both Dad and Jongho start loading various boxes and bins from the trunk onto the cart while Mom and I grab items from the backseat we can carry ourselves.

"Seems like such a nice boy," Mom says just out of earshot of my Dad and Jongho. "Not all boys would offer to help."

"Uh, yeah Mom I guess," I say grabbing the last item, my guitar case, from the car and slinging it over my shoulder. I hadn't had many male friends back in high school. That was more of Sooyoung's thing. She usually got along better with guys, except for you of course.

"Well, that's all we can fit in the cart," Dad says crossing his arms. There are still three boxes left in the trunk. "I guess we'll have to make a second trip after all."

"Oh don't worry, I can carry those," Jongho says, pushing his bangs out of his eyes. He quickly piles the three boxes onto the ground one on top of the other, squats down, and lifts them effortlessly.

"Wow," Dad says with a raise of an eyebrow. "I guess, we're all set." He closes the trunk and starts pushing the cart forward.

"Lead the way, you two!" Mom exclaims, pointing towards the dorm building with her free hand while giving Jongho and I a big smile.

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jaredhollyheiditruth · 5 years

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Solicitation of Minors, Part 1 (Chai)

The second issue facing and affecting Jared Knabenbauer (whose name I’m SURE I’ve misspelled elsewhere!) are the accusations against Jared of seeking out minors to “groom” while using his star status and blogs as recruitment tools. While my blog on the Heidi/Jared breakup and fallout was as neutral as I could make it while still addressing the facts, I will be far more aggressive in this post because of the implications herein and the fact that this issue involves serious criminal allegations.

As someone that grew up with a child molester, as someone that was targeted by a rapist, I understand the importance of treating an accuser’s claims seriously.

It is my belief that all accusers should be taken seriously. They should be heard, listened to, and feel valid and safe in making those allegations, and the proper authorities should investigate all claims made to the fullest extent of the law.

However.

The accused has rights, as well, and no accuser is above scrutiny. There is a very bold line between taking an accuser’s claims seriously, and believing them outright without any doubt, question, or expectation of evidence. Our legal system is built upon the Presumption of Innocence, that any accused is presumed innocent of the accusations against them until they are found guilty. It is not Jared Knabenbauer’s responsibility to prove that the allegations against him are false, and his silence is not an indicator of guilt! The first thing a criminal defense lawyer tells you is to keep your mouth shut with regards to any criminal allegations because despite your best intentions, you may inadvertently say things that can be twisted and used against you in court. Sadly, in today’s social media-charged society where people share details about everything from their vacations, to their grocery shopping trips, to the contents of every single meal, being silent is often treated as evidence of guilt.

First, I want to make clear the allegations against Jared. Jared is being accused of swapping nude photos and engaging in sexual conversations with minors. This, in and of itself, is not a crime.

Yes, you read that right.

To elucidate, it is a crime to knowingly transport, ship, receive, distribute, sell, possess, solicit, or access any visual depiction of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct.

In other words, if someone posing as an 18 or 19 year old sends you nude photos of themselves, but they’re only 16 or 17, you’re not guilty of a crime as the law is written, because you have to knowingly receive images of underage children, simple as that. The reason for this is because our legal system is based upon a concept known as Mens Rea, or “guilty mind.” It means that an individual’s intent has to factor into whether or not they deserve punishment for an act they’ve committed.

This is entirely different from the concept of Ignorantia juris non excusat, more commonly phrased as “Ignorance of the law is no excuse.” Ignorantia juris non excusat applies when you are committing a crime but do not realize it’s a crime.

For example, you cannot fire a handgun at a target in your back yard and avoid legal penalties because you didn’t know it was illegal to discharge a firearm in a residential area. The fact of the matter is you did a thing that the law says you can’t do.

Jared’s situation is different, because the law itself requires the accused to know the age of the person they’re interacting with when they do it, otherwise you cannot prove they knowingly interacted with a minor. This is the reason Chris Hansen’s team on To Catch a Predator take care to explicitly make sure their targets see and acknowledge the “age” of the decoy, because they’re unlikely to get a conviction on the basis of “We thought the decoy’s age was obvious!”

Think about it. If the law didn’t require the recipient to know the images contained minors, a person could easily set up a blog with a bunch of “barely legal 18 year olds,” post pictures of 16 year olds, and then anyone that went to the website would be guilty of accessing child porn. Odds are, if you’ve spent any time at all looking at porn on the internet, you’ve probably stumbled across a picture or two of a late-teens minor that either lied about their age or just uploaded a pic from their phone without even caring about the legality of it. Do you think you should be charged with a crime just because you trusted an adult website to fully and carefully screen every single model and some slipped through the cracks?

And, before I go on to the allegations, I’d like to point out that there have been many people that have confirmed that Jared did, indeed, engage in age checking and state multiple times that he didn’t want kids in his blog.

There’s also the fact that people admitted to having to omit or lie about their ages because Jared was known to boot people that were underage.

At one point, a user by the name Brenn recalls a time where they revealed to Jared that several minors had been posting to his blog, and Jared’s response to finding out about that was to nuke the entire blog.

I should note that, when Jared was informed about minors posting to his blog, he only had two possible options if he wanted to avoid violating federal child protection laws.

1. Report the blog to the FBI and implicate the users as distributors of child pornograpy.

2. Delete the entire blog.

He chose the latter option.

Now, with all of that said, let’s look at the allegations. Rather than do this as a timeline, I will address each accuser one at a time. There are only three, so this won’t be hard.

On April 4th, an individual going by the Twitter name Chai sent an email to NormalBoots, a media company specializing in video game-related content with whom Jared worked, along with many other individuals, including Holly Conrad. In this email, which Chai titled “Regarding ProJared’s Sexual Grooming of Minors,” Chai detailed his interactions with Jared, which he further expanded upon with a full-blown statement to Twitter that reads thusly:

However, as is typical with Twitter, people pressed Chai. They wanted to know more. This was when Chai admitted outright that he had absolutely no evidence to back up his claims.

I apologize for the poor quality of these screenshots, but shortly after posting his statements, Chai went to great lengths to bury his statements, though archived samples and screenshots taken by others still exist.

In addition to admitting he had no evidence to support is claim, Chai took time to answer a few other questions:

Now, the fact that Chai has no evidence of his claims is, itself, no reason to immediately dismiss them. Not everyone keeps extensive screenshots of interactions they make online unless they’re planning on savoring or using them later. In fact, as I said before, the authorities should take those claims with absolute seriousness and investigate them, and we the public should be willing to hear Chai’s words openly. However, further digging has resulted in new information that makes Chai’s claims and testimony a bit harder to swallow...

On November 2017, Chai posted an extensive blog entry detailing a head injury he suffered on November 9th, 2015. This would have been just five days after he turned 16, his date of birth having been confirmed by an archived copy of his old Twitter profile, seen here:

In this blog, posted in 2017, Chai describes suffering a head injury during gym class, and the severe, terrifying symptoms he underwent - symptoms I doubt I would be strong enough to endure - in the months and years that followed. The blog itself is very extensive, taking up several pages, and would be cumbersome to quote or paste here in its entirety. However, the entire blog can be found directly via archive by going here:

https://archive.fo/CEpgE

A full-image snapshot of the blog can be found here: https://imgur.com/a/sIJ7FlY

According to Chai’s own blog entry, the sheer misery of his experiences during those first few months must have been excruciating torture.

It’s probably a blessing he claims he has no proper memory of that period of time.

Now, the experience Chai describes suffering from during that period of time is, without a doubt, something I would never wish on anyone, even my worst enemy. However, if you do the math, that means that Chai cannot properly remember anything that took place between November of 2015 and May of 2016. When did he claim to have sent Jared that first nude along with a tagline of “16 no more?” Oh, that’s right...

So, allegedly, the first nude image Chai claims to have sent to Jared, wherein he states that he’s 16, occurred during a period of time that he can’t properly remember, and what memories he has exist as “snapshots.”

