#maybe two pages per week was too much after all tbh

[darklight-owl]

Hi hello welcome back to "Owl's eternal war on drawing backgrounds and scenery"-

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 311: Hand Gun

Previously on BnHA: Horikoshi was all “thinkin’ about dropping in some woke analogies of the very real and very presently relevant issue of racial profiling idk what do you guys think” and then shrugged and did it without waiting for an answer, and ngl it was a bit sudden, but I’m here for it. All Might was all “DEKU YOU NEED TO EAT” and Deku was all “OKAY” and took his hero bento and went to go stand dramatically on a tower in the rain whilst having some highly anticipated Vestige flashbacks. OFA II was all, “sup, I guess I’m not Kacchan... OR AM I,” and ngl I think he is?? Alternate universes anybody?? Hello??? But anyway, so OFA the First a.k.a. Yoichi was all “remember that time you guys rescued me from my evil brother and Two took my hand and we Had A Moment?”, and Two and Three were all “ahh yeah good times”, and it was very nice and very, very gay. The chapter ended with it being very unclear if Two and Three have actually lent their power to Deku yet or not lmao. Y’all need to get your shit together dudes.

Today on BnHA: Horikoshi is all “what if I gave a random bad guy a fucking tommy gun that shoots nails” and jesus christ calm down son. The Hawksquad, a.k.a. SQUAWK as per @hotchocolatier​, are all “time to drive aimlessly around town acting like Deku has a restraining order on us because that’s literally the best plan to combat the League we could come up with,” and I have no further comment. Hawks is all “idk about you guys but I want to know more about AFO and Tomura’s whole deal” and I can’t remember the last time I identified so strongly with one of these characters. All Might is all, “[EXPLODES???]”, and the chapter ends with that mysterious hot girl from the Tartarus breakout being all “HELLO I CAN TURN INTO A GUN AND I LITERALLY DON’T GIVE A FUCK” and (1) WOW, and (2) IT’S TRUE, SHE CAN, AND SHE REALLY DOESN’T. GODDAMN.

(ETA: so this wholly escaped my notice on the first go, and also has nothing to do with the chapter itself, but I only just realized that this chapter was scanlated by a new group, TCB Scans. they actually did a very good job, and I’m curious if they’ve found a new RAW provider, because the quality this week is actually crazy good in comparison to what we’ve been dealing with for the past few months. I’m gonna have to get caught up on what exactly happened here lol.)

so what will it be this week? more Vestige antics? more of Sad Nomad Deku standing on buildings and pretending like he’s some cool aloof antihero, as if he could fool us when we all know his hero backpack is secretly stuffed full with his nerd diaries and the remnants of all the hero bentos that All Might keeps giving him?? or, just putting it out there, just a crazy thought, but you don’t suppose we might actually cut back to U.A.? mmm. side-eyes emoji

maaaaaan I’m starting to get tired of this trend of beginning chapters by dropping in on random power-tripping civilians and/or Shindou lol. just once can we get a chapter that opens with someone I actually give a fuck about

oh at least Endeavor is here

A WHAT SUPPORT ITEM!??! HOLY SHIT DDLKJSLFKJL

lol somehow that’s more terrifying than bullets for me?? like I’m fully aware that bullets will fuck you up way worse and that in real life nail guns probably don’t work like this AT ALL and only have a range of like... hold up let me just google... up to 100 to 150 m/s and distances of up to 500m wait WHAT

okay wait. hold up. like I was expecting google to tell me nail guns only shoot a few feet at most, and instead the first search result is some CDC blog article that’s “dispelling” the “””myth””” -- please note my repeated sarcastic quotation marks -- that nail guns can fire 1400 feet per second, by explaining that actually they can fire anywhere from 315 ft/sec to 1,295 ft/sec, and that “it is in the pneumatic nail gun user’s best interest to handle these tools as if they were a firearm despite having a lower velocity” dlkjdslkjflkl

SO THAT SCENE IN IRON MAN 3 WHERE TONY RAIDS A HOME DEPOT AND BUYS A BUNCH OF RANDOM TOOLS AND SHIT AND GOES ON TO STAGE A ONE-MAN INVASION OF AN INTERNATIONAL TERRORIST’S FLORIDA MANSION HQ IS ACTUALLY TRUE. YOU’RE TELLING ME THAT THE FILM “HOME ALONE” IS ACTUALLY A DOCUMENTARY. “the Discovery Channel television program “Mythbusters” compared the penetration capacity of an airborne projectile shot from a pneumatic framing nail gun to that of a 9mm hand gun” HELLO YES AND A MERRY “WHAT THE FUCK” TO YOU AS WELL

anyway, so. there’s apparently a reason why the Number One hero, who can burn people with the intensity of a sun going supernova, is hiding here behind this concrete support column making frowny faces. nope. nuh uh. he ain’t about that. I don’t blame you buddy

so now he’s barrel rolling out of his hiding place and setting this dude THE FUCK ON FIRE because HELL NO. BAD ENOUGH I HAD TO WATCH THAT FUCKING MUSHROOM EPISODE LAST WEEK! YOU TAKE THAT SHIT SOMEWHERE ELSE

LOL look at his face

I know the context is actually him being all “I know I’m responsible for basically everything that happened and so that’s why I’m so grim and serious about this mission to set things right piece by piece,” but in my mind this pissed-off face is 100% all because this dude tried to shoot his eye out with a nail gun. look at that. you made him go full flame face again. beard and all. protecting his face so that it can hopefully melt any stray nails that get too close. nope nope nope

good lord. so what’s up next. let me guess the guy fighting Best Jeanist has like an atomic chainsaw or some shit

lol nope we’re just cutting back to Hawks and Jeanist chilling in the Jesla after they’ve wrapped things up

Jeanist has got some serious Groot energy you guys jesus christ he’s like 12 feet tall

oh snap someone threw a pipe at him now

today is just the chapter of Endeavor being assaulted by random DIY tools I guess

I mean, I get why they’re pissed at him obviously; I would be too lol. but tbh I also don’t really understand the “get out of here we don’t want your help” attitude that all of these people suddenly seem to have?? like it if were me, I would be fucking DEMANDING for him and the other heroes to be working round the clock to fix their stupid mess. I mean who else is gonna do it?? it’s their mess, I sure don’t want to be the one to clean it up instead. anyways but whatever lol

oh shit?

so they haven’t dropped the whole “OFA secret potentially gets revealed to the world” thing yet after all. that makes sense I suppose, it did seem like that whole thing wound up playing out a bit too easily

anyway so yeah

the locals are definitely none too happy. well at least Dabi’s got something to be cheerful about I guess

so now we’re cutting to the interior of the Jesla and they’re chitchatting about the current investigation

oh wow this actually makes a bit of sense now. so there was a reason they were keeping their distance from Deku

please note that even in this abstract Endeavor’s-Mental-Image-Of-Him panel, Deku’s eyes still don’t have the light in them anymore :( my poor son

also ftr I still think using Deku as bait in this particular sense is the shittiest idea ever ngl. like sure, let’s let the sixteen-year-old run around battling miscellaneous escaped prison convicts while we stay several kilometers away ON PURPOSE despite the fact that you’re using him as bait to draw out the Big Bad, who just a reminder can destroy anything with a mere touch and who you were all basically helpless against. what exactly are you all planning to do if Tomura or one of the other League VIPs actually shows up to retrieve him?? are you even keeping tabs on him at all in real time?? jesus

(ETA: well that escalated quickly lol.)

Horikoshi is all of a sudden dropping whole pages of exposition here and I can’t be bothered to summarize this lol so just,

a big fat YES to what Jeanist said, though. that’s why imo they would have been better off laying a trap at U.A. rather than just wandering around out in the open. I assume they’re trying to cut their potential losses because U.A. is full of students (and civilians), but those students also happen to be more capable than pretty much anyone else in the manga at this point. and tbh they’re already in life-threatening danger regardless of how things play out from here on, so they might as well at least try to use the few advantages they have right now. U.A. is almost certainly going to come under siege at some point anyway, so they might as well prepare for it

lol I don’t think I’m explaining this very well because I don’t have the patience right now to break it down point by point like it really ought to be, so for now I’ll just say that imo “U.A. siege” stands a good chance of being the eventual endgame even now, and so this whole “Deku runs around being bait” arc is really just killing time until then lol. like and subscribe for more rambling nonsensical takes such as this. maybe next time I’ll even put it all into one single sentence for maximum meandering senior citizen rant value

well it’s nice that they’re finally talking about all of this I guess

we readers have known all of this for months now but this confirms the heroes are finally caught up. ALSO, Hawks is so fucking smart, as always. kinda wonder if things would have played out differently if All Might had let him in on the secret a bit earlier. probably that’s why Horikoshi made damn sure they didn’t find out until after the War arc lol

OH MY GOD YOOOOOO HAWKS OUT HERE ASKING THE REAL QUESTIONS

“anyone else wondering why AFO bothered to raise Tomura as his fake heir for fifteen years when he was secretly planning on taking over his body the whole time” YES, [raises hand] lmao Hawks where the hell were you when I was debating this “AFO is the final villain and Tomura is just his pawn” thing on multiple occasions over the past several years lol

lmao seeing them debate the metaphysics of OFA and all of its mystical bullshit is seriously surreal you guys

JEANIST HAVE YOU CHECKED OUT MY META TAG I HAVE WRITTEN SO MANY ESSAYS. I ACTUALLY WAS PLANNING ON WRITING ANOTHER ESSAY ABOUT THE THING THAT I’M PRETTY SURE HAWKS IS ABOUT TO BRING UP, BUT I NEVER GOT AROUND TO IT WHOOPS, BUT MAYBE I WILL NOW LOL LET’S SEE HOW IT GOES

yes!!

WHICH AFO FUCKING ENSURED HE WOULD BE BY LITERALLY PLANNING OUT EVERY LAST DETAIL OF HIS FAMILY TRAGEDY, FROM SECRETLY GIVING TENKO THE QUIRK TO MAKING SURE NO CIVILIANS OR HEROES WOULD HELP HIM UNTIL AFO FINALLY STEPPED IN. I’M 1000% CONVINCED THIS IS THE CASE YOU GUYS. NOT JUST BECAUSE I’M NOT A FAN OF “THE WORLD IS A FUNDAMENTALLY SHITTY PLACE, ACTUALLY” TAKES BECAUSE MISTER ROGERS TOLD ME TO ALWAYS LOOK FOR THE HELPERS, BUT ALSO BECAUSE IT LITERALLY JUST DOESN’T MAKE A LICK OF SENSE OTHERWISE. THEIR ENTIRE HOUSE CAVED IN FFS, YOU’RE TELLING ME NONE OF THE NEIGHBORS FUCKING OVERHEARD THAT SHIT AND WENT “UMMMMMMMMM” AND WENT TO SEE WHAT WAS GOING ON?? “DIDN’T THERE USED TO BE A HOUSE HERE, AND LIKE A WHOLE FAMILY, AND SHIT?”

LIKE I’M SORRY, BUT IT’S ONE THING TO SAY IT’S REALISTIC THAT NOT A SINGLE PERSON WOULD ATTEMPT TO HELP THE WANDERING TRAUMATIZED CHILD AFTERWARDS (WHICH I DISAGREE WITH AS WELL BUT AT LEAST THAT’S MORE SUBJECTIVE), AND IT’S A WHOLE OTHER THING TO ARGUE THAT IT’S REALISTIC THAT NO ONE WOULD BE FUCKING NOSY. LIKE THAT’S A WHOLE DIFFERENT LEVEL OF “THAT’S NOT HOW ANY OF THIS WORKS” ENTIRELY LOL. anyway tl;dr AFO is a piece of shit and Tomura’s entire worldview is based on a magnificently intricate and savagely cruel lie more at 11

anyway so after all that ranting it looks like that wasn’t even what Hawks was talking about after all lol. I just went off for absolutely no reason lol oh well. instead it seems that Hawks is suggesting that Tomura’s carefully cultivated hatred might not yet have actually reached “can defeat OFA” levels even after all of that trauma. interesting!

don’t mind me, I’m just sitting here while my brain furiously scrambles to put together all the parallels between Hawks and Tomura that it never noticed before until exactly this second. like I’m not even sure that was the intent here at all (I need to check out another translation or two lol), but regardless my mind decided that now would be the perfect time to make the connection between these two twenty-somethings who both had horrific childhoods and spent years being molded by their respective manipulative guardians, and developed eerily similar “laugh at everything because what else can you do” coping mechanisms to deal with it all hmmmmm

anyway so they were talking more about their strategy, but now all of a sudden Jeanist’s phone is beeping??

AND NOW WE’RE CUTTING AWAY TO ALL MIGHT AND HIS MIGHTMOBILE DAMMIT so that means the call to Jeanist was actually something important then!! WAS IT BAKUGOU OMG. DOES YOUR INTERN WANT A WORD FFFKLFSJK please it’s been so long I just need a little crumb or two to tide me over lmao have mercy

anyway so All Might’s following the GPS tracking device he’s apparently got planted on Deku (which in my conspiracy headcanons he’s actually had for a long time now, like since before DvK2 lol because HOW ELSE WOULD HAVE HAVE KNOWN THAT THEY WERE FIGHTING EACH OTHER IN GROUND BETA, PEOPLE) and thinking angsty thoughts about Deku’s sucky life

AND NOW ALL MIGHT’S PHONE IS RINGING TOO?? BAKUGOU HOW MANY PEOPLE ARE YOU CALLING. “WHERE ARE YOU HIDING THE NERD GODDAMMIT”

OMG

lol is he under attack or is he just finally giving All Might the slip like we all know he SECRETLY PLANNED TO ALL ALONG oh my poor dumb angstmuffin

OMG AHHHHHHH WHAT

DID ALL MIGHT JUST FUCKING DIE LMAO NO OF COURSE NOT, BUT WHAT

WHAT IS HAPPENING OMG

THE FUCK IS THAT. AT LEAST IT’S NOT A NAIL

OH IT’S A SPEAKER!! OMG DID THEY TAKE ALL MIGHT HOSTAGE

“THEY’RE HERE” WELP, TIME TO SEE JUST HOW SHITTY THIS SHITTY PLAN REALLY IS LOL

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

SHE!!!!

omg. AND OVERHAUL JUST CHILLING THERE IN THE BACKGROUND ALL “WHAT DO YOU EVEN WANT ME TO DO I’VE GOT NO FUCKING ARMS” YEAH GOOD RIDDANCE LOL

DOES THIS GIRL HAVE ONE GIANT LEG OR WHAT, LIKE WHAT’S THE DEAL HERE

-- HOLD UP WAIT, THE GUN IS HER ARM, HOLY SHIT SHE CAN TURN INTO A GUN -- OKAY HOLD UP BECAUSE I NEED TO SAY THAT IN BIGGER TEXT BECAUSE !!!!

YOU GUYS, THE COOL TARTARUS GIRL IS BACK AND HER QUIRK IS “CAN TURN INTO A FUCKING GUN.” THIS IS NOT A DRILL!! MY BEST GIRL MT. GUN IS FINALLY BACK ON THE SCENE WITH HER QUIRK “CAN DO ANYTHING A GUN CAN DO.” “I HEARD Y’ALL WENT AND NAMED ONE OF YOUR HEROES ‘GUNHEAD’ EVEN THOUGH HIS HEAD ISN’T EVEN A GUN, LIKE WTF IS UP WITH THAT LET ME SHOW YOU HOW IT’S DONE” DANG OKAY

lmao only fifteen pages this week, and STILL NO KACCHAN (THEN WHO WAS PHONE!!!), but man I don’t even care because finally we’ve got a cliffhanger that’s actually deserving of being a cliffhanger! hot dog. okay then

[shadowdianne]

Fic writer review [Or a fic writer tag game if you prefer]

I was tagged by @naralanis and I can already see her grin all the way from where I am xd Thank you, dear, for the tag, let’s see what are my answers, shall we.

