#perhaps another artist in the future will have this strength lol )

[creativenicocorner]

“Ah,” he said, gently holding one leaf between thumb and forefinger, “I’m causing you to do extra work aren’t I?” Reigen gently tapped the cigarette against the ashtray he had placed tentatively on his chest, before taking another lazy drag, “Please bare with me a little longer.”

From my Serirei fic  Cold Green Tea and Colder Feet

[libraincarnate]

astrology notes: 9 🐰𖤣𖥧.𖡼.⚘

quick note: i'm absolutely not an astrologer. these are just a collection of some observations, thoughts, theories, and personal experiences. with that being said, i'm still learning along the way & i may come back to edit this post to make corrections. above all this is just for fun. lastly, keep in mind that i’m not reading your birth chart and i know nothing about you. these are just some possibilities that may or may not apply to you. enjoy!

𓍊𓋼𓍊 i feel like aries & sag mars are the types to do extreme sports like skateboarding, surfing, mountain climbing, snowboarding, bungee jumping, bmx, etc.

𓋼𓍊 moon conjunct/trine/sextile neptune: those with these aspects may be good actors or have some of the qualities & abilities needed for good acting. i feel like they know how to fake cry. they could purposely & easily evoke a memory or experience that triggers an emotional response. there’s this ability to manipulate their feelings but also the feelings of others. the ability to couple their emotional intelligence & creativity and combine them with reality & illusion. they make it believable. with that being said they can also be good liars too. and remember neptune is associated with tv/film.

^ moon-mercury aspects is another aspect that i feel is beneficial for acting because actors also needs to convey emotion with their words & it needs to sound convincing. it should make sense and be in accord with their facial and physical expressions, it needs to fit the script. especially for voice acting.

𓍊𓋼𓍊 geminis & virgos: do yourself a favor and tidy up the notes in your notes app. it’ll declutter your mind, phone, and to-do list lol. plus it may be fun for the virgos who like to organize. perhaps gemini too. i wouldn’t say gems like to organize and arrange things like virgo but it may be mentally stimulating for them kind of like a puzzle, figuring where to put what.

𓋼𓍊 sag, capricorn, aries, scorpio, and aquarius are some of the most straightforward and direct individuals. they’re honest and if they hold back their words then it’s for your sake. may have an “it’s not how you say it but it’s what you say that matters” mindset. they may be perceived as harsh or as assholes because of how candid they can be. plus they’re super sarcastic.

𓍊𓋼𓍊 your big 3 making harsh aspects to each other: hard to be yourself or accept yourself for who you are. doesn’t mean you don’t like yourself or your personality but beneath it all there may be a part of you that finds it difficult to feel comfortable with the real you as a whole.

this doesn’t need to be discouraging. having difficult placements, aspects, etc. doesn’t equal inaction on your part. you still have control over yourself & you can make changes, improvements. sort out your strengths/weaknesses according to your big 3 & try finding a balance between them, figuring out ways to make them work together. take the difficulties/challenges & turn then into a greater sense of confidence and personal power.

𓋼𓍊 taurus/libra absolutely hate being rushed but libras are also big on manners so they respect punctuality.

𓍊𓋼𓍊 moon in the 10th house: may be in a position where you explain/express your feelings to the public. whether it be as an artist or maybe you have a large following on social media, you connect to your followers on an emotional level, or you’re just open with your emotions & speak about it publicly. of course some moon signs are more reserved but if you have a gemini moon or moon at 3°, 15°, or 27° you might end up saying more than you’d like.

𓋼𓍊 venus-jupiter aspects: these natives probably gamble or make bets often. playing the lottery, watching/playing poker, betting on sports, going to the casino, etc. both venus & jupiter are associated with wealth, jupiter with favorable opportunities & expansion, and venus (more so taurus) is associated with monetary possessions.

𓍊𓋼𓍊 7th house ruler in the 12th house: your lover, future spouse, enemies, or people you should/shouldn’t connect with may be revealed to you in your dreams.

𓋼𓍊 if sun-moon aspects can reveal things about your parents’ relationship (like sun square moon may indicate divorce, incompatibility, etc.), mercury-venus/mars aspects may reveal things about your relationship with your siblings.

the first house that mercury rules is the 3rd house, and the 3rd house is associated with siblings.

venus represents females and feminine relationships, or the sister in this case.

mars represents males and masculine relationships, or the brother in this case.

no or few aspects between mercury-venus/mars may behave like an empty third house meaning there isn’t really much of a relationship or not a strong one. it may not be a prominent relationship in your life. you guys may be cool with each other and have each other's backs but there isn’t that close sibling bond. of course if you have 3rd house placements but no or few mercury-venus/mars aspects, or vice versa, results vary & there may be a relationship.

harmonious aspects = possibly/likely a harmonious relationship with your sibling(s).

disharmonious aspects = possibly/likely a disharmonious relationship with your sibling(s).

a conjunction may go either way.

𓍊𓋼𓍊 12th house placements may belittle their suffering and traumatic experiences. they may be detached from those experiences even though they have clearly affected them and their lives. plus, with the 12th house being mysterious there is a lack of understanding. there’s a lack of structure. things feel amorphous & difficult to grasp so it’s pushed aside to the subconscious. for these reasons it may be difficult for them to thoroughly heal from those experiences. but the healing is definitely possible & i wish that for all of you.

𓋼𓍊 retrograde planets in your birth chart: the house in which those retrograde planets fall may show you the things or areas of life you struggle with accepting. you might not want to do things that are related to the themes of that house, they may make you uncomfortable. there’s friction, a bit of fear, reluctance, or insecurity.

for example,

saturn retrograde in the 5th house - difficulty accepting pleasure and failure, extra pressure to be productive instead of having fun, uncomfortable with expressing yourself, maybe you don’t get a long with children well and don’t want any of your own.

neptune retrograde in the 1st house - a lack of self-awareness, confusion about who you are, difficulty accepting the way you look, uncomfortable with introspection. fear of the new, shying away from leadership positions or taking initiative.

pluto retrograde in the 12th house - a fear of the unknown or the dark, difficulty accepting your dark side, your past & obsessing over it, discomfort in solitude, resisting & battling restriction.

mercury retrograde in the 10th house - fear of public speaking/stage fright, confusion regarding your career, difficulty executing your plans, discomfort with accepting fame or popularity, insecure with making long-term goals, constantly making changes, shunning responsibility.

mars retrograde in the 7th house - difficulty establishing relationships, fear of commitment, shying away from marriage, a lack of confidence when connecting to others, discomfort with being vulnerable.

𓍊𓋼𓍊 your moon persona chart can give you a deeper understanding of how you navigate your emotions & how you handle emotions in general, not just yours. also, you may relate to the placement of chiron in your moon persona chart more than its placement in your natal chart. it can reveal another layer of some of your deepest emotional wounds. you might look at this chart and think "oh, that makes sense."

𓋼𓍊 jupiter retrograde in the 8th house (synastry): 8th house person may find the jupiter person untrustworthy. stolen opportunity, theft in general, ruining credit, negatively affecting finances. jupiter person may be a source of pain & suffering to the 8th house person.

𓍊𓋼𓍊 exposing my fellow air signs here: when it comes to air signs geminis have been called liars/2 faced, libras have been called a gossip/people pleaser, aquarius have been said to have a god complex.

but when is someone gunna talk about how aquarius also can play victim and they always have an excuse??? if gems are good at lying on the spot, aquarius is good at making excuses. lol if scorpios (not an air sign, i know) would rather die than say sorry, aquarius would rather die than accept blame. surely if there’s a god complex then one of the greatest offenses to an aquarius is being accused of some wrong doing, pointing out their flaws. after all, how can a god commit error or be flawed?

libras can lowkey be all bark and no bite. they can talk about you behind your back but they also tend to avoid confrontation.

& because geminis are so curious they can be so damn nosy it’s unbelievable lmfao

𓋼𓍊 leo has great leadership qualities and they know how to use those qualities to guide themselves. they have a good sense of direction, they attract opportunity like a magnet but they also know how to create it too. they let no opportunity go to waste and they know how to maximize the opportunities that are available to them.

𓍊𓋼𓍊 i've seen some astro observations say that virgos tend to really like cats. but how many of you virgos have some kind of bird as one of your favorite animals? it's a pattern i've been starting to notice an i'd like further confirmation. 

if you read this until the end i hope you enjoyed it & thank you so much for reading. ♥︎♥︎♥︎, those hearts are for you.

[megidoreyn]

Hihi! For the ask meme, perhaps 4, 8 and 14?

Hey there! Aw, thank you for the questions! It's super rare to get asks like these, so it really made my day! 😇🙏

⭐️4. What defines your artistic style?

That's a good question!🤔 (Especially since I don't know how others might perceive my art!) Due to my own visual agnosia as well, it skews my perception of my own works... So I actually end up disliking the grand majority of the things I create tbh🤣 It's hard for me to become cognizant of any strengths due to the weaknesses being highlighted (in my skewed POV) sometimes! But from the comments I have kindly received before, I would say that my art is defined by: clean/polished lineart, round/"squishy" chibis, warm colors, and "an aura of softness/tenderness"! Truthfully, I would love to be known for having a well-rounded and versatile style! As in: switching from a dynamic + appealing full-body style to a charming chibi style with precision and confidence!💪 And in general: I'd like to be known for drawing handsome faces on full-body characters instead of only having a "cute" style tbh LOL

⭐️8. What is your favourite piece that you have done?

Oh man…For a self-critic, this is a tough yet great question too!!😂--There's usually elements of a picture I enjoy working on VS how the overall picture eventually turns out! But looking back at everything I've posted publicly so far on twitter from 2022-2023…I think it'd have to be these! ↓

And a special shout out to this Walter-Lucifer pseudo-fiend character turnaround sheet that started off as a "haha just messing around :^)" sketch but then quickly turned serious 2 days later LOL. I did like incorporating SMT4 Lucifer's Phase 2 wings on him, since the in-game design includes this gradient on the wings too. 😇🙏

⭐️14.What do you like drawing the most?

As a surprise to no one, my favorite thing to draw would be WalterJonathan---both the pairing and the individual characters LOL. There's actually a personal reason for this, but maybe that'll be a story for another time! Whether or not the majority of these (finished/ polished) sketches will ever see the light of day is also to be determined in the future...😂 Despite these canon Satan Husbands going through the many unspeakable horrors they suffer within base SMT4 + SMT4 Apoc's canon (and even the duology of the SMT4 manga's canon too!), I'll always prefer to draw them being sweet with each other...🥺 To at least give them a single soft moment of reprieve that they deserve...!😭🙏

↑ I also enjoy drawing the details of the SMT4 samurai coat/uniform! As well as other things and details like: 💙the SMT protags' COMPs + SMT4 Gauntlet 💙Clothing folds 💙Side profiles 💙Backside angles 💙Painting hair 💙Drawing hands 💙Dynamic chibis + dynamic body language in general (that convey a character's personality)

…and probably some more things I'm forgetting LOL.

💙↑ edit: I forgot how much I like sketching out Pokemon as quick warm-ups + other critters like the MOTHER/Earthbound Mr.Saturns too! It's good practice in understanding different shapes.

Again, thank you so much for the questions!🙏 It was fun to answer these!

⭐️⭐️⭐️It's still 12/31 here in my neck of the woods, so I wish you and everyone reading this a Happy New Year as well!

[krizpybug]

people’s miraculous powers as opposites to their akuma powers

here’s my theory that a person’s akuma form and miraculous form are fully opposites, or use similar powers in opposite ways

analysis

mylene: we haven’t seen mylene as a holder yet, but we DO already know what the mouse’s powers are. as horrificator, she grew and shrank according to people’s fear. she was the monster causing fear. normally, she can be “scared as a mouse,” and the mouse miraculous will allow her to multiply and shrink

rose: princess fragrance’s powers allow her to brainwash people into obeying what she wants. pigella reminds people of what they most want!

alix: timebreaker stole other people’s time for herself, while bunnix hops through time to fix the timeline for everyone

max: gamer was able to transport ppl into his game world, and pegasus can transport himself in the real world

kim: dark cupid has the power to force people to act against their true feelings, while king monkey can force objects/powers to act against their true natures

zoe: sole crusher’s method of literally stepping on people to become stronger vs the bee miraculous’ subjugation are clearly related

nino: bubbler used his barrier powers to imprison the class at adrien’s party, but protects people with barriers as carapace

alya: lady wifi hurts people because of her obsession with truth, but rena rogue protects people with illusion

more developed characters

the more main characters don’t fit into this as neatly, i suppose because they’re more complex and therefore have more complex motivations.

luka: akuma powers and miraculous powers don’t match up at all lol. truth has the same reasoning as lies, but silencer steals people’s voices and viperion has time rewind. completely unrelated

kagami: makes air slices as riposte, and perhaps uses electricity as oni-chan to change places with people over the phone. ryuko can can physically become elements. i’ll be honest lies doesn’t fit here but it was a plot-specific episode

chloe: an interesting problem. all her akuma forms are already based on another persona. first is antibug, in direct opposition to ladybug. then her only other akuma forms so far have been queen wasp/miracle queen which are literally color-swapped versions of HER hero form, queen bee. i suppose the difference is to subjugate others in order to hurt or to help

however i rather like the reading that at her very worst, when hawkmoth takes advantage of her feelings, she is a villain, and at her best she is the hero she so looks up to. while this dichotomy is true for everyone, chloe has a particular love for heroes in her everyday life, so it feels like her akumas are really playing up the dramatics of a villain role

i also wonder if her akumas being based on an existing identity is because she doesn’t actually know herself that well

EDIT: now with queen banana in the mix, i’d say she still has that “wanna-be hero but spun into a villain” thing going on! queen banana is a made-up hero she thought of as a replacement for queen bee, and hawkmoth exploits that idea once again

adrien: similarly to chloe, chat blanc is chat noir color-swapped but with basically the same design. as most akumas with miraculous inspiration, his powers are also basically the same but advanced and practically unlimited in their use

adrien is really attached to his chat noir persona, and in his pain he retreated inside it as well

marinette: wow it’ll be interesting if mari ever gets an akuma form. the closest we have is princess justice, which we can assume would’ve been to get revenge against the people prying into her business. as a hero she also values her secrets very highly, though that is more a personality thing than something related to her powers

i’m not sure her akuma would be a direct parallel to ladybug, because unlike adrien, superhero is more a job than an outlet for her repressed inner personality

speculation for future holders

juleka: reflekta was all about standing out and inflicting her appearance on other people (though in the process making herself just another one in the crowd), and so (partly inspired by @zivazivc‘s acrocat) i think it would be really cool and make a lot of sense if the tiger miraculous had camouflage powers! just thematically it works for the tiger, but it also makes sense with juleka’s canon problems with fading into the background. turn it into a positive!

ivan: stoneheart is a big rock guy that gets bigger when ppl hit him. ivan is pretty clearly the bull in the opening. i’m guessing strength to protect people? pretty straightforward.

sabrina: vanisher was invisible, and so were the objects in her bag. miraculer stole superheroes’ powers and used them herself. apparently she can give them to other people too. her miraculous could be drawing attention or copying powers, perhaps more weakly or only once as compared to miraculer’s unlimited uses. or maybe she grants her power to someone else

nathaniel: evillustrator can draw objects and then edit or move them with his tablet. his miraculous may be related to artistic creation as well. if he’s the goat, a pan flute?