However, let’s continue giving Chai the benefit of the doubt. Let’s speculate in his favor for a moment and say that sometime after he wrote this blog, he started to remember things from that period, and somehow, those memories were clear and unaffected by the significant traumatic brain injury he suffered in late 2015. Chai describes the life he was living between late 2015 and August of 2016.

He was in and out of the hospital, sometimes for days at a time.

He was in constant pain at all times, and would suffer from seizures every few minutes that caused incontinence, falls, and fainting spells.

Such severe fatigue that he was sleeping for 16-18 hours per day.

Such severe depression, pain, and spasms that he was effectively bedridden.

Hallucinations, both auditory and verbal.

Hearing voices telling him to kill people, which got louder and louder each day.

Severely bad short term memory and large gaps in long term memory.

Inability co concentrate

Loss of coordination that prevented writing.

Slurred speech and psychosis.

He states that in August of 2016, he was “somewhat better” and was able to stay awake for 8-10 hours per day, but that the psychosis (that is, the violent thoughts) was getting worse, to the point he told his mother that he’d kill her if she didn’t take him to the hospital. He spent several days in the hospital before having a massive headache that temporarily crippled him, and explains that after this headache, the voices had miraculously disappeared entirely, as had the spasms and headaches. From there, he explains that his life got better and his symptoms rapidly healed over the ensuing year or two that followed.

Now, I don’t tell that story to humiliate or embarrass Chai. If anything, anyone that had lived through these events deserves nothing short of praise for their strength. I tell this story because, when you think about it...something doesn’t add up. Regarding that blog, there are two possibilities:

1. That the blog is truthful, and contains a description that best fits Chai’s recollection of the events surrounding a very unfortunate and painful accident. If this is the case, it means Chai is a strong individual that survived pure hell and came out the other side with a smile.

2. That the blog is a lie, which would imply that Chai invented the entire ordeal in order to garner sympathy from those that read it.

Now, we can’t access medical logs or contact any hospitals due to patient privacy rights, nor would we have any right to pry into Chai’s private life, which is why I’ve limited my digging only to information that has been submitted to the internet by those it concerns. However, no matter which of these two scenarios is the truth, Chai’s testimony hits a brick wall.

If it is true, then it means Chai’s memories of most of the year 2016 cannot be considered reliable. By his own admission, he is only able to recall bits and pieces of events that took place during that time. Furthermore, I think we can all agree that if you were living that sort of life, it would be overwhelmingly difficult to find the mood and motivation to go online and start trading nudes and engaging in sex talk with someone, to say nothing of the difficulty of finding time to do that and study while you’re only awake 6-8 hours per day and spending much of that in and out of the hospital, and even if he did manage it, we can’t rationally place much (if any) faith in the integrity of his recollection of just how those interactions with Jared went, especially in the absence of any corroborating evidence what-so-ever.

If it is false, it means that the story - either in part or in whole - has been falsified for the purpose of garnering sympathy for Chai from those that would read the blog. While this act alone could simply be considered deplorable for the level of deception involved, it would also establish that Chai has a pattern of lying to the public in order to get them to feel sorry for him, meaning it’s not ethical to believe his claims without some evidence to corroborate them.

Either way, the blog does say one thing for certain: Chai’s claims about his encounter with Jared, based on the timeline of his cognitive injuries and the fact that he cannot provide a single shred of evidence to corroborate them, cannot reasonably be accepted as reliable, because either he wasn’t in any condition to participate in nude-swapping and sexting, or he’s remembering events that might not have happened, or he’s lying about the entire thing. We can’t prove which of these possibilities, if any, is the truth, but there’s far too much there to simply dismiss outright.

Update: Direct references to Chai’s surname have been removed from this blog at the request of third parties not directly related to these incidents.

#jaredhollyheiditruth chaiandcharlie

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brenli · 6 years

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[28]

Tagged by: @goddamnitkastle (YAYAYAY ANOTHER ONE!)

1. how tall are you? 5′3″

2. what color and style is your hair? Dark brown. A couple of stray silver strands. When the light hits it right you can see natural auburn-y red highlights/tones in it, especially near the ends. I wear it long, down to my lower back, usually parted in the middle (sometimes on the left) and with bangs. Usually blunt-cut across my brows, but I'm not as good about trimming them as I ought to be so they usually end up growing out long enough that I need to brush them off to the right.

3. what color are your eyes? Brown

4. do you wear glasses? My cat-eye specs are basically part of my identity at this point.

5. do you wear braces? Nope

6. what is your fashion style? I have contempt for this question that likes of which you cannot believe. XD I guess in the most general sense it's rock-chic. Rock/metal girl elements mixed with glamorous or feminine elements/silhouettes. But this is MASSIVELY boiling down my massive wardrobe and I've certainly had moments of departure from the rock-chic umbrella depending on how I'm feeling. I dislike strictly adhering to specific style labels; I find it stifling.

7. full name? Brenda Lee Larson. My maiden name is cooler to be honest; I only changed it because I was more interested in sharing a surname with the Honey and I know I can still use my maiden name for other things.

8. when were you born? July 24, 1987

9. where are you from and where do you live now? Technically born in Coupeville on Whidbey Island, WA, USA and spent the first 4 years of my life bouncing around different naval stations because my family was about that Navy Life, but the majority of my formative years Spokane, WA, USA so my assumption is that would be more accurately where I'm "from." (Hawaii is where my heart wants to say I'm from though as that's where my earliest memories take place~) After some years spent CA (first in the Bay and then in LA), I'm currently living just south of Seattle, WA. So. Basically I've been wiggling around the West Coast my whole life, including going so far west I ditched the mainland for a spell.

10. what school do you go to? I WORK at a school currently, Cornish. Freelancing as a house manager for 3 of their 4 venues. The 4th one never seems to put on any events that require one of us from the house management roster, otherwise I'd work gigs at that one, too. XD

11. what kind of student are you? Some of you who make these questionnaires clearly cannot think beyond life-after-schooling and it shows. XD I was an above-average student for the vast majority of my years in schooling but I started falling off a little toward the end, largely because I was very keenly aware of what areas of study pertained to me and my interests/goals, and I had no patience for areas of study that did not. I left before it got too bad.

12. do you like school? I liked the parts of school that spoke to me~

13. what are your favorite school subjects? Literature/English was always the major go-to throughout all of my years of schooling. I was in Choir up until highschool; this was when Theatre became available to me and I wasn't able to participate in both, so I parted ways with Choir and focused on Theatre all the way up through my last years of schooling. Other subjects of interest, in highschool: Photography, Psychology, Forensic Science, World History. In college: Creative Writing, Journalism, Japanese.

14. favorite TV shows? The major ones have been racy period dramas The Tudors and The Borgias. I grew up on Star Trek TOS and as such it has a very dear place in my heart despite it not being a racy period drama. XD I also am quite invested in the Netflix MCU with Daredevil and The Punisher being my two favorite shows (Frank is my everything!). More currently I've been expanding my Sanada-san filmography-binge thanks in large part to @anagraves; I recently finished the 1993 Koukou Kyoushi and am through episode 10 of Konna Koi no Hanashi. What I've been learning from this - Hiroyuki Sanada knows how to break hearts whether he's being soft and vulnerable to cold and cruel and anything in between, but that's exactly why I love him.

INB4 "you post Snow White everything so why isn't OUAT on here" I do enjoy OUAT a lot, but I don't know if I would consider it a favorite show overall. I'm more fond of the earlier seasons than the later seasons and it's that ambivalent feeling I have for the later seasons that make the show not a favorite - but still very good overall.

It's also at this point that I should probably explain what my blog description does not - my blog started running a Snow White-themed queue LARGELY as part of an inspiration-drive for a Snow White AU project that I haven't actually touched in a long time. I REALLY should do something about that; I just keep getting pulled in other directions and now it's years on and here I am with what's basically a Snow White queueblog. XD If I can ever get my dumb head in gear and FINISH what I've started, that would honestly result in the queue being mass-posted and then probably altered to suit whatever the next project would be. That's always been the intention, anyway.

