#i'm at like a 3/10 versus a 1/10 before

[cellophobia]

fuck heathcare but like i got a degree specifically to enter nursing school. i have a lot of reasons why i don't want to do nursing anymore but damb that's a lot of time and energy wasted. i hate 12 hour shifts, i hate charting, i hate general patient care. but it's (apparently) a job with lots of options in lots of settings. i don't like bedside lol but maybe i could like psych or something outpatient.

i'm planning on doing special education now but eduction has a lot of problems too. i honestly really like my position in education right now and if i could i would make this my career. but alas, i'm going to eventually need my own insurance and this job has no benefits.

lately i've been really depressed so i haven't been working. but seeing those kids makes me so fucking happy. i met a lot of them when i did some special ed positions and they're so great. i feel like special ed is my calling.

that being said i'm fucking failing my classes right now because i'm too depressed to do schoolwork. and i don't know if the grants i got need to be repaid if i fail classes. if so i'm SO fucked because that's a LOT of money. 😭😭😫😭

[infiniteglitterfall]

I do realize this is a real niche post but I cannot tell you how many damn times over the past 10 months I've seen gentiles tell Jews some version of, "Your own holy book SAYS God doesn't want you to have a country yet!"

And it's such an incredibly blatant and weirdly specific tell that they're not part of something that grew from progressive grassroots, but something based on right-wing astroturfing.

1. Staying in your own lane is a pretty huge progressive principle.

Telling people in another group that their deity said they couldn't do X is, I think, as far as you can get from your own lane.

2. It's also very clearly Not In Your Own Lane because I've never seen anyone actually be able to EITHER quote the passage they're thinking of, OR cite where it is.

It's purely, "I saw somebody else say this, and it seemed like it would make me win the debate I wasn't invited to."

3. It betrays a complete ignorance of Jewish culture and history.

Seriously? You don't know what you're referencing, its context, or even what it specifically says, but you're... coming to a community that reads and often discusses the entire Torah together each year, at weekly services... who have massive books holding generations of debate about it that it takes 7 years to read, at one page per day....

And saying, "YOUR book told you not to!"

I've been to services where we discussed just one word from the reading the whole time. The etymology. The connotations. The use of it in this passage versus in other passages.

And then there is the famous saying, "Ask two Jews, get three opinions." There is a culture of questioning and discussion and debate throughout Judaism.

You think maybe, in the decades and decades of public discussion about whether to buy land in Eretz Yisrael and move back there; whether it should keep being an individual thing, or keep shifting to intentional community projects; what the risks were; whether it should really be in Argentina or Canada or someplace instead; how this would be received by the Jews and gentiles already there, how to respect their boundaries, how to work with them before and during; and whether ending up with a fuckton of Jews in one place might not be exactly as dangerous for them as it had always been everywhere else....

You think NOBODY brought up anything scriptural? Nobody looked through the Torah, the Nevi'im, the Ketuvim, or the Talmud for any thoughts about any of this?? It took 200 years and some rando in the comments to blow everyone's minds???

4. It relies on an unspoken assumption that people can and should take very literal readings of religious texts and use them to control others.

And a sense of ownership and power over those texts, even without any accompanying knowledge about what they say.

It's kind of a supercessionist know-it-all vibe. It reads like, "I know what you should be doing. Because even if I'm not personally part of a fundamentalist branch of a related religion, the culture I'm rooted in is."

Bonus version I found when I was looking for an example. NOBODY should do this:

There are a lot of people who pull weird historical claims like "It SAYS Abraham came from Chaldea! That's Iraq!"

Like, first of all, a group is indigenous to a land if it arose as a people and culture there, before (not because of) colonization.

People aren't spontaneously spawning in groups, like "Boom! A new indigenous people just spawned!!"

People come from places. They go places. Sometimes, they gel as a new community and culture. Sometimes, they bop around for a while and eventually assimilate into another group.

Second: THE TORAH IS NOT A HISTORY TEXTBOOK OMFG.

It's an oral history, largely written centuries after the fact.

There is a TON of historical and archaeological research on when and where the Jewish culture originated, how it developed over time, etc. It's extremely well-established.

Nobody has to try to pull what they remember from Sunday school for this argument.

[dgrailwar]

Round 10, Day 2 - Team Avenger vs. Team Gunner

There was a flare of magical energy, as a burning figure shot in through the shattered window of the industrial building.

With one smooth slash, the Avenger sent the Gunner careening out the window, the samurai spinning in the air before crashing on a rooftop. The Gunner stumbled up to his feet, before pulling out his shamisen.

"Avenger, huh? No reason to be stingy with ammo, then! Proto-Arahabaki, go!"

A barrage of gunshots erupted from the head of the instrument, the Avenger having to dodge and weave through them. A final beam, from a cannon manifesting next to the Gunner erupted in a violent blast, before the Gunner reached into his robes, pulling out a small bottle and lobbing it towards the Avenger, watching as it made contact.

Ice- a freezing agent sprayed out from it. Intense cold washed over the Count, as he waved his flaming sword, the frost instantly evaporating. He pointed the flame blade at the samurai, sneering.

"Gunner! We meet again! And this time, you have neither the cover of the forest, nor your mechanical army to assist you! Today, you face the might of the Avenger by yourself! As one man! I wish to see your resolve, gunman!"

"A lot of talk... 'one man'… don't you know who I am? Forget True Names, I'm a revolutionary! A nobleman like you stuck in the past, that thinks the whole world is his to command-- get with the times! The future is now! And the future will send you to Hell, Avenger!"

"Hahaha… Hahahaha-- KUHAHAHAHAHA!!"

"Imperial Edict. Wage war.": Boosts and demerits will be doubled for the upcoming round, as part of the Imperial Edict!

If someone wins with greater than 15%, they do double-damage!

The Count of Monte Cristo: 6 x 2 (12%)

Takasugi Shinsaku: 5 x 2 (10%)

SERVANT DETAILS:

The Count of Monte Cristo (AVENGER)

HP: 2/3

Avenger has a +3% boost to his skills as long as he's wounded!

Avenger has a permanent +2% boost against Alter-Ego thanks to his Class Trait!

Team Avenger has all 3 Command Spells remaining!

Determination of Steel (EX Rank) - If Avenger is about to take a fatal wound, if there's at least a 3% difference in their score and the victor above him, he may avoid damage. When facing a single-target (1-on-1), he will gain a +3% boost.

Monte Cristo Mythologie: The King of the Cavern (C Rank) - When battling enemies, his flames are like a poison. He reduces demerits against him by 3%, and when he is victorious against another, he inflicts a -2% demerit for their next round. This demerit increases by 2% by every 10% difference in scores.

Wisdom of Predicament (A Rank) - When engaged in a Free-for-All, gain a +3% boost. Additionally, if Avenger earns last place, both the victor and the 2nd place Servant gain a -2% demerit, rather than simply the 2nd place Servant.

Due to observing Alter-Ego's technique, he gains a +2% bonus against her!

Class-Traits:

AVENGER-CLASS Servants are vengeful by nature. The first time they are defeated by a Servant, they gain an automatic +2% bonus against that specific Servant, without needing to study them (but can in order to increase the bonus). They gain a permanent +3% bonus per wound they attain that will remain if the wound remains, but will disappear if the wound is healed.