[the-wild-candy]

okay so i am here for the exchange. i am gonna keep myself anonymous cause i am not sure about my skills. but i will try to channel something for you <3

i will try to do for the future spouse topics.

their first impression of you

i am seeing someone wearing a red blazer and something black underneath. so you might be wearing that when you meet them. but i also see aries placements. someone very fierce. someone very poised. while i channeling this someone just started fighting and i got anxious. so maybe they might be very nervous when they first see you. and might be fighting their thoughts about whether to approach you or not. you kinda give intimidating vibes as well so what they feel is maybe justified lmao. oh wow man. i just had this vision of a person who just put a hand on his heart to calm him down. you really make this person nervous 😭 i am seeing a very huge building, very artistic party or a house gathering where you two might meet and trust me they'd be distracted the whole night after seeing you. i see glass filled with champagne so they'd be drunk in you HAHA nansnsns wow i loveeee this you give me very entrepreneur vibes. someone who's self made. maybe you're doing anything business related? or anything finance related? economics? or commerce? so yeah. i get a very "don't fuck with me" energy from you.

your first impression of them

nowww for them i see someone wearing black. all black but they have a very good figure. a model figure almost. might have a silver watch as well. i can see you talking with your friends while you see this person standing against a wall or something. 😭 you might appreciate his looks at first. oh earlier I saw an artistic party and now i see a variety of neon lights and everything. they might have a bright personality. someone very charming. this seems so cute omg. ohhhh- i see them approaching you at first. they'd have a pretty and wide smile. maybe someone with a good humour. okay, i kinda feel that person has pisces placements. that person is definitely taller than you. i don't see someone very with too much muscle (not like massimo from 365 days) but someone who is well groomed and takes care of his appearance. they might be good at councelling or teaching others? i just felt that. i felt some cancer placements as well. so someone very emotional i must say.

that's all. i channelled it intuitively and not using tarot cards 😊

you can refer to me as the "🦋" anon

Hi, love!🦋

Feedback - I am a mars dom and an aries venus so that makes sense. I actually got this before that I might intimidate this person a little. Oh and yes, I am in field of commerce and business management. "Don't fuck with me" energy indeed. The party bit resonates too, I actually did get that I might meet him at a party or workplace gathering etc. I am manifesting someone with good humor, I honestly love that. His energy screams cute to me ahhh. You said you weren't sure about your skills but this reading resonates so well! Thank you so much for the exchange. I really appreciate that. I am assuming that you want the same questions answered so let's begin with your reading.

𝓽𝓱𝓮𝓲𝓻 𝓯𝓲𝓻𝓼𝓽 𝓲𝓶𝓹𝓻𝓮𝓼𝓼𝓲𝓸𝓷 𝓸𝓯 𝔂𝓸𝓾

Your future spouse will see you as someone who plans everything out and doesn't rush decisions. You'll come off as a person who is goal oriented. You might take good care of yourself because self love is being emphasized here. They will find your smile to be extremely charming. I am hearing 'hands', perhaps you have nice hands lol. You can have a lot of admirers at that time and your future spouse will have an idea about it. They will notice the power you hold. You exert outward control and inner strength. It's like it's almost easy for you to tame things down. Action oriented and determined. Your future spouse will see you as someone who is very composed, calm and collected. Despite how gentle you might look, you can mantain complete dominion over difficult situations in your life. Another thing that I am getting here is how much your person will be attracted to your confident nature. It's like, you know you have got it. You know you're the main character who will succeed. Atleast that's the energy you'll ooze. You can be witty sometimes. Your person will see you as someone who has a skills. I heard 'tricks up their sleeve'. I feel like they will try to approach you when they see you but god damn will they be nervous. They might think that your standards can be a bit high. You'll be charismatic to them. Overall, you'll come off as a very balanced person. Someone who has their priorities set. Someone who can adapt themselves in tough times.

Extra messages - cherry blossoms, a restaurant, musical instruments, flirty, communication/speech, blushing, ear hoops, open flowy hair, blue/beige/orange/white/pink.

𝔂𝓸𝓾𝓻 𝓯𝓲𝓻𝓼𝓽 𝓲𝓶𝓹𝓻𝓮𝓼𝓼𝓲𝓸𝓷 𝓸𝓯 𝓽𝓱𝓮𝓶

You will see them as someone who is very wise. Your future spouse will come off as a very carefree and a fun loving person. They are flirty. You'll be very attracted to their physique. They can study about different cultures or be of a differnet culture than you. Okay for some reason, I feel like they eat very elegantly. Good manners. You'll see them as someone who is spontaneous and a quick thinker. You will be able to tell that your future spouse might have went through difficult times in their past, it's like a happy facade under an underrated mask of victory (and sadness¿) if that makes any sense. They have worked hard for whatever they've achieved. For some reason, I feel like you'll be constant reminder for this person to not lose faith. Your future spouse can have a bunch of good friends. This is so cute, okay hear me out. Its funny how your person will be nervous to approach you and at the same time you'll be like "oh there is a live example of all my manifestations absorbed into a single person yay". This person will radiate happiness and a sense of security but you'll be able to notice that they will have their walls up.

Extra messages - big picture, temptation, question, stability, budget, sun.

That's all I am getting for you. I hope you like your reading <33

[retvenkos]

alright, Olive, I'm back with a weird question. (but first of all, I hope you're doing good! how awfully rude of me to not start my ask by that) because you're so good at psychoanalyzing people (and I adore your rambling thoughts), I was wondering if you could maybe help me? I've always wondered who my godly parent would be in the PJO universe - it's been the biggest mistery in my life since I was 8. I just haven't found myself in any figure of the Olympus, maybe because I'd be the child of a minor deity? I've thought about Apollo, and I genuinely like it, but idk, maybe I need a more thorough analysis. I've also gotten Iris and Hemera from other people? I just think your piercing mind could see right through me. anyway, this is weird lol, I hope you don't mind me asking this! and don't worry if you can't answer, it's totally fine. 💜

asdfgfddfgfd, when i get my two weeks off for summer break, i should just do placements for inquiring mutuals because honestly it's one of my favorite things,,,

also, before i get into it (because i have some thoughts™), i'm going to plug one quotev quiz that i think is better than the rest when it comes to these matters: this godly parent quiz.

now, clara, i am not nearly as versed in pjo cabin placements as i am in hogwarts houses, but i'm going to give this my best shot:

first, i think i would be remiss not to mention that you are a libra, and libra is associated with themis, (idk really what that means since i'm not into astrology, lol), but themis isn't mentioned as one of the gods with a cabin, so i'm disregarding that. if we are following this logic though, i think that aphrodite is also associated with libra, so perhaps you could fit into that cabin? personally, i don't see it as strongly as i see others, but you do have a hopeless romantic streak, and a strong sense of community, which could sway you in that direction.

as for apollo, i'm going to unpack that for a minute, because it's very interesting that you'd place yourself there, and i'm on the fence with that myself, lol. (this is very stream of consciousness, so let's see where this section takes us)

i definitely see the association with the arts - music and poetry - although in my mind apollo has always been the performer, and less of the creator. i always associated the muses more with the creation stages of music and poetry. like... the muses are the fashion designers and apollo is the model going down the runway. or the muses are the writers and collaborators in the writers room and apollo is the actor or director. so, while i see the association, i think it's a little weak, because you strike me as more of the quiet artist who's behind the scenes, rather than the bard singing in the pub, trying to get coins. but, you know yourself better, so maybe it's a good association.

and after that, what always strikes me about apollo is the volatile contradictions of his personality. i mean, he's associated with the sudden death of children (rightfully so, i mean he slaughtered all of niobe's sons), along with his sister, artemis, but he's also a healer. he's like that "i'm a healer, but..." meme, which is funny as hell but also a little concerning. like, in many stories he is that godly sort of intelligent strength, but also he's really volatile and has quite a temper on him. i don't really think this relates a whole lot to you, because i get the vibes that you are generally mild mannered, but when something pisses you off, you let is really simmer. i feel like you aren't one to fly off the handle - if you do, it's probably been stewing within you for a while, and whoever your anger is directed at really knows that you're upset, and they knowingly pushed you to that place. i feel like you're more of a grudge holder than hot-tempered (but girl, same).

and then, of course, we have apollo's prophecies. now, maybe this is me reading too much into your scientific mind, but i think you are concerned with the future, but also don't think too much of it is predetermined. i feel like you are more of a trailblazer than that, and might just be prone to ignoring or actively working against anything you saw in the stars, asdfghgfsdfggfdsdfggfd

oh, and, apollo just has so many unfortunate romances, and on one hand, i have you quoted that you are more of an eponine than a cosette, but also, no hate to apollo and his tragic affairs, but he's openly mocked eros, and that truly gives off the vibes of working off of one (1) braincell, and you are too good for that, clara.

and just going back to personality, i think you have a lot of flexibility that just doesn't fit with the apollo cabin.

tldr; kinda but no?

now, i'm gonna kinda hop back into possible theories.

one of my gut reactions was the say athena, but after thinking about it, i'm still a little unconvinced. you have the intellect and pride for this cabin, and i feel like you would get roped into helping a lot of heroes like athena, but you also just have a charm to you that athena lacks. part of athena is that she's unapproachable and her pride is excessive. you, again, are too flexible to be athena. she's staunch where you are willing, and i feel like the rigidity of her nature is too constricting for you. it's very similar as to why i didn't place you in ravenclaw.

i also considered nike because of your competitive streak, but this placement kind of takes away from the underdog vibes i get from you. the righteous fury... the glee in the moment... it's definitely there, but i feel like there's a level of unsurety to your psyche that you don't really get with nike.

which leads me to my final analysis, where i think you would do well as a child of tyche.

let me go through this. so, i mentioned your competitive streak with nike, and that is 1000% evident in tyche. tyche is all about luck and fortune, and i feel like competition is a shoe in. children of tyche like to dabble with the unknown or the novel - it makes life interesting. they like to go against another and see where the cards fall, and if lady luck isn't on their side.... well, tonight's just not their night. they have a secure base to fall back on, and that allows them to stretch their wings and fly.

furthermore, with nike, victory is expected and guaranteed. luck is far more fluid and unpredictable - it's harder to pin down. you can have a lot of luck and a lot of things working in your favor, but still, the desired end result isn't set in stone - it's likely to happen, but there's always risk. this risk leaves for an air of quiet self-assuredness that isn't overbearing. there's always uncertainty in the mix, and that leads to less overt confidence. it also adds to the thrill (or the anxiety).

plus, i think that the gap between fortune and certainty (a pitfall of risk) leads to a lot of checks and balances that i really see in you. there's a lot of clear headed logic that gets weighed against ambition and desire, and it makes for a kind of pragmatism that doesn't stomp out dreams, just looks at them realistically.

which means i feel like a lot of people ask you for advice, clara. it also makes you a decision maker for sure. you might falter for a moment, but in the end, you make a choice and you live with it.

also, i have a personal headcanon that children of tyche are really well rounded, which harks back to my gryffindor analysis of you, where i mention that you have many tools in your box. you are able to manipulate many different things, and you can look at them from many angles, and i love that for you.

i also think this is a good placement for you because luck is all about what-ifs. it's about actively manipulating the world around you. like i said when i mentioned apollo's prophecies - i don't think that you do very well with the predetermined. some things, certainly, but one (1) you are too stubborn to believe you can't change things (oh, the contradictions of a gryffindor and child of tyche), and there's also a level of desperation that things won't always be like this. luck can come to anyone in any place. this is definitely tied to your bleeding heart - you care for people who have fallen on hard times, and you can't help but pray that it's only temporary.

oh, and i headcanon that tyche holds grudges sO BAD. she is only outdone by nemesis and hades.

anyway, this was long and it winded, but TLDR; i hereby herald you a child of tyche. you are my lady luck, clara.