15. favorite movies? While I'm still feeling the chilly gaze of my Snow White queue, my favorite Snow White movie thus far is Mirror Mirror. I think it's massively underrated and that makes me sad.

As far as Disney is concerned, while I have a HUGE amount of respect for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, my favorite film growing up was Beauty and the Beast (and my Rococo-loving ass does adore the live action remake). Surprise??? XD More recently, Moana is the film of my heart; it's the closest Disney has gotten to making a Princess culturally-relevant to me as a half-Filipina so my tropical islander ass is just utterly enamoured with Moana. ((Listen Disney if you ever decide to make a super fun colorful precolonial Philippine film THE PERFECT PRINCESS EXISTS FOR THAT, I submit for your consideration - Urduja!)

Because of my rather open-door childhood with regard to media, my earliest favorite movies are actually Nightmare on Elm Street and Nightmare on Elm Street: Dream Warriors. Freddy is my Nightmare King Murder Boyfriend and I'm prepared to face judgement for that. XD

Fondness for Star Trek TOS has resulted in an affection for the AOS movies~

But a movie that speaks to me very much is What Dreams May Come.

Currently I've gotten re-ensnared into The Last Samurai, in correlation with the most recent AU project. Because I am hopeless, Grumpy Samurai is Best Samurai, and I've been spending time manically fretting and pretending that because Ujio drops before the gatling guns are brought out, maybe he SOMEHOW managed to survive in SOME way and he can have tons of cool battle scars. Right? ... RIGHT???

16. favorite books? If manga counts then it's Angel Sanctuary. Hands down. No contest. It's easily woven itself into my life in the form of fanfic that is/was well-received within the fandom, and a weirdly HUGE list of AUs that somehow burst out of nowhere. (Currently all of it, AU work included, can be read via my FF.Net account under brenli. I have a placeholder page on AO3 that's currently empty but may end up holding all my content there as well, in time. If I can ever make the time.)

I was and am really into Sue Harrison's Ivory Carver series, particularly My Sister the Moon.

It was part of my middle school/junior high reading curriculum but I honestly DID really like The Diving Bell by Todd Strasser. Even if the cover art of Culca coming up out of the ocean looked A LOT like me and resulted in my class calling me Culca for the entirety of our unit on that book. It's fine. Culca is a badass queen of pearls and seawater so I'm happy to be associated with her~!

Every now and then I remember a book that clearly really resonated with my as a child if I still remember it, but the problem is that I don't remember the title or the author, or even any of the characters' names. It was about a Roma girl who lived in the American south - I wanna say Tennesee? - who was discovered for her talent playing guitar and singing country music. The book essentially details her struggle between her traditional roots as a Roma person, including the arrangement for her to be married young, and her interest in pursuing music as a career but feeling alienated by an industry and a society at large that is wealthier than her and has a different culture from her own. The book ends with her running away but it isn't made clear what her ultimate fate is. To this DAY it bothers me that I don't remember the title or the author because I honestly go through periods where I want to reread it. And yes, this was the kind of stuff I was reading as a child. XD I also read My Sister the Moon for the first time when I was like. 11 years old. If you're familiar with the content of that book then you're aware that certain scenes are really not 11-year-old friendly, but. If I can watch gratuitous 80's slasher horror at age 4 then I can read about a young woman surviving sexual abuse at age 11.

17. favorite pastime? Writing at this rate, honestly. Which probably speaks more to my inner tortured artist than anything else. XD

18. do you have any regrets? I feel like everybody has at least one regret and anyone who says otherwise is either very very young, or lying. XD It's not about whether you have regrets, it's about not letting them hold you in the past.

19. dream job? Telling stories, in any and every way attainable to me.

20. would you like to get married someday? I already am~

21. would you like to have kids someday? Absolutely not. I don't feel like my life is conducive to childrearing, and INB4 "you're never truly ready" and "you make it work" the key factor here is I'm not WILLING to become ready and I'm not WILLING to make it work. That's how I know my life is not conducive to childrearing. XD (I'm at that age where tons of people are asking me this and feeding me words meant to encourage me to consider and it's honestly EXHAUSTING by this point. I can't wait for when I'm menopausal maybe people will finally shut up about it because I'll be past my prime~)

23. do you like shopping? I mean, yes, but I usually avoid it because I'm aware of how impulsive I am.

24. what countries have you visited? I'm tempted to say that Hawaii should count because it's so far away from the mainland. XD But honestly I've never been outside of US territory. It's in the plans to try for Japan during the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. I'm not sure if we'll make that goal but if not, I figure it won't hurt to continue saving up anyway and making a Tokyo trip post-Olympics. Prices will be cheaper post-Olympics, anyway, so~

25. what’s the scariest nightmare you’ve ever had? At the risk of raising weird red flags I've gone through periods where I'll have reoccurring nightmares about being actively pursued by someone who very obviously intends to do harm. It happens often enough that the Honey wonders if I'm mentally suppressing something. XD I did have a standalone dream though, where me and the Honey were asleep in bed and then I become aware that someone's broken into the house and is approaching our bed. I'm walking through every possible option in my head with my eyes shut; if the Honey and I both lunged at the attacker we could possibly overpower them just because it would be two against one. But I know that I can't possibly wake up the Honey and make him aware of the situation without the attacker immediately acting and resulting in at least one of us being injured or killed. I realize that I have no choice but to try and take the attacker by surprise by myself and hope that is enough. I make peace with that. I can feel the attacker leaning over me. I suddenly lunge at them in full primal adrenaline-filled rage.

I wake up.

26. do you have any enemies? I guess that I have a few, yes, but honestly at this point I've gotten probably a little too used to being vilified. Barring physical assault or turning the animosity on innocent third parties in my life, I am prepared to weather the metaphorical lashes.

27. do you have an s/o? I have my Honey~

28. do you believe in miracles? I believe in miracles that aren't the overt surface-level wish-fulfillment-from-above which I think most people expect a miracle to be. I think that sometimes luck plays out via a slim-to-none chance and that can be a miracle. I think that sometimes a person works very hard at something or for something and when they achieve it, that can be a miracle. I think that the butterfly effect is a double-edged sword, but sometimes that little flutter of a butterfly's wings is a miracle.

Tagging: @yacky-jackie @halorecoil @anagraves @benevolentqueenofstars @lesbomancy @candybunnieholic @lemonedscream @tinathefish

#questionaire

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mrtroy · 6 years

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The Awe and Wonder of Grocery Store Monopoly

I’ve recently been having a blast playing the Shop, Play, Win Monopoly Game at my local supermarket. If you’re not familiar, it’s a game that rewards grocery store shoppers with game pieces when they buy certain products. The game pieces are a combination of a coupon and four game pieces and the object of the game is to collect the game pieces and place them on a game board in a similar fashion to the popular Monopoly board game.

McDonalds has run a similar game at their restaurants over the years, however, the folks working for the Albertson’s grocery store chain who concocted this version have taken it to a whole different level.

The game board features pictures of branded products that are a part of the playing pieces, the coupons are only for participating food brands that no doubt paid Albertson’s to be a part of the game, and in the store as you look on each shelf, the price tags of participating ‘Monopoly products’ include the game’s logo as a reminder that if you buy that product, you get a game piece at checkout.

Seems innocent enough, but here’s where it gets clever. Shoppers can play the game over a period of multiple months. I believe it runs through May of this year after starting in February. Well, after a few weeks of playing myself, I have noticed that my refrigerator is full of the product brands who are participating in the game. If I’m in the cereal aisle, and if buying one brand of cereal gets me a game piece, and one does not, which one do you think I’m buying?

And, if I continue to do this every week for four months, what do you think is likely to happen in June when the game is over? Chances are I’m likely to have developed an affinity – or at least more familiarity – for the brands I’ve been buying the last four months, and maybe I’ll stick with them.