Takasugi Shinsaku (GUNNER)

SERVANT DETAILS:

HP: 2/3

Team Gunner only has 1 Command Spell remaining!

Unconventional Child Prodigy (A Rank) - When fighting someone with a higher boost than Gunner, gain +2%.

Innovate - Armaments Reformation (B Rank) - Defeating a Servant once will net special 'components' from them. When at least 4 of those 'components' are gathered, a secondary Noble Phantasm will be unlocked. If 6 are gathered, then the utility and power of 'Kiheitai' will be upgraded.

Current Components: N/A

(Winning first place in a Free-for-All will count for gathering 2 components- one for each Servant beneath you).

Retaining the Japanese Spirit (A Rank) - When Gunner is about to take a fatal blow and the difference between scores is less than 5%, survive with one 'health' remaining. If this is triggered, replace the effect of this skill to instead grant him a persistent +2% bonus that cannot be reduced or removed.

Due to observing Alter-Ego's technique, he gains a +2% bonus against her!

Due to studying Foreigner's technique, you have a permanent +2% bonus against him!

-

Class-Trait:

GUNNER-Class Servants are quick to action and yet methodical with their attacks. When engaged in combat, gain a +3% boost. Additionally, if in last place during a Free-for-All, inflict a -4% demerit on the 1st place Servant.

[cosmerelists]

Renarin Ranks Starting Places For New Readers of the Cosmere Series

"Renarin ranks something" requested by @themoonstonechronicler :)

Fans often argue about where new readers should start in the Cosmere: which book is the best starting place? In this list, Renarin will rank various options. Because if any character can break the fourth wall, it's either Hoid (of course) or Renarin with his funky corrupted Future Sight.

[Contains Stormlight Spoilers through Rhythm of War!]

1. Way of Kings

"Starting with Way of Kings is like jumping into a 4 versus 1 Shardblade duel armed with a sword that screams when you touch it after a lifetime of not really being allowed to train in real combat scenarios due to your blood weakness. Will you be in over your head? Yes. Might the experience harm you? Very possibly. Will Kaladin's presence save you? Absolutely. Is it a bad idea? Objectively yes. BUT does this choice make you inherently cool? I think so. At least, I have no regrets."

...

"Make that very few regrets."

"I give this an 8/10."

2. Elantris

"Listen...I get it. You want to start from the beginning. Proceed chronologically. I think my cousin Jasnah would be inclined toward this. But speaking as a 'funky time guy,' as Adolin called me once, I have to say that the past doesn't necessarily predict the future and uh...this one just might be a little tough to start with. In my opinion."

"4/10."

3. Tress of the Emerald Sea

"I think...I think I like Wit. Mostly. There was that one time he tried to make everyone think I was hooking up with, like, multiple women at once, which was...weird. But he also made fun of me. Which does not sound good, but it meant he respected me in a Wit way. In any event, this book is like sitting and listening to Wit for hours. Is it good if that is the first thing you ever do? Maybe? The little rat is cute."

"9/10."

4. Yumi and the Nightmare Painter

"This one is Wit too. Just to get that out of the way. And I think it might be a little bit confusing for a first-time reader since it is clearly being told to a Rosharan, which is not something a new reader would understand."

"But on the other hand, it is maybe...refreshing to have a main character who hasn't yet realized what he's good at, and another main character who hasn't yet realized that not all aspects of her religion should restrict her as much as they do."

"So a confusing place to start, but not necessarily a bad one."

"6/10."

5. The Emperor's Soul

"This one is short! That might be good for someone who is looking for less of a commitment. Plus, it involves a lot of research into how things work, if that appeals to you. But I think the real benefit is that if someone is reading it to you, it would probably only take a few hours."

"10/10."

6. The Sunlit Man

"This book is like seeing into the future, since it is literally about the future. It's also very painful. Which, in my experience, the future often is. The future can be changed...but not in this case, because now it's written down. So I would say: start here at your own risk. On the other hand, it will probably seem less sad if you read it without any backstory. But it will make other things sadder later, trust me."

"3/10."

7. White Sand

"This one can be good if you're a man, since there are a lot of pictures. There are also a lot of words, of course, but if you're just starting out on the reading thing, then having the pictures would help a lot I'd imagine."

"6/10."

8. Warbreaker

"Speaking as someone who...well, I can't say that I deliberately make dramatic reveals, but I have been known to do things like scrawl warnings on a wall or appear suddenly from the shadows or, you know, stuff like that. So I might actually recommend reading this before you read our books, just so you can have those, 'Wait, it's YOU!' moments over and over again."

"Seriously, why did so many of those characters end up in our series?"

"I'm not answering the question, though. This one is standalone, and not too long, yet still manages to have a pretty big cast of characters and a bunch of storylines. It is like Sanderson training."

"8/10."

9. The Final Empire

"This is what everyone always tells you to do. Sometimes it can get frustrating when everyone is SO SURE that they know what's good for you, especially your dad, who won't listen when you tell him that you don't want to become an ardent even though he thinks it's the best. And you know what? In the end, I am a fighter, but also a scholar, since men can do both now. So sometimes what people say is good, but only when it happens in the way you want it to and...I think I lost the thread. Um. You can do what people tell you that you should do IF you want to. "

"If you start here, I imagine you'll like it. Sometimes what everyone tells you to do is a good idea...but only if it's what you want too."

"9/10."

10. The Alloy of Law

"Starting with Mistborn Era 2 is like bonding a corrupt spren. It's almost what everyone agrees is a good thing to do (start with Mistborn / bond a spren), only you're going about it in a...different way. But different is not necessarily bad! Yes, I have abilities that are maybe from Odium and that give me a maybe sacrilegious ability to foretell the future...but when given the chance, I immediately recommended my best friend do the same thing."

"Being different can be good. 7/10."

[crow-caller]

Hi Crow,

Apologies if this has been asked before but I’m trying to get to the bottom of what people describe as ‘biblically accurate angels’ and I’m getting conflicting results and I thought why not ask someone who definitely knows more on the topic than me. Is the incomprehensible multi-eye wheel creature thing true?

"True" is the problem, because... it is, and it isn't, and it depends, and it's complicated!

I looooove angels, you're right, and I was working on doing a vid on this exact topic because the term 'biblically accurate angel' is a pet peeve of mine. However, no matter the power of my autistic angelic obsession, I wouldn't say I'm a perfect source. I got intimidated outta making that video because I got too anxious of messing it up and losing my angel cred. BUT! I do know some stuff.

What's wrong with "Biblically Accurate Angels?

Three things!

1. "Biblically"

Most people I see, when confronted with the word 'Biblically', think of Christianity. The Bible technically refers to a collection of texts shared by a number of Abrahamic religions, but I've a lot of people entirely unaware of that fact. There's often a general lack of recognition around 'biblically accurate angel' posting that angels aren't exclusively or originally Christian concepts. Tumblr is an outlier of a place, remember; I read youtube comments.

2. "Accurate"

This makes me lose it, just a little bit, because the idea 'real angels in the bible actually looked like scary monsters' is both incorrect and kind of a rude thing to say about a holy entity a number of religions believe in.