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

*bursts out laughing* Adding both pseuds I have… 535 according to the account info but by counting them all I’m reaching 541 so I’m guessing it’s counting some drafts I need to re-find.

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

I seriously hated you for this one xd I was going to do it by hand by I decided one-third there that I value my mental stability a little bit more xd according to the stats page back at a03 that number would be 1257884. It may be wrong. I think there should be a few more numbers up there but the majority of my works are one-shots so *shrugs* There’s also the fact that counting my ao3 things only is shaving off like half of it Xd Anyway, can we laugh at the fact that I’m a pain in the ass and that I’ve written a lot? More than I should have, that’s for sure

3. How many fandoms have you written for?

Trick question because I haven’t crossposted everything I wrote back in ffnet and I actually erased some fics from my account back there so the numbers are a little blurry there.

When I had the entirety of my work posted both in ffnet and a03 I had written for: Twilight (Bella/Alice) Glee (Faberry and there were a couple Pezberry and I don’t fucking remember the pairing name for Santana and Quinn), Harry Potter (Hermione/Ginny, Hermione/Narcissa, Hermione/Bellatrix) OUAT (SwanQueen and several oneshots focusing on the mad hatter and the blue fairy solely back at ffnet that were written in Spanish and never translated), I actually had a veeeery old au prompt of Frozen (Elsanna in where I wrote them as non sibilings), Rizzoli and Isles (Rizzles), Dishonored 2 (Emily Kaldwin/Alexi Mayhew), Lara Croft and Wonder Woman, Supergirl (SuperCorp/Supercat) I had a 100 one -or maybe two??- (Clexa), The Shannara Chronicles (Amberle/Eretreia [Or Princess Rover], Rwby [Blake Belladona/Yang], The Worst Witch (Hecate Hardbroom and Pippa Pentangle), The Half of it, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (Madam Satan/Zelda Spellman) and… I think that’s it(?) I may be forgetting some but probably nothing important if I’m not remembering it lol.

4. Top 5 fics by kudos?

Ah, we are going to go there, uh? Xd My works are not the kudos and comment getting type Xd So I was quite surprised when I went to check this.

1: Cracked it I wrote this one back in 2017, it was a prompt done by an anon: Lena is nerding with one of her projects at home, mumbling mostly to herself because she’s stuck and Kara casually mentions how to solve the problem like it’s nothing. I really had some fun with this. It was back when some us, SQeeners were fully doing the jump between OUAT and SuperGirl (I mean, there had already been some crossover as for fandom is related but this when the girls were actually getting their conjoined voice within the fandom)

2: Dateless I honestly needed to check what this one was about but I think I can see why this one shot has the amount of kudos it has. It’s a short and sweet idea and responds to the Teachers Au that went SO well with SQ. Everyone thinks they hate each other and try to set them up with other people whilst they, in truth, are dating. I don’t remember if I wrote them as married rather than dating but despite being from 2017 as well is one cheeky enough to be cool Xd I probably would edit some lines now *shudders*

3: After you I truly didn’t expect this one to be top 3. Makes me think of a lot of things, if I’m being honest Xd. After you was a one shot written almost feverishly as an answer to the fabulous drawings that Sejic did of both Lara Croft and Wonder Woman back at 2018 or something. It’s just Lara and Diana being himbos but not at all with each other.

4: How about… How about is one I remember perfectly, it was my answer to the ending of the Half of it film. I had SOME thoughts about it, let’s just stop there Xd I really liked the film itself but I think and I thought at the time that my response to wishing for a final scene at the very end of the credits responds to me being in a different personal moment than the characters. I really wanted to explore my feelings about it and so I wrote about them finding each other again after some time passes. It was also something I wrote after quite the hiatus so I took it as something I could write about without focusing too much on the why.

5: Come to me

Ahh, SuperCorp Xd I remember this one actually. A friend of mine and I were talking about descriptions, and she mentioned quite off-handedly how she wanted a fic in where Kara’s back was described. I complied… more or less.

Fun tidbit, despite the big volume of my work is obviously set in ouat there’s only 1 SQ fic there as you can see, the others are either SuperCorp or the random one shots I created for Wonderwoman/Lara Croft and The half of it. *sighs in deep thought* I’m also not going to look too much into how almost all of the fics were posted and written back in 2017. Nope, not at all.

*Small voice screaming you peaked in 2017 and everything else is garbage jumps back and forth*

5. Do you respond to comments? Why/why not?

I tend to always respond, yup. I truly value comments. I might have gone for spells of time in where I didn’t have the mental capacity to check in old fics because I truly didn’t know what to answer but I treasure every single comment and you all who comment know that I can start to ramble in the answers xd -sorry about that- I really really REALLY love interaction.

6. A fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending:

Ok, Nara, come on, this one is a catch for me. I’ve written angst in far too many fics to remember the angstiest one :P I have the most recent one, though, that is the easy one to think about: Goodbye.Written for @delirious-comfort. I’m just going to say “Kisses with their last dying breath” as an idea of what awaits inside but I’ve written about death and loss and angst quite a lot. There were some I wrote back to SQ with Regina needing to kill Emma during the Dark Swan arc that, to this day, I still love and some others in where Regina is the one that dies, again and again, trapped by magic while Emma watches. I have the loss in mental destruction form and… I REALLY like my angst y’know xd

7. Do you write crossovers?

Not counting Lara and Wonder Woman not really! I think it comes from the fact that I loooove worldbuilding as a whole and some pairings would require all my focus into making the world perfect which in turn would make me self conscious on the OOCness of it all.

8. Ever received hate on a fic?

*snorts* I’ve received hate due to the pairing I’ve written about, how I’ve written about it, the amount I’ve written, how slow or quick I can be, the usage of some tropes, the lack of usage of those same tropes… Let’s just go with: yuuuup.

9. Do you write smut?

I’ve written smut, yeah! But I can already see the pointed looks of some so let’s elaborate Xd I write smut when asked and sometimes when not asked but there’s a part of me I like to call a terrible tease that prefers writing the beginning of a scene, taunt it, focus on what happens before the sex scene per se as I find it more enjoyable to write. The process of escalation is always the best for me to see what can I do it by using both dialogue and descriptors tbh, so I tend to tease more than show.

9. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

A few weeks ago I’d have said: Maybe(?) But trying to follow the trail of some other fics that had been stolen from some friends -I think it was me trying to find more about the page that stole something from your Nara!- I found some pages in where my fics had been reposted. In some it was stated that the person posting the fic wasn’t the author but I had never been contacted in order to see if I’d say yes to such a thing and in some others the page was locked up but I could still see someone was pretending to be the author. I did the thing and got some of those down.

Pointed note: Ask me if you want to post or translate or anything. I will look into you and answer you if you seem honest about the thing. But despite every joke and self-deprecating comment those 500 and then some fics represent MY time so very kindly I say fuck off to those who wish to steal from me and if I catch you… you don’t really want to see me angry, trust me.

10. Ever had a fic translated?

I’ve given permission to some, yeah, but never heard it back from them so I’m guessing it didn’t stick.

12. Have you ever co-written a fic?

I’ve written series alongside other authors as @stregaomega for example. And some others that are unpublished -looking at you @carsonnieve - I’ve also done collabs… but fics co-written in the sense of two authors same chapters I don’t have anything posted I’m afraid :P

13. All-time favourite ship?

*snorts*, I guess the obvious answer is SQ uh? And I do think they were the ones that allowed me to read and write SO much. The one I feel more strongly about, however, is Bering and Wells from Warehouse 13.

14. WIP you want to finish, but don’t think you ever will?

All of them counts as a valid answer? But if I only could finish one that would be Arcadia. With A forgotten Promise second and the one I did as an Assassins Creed AU third. (I don’t remember the name so there’s no link, sorry xd)

15. Writing strengths?

Uhhhh, you REALLY want me to say that? I don’t fucking know!! To me everything I write is garbage. I always try to go for the feelings so I guess. Dunno xd I’ve been told I’m good at worldbuilding and to be honest is what I enjoy the most.

16. Writing weaknesses?

Everything Xd Pacing? What I hate the most sometimes is dialogue, I would count it as a weakness but I’m always far too focused on description rather than dialogue. I don’t think it’s a bad thing per se but it’s something that I don’t do as much.

17. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in a fic?

I’m conflicted. Always. Majorly because I think that having bilingual characters in fanfiction is portrayed and expected in a way that I don’t feel it’s honest with how bilingual people -us- talk. So if I go by what I know I do I think it’s not what readers hope to see when it comes to that and if I go for how canonically is hoped to be found I don’t think it’s logical. But that’s me and my overthinking Xd If I have the option I like to do it.

18. First fandom you ever wrote for?

Belice! Or Bella/Alice. Worst first fic ever but oh, well, I’m always saying that :P

19. What’s your fav fic you’ve written so far?

Uhh… Don’t make me do this XD Agh, I don’t know. I’ve always been very vocal about Metallic Ink because I let myself enjoy the process of creating a magic system almost out of zero and that was fun. Despite hating some of the writing process and that I’d do it differently now I think I’m going to stick with that answer. Or anything that had any steampunk-based undertone. To be honest I like more thinking of concepts, I had one in where Emma was a thief and it involved the robbery of a ring that was Regina’s one way ticket to freedom I then later repurposed that I adored thinking about so let’s go with…. Yeah, I love having the option of changing things up a little and focus on how characters would fit in different aesthetics for this one Xd

Annnd… these are four pages, gods. I’m just going to tag @waknatious @carsonnieve @stregaomega here and see what they do- Enjoy the questionnaire ladies :P

[sanakoreanlangblr]

2021 Goals

Heyy! I’ve decided to put my goals for this year here, hoping that that might motivate me further, and maybe motivate someone else as well. Good luck everyone! And please take extra care of yourselves and your health, mental or otherwise! Everything else can wait.

This year has been difficult for all of us. As for me, even now, the upcoming semester is a big question mark. Currently I’m studying in France, and this semester I was supposed to go on an exchange to Taiwan buuuut that’s not happening anymore, as it has been cancelled. So per my school’s requirements I need to find an internship in the place of expatriation, which is a pain now. And that basically just means I have no idea where I’m going to be in the coming year or what I’m gonna be doing ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Sorry, needed to complain for a bit, as I am going absolutely insane with the stress…

Anywayyyy, I still hope I will be able to uphold most of these goals, wherever I will end up. I tried to not make them overly big, so that I won’t get burned out too fast. But I have a whole year for those, some of these have dates for which I could expect to finish but I will not keep to them very strictly. Whatever happens, happens :))

Also, sorry if there are any mistakes, English is not my first language!

Korean (A2 -> B1)

1. Do 100 lessons of grammar from the HowToStudyKorean website.

I’ve started a few grammar books but in the end decided to settle on this website as I like its explanations best, and it provides the most example sentences when introducing each point. A nice touch is also the fact that it includes a list of a number of new words before each chapter, which gives me some new vocabulary to learn :)

So far I’ve divided the grammar points introduced in lessons into „to learn”, „to revise”, „already know”, and turns out I have:

66 „to learn”

35 „to revise”

32 „already know”

So if I did 3 points a week, I should be done around August.

2. Read 2 little stories per week from “Easy Korean Reading for Beginners”.

There is 30 stories in the first one (I already did 5), so I should be done by the middle of April.

3. Do one chapter per week from “My first hanja guide”.

I just got this book for Christmas and haven’t had the time to fully go through it so we will see how it goes.

4. Do Anki at least three times a week.

Every day would be preferable but I know that would last like a week at most.

5. Have iTalki lesson at least once a week.

That one is not a problem as I have been doing one or two per week for the last year, but I would just like to keep it up.

6. Try writing at least twice a month, and at least 2 pages.

Yeahhh that one is a bit of a bother, as writing still takes me a long time so we will leave it a twice a month and see how it goes.

7. Watch one youtube video per week on Korean grammar or vocabulary.

Generally I would say my goal is to use Korean more, as I know quite a lot but when I’m speaking I tend to go towards the easier words and grammar, which is why I am thinking that writing more could help me. And also I really want to focus on learning vocabulary as that’s always been a pain for me, I’m more of a grammar lover :))

French (A2 -> hoping for upper B1/ beginning of B2)

1. Finish the intermediate grammar book. I’m currently doing „Grammaire Progressive du Français” Intermediate edition, for A2/B1.

The problem is that my grammar knowledge of french is a mess , so going through this book is a bit of an annoyance, as most chapters I technically know but each time I find some nuance I wasn’t aware of... therefore I need to go through it, even the chapters I would have assumed I know :|

So I divided the chapters the same way I did Korean, into „to learn”, „to revise”, „already know”, and I ended up with:

14 „to learn”

34 „to revise”

4 „already know”

So technically if I did 2 points a week, I should be done in June.

2. Read the two french books I got for Christmas (“Les aventures d’Alice au pays des merveilles” and “Le tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours”).

3. Read at least two of the Harry Potter books in French.

I have started the first one this week, and I can tell it’s gonna be a very very slow process. It’s the first book I’m reading in french so it’s a bit difficult and frustrating but hopefully it’ll get better as I go along.

4. Watch at least 4 french movies, with french subtitles.

5. Learn a french song.

6. Read one story per week from „French Stories for Beginners”.

These are quite easy, but they are a nice practice for switching to books later on.

I don’t know if I’m gonna keep this one in, depends on how much my reading of actual books will progress.

7. Get to point 5 on the Duolingo tree.

I use Duolingo mostly as a revision tool, so I’m not really going to focus on it much, but still want to keep it up.

8. Watch one YouTube video per week (on any topic).

9. Listen to two podcasts per month.

10. At least one iTalki lesson per week.

11. Do Anki at least 3 times a week.

I really need to listen to french more, as I’m good at reading and I usually understand that pretty well, and I’m not the worst as speaking, but I am absolutely terrible at listening :| So that’s a priority.

Chinese (tbh I don’t know...end of HSK1/Beginning of HSK2 -> let’s say the goal is HSK3 for this year)

1. Finish the book „Integrated Chinese”

I’m having a tough time to pick a book from which to learn but I guess for now I’ll continue with that one.

Again, I divided the points in the book to „to learn”, „to revise”, „already know”, and ended up with:

47 „to learn”

11 „to revise”

15 „already know”

So doing 2 a week I should be done in July.

2. Learn 15 characters a day

I am way behind on learning characters.. I remember the words well but I didn’t put enough time to learn the characters at the start and now that’s gonna be a bit annoying to catch up on :|

3. Finish the drama „Go Ahead”.

4. Watch 3 Chinese movies, with both English and Chinese subtitles.

5. Have one Italki lesson per week.

6. Learn a children song in Chinese

7. Watch one youtube video per week on grammar.

8. Do Anki twice a week.

Generally focus more on characters. My speaking isn’t terrible (well besides the tones), but I need to work on the grammar a bit more as I seem to mess up the structures quite frequently. I need to put more work outside of my lessons. Since I found out I’m actually not going to Taiwan this semester my motivation has fallen a bit, but on the other hand I now have more time to prepare for fall, at which point I will hopefully be able to go!