[dpargyle]

_

I'm not doing that podcast anymore. I'm racking my brain here trying to figure out how to build an audience/make $ creatively rn. Every conventional avenue is cut off to me, as I've explained before. I don't really want to write books anymore (due to restricted creative control/sadly losing faith entirely in the medium/business of the novel as an effective art form in these horrendous times) - but trying to build an audience online has just been one failure after another. I really don't know what to do. These days, I catch myself daydreaming about dropping off the grid entirely & farming or some shit but I think realistically my disability precludes me (for multiple reasons) from such foolishness. & I think I'm always going to need to create art of some description. I just wish...like...anyone would care... & this isn't a call out post or anything - like - I get it. Shit is falling apart everywhere (more rapidly than I think many abled folk may realize) so reading/listening to my creative output is nobody's top priority (nor should it be) - especially in such oversaturated markets I don't really know what I'm trying to say here. Like. I'm unemployed - I have no prospects - & even if I had any - the government would cut funding for medical necessities b/c secretly (but not so secretly) policy is set up for people like me to die quietly in the background I'm far more privileged than most in my position, due to my family. At least for now. But if I can't find a steady source of income soon, I'm going to have to move back in with my folks which I really do not want to have to do. Like - I did everything right. I went all the way through a hellish school system. I graduated (with honors) from college. I jumped through all their hoops, I played all the stupid fucking games. & because of my condition I am almost completely cut off from society - b/c no one has given me a chance at the things I actually give a shit about. (This is a rant now oh well lol) & I know I'm a damn good writer. I'm a good artist. But finding an audience is just. I don't even know. I don't even know who I am anymore half the time. I feel thoroughly rejected from society at large. Not that I'd wanna join it right now lmao but like...it'd be nice to be asked. I'm not the only one hanging on by a fuckin thimble right now. I know that. But as a disabled person, I feel the strain before many of you. I feel it when there's not enough people to help me get up in the morning so I get left lying in bed for four hours after my usual times. Sorry, I'm rambling now. I'm also kind of exhausted trying to come up with creative endeavors and putting them up with nobody giving a shit. I put my heart & soul into these things - and I have for years. 32 years of my life, where instead of going out enjoying myself or trying to form friendships (which is already really fucking difficult when I have to get back home every day at 9pm cuz my aides are working 100 hr wks & I don't want to overtax their schedules anymore than I already do) - I chose to forego all that, laying myself on the great altar of art or whatever...all for what? Nobody caring? It's. Fuckin soul crushing. I spend like 95% of my time alone. & I don't think I'm the only one. All I really do is work on creative endeavors, research, and then finally turn off my brain watching football or w/e I don't have energy for any of this anymore. This hyper capitalist mode of....I just. I'm not even making sense & I'm all over the place & I usually outline/plan this sort of shit & probably nobody will read this anyway so I don't know why I'm bothering lmao Shot in the dark, I guess? I dunno. I know I have people who love me. & for that I'm grateful. I hope you all do too. These are dark times & I don't see them brightening in our lifetimes I'm afraid. Hold on to the ones you got I suppose. We all just have to play the cards we're dealt, even if they're all jokers, right? While I do have people who love me, I'm also sick of Utah & the US as a whole tbh, but I honestly doubt anywhere would be much

better if I'm being realistic. Even Mars will be conquered by Musk... Anyway. Just trying to express how it feels to be disabled in these times of societal collapse unheard of since the end of the Bronze Age. Perhaps it's for the best. Wish I could inhabit a different body for a while. But "if wishes were horses, we'd all be eatin' steak," to quote the bard. Like. for just one day, I'd love to experience a day that didn't feel like going to war with myself. With the world. With...like, ok, this is kind of a stupid fuckin example, but on the other hand it shows you the power of art (for w/e that's worth these days) but I was watching the most recent season (series) of Sex Education on Netflix (great frikken show btw) - and for the first time EVER - a disabled character (played by a disabled actor) has an intimate scene with another character where she's not a sex worker (no shame to sex workers but the connotation is always we can only ever have sex if we pay for it) & nobody died lmao - & it was this sacred scene where consent was central & it was playful & sweet & it literally made me cry b/c like - (& I don't cry AT ALL anymore - it's just not me) but I did - I fuckin cried, because like. You can't understand. I'm sorry. But you can't. To never see yourself reflected in such a manner. & then suddenly. You see yourself being tenderly kissed on the nose - & for a touch starved cripple - to see that - like. I know in this life I'm never gonna get that. I've accepted that. I'm too old & too much of a fuckup. But for the youth to see that? For the disabled youth of the world? Fuck. I hope it fills them with the brighter future they deserve. Maybe art can move mountains after all. Just wish I could build a door to get myself out of *here.* It's so fucking hard to see the light right now for me. I hold my head up high. I smile. I'm the strongest person I know. But I just wish I could peel off my shit & be the real me & be loved & I'm terrified none of that will ever be in store for me. But I roll on, as always. Love & strength & sorry to be...this...lmao....

[serendipitybutterfly]

BTS Tarot Valentines Day Special:

BTS' Future Marriages...

I know... Unusual for me since I tend to focus more on advice than predictions for the most part... But, as it's this lovey dovey season, I decided to do a marriage themed reading as a special treat as I've gotten asks surrounding this kind of question before... This is going to be a mammoth post... Omg..

This is my Valentines Day present for you guys who follow and like my readings! Thank you!!!! I 💜 you!

So, without further ado... Let's get it!

*Disclaimer- the way i see it, although this is a prediction reading, I'm only working with the energies of the present moment. If one of the boys wakes up tomorrow and firmly decides he never wants to get married, then his path will change and future readings would reflect that. For the most part, the future is in flux and can be changed... If something is a huge, fateful, set in stone kind of event then the cards will let me know. Also, in this particular reading, rather than focusing on the physical appearance of their future partners, I'm intending to focus more on personality and only mention physical appearance if something strongly comes to mind or their looks come forward as a major message of the reading. Ok done! Let's really get it! 💜

Oh wait... before anything else, I was going to call this future Marriages or life partners (because, obviously, not everyone gets married) but I just decided to ask first off if they'd all get married for the sake of clarity and got a resounding yes for them all so... Yeah... As of now, all of the boys are likely to actually get married in the future. Although... Some are closer to that future than others. Also, I was going to put all of the readings into one big post but then I realised how ridiculously long that would be and decided to split the hyung line and maknae line up into two separate posts. I'm starting with the maknae line and hopefully the hyung line post will follow soon...

Maknae line:

Starting with Park Jimin...

Character profile - The archetype cards that popped out gave me an interesting message... I'm getting the image of someone that had quite a hard life, possibly even a somehow traumatic past (cards like bully and victim in particular stood out to me as being indicative of a troubled past), but managed to retain a sweetness and childlike innocence despite it... I'm also definitely getting the image of an introvert. Someone quite soft spoken, gentle and who comes across as a bit shy. She might feel more comfortable with animals and young children than with most people. Physically I feel like she will be younger than him, and somewhat innocent and fragile looking but at the same time there's something kind of edgy and / or sexy in her style... She might wear a lot of dark colours. Yeah... I know I said I wouldn't focus on looks... But I'm definitely also getting East Asian features coming through visually... I'm also seeing long, straight, black hair and fair skin. This is the kind of person who tends to inspire protective feelings in others... But at the same time has a lot of inner strength that they can use to heal and bolster other people's confidence in themselves.

Relationship- With the Dawn card, I feel like she will give Jimin a whole new fresh perspective on life... I'm hearing 'clean slate' and 'washing away'... I'm just feeling a lovely, pure, soothing, watery kind of energy to this connection overall. I mean, the romance angels oracle deck threw out 'True Love' to describe this connection so... I mean, if Jimin still has those romantic dreams of meeting his one true love like he used to... He can definitely have that wish granted! It's just... Going to take some time... With the Chariot in reverse here, I feel like he will have to wait quite some time before they meet...hmm... How old will he be in another 7 years? About 32? Could be around then or after... But, at this point, it's unlikely to be before...

The tarot here couldn't paint a rosier picture tbh... I really hope Jimin does meet this person in the future because it looks like this marriage could genuinely be the making of true and lasting happiness for him. Just look at these beautiful cards! 10 of cups... Happy family with a loving home environment and playing children! The star because this really is a dream come true, a wish answered. Then you have a reversed queen of wands (👀 omg why does Queen of wands energy always come up with anything to do with romance with Jimin??). However... Interestingly enough, here I'm seeing her as a soft spoken young woman who comes across as quite shy and introverted but who possesses a great deal of inner strength and power... (which is why context matters in tarot guys... Cards mean something different to me basically every time!). This is next to the knight of swords who I see as our lovely libra boy Jimin himself... I'm literally see this as a Knight in shining armor rushing in to the rescue. That's how he'll feel in this relationship. Not at all in a burdensome way... But like that feeling gives him this great deal of strength and confidence in himself. She makes him feel strong and capable and in control... Like a hero. Why is this making me emo? ...

Anyway, then the high priestess is here to sum this connection up and I feel strongly that this is an extremely deep, intuitive connection... The meeting of souls... They can look at each other and just... Know what the other is feeling... Could even be a soul mate / past life connection I think... Wow.

All in all... This is great news for Jimin's future in terms of marriage at this point. Although I do think it'll be a while before they meet and longer before actually getting married... It looks pretty rosy from then on! I'm not saying there will be no bumps in the road at all (I can sense that there are certainly some deep personal issues on both sides that actually need to be dealt with through this union... Which is some soul journey stuff... ) however overall this seems like it will be an amazing match! I'm so glad! 💜 💜 💜

Kim Taehyung:

Character profile:... Uh... Haha... You just had to be different huh Tae... Lol... Ok... So here's the thing... Where marriage is concerned, Tae has that interesting fate where he actually has a choice (I mean, everyone has a choice... But most people don't actually recognise it as a choice... It just kinda happens because it's their fate. Tae has the opportunity to make a conscious choice here regarding his fate because it's like either way he can learn important lessons and grow... Both are fated partners for him. Like a real diverging path kind of thing. He will get to a point where he can choose one path or another with basically full awareness of this as a choice... This is really interesting actually. I mean, either way, he will get married and he can be happy either way too... Although in different ways for different reasons... It's very interesting...

As far as personality goes... I see two distinct personalities coming through... On one side you have someone quite mature, serious, artistic, intellectual, quiet and spiritual and on the other side I see someone very young, pretty, flirty, fun loving, popular and witty... Also very wealthy and a little bit haughty... But kinda 'cute' and funny with it?? Idk why I'm getting that... Like a kind of sly sense of humour...

Unfortunately... This is weirdly up in the air because of this aspect of choice. I can see that both will appeal greatly to different sides of him... If only they could be one person... But alas...

Relationship: Again... The tarot shows how up in the air this is because there is not yet a set path. Tae hasn't even met them yet. He's not thinking seriously of marriage at all yet. However, with the Wheel of Fortune reversed here we can see that though this is not yet set in motion, it is fated either way. Death in reverse and the Hanged Man are also giving me that up in the air, 'paused', kind of feeling... Like this fate is just waiting, biding its time to be set in motion... Right now he's on a solo path, pursuing his career and furthering his goals... It's when he's ready to let some of that go that this will be set in motion... It feels like a few years into the future to me... Not too far but not too close either... I'm not getting a definite time frame. It could be within two to three years or around him going into his early 30s...

You'll notice on one side of the 'up in the air fate' cards we've got the 4 of wands and on the other side we've got the 10 of pentacles representing the two different connections. Both are really auspicious cards for marriage. Both connections are also signified by the two of cups... Both are deep love connections... Again because this is up the air, I'm not getting specifics about the outcomes of either choice, but it does seem atleast like he has the potential to be happy in either marriage. However it looks like in one he can have the big family and legacy (in terms of children and grandchildren and leaving a home and inheritance to them) he desires, while the other relationship seems more quiet and more just about them as a couple being happy together.

I feel like the card Solitude: Island speaks of that connection (them being alone and peaceful together... Perhaps travelling to faraway countries together... And that calmer more serious vibe in that connection) while the card Playfulness is speaking of the other connection (way more youthful, energetic, playful, and flirty energy... And also literal children- and puppies!- incoming!).

So yeah *shrug*... Decisions decisions Tae... He can only make the right choice when the time comes at the end of the day (and he has a lot of spiritual guidance on his side if he chooses to tune in). It's quite likely that by then his priorities and desires for what he really wants out of life will become clearer to him and that will make the decision easier... At this point, it seems like neither of them are a particularly bad choice... Though neither is necessarily perfect either... That's what makes this such a big, fateful decision I suppose... Good luck Tae! 💜 🙏

Now for Jungkook:

Character profile: Wow... Whatta boss... Lol. I'm kinda blown away by this energy to be honest. This is like... The best way I can describe it after looking at all the cards is... This is the kind of woman that both men and women are really attracted to and tend to like (regardless of sexuality). Like... Total 'girl crush', role model, material but also super attractive and sexy... Especially to men who like strong, capable women who have that 'boss' energy... Which is apparently future Jungkook I guess...

Actually these cards really make sense just based on what kind of people Jungkook seems to like to associate with anyway... I feel a sense that she will be older than him by at least a few years (if not, extremely mature and successful for her age). This is someone wise beyond their years who actively seeks knowledge and also goes further to implement what they've learnt to help others who are vulnerable. Something else that's coming through strongly is that this person is extremely creative and artistic... They have to be involved in the arts in some way, even if it isn't their main job. Actually, what I think is that she may work in one creative field (like say, a writer cause Scribe is there) but also does alot of other artistic and creative things as hobbies, like painting, drawing, dancing, singing... This is someone who delights in expressing her creativity so it doesn't have to make her money... She just loves it. Actually there's a kind of free spirited, bohemian, hippyish vibe here which is an interesting contrast to the boss energy... (I honestly want to be her best friend??).

Again, I know I said i wasn't focusing on looks but here looks are coming through really strongly... Like her attractiveness is really a major thing people notice about her so it has to be mentioned. I'm seeing long, wavy or curly black or dark brown hair (although she might also sometimes colour it... Especially red or reddish brown). She has a really great body... Like really fit and toned but also curvy (look at that goddess card! like I said... She's sexy). Also, probably a bit above average height. I'm also seeing that this is someone who's likely to have tanned or darker skin or who tans really easily in the sun... Like in the winter she might get quite pale but then in the summer sun gets a lot darker. She's definitely someone really natural, active and outdoorsy who's likely to get out in the sun as much as possible... I think she probably doesn't wear a lot of makeup... I'm just seeing a really natural beauty... Wow.

Relationship- With the Dreamtime: Creation card I'm getting two things coming through strongly. One is that I really think these two (certainly Jungkook) will actively be manifesting each other before they meet and will (or have already) dreamt about each other. Two is that, once again, I'm getting really highly charged creative energy. These are two extremely talented artists getting together and their relationship and home will reflect that. They encourage and push each other to improve. Really unique and quirky relationship actually... In fact, you'll notice that these cards aren't exactly overtly romantic... And yet... I'm still feeling the love?? Theirs isn't exactly a mushy kind of love but it's still very strong and extremely confident and secure. It's based firmly in actions that show love in a more practical way...

With the Sun shining on this marriage it's clear that they'll be really happy with one another (I see happy children here too... Another aspect of their mutual creativity... 😏 ) but there's also a lot of freedom and space. I see a lot of travelling and a lot of respect and understanding between them. That they are forgiving and don't hold grudges is coming through. This isnt a 'tit for tat' kind of relationship where they hold things over one another or only are nice to each other if the other person is nice first... It feels like they work through arguments maturely, quickly forgive everything and move on to being loving again.

With the page and 8 of Pentacles I see that they learn and grow together as people and work hard to make their relationship and bond extremely strong and they're successful in that. With the engagement card, I'm seeing two things, both strong commitment and loyalty to each other and also that they'll probably get married surprisingly quickly after they start dating. This is another case where I think it'll be a long wait for Jungkook... With the king of swords here... I feel like he'll be a definite MAN when he gets married... Like fully grown, probably rocking both longer hair and a beard... Lol... Older and wiser... Like around his mid 30's or even a little later... However, because he'll have been manifesting and dreaming of her for years (probably even already started guys) he'll just know from the time they meet that she's the one... So why hang about?