There are a lot of ideas of angel classification and hierarchy, but you'll usually only see one--- the Christian one. This has nine orders in three spheres, going usually angel, archangel, principality (3rd sphere, most humanoid), powers, virtues, dominions (2nd, basically no lore), thrones/ophainim, cherubim, seraphim (1st, weirdo patrol). The lowest spheres are closest to humanity, the highest are closer to the divine.

(it's worth noting there's a big difference between 'what is exactly in the canon holy text' versus 'writings/visions/ideas from scholars later'. There's differing opinions everywhere and also different sects.) Little is universal.

Speaking of, religions! Heard of them? Angel hierarchy as it's commonly see is very specifically a Christian angle! There's a number of different Jewish angelic hierarchies which include different types or interpretations of angels. There's usually 10 ranks instead of 9 too.

I know the least about angels in Islam, but they don't have a strict angel hierarchy either, though some angels are more important than others.

As for angel physical descriptions, it varies. They can take human form, but they're spirits doing that for our convenience. Some of them are doing weird stuff, but most of the time an angel is some essence of light and fire taking a lesser defined shape for our convenience.

Some of the main ideas of a 'biblically accurate angel' come from one of my fav bits of the bible, the chariot in Ezekiel.

If you've not read the fun weird bits of the bible before, let me introduce you!!

These are the Living Creatures which are considered Cherubim in Christianity. The wheels are the Ophanim, who are also Thrones. The whole thing sounds like a very intricate chariot rather than a bunch of angels, but hey, it says right there they're 'living beings'

3. "Angels"

What is an angel anyway?

Well, there's an answer, but as I think I've highlighted there's a number of different, varying ideas of them which are all equally valid! This can include, of course, the artistic choice of making them monsters ( I love doing this ), but it's incorrect to assert such a design is 'more or truly accurate'.

Angels are messengers. The word for angel originally was Messenger, and the role of angels is generally to serve as a conduit and messenger of divine will. They can be teachers or healers. They often are more extensions of the holy rather than truly independent spirits, good because they are divine rather than the choice of free will. (but like everything I'm saying it depends bc religions and opinions are not unified monoliths).

Not all angels are messengers. Even without a strict hierarchy, there's a common idea of specific angels for specific jobs. The idea of Archangels is also common, though which are and how many differs wildly, as does their function.

Angels are divine beings. Humans don't become them. There also are some sects that believe this, like the Latter Day Saints, but generally the divide between human and angel is very clear. Humans are generally above angels, because we're beloved new ocs.

angels are cool. I really like them

---

anyway, this is a very approximate ramble for you on the subject. I think I could have gone on in much more detail and I decided not to. Especially as I note I don't have that kind of 'learn and memorize everything about your special interest' kind of autism, just 'a lot more than normal over many years'. Angels are a really complicated subject because religion is, and it all differs. But I do dislike Biblically Accurate Angel because I think it's really misled people who come across it casually. Yes, there's weird angel stuff, but it's pretty rare (especially in common canon), and it isn't 'the secret creepypasta truth'.

[teriri-sayes]

Reactions to Deal Maker's Chapter 203

TL;DR - Ahn Roh Man tells more of his parents and the game. Alberu feels strange when he sees Ahn Roh Man smiling brightly like him. Alberu becomes the Roan Kingdom's first player of the game. Cale has to give a speech in the academy.

RMPAG We got to know more about the game and Ahn Roh Man's family. His parents suddenly died in an accident when he was 10, so he was then raised by his uncle and aunt, somewhat becoming part of the Transparent family.

He only figured out the truth behind his parents when he played the game. His parents hid an AI in the game, and the Transparent Co was unaware of it. The AI became Ahn Roh Man's friend and hyung (because it was born a year earlier than him), and helped him attain number 1 in the rankings.

There was also the fact that his initial username was "Unfilial Son" before he changed it to "Searching for the Taerang Thief Bastard."

Oh yeah, Ahn Roh Man called the game as RMPAG, which is the abbreviation of Raising My Precious Absolute God.

Alberu and Ahn Roh Man Funny part of today's chapter. Ahn Roh Man had a bright smile when he told the two that he had a very friendly relationship with the Transparent family. Raon remarked that he had the same smile when Alberu was about to scam someone.

And Alberu's reaction. It was shock. He was shocked to meet someone of the same kind as him. 🤣🤣🤣

Gamer Alberu Ahn Roh Man suggested to install the game in Taerang and have someone play it. Cale and Alberu began pushing the task to each other... 😂

Alberu: … Cale. Cale: Yes, hyung-nim. Alberu: Do you want to borrow Taerang? Cale: I have to go to Aipotu and work hard? Alberu: …I'm busy too? Cale: Thanks to you, I can go out and save the world without worrying about Roan! Hyung-nim, I respect you! Alberu: … *covers face with both hands* Ahn Roh Man (ARM): Don't worry, Me and my hyung, I mean, the AI from earlier. Anyway, we'll carry you. Alberu: …Carry? ARM: It means to help you become stronger easily. Alberu: … Haa…. This is driving me crazy. Cale: Hyung-nim, I believe in you. Alberu: Ha. Let's give it a try.

What was so funny was the narrator's words after that scene. Alberu became the first player of the game in the Roan Kingdom. And his username? Irreverent Emperor... 🤣🤣🤣

It could also mean disrespectful or blasphemous, but irreverent sounds cooler, so I used it. But Alberu calling himself 'emperor'? Is he planning to turn the Roan Kingdom into an empire?

But that did not stop there. The narrator continued that Cale would never have dreamed of the chaos this player would create in the future... 😂 Ahn Roh Man, what are you planning to teach Alberu? Is Alberu going to be like you in the future, shouting hyunpi and game terms? 🤣🤣🤣

Cale's Speech But our overworked Alberu got his revenge on Cale for forcing him to play the game... by making Cale give the speech in the academy's opening ceremony. 🤣🤣🤣

Of course, the 3 kids were excited to hear Cale's speech, and Cale could only frown when he realized Alberu's intention. 😂

Ending Remarks Today had a lot of funny moments. It ended with a message from GoD saying that Cale's request to move the black castle (where Sherrit lived) to Aipotu had been approved. Woah. So it's going to be a dragon lord versus a dragon lord fight? How exciting!

I still harbor some disappointment with the recent chapter. We still have no news of what happened to CJS or Sui, and Cale's conversation with Ron seemed to have been forgotten again. 😞Author-nim, even a mention of them would have been enough! PLEASE DON'T FORGET THEM!

[onlycosmere]

Cosmere/Magic the Gathering

'What IP do you most want to see in Magic the Gathering?' Thunderwoodd: Stormlight Archive!

thyfoolish1: Brandon said they reached out to him and he was excited and ready to go but they haven't gotten back to him. I think this was Dragonsteel last year. So there is hope.

Egi_: Even after the shitshow with the free book he gave them on the condition it wouldn't be commercialized and then WotC commercialized it?

Brandon Sanderson: I knew what I was getting into working with a big corporation. Like the proverbial frog giving a ride to a scorpion, I don't see justification for complaint regarding the eventual sting. I love the game, and the designers, so that's really my metric. As a note, everyone I worked with on the narrative team was wonderful.