Personal

Read 20 books.

I have always loved reading but in the past two years the amount of books I’ve read has gone down, which upsets me a bit…  On the other hand the amount of fanfiction I’ve read is tremendous, so there’s that. However I would like to make more effort to read this year, especially since I’ve accumulated a huge pile of books over those few years.

2. Workout regularly.

Right now I’m at home, so that should be easy to do. I don’t really know what’s gonna happen this semester, so we’ll see what I’m going to do about that later.

3. Eat better.

Meaning: cut down on sugar, eat more veggies and fruit.

4. Get a bit closer to my ideal weight

I’m not necessarily focusing on that this year as the previous one has been hell and really managed to deteriorate my mental health back to high school levels... but still hopefully working out a bit and eating less sugar, more veggies, I will be able to lose a tiny bit of weight. But overall I just want to focus on being a bit healthier.

5. Clean out my wardrobe

Sorry that’s a silly one but I’ve been getting to it for half a year now and I’m just too lazy to do that... maybe once I put it here I will have some motivation

6. Take care of my face and hair

So my sensitive skin hates wearing masks and needs extra care these days I need to really focus on it and baby it, to not go back to the awful red mess it was two months ago

As for my hair, I have kind of 3a curls which I haven’t been taking care of properly and plus I damaged them with hair dye (still I refuse to give up ginger hair, I blame Merida). So now during lockdown and quarantine season I finally had some time to read up on hair care of curls, and honestly after a month I can already see the difference, and well I hope for the best :)))

7. Get a tattoo

It’s something I’ve always put off since I either didn’t have the money or time. And now again both are problematic, so I will wait for the decision until I know what my school semester is going to be like. Maybe this time I will find a good moment! (Although honestly saving up for travelling after all this is over is also a great idea :))) )

8. Don’t go to sleep at 5

Yeah so during lockdown and because of online classes my sleeping schedule got so messed up I don’t even know what to do about it anymore. And while my goal isn’t to switch it to 10 pm, cutting it to 2 am at max would be nice

9. Watch 25 movies

10. Sell/donate the things that I don’t need

I’ve accumulated a huge pile of books, movies, CDs, Xbox games, art products - that I need to get rid of - and I’ve been saying that for like three years now, about the same pile of things. I will try to do that one this year!

I hope everyone’s 2021 will be a ton better than 2020! Keep fighting!

[shhhlikeme]

Hi love, just wanted to say that you’re so gorgeous and have a lovely smile. I’m a dark skin black girl and have often been told/read hurtful posts about us, but now I’m more confident than ever about being a dark skin girl 🥰.If it’s not too much to ask could you do any character you want with that has a date with his s/o and when he arrives she just glowing in her yellow dress. Like idk if you get the vibe I’m tryna put down but the melanin is hitting different 🤤

Thank you so much for the compliments omg ❤️❤️❤️

BLACK IS BEAUTIFUL. YOU ARE beautiful! I know black women don’t hear that a lot and that’s why I will tell y’all everyday if I need to. Also, today is national economic blackout day for the culture, therefore I waited to post this today.

& as per your message I absolutely get the vibe!!!!! And you know I had to choose the GOAT Akaashi for this since you left it up to me👀

Here goes:

————————————-

Akaashi Keiji x Black Crush In a Beautiful Yellow Dress (Fluff)

————————————-

Akaashi was NOT ready.

You and Akaashi had been besties for 10 or so years, because your moms have been in the same book club since elementary school

Even though you recently graduated from to different high schools, you both had a good and healthy friendship

You knew that he wasn’t big on talking a lot but you spoke even less than him so it honestly worked well

He was into volleyball and you were really serious about dance

Your moms would always say you just “get” eachother

To Keiji, he was content with having the best of both worlds as best friends: Bokuto: the loud boisterous one, and You: the quiet, beautiful one

Wait did he say beautiful? He meant um... the quiet, wallflower one. sure

Nah he definitely meant beautiful too.

Tbh, Akaashi was very attracted to you via your personality because you were thoughtful, intelligent and relaxing to be around

He thinks of you as the human embodiment of a warm bath at the end of a moving day

And as for your looks.....

Bokuto put his best friends physical attraction to you into words best when he said:

“You want to have Y/N’s babies, don’t you Akaashi? Hmmmmm?”

Akaashi, deadpanning asf, would always answer

“No I do not.”

But when Bokuto would continuously catch him on your instagram page he would keep asking like the pushy friend he is.

At Bokuaka sleepovers, or when they were completely alone is the only time Akaashi would reluctantly but honestly respond to Bokuto’s question with a:

“I wouldn’t mind.”

which is basically undying admission of love by Akaashi standards

Basically, he was crushing on you hard

He admired your dark hair that you always changed into different styles because he never understood how you made them all look attractive

He admired your full lips that he always seemed to have to internally yell at himself to stop staring at when you spoke

He admired your kind and gentle spirit that always seemed to gravitate toward earth tones in attire-expression and he never seemed to understand why

He guessed that being the wallflower that you are; dark colours like black, brown, beige, grey, moss, etc. Acted as a shield as to not bring too much attention to you

He didn’t really care that you stuck to wearing earth tones because you looked beautiful no matter what you wore

But in his dreams he’d always pictured you in bright pink, blue, orange lingerie shirts

He was curious so he asked one day

totally not because he wanted to know how realistic his dreams could be

“Y/N, why do you only wear dark colours?” Asked the most beautiful guy in the world Akaashi as he turned the steering wheel making a left onto the parkway.

The two of you were going to his brother’s wedding rehearsal dinner. You had decided to wear a simple dark button down blouse tucked into a grey pencil skirt. Your curly hair was up in a messy bun and you had your glasses on. You thought you looked whatever.

Akaashi, on the other hand, thought you looked stunning. And like a hot librarian. He tried his best to keep his eyes on the road and not your exposed legs as you sat beside him in the passenger seat.

“Do I?” You looked down at yourself and sighed. You’d never really noticed before, but he was right. You just felt more comfortable in tones that didn’t make you stand out.

“Yeah. Why don’t you try wearing a bright colour sometime? I think......I think you’d look really nice.” Keiji’s eyes looked unaffected as ever but inside he was kicking himself for flirting with you, knowing how shy you are.

“Oh, okay.” Your heart fluttered at your friend’s compliment and you distracted yourself by taking your eyeglasses off and using your blouse collar to clean it where it opened on your chest.

Akaashi almost crashed because when you did that your blouse opened more exposing your glowing chocolate skin. In his mind, his imagination took over and he pulled over to ravish your beautiful skin by ripping open the blouse and kissing your gorgeous dark skin. His eyes glazed over as he imagined you telling him that you want him closer than this car allowed and so he dropped your seat down and got on top of you, kissing your delicious lips and then going back to taste your delicious skin. You were moaning in his ear which was the best sound he’s ever heard and then it was his turn to moan when you reached down to stroke his hard........

“KEIJI-SAN WATCH OUT!”

Keiji was thrust back into reality when he rapidly swerved back into his own car lane. The first thing he did was check to see if you were okay and he was able to breathe again when he saw you looking back at him laughing that angelic laugh. You placed your glasses back on your beautiful face and Akaashi apologized. He asked if you were scared and wanted him to stop driving because he was obviously a new driver. You only placed a hand on his arm and shook your head, assuring him in your quiet voice.

“It’s okay Kashi’, I know you’re a great driver. I trust you.”

“Y-you do?”

“Of course. I trust you more than anyone.” You gave him that smile that he thinks about before he goes to sleep every night and just like that he relaxed and all was well in the world again. He thought back to Bokuto’s daily question, admitting to himself that he not only wanted to have your babies, he wanted to have the pleasure of calling you his girlfriend or anything higher. He’d definitely accept wife.

“Maybe I’ll go shopping with my mom and find a colour to wear to the wedding, you know, take your advice.”

“That would be great.” He pulled into the beach wedding venue parking lot. “I’m ready to see the new Y/N.”

But Akaashi was NOT ready

He was absolutely the furthest thing from ready, 3 weeks later, when he picked you up on his brothers wedding day.

He knew you were still getting ready inside and so he decided to enjoy the weather and lean on his car hood to wait

You never took long because you were a natural beauty, but you put on a little bit of makeup today

You grabbed your clutch and touched up your edge control before spritzing yourself with some of Akaashi’s favourite perfume

You went outside and locked your door.

Turning around, you literally wanted to freeze this moment in time, because THE Keiji Akaashi—literally the most stunning boy 90% of girls have ever seen—was standing outside of his car, much to your surprise

He had his navy blue tuxedo jacket folded over his left arm and he wore a light grey dress shirt underneath held together by a black bow tie. His disheveled hair looked like he had sat in the barber chair of Jesus himself and he hadn’t noticed your arrival yet since you were still on the steps of your deck.

You took a second to compose yourself before stepping toward him as if everything was normal—as if you weren’t lawlessly crushing on this man.

Hearing your heels clack on the smoothed pavement, Akaashi lifted his head up to see you

Remember when I said he was not ready?

Allow me to show you exactly what he wasn’t ready for:

Akaashi felt as though all the air left his lungs when he saw you.

He told you to wear a bright colour but he didn’t know the yellow dress and your dark skin-combo would make him feel like crying

After seeing you in greys and blacks and dull nudes his whole life and still looking pretty, he couldn’t handle himself when you wore a colour that accurately communicated how he sees you: like his literal light

“Good God,” Akaashi gulped.

Keiji is a well-known quiet guy, but even his loudest friend Bokuto wouldn’t be able to beat how loud his emotions screamed at him from inside when he looked at you. You literally had him by the heartstrings, looking like that.

He realized that he is embarassed to admit all that he would give to see you in a yellow bra and panty set.

You smiled up and him and did a spin, so he could see the full picture of the dress. His eyes missed the dress because he couldn’t stop looking at your face.

“I saw it on a mannequin at the mall the other day and never thought my skin would go with it... but after what you said I went back to get it and—“

“Y/N. You— you look—-that colour—-your skin—-You—I—Good....God,” he repeated himself. Akaashi was only slightly disappointed that he couldn’t express to you how much your skin tone WAS MADE for this colour. You were magical.... a queen.

He didn’t want to go to his brothers wedding anymore. He wanted to stand there and stare at the way the sunlight hit your complexion and glistened. He wanted to stand there and have you spin around for him again. He wanted to have your mf-ing babies.

“You’re doing that thing again, Kashi. The thing you did in the car? Don’t we have to go pick up Bokuto, now? Let’s go!”

You gave him a ‘chop chop’ snap and climbed in the car.

When you got in you were so thankful for your dark skin because your blush wasn’t showing. The way your best friend has been looking at you was too passionate, too deep, too full of emotional and physical desire. It made you want to tell him your feelings.

outside, Keiji had still been in a trance, letting out one more “Good.....God,” before he had to literally slapped himself and hopped in the car.

Think of Bokuto Think of Bokuto Think of Bokuto, he chanted internally before pulling out of your driveway.

Speaking of the devil......

“AKAAAASHI!” Yelled his grey-headed best friend as he pulled open the back door of his car. “And, who’s that—wait—Y/N?!”

You gave your best friend’s best friend a weak smile. You were so embarassed by the way he was looking at you.

Bokuto slammed the door behind him and applauded loudly. “Now, I’ve always been jealous whenever you take my Akaashi away from me because he wants to spend time with you, but now I understand why. You’re a 10 when you aren’t hiding behind those freaking vampire colours!!!”

“Bokuto.” Akaashi reprimanded his annoying friend and Bokuto pretended to zip his lips and throw away the key.

Meanwhile, you were regretting wearing this colour. It drew the attention that you always tried hard to avoid.

Akaashi noticed your internal regret, even while driving....so he reached over to place a hand on your thigh.

“Y/N, you said you trust me right?”

You looked at him for a second before nodding.

Keiji elevated at the admission. “Then, trust me when I say you look beautiful. I’m so happy you wore that dress today.”

You smiled, that smile only reserved for him again, and he just about proposed on the spot.

“AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!! Hey, hey, hey! Maybe you two love birds should be the ones getting marr—“

Akaashi deadpanned in the rear view mirror, catching Bokuto’s eye immediately. “Bokuto.”

Frightened, Bokuto muttered a quick “Shutting up.” Before actually doing so.

Don’t get him wrong. Akaashi was happy to have his best guy friend at the wedding.

Very happy.

Because Boku was like an alarm...warning him whenever he was acting like a freak around the the girl he has a crush on

Bokuto would just nudge him and smirk whenever Akaashi was drawing attention to himself because he was looking at you in the crowd when his attention should be on his brother and his fiancé saying their vows.

When Akaashi saw you and your mom run over to dip your feet in the water on the beach, then run away because a cold wave hit up to your shins, your smile radiant and your yellow dress flying in the wind, Bokuto nudged him again because he was staring when he had to take pictures with the groom

At night, when Keiji was throwing back shots way more than Bokuto knew his best friend to even like, simply because one of his brothers groomsmen had been talking to you for the better part of the hour and he didn’t fucking like it, Bokuto not only nudged Keiji but he told the bartender to cut him off.

“Go talk to Y/N.” Bokuto grabbed the drink out of Keiji’s hand and drank it.

Akaashi shook his head. “No. S-she’s out of my league.”

Bokuto scoffed. “You do know that you’re literally the best looking person I’ve ever seen in my life right? Like seriously. You look like your face was made in a fucking lab. By chicks. By hot chicks, like Y/N, working together to come up with concoctions to Science their way to make the best looking dude—“

Keiji rolled his eyes. “Is there a point coming at the end of this?”

“Yeah. There is, impatient pants. I was going to say that I wonder if the hot chicks who made you wore bikinis the whole time while they leaned over eachother fighting over the pencil for the blueprint sketches—“

“A point about Y/N, Bokuto! Y/N. The only girl I care about. The only girl I want to talk about. Come back down to this earth. Where. Is. The. Point?”

“Oh. Yeah. Geez, take a chill pill will ya?”

“Bokuto......” He warned. Already on edge because you were now slow dancing with that guy at the wedding instead of being the wallflower you usually were. He liked it better when he was the only one who noticed you. In a way.... But then he remembered how colourful you looked when you got complimented all day and he immediately retracted the thought. Akaashi wanted nothing more than for you to reach your fullest potential, and wearing colours that expressed your beauty would be step one. He yearned to be the one who could bring you up the rest of the steps, because he’d tell you everyday how damn amazing you are. He just wished you weren’t so damn alluring to the majority of men.

Bokuto held his hands up in surrender. “Damn! Okay. Look, my point is...that it doesn’t matter how good looking you are or Y/N is, because everyone knows that even if you two were fugly you’d still have the love story of the generation because your connection is on a whole other level.”’

“What?” Keiji jeered. He didn’t like the idea of your name and ‘anything but beautiful’ being in the same sentence.

“Man, chill. Look, I won’t say anything else. I’m just going to grab Y/N from Mr. I-Didn’t-Make-It-To-The-NFL-But-I-Can-Still-Pull-A-Trophy-Wife over there. When she gets here, try not to ‘Good God’ her to death, hm? She’s gorgeous, yes, but like I said—so are you. Inside and out.”