And oh, by the way, the game pieces and coupons I’ve been receiving – none of those have been when buying the cheapest items in the aisle. I’m normally a notorious bargain hunter, or I’ll search out foods with lower calorie counts or higher protein content than their counterparts.

With this game, I’ve noticed I’m a lot more likely to ‘break the tie’ when comparing items if one item will get me a game piece, and the other will not.

Pretty smart, Albertson’s, pretty smart.

And, here’s another kicker: I’ve now collected 100 game pieces, and I’m not even close to winning anything on my Monopoly game board. Similar to the board game, where you might need to buy two or four properties in the same grouping to be able to put a house or hotel on that section of real estate, to win prizes in Shop Play Win, you have to collect all the game pieces that correspond with four or six tickets in a prize category. The game claims there is up to $250,000,000 in available prize value.

Whoa. That’s a lot. Players can win anything from $5 in cash to a vacation home, a jet ski, or pairs of wireless headphones.

So far, after collecting 100 game pieces, altering my shopping habits to do it and spending close to $200 on groceries in the process, my winnings include a sixteen-ounce bottle of tea and one bagel from the grocery store bakery. Out of a possible $250 million in prizes, I have won about $2.50 of that value. Or, 1/100 millionth of the prize pool value. Ha!

You know what though, I’m going to keep playing and I think the reason why is very important.

As someone that is in business, marketing, branding, promotions and such every day for work, I see what Albertson’s is doing to create long-term value and profits for their multi-billion-dollar corporation. I know they are messing with my sensibilities in order to get me to change my habits to make them money. I realize to some, that takes a lot of ‘innocent fun’ out of playing a Monopoly game.

But, consider this.

The reason I am playing the game is worth much more than any of that.

I’m playing the game as a way to experience the awe and wonder that comes along with playing games in general.

Yes, I’m in full awareness of what’s behind the game, however, the joy it brings me to collect the tickets, to come home and spread them out on my kitchen counter and ‘play with them’ is bringing me so much joy.

First, there’s the process of opening the game pieces. They have perforated edges, and to extract your game pieces out of each little package, you tear along the perforations, and then unfold and separate your game pieces from the enclosed coupon.

After you’ve done this, you put your pieces on a paper game board that the grocery store gives you upon your request. For the entirety of this month, I’ve had my game board unfolded on my kitchen counter with my 100 game pieces strewn around it as I try to collect the right combination of little pieces of paper.

The ritual of folding and tearing open game pieces reminds me of doing arts and crafts in kindergarten. The sorting of the pieces and looking for matches on the board reminds me of doing puzzles with my grandma when I was eight years old. Leaving the game board out day after day reminds me playing real Monopoly with my great grandmother during my family’s yearly 4th of July trips to see her in rural Missouri.

I’m in my mid thirties, and I don’t ‘play’ the same way I used to. I’m a consultant. I travel around the country sharing my perspective with executives on brand strategies and the ramifications of mergers and acquisitions. I sit in board rooms getting really serious about PowerPoint slides and CAGR projections.

It’s challenging. It’s edifying. I feel like I’m learning, growing and providing a valuable service to the people who hire my firm.

But it’s not fun.

At least not in the way that playing board games, or doing puzzles or making arts and crafts is…

The other night, I went out with another consulting buddy of mine, and we went to a comedy show. We spent the better part of two hours laughing and carrying on about all of the ridiculous things the comic talked about. And then, after the show, we went and got pizza and rehashed what we just watched. It was fantastic.

As we talked through the different bits, we realized that the parts that drew the most laughs from the crowd were universal experiences that people could relate to from their childhood.

There’s just something about being a kid and having fun. Something uniquely special that results when your mind isn’t weighed down with the burdens of an adult life.

Responsibilities. Worries. Concerns about the past. Or the uncertainties of the future.

Those moments from my childhood doing puzzles, or playing board games with my great grandmother, I wasn’t worried about the economy. I wasn’t weighed down with concerns about what the latest polls may indicate about upcoming political elections or if my property taxes might be going up.

Back then, I cared about whether or not my cousin might land on Baltic Avenue and have to pay up, or finding that elusive puzzle piece to try to complete one full outer edge of whatever our current challenge may have been.

It is as a reminder of a mindset gone by that I play the Shop Play Win Monopoly game today. It’s not that I want to escape the responsibilities of adulthood. They are real, and at times, they can be a lot to handle, but real responsibility and the ability enjoy simply playing a game don’t have to be mutually exclusive.

Tearing along perforated lines might seem like a skill no longer needed after pre-school, however, as I have separated game piece after game piece from coupon after coupon, my levels of pre-school-era joy have continued to rise.

And yes, I am well aware that after playing this silly game that I’m not likely to win anything, and that I may very well be spending more on groceries than I would if it wasn’t for the game. But for me, right now, that’s just fine.

Games are fun. Fun is good.

When we play, we are left in awe and we remember to wonder about what may be possible. Whether we win or not, in this case, that is not the point. Awe and wonder keep us grounded. Awe and wonder keep us hopeful. Awe and wonder help us to keeping wanting to play.

And we should all play more often.

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b-belll · 4 years

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Week 3 Blog

Social media has a huge effect on everyone’s daily lives, theres no doubting that fact anymore. The question at hand is how much is too much, I tracked my total screen time, instagram usage and texts received over a 24 hour period. Through this experiment I decided thatI had an acceptable daily screen time of around 4 hours, about a 4th of that was spent on instagram and I received just over 100 texts in the time period. For my daily life I feel that is an acceptable amount although the idea of not having access to internet or my phone is an idea that I’m not too found of. I feel like my phone is a part of me and to not have it I always have constant worry that something bad will happen and I wont be able to hear about it or help due to my lack of phone or internet.

Rathbone’s article put a good perspective on how much the times have changed, in ways we would never think about. Technology has changed boredom in it’s entirety, having an endless amount of information at our fingertips has really changed how we feel when we’re “bored”. Max heavily talked about the idea of paying more attention to how technology actually makes you feel. You may think you enjoy going on a certain app everyday but really you’re only doing it because you’re addicted to the app. Snapchat is a great example of this, snapchat streaks are when you and someone else snap each other everyday. Most people who keep snapchat streaks don’t actually like keeping them but feel like they need to or they wont actually be friends with the people they’re snapchatting, which isn't the case. Social media and technology in general are extremely good at keeping you coming back to the platforms, even when you don’t really want to. Snapchat isn't the only app thats doing this, if you pay more attention to how you feel while using your phone, you may be surprised.

Emma Rathbone Article: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/06/26/before-the-internet

Max Stossel Presentation: https://vimeo.com/370135963

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nanami314 · 7 years

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My thoughts on Fate/Zero

*Looks around* Bit quiet here, isn't it. After a whopping three posts, I managed to forget to write the fourth, kept telling myself I'd do it tomorrow, and then didn't do it. I'm writing this paragraph after everything else in this post, and as of this point, the rewatch I started watching Fate with is long since over. However, I thought I'd go back and write one final post on Fate/Zero, and one on Fate/Stay Night: Unlimited Blade Works. Afterwards, I have plans for up to the end of December, and I'm gonna be a lot more invested in those, so hopefully there won't be any more points where I'm not writing. I do apologize for that, I am new to all of this, and I'm trying to get things sorted out. However, I have someone helping me with motivation, something I was lacking before, so hopefully that won't be a problem anymore. That being said, let's get to the actual post. So, this post is only going to be about all of Fate/Zero, and I'm gonna make another one that's about Fate/Stay Night: Unlimited Blade Works. I've also been checking out Fate/Apocrypha, but I don't think I'll make a post on it right away. I might once it's finished, but that's still some time away, and I have other plans for after Fate. In any case, this post contains spoilers for Fate/Zero from this point forward.