I don't want a passing secret lair of five cards; I am interested in a full-blown set, so with that constraint, I wouldn't foresee a Stormlight or Mistborn crossover until one of several things happens:

1) They burn through the bigger properties that match MTG's vibe like LOTR did. Fantasy, or science fantasy, properties that feel legit as a big expansions. As mentioned in this thread alone, there is a pretty deep mine there. Dune, Witcher, Elder Scrolls, Arcane/LoL, Westeros (if they're feeling spicy.) A hobbit set is all but inevitable as well.

Considering they'd be unwise to put these sorts of things out too quickly, and should really give them time to breathe, we're looking at ten years easily before they're out of larger fish to fry. Stormlight is big for a book series, but without any shows/films/games, I'd suspect it doesn't have the casual word-of-mouth reach their marketing team looks for to justify the extra expense of licensing fees.

2) Said bigger properties decide they aren't interested, leaving things popular but without media representation. If they ever decided to experiment with a book-only series, I suspect I'd be very high on the list to approach.

3) Cosmere gets one of said media properties, something I'm actively trying to accomplish--but it is slow going, as I'm in the fortunate position of being able to be very picky about partners, and prefer to take my time.

I've made it clear to them that if a large-scale set were in the, ahem, cards, I'd be willing to make frequent trips to Seattle to be part of the design team on said set.

awakenedjunkofigure: If any author deserves the pick of the litter for production companies, it's absolutely you. Can't wait to see what your books would look like on-screen!!

Brandon Sanderson: Well, the answer to what they'd look like on screen is "Expensive," which a part of the problem...

schloopers: Any large consideration in your mind for spoilers versus fully representing a world or story?

Stormlight you’d of course want all 10 Orders, so spoilers are far as those are concerned are a given.

But maybe a legendary creature “Iron Eyes” instead of any spoiler specific proper names?

I ask because I have so far gotten one friend in the playgroup to start reading, and a couple full sets would for sure help in garnering interest, but I would worry for the story beats getting too greatly revealed out of context.

I don’t know, maybe it’s just unavoidable. I’ve had several Dr. Who episodes “spoiled” for me through that set.

Brandon Sanderson:  This is something I haven't given a lot of thought toward, but I perhaps should be mulling it over. You make a good point.

Thunderwoodd: Woah! Can’t believe you responded. Huge fan! And I loved your commander cube! Saw it on Game Knights right after I finished Rhythm of War.

Curious, do you think the Radiant orders could correspond to guilds or color wedges?

Brandon Sanderson: Yes, I've done thought experiments on that, and think guilds could actively work for them without too much trouble. Problem is, would we want a Stormlight set or just a Knights Radiant set, because ten guilds for ten orders is already a high demand. It might be better to make a wedge set, but the problem there is that the Radiants are actively all colors, so it would be hard to cut out any save black. (Willshaper individuality and artistic expression could be green red instead of red black, for example.) So maybe five four-color wedges? I think the lore could support this, and be something that MTG has had trouble conveying without the expansive worldbuilding an entire book series could provide.

Radiants and sapient spren (all but black, to indicate the inherent selfless Radiant cause)

Human Nations (all but green, to indicate triumph over nature, which is an antagonist on Roshar.)

Singers (All but blue, to indicate the lack of ability to plan for the future, dearth of scholars, and onset of madness in the fused.)

Non-sapient Spren and wildlife (All but white, to indicate lack of overriding societal structures.)

Secret Societies (All but red, indicting the deliberate and conscious planning of these groups.)

Four color signpost uncommons would be WILD, even with hybrid mana. So I can see the design team balking. This (four color guild set) is almost certainly something they've explored and specifically decided not to do.

mediocreattbest: It’s crazy coming onto this post to say “any cosmere set!” And then see you actually replying. Out of curiosity, would you prefer just a stormlight set or a cosmere-wide set? I’d love to see characters through their stories (like we had with the LotR set)

Brandon Sanderson: I'd prefer Stormlight or Mistborn alone, as the planets themselves are so much a part of the stories.

[don-dake]

So I've been playing around with Cāngjié…

And I thought a post like this (similar to a post on Zhùyīn done by linghxr) may be of interest to some.

Edited: 10 Sep 2023

This post has gotten a little popular lately and on scrutinizing my own post again, I've come to the conclusion that I had made some mistakes in my given character examples.

Amended now. Namely, 「唔」 and 「龍」 have now been swapped over in the examples.

「唔」 is really the “3-parts”, and 「龍」 is indeed a “2-parts” character! Amendments are reflected in orange.

What (and who) is Cāngjié?

For those who may not know, Cāngjié is another way to input 漢字/汉字 (Hànzì — Chinese characters). It is way less popular than Pinyin (or even Zhuyin) but it still has its fans, and has a few advantages over the other two.

Cāngjié is also the name of the mythical figure in Chinese legend who is said to have been the inventor of 漢字/汉字, for which Cāngjié (the input system) was named after.

Would I recommend it?

Yes, if you think you have already acquired a good (enough) understanding of 漢字/汉字, and/or just like a new challenge.

(TL;DR at the end)

Why am I learning Cāngjié (and why you may like to, too)?

1. Mostly for fun.

Have long been intrigued by both Cāngjié and Zhùyīn, and since I finally mustered up the courage to tackle Zhùyīn not too long ago, I thought I'd finally give Cāngjié a try.

While learning Cāngjié does require more effort than learning Pinyin or Zhuyin, it can also be really fun! Inputting 漢字/汉字 with the Cāngjié method is almost like doing a jigsaw puzzle.

The euphoria derived from figuring out and piecing together the radicals that make up a word is something that learning Jyutping (Cantonese equivalent of Pinyin), Pinyin or Zhuyin can't quite match.

And while I know I'll never be as adept with Cāngjié — my knowledge of 漢字/汉字 is nowhere near good enough to ever use Cāngjié efficiently — as I do Jyutping or Pinyin (or to some extent, Zhuyin), it'll still be fun to use Cāngjié every once in a while!

2. Helps with thinking and typing in Chinese.

The upshot of relying too much on using Jyutping/Pinyin/Zhuyin is, I'd tend to think in Roman letters or ㄅㄆㄇㄈ before I'd even think about the actual 漢字/汉字.

But with Cāngjié, because it's based on knowing radicals and joining them together to form actual characters, it'll encourage thinking of 漢字/汉字 first, so I think that would help some with 漢字/汉字 memory retention.

Now you may be thinking, why not just you know, practise actually writing then? That is the tried and proven method to better remember 漢字/汉字 after all?

Yes, of course I can do that — and am doing so occasionally — but we live in a digital age now, and the probability and opportunity to type things out is much higher than actually writing stuff by hand.

The idea here is, more looking to think of and envision characters fully in my head, and trying to lessen over-reliance on Jyutping/Pinyin/Zhuyin.

And this is where I find Cāngjié can be useful, which leads to my next point…

3. Haunted by “What if” scenario.

What if there comes a day (however improbable) where I'm presented with only a Cāngjié keyboard to use for typing Chinese? It has happened with Zhùyīn for me!

That means, no Pinyin or Zhuyin keyboards, no Handwriting tools/touchscreens to write with fingers/mouse, no speech-to-text, and no option to copy-and-paste characters from somewhere else either! What then?