Without listening to his denial like always, Bokuto somehow slipped in to the dance you were currently having and began dancing with Y/N

As a dancer, you loved moments when you could do it, and Akaashi was falling harder for you every time you spun around elegantly

Bokuto made some bs excuse about not being able to dance for long and waved his best friend over

Akaashi’s legs moved automatically because he has been wanting to be near you the entire night.

Like a fairytale ball sequence, Bokuto handed you off and you were now met with the waiting and hesitant arms of your best friend

Keiji asked if it was alright to touch your waist and you smiled and said yes

As you two danced, you going at the pace you knew Akaashi would be best at.....you took a second to really feel the energy

Your bodies were like magnets and you two were feeling the pull like never before

you leaned forward to rest your head against your best friends chest as you settled into a simple back and forth sway

As he held your waist closer and rubbed his thumbs soothingly in the crevice of your back dimples......

You understood that what you were now feeling was love

What you’ve been feeling for months, what you felt when you spoke to him of trust, when you watched him drive, when he put an extra blanket on you when you two watched movies, when he looked at you in your yellow dress, when you rested your head on his chest.....your mind, body and soul were all telling you one thing. They were louder than ever now. Shouting at you to tell Akaashi those 3 magic words so you two could see where the next level of your relationship would take you. It wouldn’t take much to say—

“I love you.”

Flabbergasted with yourself, you jumped back from his chest so you were looking at him. You couldn’t believe you had the audacity to say it!!!!!

Your mind now jumbled, you thought of an excuse to blame it on the 0% alcohol you had had before you realized..........that you don’t have a deep voice............nor have you opened your mouth since you rested your head on your best friend’s chest.......

“Wh-what?” You asked breathlessly.

Akaashi was looking down at you, confident that he had made you wear a dress that brought out your beauty so fiercely that it ultimately forced him to confess.

“I love you, Y/N. And if we’re always talking about trust......Then trust me when I tell you that I think I always have.”

----------------

I find I enjoy writing both nsfw and fluff equally and you guys request it basically half and half, so the next post will be much more smutty cause you know--balance. 

[hippychick006]

Misha Panel 

I’ve done this summary as it helps to have what Misha actually says to hand as more often than not, his stans misquote him. It’s also useful as Misha often changes things - as he appears to have done between his last virtual panel and this one. Note, I’m only focusing on the key parts where he talks about the show/Jared/Jensen.  It is not free of anti castiel/misha comments where I disagree, though those are few and far between for a change. It’s long so putting under a cut... 

- Misha confirms his filming finished in March prior to Covid [this comes up later in more detail].  Watching the last epiosode was an emotional experience for him.  For him, it represents the end of a chapter of his life. 

- Misha says fandoms not going anywhere [*hisses]

- Misha’s future work/projects?: working on senate race in georgia, publishing a book of poetry, couple of film projects he’s trying to get off the ground, one he’s not acting/directing in, the other he may act and/or direct 

- Jack brought Cass back but we didn’t get to see it, what happened?: different ending originally that Covid restrictions made impossible to produce. Cool ending involved bringing back lots of cast members over the years.  In the original ending, Castiel hadn’t gone to rebuild heaven, there was a different conclusion for him.  Misha purposely did not read the last two episodes before they aired as he wanted to be an audience member. He knew a little about Castiel/Jack’s fate in the abstract, but because he wasn’t in it, he doesn’t know what the answer was. He thinks them rebuilding heaven was less boots on the ground and more at a spiritual level [so he’s talking at the metaphysical/spiritual plane level and not corporeal) so they are everywhere (e.g. in drops of rain as per Jack’s speech to Sam in 19). That’s what I’m understanding at least.  He says that’s pure speculation though.]

- what qualities does castiel have similar to Misha?: there are a lot of similar qualities [backstabber comes immediately to my mind tbh]. Over time he and the character melded. Over time he evolved into something that didn’t quite fit in with either angels or humanity, he felt like an outsider which Misha has felt for much of his life. He became softer, more sensitive, he tried to do the right thing and be a good person. Oh wow, he says that in order to write to play to Misha’s strengths, the character had to “morph a bit”.  I loved bad!ass Castiel, he’s my favourite Castiel!

- What one thing will he take with him from playing Castiel?: on a professional level, it was fascinating to play a character for so many years. He discussed with J2 recently that the characters really became part of them. He doesn’t think that will happen again, just due to length of time the played them. On watching Jensen’s death scene, he cried but it was more “That’s Cass’ friend Dean dying”  It was weird to have a blurring of lines between yourself and your character but he thinks that’s what happened with all of them. He’ll take the character away, which will be a part of him forever. 

- Misha made fortune cookes and put inside lewd and inappropriate fortunes

[I don’t get this next bit as earlier in the panel he says he didn’t read the last two episodes so didn’t know what was going to happen and gave the answer I documented above and now we have this next question where his answer seems to contradict that]:

- Is there anything more he can say about the originally planned finale?:  He doesn’t want to be the one to reveal these state secrets, but what are they going to do, fire him?  He feels someone might have said to him, please don’t reveal what was going to happen, but can’t remember for sure if it’s true. He says there was a version of Sam and Dean’s heaven that was populated with all of the people that were from their past that they have come to love.  They could not do that because of Covid restrictions. 

- Favourite behind the scenes memory of “The boys”: He doesn’t have a favourite memory, they were close friends for 12 years. They had laughing fits and fights and got pissed off at each other. Some of his fondest memories of being at work anywhere were working on Supernatural.  He’s never going to be on a set again where there is so much mirth so he’s going to miss that for sure.

- he’s talking about Castiel’s wardrobe which is actually funny - e.g. original suit 3 sizes to big, sometimes showing blood and holes, sometimes being magically fixed, not wearing a tie, going back to wearing a tie... “Nobody complained about that too much...” [uh because some of us were watching other things and your own stans were looking at the background.]  He stole some trenchcoats and has them in his closet.

- How do you prepare for emotional scenes?: it’s hard for him to get into that emotional state. To prepare for the Castiel’s declaration of love scene and taken by the empty, Misha needs to be off by himself and not chatting with people, so for that scene he sat on his own in a dark corner of the stage and ruminated on his own.  Rob Hayter, stunt coordinator, noticed and stood sentinel and made sure no one disturbed him which Misha said was really sweet.  Everyone stopped fucking around for that scene to allow them to do what they needed to do.

-  How did you feel when you read the script when Castiel dies?: Misha knew for a long time that ending was coming, he’d been speaking to Rob Berens about it, he was really happy with it.  It was the ending he’d wanted for Cass so when he read the script, he was really happy it had made it to the page [i bet it was Misha, how are those destiel sales going through your Stands company?]. It felt it was a little “risky and a little brave” for the show to do [on a fucking network that is number one in Glaad reviews?  Are you being fucking serious right now?] He was happy to be a part of that [again sales] and have that character express love like that so he was happy with it. 

[Okay, so notice in his last virtual panel 2 weeks ago, he was very happy, he’s now starting to do exactly what he did with Karla movie as he goes on to say...]

He’s seen “some people” [you mean lgbtq+ people?!]  “complaining” about this is playing into the “bury the gays” trope which is an insidious and real trope in film and television storytelling in h/w over the years. Misha doesn’t think that’s what was happening with Castiel’s [he died second after the confession MIsha!] First of all Castiel isn’t dead, he’s in heaven working to rebuild it... [you didn’t know this 2 weeks ago, as far as you knew Castiel died and went to the empty].  So much good came from that declaration, because Cass was able to save Dean, which was essential to saving the world, so this declaration wasn’t so then fate strikes you down and you’re done forever. The declaration literally ended up saving the world. It was of Cass’ own volition, he wasn’t forced to do it, it was his choice, and he thinks that’s important, so maybe he’s naieve and doesn’t feel they are playing into that trope. 

[You were absolutely playing into that trope Misha and you didn’t give a shit as you did no research on playing an lgbtq+ character so sincerely fuck off]

He’s glad that Castiel got to express that and have that ending. He thinks thats kind of important and he’s proud the show did that. [again fuck off, this was done for you and it showed]  He thinks its a conversation they will continue to have as they continue to dissect it going forward [nope, consigned to the dumpster fire I’ve put the majority of the rest of Drabbernatural in]

- Do you think you will ever get an SPN tattoo?:  He doesn’t have any but he’s thinking about getting tattoos relating to his children.  Is that a sign of desperation that a true hasbeen will do? Should he get a tattoo of Jared and Jensen’s face.  He could get a tattoo of Castiel’s face on his abdomen.  He’s saying probably not. If they want to get one, totally supportive of that

-  what is his favourite moment of the finale?: Dean’s death scene, masterfully executed, excellent performances from both Jared and Jensen in that scene and made him cry

- best memory of your last day on the supernatural set?: everyone being really sweet, lot of tears from cast and crew. The last scene he shot as Castiel was the last scene of the day on a Friday. Him, Alex, Richard S and Jensen all had to get to Las Vegas for a fan convention the next morning. They shot late and finished at 1.30, it was Cass goodbye and Misha’s goodbye to the show.  He said they had to get a chartered flight because of the early flight [not sure why he’s saying this as I thought it was Jared’s plane they all travelled in?] He’s talking about going back - because of the issue with the plane - and they are all texting family, saying they love them, so it was such a strange night, he’d said goodbye to Supernatural, he said goodbye to Castiel and later on said goodbye to his kids because they thought they were going to die that night. :(

[Going to add that this puts to rest that Misha was due back for 19 and 20 even before covid, it confirms he was not going to be in either episode, though I maintain, they may have shot an extra scene while they had him to slot into 19 or 20]

- do you think Cass and the other angels got their wings back?: Yes, probably, they have Jack who is the new god. What a long and miserable experience that was of not having wings. Cass was so powerful when he started, he could snap his fingers and teleport and time travel and lost that with his broken wings and they didn’t come back. He doesn’t know why they didn’t fix him as Castiel would have been a much more powerful ally if he didn’t have to drive around in the pimp mobile [uh, for the same reason Sam lost his powers, deus ex machina]. He tells the story of Jared pressing buttons in the car causing the hydraulics to fail costing $10000 of repair.

- in your opinion, what colour are Castiels wings?: shit, I don’t know, I always thought they were black, but now that you’ve said that, they are rainbow coloured, how about that?

- What is the worst joke Jared and Jensen did to you?: [*cough fans looking for things to complain about or hate Jared on]: Jared and Jensen, as you know, they are not good people.  He talks about directing an episode and they got excited in the week before, they were going to break into his apartment and steal his furniture, they had all kinds of nefarious plans, the crew tipped him off and told him to watch his home and car keys. They put a fish under the seat in his car and one of the crew told him.  Jared removed the canvas on the director’s chair and laid it across so it looked like it was still the chair. Misha fell for that at least 5 times. That was pretty frustrating. Jared kept messing up his lines (which Misha said Jared never does) and Misha was directing in another room, Misha eventually went to see what the problem was and that’s when Jared pied him in the face. Everyone in the crew was complicit in the “assault”. Jensen brought him another shirt, said, “I’m sorry man, that’s sucks, that was too much.”  Jensen then pied him in the face.

- What is the real story behind the handprint in the finale?: Um I don't know, but I think it was a nice touch, that was a really lovely callback that worked well. I can’t remember how we came up with that, or was it in the script, I can’t remember. Wasn’t it a good callback to the very beginning. [Again, this appears to differ from what was being reported two weeks ago so might need to go back to that panel if I can get access to it]

-What’s your favourite memory from offline/online panels?: It’s much more fun to be live and in person. I don’t know, I have had some really fun... [PANDERING ALERT COMING UP] Jensen and I have some really fun panels together in Rome.  I don’t know why but we always just seem to have a real hoot there, talks about the resume off, they really enjoyed that. He had pizza delivered to a creation panel once.  He talks about the Saturday night special and he can’t wait till they can get back to that. 

[NOTE CYNICAL PART OF THIS IS FOR HIS FANBASE TO ONCE AGAIN CLAMOUR FOR MORE JENMISH PANELS. I DO NOT TRUST THIS MAN AT ALL]

- What was your favourite version of Castiel to play?: he had the most fun playing Lucifer because Mark P had left a great template to play Lucifer [you took the worst parts imo but Mark fucked his character up too]. He enjoyed playing the human parts of Castiel because it was fun to explore how to be human for the first time. Overall, just regular Cass. He wouldn’t have wanted to trade regular Castiel for other iterations. [A great question would be badass Castiel v late season wooby castiel preference]

[rigelmejo]

march - just some thoughts

i have read more this month than any other month? and its not slowing down its only 3/12 so i have 2/3 of a month to go and i’ve read 26 chapters. even if these chapters are ‘short’ at 10 pages, if i wanna count by ‘20 page’ chunks i’ve still read 13 chunks so far. and i’ve still got more time in the month left. most other months i’ve managed to read ‘a lot’ i read 10-20 chapters. so i’m doing really good.

grammar is a weird thing? in reading i feel like its quite easy now to understand. when listening or watching - same. and yet if asked ‘why do i say/type X’ or ‘why is it written/spoken like X’ i have absolutely no explanation in my head. i could not explain the grammar if prompted. this puts me in a weird place and i feel like i SHOULD go over a grammar guide again just so i can WORD what i’m intuitively understanding.

this is a bit bizarre to me because within the first 6 months of study i DID read through an entire grammar guide just to get an idea of what i was about to look at, and it hardly made sense once actually reading/watching/listening. i understood the guide fine, but actually Seeing chinese i was still confused. i would reference AllSetLearning’s Chinese Wiki on some basic points, then after 6 months i just stopped. now its been what 1.5 years and - reading is so easy, listening is so easy, grammar wise. none of the grammar confuses me. but i no longer ‘explicitly’ have any idea what the fuck the grammar is. i used to. i studied it explicitly before trying to read/listen. and yet now that i can read/listen, i have no idea how to explain the grammar. i can listen to a podcast and i don’t think about what the grammar is i just get it. i read and just know what i’m looking at. its like english - i cannot fucking explain it. Which makes speaking/writing a bit hard. Because when i try to check if i’m right i have no fucking clue HOW anymore - i just say/write what comes to mind and HOPE it makes sense. i have no way to conciously check for errors except ‘does this feel right’? And that’s not good enough for me lol. So I definitely do need to eventually read a grammar guide for explicit explanations again.

Technically I think “English and Chinese Grammar Side By Side” grammar book would be an excellent one to use. Because i read the first 50 pages of it and it compared it to english (so it explained english too), and it was very easy to understand and started basic then got more involved. 

I’m probably gonna use my very old Chinese Grammar Self Taught by Thimm book instead. Just because I really like that book. Then I guess use another after (probably Basic Chinese Sentence Patterns since its modern and perfect for ‘catch your own mistakes’ study and much shorter than Eng+Chinese Grammar side by side). 