The first thing I want to go over is the ending. Having never seen any Fate series before, the last episode left me confused as to what exactly happened. From what I understand, the insides of the grail have been corrupted, and when it was destroyed, a giant hole formed in the sky, spilling out the destructive contents of the grail, causing a massive fire in Fuyuki City, thus ending the 4th Holy Grail War. The only people left standing at the end, aside from Kiritsugu searching for survivors, are Kirei and Gilgamesh. In other words, the bad guys won. This was a series of ups and downs, tragedies left and right, and of course we don't get a happy ending. The anime ends with Kiritsugu having found a sinlge boy, being so grateful that he even found one person alive, along with Kirei becoming the official guardian of Rin Tohsaka after he killed Tokiomi earlier on. That's it. Everyone except them is dead. All of the Servants aside from Gil died in some way. Even Saber, who after using Excalibah to destroy the Grail, used up all of her mana, which causes a Servant to disappear. Throughout the entirety of Season 2, at least one person died each episode. Oh, and that's not all. The way they died was something else. Though, I'll talk about that while going over the individual characters. Speaking of which:

Masters Overall, all 7 Masters had something that I liked about them. Though, there were definitely some I liked more than others. So, seeing as how I like doing my lists, I'm ranking them from least favorite to favorite. Keep in mind these are just my personal opinions, and I'm also taking how good their character is into account as well, which is why a certain someone ends up a lot higher than they would've been.

7. Uryuu Ryuunosuke

Okay, this guy is just crazy. That's all there is to it. He's a crazy serial killer who didn't even know what the Holy Grail was, let alone the war on it. Not to mention he accidentally summoned his Servant: Caster. He seems very out of place in the Holy Grail War, seeing as how everyone else had some reason for being there, whether it be mage lineage, or something else. Ryuunosuke entered the grail war on accident, and even when he did, payed absolutely no attention to it whatsoever. However, he certainly was entertaining as a character, and I quite liked his relationship with Caster. For those who don't know, you need a catalyst when summoning a Servant. If you don't have one, like our serial killer friend here didn't, then the Servant it summons is random... kinda. The grail summons a Servant that best fits that Master's personality. This explains why he got Caster, who was just as crazy and intent on killing as he himself was, and in turn, they made a good team because of it. One of the better Master/Servant relationships, but as a Master, he's at the bottom. Even his death was lackluster. Though, I gotta admit it was kinda cool seeing Kiritsugu sniping him like that.

6. Tohsaka Tokiomi

Despite making several rather important appearances in the anime, including explaining the entire concept of the Grail War to Kirei back in Episode 1, to me it just seemed like he got the least amount of focus out of all the active Masters (that excludes ol' killer up there). I mean, even Archibald got quite a few scenes on his own, both before and after Kiritsugu blew up his place. Because of that, I never really got attached to Tokiomi as a character. Gil was right when he said that he had an uninteresting Master. However, out of all 7 Masters, Tokiomi might have been the most prepared for the war. Years before it started, he met with Kirei, made the alliance with him, and when the time came, he made sure he summoned literally the most powerful Servant he could've gotten. In this sense, he's the opposite of Ryuunosuke. He's not that interesting as a character, however he spent many, many years of his life preparing for the Holy Grail War. Then there's his death, which I saw coming a mile away. As soon as he got up, I knew that Kirei was gonna walk behind him and literally stab him in the back with the knife that Tokiomi literally just gave him. I feel bad for Rin and Aoi, but other than that, I don't really care all that much about his death. Though, that whole scene was kinda cool with the whole eeriness of it. You could tell something was gonna go down, and boy did it. One of the more memorable death scenes among the Masters.

5. Kayneth El-Melloi Archibald

To be honest, this guy isn't really that likable. His participation in the Holy Grail War was fairly limited as to what he himself did. Instead, he let his Servant, Lancer, do all the fighting. Or well, most of it. Even when Lancer was fighting for him, he never showed his face, and like Kiritsugu, did not care at all about the Knight's Chivalry that his Servant believed in. Not to mention yelling at him despite the fact he did everything he could. As a person, Archibald isn't likable. As a mage however, that's a different story. As far as pure magic ability goes, Archibald is one of, if not the, best in the anime, period. The most powerful of which is his mercury blobs, that can pretty much do anything. He can use them to attack, search for his enemies if they're hiding, automatically shield him if he himself is attacked. It was put to good use in the one fight Archibald was part of, and it was one of my favorite fights not including any Servant. Granted, that's mostly because of Kiritsugu, but also because it's the one fight that puts Archibald's amazing magical ability on display. I don't like him as a character, but my god he's a spectacular mage. Then there's the matter of his death. Despite what he had done up until that point, I actually felt bad for him because of the way he died. Kiritsugu really played dirty with this one, forcing him to command his Servant to commit suicide or his fiance dies. Not only that, the contract he made said he himself couldn't wouldn't be able to kill him, but come on. Using Maya to kill him instead is pretty much the same thing, right? The circumstances were unfair, and while some may say he deserved it, it certainly didn't feel right.

4. Kariya Matou

This guy. Oh, this guy. The only thing I can say about him is that I'm disappointed. I'm very disappointed in what this man has become. If you remember back in my episode 1 post, I said that Kariya was the one Master that I was rooting for most out of them all, simply because of his noble intentions for entering the war. Now, at the time, they were. His sole reason for entering the war was to save Sakura Matou, to set her free from the hands of the Matou family and Zouken's twisted teaching methods. However, by doing so, he had several worms planted in his body that were slowly killing him on the inisde. It also made him go crazy. By the time the War started, he was long gone. And throughout the war, all he could think about was getting revenge on Tokiomi, the husband of the woman he loves: Aoi. That was what drove him forward, and that's what's so disappointing. Kariya is a very tragic character, doomed from the very start. His death was even pathetic. The worms eventually caught up to him, and he expended all of his mana while Berserker was fighting Saber. Fitting end for a disappointing character.

3. Kotomine Kirei

Oh, here we go. I despise this man. I would say he's the only character in the series that I really hate, and he's the "exception" on this list. The reason he's this high up isn't because I like him, because I definitely don't. Instead, he's here because of one reason: He's one of the best characters of the entire anime, and was a spectacular antagonist. They made you hate him by the end of the series for the things he does, and that's what makes him such a good character. This is a favorite list, but to me that goes beyond just liking or disliking someone, and Kirei's placement here proves that. On to his actual character, just, wow. At the very start of the series, one of the first scenes we see is Tokiomi and Risei, Kirei's father, explain to him what the Holy Grail War is and that he's been chosen as a Master. From that point, and based on how we saw Kirei in the first few episodes, and even the first season, I never would've expected him to take on the main antagonist role at the end. Then, he starts talking to Archer. These talks are among the most interesting in Fate/Zero for me, because they explore just how empty Kirei is inside. He has no desire for the Grail, or at least doesn't know what he wants from it, and is now wanting to win the war just to find out what his wish is. Gilgamesh finds this amusing, and decides to help him, and show him the meaning of entertainment, as he puts it. Eventually, we come to find out Kirei's a freaking sadist. After witnessing Kariya almost dying at the hands of Tokiomi, Kirei, in secret, healed him, just so he could later mess with him. And mess with him he did, in a cruel way. But not before literally stabbing his own teacher in the back. Oh, and did I mention, HE GAVE RIN THE VERY SAME KNIFE HE USED TO KILL HER FATHER! This guy's just messed up. Unfortunately, he doesn't die, either. Or rather, he does, but he got brought back to life by the Grail. Well, it's corrupted, it makes sense. I wanted him dead so bad, and that's what I think makes a good antagonist. You're supposed to hate them. You're supposed to want them dead. And that's why Kirei is number 3, instead of the very bottom of where he would be out of only likeness.