Conclusion... I kinda want to be bestfriends with Jungkook's future wife... She's really cool... 😭

OK... This has been the maknae line future marriages reading... I will try to drop the hyung line's readings before, on or just after valentines day so stay tuned! Hope you guys enjoyed!!! 💜 💜 💜

[heartate-a]

the nature of ahri.    //    part one.

my ahri is very much going to focus more on the darker aspects of her character and lore.  she absolutely was a killer,  let’s not forget that.  whatever her origins were,  whether you believe she’s just a vastaya and nothing more,  or a fox who ate the organs of humans and lived so long she became human  -  like,  she was a killer,  although it was not out of any malicious or sadistic nature and more so for her survival and the nurturing of the magic that was beginning to course within her.

i really enjoy part of the old lore,  where she found her beginnings as a simple fox and grew into a beautiful woman.  i will run with that to the extent that perhaps her line of vastaya was another shapeshifting line,  specifically that of nine  -  tailed foxes.  her lore changed to where she was simply a vastaya who was lost,  abandoned maybe,  and all she had left of them was a stone.  i like to think that since she was young,  it may have felt safer to take on the form of a fox and live more with nature rather than as a girl,  hence why she stuck with the pack of icefoxes referenced in her wiki.

she hunted other animals at first,  beasts.  she was always possessed of this innate and powerful magic,  which she used to aid her in her hunts.  although she had not yet developed a true sense of empathy as she does now in present days,  she was still not a hunter of malice and did not intentionally seek to inflict pain upon her prey.  she used her charm in its physical,  magical manifestations to soothe them like a tranquilizer to make sure that they felt no pain in their death and as she ate.

ahri is almost vampiric in this nature.  the passive of her orb of deception allows her to life steal and restore her missing health in game,  and realistically,  this is a restoration of energy,  a way to recharge energy and chase away any fatigue and aids in healing her wounds.  ahri feeds on both the life energy itself of her prey as well as the physical meat of their bones.  the life energy that she feeds on nurtures her magic and gives her physical and magical strength,  but of course,  she needs real sustenance.

she tries to not waste anything when she feasts,  even prior to the development of further complex empathy,  and this is an important thing to note later for the hunter that she encounters.

when ahri ran into humans for the first time,  she studied them out of curiosity.  she recognized that they were more similar to her than the foxes were that she lived with,  because she was more human than anything else despite the fox vastayan blood in her.  she didn’t know any other vastayans or humans  ----  she had been abandoned.  all she knew was the life she led with those foxes of the wild and the magic that rested within the marrow of her bones,  that trailed fire in her veins.

she met the hunter at this point,  a man shot with an arrow left for dead in the cold,  wintry snow.  ahri didn’t approach him with any need or desire to feed  ----  she did not mean to consume the essence of his life.  it came of a primal instinct,  an instinct rooted more deeply than simply just something she just did or something that she felt that she needed to do.  she felt it awaken her magic,  strengthen it.

just as it was when she fed upon the essence of beasts,  she felt the rush of the man’s emotions,  his memories,  everything that he felt.  she felt his pain,  of the wound from the arrow that had stricken him,  of the loss of the life he was leaving behind.  like with her animal prey,  she soothed him,  and this time instilled within him dreams and memories of better days and numbed his physical pain as well as his mental anguish.

with each time she fed,  she became almost exceedingly overwhelmed with their feelings,  all of the memories from the entirety of their lives.  all of their guilt,  all of their pain,  all of the happiness in their lives.  and each time she fed,  she gained a little bit more humanity.  she became more human.  she was euphoric in the bliss of feeling.  every time she fed off of a human being’s life essence,  she grew stronger,  more human,  and she still soothed them into the arms of death.

at first,  it began with the wounded soldiers she found straggling along the way as she ventured further into the world.  then,  it continued on with those weak and frail,  the ones whose lives clung to nothing else,  the ones who were ready to move on.  but all of these people would not sustain her.  they were too weak,  the essence of their lives was not enough.  she needed more.  with each life she consumed,  she felt her power grow.  in a desire to nurture and grow the magic bubbling inside of her,  she hungered for more,  she sought out more.

ahri does not simply just deliberately kill anyone.  those mentioned before were more or less mercy killings,  killings out of need,  really.  the more she learned,  both of the world and of her own emotions and of the emotions of others,  the more her vision of the world shifted,  and the more her beliefs,  feelings,  wants,  and needs shifted.  she began to intentionally seek out those who she thought were corrupt,  evil,  dangers to the world.  as shown in a short story,  ahri exhibits a bias against noxians,  but a few bad eggs shouldn’t speak for the whole of the nation.  my ahri will learn the truth of noxus.  yes,  there does exist evil amongst everyone,  but she learns that noxus’s reputation is undeserved  (  this is me inserting my noxus stan heart lol  ).  she is not for or against any one nation,  but she does have love for ionia above all,  for it and its creatures and woods are her home.

but anyways,  she’s killed as a means to punish others she considers corrupt.  in eating their life essence,  she,  naturally,  was able to experience their life and their emotions too.  it’s more so everything they are thinking and feeling in the present,  and if they happen to dredge up things from the past on their own and were thinking of it moments prior to their death or as they are dying,  they are things that ahri will become privy too.  

even from people such as this,  she has things to learn from.  she learns that some people are truly evil,  and others are not quite so evil so much as they felt they had no choice but to act in the manner they did due to a corrupt authority figure or other person in their life commanding them to act.  people who surface as truly corrupt and evil,  ahri toys with them,  sometimes even torments them if she felt they truly deserved it.  it’s something she enjoyed doing.

as time passed,  the more humanity she gained from each little bit of life essence she consumed,  the more she began to think on things and question what it was that she was doing.  getting to this point is a gradual process and something i probably won’t discuss in this particular post,  but i will refer back here in the future.

ahri’s reformation is tied heavily to her falling in love with that human man,  a painter,  a wonderful artist who drew vivid colors into her life and plunged her into emotions she had never thought herself capable of feeling or receiving.  she accidentally consumed his life and in her anguish,  she journeyed to a garden to forget it all.

there’s so much more to this that i would love to discuss,  and i haven’t even begun to mention vladimir’s role in her story,  because he becomes intertwined in all of this too.

anyway,  the point is,  ahri’s past is dark,  the nature of her character is darker beyond the surface,  and this is something i would love to explore,  whether it’s where your characters meet her prior to her full reformation,  if she even began to reform at all at that point,  and come to know her afterward,  or even if they only meet her afterward and learn of her past.  ahri starts to change in part due to her loneliness and at the horror of hearing the stories of the terrible,  vicious fox who devoured the hearts of runeterra’s people.  she did not want anyone to fear her.  she abhorred this feeling of loneliness and wants desperately for companionship.

[99centthoughts]

i keep reading 'orion' as 'onion' so thats. who they are to me now

ONION……………………….. now im picturing orion as onion from steven universe and i am very stressed out by the thought

MORE ASKS UNDER THE CUT!!! (a lot of asks im sorry)

1) D..DONT DIE YET ANON……….. SOON!!! I have a break coming up and i wanna do more comics stuff 😭

2) LOL omg IM SORRY !!!! I Messed up the layout a couple of times while editing it so it must have been weird 😨

1) Hiya! Honestly I think it would be best to get comfortable with more realistic proportions before you branch out into cartoon/anime style! I did it the other way round and I regret it a lot, bc I think it made my foundations really shaky and inconsistent. THAT’S NOT TO SAY u have to master the traditional art style before u start drawing any cartoons though!! I think it’s fine to do them together, just don’t neglect traditional anatomy and all that, bc it will help you a lot in the future regardless of the style you eventually choose to stick to!

2) LKMKLDS ANON STOP NOW IM GOING TO THINK OF THE STORE WHENEVER I THINK OF JC ………… he would be Mr penney???? MR..PENNEY..

thank YOU for enjoying my drawings!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ahhhh thank you so much for such a sweet message oh gosh ANON YOU’RE MAKING MY HEART GROW 3 SIZES!!! Messages like this make me want to share everything with everyone!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I’M HONESTLY SO HAPPY that my silly little tips and stuff can make drawing fun for you BC THERE IS NOTHING BETTER THAN HAVING FUN WHILE DRAWING!!! MAY YOU INSPIRE LOTS AND LOTS OF PEOPLE and most importantly I hope you always find joy in your own art!!!! THIS MESSAGE MEANS THE WORLD TO ME AND YOU DO TOO ILU ANON!!! IM GONNA KEEP THIS FOREVER

1) A NERD AND A PUNK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2) omg I have thought about basically every combination o f my ocs at least once anon lKMDLskdlj they would be cute!!!!!!! and a very calm couple… I feel like emmett would be patient enough to handle fay though it would take a lot to get there bc rn emmett is low key terrified of fay LOL 

1) IM NOT SURE U WOULD WANT TO MARRY THEM ¾ OF THEM ARE A MESS!!!!!!!

2) OH I googled around a bit bc tbh I have no idea what they are called too, and I think it’s called the terminator/ half tone?? it’s basically the bit of colour between the light and the core shadow (the darkest part of where the shadow starts) 

THe coloured outline of shadows that alot of artists do is an exaggeration of how it looks in rl but it is pretty neat bc it makes the object look like it’s glowing haha 

1) AW THANK YOU ANON!!!!!!!!! it’s so sweet that you’ve stuck around for so long and that you take the time to do that!!!!!!!!!!!!! I HOPE I’LL KEEP DRAWING AND MAKING ART THAT YOU ENJOY FOR YEARS TO COME!!!! 

2) OH no that plant is a random plant that I made up hahhaaa 

1) HELLO AGAIN AND thank you ahhh it means a lot to me that you take the time to interpret and think about my art in such a thoughtful manner😭😭😭 It’s really sweet and it makes me look at my art in a different way? I was thinking that the redrawn version seems more stiff and I wasn’t sure if I liked them more than the old ones, but after seeing this message I was like ohhh that is true I did try different things with the new versions and that is something I should appreciate and be proud of !! so thank YOU for the lovely words, it is my absolute pleasure to share my art with u!! 

2) HE IS YOURS PLEASE TAKE CARE OF THIS WHIRLWIND

1) I like using poses from magazines to study anatomy!! I either follow blogs that post magazine scans or I buy them myself when i can! Another thing I’ve found rly helpful was using fitness books/ videos as references… like those for muscle-building/ weight lifters, where there are diagrams of which muscles are working for a specific exercise. YOUTUBE has a lot of fitness videos, just type xxx workout, pause the video at any random frame, and u should be able to get a nice reference to study muscles with!! If u want references for the muscles themselves, some good books I’ve found helpful are: Strength training Anatomy and Anatomy for sculptors (I can give them to you off anon if you’d like)!

2) I HOPE YOU ARE enjoying the brushes !!! NO WORRIES AT ALL I’m happy to share my brushes with anyone who might want to try using htem!! SENDS YOU ALL OF MY LOVE BACK I HOPE YOU ARE ALWAYS HAPPY AND INSPIRED ❤❤

1) omg this is so hard bc there are 213213 options and I could picture them as more than 1 type of fantasy creature tbh ……… BUT FIRST ONES THAT COME TO MIND WOULD BE : some kind faerie for fay haha, werewolf for tyler, centaur for emmett, vampire for jc, some kinda elemental spirit for cyrus, an orc for wade, and UHH some kind of wise gate guarding creature for parisi LOL 

ILY TOO AND thank YOU for loving my silly boys!!!!!!!!! 

2) AHHHH thank u anon I WISH YOU ALL tHE BEST AND I HOPE YOU KEEP DRAWING AS WELL ALWAYS 💞💞💞💞

1) OR PERHAPS PARISI IS JUST ENORMOUS but also yes it’s true baby tyler is a tiny baby bean

2) LSKMDLKSM HOW CAN I NOT SAY I LOVE YOU BACK TO YOU THE SWEETEST ANON OF ALL TIME 💖💖💖💖💖

1) omg anon this is a lie I am terrible at drawing anything symmetrically and if I somehow produced anything to make u think so, it’s probably because I spent 10 hours on getting it to look ok LOL I.. TRY TO USE GUIDELINES and flip my canvas to check that things are balanced… that helps me out a lot :’D 

2) thank u anon for this ask it is beautiful and I will frame it and keep it in my room to encourage myself to start drawing batfam art again 

1) HEY ANON and thank u! I have a list of resources that I’ve found helpful here (at the bottom of the page) !! I hope some of that might be useful for you and feel free to drop me another msg if u need more/ want something more specific!!!!!!! ALL THE BEST

2) omg I havent replied to asks in so long that I didnt even rmb what picture this was referring to and I had to go back and look LOL HE’S TRYING HIS BEST ANON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HE CANT HELP BEING AN AVERAGE MAN SURROUNDED BY MODELS HOW RIDICULOUS OF THEM !!!! 

[comicteaparty]

May 4th-May 10th, 2020 CTP Archive

The archive for the Comic Tea Party week long chat that occurred from May 4th, 2020 to May 10th, 2020.  The chat focused on Dead City by Michelle Parker and Jey Pawlik.

Featured Comment:

Chat:

Comic Tea Party

BOOK CLUB START!

Hello and welcome everyone to Comic Tea Party’s Book Club~! This week we’ll be focusing on Dead City by Michelle Parker and Jey Pawlik~! (http://topazcomics.com/deadcity/welcome/) You are free to read and comment about the comic all week at your own pace until May 10th, so stop on by whenever it suits your schedule! Discussions are freeform, but we do offer discussion prompts in the pins for those who’d like to have them. Additionally, remember that while constructive criticism is allowed, our focus is to have fun and appreciate the comic! Whether you finish the comic or can only read a few pages, everyone is welcome to join and chat with us!

DISCUSSION PROMPTS – PART 1

1. What did you like about the beginning of the comic?

2. What has been your favorite moment in the comic (so far)?

3. Who is your favorite character?

4. Which characters do like seeing interact the most?

5. What is something you like about the art? If you have a favorite illustration, please share it!

6. What is a theme you like that the comic explores?

7. What do you like about the comic’s story or overall related content?

8. Overall, what do you think the comic’s strengths are?

Don’t feel inspired by the prompts? Feel free to discuss anything else that interested you!

Erin Ptah (BICP | Leif & Thorn)

I don't know how long these are in the queue, but wow, "infectious outbreak that focuses on characters coping with limited resources while self-isolating from anyone contagious" is hitting awfully close to home right now...