Anyway I’m in a very weird place right now lol. I know i’m understanding grammar that is stuff I never even studied initially in the grammar guide, but unable to explain what it is, and a lot of stuff i did explicitly study in a grammar guide i completely forgot the explanation for. My reading and listening is GREAT, because all my effort only has to go into learning new words lately! its relaxing! Its the only part i need to do! But my writing/speaking i am very concerned about because being able to check myself for mistakes is something i’d like the ability to do.

how grammar is presented really makes a difference in how well i get it. there is some serious benefit to ‘show simple first then build up what you know’ that text books tend to prefer. versus like grammar reference books that may start with some in depth stuff.

i tried to read a japanese grammar guide the other day and 1 it was great but 2 it covered some ADVANCED stuff i never learned in genki 1+2, and so it was Explicit grammar description of stuff i had literally years ago been immersing in japanese and Still not conciously known about. So i felt. Overwhelmed lol. I felt so confused. I feel like I might switch to Tae Kim’s grammar guide primarily just because its structured with basics covered first. and i feel like until the basics are again glued into my brain, seeing even more advanced stuff just confused me so much i had no idea how to remember it. which is funny because? my usual strategy with grammar guides is to just read it and let what sticks stick and what is confusing be moved on from, in the hope i will later see it again and understand it better. so like based on what i usually do i should’ve just been able to read through it (and i’m gonna try anyway lol). but truly japanese grammar just... my mind does not like wrapping around it and remembering it. (chinese grammar is so much easier for me... so much easier....;-; )

i have been tempted to just Restart Nukemarine’s LLJ (Lets Learn Japanese) memrise decks, because I KNOW they worked for me last time really really well. And they include Tae Kim grammar lessons. And I know if i did it then maybe i’d get back to where i was years ago pretty fast.

I tried Earthlingo app. Its a cool idea, I don’t think its worth it though unless you planned to get Rosetta Stone (since Earthlingo is FREE). Earthlingo features 1000 words per language, taught to you by exploring video game worlds as an alien. Its a cool concept, but since all words seem to be nouns then you aren’t even learning the most common verbs/adjectives. And 1000 words is not a lot. And you could learn 1000 quite fast if using srs flashcards like Memrise or Anki (think weeks if you push yourself, and a month or two months if going at a regular pace). Earthlingo you have to slowly explore the worlds so that eats time, you have to choose to test yourself (so you don’t review nearly as often as flashcard apps), and one test includes walking around the world clicking the object which you’re given the word for (takes time to find the right object). All this means a word that might take maybe 15 minutes to study over a few weeks, might instead take much longer to study and learn. I don’t use duolingo because it generally covers so few words (usually 2000-4000 i think which is good for a beginner resource but you have to do the WHOLE course to get to all those words and i take so long on duolingo that could take YEARS for me versus a month on a flashcard app or clozemaster). Duolingo I also don’t use because it very slowly paces learning material (it takes me months/years to get through 1000 words on duolingo - just personally i go so slow on it, i think faster people would find a use for it). Likewise Lingodeer takes me AGES to get through (and i think covers 2000 words nowadays? I’m shocked Duolingo has more words for the japanese course tbh). However, Lingodeer is by far the best ‘app’ for Japanese grammar lessons in app practice form. Even if basically all the apps feel pretty slow to me in how fast they give you new info. Earthlingo is cool that its free, and for learners 12 and under i think it would be super useful as a way to engage them and keep them studying (since what child likes flashcards? whereas as a child i would’ve loved this). But as an adult Earthlingo is sooooo slow on how fast you can learn words, and it does not even offer very many words (1000 is a nice bare minimum but without verbs/adjectives it can only be a supplementary learning tool for beginners at best).

Link about Lingodeer having 2000 words in a course. (Since its SO hard to lookup how much vocabulary lingodeer includes :c )

Nukemarine’s LLJ memrise decks (which I’m considering going through again but ToT agh flashcardssssss.... they sure do work though agh)

http://www.chinese-grammar.com/beginner/ - this is the site I read a chinese grammar guide on at like Month 3. I am rereading it now maybe it will help me remember wtf grammar explicitly is. ToT (A tip, read Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced sections). Last time I visited the site you just clicked a section, then saw each fully explained grammar point and clicked ‘next’ it was nice. Now its laid out a little less ideal for me, but its still got all the same nice info! (Also honestly if you are a beginner I really DO like this grammar guide... it introduces basic info first, gradually gets more complex, and i could follow its logic knowing like 200 hanzi and 100 words ToT. its very easy to understand even if it takes a while to apply that info).

im probably gonna read hanshe more today. i’m at the point where either i know enough vocab, or the writers style has just ‘clicked’ idk. but now i just am not getting bogged down by unknown words and am just. speeding through enjoying the plot. Also rip me this novel has 155 chapters and im only on chapter 30.

watching japanese lets plays is really fun! i feel like im 3 years old cause i just see nouns i can learn pretty easy in context cause i know the game well, and hear some vaguely familiar verbs, but its fun! also it helps i know kingdom hearts 2 like by heart so. a lot of it makes me instantly cheerful and nostalgic. roxas’s voice is so cute in the japanese version.

oh i almost forgot: I found a book recently for chinese that for it’s like 10 page grammar guide summary at the beginning ALONE i think is more than worth the 4 dollars it costs to get. It has a ton of compound words and its a reference book in mandarin and cantonese (it has pronunciation for both, all characters are in traditional). I got it initally because it as a bunch of compound words and I’d like to get better at knowing a lot of common ones. But the intro to the book has a page explaining sentence structures in chinese, then examples. Its so straightforward and to the point. I love it. The book is “Understanding Chinese: A Guide to the Usage of Chinese Characters” by Rita Mei-Wah Choy. (There is also a companion book for individual hanzi, which is nice but this book specifically I’m finding more useful).

what i really like about Listening-Reading method, and reading, as study activities: no matter how I do them it is only improvement. I have a tendency to ‘redo’ material i don’t feel i fully mastered, or refuse to move on. So when i have duolingo, flashcards (sometimes i can move on if i ignore reviews/make myself do new stuff), books, grammar guides, self guided classes - i have a tendency to redo the material. over and over. and not progress and challenge myself. whereas with reading - every time i look up a word its useful because its new or something i clearly Need to review (not something i’ve actually learned and can move past reviewing). so whether i reread material or read new stuff, as long as i run into things i find somewhat challenging (feel the desire to word look up), i know i am running into new material i can learn. Same with listening-reading method: whether i finish a book or just skip to random books, any new chapter i do will give me new words to learn/remember (until i’ve reached a point of perfect listening comprehension which is a WAYS away). There’s no way for me to mess it up. I can give up a book im bored with, i don’t have to stick to one resource to the end. 

someone tell me why professionally made chinese audio books almost NEVER line up to the chapters???? whyyyyy ;-;

Even More Notes lol:

So I read so much in Pleco, which auto pronounces, I have COMPLETELY forgot. 得 地 - for these two, when they’re attached after a description like 淡淡 慢慢 高兴 etc, when are they pronounced di versus de???? i’m pretty sure  得 is pronounced de when its an adjective like ‘-ly’. but for  地, i don’t remember if when part of a describer if its pronounced di or de????

[luvdsc]

You’re my favorite writer on here (if not my favorite of all time because I absolutely adore your writing style) and I really admire your dedication to making longer fics because I know they can take a lot of concentration and time and effort. As someone who has over 20 wips and no motivation to see any of them through to the end, I was wondering if you had any tips for sticking with ideas and seeing them all the way through? Even if not, I just wanted to let you know that all the time, effort, and care you put into your writing (top tier writing by the way) is highly appreciated! Have a nice day/night/etc. and stay well 🤍♥️

hey, honey bee! 🐝✨ first off, thank you so so much 😭😭😭💝 oh my gosh, I’m beyond touched that I’m your favorite writer on here??? (And maybe of all time???? am I dreaming omg thank you for liking my writing style too 🥺💕) jdkdkdkdk you’re really much too kind to me omg thank you for showering me in all these wonderful compliments, sweetpea 😭💗💗💗honestly, lovebug, if I could write short fics, I would.... I have so many ideas but not enough time to write them all, but whenever I write something, I’m like “this feels too rushed, I need another scene here and there and over there” and then it just snowballs into this massive fic 💀💀 Bzhsjdjdjdnd omg 20 wips !!!! for me, this is what I’ve been doing:

focus on 1 wip at a time — I only write one story at a time and try not to start another fic when I’m not done with my current one. I suggest that you try to focus on one of your 20 wips, so that your full attention is on it and you’re not bouncing from one idea to the next. It’s hard to immerse yourself into one “fic universe” (idk how to explain it, sorry!) if you’re going back and forth between so many fics. And once you get the ball rolling, it becomes easier to write the wip to completion!

if you’re stuck on one wip, write a short second wip to completion — when I was writing sweeter than honey, I got tired of it like halfway through, so I took a break and wrote a small fic (hyuck’s not clickbait fic) in between. likewise, with pussy blocked, I wrote august in between as my mini creative break. I made sure to completely finish that second wip though and deliberately chose an idea that would be short and concise, so that it would be quick to finish and provide the short creative break I needed from my lengthier fic. don’t start another est 30k wc idea in the middle of writing an equally lengthy idea.

if you have an idea, think over it — I get a lot of ideas, but I quickly get bored of them after a few hours. So what I like to do is think about it for a week or so, and after a week, if I’m still interested in the idea, I write it. You can also test it out first by writing a little drabble / one scene of your idea, and if you’re still interested after that, then continue with it and stick with it until it’s complete.

have a daily writing goal — I don’t do this for all my fics, but this is something I did for sweeter than honey. I made myself write one scene per day, and that was how I knocked out 20k wc in two weeks! if I didn’t do this, I probably would’ve dragged out the completion of that fic longer tbh lol

aaa hopefully, this is helpful for you, lovebug! I also have some general writing tips linked in my about / navi page as well 💓 ultimately, I force myself to only write one fic at a time, and that’s what works for me. Also, if those 20 wips become too overwhelming, just archive them all and start fresh with one idea and focus with that until it’s complete! ✨ you are the absolute loveliest ray of sunshine, thank you so so sooo much for appreciating my fics and hard work, honey bee 🥺🥺💗 if you have any other questions or want me to elaborate on anything, please feel free to send in another ask! I hope you have a wonderful day/night as well, and stay safe, angel !!!! 🌷🌷

[luminous-studiess]

Seeing as you mentioned in one of your last posts that you’ve learnt how to study in the pas semester, I was wondering if you could share with us your tips & tricks, please? I love your blog ❤️

hi!!!!! first of all, thank you so much for the kind words. it always helps when i hear that people like my content, and it’s nice to know when people on studyblr reach out and motivate each other. i hope you’re doing well as well!i guess i have to preface this with the fact that studying in undergrad is very different from studying in law school. also, studying in different undergraduate courses constitutes very different studying styles as well. for me, i took literature, so it was a lot of writing papers and not much memory work. in law school, there was a LOT of memory work. i did really badly for several months because i wasn’t used to studying for those kinds of exams. i may make posts if anyone’s interested on how to study specifically for literature or law classes, but for now, these are general tips on how to study.this is a long-ass post, so my apologies!

HOW TO STUDY!!!!!!! A HUGE GENERAL GUIDE FROM SAM FROM LUMINOUS STUDIES, AFTER ~7 YEARS OF HOMESCHOOLING, 4 YEARS OF UNDERGRAD (AND A MAGNA CUM LAUDE) AND ONE TERRIFYING SEMESTER OF LAW SCHOOL. 

FIRST THINGS FIRST: general tips, some life advice, preparation

- actual intelligence matters very little in school. some people learn faster, some take a little more time. being smart in itself does not matter when you don’t work. actual hard work can compensate for a less retentive memory (as i’ve found out over the semester). discipline and a lot of hard work always pay off, even if it seems rocky at first. make the resolve to dedicate a set amount of time to study everyday, even if it’s just an hour or so. a little is better than nothing. - my constitutional law professor (aka my favorite professor) advised one of my classmates to log her work hours. while it seems tempting to set a specific timeslot to get things done, sometimes life gets in the way, and you don’t actually get to work at 3 pm. maybe most of the time you sit at 3 pm is spent fiddling on your phone. to actually track productivity and consistency, time the hours you actively spend studying. put away all your distractions. personally, i like the forest app because it forces me to stay away from social media and lets me use the pomodoro method. on good study days, i get to log my work time in batches of 25 minutes. again, it can be the amount of hours you put in, but what matters is the quality of work you put in. stay consistent. i promise you. it helps- on the study environment: sometimes studyblr convinces you that you need a coffeeshop, an aesthetic library, a beautiful italian garden to get things done. that would be ideal, but most of us don’t have access to that. i suggest you evaluate if you work better in public spaces with a little sound ambience, to hold yourself accountable (coffeeshops, the school library, with friends), or in private, quiet spaces. once you know where you work best, know what keeps you focused. is it tea? a glass of iced coffee? a lofi playlist? a podcast? i find that process a little fun because it keeps the study process a little less dull and uncomfortable, as it often can be. don’t forget to keep it pleasant/rewarding, but note that overindulgence can distract you. trust me, i know this from experience.- study materials: are what you want and what you need. you don’t need anything fancy. personally, i need many colored pens and highlighters because i have a color-coding system for cases and provisions, but for undergrad, my best weapons were just a black ballpen and a nice mildliner. it’s preferential, and just see what works for you. - on study anxiety: i have mental health issues. i’ve been seeing a psychiatrist (and lately a therapist) for depression and anxiety, and it used to be really, really bad, to the point i couldn’t start. i think the best place to start is to find that kind of help if you really have bad mental health. but if it’s the kind of anxiety that stems from being worried that things won’t turn out well, or that there’s too much to do, it’s always best to start, and to remember that even a little, or something imperfect, is still progress. try it for 5 minutes. if you still can’t do it, rest. but sometimes we just need a little push. other things that really calm my anxiety are a good baroque playlist (check out baroque lute/jordi savali’s the celtic viol/bach’s goldberg variations on spotify!!!), jazz, or lofi, and lavender room spray. i also like to use gifs which help you with breathing techniques. you can find them all over tumblr and twitter. it’s also really helpful to ask others for help when you feel stuck. i’ve asked professors for a little consideration and classmates for advice and clarifications when i’m confused. reaching out to other people is often a great way to start the learning process. 