2. Waver Velvet

By process of elimination, you now know who my favorite Master is, but before we get to him: Waver. I can safely say that Waver is the only Master I rooted for from beginning to end. Every single other Master, even my number 1, had some point where I rooted against them or wanted them to die because of whatever reason (I'm looking at you Kerry, you know what you did). Not the case with Waver. Aside from Ryuunosuke, who really shouldn't count to be honest, Waver is the least prepared for the War, and wasn't initially supposed to be in it. He "stole" a catalyst that was supposed to go to Archibald, his teacher at the Clock Tower (Mage School basically), and the Grail recognized him as a Master. As for his wish he wants? The only thing he wants is for others to recognize him and his ability. That's it. He just wants to be respected, and in his current state, that's not exactly likely. However, he never gave up. Throughout the entire series, no matter what got thrown at him, he refused to give up. And what made this all so much better is that he got the absolute best possible Servant he could've ever gotten: Rider. These two have BY FAR my favorite Servant/Master relationship in the entire series, period. I'm literally getting goosebumps as I'm writing this, I just love them so much. Throughout the course of the anime, Waver and Rider have several conversations, and despite their Servant/Master statuses, Rider acts as a mentor to his Master. Compared to the other relationships we see, this one is just so enjoyable to watch. By the end of the anime, these two have made a bond that I'm sure will never break. Waver even becomes part of Rider's army. Rider's identity is Alexander the Great: the King of Conquerors, and right before Rider goes to fight his last battle, he asks Waver to part of his army, him having used up all of this command spells so Rider could go off on his own without him, because he didn't feel like Rider needed him. But Rider refused to leave him behind. That's what I love about their relationship. These two are friends to the very end. I can safely say Rider's death is one of the saddest scenes in the series, and the way Waver stood his ground against Gilgamesh just proves how far Waver's come since the beginning. He knew he couldn't win against a Servant. He knew he'd die if he tried to fight him, and his King just told him to live on, so he couldn't go back on that and OH MY GOD I LOVE THESE PEOPLE. Easily one of the best relationships between two people, whether it's romantic or just friendship, of any anime I've ever seen. 10/10 would 100% watch a Slice of Life spin off with these two as Main Characters.

1, Emiya Kiritsugu

Oh man, where do I even begin with this one. Emiya Kiritsugu is my favorite Master in Fate/Zero. Despite that, he's the one who changed positions the most. There are points where he's near the top. There are points where I hated his guts. But, in the end, he's my favorite Master of them all, and very possibly my favorite character as well. In my opinion, he's one of the better characters of Fate/Zero. He can be difficult at times, especially with his relationship with Saber, but in the end, he has a noble reason for wanting the grail: To save the world. He wants to be a hero of justice, and that all relates to his backstory. But before I go over that, lemme set this up. The very first big fight in the anime was between Saber and Lancer back in Episode 4. These two are both knights, and thus, have a great sense of chivalry. Because of this, they want to have an honorable fight. To the point where when someone else attacked Saber, Lancer stepped in to defend her because he wanted to fight her himself. Their fights got interrupted, and finally, in Episode 16, they have their chance to fight unhindered. But, Kiritsugu happens. Because of the way he is, he doesn't care at all about their chivalry, and just wants to win no matter what. He's also known for his dirty tactics being a Mage Killer, using things like guns and other non magical methods. So, while those two are fighting, he takes Archibald's fiance hostage, and forces him to use a command seal to force Lancer to commit suicide, right in the middle of their fight. Oh, and Archibald signed a contract stating if he did this, Kiritsugu can't kill him. Except he has Maya kill him instead. Way to play dirty, Kiritsugu. I can imagine this episode made a lot of people hate Kiritsugu, myself included. But then, they spend not one, but two episodes going over his past. He lived on an island with his father who was essentially a magic scientist. He also had a crush on an older girl named Shirley who worked for his father, and was essentially his best friend. But one night, this girl decided to test his father's research... on Dead Apostles. Which are what the Fate series calls: Vampires. Because of this, she of course started to go crazy, and started eating chickens for their blood. Kiritsugu found her, and she begged him to kill her right there to stop this from spreading. Present day Kiritsugu would've done it without a second thought. But kid Kerry here, was hesitant, and he didn't do it. Within the night, the entire island turned into vampires, and two different groups of people came to the island to wipe them out, and also burn the entire village on the island. As you can imagine, this affected Kiritsugu a lot, especially him only being a kid. Though, there's one more thing. His father. The one whose research caused this. Why was he researching dead apostles? Was he going test it on the island people? And if he was this man was gonna escape. So, a person who found Kiritsugu and saved him, named Natalia, gave him a gun and told him to kill his father. And this time, he did it. He killed his own father. This changed him as a person. In the following years, he was raised by Natalia, who was essentially a mercenary. In other words, what Kiritsugu became. Years later, he was faced with a similar choice that he had before. Kill 300 dead apostles on an airplane along with Natalia, or risk them landing in a huge town and letting them kill thousands. This is a prime example of his kill the few to save the many viewpoint. He fired a rocket launcher at that plane, and took it down. And afterwards, he just broke down. He just killed the one person who's been like a mother to him for so long. A better parental figure than his father that's for sure. He's seen multiple people he cared about die, some to his own hands, and it broke him as a person. These two episodes are actually some of my favorites in both Zero and Stay Night because of this. Kiritsugu may have done some sketchy things in Zero, and while they're not really that justified, at the very least they're understandable. And all of this isn't even taking into account the ending, where he uncovers a boy alive in the rubble that is Fuyuki City after the grail was destroyed. Going against his nature, the man was incredibly happy to have just found even one person alive. The anime itself says it the best. By saving one person, he saved himself. One of the most complex stories of Fate/Zero, Emiya Kiritsugu is my favorite Master.

Servants Now to go over the Servants. Much like the Masters, each of the seven Servants had something that I liked about them, and unlike the Masters, there were none that I really hated or disliked (screw you Kirei). Though, there were definitely a few who stood out more than the others, and I had a hard time nailing down my Top 3.

7. Caster: Gille de Rais

Just like his Master, Caster is at the bottom of my Servant list. He's just a bit too crazy. While he makes a perfect fit for his Master, he's even more insane than him. Especially when dealing with Saber, whom he believes is Jeanne d'Arc, who he served under when Caster was still alive back in his age. Sorry Caster, you're gonna have to go to Fate/Apocrypha to see the real her. But, he goes crazy in his shenanigans trying to get his old Ruler back, and he just won't listen to reason when Saber tries explaining to him that he's wrong. That's a lot of what I don't like about Caster. He goes crazy trying to do something because of a misunderstanding, and won't listen when people try to correct him. The one thing I do like about Caster involves his relationship with his Master, which I already talked about. Also, while Caster himself isn't the reason, I also really enjoyed the 2 episode long fight with him and his monstrous creation to kick off the second season, which lead to Caster's death shortly after his Master's death. Yeah, these two didn't really care about the Grail, and did some terrible things together, so I'm not too upset about them dying.

6. Assassin: Hassan-i-Sabah

I'm sorry, who? Assassin? Who's he? I don't remember him. Seriously though, this guy, or should I say these guys, barely had any importance to anything ever. Sure, they helped Kirei and Tokiomi spy on everyone else, but that's really about it. We never really saw them fight. We never really saw their abilities aside from being multiple entities at once. They never really did anything. Even the way they went out was lame. Rider pretty much killed them all at once with his Reality Marble. However, they're still better than Caster for a number of reasons. One, Caster's too insane. Two, and the bigger reason, is that despite the fact they never do anything, Assassin's design was actually pretty cool. That, and he was technically the first Servant we see in the entire anime. I didn't even know he was a Servant at all back when I first saw him. Though, a cool design can only get you so far, and in this list, it's sixth place.

5. Berserker: Sir Lancelot

Now here we go. This is someone who actually had a purpose. Well, to an extent. He also had a really cool design, too, but that's beside the point. Berseker was the last of the seven Servants to be revealed, and is the only one where his name I would say is a spoiler. Berserker, or Sir Lancelot, did nothing more than just fight others in the entire series, namely Saber and Gil. However, unlike the other servants, Berserker's entire presence is a mystery, and that makes him far more interesting to me than an insane caster and a purposeless assassin. He first shows up in the first major fight, sent there to go after Gilgamesh because of Kariya's grudge against him because he's Tokiomi's Servant. However, as soon as he saw Saber, Berseker switched his target and went after her. Every fight that he was in, he'd always attack Saber, despite Kariya wanting him to attack Gil. Of course, the reason for that is because of his real identity. Now, I don't really know all that much about the story of King Arthur, but I definitely know some names, Lancelot being one of them. I like how they hinted at who he really was all throughout the series by him always going after Saber because of their past relationship. And the fight between him and Saber at the end was intense. He didn't do much except for fight, but even then, he was still made to be an interesting and deep character. Also, one last thing: His dogfight with Gil is one of my favorite fights in the entire series, period. Speaking of Gil...