Miranda

1. What did you like about the beginning of the comic? I really liked how it jumped right in. It didn't feel the need to explain the outbreak, the history of it, what the symptoms are, etc. It simply showed a zombie, showed a non zombie, and the stage was set. 2. What has been your favorite moment in the comic (so far)? I think the Vending machine incident and Mikael ust straight up getting naked to take a rain shower. 3. Who is your favorite character? I like Mikael and his personality. He's just very blunt and to the point 4. Which characters do like seeing interact the most? So far there are only two, but their interaction, while simple, says a lot about their personalities and experiences with the outbreak so far. 5. What is something you like about the art? If you have a favorite illustration, please share it! Black and white is usually hard for me to read, but this one does it well. I love Mikael's freckles. 6. What is a theme you like that the comic explores? How people handle crisis 7. What do you like about the comic’s story or overall related content? It's so simple, but even with few words, you can tell a lot about the character's and where they've been and what's brought them to where they are now. 8. Overall, what do you think the comic’s strengths are? Drawing the characters to show without having to tell.(edited)

RebelVampire

@Erin Ptah (BICP | Leif & Thorn) I looked out of curiosity. This was submitted January 13th. So it's a big happy coincidence.

Queenue

Oh man I love Dead City! It was nice to refresh myself on the comic since I last read. I will say, the artist handles black and white beautifully. This is such a great comic with such a limited palette (almost pure b&w with some spinkles of gray). The style reminds me of really great classic American comics, and I dig it a lot. And as an intimate character study of two guys struggling in a post-apocalyptic world, it is fantastic. JP is my fave character as I find him really relatable. Overall, I feel his and Mikael's relationship was well built up and realistic. All of those cute, quiet little moments between them really make this story. One of the major themes that I gather is that humanity endures, even in the face of the apocalypse. The end of life as we know it isn't the end of us, we can still thrive, and even fall in love when the world's falling apart. That's kind of a theme in a lot of zombie media, but Dead City really hits on this. While I kind of wish there were more zombies in the comic (lol), I understand that it's mostly a romance/character-driven story. But, it also tackles the issue of isolation in these types of situations in a really genuine way. You get the feeling that these characters are the "only two people in the world" and that they felt so profoundly alone before they found each other. That's powerful writing.

But it also knows how to use humor and light-hearted character moments to lighten the mood, which I like. I've never seen a piece of media in this genre that wasn't super dark and gritty and that's one of the things I love about this comic. And, I don't know if I can pick a favorite moment, but I do like their whole time spent in the suburban house just lazing about, drinking wine and trying on the previous owners' clothing.

RebelVampire

I like that the beginning of the comic begins kind of typical to a zombie story. Where character A meets character B but then oh no trust issues cause survival of the fittest. And then the story just completely deviates from it in a lot of ways. I really kind of like how it used the tropes to establish the setting quickly, before becoming its own thing. My favorite moment in the comic so far has probably been when Mikael froze and JP had to step up and take action against a zombie. I actually wasn't sure JP had it in him tbh, so for me that was a cool moment of just seeing another side to this character. I also liked seeing confirmation that nah, Mikael has been affected by the scenario and the whole has-it-together vibe isnt entirely accurate. My favorite character is probably JP if not for the fact I see myself in him a bit more just for the fact he never quite feels like he knows what he's doing and is just kind of winging it. Considering there's really only two characters, it's obviously JP and Mikael. Their relationship builds up in a very organic way that feels natural, so it's really enjoyable. As for the art, what I like the most is the attention to detail. Like Mikael's freckles, the fact JP's facial hair grows, etc. Those small things really just kind of give the comic that extra bit of polish that's really nice. As for a theme the comic explores, I think I enjoy most right now the human need for connection. Cause sure Mikael didn't trust JP at first (and possibly vice versa), and yet, are you really going to turn away perhaps one of the few ppl left? I think this story really captures that need for people to have someone else in their life.

As for the story's overall content, what I like the most is just how un-zombie of a zombie apocalypse this is. Sure we see them, but overall they aren't the focus. I also like that the zombies aren't treated as like this OP always have to worry about thing. One line that super sticks with me is Mikael noting the zombies got slower cause they're, ya know, dead and rotting. So I like that there is this hope that maybe it won't be a forever thing. As for the comic's strengths, again, probably the premise where it's a zombie apocalypse but that is so far from the focus it makes it really unique and stand out.

Comic Tea Party

DISCUSSION PROMPTS – PART 2

9. Do you think JP and Mikael’s relationship will be able to last, or will the situation of the apocalypse get the better of them? In what unexpected ways do you think their relationship will be challenged despite the situation?

10. JP and Mikael’s backstories are both decently vague, so what sort of theories do you have surrounding them? Do you think we’re in for a shocking truth bomb that may drive a wedge between the two?

11. Given what we know about the world at the moment, do you think the apocalypse will last forever, or might things get better someday? What do you think will happen if JP and Mikael run into more survivors?

12. What story moment about the harsh realities of survival hit you the hardest? In contrast, what moment about human connection hit you the stronger? All in all, what do you think the comic says about connecting with other people, even in survival situations?

Don’t feel inspired by the prompts? Feel free to discuss anything else that interested you!

RebelVampire

I think JP and Mikael's relationship will last. But, what I think will challenge their relationship is the idea that maybe the apocalypse won't last forever, or things won't always be super dire. Cause I think that forces them to reexamine who they were as people in the past and talk about that a lot more than they do at present. At present I get way more of an impression they're living in the now, so once the past and future can be relevant again, I think that will prompt some interesting discussions. I don't have anything concrete at the moment regarding background theories. However, I do think there's a dark edge to Mikael somewhere in there that will make JP go "I'm not sure if I like that." Given my opinions above and it being mentioned the zombies aren't as fast as they used to be, no. I actually think we're already seeing the signs that as long as humanity can whole themselves up somewhere and implement proper containment procedures, things will get better. As for more survivors, I actually don't forsee that being an issue anytime soon. And if they do meet other survivors, that is when I expect something super bad more zombie apocalypse like will happen cause humans are the most trustworthy bunch in this genre. I think the moment for harsh realities of survival that hit me the strongest was really when they realized they had to move and couldn't stay in one spot forever due to factors beyond their control. It's really hard to leave a place you feel safe, so that hurts the heart that they really didn't have a choice. As for the moment of human connection, it was when the freezing scene happened and Mikael was upset someone he knew was a zombie. Cause I didn't get the impression they were super duper close, and yet that hurt was too real. As for what the comic is saying, I think it's a message about how regardless of situation, we need to feel connected to others - even more so in survival situations.

Comic Tea Party

DISCUSSION PROMPTS – PART 3

13. What are you most looking forward to seeing in regards to the comic?

14. Any final words of encouragement for the comic?

Don’t feel inspired by the prompts? Feel free to discuss anything else that interested you!

jestershark

13: I think seeing JP and MIkael's relationship change and grow over the course of the comic has been a delight so far and I think it's going to continue to be interesting into the future. 14. I wish more people were reading it! It's definitely got all sorts of hooks...

snuffysam (Super Galaxy Knights)

I've loved reading Dead City! I really like how this story feels like... progress? Like a lot of zombie survival stories are about the protagonists slowly falling apart as more of them get picked off, but this felt... hopeful. Like, the two get better at surviving as time goes on. Especially given how JP & Mikael's relationship is such a major part of the story. The fact that they can find love in the zombie apocalypse shows that there is hope for humanity after all.

RebelVampire

I am most looking forward to them dealing with more zombies actually or survivors. Unfortunately, resources are gonna become scarcer as time goes on, so I'm interested to see how they change to deal with that. My final words are that this comic is super unique in its storytelling and, to me at least, is a beautiful story about human connection and how there is always hope even when humanity is struggling

Comic Tea Party

BOOK CLUB END!

Thank you everyone so much for reading and chatting about Dead City this week! Please also give a special thank you to Michelle Parker and Jey Pawlik for volunteering the comic and creating it! If you liked Dead City, make sure to continue to support it via some of the links below!

Read and Comment: http://topazcomics.com/deadcity/welcome/

Jey’s Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/jpawlik

Topaz Comic’s Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/topazcomics

Topaz Comic’s Shop: https://topazcomics.com/shop/

Topaz Comic’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/topazcomics

[daylightarchives]

MY FAVORITE MUSICAL DISCOVERIES OF 2017

Only reviewing the contemporary stuff can be boring - besides, there’s a virtually infinite amount of music just waiting to be discovered of every shape or size you could imagine out there going back decades and decades. So, here are some albums I’ve had the pleasure of discovering and falling in love with in this past year or so. No particular order.

GROUPER//DRAGGING A DEAD DEER UP A HILL (2008)

Up until the point where I started listening to Grouper, I had a bit of a hard time taking the idea of guitar-based ambient music seriously. Guitars are anything but ambient; they’re naturally percussive, their notes don’t ring out much longer than a second or two at the most, and unlike synths, which can fade in and trail off infinitely, guitars produce sound within a far narrower spectrum of both length and frequency. Needless to say, I was pleasantly surprised by how wrong Dragging a Dead Deer proved that idea to be. Grouper mastermind Liz Harris takes a completely different approach to recording guitar, shrouding the instrument (and her voice) in countless, sometimes impenetrable sounding layers of field recording and noise. What makes the album work, for me, is how magical it feels to cut through all of that and find songs as beautiful as Invisible or my favorite, closer We’ve All Time To Sleep. Furthermore, Harris really gets the best of both worlds on Dragging a Dead Deer, building all of the seductiveness and intimacy of a folksy guitar record as well as the total mental windex effect the best ambient music can have.

VARIOUS ARTISTS//POMEGRANATES: PERSIAN POP, FUNK, FOLK AND PSYCH OF THE 60S AND 70S (2009) If even one person decides to listen to Pomegranates because of this here piece, writing it will have been worth it. Cataloguing the surprisingly vibrant music scene of the former nation of Persia (now Iran) in the ‘60s and ‘70s, Pomegranates is maybe the perfect compilation in that it’s full of total jams that cast a whole new light on a place whose music you might never check out otherwise. What makes the album so interesting is that it’s like a musical petri dish where you can here Eastern and Western musical ideas meeting and mutating and forming totally unique styles that are as cerebral and fascinating as they are fun and danceable. The real shame is that this scene died so shortly after the period from which this music was culled, due to changes in leadership and some seriously regressive social policies. Seriously though, I cannot stress this enough: enrich yourself, check Pomegranates out.

FOUR TET//ROUNDS (2003) Rounds feels like the sophisticated older sibling to one of my favorite albums, Since I Left You by the Avalanches. Built with an Avalanche-ian approach, Rounds is composed entirely of samples, looping endlessly in and out of sync with each other in fascinating and compelling ways. Four Tet’s hip hop worship comes out of the woodwork occasionally in the form of hard-hitting drums, but I think the album is a lot more interesting the more formless it gets. My favorite track, And They Look Broken Hearted, shifts tectonically from sensual vibraphone noodling towards melancholy harp figures and nervous jazz drumming that anxiously builds and fizzles out in this totally random and stuttering way. I’d say the track never once repeats a measure, except part of the fun is that the track is barely made up of measures to begin with. The approach is way more based around loops, starting and ending based more off of emotional cues than accordance towards a rhythmic pattern or grid. It’s endlessly detailed, sexy, funny, and super chill. Great study music, great music period.

SIC ALPS//SIC ALPS (2012) Sic Alps plays like garage rock’s attempt at something like the “Great American Novel,” full of poised sophistication, folksy ramblings, sincere declarations of love and laziness, and a lopsided sort of virtuoso approach that sees the band pulling in string sections and grand pianos as well as playing out their take on sun-bleached folk and, of course, psychedelic riffage. Taken all together, the record seems like an attempt to encompass the entire history of California guitar music at once; I think it’s a blast. Fans of guitar music will be able to find almost anything they care to look for in this thing: when I listen, I hear shades of Neil Young (Lazee Son), Credence (Moviehead), Wilco maybe (God Bless Her, I Miss Her), and even Radiohead on the excellent opener Glyphs and the album’s languid anticlimax, Rock Races. It’s basically a garage record, just with a ton of gravitas, which the record earns, and which is such a welcome change of pace within maybe the only genre that’s still more prolific (mostly to it’s detriment) than hip hop.  

CAETANO VELOSO//TRANSA (1972) Probably one of the best records within that notoriously short-lived world of Tropicalia, an extremely fun but inherently self-destructing kind of protest music in Brazil c. the ’70s that responded to the government’s isolationism with gleeful appropriation of Western music into already awesome Brazilian styles. Transa, however, is anything but gleeful. Written in exile, the album is a dark rumination on loneliness and politics that expertly works in standards like Mora Na Filosofia (a highlight) as well as hyper-Western balladry on tracks like You Don’t Know Me and closer Nostalgia. A snapshot of a fascinating period in history as interpreted by a great mind, Transa can almost establish its significance on context alone; the musicality and crazy cultural diffusion going on all over this record are what elevates it to a classic for me.

CORNELIUS//FANTASMA (1997) Yet another sort of companion piece to Since I Left You, Fantasma proves that plunderphonics isn’t a dead end by joyously exploring its every nook and cranny and turning out some of the best music that little genre has to offer. Building songs around ideas that are like, Weird Al or They Might Be Giants level oddball, Cornelius makes music out of the sound of his own walking into the studio, text to speech generators, and occasionally out of ideas that date themselves a little (midi renditions of classical music, lol.) All of the comedic fanfare serves to make the moments of true musical beauty hit that much harder, like on early standout New Music Machine or the Apples In Stereo-featuring Chapter 8 - Seashore and Horizon. A highlight of the Japanese micro genre of Shibuya-Kei, Fantasma is an album that holds a remarkable amount of conceptual heft for how light it sounds, and that puts a smile on my face like almost no other record I know of.

DJ KRUSH//MILIGHT (1996) In 2017, hip hop albums that truly feel like they’re even trying to sound definitive are few and far in between. The kids just aren’t interested in that kinda shit, and that attitude seems to be traveling upward as mainstays in rap continue to peddle out middling and unexceptional releases (OK, maybe I’m still salty about DAMN.) I think that’s all part of why I find myself so attracted to a lot of relatively older stuff, where hip hop is concerned. It isn’t so much a sonic preference as a political preference; I guess I’m just more of a fan of albums that seem to be trying to make big, serious statements. A running short list of such records would probably include oh, say, Aquemini, GKMC, Exmilitary, and DEFINITELY Milight. If that sort of definitive intent doesn’t reach you through the featured rap verses, mostly in Japanese, than let it hit you in the form of Krush’s perfectly sculpted instrumentals, which engulf and cradle spoken word messages from each featured rapper about their hopes for the future just as readily as they hold down incredible verses from a veritable who’s who of underground rappers and, curiously, Mos Def. The record is a masterclass in sampling and old school production as well as an incredible atmospheric and moody record that’s basically total ear candy with the perfect amount of substance and depth to keep it truly compelling.