- scheduling: i find it hard to keep on top of things, so i’m really thankful to the classmate who added me to a google calendar with all the class assignments. i think it’s a great system for knowing what the assignments are, so google calendar is your friend. for daily tasks, bullet journals help keep me accountable. i have a really simple one. quick and dirty. ACTUALLY STUDYING: methods, tricks, tips- consider the subject. different classes require different methods. some classes like math and chemistry – which, disclaimer, i have very little experience with – require practice problems. for literature classes, this requires much free analysis, annotations, research, and your own interpretations. other classes like history and geology require the memorization of topics. consider what information you need to learn, and how you want to approach it.- TAKE NOTES DURING THE LECTURE. i can’t stress this enough. if the teacher or professor mentions it, it’s probably important. nowadays, for major classes, i mark the topic on the syllabus with a special-colored highlighter that i won’t use for anything else so i know it’s crucial and will probably turn up on an exam. note: if they place special emphasis on a bit of information because it probably WILL turn up during the exam. one of my professors mentioned that a case would probably turn up during the philippine bar exam and guess what. it did. listen to the professor, don’t goof around on twitter (me to my undergraduate self, tbh), take good notes. make the notes into a reviewer during exam season. pass the class.- pre-studying helps. this is mandatory in law school, because mostly, you go to class to regurgitate what you’ve studied (or didn’t study) on your own from the syllabus. for undergrad, however, it helps to give yourself a background on the material so you can engage in the class, and take notes more efficiently. also, as much as possible, do the required reading. you’ll probably do it in one night anyway before the exam, so at least spread your work out and do a reasonable amount weekly.- on that note: if you’re going to rush through the syllabus and do “a semester’s worth of info” in one night (yes we’ve all seen Those Memes) anyway, it will be less of a pain in the ass to actually do the work slowly and consistently every week. trust me. this comes from a procrastinator who’s getting bitten in the ass, so please learn this as early as you can. it saves you a lot of pain later on.- THE CLASS SYLLABUS IS YOUR BIBLE. it’s all there. before classes, go through it. keep it with you during class and annotate it if you have to. some of my friends like to space the syllabus out on a document file so they use the headings for note-making. the syllabus will be your friend during review season.- always learn actively. if you don’t know a word or term, it will always help to google. make notes in the margins. make flashcards so you state information and retrieve it instead of just recognizing it. form study groups. rewrite your notes. engage with what you’re learning and it becomes so much more interesting, and so much easier. - set a time to unwind religiously. breaks are so important to avoid burnout. i like friday nights for unwinding, family dinners, reading, watching series. please rest. REVIEW SEASON: HOW TO COPE. HOW TO PASS. HOW TO CRY AS LITTLE AS POSSIBLE. - exams are scary. i used to enjoy them, until law school, where i’ve been beaten up thoroughly by every exam. but strangely enough, this is where i only learned how to actually study for an exam with huge blocks of information. i realized that this method really helps for undergrad, and probably will get you honors if you stick to a similarly solid method. - study as early as you can. once you know when the exam is, make a study plan. two weeks is a good minimum. sometimes, there are professors and teachers who announce only a week before, which is unavoidable, so honestly. just make a plan. i tend to assign a set number of syllabus pages to cover/study for on each day so i have time to do a second reading/quizzing. - HOW TO REVIEW: remember the class notes? remember the syllabus? those will help you cover everything you need once you schedule. the syllabus is your map for what you need to cover. assume that everything in the syllabus is something you need to go over at least once, so assign a set number of pages/topics per day. the class notes are your guide on what to focus on. note the special topics which have been emphasized by the lecturer. it also helps if you know what parts you’re very unsure about, so you know what to work on again when you have extra time. i tend to make reviewers out of my class notes, which also helps to retain info, because i go over it again. make time to re-read and quiz yourself. - blanking out on exam day? i can honestly assure you that it’s probably because you didn’t sleep enough. you’ve studied the information, but sleep deprivation either makes you fall asleep during the exam (which has happened) or forget what you learned (which has also happened). if you’ve made the time to repeat what you’ve needed to learn, the studying isn’t the problem. i make a rule to try and avoid all-nighters when necessary because sleep is integral in helping you retain information. when i need extra time to study, i go to bed early, and wake up around 3 or 4 am to study some more. it really helps.DEALING WITH FAILURE: - my professor (a huge businessman, constitutionalist, overall a very successful person) told me that he would not get where he is now if he hadn’t failed. failure is growth because you know you’re doing something. the only true “failure” is when you stop trying. some days are hard, some days don’t yield the results even when you work hard. it’s okay. be gentle on yourself. you are still growing.- sometimes i think about the fact that “gifted child syndrome” aka burnout and perfectionism stem from how many smart kids are often praised for their intelligence and not their work ethic. so when they do badly later in life, they think it’s because they weren’t “smart enough” and give up easily. i think much of doing anything entails a lot of embarrassment, a lot of hard work, and lots of failure. it’s so hard to put up with, and it can often be depressing and unhealthy and put you in a bad place. sometimes we need to talk to someone professional, if it gets to that point. but sometimes, it also helps to realize that a little hard work will help us to get where we want to be. - ask for help. i talk to my friends, my parents, and my professors when i’m stuck. it really helps.ok, whew. i know there’s so much more about studying. but i hope this helps for now. please let me know if you guys want more specific study guides. good luck, loves! you got this.– sam 

[judewithcigarette]

18, 36, 37, 39, 41, 74 😌, 79, 86, 88, and 94 please! ps I love u

yessssss ily thank youuuuu 😌💛✨

18. favorite tv show?

at the moment it’s attack on titan, but overall there’s a few!! attack on titan is still one of my overall fave shows, as well as clannad: after story, grace and frankie, nbc’s hannibal, blue exorcist, band of brothers, the sopranos, avatar: the last airbender, death note, and of COURSE the untamed. a very diverse choosing across genres and also a lot more than a few but yes 😌

36. favorite movie?

definitely a few here too: pride and prejudice, coco, bless me ultima, howl’s moving castle, akira, any of the robert langdon movies (like angels & demons or the da vinci code yes I unironically love those movies), love simon, and the godfather

I very clearly cannot chose a favorite of anything and that’s on being a libra moon LMAO

37. do you read a lot? whats your favorite book?

I definitely used to read for pleasure a lot more than I do now, unfortunately college has me averaging 100+ pages of reading per week so my brain simply cannot be literate at this time <3 

BUT my favorite books are circe and song of achilles by the queen herself, Madeline Miller 😌 I will read literally anything she writes in my lifetime I adore her, and also aristotle and dante discover the secrets of the universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz I am absolutely STOKED for the sequel

39. do you have a nickname? what is it?

I don’t!!! weirdly enough I don’t have a nickname, maybe it’s because my name is relatively simple so there’s nothing to mix up or shorten or anything like that.  that’s okay tho I’m not mad about it I’m fine with people just using my name, it is weird to hear it sometimes since I've been home more often and my family doesn’t really use it sldkfsjldfjsdfl

WAIT actually sometimes my family calls me robinita if that counts 

41. top 10 favorite songs

okay I'll do my top ten rn (in no particular order) since choosing an all time top ten would probably send my brain into a conniption LMAOOOO

1. none of your concern - jhené aiko, big sean

2. filter - jimin from bts

3. can you feel my heart - bmth

4. blood // water - grandson (I've literally looped this song for the past two years it just makes me wanna scrap)

5. she’s in the rain - the rose

6. mayonaka no door - miki matsubara

7. earned it - the weeknd

8. daechwita - agust d

9. dynamite - bts

10. moment’s silence (common tongue) - hozier 🤠

74. what is your crush’s first and last initial?

I’m far too shy to answer this properly jddkdkdk

79. do you believe in ghosts?

I’m not sure to be completely honest, I believe in like. supernatural beings but I don’t think they’re human souls, probably just non-human beings y’know? I don’t think humans haunt places but I think places with bad energy or a really traumatic history will attract some type of entities

if there turns out to be some kind of after life though, I wouldn’t be surprised if staying behind or being unwillingly trapped on earth is a possibility tho!

86. what is your phone background?

here’s my lock screen and home screen:

fuckin Tumblr won’t let me put them side by side but yeah, they’re for the ✨vibes✨

88. do you like it when people play with your hair?

yes. y e s. Y E S yes I love it so fucking much, not to be corny but it’s one of my favorite things in the world so. yeah <3

94. favorite lyrics right now

oh man very good question...... any of the lines from sweet night by v, moment’s silence by hozier or she’s in the rain by the rose tbh!! all bangers with very good lyrics 

[1358456]

Review Response, Sep 27 - Oct 3, 2020

Now that I’m stable once more... weekly response time. I think there are at most 3 responses left.

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Heart #007

1)  Hey! Really liked this story. One of your better fics imo. I saw your tumblr post today and I know it's really late but I'd like to thank you for providing me with plenty of entertainment and emotions over this summer. I hadn't found your page until this quarantine and Special Events was the first fanfic I've ever read. You really got me back into Pokespe after a few years of forgetting about it and ngl I teared up a bit after I saw your tumblr post. I just want to let you know that you've really left a mark on many people's lives with your writing even if it's just a fan-fiction and I don't think I'll forget these works for years to come.

Thank you. It means a lot to me to hear that :)

Well, the last chapter is no longer tied for the absolute worst. It’s now second worst.

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Destiny #031

1)  This is still Mel, I just got the genius idea to actually create an account since I use so much. Anyways, I just- wow. That is so depressing. I still can’t properly think about what happened to Y, because it’s just so much... but I’m glad she’s still the same. Sort of. Personality wise, I mean. After she’d resurrected I was afraid she was a completely different person, tainted. But this meeting with Blue made me realize that she’s still a kind girl, but come to think of it I’m not sure if that’s a good thing. She would suffer more that way, no? Or would it be worse to be a shell of the person you were? It’s a tough question. I don’t think I can answer it. As for X, I am not excitedly anticipating his meeting with Y. That’s a lot of angst right there. But I’m still hoping for a happy ending? Or at least as happy as an ending it can get. I’m sure it’s possible. Although, maybe you’ll pull another alternate ending and that’ll technically count as a “happy ending”, just that it’s not the true one, haha. Would X kill her on the spot? Would Y kill *him*? Will he still be brainwashed at that point? There are so many outcomes, so many possibilities. And I thought it was sweet, the moment with Blue and Dia. I can imagine them being great comrades. Especially since he was so physically affectionate towards her and that’s exactly what Blue needed. It’s also great that she’s made yet another connection! I can’t wait for her to be acquaintances with all her juniors! She won’t be so lonely then when she has so many friends and that’s all you can really hope for Blue :’). That and the possibility between her and Red (*wink, wink*). There were some mighty big hints in this chapter, will anything come of it? Perhaps Red is too dense for any of those things (how is it possible that a person can be so dense?). I’m more of a specialshipping person, but that ship is a mixed bag (they all are tbh), and this between Red and Blue is really sweet. Also, poor Surge lmao. Just wanted a cozy tent, but here comes three scary ass women and an unconscious squirt who kick him out into the cold. Life just isn’t fair for old Surge, is it. I sincerely hope you are doing well. Love, Mel

Hmm. Would X and Y get a happy ending? ... Maybe? Happy-ish?

Hehe. Red & Blue... Ohoho! More hints coming as the pairing shift fully transitions. ... Which of course, spells disaster for a certain blonde girl, but... ehn. Hehe.

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Destiny #032

1)  Haha, those alternate lines at the end were funny, but that didn’t do much to lift my mood. Dammit, I knew I would get this reunion and I was right. How could I have thought there was any chance of a happy ending? ‘Cause there is no way this is a happy ending despite it ending without X and Y murdering each other! I honestly don’t know what I expected. A tender moment between the two? Forgiveness and peaceful moving on? Wtf? There are too many bitter feelings, and there isn’t really a way that Y can move on peacefully with the whole deterioration thing. But anyways yeah, definitely not happy. I suppose the whole “live and be happy” can be taken as a good thing, but in all honesty we all know deep down that X won’t live that way. Who would be able to move on after *that*? He loved her! She blamed him (Justifiably, but in the end it truly wasn’t his fault. I mean she was being hypocritical “I will always go after you, but I’m blaming you, because you went after me.”? He was concerned? Can anyone help it? Even if in the past it was the cause of a bigger problem?). It’s just not plausible. There’s truly something noble and amazing in moving on and living, but there are some times that dying is sort of the right thing to do? I dunno how to explain it, and it’s honestly a rare occurrence. I don’t want to romanticize suicide or dying or anything, but it’s not a cowardly thing in certain circumstances. X wouldn’t be living if he stayed alive. Anyways, that’s all I can really say besides, hot fucking damn. When I read the similarity in this fight scene and the first one between X, Y, and the Mega Hunter, I couldn’t help but remember a happier time. Well, I use happier hesitantly, ‘cause it wasn’t exactly “happy” per se, but it was certainly a *better* situation than this one. Y was still underestimating her value to X, but it still wasn’t such a hopeless situation. If only the damn boy had confessed. Maybe things wouldn’t have gone so downhill.

“It’s just a flesh wound.”

Dying is sort of the right thing to do? Well, human emotions are absolutely irrelevant to being right or wrong, so dying just because a lot of sh*t is happening is by no means “right”. It’s times like this I really wish I was able to put in a lot of my thoughts into my writing and stories. But I’m not a professional writer by any means, so I can’t quite cram in specific themes into the plot and story without making it far too obvious.

Poor X and Y, eh? There was never quite a happy time for them. ... Well, not in this story, anyways. According to the Legacy spoiler post, they do get a very happy ending in the good ending. So... they get to be very happy together... in another story. Hahaha.

Well, there are now 11 Destiny chapters left for you, and 3 weeks left. Do you think it’s possible to finish before I disconnect my FF.net account? I would’ve really liked to see you move on to SA afterwards (you would probably like that story a lot more too), but I simply don’t have the time for that anymore...

[yanabortnik]

YANA BORTNIK ( FIVEL STEWART ) is a 17 year old JUNIOR student at Broadripple Academy. SHE is originally from MARQUETTE, MICHIGAN but moved to Broadripple 3 YEARS ago. SHE is AMBITIOUS and DISCIPLINED but can also be CONDESCENDING and CRITICAL.  

BASICS

Name: Yana Mikhailovna Bortnik

Age: 17

Grade: Junior

House: Keough

Cabin Room: Room 3

How long have they been at Broadripple: 3 years

Where are they from originally: Marquette, Michigan

Extra curricular: Soccer, Speech and Debate, SWAT,  and Women of Broadripple,

PINTEREST

CHARACTER AESTHETICS

Frothy matcha lattes, a furrowed brow, bargain bin arts & crafts, the strong smell of incense, palms pressed against the bark of a tree, late night cram sessions, an old scuffed pair of crocs, vanilla yogurt topped with berries, a small collection of crystals, a grass-stained soccer ball, monochromatic outfits, a small plain Kamidana, a backpack stuffed to the brim, a folder filled with school assignments graded with anything less than an A, a smattering of freckles across a nose, nervously bitten nails, a meticulous daily planner, and a furby meme-filled album on an iPhone.

TRAITS

Positive Personality Traits: Responsible, patient, ambitious, resourceful, loyal, organized, and self-disciplined

Neutral Personality Traits: Cautious, realistic, practical, methodical, business-oriented, serious, and suspicious

Negative Personality Traits: Sensitive, know-it-all, expects the worst, nosey, cheap, and rarely satisfied

FACTS

Yana is from Marquette, Michigan—a friendly, scenic, and cold place on the Upper Peninsula. Her mother is originally from Japan and moved to the United States to attend university and she stayed after she met Yana’s father. Yana has an older brother, Mikhail (Misha), who was born in New York, but then a job opportunity cropped up for her father that brought the family halfway across the country and dumped them in Michigan.

Yana’s parents are hardworking, no-nonsense, and both functioning alcoholics. Yana and Misha’s upbringing was, as a result, a little distant and sanitized, and has led Yana to push herself as far and hard as she can in order to feel like she has done something right by them. But mostly, not much she can do catches their attention.

Enter: Broadripple Academy in her google search for “top prestigious boarding schools grades 9-12.” Yana dedicated the entirety of eight grade to cramming for the entrance exam and convinced at least half a dozen of her teachers to send letters of recommendation or to help her with the application. While the Montessori school she attended wasn’t bad per se, it didn’t have the stature a place like Broadripple Academy did. It was a ticket to a great college, to a great future, and maybe like… a hearty pat on the back from her dad or a congratulatory hug from her mom????

She paid all the fees with money she made from babysitting over the previous two years, forged her parents’ signatures (as she was accustomed to), and her parents didn’t find out she had even applied until she got the acceptance letter. Their reaction was, as per usual, lackluster. They condescendingly thought it was cute that she had done all this on her own, bragged to their friends about how they helped her get in, and then in the fall Yana was shipped off.

What motivates Yana is not perfection but success, and it does have the habit of driving her up the wall sometimes but that is just the kind of sacrifice she has to make in order to fulfill a goal. She is very future-oriented in that when she first arrived at Broadripple she had a bit of a I’m Not Here To Make Friends outlook (though undoubtedly made 2-3 really close friends within the first couple months and has assumed her role as Mom Friend yes hello these are wanted connections).