4. Archer: Gilgamesh

This is one of the fan favorites in terms of Servants, and I can understand why. When I first saw him, I hated him. I just do not like people with his type of personality. I knew he was popular, so there must be some reason for that, but still. It wasn't until he started his conversations with Kirei that I started to actually not dislike him. When he's not acting like he's literally the best thing ever made, he's actually a very interesting character. That, and he's flat out the most powerful servant in the entire Fate universe. Bar none. Seriously, this guy is stupid powerful. His Noble Phantasm, which basically is like an ultimate attack, is the Gates of Babylon, which lets him summon a seemingly infinite number of golden portals that he can shoot weapon after weapon after weapon at his enemies. Not only that, but these weapons are the same ones that other Noble Phantasms are based off of. In other words, if another servant is weak to any specific weapon, they have no chance against Gil. This isn't even everything he can do either. He's just that powerful. He's also one of 4 total survivors out of all 14 Servants and Masters, the others being Kiritsugu, Kirei, and Waver. As far as Fate/Zero only is concerned, I wouldn't go so far as to say I like Gilgamesh, but I definitely don't hate or dislike him like I used to.

I'd like to take a minute to say something here before I continue on. Along with Kiritsugu, my Top 3 favorite servants make up 3 out of my Top 4 characters in Fate/Zero. As such, they are very close to one another, and honestly speaking, any one of them could take the top spot. Keeping that in mind, I'm still going to rank them, yet they're more like 1.1, 1.2, and 1.3 rather than 1, 2, and 3. All of that being said, let's continue.

3. Lancer: Diarmund Ua Duibhne

For the longest time, even up to and after his death, which was ridiculous by the way but I'll get to that later, Lancer, or Diarmund, was number two. It was only after a certain scene from the current number two that I brought him down to three. Even still, I love the guy. Ever since his first fight with Saber, I took a liking to him, and a lot of the reasoning for that is because of the whole knight chivalry thing he has going on with Saber. He's a knight through and through, and genuinely is a nice guy. In fact, after Archibald's fight with Kiritsugu, Diarmund came in to save his Master, and could've very easily taken the opportunity to kill Kiritsugu. He did not on the basis that he wanted a fair fight with Kiritsugu's Servant: Saber. If that's not being honorable, I don't know what is. He also has somewhat of a tragic backstory, involving how he accidentally made the wife of his lord fall in love with him through the spot below one of his eyes. As such, he was never able to serve his lord properly, as a real knight should. His one and only wish when he was summoned into the Holy Grail War was to finally be able to serve under some lord, the very thing he was never able to do in his life. Unfortunately, his Master was Archibald, who wasn't the ideal Master for him. Though, he did the best he could with what he had. He had an honorable fight with Saber which was interrupted, and he even went so far as to defend her when Berserker tried to attack her. He was part of the team that eventually took down Caster, and even broke one of his spears in half just to heal a wound it dealt to Saber that couldn't be healed, just so she could use Excalibur to destroy Caster. And then, later that night, the two of them planned to finish their fight uninterrupted. Unfortunately, Kiritsugu happened, and ruined everything. Diarmund was forced to commit suicide before his fight was finished. Even when he got a second chance, his one wish was stripped away from him. I absolutely hated Kiritsugu for what he did that episode, and is the reason why he might not be my favorite Fate character because other than that he's great. Watching Diarmund's death and his cursing words was not fun. And those eyes. I don't want to have to look at those eyes ever again, it was terrifying. Rest in peace, Diarumund. Rest in peace.

2. Rider: Iskander

Let me just put this simply. This guy has a nickname: Broskander. And it fits him perfectly. Rider is a bro through and through. He's the Servant of Waver, and again, these two make up my favorite Master/Servant relationship in the series. Rider himself is most of the reason for that. If I had to pick someone out of everyone in Fate/Zero to be my favorite character in terms of how they are as a person, Rider would take that top spot by a long shot. His relationship with Waver is almost reverse of what it's meant to be. He acts as a sort of mentor to Waver, guiding him along as they go through the War. He was part of the team that stood against Caster, much like Lancer was. I would also say he's one of the more powerful Servants in Zero. Not only is he huge, but he's got his chariot, along with his most powerful Noble Phantasm, a reality bubble, of which his armies from when he was alive are inside. He's so powerful in fact, that even Gilgamesh respected him in their fight. Speaking of, the fight between Archer and Rider, as short as it was, was by far one of the best moments of the entire Fate series that I've seen. It might very well be my favorite episode of Zero. The entire scene of Rider running toward Gil, getting sword after sword thrown at him and slashing him was so emotional. This scene alone is what put him barely above Lancer on this list. Rider refused to give up. He got hit with sword after sword, and he refused to give up. Against the most powerful Servant in the Fate universe. He. Refused. To. Give. Up. No matter what. That's what I love about Rider. He fought until the very end. The only thing stopping him from getting to Gilgamesh were the chains he used to stop Rider inches away from him. Not to mention the emotional scene with Waver right before he ran into the fight. One of the best scenes, one of the best episodes, one of the best characters. Rider is the best.

1. Saber: Arturia Pendragon

Who better to put at the top than the cover girl of Fate herself, Arturia "Saber" Pendragon. The other contender along with Kiritsugu for being my favorite character (at least in Zero). Of course, them both being on the same team and all, it's easy to see who I rooted for most. Unless of course, one of those two decided to use extremely dirty tactics which may have put the team down a bit. Saber is probably the most popular character, and rightfully so in my opinion. Her true identity is King Arthur, except as a girl, and is only 1 of 3 Servants that I'd actually heard of before. Like I said before, I don't know much about the King Arthur legend. I do know one thing though, and that's that Saber is one of the best characters in Fate. Much like Diarmund, she's a knight, and she will protect those around her at all costs. She basically served as Irisviel's bodyguard, and she did quite the good job at it. Being one of the main characters, she participated in several fights, including multiple against Lancer and multiple defending herself from Berserker attacking her. She also delivered the finishing blow to Caster using what I personally would consider the third most powerful Noble Phantasm after both of Gil's. Eksuuu... CALIBAH! Out of all the Servants, I probably loved watching Saber fight the most. There's just something about her style that I enjoyed watching, especially during her fights with Lancer. By far her most impactful fight though was her fight against Lancelot. She was shocked to discover Berserker's identity, and she started to break slowly over the fight as she didn't want to fight him knowing that. Not to mention the fact that this took place not long after Rider's King's Banquet that he held for all the Kings, who were himself, Saber, and Gil. During that, Rider told her that her way of being King wasn't good, especially after she told them of her wish to bring back England after it was destroyed under her rule. Having Rider talk to her the way he did that night was not good for her, and when she saw Lancelot and his madness, she started to realize what she must've been doing to people. Even Kiritsugu is stale compared to the complexity of Saber's character, and that right there is precisely why she's number one. Saber is a great Servant. She's a great character. She has flaws in her ideals, and even after they were pointed out to her, she kept going forward. Funny, reminds me of someone from the next series.