ALVA NOTO + RYUICHI SAKAMOTO/VRIOON (2002) German electronic minimalist Alva Noto and Japanese virtuoso composer Ryuichi Sakamoto have a fascinating chemistry that, perhaps due to its subtlety, flies mostly under the radar; except, when it doesn’t, like when the two get commissioned to score The Revenant off the strength of incredible albums like Vrioon. Vrioon is basically a conceptual exercise, pairing Sakamoto’s piano improvisations with Noto’s infinitesimal manipulations and glitchy not-quite-beats. The two ingredients here compliment each other in unimaginably rewarding ways that continue to reveal themselves upon further listening - the ringing glitches of Uoon I anchor formless piano parts that subtly shift in increasingly disorienting ways, making for a remarkably serene yet engaging listening experience that I just can’t get enough of. Speaking from experience, this is the kind of music that would make any sunrise or sunset magical, and I can’t recommend it enough.

CAN//EGE BAMYASI (1972) I’d listened to Tago Mago once or twice and was generally familiar with Can’s lofty reputation, but it didn’t start making sense to me until I listened to Ege Bamyasi. For all of the praise the band gets for being innovative and experimental, what’s so great about Bamyasi is the clear pop sensibility: most of these songs are short and sweet, and they press forward with a relentless momentum that brings the record a lot of immediacy and energy. Even when the band slows the tempo way down like on Sing Swan Song (which Kanye sampled for Drunk and Hot Girls, btw) or switches up the instrumentation on Spoon, everything sounds pretty unified and tight, and every song is really, really catchy.

FRANÇOISE HARDY//LA QUESTION (1971)

One woman institution of French pop Françoise Hardy explores the styles of Bossa Nova on her eleventh (!) album, a super low key acoustic affair that rarely has more than a thing or two going on at once. Built around cycling acoustic guitar figures occasionally supplemented by strings and bass, the album gives Hardy a lot of room to establish her vocal presence, which she does super effectively. The minimalism of the record makes it sound timeless, and the arrangements are cinematic and lush and sexy but also super intimate and tiny, all at once. Needless to say, La Question a pretty striking record.

BUILT TO SPILL//KEEP IT LIKE A SECRET (1999) I’m not gonna be the guy that tries to figure out what it means, but no one can deny that “indie” doesn’t mean the same thing now as it did in ’99 when Keep It Like A Secret dropped. In 2017, it’s acceptable to put the modifier R&B after indie, artists like Father John Misty are making plays for the sex symbol status held in years past by mainstays of white-bread rock and roll, and most indie fans are as readily courted by hip hop or electronic music as they are “indie” (I stress, none of this is a bad thing.) Indie in ’99 was a way more bookish, cloistered, specific sort of scene, and Keep It Like A Secret really exemplifies that vibe to me. A basically pretty sexless record built around hyper-literate lyrics about the meaning of life and personal shortcomings, Keep It is so endearingly low-key that falling for the record mostly just feels like making a friend with whom you can speak in an intimate and esoteric way. The guitars are angular and math-y in some places, and awesome and anthemic in others, like on ripping opener The Plan and personal favorite Temporarily Blind. Among other things, Keep It Like A Secret sounds like the perfect soundtrack to the charming and twee indie (ha) movie most people see their life as nowadays; well, I don’t know, maybe that’s just me.


YO LA TENGO//I CAN HEAR THE HEART BEATING AS ONE (1997) Keep It Like A Secret came out two years after this behemoth of a record - and yet somehow, I still feel like I Can Feel The Heart Beating As One as maybe the first major stepping stone between the indie of the ‘90s and the indie of today. The major innovation? This is lover’s music, played by actual married couple Georgia Hubley and Ira Kaplan. Whether they’re summarizing the entire history of shoegaze into a single song or covering the Beach Boys, Yo La Tengo always keep the vibe sleepy, chilled out, and super seductive, and god damn, it just works. Those who know me might find this hard to believe, I always find that I have the least to say about the things I love the most. I Can Feel The Heart Beating As One is one of those things. So much of what makes this album special is how intimate and warm it feels, qualities I could never communicate as well as the music itself does. Please, listen to it. ASAP.

[b-and-willie]

Self-Validation(or inability) and It’s Affects on our Dynamic

Life is funny you know?  People, things, circumstances, even thoughts have a way of finding you in the most unlikely way - sometimes the timing is actually good too! Take abby and my joint writing venture : AT The Heart of It

We decided that we'd like to take a stab at writing about the same subject to discover things about ourselves. either where we struggle or how we have grown and perhaps why.  The idea of At The Heart of It originated because often we think we are going to talk about one thing and end up discovering what the heart of it really is to us while digging deeper.   I doubt we will be doing a weekly prompt type idea- we want to find the right question for us and give it the attention it requires. Who are we kidding we are wordy writers, once and a while will be enough for all involved- writers AND readers!

So without further adieu today's subject: Self Validation/ Love of Self ( Didn't want to get you all excited thinking about Self Love *wink*).

( click here for abby's post)  

(Blondie decided to Join in too!)

The Affects of Self Validation On Our Dynamic

Our son is becoming an amazing artist, but that is not his gift.  He has been gifted with determination. When he first stepped foot on the path he is walking, he faced some very harsh news regarding his first portfolio attempt. Whether it was his passion, his determination or both, he picked himself up, reexamined his work,  where he was placing his focus and set to make it right, despite his critic's suggestions he take another route. He didn't get accepted into his first choice college, which ended up to be a Godsend as his second choice was more suited to his style and area of talent strength in the long run. He was still over the moon to be living what he loved.

I can draw, but I never developed my talent like he did. I tell others that 'back then, it wasn't as encouraged', but the truth of it is, I didn't believe in myself as he does himself. He isn't arrogant, selfish or delusional- he's driven and confident in his future abilities even if they are buried at the moment.

I often joke that we have no idea where that comes from.  Although if I examine his drive in comparison to how I am with in our dynamic, I know precisely where he got it from. Once I discovered who I really was, my passion/obsession, and determination became focused on maintaining that woman. Unfortunately over time, maintaining turned to protecting, which ultimately changed to questioning   Being a submissive does involve a lot of interpersonal development, but it also requires exchange at times with the same intensity on the opposite side of 'the slash'. ( Perhaps a post topic for another time)

Self validation is an interesting phrase to me. Others may prefer " acceptance of self " or " love of self" and while I have read those and similar phrases over the years, self validation struck a cord in me. Perhaps it was timing or the source. I began to read about external and internal validation with great interest. External validation concerning my submission is actually not difficult to come by- It is wonderful to be seen by friends isn't it?

But what about those times when you are alone? Those times your friends are not available. Those times when your significant other is busy, distracted, on a different D/s plain or God forbid, STRUGGLING?  This would be the time self validation should be there to draw on.

Once upon a time I was able to turn to myself and my acceptance of my inner voice. Life might not have been great around me, but my part in my life, in my skin was.  Looking back I wonder how much of that self validation was initiated from within or whether it was more based on external sources. Does it even matter some may wonder?

In my case I think it does.  For if I was so as well equipped in self validation back then I as I thought I was, where has that perspective gone?

So what exactly does this have to do with our dynamic? I am coming to believe that perhaps I confused approval with acceptance.  I gained approval of self by B agreeing to ttwd. This lead the way for me to feel accepted and thus accepting myself. But perhaps. while a necessary step to growth, I stopped too short and have yet to determine the depth required to own my self validation, guilt free.

If I return back to the thinking about our son, nothing these people in the business told him (negatively) deterred him.  He held true to his dream regardless.  His determination is commendable but his ability to see himself and draw from that is nothing short of miraculous, especially given his young age.  Yes he turns to us at times when he is struggling, to hear what he already knows. He takes our hand to help him back to the path he has constructed mostly on his own.

And what of his mother? She currently is not as brave. Digging deep seems to not do much more than churn up waters, clouding my judgment concerning myself. I tend to see myself no problem,  when I am alone. However the minute I am with B now I blow out that beacon of light.

My Submissive Heartset tends to be shrouded in things that have been said, doubt, comparison, what ifs, if onlys...The issue should not be that I have experienced negativity or perceived it at times. The issue then becomes " accept yourself" . Stop looking at others to fill that void.  Fill the void yourself and use that area to stand up and shout, " This is Me! I am not perfect, I don't love all aspects of me, but I DO love me!".

Instead I close up. I project that I am no longer vulnerable.  I can do without this. It isn't important. You didn't hurt me. I don't feel rejected for me. ( The interesting notion is that closing up or shutting down is not being vulnerable. When in reality is merely a 'bid' for someone to notice the internal shift with an external clue).  Mentally I degrade my submission, my need. I tell myself that my past reality might not have been truths and that current realities are the truth that has always been.

I was reading  the other day how often when we fail to self validate we punish ourselves. When "we reject.. ourselves in this way, we exacerbate our feelings, because we then feel bad about two things: the original incident and the pain we’re causing ourselves." Lori Deschenel. I am familiar with this. I discovered what is currently "At the Heart of It" is I am creating a force field and pushing B away in the hopes of  not feeling too deeply - thus creating exactly what I don't want. I am also not being true to myself and that makes me fearful, miserable and not able to self validate because I am outwardly projecting the complete opposite of who I truly am at times.

If B was in a rut before, ( he's still here let's just say we are on different D/s plains at the moment), I have placed my foot on the gas to make sure those wheels are spinning at high speed digging us deeper.

I used to be able to shake it off more easily. ' He will come around. I know who I am- regardless of what he does.'  I still know who I am..I just seem to have a more difficult time allowing her out.  And if I am too afraid to see her, how is he ever going to? I have realized how I project myself in our dynamic is directly affected by my ability to self validate. Without that anchor of deep self acceptance from within, the D/s foundation I build with B is shaky at best.

I should probably take time to say that this isn't meant to be a 'woe is willie' post or even an advice seeking one. LOL.  I just wanted to get to the heart of the matter as to why perhaps I am not feeling my submission as deeply as I once was, and how my perception of self can get in the way. Don't you worry,  I'll get my sh*t together soon enough *wink*

 ***

I could go on to explain ways to self validate, but there is tons on that via the web ( try tinybuddha.comhttps://tinybuddha.com/blog/5-ways-to-validate-be-part-of-your-support-system/)

As an aside- I found this and it really spoke to me so I thought I'd share :

" As we go through personal developmental changes, our intimacy need is also changed from a sheer need for protection and approval to the need for being fully understood and connected emotionally and spiritually. When the people very close to us fail to meet such a higher need, we experience the lack of spiritual self-validation. Sometimes we exaggerate minor incidents through selective perception and self-critical reasoning into crisis situations, and fail to value our self-worth and competence.

Various psychological processes take place when we are in these situations. We feel denied access to the right to be and the right to feel at such moments. We feel as if a part in us is slowly dying in pain. We start doubting our self-worth, and losing confidence and self-respect. Our self-identity gets shaken, and we become unsure of who we are and what we are. We lose sight of the meaning of life and become hopeless and directionless. "(Trumpeter (1993)

ISSN: 0832-6193

On Self-Validation

F. Ishu Ishiyama

University of British Columbia)

[my3amletterstoher]

Moon conjunction Venus : this is a very peaceful transit , may be emotional be in a good way , may feel joy , sensitive to things , feeling charismatic , might be in the mood to cook (more than usual) may want to change hair, switch up fashion just for a change

Moon sextile Venus : tender feelings , wholesome feelings , may want to be close to family

Moon square Venus : this transit may bring about feelings of carelessness , unmotivated , self indulgence , may feel uncomfortable , greed, lazyiness

Moon trine Venus : another transit about tenderness, may want to go to the movies , make music , go to the park , the feeling of feeing artistic , dive into fashion

Moon opposition Venus : there may be friction , may be over eating

Moon conjunction Jupiter : this may be a happy transit , may be in a good mood /good feelings, success , may feel a feeling of warmth

Moon sextile Jupiter : this is a fun transit (Tumblr messing up) , there can be a feeling of easyiness , or good emotions with this transit as well

Moon square Jupiter: good wellbeing or a sense of it , (Tumblr messing up) , can be a lot of charitable work going on , there may be mood swings , may be overconfident , may overdo things

Keep it coming baby 😍 we still on top of things and still nipping things in the bud in regards to everything and anything, andddd might I add that we're having a good time 😍😍😍

Yo the fair is tomorrow (well the last day ) I wanna go and take you along with me 🖤in the the mood to see some animals and stuff baby ? All the livestock and everything , rabbits, cows, pigs, goats , that's allllll the way in Hamburg though I gotta get up earlyyyy perhaps (well not super early but still) I was gonna go today but Bey & Jay are around there so the transit with their concert nearby anddddd the traffic from the fair? Nope lol

Moon trine Jupiter : a feeling of feeling sentimental , may be even moreee thoughtful than usual , feel very generous , may be a lot of family time, or wanting to be close to family

moon opposition Jupiter : this transit may bring about a feeling of no self control , can be generous as well but since this transit is afflicted it can be a a bad thing (there's potential of being take advantage of ) , may also have a tendency to feel upset especially out ic the blue , may be a lot of thoughts about the future , which may lead to worrying or thinking heavyyyy about it

Moon conjunction Saturn : this is a serious transit , hinderences , may be depression , melonchonyness , conflict at home

Moon sextile Saturn : this is a feeling of feeling the need protect (in a good way) family..etc there may be deep emotions that come about as well that is shared with them , feeling and thoughts of ancestors may come about as well

Moon square Saturn : this is a very challenging transit

I'm right here baby 🖤🖤🖤we are enjoying our time together , been doing so , you are enjoying your time with me so much, I feel great , you feel great , I am enjoying the time too, that's not way I said you were feeling insecure , now you feel terrible cause ppl are messing with you ,I'm right here , we good in our world , everything in our world is perfect, we spent the whole evening together and it was perfect 😍

Moon square Saturn : sadness , Loneliness , may be even guilt and shame , may feel distant or not in touch with reality , may feel very depressed , cold (emotionally) , another time for relaxing

It seems that square transits are best to relax cause it's usually a little hectic there's exceptions though

Moon trine Saturn: this transit has to do with strength , instincts and common sense can be very high at that time , may be a lot of dreams occurring

Moon opposition Saturn : this transit is similar to a square , may feel very sad , bored