4. Able to type without knowing pronunciation, and with more accuracy.

Cāngjié is shape-based. Unlike Jyutping/Pinyin/Zhuyin, where you have to know what a character sounds like before you can type it out, with Cāngjié, you can type out (again assuming no Handwriting or other tools available) characters without needing to know how to pronounce them at all.

With shape-based typing, you'd also get more accurate hits in the first few 漢字/汉字 that show up, versus sound-based methods like Pinyin where for e.g., typing out “wan” will get you a whole list under the same sound and you may have to scroll through a whole lot to get the exact “wan” you need.

You can also type both Traditional and Simplified characters without having to toggle something or switch keyboards.

So how does one begin learning Cāngjié?

Install a Cāngjié keyboard.

Duh…but of course! Heh! Gboard offers one, banded under Cantonese language input (Android user here, don't know about iPhones, sorry).

There are two versions of Cāngjié that are prevalent currently. Cāngjié 3 and Cāngjié 5. Cāngjié 5 is supposed to be an improvement over version 3 but I don't find there's much; having a slightly altered version just adds to the confusion and unnecessarily complicates matters, in fact!

If you have a choice, I'd recommend selecting Cāngjié 3 as that is more supported. Some operating systems may not be too compatible with Cāngjié 5 still, for some strange reason.

You may also come across something called “Quick” (速成) aka, “Simplified Cāngjié”.

This is simply a scaled down version of Cāngjié, it's still based on Cāngjié's formula. So you still need to know how Cāngjié works in order to use “Quick” efficiently.

You'd then need a chart like this. ↓

* the 重 (Z) key doesn't really come into use. I don't really know what it's for, but it seems to be used (paired with other keystrokes) mainly to type out various punctuation marks.

There are variants out there, some having a little more, or less, radicals shown than in the above example, but I'll say the chart here is one of the more comprehensive ones I've found so far (and sufficient enough) — other charts often fail to highlight the 難 (X) key and what it corresponds to.

You don't have to memorize the chart all at once. Just always have a chart like this on hand to refer to and with enough typing practise, you'll eventually remember which key corresponds with which radicals.

Remember the rules. ↓

“1 part” character (e.g. 寫) = first 3 & last (radical).

“2 parts” character (e.g. 唔龍) = first & last, first 2 & last.

“3 parts” character (e.g. 難) = first & last, first & last, last.

e.g. 寫 ↓

With radicals 宀，丿，臼 (first 3) and 灬 (last).

Corresponding keys: 十，竹，難 and 火。

寫 → 写 ↓

With radicals 冖，卜，㇆ (first 3)，一 (last).

Corresponding keys：月，卜，尸 and 一。

e.g. 龍 ↓

With radicals 亠，月 (first & last), 卜，コ (first 2)，ヒ (last).

Corresponding keys: 卜，月，卜，尸，and 心。

龍 → 龙 ↓ (Simplified 龍 → 龙，a “1 part” character)

With radicals 丶，ナ，ヒ (first 3).

Corresponding keys: 戈，大，and 心。

e.g. 難 ↓

With radicals 廿，人 (first & last)，亻(first & last)，土 (last).

Corresponding keys: 廿，人，人 and 土。

難 → 难 ↓

With radicals ヌ (first & last)，亻(first & last)，土 (last).

Corresponding keys: 水，人，and 土。

Occasionally, you may get a character that looks like a “2 parts” but is actually a “3 parts”. ↓

e.g. 唔 ↓

With radicals 口 (first & last)，一，一 (first & last)，口 (last).

Corresponding keys: 口，一，一 and 口。

Or looks like a “1 part” but really a “3 parts”. ↓

e.g. 奪 ↓

With radicals 大 (first & last)，亻，土 (first & last)，丶 (last).

Corresponding keys: 大，人，土，and 戈。

奪 → 夺 ↓(Simplified 奪 → 夺，a “1 part” character)

With radicals 大，寸 (first 3; the 丶 is the 3rd component).

Corresponding keys: 大，木，and 戈。

But these are exceptions, and don't occur that often.

And you can start practising!

You can try out this pretty good app called 『五色學倉頡』 (learning Cāngjié with 5 colours), for practise. It's on Playstore, just search for “Cangjie Dictionary” and it should show up.

You have to pay to unlock higher levels, unfortunately. ↓

Anyway, each character comes with colour coded hints and you can opt to turn them off if you like more of a challenge. There are also hints (提示) and the chart (字根表) to refer to if you're really stuck. Also has a dictionary component (查字典) to check out the Cāngjié input for characters.

Another option would be a website called HKCards. ↓

You can use it to check the Cāngjié input for any 漢字/汉字, and there's section for practise (倉頡輸入法練習) as well. After inputting your answer with Cāngjié keys (手田水口廿卜), you can click on the “Answer” (答案) button to see how right or wrong your answers were. ↓

There are 8 characters each time, and you can just hit “Practise Again” (再做練習) to refresh for another 8 to practise with. I've yet to hit a limit.

Unfortunately, this website has lots of ads popping up. And it only supports searching in Traditional characters (Cāngjié was initially catered more for Traditional).

Or you can just try practising randomly with a Cāngjié keyboard and check for mistakes with a Cāngjié dictionary (『五色學倉頡』 app's dictionary comes in really useful here — it appears to support searching in Simplified too).

TL;DR

Cāngjié could be useful (and fun) to know if your 漢字/汉字 knowledge is already adequate, and/or you just like a new challenge.

And if watching videos is more your thing, here's a really helpful YouTube tutorial on how to use Cāngjié (has English subs)!

[beatlesbookblog]

This Boy: The Early Lives of John Lennon & Paul McCartney by Ilene Cooper

(welcome to the very first book review!!)

So, I read this book on the infamous anniversary of John and Paul's meeting a few months ago, and it was a simple and quick read for the most part. I was going to review this book hard because of its simplicity (which ultimately is not bad, it just depends on the book). However, I soon realized this book is meant for a more younger audience, so I'll cut it some slack.

Cooper is generally known for her children's books, so perhaps I wasn't the target audience for a book such as this (I found this as an ebook on my library website so I had no idea it was a YA historical book). Though, there were some aspects to this book I liked, genuinely.

I think this book did detail a lot about John and Paul that younger/newer fans may not know about. Though, I did notice there to be 2-3 chapters dedicated to John's childhood versus the 1-2 chapters about Paul. This obviously could be because of John's more troubled childhood versus Paul's, but I did find the John chapters to be more detailed than Paul's. I wouldn't say the author had more of a bias towards John, but I would have liked more of an equal amount of prose for both of them. It would have properly illustrated the equality amongst John + Paul's writing partnership once their friendship is established.

Another thing I really liked about this book was the introduction of the Quarrymen and more insight into them. Though, again, this book is generally geared towards a younger audience so there aren't insane amounts of detail you'd find in a proper historical book about the early Beatle days. Though, I think introducing the other Quarrymen members to the John + Paul story is a nice touch to this book. I tend to notice some Beatle authors sort of brush off the Quarrymen members to the side of the story, so this was nice to see in a newer book.