Her dad is an atheist but her mom practices Shinto and used to be a Buddhist. When Yana and Misha were young, she really immersed them in both religions. They sporadically attended Lake Superior Zendo back home until Yana was about twelve and they still perform Shinto prayers at home at a Kamidana.

She is really dedicated to their studies and heavily side-eyes everyone who doesn’t take school seriously. Like, guys don’t you realize how lucky you are to be here!!! 

HEADCANONS

Back home, Yana has a pet ferret named Pasha. If you are a friend of hers, you know everything about him from the little snuffling sounds he makes while he sleeps, his favorite treats, and the “walks” through the park that Yana takes him on when she’s home. He is her baby and she misses him. </3

Yana is quite... economical (i.e. cheap as hell). Her brother made her a tie-dye shirt that says ‘Dollar Tree Prom King 2008′ (an inside joke). She really values independence and money = independence, y’know? It’s just another thing she doesn’t have to worry about bothering her parents for, so she works at a restaurant and babysits almost nonstop whenever she’s home so she has spending money while at school.

Which reminds me that she feels like an awful daughter for literally no valid reason. That’s just what checked out parents do to you, I guess. :/

Though she’s a very serious person the things she finds funny are usually bizarre, nonsensical memes and she particularly loves furby ones, especially the long furby blessed be his name etc etc. 

She has a small crystal collection that she uses for things like concentration, energy, calmness, self love, etc. Does she sincerely believe they do anything? I’m gonna go ahead and give it a 50/50. She does enjoy the ritual of charging them and doing full moon stuff. Who’s down to bask in the moonlight???

When not wearing the school-regulated Oxfords or her standard pair of white sneakers Yana is, in fact, wearing a pair of light blue crocs. They’re comfy, okay!!! Also fashion-wise, she does wear a lot of monochromatic outfits. If you go to her Pinterest page that I linked above you’ll see what I mean. Nothing too weird just like, a Brand.

QUESTIONS ABOUT THE RETREAT

What do they think about The Retreat? Yana is someone who feels her goals are in danger and/or inconvenienced by the Retreat. She very much wants to be at Broadripple and she’s going to be worrying about her GPA and missed opportunities from not being on campus. It makes her uneasy and she’s anxious to get back tot he dorms.

Do they have any previous experience with camping or other outdoors? She was in the Girl Scouts when she was a kid and attended Girl Scout Camp for a couple weeks for a few summers, but other than that her family’s connection to the outdoors was pretty regimented in religious ceremony a lot of the time. But she did grow up with a lot of people in Michigan who camped and did outdoors-y stuff, so she picked up one small things but nothing that would be very useful at the Retreat.

What does their cabin bunk look like? How will they decorate their space? Yana isn’t a neat freak by any means but she does value organization. She has her crystals laid out on her bedside table (they are usually on her desk back in the dorm), a couple sticks of incense, and her clothes are all neatly folded and put away. She has designated a spot beside her bed for all her school stuff, and then she has a framed photo of herself and her brother propped up nearby (see here). She also has a tote bag of like, cheap crafts supplies to do in her “downtime” as a form of chilling lmao. She had more miscellaneous decorative stuff back in her dorm that she didn’t bring.

Do they believe in the supernatural? To what degree? In a sense, yeah, depending on your definition of what is or isn’t supernatural. Going to take a direct quote here but: “informed by Shinto beliefs around notions of animism — a soul (“reikon”) lives within all existence and phenomena. Everyday things — from objects to plants to mountains — can be defined as ‘kami’ or deities.” So in a sense that she believes in deities, yes. But monsters? Cryptids? Ghosts? Not really.

Are they easily spooked? Actually, yes asdkjn. She’s just very verrrrrry jumpy. It doesn’t take much to startle her honestly.

AND FINALLY,

A very dumb but (hopefully) fun quiz made by your admins, please share what result you got

you will sacrifice yourself for someone else

your one of the purer hearts of broadripple, you may not even know the person you sacrifice yourself for that well but you think its the right thing to do. and maybe it is. but would they do the same thing for you?

genuinely didn’t expect it tbh! but aw

[gavinbowman]

September - Launched!

Ok, let’s get the big bit out of the way first... we launched a game. Sometimes it doesn’t feel like that long ago that I was popping games into the app store on a fairly regular basis... but this month’s Dungeon Drop launch was actually the first in over 2 years. And I think there was over a year prior to that one to find another. So those days are clearly long gone. And it’s been a trip.

But hey, Dungeon Drop is out, and we’re really happy with it. If you haven’t tried it yet, it’s a free download on the App Store now.

The launch experience was a fun one, we’d had September 19th lined up for a while as the release date, and then a couple of weeks earlier Apple announced that Apple Arcade would launch on the same day. Bringing 50-100 premium mobile games that players could play for free with a trial subscription, or enjoy completely for only $4.99 per month. All starting on the same day as our little game. What do we do? We had a lot of suggestions to move the date, and we were pretty split on it for a while there, but we ultimately decided to go with the original launch date.

And it worked out well I think, we got one of the best feature spots we’ve ever had for the game in the App Store, I think probably our first US feature since Slambots in 2013... I guess maybe a lot of developers avoided that date and left us some air to work with? Either way. It got featured. A few people told me they liked it, and few even told me they bought the premium upgrade. So that was a great feeling, mission accomplished for Dungeon Drop.

Our next iOS game launches mid-November. We’ll post it for pre-orders later this month and share details then.

We hadn’t really used the pre-order feature prior to Dungeon Drop, but it turned out to be really useful for sharing the game info before launch. We didn’t need a separate web page to direct people to, or even really a video, people could just see the screenshots and app preview on the App Store for themselves. We did post a trailer for Dungeon Drop on Youtube and a couple of twitter videos or gifs, and those worked out well too... so we’ll definitely do that again next time around.

Anyway, I’m less concerned about that launch now, having seen Dungeon Drop get some play and positive response I feel happy with where we’re at with what we’re putting out. Now we need to turn that around and apply it to Monsters & Monocles.

Oh god. What the hell have I agreed to. Finishing this up is going to be a big thing. Ryan is a smart cookie, so fortunately the code is clean and organized. It’s just that there’s a lot of it, and it’s all Ryan’s and not mine. It makes more sense than mine would have, but I don’t instinctively know where to find anything yet. I managed to poke at a few bits, they seem to do what I expected them to do, and I think I can massage all the things I don’t like into something we’ll be happy to launch. I just feel massively overwhelmed right now. There’s a lot of layers to everything, there’s 3 different platforms they launched the game on, there’s the single player, local coop, and online multiplayer cases to consider in everything. And then there’s the stuff that Ryan wasn’t really finished working on when he left... some of those things are hard for me to distinguish from things that either weren’t done at all or have been finished for years. For now I’m really just trying to build a big picture of it all in my head without running off to the mountains first.

I think what I’ll be looking at this month will be a long overdue UI overhaul, because I feel like that’s going to be relatively painless to address. I’ll just need new designs and artwork from Craig and I think I can shuffle everything around and give it a nice new lick of paint there... and hopefully that’ll start to make it feel more like my game. In game, there’s a fair amount of broken or less than great camera stuff that I’d like to get working, which should give me some exposure to the NPC systems and what state those are in, and then I’d like to get things like the player death sequences cleaned up. I’ll be having to touch a lot of systems but I feel like I’ll build a pretty good understanding of a lot of it that way.

I’m hoping a lot of the existing systems like the map generation, basic physics and controls, and the network play, are largely sound for most of what a finished version of this game needs to be. Some of the npc/meta stuff will need an overhaul to create a roadmap to 1.0, and some of the systems like the enemy behaviors, weapons, characters might just need expanded on as they are.

Hopefully. Since the game is out there anyway and there’s only a few people reading this I’ll try to talk about it in a more open inside baseball kinda way as we try to wrap it up. I’m always more open on emotional or general aspects of how things are going, so it’ll be fun to try to be more open in addressing specifics. No promises though, I’ve never really tried this before.

Speaking of generalities, this month wasn’t bad really. Launching Dungeon Drop was a huge distraction that I kind of allowed myself, and then I got horribly sick taking my kids to a soft play place and lost a bunch of work there too. But I’ve had much worse months, and after pushing through finishing two games in a row I probably should cut myself some slack. I’m spending some time working in the same room as Craig this week, which helped a bunch with Dungeon Drop, although it’s kind of difficult with Monsters & Monocles since there’s so much to do and I’m so far off the pace on mastering the ins and outs of the project. If nothing else, having someone next to me gives me a good push to try something anyway.

Aside from working, I’ve been having a blast playing the goose game with my kids, they just laugh hysterically while the goose is horrible, and it’s awesome. Probably one of the best games to play with kids. I finished up Mario Rabbids Kingdom Battle. That was great. My kids enjoyed watching some of the earlier battles and the story sections, but they got bored easily when the battles got longer and harder, and during the longer exploration bits. That’s actually kinda like me, tbh, although they did a great job of keeping the later battles challenging without becoming a huge grind or massively difficult. The difficulty probably spiked most in the second half of the second world and the first half of the third for me... There’s some extra challenges to play, I didn’t do those, and there’s more coop levels we didn’t play, those are fun too. Haven’t tried vs mode. 100% campaign and most of the collectables was about 30-40 hours, so a decent length, but my switch obviously can’t pull out kid aimless wandering or repeating time, so I don’t know exactly how that is. I could have shaved off probably 5-10 hours just by not wandering around looking for hidden chests, which mostly don’t add anything to the gameplay or give you any useful boosts, and involve a lot of back tracking and kind of boring wandering around (you’re wandering around beautiful worlds, but it’s mostly linear and you’ve seen it already). 

Other games, we’re still playing Mario 3D World, but the kids are definitely tapping out on it a little, but it had a very good run. They love watching Captain Toad, so I got to play through the first couple of hours of that, it’s adorable, I hope I get to play the rest. But they like to try to play and it’s too hard for them, so they get annoyed. We’ve played a bit of Mario Kart, but they don’t really try to stay on the tracks yet, but I feel like they’re going to love that when it clicks. And weirdly they watched me play Twilight Princess for about an hour last night and both seemed to love it, so I might actually get to make some more progress in that. Although it’s rough going after Breath of the Wild, the rigidity and the camera especially make it feel it’s age, even in the HD remake. Off on my own I’ve been picking away at an old copy of Link’s Awakening with the hope of finishing it again before I eventually play the remake. It’s such a great game, I think it may have been the first Zelda I actually played through, since I never had an NES of my own.

Okay, I’ve gone on long enough, back to work, I’d better get going on something so I have some good Monsters & Monocles progress to report next month.

[callioope]

An update and possibly a continued absence --

As I’ve previously blogged, my vision was getting blurry and I decided I needed to go to see the eye doctor. I went, idk, maybe a month ago. And as per usual I walked out of the exam wondering if I’d answered all those questions properly and not really convinced that I had. Decided the best I can do is “wait and see” (a game I despise but w/e) until I pick up my new pair.

I picked up my glasses a week and a half ago, and after wearing them for a day at work, I was just like Nope. It’s wrong. The problem was that the letters all looked blurry, sort of like they were glowing / had a halo / were jumping off the page. It’s very hard to describe, but I feel convinced the prescription is wrong. We went back to the store and after spending 20 minutes there getting adjustments, they decided to order me new lenses and that I’d exchange them. 

So now here I am with the new-new pair, and ... it’s the same. All words, on or off screen, are very difficult to read. It’s not that I *can’t* read them, I can, I can definitely tell what the letters are. But they are not crisp in the way I was expecting with a new pair, they seem sorta bright, still kind of glowing / halo / jumping off the screen. Some research indicates that this is a natural part of the new glasses adjustment period -- something I really ought to be familiar with by now, having worn glasses for more than two decades, but it’s been 4.5 years since I got my last pair.

Speaking of which, I’m now having the same issue with the last pair. I know I had been thinking they were blurry, but about Friday evening, I was chatting and I was just like “...I legit cannot read the screen.” It’s scary for me -- reading and writing are so much a part of me that to not be able to do these things it’s practically inconceivable to me, and it hurts so much that I cannot do them. I cannot even read or write hard copies because I have the same issue. 

So anyways, the point is, I’m taking a now forced-break from the computer in general. I won’t really be on any of my typical platforms, and I don’t know when I’ll be back. Know that I desperately want to be back as soon as possible, but it hurts too much right now every time I look at the screen and the letters are just... elusive. taunting. 

This might sound familiar to anyone with glasses, but compounding the issue is that I’m currently seeing therapy for “just right” OCD. This is a subtype of OCD that instead of fixating on like, preventing bad things from happening, it means I continually obsess and enact compulsions until something “feels” right. One example is that at my previous job, I switched from having one monitor to three monitors, and the entire day I kept adjusting them so that they would line up perfectly -- they never would line up perfectly. They never felt “just right.” 

Obviously then this glasses thing becomes two-fold -- because aside from the fact that I can’t even see the letters right, they always appear crooked to me. I mean, I guess it’s natural that frames would be crooked, our ears are crooked, but it drives me to a point of anxiety that is unreasonable, and I’m constantly going back to the mirror to look at them, wondering if I should drive to the store right now to get them adjusted--but how many times? How many times would I have to go to get them just right? [And the reality of the situation is that previous pair *probably was* also crooked, and I just got used to it and didn’t notice.]

This must seem so silly to read, someone freaking out about something so minor. But I can’t just stop being reminded of the issue--it’s literally with my sight, my perception of the world! It’s around me constantly. And unfortunately it’s what my stupid brain is forcing upon me. (My stupid brain that keeps lying to me, trying to convince me that these issues are enough to trigger whatever hormones are riling me up). 

My plan is to see if I get used to these in a few days. If not, I’m going back to the optometrist to see if they’ll recheck my eyes. It’s worth noting that my prescription in 2010 (my last prescription from the doctor I had been seeing in NJ, for most of my life) is stronger than my prescription from 2014 and my newest prescription. This is mindboggling to me, but apparently not unusual as far as eye prescriptions go? 

Best case scenario then is that I’ll be back in a few days. TBH I do not see this happening. Next best is that I go to the optometrist and get a new prescription. After that I don’t know. 

I’m really, really sad about this -- I had intended to spend most of the weekend finishing Learning Curve and instead i could barely look at a computer for more than five minutes. It sucks so much. I just want to read and write again. 

(On that note, too, if this doesn’t resolve this week then I’ll probably skip my next rec post -- I haven’t read anything except the Double Agent Vader fic.)

Anyways this has been pretty agonizing, writing this post and staring at these blazing, glowing letters that won’t just come into focus. Thanks for reading if you’ve come this far. I miss interacting and reading and writing so much. I hope to be back as soon as I can.

PS as a side note to all the fun & games above, I ALSO just came back from getting a root canal. so. that’s my life right now. stupid little medical stuff just compiling in a big unwanted cluster.

[sunlit-helix]

Well i’ve been in school every year since i was 3 and next year i dont have to go so wup de fucking do lets figure out how i felt about college. This is very long and very rambly and very personal so don’t read if you’re not dreadfully bored.