As a whole, I really enjoyed Fate/Zero. If there's one thing I can really compliment above all else, it's the amazing animation quality. The fights especially were so incredible to watch. This is one of the more action oriented anime I've seen, and boy they did a spectacular job in that department. This is just my personal opinion, but if I had to pick one fight out of all of Zero that I'd say is the best visual wise, it was the dogfight between Lancelot and Gil. It lasted for two episodes, and it was amazing to watch. Lancelot took control of one of the two fighter jets that were sent to scout out the fog that Caster cast over the entire river, and began attacking Gil, who was piloting what looked like an alien spaceship. I honestly had more fun watching that fight than I did watching the others fight Caster. Also, at this time, I wasn't very favorable of Gil, so it was incredibly satisfying when Lancelot took him out of the air with one final attack. That's one fight I would definitely watch again. That's far from the only good fight, though. The whole series is chock full of them. Multiple fights between Lancer and Saber. The game of hide an- I mean the fight between Kayneth and Kiritsugu. Kirei held his own against Iris and Maya quite well. Of course there's the big fight against Caster. But especially towards the end, the fights were beyond incredible. Rider vs Archer. Saber vs Berserker. Kirei vs Kiritsugu, the one fight that was hyped since the very first episode. And to top it all off, even though it's not a fight, the sequence with Kiritsugu entering the grail and seeing his wish come true in a way that he never wanted. Even though I knew they weren't real, it was rough seeing him kill Iris and Illya like that. I also wasn't expecting the grail to be corrupt, nor was I expecting the bad guys to win in the end. I don't believe it was the best anime I've ever seen, but the entire series was phenomenal from beginning to end.

If there's one last thing I can say, it's this: When they say Fate/Zero is a tragedy, they ain't kidding. Like I mentioned before, once the second season started, at least one person died every single episode. Caster, his Master, Lancer, Kayneth, Kariya, Tokiomi, Rider, Lancelot, Iris. Even Saber disappeared in the final episode due to running out of mana. There were 14 Masters and Servants when the series started, and only four of those 14 survived. That's tragic. Not to mention the numerous amount of tragic characters and deaths. Lancer's death was tragic. Iris slowly getting weaker as Servants die due to being the grail was sad to watch. Kariya was the very definition of a tragic character, and he was doomed from the start. Lancelot was a tragic character in his last fight, and when you consider his identity and what he's been doing, that goes for the whole series as well. And then there's Kiritsugu, who's seen numerous people he cares about die right in front of him. His Father, Shirley, Natalia, Iris, Maya. He completely broke apart when he brought down that plane Natalia was on, and was desperately searching for survivors when the fire broke out in the last episode, the scene where he finds that boy being one of my favorites for that reason. The entire series was tragic from beginning to end, and that to me is one of the things that make Fate/Zero as great as it is.

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Overcoming Stale Messages in Creative Testing

There's a fantastic little quip from marketing pioneer, John Wanamaker ( 1838-1922):

" Half the money I invest in marketing is thrown away, the difficulty is I aren't sure which fifty percent." With eMarketer coverage that marketers will invest an approximated $592.43 in 2015, which stands for a boost of 6 percent over 2014, it is plainly a lot more vital than ever for online marketers to have tools to both predict and also discern that their bucks are well spent. This is one of the reasons I rejoice to stay in the modern age. We have the best of both globes, as we can gain from the past, and we have fantastic analytic tools that permit us to analyze as well as improve in genuine time to boost user experience as well as ROI.

But obviously, you cannot learn how to make use of the tools by osmosis, and also in discussions with customers, I often hear that reality typically obtains in the method of finest purposes. Via these discussions, the following typical-- as well as pricey-- mistakes were identified:

The Five A lot of Pricey Errors in Search Marketing

Blind expansion in question mining

Unbalanced financial investment in bid modifiers

Stale messages in creative testing

Vague screening in audience segments

Primitive Analytics in workable insights

In just what is Part IV of a multi-part collection in which I review these blunders, I will certainly deal with the problem of stagnant messages in creative testing.

The Importance of Testing

Testing is things I think in one of the most and also do the least, this is my version of visiting the fitness center. Many search online marketers inform me they struggle to do testing, as it takes some considering to identify what the right metric is. Earnings per Impact (RPI) appears to be the best metric to me, however, as is illustrated below, the issue is that RPI is a big average. It takes the initial search to the final conversion, as well as most of us know that standards could be misleading.

For instance, the average elevation of a seven-foot tall person and a five-foot high individual is 6 feet, nevertheless, if you supervise of hiring gamers for the National Basketball Organization, after that relying on such standards would certainly not remain in the very best interest of your group-- or keeping your job.

Therefore, while RPI is an important metric, it's imperative to look for the traffic jams in that statistics. That bottleneck might be in your conversion price, your bounce rate, click-through rate, or any combination of the 3. While you might wish to start your analysis with RPI, it is very important to review it a lot more closely.

Once we determine exactly what metric we want to test, after that the next big trouble is to find out exactly what is statistically considerable. Exactly how can we figure out whether something is a real loser or otherwise? This can be performed with various devices. Adobe Media Optimizer gives a column that lets you think about whether you must stop particular terms. If a certain term actually does prove itself to be a loser, you could stop that term and move your focus to gaining a new opposition for that champ advertisement because group.

Another crucial thing to take a look at is ad turning, which is revealed as the 4th option in the picture below. A couple of years ago, the online search engine temporarily took this alternative away from us forever, claiming that we can not turn equally. After a time period, the search engines would optimize for metrics that they determined to be important such as click-through price. The search market, however, integrated in its entirety as well as argued that it would be proper to allow us choose how our ads are served, as various metrics are important to us and to our principal advertising police officers (CMOs) such as fundamental earnings. This is actually a great case research study of productive discussion, as they did undoubtedly return this crucial setup to us.

Now that we have this establishing back and could turn equally, it is our obligation making sure we do not have decaying, stale ads in our accounts. For that reason, you might desire to ask on your own whether you have the ability to make a dedication to evaluate every one of your ads as soon as monthly. If this is simply not feasible, you could intend to returned off to that compromise setting and also revolve uniformly for a while.

Ad Extensions

Ad extensions are one more important subject, as well as it needs to be born in mind that they are part of the ranking algorithm. Most of us identify the value of advertisement expansions, however it's easy to forget giving them required focus, as they appear to be simply additional modifications to our advertisements. Furthermore, there is even more to success than dominating the search-engine outcomes page. While I definitely identify its significance and also claim kudos to those that could obtain as much realty as feasible on the SERPS (online search engine results pages), you additionally should take into consideration what it does to your bidding and your ad ranking as well.

One example is to think about just how you could change the punctuation in your ad to obtain longer headlines. An even more-effective method compared to that are callout expansions. These are the simplest extensions, and they are even less complicated to establish than site links. Callout expansions are Google's method of giving you an opportunity to boast concerning on your own. You could say something to the impact of, "I'm outstanding, click on me," and you will get a little extra area on the SERP. I have actually found that when those were assembled for the Adobe account, it resulted in major lift. If you are not making use of callout expansions, I very recommend them, they are a simple approach for achieving reliable results.

Call-Only Campaigns

A relatively new kind of campaign offered in AdWords is Call-Only, which Google introduced in February of this year. To name a few functions and also advantages of this brand-new project type, Google points out the following:

Encourage calls to your company by revealing your telephone number on your ad.

Display a clickable call switch with your ad (on premium mobile gadgets).

Cost is the exact same as a heading click (a basic expense each click (CPC)).

Call extensions have actually typically boosted click-through prices by 6-8 percent.

With customers increasingly relying on mobile phones for search, you might want to evaluate this new campaign kind. As well as for extra insight on this subject, I highly advise a slide deck entitled " Hardcore Pay Per Click Tactics" that was prepared by among my coworkers, Maria Corcoran.

Ultimately, exactly what emerges to us is that each and every ad extension, every single advertisement tag, each and every creative message should be tested. I advise devoting yourself to having a period of your week alloted for screening. Spending a minimum of two hours every week for checking new betas and innovative message will certainly pay off in the lengthy run. Keep in mind, technology will never ever endure unless you schedule time to shield it.

Leave a comment to allow me understand your ideas on testing as well as which methods work well for you. And if you have not review them currently, ensure you don't miss out on the useful nuggets of info I offered in the previous installments: Component I covered blind expansion in inquiry mining, Part II examined out of balance financial investment in bid modifiers, and also Component III studied the ideal balance for your financial investments in SEM.

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