Is this book adding anything to the John + Paul story? No. Not really. If you're looking for an introduction to John and Paul as a newer or younger fan, I would recommend this book. It gives the basic history of John and Paul's early lives, their meeting, and the beginnings of their partnership. The book stops before the band goes off the Hamburg, giving the book a sort of "Nowhere Boy"-esque storytelling, which might be appealing to some people. Personally, I think it leaves too much out. Overall, I do think Cooper does a good job in telling the story of John and Paul to a younger audience, though I would have liked more detail. Then again, I'm not the target audience for this book so 🤷

------

Rating ⭐: I'd rate this book about a 6.5/10 given it's a basic introductory book, and that it's fairly factual.

Further Reading 📖: Though, if you are looking for a more detailed, thorough book of John and Paul's meeting, I would recommend The Day John Met Paul by Jim O'Donnell.

[blueberry-lemon]

I hesitate to post this because I know it reads like an ungrateful humblebrag, but...it's funny how when I work on creative projects, I always want a little bit more creative control.

And yet on A Dance of Fire and Ice, a game in which I've been given nearly limitless creative control on the art, characters, lore, story, and presentation (AND has an audience of players who like it)... I don't know what to do and haven't been able to make firm decisions.

There's a few reasons for this I think:

1. I started work on it as a month-long game jam way back in 2015, with limited skills and scrambling to pick what the art direction and theme should be before the deadline.

2. I didn't really understand until now what the structure, format, expectations, and constraints were. I envisioned the game more as an experimental, off-kilter artsy thing. I had intended to give every level a "surreal punchline" kind of like WarioWare. But over time we gave up on that.

I also originally intended the game to not have characters, not have anything resembling character animation or life in it, essentially being a dead and static world. But now I'm trying to undo those old decisions bc it is boring and stale.

If I were working on a visual novel, or card game, or 2D platformer, or TV episode storyboard, I would understand easily what the format and expectations are. There's already an established structure for what those things are. Rhythm game about 2 orbiting circles? A little more open.

If I had known how many years we were going to keep working on the game, I would've set up a guiding pattern for how to create more levels and characters for it. Instead, I only thought of something a few years into the game being out (using Chinese Zodiac animals as the theme.)

3. Because development on the game has been out in the public for about 10 years now, we've changed our mind about a lot of old decisions and now it will take a considerable amount of effort for me to go back and re-do, re-draw, re-establish the art direction and lore.

If you’re unfamiliar with the game, compare this video of a level I worked on in 2015 versus this video of a level I worked on in 2023. 

In the first video, the appearance of a memorial statue of a pig sitting on the throne at the end was supposed to be the “surreal punchline.” The level looks like the ruins of some sort of Jack and the Beanstalk sky kingdom, you’re expected to see maybe a Giant or a human at the end, instead the king was literally a pig.

In the second video you can see that by this time we’ve changed course and decided that all the characters in the game will be animals and robot animals anyway. Now the cast of animals is literally “on the game’s box art.” So there’s no reason for the reveal of a pig statue to be a punchline in the old level.

Also, as you can see, there are now characters that move around the screen, which was something I didn’t intend to do when making the old levels and establishing the “lore” of the worlds all being dead and static.

4. I'm envious of (but happy to see) fan work. Ordinarily this would just be fanart and fan speculation, but because our games have Custom Level Editors, fans can literally "do the job better than I can" and show how they would do it, which have been impressive. I regret the old choices I made.

Maybe it's just a "grass is greener" kind of mentality. It's easy to want more creative control on projects where you don't have it. When you are given a big project and you DO have to make it all up from scratch, you kind of find yourself wishing there was a template or a directive or the path could be laid out for you.

[buckybarnesss]

If Cora was Stiles' age, wouldn't she have been in his grade before the fire? He knew of Derek and the Hale family but it just seems like Cora was written in last minute.

on this episode of heather versus the teen wolf timeline: cora hale.

here is what the timeline establishes:

all of season 1-3B takes place in 2011.

the hale fire was six years prior to the start of wolf moon. stiles is speaking hyperbolically when he says it was 10 years ago. we know it was six from what derek tells scott in magic bullet.

derek: six years ago, my sister and I were at school, and our house caught fire.

it's established that cora was 11 at the time of the hale fire in 2005. this comes from frayed during her and peter's conversation.

cora:  you've known me for seventeen years! peter: i knew you for eleven, leaving the last six unaccounted for. and i'm not particularly fond of things unaccounted.

she's 17 in visionary.

visionary takes place during the fall 2011 semester of the main pack's junior year.

in comparison to the others:

allison turned 17 in the tell which takes place at the end of january 2011. allison says she was held back due to all the moving around. she's the oldest in their cohort.

lydia turned 17 on march 19th in party guessed during season 2 on the worm moon. we know it was her 17th birthday due to the conversation lydia and natalie have about lorraine's ashes in time of death in season 4 which takes place during the spring semester 2012 of lydia's junior year.

natalie: because she wanted you to do it... when you turned eighteen. don't ask me why. but, since there's only a few weeks 'til that, i suppose now is as good a time as any.

stiles would've turned 17 in april according to his official birthday of april 8th.

scott didn't turn 17 until september as is official birthday is september 16th.

malia turned 17 on november 28th making her the youngest of their cohort.

other odds and ends:

theo was in the fourth grade with stiles and scott making him their age. his birthdate is incorrectly listed as 1998.

jackson was born june 5th so he turned 17 between seasons 2 and 3A.

malia was 9 years old at the time of the car accident that killed her mother and sister which puts it in 2003. 2 years before the hale fire.

now while we can acknowledge the real reasons why cora's timeline is so shaky is because they winged a lot of it but what's the fun in that? here on buckybarness dot tumblr dot com we do teen wolf academia.

now one does wonder how scott, stiles, lydia and isaac didn't know cora but there could be viable reasons for that.

i discovered that the law changed in california in 2000 to raise the kindergarten enrollment age to 5 years old by september 1st. prior to this if a child turned 5 on or before december 2nd they could enroll.

they all would've started kindergarten in 1999.

this might be why scott and malia are in the same school year as lydia and stiles rather than being in the year behind.

if they'd had the foresight they should've had allison turn 18 in season 1 and have her a legitimate full year older than the rest because like she's only 3 months older than lydia so it seems a bit odd she's so embarrassed by turning 17 when she has a birthday so close to lydia and stiles. for someone turning 18 and being a sophomore due to being held back? that'd be embarrassing to someone in the american school system.

now cora could've been born in late 1993 to early-mid 1994. she could've been a grade ahead if she was closer in age to allison than to scott. i do strongly suspect that talia and corrine had overlapping pregnancies and being pregnant at the time is one of the reasons talia coerced corrine into keeping her pregnancy with malia.

the tates could've had malia start school later than the rest because she would've been 4 at the start of the year rather than 5 even if the law at the time allowed it. she just joined the rest as juniors when she returned to society because it made sense to keep her with the friends she'd made and she was 17.

if cora was in the grade above she could've been in middle school while the others were still in elementary school or maybe both malia and cora attended different schools due to zoning.

maybe they were homeschooled.

we'll never really know but it's interesting to think about.