Before I got to school I was in a very difficult part of my life. Almost every major relationship in my family ended with divorce, or I learned was abusive, in about the span of a year. I spent a good 8 months throwing a lot of belongings from the house that I lived in since i was 3. I was coping with all the other high school graduation things- worried about not being able to see my friends again when I moved, what was college gunna be like. I was never diagnosed with depression or social anxiety but I still remember being in my senior year and asking my mom to buy something for me because i was too afraid to talk to a cashier. I was a very different person, and things felt surreal because I was going through a lot of life events at once.     When I got to college things changed quickly and in a much better way. My freshman year I forced myself to be social and I met a lot of people, and got over my anxiety. I made a lot of good friends. I knew everything my major-related professors were trying to teach me already. Classes didn’t seem much harder than highschool ones. I had a good roommate and the room itself could’ve been much worse. I stopped being afraid of the dark. I stopped being kind of pathetic tbh and started growing as a person. My mom got a home that she loved and was starting to chase her dreams. My first summer 3 hours away from all my friends was lonely but I survived.

    Sophomore year was harder. The winters were starting to get to me because the rooms never have any heating, so i was buying and bringing more blankets down and doing homework under 3 or 4 layers. The rooms where garbage. I wore earplugs through the entire year to shut out the sound of snoring from my roommate so that I could sleep, and now I have regular tinnitus. The rooms were small and my desk was literally in the closet because there was no other room for it. I got very sick very frequently throughout most of the school year. The class material was still interesting to me but I was appalled that one of my professors, who worked at dreamworks, decided he wanted to teach us by just using youtube tutorials the entire year. That was and still feels brutally unacceptable when I came to college- in part SPECIFICALLY because I hate fucking following youtube tutorials and had already been doing that to teach myself 3D for 4 years. I learned how to properly animate. I started taking drawing classes because I wanted to learn and was consistently at the bottom of the class. I would continue to be at the bottom for the next couple years. I wasn’t able to hang out with most of the people i met my freshman year because I was sick and working and tired all the time. It was had ups and downs but was overall pretty miserable.

    Junior year continued the tradition of being tired all the time but was more manageable. I met more people and had the chance to socialize more. I went to my first and only college party and talked about taco bell for several hours after getting completely fucked. It was the most liberating thing I think I have ever done in my life and I wish I had the time and endurance to go to more of them.

    My senior year, man, I don’t fucking know. It was the first dorm that had heating. Really the first dorm with any kind of temperature control. Not having to share a bathroom with 20-30 men is a godsend. All male floors are the fucking worst. The bathrooms always smell like weed, shit, and cigarettes, and someone breaks a toilet once a week. I was rooming with two good friends. We had a lot of fun together. I wanted to put all my effort into my senior project but I ended up feeling drained about it. I was so burnt out. School wasn’t letting me be creative with my artwork, at least it felt so restricting with the requirements for assignments and I just was super dead. My passion for the project ended almost as soon as it began, and I worked very little on it until the last month of my senior year where I had to put it all together as fast as possible, and it shows. Going to school in a major that you think is going to teach you what you really want to know, and then being met with idle work and youtube tutorials for classes was the most frustrating thing. Well except for still having to take mandatory gen eds. I was taking gen eds up until my junior year much more than major related work, and they get in the way so much. I realized I was trans and stopped denying that I was bi right before my last semester started and it made me feel awful through the coming months.

    So the overall college experience? Well it had ups and downs, but mostly it did not feel worth it. I didn’t learn nearly as much as I wanted to learn. I wanted to learn texture design and it wasn’t even taught in any class, at all, period, so i’m going to be teaching myself substance painter and designer soon. I didn’t socialize as much as I wanted to.

    I sincerely do not understand how people were able to

a) keep friends together through the years

b) get all there work done

c) apply for jobs and get accepted out of school

d) go to clubs.

It was completely impossible for me to do. I was loaded with stress the entire 4 years. I couldn’t reach out to people as much as I wanted to and that’s what really gets me down; that It’s going to be so hard to talk to my friends because I’m out and it’s over. I was never able to balance all of it and that’s just the way it is. It’s ok, school wasn’t made for everyone, and it certainly wasn’t made for me. That said, I made deans list my first semester and my last semester only, and i’m graduating with a good GPA. I would give away all my grades for a better experience, I just didn’t know how. There are definitely more specifics I could get into I think, but after graduating like 3 weeks ago, this is what my thoughts are. I could talk about how much i hate the gen ed or other specifics, but right now all i’m feeling is that I lost a lot of my love for art by having it treated like busywork. Having to put aside work on my modelling and rendering final to prepare for entry level biology class that has 4 exams and 30 pages of notes to review per exam? Having to skip classes to do work on other classes? It’s dumb, it’s awful, and it’s too much, and it’s too much stress considering everything I learned that was major related in my field, I could have EASILY taught myself with no problem outside of college. Except maybe rigging, fuck rigging.

So college? A lot of money spent, a lot of pain, and a lot of people I wanted to talk to but wasn’t able to. I feel like i’ve grown as a person at least. I Think I know what I want more than I did before. I’m going to stop beating myself up about not being totally productive right after graduating considering I have 4 years worth of stress to decompress rn.

[rigelmejo]

I don’t know if this extensive reading has helped but I FEEL like it has helped lol. When I started 小王子 how long was it taking a chapter? Just under 5 minutes per page right?

Well I know I got faster than that. Today my Internet was down so while waiting for things to restart and load and stuff I read like 5 chapters of the book. I read them out loud (just a handful of words I didn’t know how to say out loud). I was reading at slow but steady speaking speed so that’s still faster than 5 minutes a page. Ok I just timed myself to test it and I am taking 2 minutes to read a page, and I would guess 3 minutes if I slowed down to consider a bit more on the sayings/less familiar hanzi. That’s better then the 4.5-5 minutes I started at! So I must’ve picked up some words from this book. So I would say... yes a little extensive reading seems to be helping reading speed. Also! I have 16 pages to go! This story is so short. It is sweet and odd and so human though maybe that is why it’s remained loved like Alice in wonderland. (Fun fact I also read 2 chapters of Alice in wonderland in French this week and it is just as bizarre to me as when I watched the movie as a kid, But I do think in book form if I were 6-9 I would’ve related more since Alice’s POV in the story is pretty relatable... and when I was a kid and watched the movie I just did Not relate aha).

Anyway from 4.5 minutes to 2-3 is great!

What I did with graded readers/extensive reading this month, that I am hoping is why this helped:

Read graded reader (butterfly lovers, Pleco, 500 unique characters) - not hard but very satisfying to finish it and read it quickly when it used to take me 40 minutes to read a few Pleco pages of it). So that was a few thousand words comprehensible extensive reading.

Read another graded reader, chinese short stories. While I think it’s good as a study companion, a lot of very specific words which I tripped on (antique coins, being scammed). Which was fine I just think it was not the funnest reading material? It was mostly graded reader though I had to look up a couple handfuls of words.

Read a little of my 500 character Sinolingua reader (2 stories). Also read through the back of it which has all the words in the book, and the HSK 3 words included in the book - I knew all those words but it was a nice refresher. Mostly it was just nice to see how much easier these stories were to read compared to when I first got the book. (I would recommend these books as readers if you want something for adults and in short segments, the short stories are simplified prose from established authors, and the quality of storytelling can therefore be felt a bit. They feel more meaningful as short stories and therefore enjoyable if a bit basic (since they’ve been simplified). You can tell though compared to the Chinese Short Stories book above, which was probably written by a teacher/language textbook maker and not necessarily a literary writer.

Read mandarin companion journey to the center of the earth. 450 unique characters. Another easy read that felt really nice, compared to when I first read a mandarin companion book.

Started reading 小王子 on paper, so extensive reading with little word look up (I’ve looked up less than 10 words so far when reading on paper - notable words I looked up because it frustrated me I didn’t know them: 悲伤，惊奇，惊讶，匆匆，逐渐，观察，测试 a lot of these because I know I’ve seen these Hanzi before I just never remember specifically like 惊讶 惊奇 what the difference is or guan pronunciation 观察 or 测 I tend to forget when it’s not in 测试). I started reading it because it’s supposed to have around 2000 unique words (so not too many), and be pretty easy reading level (so a bit easier than 活着 which is the novel Chinese learners often get recommended). Basically, this was the extensive reading book choice step up from graded readers - it’s got a bit over 1000 unique hanzi, not an overwhelming amount of unique words, but it is not a graded reader so if it goes well I could jump to other stuff of similar or slightly less “ease” while still having it feel this “easy” to read (and hopefully take days to read instead of months).

Started reading 笑猫日记之会唱歌的猫 in Pleco, so clicking words I didn’t know (though this one only had a word or two a page unknown). I saw it recommended on a Chinese learners form as easy reading material after graded readers, and I agree! It’s very easy to read! I could understand it without clicking words but it is nice to understand fully since it’s convenient, and look up the pronunciation etc. I read 8 chapters so far. I also listened to a few chapters after reading, but idk if it helped at all.

15 ish chapters into 小王子 I found it online and reread 4 chapters with a click dictionary for unknown words. It was nice just clarifying the word pronunciations and fuzzy bits, also the online translation was different so seeing the difference on how they decided to word it (mostly just seeing synonyms used instead or different sayings for certain parts). I listened to a couple chapters audio afterwards, idk if it helped.

Unrelated, but I did listen read to 5 chapters of 默读 mainly following the Chinese text so, idk if that would’ve helped my overall reading at all (I want to say no but I did notice in general much more general gist comprehension of lines in MoDu then last time I read a couple months ago - although listening to the audio and being able to glance at the English for unknown words of course also makes things much more comprehensible that’s why listen reading method is the structure it is ahh).

Listened to some audio for 小王子 during work because I happened to find it, for chapters 1-4. Just playing in the background. I looked at the text while listening to one to match pronunciation to some words, since the chapter was like 5 minutes long in listening. Again interesting to see their word choice since It was yet another translation (I think I like my print books translation best).

Back to reading print 小王子 today and I think the audio beforehand did help me with being able to pronounce more of what I’m reading. Read like 4 chapters in one short break, another 3 chapters just now. While I don’t know how well the reading speed will translate to reading harder stuff like guardian (which was oddly also taking me 5 minutes a page? Why is that my default speed?), my reading speed doing extensive reading on “stuff mostly easy” to me has increased noticeably. (Fun fact when I read English technical text like psychology and physics books and educational etc I think my reading speed is it’s like 10-20 pages an hour... I do not read non fiction very fast).

So anyway, my goal with extensive reading easy material this month was to see if I could push UP what my starting base level “easy” material is.

What I used to do is practice with an “easier text” (which was still pretty hard for me tbh) and then once it got bearable (took 30-40 minutes to read instead of an hour), I’d switch to a harder material that took me 1-1.5 hours to read. Then when I’d burn out, I’d go back to that “easier” text until it got easier at 20-30 minutes to read. Then I might pick a harder base reading text (usually what used to be the hard one that would now take 30-40 minutes to read), and find something even harder. Lately that has been 寒舍 as my “easier” text, taking 20-30 minutes a full chapter (2 mini chapters), and 天涯客 as my harder text at 30-40ish minutes a chapter. And yes, at this point I could pick something harder but they’re both hard enough I was just sticking to them. You might notice none of these were actually easy for me though, my actual base easy materials were still graded readers, and manhua. So I want to push that upward until there’s some “easier” material below 寒舍 that I can be built up to and read easily Without a dictionary aid. So I can have a solid base that’s reliable. Hanshe is an “easier” practice material but it’s not necessarily something I can read extensively with ease. But if I keep pushing up the difficulty of what I can extensively read, bit by bit, I will eventually Get it to hanshe (or a little below it realistically but still firmly in regular-webnovel-exist at the reading level). I will not get faster at reading these hard things unless my base level of reading is both higher and already a reasonable speed. (I’m guessing anyway??).

Well happy to say this plan is working. I guess the advice articles I read were right somewhat. I knew graded readers could drag you from 0 beginner to some reading ability, since It’s what I originally did with Chinese (and even French sort of). But I was very quick about it because I’m impatient and easily bored by too-easy things apparently lol. I read 1 mandarin companion graded reader (the 300 word Sherlock Holmes one), a couple chapters of 2 other graded readers, then started on a random webnovel (the bl 他们的故事 which somehow thankfully is on the easier end for novels) and looked a lot of words up to get through. But I did not think to try to “match my reading level and increase gradually” in regular novels, even tho if it works for graded readers it probably works for regular stuff!

And in school in our native languages, that’s why our elementary schools had libraries, and we read books for our age group and the chapter books we read were much easier than what we read as teens or what adults read! I remember bunnicula and cat wings those were not hard but they were chapter stories. Then I remember Dracula and hg wells and mark Twain in high school and how they felt a bit Hard despite me being one of those kids rated at college reading level in 3rd grade. Now as a kid? I had the same tendencies I do now, so I’m not surprised I always jump in the deep end and Try to read hard stuff (and it must help since it’s part of why I got good at reading my native language, and definitely has helped my chinese and french). I would be like 7 and pick up a mitchner novel of My dad’s (is that the author of stuff like Alaska etc?) and I’d read a couple pages and feel drained trying to follow it and give up. Or the huge The Witching Hour by Anne Rice, or HG Wells History of the world, or the biography of benjamin Franklin, I never finished any of these or had any idea what they were about I just got curious and opened up a couple pages every now and then. Yet somehow that must’ve been part of why my reading level so early on was considered “good”? I’m guessing.

But I wasn’t actually good at reading in the sense of doing it often or fast until my dad started reading to me at like age 8-9 I think it was Harry Potter which at the time worked out since the books got harder each time, and also my dad reads out loud slow just like he tutors slow lol so eventually I read myself so he’d stop boring me (I love him and loved the bonding time I’m sure but truly i just apparently always liked jumping in the deep end). Eventually his strategy Im guessing to get me to read slightly harder stuff each time worked, because by books 4-5 I read each in 2 days. He was so impressed because before that I couldn’t read long books and not fast, and that’s when he thought I got good at reading. Looking back lol it’s actually so funny? How much work he had to do to get me to read and how what ended up working I still sort of do now. He started me on Hop on Pop as a kid as my first book cause One Fish Two Fish bored me and I thought jumping on a dad was funny, and he did that just to do something to get me to pick up a book lol. Then he got me that digital book toy they had back then where you had a real book but it was in a digital holder and if you clicked words with the pen it read them out loud. Literally how I learn Chinese now... he really got me digital equivalent to graded readers back then ToT. And just like as a kid I still pick up stuff way beyond my level and just read a couple pages at random. It’s just. Kind of funny to me how much I didn’t really change that much after all ToT

BACK ON THE TOPIC OF APRIL PROGRESS lol ok. I listened to Guardian ep 1 today just in the background so no subs etc and I was Floored by how much I completely understood. I’ve been listening to SpoonFed chinese again (15 audios listened to this month), but I’m floored if it made a difference?! Since I was mostly listening in the background not focusing and missing some stuff. Idk if it made a difference, or listening reading method just that 1.5 hours I did this month or what. Or if my listening skills have been this decent I just don’t test them since I usually watch shows with hard Chinese subs (and read the subs), or watch shows with English subs. So like. Anyway mejo back in what was it august 2019 when I started studying? Would be so happy. Back when I started watching guardian and only knew ni hao and xie xie and zai jian.

Also I can’t even remember now if I did extensive reading guardian (after reading the English translation), this month too or just last month. But I’m sure that helped and I should test general reading sometime of a priest novel. Like.. literally what kicked off the “I should extensive read more” this month is me Desperately wanting to kick up my reading speed after the horrific 25 page guardian chapter I read that took like 1.5 hours.