You so beautiful baby 🤤😍🤤🤤🤤, I got you, you got me, everything is okay , what's on your mind? Emote to me 😍🖤🖤🖤🖤we drifting and floatingggg , up in the stars 😍 you are a masterpiece 😍, such perfection, I wanna lick every inch of you 😍, I can't wait too you come here 😍👅💦 , looking all scrumptiousssss , kisses your neck 😍💋💋💋💋🐱💦🤤we in our red room chillinggggg , deep exhalingggggg , feeling more and more relaxing with each exhale , you got anymore fila gear 😍 supermodel no doubt baby 😍you be rocking the calvins too 😍, you be rocking everything baby 😍 so sexy 😍🤤😍🤤🐱💦💦💦, we in our red room , music playing , oldiessssss , we dancing to the music 😍🤤slow grooving , there's this little disco ball type of light in our room, illuminating the wall and the ceilingggg , kissing you on the lips 😍💋🐱💦, caressing your back 🤗🤗🤗🐱💦💦💦(Tumblr messing up) , I like your hair curlyyyyy (Tumblr messing up) and straight, and in a pony taillll, every style you wear , you kill baby 🤤😍😍Tumblr messing up, you so fly 😍

I asked you to post to me, to emote to me , reach out to me, why tf you flare up? I told you to reach out to me YOU REACH OUT TO ME