[meg2md]

Finished Volume 41 of Berserk, the last of Miura's work before he died, and I am unwell. I can't believe I didn't know about this series before recently!!!! I'm wrecked. It got me through the first three weeks of this night block, but I'm not sure how I'm supposed to survive the last week when I'll just be perseverating on the unfinished story :(

I still have work I need to do (M&M, AROM/FSE demos, surgical skills session paperwork) but I'm just not motivated.... All I want to do is re-read Berserk, go to the gym, and roleplay Guts and Casca fucking shit up in various video games :') at least I have this weekend off, because I've worked essentially three weeks straight and I'm tired

I got my first pull-up back at the end of August but haven't been able to progress past 1-2 with "ok" form and we're mid-way through October. I pulled the trigger on a pull-up bar and am going to try and focus my gym workouts on training specific muscles used for pull-ups but not unassisted pull-ups themselves, since I think too much of my limited gym time is wasted spinning my wheels with possibly questionable form when I could just do them at home when I have a spare second. I feasibly can only make it to the gym twice per week. There's just isn't enough time in residency to get all my extracurricular work done, clean my apartment, and enjoy life/hobbies/friends if I do any more than that. Which is sad. It's like, what's the point of life? Will I look back in 10, 20 years and actually be happy with everything I've accomplished? I don't think the answer is necessarily "yes" right now because I'm lonely and overworked and not sure what the point of anything is (lol I'm doing gr8) but that's another discussion. The only thing I know is that my physique/fitness/athleticism is one of the only things even remotely in my control, even if it still feels mostly out of my control due to residency constraints (poor eating habits, no time)

And yet we struggle on (gatsu <3)

I lost my 24/7 keycard to my gym so I'm going to hit the nursing school "gym" when I get off in the morning, plan for a "pull-up supplement" routine as follows:

Elliptical warm-up x10 min

Should rolls with bar, straight arm for warm-up

Inverted rows (with rings if able, otherwise barbell)

Bench press

Seated cable row

Superset tricep dips/t-arm raise

Superset dumbbell pull-overs/y-arm raise

Straight-arm Pushdown

Wide-grip scapula pull-ups

Dead hang

Ab exercise/hollow body rocks

General things to focus on for pull-ups:

External arm rotation for scapular activation, chest up;

Generate push-up/pull-up/bench press from muscles between shoulder blades; don't pull from hands - imagine arm is upper jaw, side is lower jaw and "biting down" to close versus "pulling up" (drive from your lats)!;

Body curls - bring legs up to bar

Target wide grip because it's my weakness, can focus on lats and small shoulder blade muscles

Practice hard movements, assisted if needed, to develop neuromuscular patterns - don't break form!! Stay within ROM with good form!! High rep/volume these movements

Focus on shoulders AWAY from neck for pull-ups and push-ups; engage back

[dreamsinombre]

Days 4-6 of Tour de Fleece:

Day Four (tuesday july 2)–

Washed all the corriedale skeins from the first few days and continued working through the cheviot!

Background entertainment: The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance

Day Five (wednesday july 3)—

Finished up the rest of the cheviot! About 14oz worth. I stepped outside my comfort zone and spun these all on the middle whorl of my lendrum dt, with a ratio of 8:1, versus the largest whorl at 6:1. Really pleased with improving on spinning finer singles and improving on consistency! I finished these up right before we had a get-together for a friend's birthday, so I didn't do much else with this.

Background Entertainment: The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance

Day Six (thursday july 5)—

Chain-plied one of the cheviot bobbins! Turned out to be ~118 yards, pre-washing. A friend fell absolutely in love with the cheviot as I shared process pics, and also adores singles, so I'm gonna be crossing my fingers and seeing if I spun the remaining 3 bobbins balanced enough (I was checking often!) for them to be usable singles for her.

But. Still a heavier gauge than I was hoping for, though I need to figure out the wpi for this (and the corriedale) for a better insight into where it falls. So, I watched a video that explained the difference between whorl ratios and what that means for yarns, and then made the decision to spin the 14oz of bfl I have on the smallest whorl, at 10:1. Incredibly fine so far in single form! Still working on consistency, though, but that's also slowly improving, too! I fell out of rhythm for this at one point, and it felt like it kept on severely overtwisting, so we'll see what happens to that with plying.

Background Entertainment: The Making of The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance

[dgrailwar]

Round 2, Day 2 - MOONCANCER vs. AVENGER

"…The delivery guy was supposed to be here by now. I really don't wanna go outside and check… the outside world is dangerous… but I guess I'll have to give it my pico-best. So, one glance! Then we return to our hiding place, and never leave again. Zero social interaction, zero eye contact, zero conversation-- alright, let's go!"

She stepped outside, climbing up the basement steps and emerging in an alleyway. She looked around, before catching sight of someone. She pointed.

"Ohh, look… a handsome guy. He'd totally fit into an otome game… Forget it, I'm way outta his league, and you guys are too if you're hanging with a NEET. He probably wouldn't even notice--"

A moment passed, as the 'handsome man' in the alleyway caught sight of the MoonCancer… and smiled.

"Eh? Eh, eh, eeeeh? Wait a second-- look! He's approaching? He's smiling at me? Is it finally happening? My 'meet cute' romance flag?"

He was approaching. Slowly and carefully, as they locked eyes. They could both feel the mana in the air, dense and terrifying. Divinity clashing against something far darker.

"…An enemy Servant." The Avenger said, carefully. "And one of great magical power, I can feel it. As expected of an Extra-Class!"

"Geh-- Great magical power? M-M-Me?! Wait--!" You could see the color drain from the MoonCancer's face, as she slowly began to back up. "L-L-Listen, I'm really just hanging out-- I'm practically a civilian! I'm barely even a S-Servant! Can't you cut me some slack?"

"…No."

He drew a blade. A sword, roiling with bitter flames, as he pointed it towards her.

"Servant of the Holy Grail War. My Masters have given me the order to kill you, mademoiselle… and therefore, you will witness hell."

"See?! This is why going outside is dangerous! Every flag is a red flaaaaag!"

Ganesha: +7%

The Count of Monte Cristo: +4%

Both Ganesha and the Count gain a +1% boost due to their Defensive choices in the previous round!

Servant Skills:

Ganesha (MoonCancer)

Ganesha's defensive play was interrupted! Her skill boosts will reset next round!

Vinayaka (EX Rank): When 'Playing Defensively' gain a +5% bonus to scores, and you cannot be caught off guard. If you are unbothered, then this increases by 1% each time you are not attacked, resetting back to 5% once you're engaged in combat. However, this negates the inherent MoonCancer trait of ‘being unable to be targeted while Playing Defensively’. (Current boost: +6%)

Broken Tusk (B Rank): When engaged in a 1-on-1 confrontation (while not Playing Defensively), gain a +3% boost. Additionally, apply the MoonCancer Class Trait of 'not taking damage if there's a 3% difference in scores' to 1-on-1 battles as well. If Ganesha has been ‘Playing Defensively’ uninterrupted for 3 or more turns (in a row), when she goes on the offense, her attack bonus increases from 3% to 6% for that specific round. (Current defensive turn count: 1)

MOONCANCER-CLASS Servants are experts in manipulating the world and environment to take advantage. They cannot be targeted while 'Playing Defensively'. Additionally, when engaged in a Free-for-All, they gain a +3% boost, and if they score last place and there's at least a 3% difference in their score and 2nd place, they may avoid damage.

The Count of Monte Cristo (Avenger)

Determination of Steel (EX Rank): If Avenger is about to take a fatal wound, if there's at least a 3% difference in their score and the victor above him, he may avoid damage. When facing a single-target (1-on-1), he will gain a +3% boost.

Monte Cristo Mythologie: The King of the Cavern (C Rank): When battling enemies, his flames are like a poison. He reduces demerits against him by 3%, and when he is victorious against another, he inflicts a -2% demerit for their next round. This demerit increases by 2% by every 10% difference in scores.

AVENGER-CLASS Servants are vengeful by nature. The first time they are defeated by a Servant, they gain an automatic +2% bonus against that specific Servant, without needing to study them (but can in order to increase the bonus). They gain a permanent +3% bonus per wound they attain that will remain if the wound remains, but will disappear if the wound is healed.

[callmearcturus]

20 Questions for Fic Writers

tagged by @lo-fi-charming

1. How many works do you have on AO3? 82, 83 if you include the one I wish I hadn't orphaned.

2. What’s your total Ao3 word count? 2,721,477 words

3. What fandoms do you write for? Oh boy. Homestuck, The Magnus Archives, Mission Impossible, Borderlands, Welcome to Night Vale. Some one-offs in other fandoms. First really cut my teeth on The Dresden Files.

4. What are your top five fics by kudos? Let's seeeee.

dustsceawung (The Magnus Archives) with 4,600 kudos

a steady hand, a delicate man (The Magnus Archives) with 3,316 kudos

dripping with alchemy (Borderlands) with 2,663 kudos

The Eurydice Suite (Homestuck) with 2,164 kudos

I'll bring the motion (The Magnus Archives) with 2,163 kudos

5. Do you respond to comments? When I have something fun or interesting to say, yeah. I don't wanna just say "thanks!" on every comment so I tend to try to repay the comment with a tidbit or something?

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? Hmmm. See I'm a Happy Ending Guaranteed kind of writer so I don't know. Maybe we float before the sea at dusk because it's technically a bad end?

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? GOD that's hard... I think maybe all the world is earth and water or the Five Years Later ending of The Eurydice Suite.

8. Do you get hate on fics? Not anymore. 8)

9. Do you write smut? what's smut never heard of her

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written? I'm going to choose to interpret this as "fusions" instead of "crossovers" and in that case I have written....

Homestuck/Inception (The Eurydice Suite), Homestuck/Kinda Sorta John Wick (so we don't kill the ones we love), Homestuck/Fallout New Vegas (out here the good girls die), and WTNV/Good Omens (all plans are golden in your hands)

Out of those, I think the New Vegas one is the most out-of-left-field.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? By now, at least 10 times that I'm aware or.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? A few times, yep! Russian and Ukrainian I think.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before? BOY HAVE I.

14. What’s your all time favorite ship? I despise this question and if this question had a face, I would punch it. I assume this has to be a ship I have written since this is a writing questionnaire.

In my heart of hearts, it's Karkat and Kanaya. I enjoy their platonic love more than any romance pairing....

SEE THE PROBLEM WITH THIS QUESTION is that I... think for me personally, the pairing is a vehicle of the wider story/themes, so I can't say "Oh its DirkJake" because to me the KTOWL DirkJake is wildly different from, like, TES DirkJake.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? The barely-inspired-by-Hellboy AU that I should probably just write as an original story. But I won't because I'm a coward, lmao.

16. What are your writing strengths? Consistency and structure, I think. I'm a tradesperson, not an artist.

17. What are your writing weaknesses? I feel like I lack a lot of foundational material that other artists have due to my lack of education and just generally not knowing things. Like, the kind of works I personally admire and learn the most from, I lack the toolset to create myself, which is constantly frustrating.

Structure is sometimes a shackle, and I often feel like I can't execute something truly Artistic because to me, writing is a trade, not an art.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic? I do this sometimes and lemme tell you, every single fucking time I do, I rigorously check everything.

Like, I recently agonized over whether a character would use Verzeihung versus Entschuldigung in a fic, and that was a solid hour of research. Worth it tho!

I'm of the opinion that if you're just going to use google translate or something, then I would elect to write it as ["Excuse me," he said in overly-polite German as he passed], but that's me.

19. First fandom you wrote for? Uuuuuuuuh ppppppprobably Gundam Wing or something? Way back in the era when you could post smut on FF.Net.

20. Favorite fic you’ve written? Could it be anything other than KTOWL? Honestly.

I am taggingggggg @arquiving and @interropunct

[phoenixtakaramono]

Re: Where to Read the Four Butchlander Threadfics on Twitter & Status Update about Them

Whelp, guess what, everyone? Your girl’s Twitter account got shadowbanned for the first time. And pretty much the threadfics are inaccessible until the ban gets lifted. (Let’s hope everything’s back to normal soon. 😭)

The threadfics in question (M3GAN-inspired AU, Fix-It AU, and Sugar Baby AU are the long WIPs; the Vampire & Lycan Hunter AU is the only one complete):

And like I was somewhat expecting, with my account currently submerged in the ether (fingers crossed nothing’s affected and everything’s back to normal once I’m back so we can return to our regular schedule threadfic updates on Twitter), another person’s reached out to me about it:

The Asks in question:

These threadfics were always intended to exist on Twitter as the first draft prototypes where I can write spontaneously and see what works, what doesn’t, and make them reader-interactive so pretty much my readers influence important story decisions for whichever threadfic it is. Then if I were to migrate these threadfics over to AO3, the intention was always to flesh them out more and polish them up, maybe change a couple story elements so there’s a point of difference between what’s on AO3 versus what’s on my Twitter (as an analogy, think of an author’s original webnovel version they uploaded on their website versus the professional light novel version they’ve polished up for publication) to keep it fresh. This migration was supposed to happen after all four chapters of Truce are complete and the only Butchlander fic I have left on AO3 that would still be ongoing would be The Name of the Game, which frees up my workload.

So currently, where we are right now, I am seriously considering moving up the schedule if, after 1 week (10/29/23), my account on Twitter is still Shazamed. I have heard shadowbans range from 2-3 days, to 3-5 days where it’s best if I don’t use the app in this duration of time, before escalating to Twitter Support if it persists. Same goes if my account is restored and I still get shadowbanned in the future for updating any of these 3 long threadfics.

Because, at that point, I might as well just port them over to AO3 if this keeps happening and save myself the headache. But this will have to be tested out. If I see it is truly unsustainable due to Twitter’s current unfriendliness to 🔞 threadfics (😒 …it used to be an ultra friendly platform for such, till you showed up El0n Musk), then I’ll just stop writing 🔞 threadfics all together.

The one thing I will have to say, though, is being a very detail-oriented multi-fandom writer who’s trying to be fair by adhering to the update schedule, for any new content, updates will be slow. Unlike Twitter where I can churn out 25 tweets at a time per update, you’ll be looking at weeks or months per chapter update on AO3 since three of them will be turned into genuine long stories. Quicker updates depend on how much content already exist on Twitter to be adapted from before the time of migration! Let’s see how it goes! ✌️