Laying on top of the moon as the stars fall down upon me and meteors crashing all around , motionless , literally staring into space, the heat from the meteors sky rockets the temperature , melting my tears

~~~~~~

From me? 🖤 we been diving into and discovering a lot

Oh yeah thaaattt lol (Tumblr messing up) but yeah that's crazy , but that makes you real af , not fake

Ppl are so superficial , materialistic , most ppl lack substance and don't have a soul or mind themselves so they can't comprehend deepness or things of substance or they try to bring those very things down

Some ppl just want just want ppl to feel bad for them they get a raise from it

Some obstacles are meant to be pushed through , willpower used , strength used but you know that as well or that's what you meant

But yeah baby continue that was great , you right 🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤

I'm right here baby 🖤

Are you having anxiety? I'm right here baby 🖤about to get in the shower, I'm right here baby , everything is okay 😘🖤🖤🖤 cause I'm right here and I make everything right and better 🖤🖤🖤deep breathing in and out all your worries and everything drift away

SEXYYYYYY 😍😍😍😍🤤🤤🤤🤤🤤🖤🖤🖤🖤my girlfriend/sub/muse/slave/trophy sexy af 😍😍😍🤤🤤

Forgot I hit the media upload limit 😭I'm in the shower though , kissing you on the lips 😘💋😘💋😘😘, caressing your back 🤗🤗🤗🤗🤗, rubbing on your booty 🤗🤗🤗🤗😍, your lips so sexy 😍🤤🤤🐱💦💦💦💦

I'm right here baby

OUR ENERGY IS BEING DRAINED

I'm right here baby

Damn near an hour

I

This supposed to be a happy time /celebration , I didn't do anything

Deep breathing in and out , kissing on your lips 😘😘😘💋💋💋💋

I'm not mad at you , none of that is geared towards me , in fact I helped you see most of those things , what's up?

Actually I shouldn't ask why are you acting like that if you have anxiety 🖤 I'm right here baby 🖤nothing is a problem baby, everything is great, kissing you on the lips 😘😘😘😘😘, our energy is being drained, you know what to do, keep it coming 😍😘😘😘😘😘🖤🖤🖤🖤, kissing your breasts 😍😍😘😘😘😘, caressing your thighs 😘😍😍😘🤗🐱💦💦💦

Do you need to be settled down? Deep exhaling , cause we in our own world away from all the bullshit , we been having a great time, we got next , we don't give a fuck about that bullshit , we been powering through, lemme erase that, I'm getting out of the shower, keep it coming, I had a great day with you today though baby 🖤 fr 😘💋😘💋, I love you so much 😘🤗😘😘😘😘🖤🖤🖤🖤muah muah , you make me so happy and make me melt in ways that I cannot explain , your mind, body, soul, heart all golden 🏆💍🔐🖤and I cherish it all so much and you 🖤drifting off into eternal sleep together 🤗😘🖤,

We wanna sleep right now , reach out , our energy is drained but you know what to do , we not with our sleep getting fucked up or our energy ..etc

It's time for bed , you don't want to stay up around all those parasite, Fake, dusty, manipulative, no class , society ridden ppl , reach out to me , you know what to do , let's go to sleep, drifting off into eternal sleep together 😘🤗🖤

are you having anxiety? Reach out, do you think I'm mad at you? I'm not , you must've mistook something I said, i enjoyed our day today I said and you did too , especially around the late afternoon /evening 😍submerged in each other , did you take something I said wrong earlier? I was tryna find it but I guess I deleted it, but when I asked if you were feeling insecure and said that other stuff I didn't say it in regards to our time we were spending together I loved it and I know you loved it too, I was referring to when you deleted some of the posts the night before , us going to sleep a little late that night , the minor little conflict that was in the air ..etc that's what I was referring to, not at all our time together , I was talking about those particular moments, my bad if you mistook but nah our time has been wonderful , I said time you got to that house the energy changed cause it did, the stuff I just mentioned/referred to happened but as far as our time together that didn't change and the feeling of it /that it brings , in fact it/we escaped said things as well /went even more /deeper into each other and I love that so much and it felt/feels so good , these last few days have been amazing , these last 2 weeks 🖤😘💋, drifting into eternal sleep together 😘🤗🖤

Reach out to me , its late af and you know you're not for your sleep getting fucked up or being up this late , you're mad af right now , reach out to me , you know how we do, you just cursed that ugly ass bitch out and she still tryna fuck with us , we are going to destroy her /continue to, andddd she fucked up our time earlier, I'm not with that bullshit, I swear to god I'm going to hurt that bitch , you're going to help me , that bitch is going to die one way or another even if it's soul wise cause she has none anyways, I told you about that house you're at, that's what I was tryna say, just like your aunts house and your grandmother's house , that bitch's energy fucked up all those places , plus she knows the person that's at the place you're at, they both tried to take you down , no one that's a friend of hers as well can be trusted, I talked about the energy changing when you got to that house it was conflict remember? Conflict was put in the air we got through it through it though , plus that person tried to make you go against me by trying to sale stuff remember? Out of "no where" after I was talking about what we were planning to do , doesn't that sound fishy to you? Plus the day you went over there you couldn't feel my energy when you reached out remember? When you posted that picture to IG for me the "deathly" picture , and the other pictures on SC for me , isn't that right when that person was talking about coming to their house right? And the other day I was talking about that remember? And look what happened tonight? Where did that come from about us ? That conflict in the air, that wasn't us , we were just enjoying ourselves , we were happy af you and I both know that , I was tryna to get you to see the subtle but important changes baby because see how those little subtle things affects things? When I brought up those things it wasn't against you, me, or us I brought it up to be mindful of because it might/did affect things later on as you can see , I felt and noticed you being affected by it , I mentioned you feeling insecure bc the last few days prior you were interacting with me more, the night you posted that picture of your sister (that was you reaching out to me ) although we were getting drained we still had a good nights sleep together, then yhe morning after you reached out to me and emoting to me about your living situation remember? And you picture the other picture too, we had a great time spent that day , then you go to some other house right? Still a great time , we deep into our world all day , then you reach out to me again like I said ^ with the picture on IG , and the posts on SC and this time it takes a few , I said said keep it coming you posted again , again the air is thick and I know you felt it too which is another reach why you reached out to me again around this time is when that person who's house you're at hit you up correct? Okay so you get there , we spending time together still , having a great time then weird conflict happened right? Like I can't even explain that little thing, we got through it though though, cause it was put in the air, but I know you were having anxiety andddd you felt alone when you went there there had got super thick and this was even before the conflict , and I'm thinking like hmmm.. we're doing what we always do, you probably felt that strangeness too, and I said "reach out" and by that time your energy was affected greatly , you felt like I wasn't there and I was trying to tell you what was going on but I guess you took it the wrong way, that night we tried to get some sleep but had trouble, and I said "reach out" like previous nights , you even deleted some posted so I know you felt insecure, which brings us to this morning , itwas kinda weird and I asked you to reach out , because you have been before, by midday we got through it and things were great af , which brings us to tonight , I know you felt too that things were weird, but I have to get sone sleep , I know you want some as well 🖤we been getting through things, we winning still baby

It's us against the world and we see it more apparent every day 🖤I got you , you got me and we escape everything , like we been doing 🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤 ps: I would of loved if you would of reached out to me tonight after you couldn't sleep even something as simple as the words "can't sleep" "missing you" you reach out to me in a variety of ways and I love it all whether it's via thoughts, pictures/videos, a dog lol cause I know you were missing me, and I was missing up too 🖤🖤🖤I felt you though 🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤, drifting off into eternal sleep together 😘🤗🖤

Good morning baby 😘🤗🖤gives you a big kiss 😘muah muah 😘 obstacles are meant to be crushed/demolished/stepped on like you been doing, bc you can handle the obstacles, and you not going to allow it to deter you from your path and what's destined for you, and you seen glimpses of it , you can feel it that's why things are trying to deter you from it , cause what's meant for you is greatest on every level, btw why do you have "Jesus" in your bio 😷 you don't believe in Jesus lol but anyways we been getting through things together and crushing them I might add, we're almost at the finish line baby, I take care of you in every way and I have been seeing you through , we all we got , you got a lot of ppl in your life that are against you but you're getting rid of , and these last 2 weeks you been more determined than ever to do and for it to happen soon and it will because I know you're determined to make that so, & us? we been escaping everything together , in our own world, building our utopia, anddddd you gonna be coming here , everything is falling into place (Tumblr messing up) , im not going to the Fair today 😩 I can't and today was the last day 😭 I do have to go to the grocery store thoooo , I might try to go to the NYS fair and share that experience with you , that's allll the way in Syracuse though (Tumblr messing up ) about to get in the shower

Tumblr messing up, deep breathing in and out , kissing you on the lips 😘😘😘💋💋💋, caressing your thighs 😘😘😘😘, deep exhaling (Tumblr messing up) , kissing your breasts 😍😘😘😘😘😘😘😘🐱💦💦💦💦, caressing your thighs 🤗😘😍😘😍, caressing your booty 😘😍😍😘🐱🖤💦, 🐱💦💦💦💦💦, caressing your breasts 😘😘😘😘💋😘(tumblr messing up ) 😍🐱😍💦💦💦, caressing your spine 😍😍😘💦💦, 🐱💦💦💦💦, kissing your thighs 😍😍😘😘😍🐱💦💦💦, sucking on your thighs 😘🐱💦💦💦💦💦(Tumblr messing up) , caressing your hips 😘🐱💋💦🐱💦💦, about to get out the shower , I love you so much 😍😘🖤🖤🖤🖤you're the greatest GF/sub/slave/muse/trophy everrrrrr🖤, I gotta see where we left off at as far as astrology goes

Moon opposition Saturn

(Tumblr messing up) ^ I think that's the transit we left off at , this transit may bring about sadness , may be hard to express emotions , may have a bad outlook on life at that time (like feeling hopeless) (Tumblr messing up) , may feel a lot of disappointments

Moon conjunction Neptune : this transit may bring about a sick feeling (Tumblr messing up) , compassion may be very high with this transit , this is another transit that dreams may be very vivid , the dreams may be confusing , may be inspired to create , do creative things , may be prone to getting sick with this transit

Moon sextile Neptune : sensitivity may be heightened with this transit , may feel the need to meditate or do yoga or something of the sort , another creative aspect (which Neptune is about creativity , spirituality..etc ) , high imagination , may feel the need to connect with family

Moon square Neptune : this transit may bring about a lot of questioning reality , a lot of weird things may occur or strange things ,

1 sec putting on my shirt , okay 🖤,

Moon square Neptune:may bring about extreme emotions

Moon trine Neptune : this transit may bring about artistic abilities , and like music , movies and may have a breakthrough in those pursuits , there may be a spark in those areas

Moon opposition Neptune : this transit is a clash , and very confusing , may even have nightmares with this transit and a lot of paranoia , relaxation should be taken with this transit , intuition may be heightened at this time

Now the mercuryyyyyyy

But first , I had told you to emote to me because I felt like there was something you wanted to tell me /talk to me about , needed help sorting your thoughts..etc and you did and I talked about it when I got up but later in the day /that night you erased it , you know I get you and understand you like no other , I know I'm your rock, your escape, your strength, safety..etc etc and I'm not going to let nothing stop me from being there for you , taking care of you ..etc and you reach out to me , you're not a bother at all, you're the opposite ,we complete each other and are made for each other in every way , so about you moving from foster home to foster home, I know that's frustrating and you just want it to be over with and everything that it entails (Tumblr messing up) maybe even in regards to family as well (or some of them), maybe feeling misunderstood in regards to them or like an outcast perhaps (Tumblr messing up) especially the kind of person you are , you were made to stand out , you are unique, rare and special and wayyyy ahead of your time , I don't think some ppl are used to that , or how you think, how you feel..etc but like I said that's what makes so you so special and perfect af , you are a masterpiece , we talked about all those things before monthssss ago about how we are and stuff inside and outwardly ...etc but yeah I know how you feel baby , that's another reason why I can't wait until you get here 🖤& plus there's a lot of great things here and more stuff being built (cause they're trying to make buffalo better ) (Tumblr messing up )

But a lot stuff that pertains to the things you want to do as well and me too but you know what I mean (tumblr messing up ) but a lot of workshops like the thing I went to about 2 years ago, a lot of networking events , conferences , there's fixing up the canal and the downtown area putting more stuff there, livening it up ...etc it's on the rise , even around where I live , it's these new apartments getting put up

Creating a whole new neighborhood: http://www.highlandparkbuffalo.com

^ those look so coolllll , I wanna move over there , they said no pets but they might change it hopefully cause how they gonna have a daycare for kids but saying no pets (my reception is messing up/bad in here) 😭 but yeah we're gonna have so much fun and do everything , you ever had solid ice cream? Not like the dippin dots I just passed it , I gotta get a picture of it when I go by there againnnn but they're like little bigger than a half dollar shaped ice cream it looks good though , ooooh we can go to the old train terminals abandoned (they hold events in there from time to time ) here's the ice cream:

It looks Chinese doesn't it? Now back to astrology:

Mercury conjunction Venus : this is a sensitive transit , may be crafty as well , like D.I.Y projects , communication skills may be on point bc of Venus (passion, the heart ..etc) mixing with Mercury (communication/thinking )

Mercury sextile Venus : this is an enjoyable time , very friendly time , a calm transit , a lot of harmony , may love numbers (working with numbers ..like math )

Mercury conjunction Jupiter : this transit may bring good news (reception messing up again) , may bring about good fortune in all areas of life , may be a good time to start a career, ideas may come with ease , may also have to do with studying as well , this is another harmonious time , may be a good time for real estate , thoughts about the future

Mercury conjunction mars : mind might be alaways going , increased activity , may be aggressive , defensive , may have a lot of nervous energy , losing temper , impulsive (that's bc mars is fire and aggressive so it's like aggression of the mind)

Mercury sextile mars : this speaks of mental flexibility , may have a good business sense , very driven, with a strong sense of purpose , a very successful time , very honest

Mercury square mars : may be short tempered ,may be aggressive , this is a very problematic aspect , no important decisions should be made at this time , legal matters may suffer as well , paperwork of any kind may be difficult as well (hard to concentrate and stuff ) so this is a very frustrating time , mind may be very fuzzy , may also be jumpy (Tumblr messing up)

Mercury opposition mars : a lotttttt of conflict , and conflicting things , a lot of pent up emotions especially anger , a lot of nervous energy

Mercury conjunction Jupiter : a spark of knowledge or wanting to learn , good news (Jupiter is about good news , good fortune and things of that nature ) , heightened optimism , and enthusiasm , success , may be great thoughts about the future , a lot of ideas (like out of nowhereee) , may be. Good time for business deals (to make some )

Mercury sextile Jupiter

Sidenote I'm so cold 😭 ^ this transit has to do with the future , and making plans towards the future , self expression may be heightened at this time , good concentration , may be able to focus better , very curious when it comes to learning , and about life in general , may be planning a vacation (thoughts about it )

Mercury square Jupiter : this speaks of conflict bc its square but since its Jupiter it's not that bad , this speaks of hopes towards the future , and making plans towards it as well , the thing about this is there may be a lack of focus , and may be tooooo optimistic with a clear plan

Mercury trine Jupiter : this transit again speaks of planning ahead , thinking about the future , traveling , may have an interest in philosophy , religion, law , may take on a new language to learn

Mercury opposition Jupiter : this is biggggg ideas (Tumblr messing up ) but since is opposition there may be mistakes in forming these ideas , or taking on too many things , there may be greed , and some stress

Mercury conjunction Saturn (Tumblr messing up) this transit can about deep thinking , may also be in a mental rut as well , depression , stress can come with this transit as well , (Tumblr messing up) may have trouble sleeping , may be a good time for reflection , a lot of thinking about life and things of that nature , may need a lot of patience with this transit

I keep sneeezing, geeez lol

Mercury sextile Saturn : this is like opposite of the mercury square Jupiter , so it's a good time for paperwork , doing business deals , organizing and fixing up things , financial investments , a Lot of productive thoughts , thoughts on career, professions , may have a lot of thoughts about the past or past life(lives) , may be very compelled to teach or learn

Mercury square Saturn : this is very hopeful thoughts towards the future , very secure about it (I'm tryna fix my backpack one sec) I'm back baby 🖤🖤🖤this transit may be boasting , /boastful , making big statements , so it's another resting transit , ooops I messed up the transits didn't I ? Oh just the planet name , I fixed it

Mercury opposition Saturn : this may be a sad transit , may be a lot of sad thoughts and feelings , may feel isolated , extra guarded , there may be some bad news or some setbacks ,may do a lot of research doing this time about life and various subjects , no decision making doing this time

Mercury trine Saturn : this transit is good for making good discussions particularly deep or business ones , making serious decisions , very practical , achievements made during this time

Mercury conjunction Uranus : this is a very mentally stimulating transit , may bring about a lot of original ideas , spark a lot of creativity (because Uranus is all about that: original, sometimes pericular , against social norms)

Tumblr messing up

Mercury sextile Uranus : this transit can bring about new ideas , proflic dreams , flashes of ideas and insight (Tumblr messing up )senses may be heightened during this time , new discoveries discovered , may want to dive into different cultures or at least want to learn about it

Mercury square Uranus : not a good time to make plans , life may feel like it's going fast at that time , may receive shocking news , may be a lot of nervousness , there may be a lot of mishaps , may misplace things , may be very antsy or have anxiety

Mercury trine Uranus : over stimulated senses , strong intuition , may be extra interested in computer work or technology , may want to play games during this time (computer and console ) solving puzzles..etc

Mercury opposition Uranus : this transit may result in racing thoughts , feeling like life is just passing by , may not be able to focus , may be easily distracted , technology of any kind may malfunction

Mercury conjunction pluto : very intense emotions , a lot of self discovery , may also think about a lot of serious things , may have problems with the nervous system , paranoia

Mercury sextile Pluto : a very indepth transit , may have an interest in psychology

Mercury square Pluto : this is a mind challenging transit , there may be a crisis or it feel like one , defensiveness is high , may be a spoke in interest of supernatural subjects

Mercury trine Pluto : this transit brings about a lot of thinking , profound thoughts , revelations

Mercury opposition Pluto : may be torn between ideas but a great transit for transformation , but also pressure, stress , may be a great time for researching things , being inward

Mercury conjunction Neptune : during this transit there may be heightened spirituality or focus on spirituality or spiritual subjects , very artistic , heightened creativity and imagination , meditation and /or dreams might bring about great insights , or visions [i gotta another post ]

[flames-bring-a-ton-of-ash]

Has writing always been a passion of yours? I really respect the amount of effort and time you put into ID btw!

Looking back, I would say that writing is definitely a passion I’ve had, but didn’t always take the time to appreciate and showcase. Even in middle school and high school, I would have teachers who complimented my writing. And in undergrad and grad school, I had teachers who suggested I try to get published in an academic journal, or start my own blog, because they said my writing was above average. I even had an undergrad professor take me into his office once, just to say how surprised he was at the caliber of a paper I’d written for his class, and that he hadn’t seen such a well-written paper from a student in a long time. And I guess I always shrugged it off, in a way, thinking, “Well, of course I write well, I want to get good grades for my class!” lol. Something that we tend to do is downplay our strengths, and I’ve started to realize that maybe I should give myself more credit for my writing, and realize my potential with it. I always secretly thought it would be awesome to be a writer, as a career, but that career field seems so uncertain that it scared me too much to risk the “starving artist” life, which is why I focused on being a therapist, instead (another passion of mine). 

In high school, I did start writing my own romance novel, randomly, and I got about 40 pages single-spaced written before I abandoned it to focus on applying for college. So I think that school has always taken up my time, and I didn’t really have the energy or motivation to write in a non-academic way until I graduated from grad school about 1 1/2 years ago. I did actually send in an asexuality paper to an academic journal (because one of my professors strongly encouraged I do so, since the paper was originally for her class and she said it was fantastic). The journal didn’t turn it down, but actually had 2 people review and edit it, then they sent it back and told me I could fix up some parts and resubmit it, if I wanted. Sadly, since it was my last semester of grad school, I was too overwhelmed by class, internship, and searching for a post-grad job, to go back and edit the paper. That’s the one regret I have, that I didn’t resubmit it and potentially get published. But, now that I’m out of school, I’m enjoying finally getting back to writing non-academically, and it’s always been on my bucket list to publish a novel, so that’s something that’s been on my mind. I’ve thought about that romance novel I started over a decade ago, and thought about going back and re-reading it, to see if it’s salvageable and something I could continue. 

Okay, I’m done rambling haha. 

Thank you so much for being interested enough to ask me that, and for being a fan of ID! Honestly, when I first started writing ID, I NEVER expected so many people to enjoy it. It still blows my mind, that almost a year later, people are still hooked on it and excited for updates. In all honesty, the support and feedback on ID is what has really sky rocketed my confidence with my writing. I still get nervous af when I post anything new, and second guess my writing more than I care to admit, but I’ve come a long way in my confidence with it, and have started to see that I do indeed have some potential to perhaps write my own original novel in the future. So thank you for that, because if it wasn’t for y’all, I never would’ve delved into ID and writing the way that I have :)

[project-two-five-zero-one]

Why the Apocalypse Now Kickstarter thing is (probably) a Fucking Terrible Idea

Even if the game weren't destined to disappoint on a purely conceptual level (more on that in a second) the Kickstarter pitch is full of massive red flags that should be apparent to anyone modestly familiar with the industry, like 

- a few key figures with impressive resumes leading a team of unknowns in a studio with no prior projects 

- ambitious, exciting-sounding design ideas with little to no specifics regarding how they might actually be implemented, described as an "experience" 

- fucking massive funding goal with an extremely vague development timetable 

- no mockup UI, demo trailer or any kind of proof-of-concept material whatsoever beyond concept art depicting sets from the film 

Other reasons: 

- this is a prospective project of staggering ambition and little proof of follow-through, based on an existing work which was ITSELF a project of staggering ambition that almost completely fell apart while spearheaded by one guy with an overwhelmingly huge budget 

- for all its ambition the notion of the "psychological horror war game", that mythical interactive experience based on harrowing guerilla conflicts like Vietnam or Iraq which will tackle the true horrors of war with a depth and sensitivity Call of Duty can only dream of, is not a new concept for the video gaming world. In fact it's been attempted several times before, with the results invariably being either vaporware (Six Days in Fallujah, the PREVIOUS attempt at an Apocalypse Now game that was briefly worked on by Tom Bissell) or crap (Shellshock: Nam '67 - anyone remember that?). If there's a way to represent the psychological aspect of guerilla warfare in a video game that's both commercially viable (i.e. something more than a half dozen people would actually want to play) and not cheap and exploitative, no one has yet unscrambled it and not for lack of effort. The only "successful" (and still widely maligned) example would be Spec Ops: The Line, which accomplishes its biting commentary by being exactly the same as every other post-Modern Warfare military shooter, only ironic. Not the most glowing precedent. I'm sure the guys at Erebus Games would lay the blame on meddling profit-minded creativity-squashing publishers, and as much as I'd like to join them in sticking it to the risk-averse AAA gaming elite they would need to provide something on their side a little more compelling than the promise of "Fallout on acid". 

- Remember that time Marlon Brando - very shortly before his death - refused to lend his voice or likeness to EA's Godfather video game because he thought video games were violent and dumb? I don't really have a specific point to make here with this, just: LOL. 

Actually I kind of do have a specific point. Perhaps more important than any of these practical concerns, the idea of trying to evoke Apocalypse Now in a video game is almost certainly doomed to failure, artistically if not commercially, because by invoking this work of fiction from another medium Erebus is setting expectations they cannot possibly meet. Unless audiences' and designers' conceptions of what constitutes a "video game" radically change at some point in the future, no video game attempting to summon the tonal heft of a film like Apocalypse Now will ever succeed because unlike cinema or prose, the core storytelling elements of video games are intrinsically absurd. Video games are about repetitive actions, about polygons and number values, about dying and respawning and dying again. Any game ever made with anything resembling a combat mechanic involves (or just as importantly, can involve) killing more humans or humanoid sentient beings in the span of 6-20 hours than just about any one person in all of history. Treated as cinema or as fiction or - above all - as any kind of direct reflection of life, the very narrative lifeblood of video games is self-evidently fucking ridiculous. 

This is not a knock on video games: calculated repetition is the heart and soul of game design, and precisely what separates an actual game with mechanics and craft from a nominally interactive screensaver. This is also not me making some curmudgeonly Roger Ebert argument that Games Are Not Art, or even that they can't convey worthwhile narratives: on the contrary, the best and most enjoyable of video game narratives (and there are honestly so many to choose from in so many different styles, I can't reasonably narrow it down to just one or two representative examples) embrace the inherent abstractions and absurdities of the medium and take them in stride, often combining the exaggerated language of video games with the similarly exaggerated tropes of genre fiction, comics and anime to produce results that are wildly successful on their own terms. Outside the realm of postmodernist absurdism, however, most "serious" works of fiction endeavor to have some kind of baseline representational correspondence with reality as human beings experience it. 

At the very least, this is true of Apocalypse Now. Conceived and produced while the trauma of Vietnam was still so raw in America's collective consciousness that it had barely even begun to scab over, the film was always intended to contextualize and electrify the images of the war that so many had seen play out TV screens, while also attaching this particular moment in history to John Milius's madly poetic, quasi-transcendental meditations on the insanity of war and the warrior spirit of man, as well as the brooding colonial reflections of Joseph Conrad. All of this is grounded via a certain degree of aesthetic realism, however stylized in composition and editing, and expanding from that a reach into weighty, socially significant pathos. Video games, at least as we understand them currently, will never truly reproduce either realism or pathos in the terms in which Apocalypse Now envisions them. Not for lack of effort or talent (though, narratively speaking, some number of AAA productions could certainly benefit from a bit of those) but because they're functionally incapable of doing so. You can't have an Apocalypse Now where Willard is dying and respawning every couple of minutes - at least not if you want to retain any of the film's narrative strength. The scene where Willard's traveling party has a tense, violent encounter with the Vietnamese civilians in their boat full of chickens is a memorable and disturbing episode within the sequence of the film, but as either a railroaded scripted game event that can be reloaded and repeated any number of times or a randomly generated encounter occurring dozens of times in slightly differing permutations throughout a 20+ hour game experience, it is incapable of holding the same power over an audience. 

A game that has famously tried to shoot for the kind of realism and pathos observed in many examples of "serious" "literary" fiction is Naughty Dog's beloved The Last of Us. Narratively, aesthetically, the game sought to be an equivalent to Cormac McCarthy's The Road and ended up being (functionally if not officially) an above average Walking Dead spinoff with some punchy network-TV-quality dialogue (which is more than the actual Walking Dead network TV series can say at this point, but anyway). This might be because creative director and writer Neil Druckmann is no Cormac McCarthy, but I suspect it's also because McCarthy's evocation of reality and acerbic existential pathos are simply not things you can transpose intact onto an interactive experience with checkpoints and a stealth kill mechanic. Note once again that I am not criticizing the game, or any game, for having qualities which make video games balanced and fun: what I am saying is that, given these entirely understandable and probably necessary concessions to The Concept of Video Games as We Understand Them, the developer's pretensions of comparison to McCarthy or the tragic works of the Coen brothers (protagonist Joel was named in honor of Coen the Elder) is at best foolhardy, and at worst indicative of a deeper misguidedness (is that a word? it is now) insofar as what video games can and should aspire to in terms of narrative. 

And as it was for the Coens and McCarthy, so it is for Coppola and Milius - moreso, now, because with this project they are being invoked by name and not just by innuendo. (The fact that Coppola has signed his name on the project means little - not because he's declined artistically since his heyday (I shall not judge) but because I seriously doubt he has any understanding or interest in video games beyond whatever demo reel these guys have shown him.) I'm sure the Kickstarter isn't some cynical enterprise, at least; I don't doubt that tbe dudes at Erebus all have hearts in the respective right places. But as someone who really likes both video games and Apocalypse Now, I'm not putting my money anywhere near this crowdfunding campaign and you probably shouldn't either.