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audiovisualrecall · 1 year ago

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A list of things I want or need to do.....

Schedule driving lessons

Work on unicorn painting

Work on illustrations for steph book

Work on 'cinderell' comic rewrite/update

Laundry today

Dishes+ run dishwasher today

Schedule dentist appt

Schedule vet visit for Edison- he has a cold or allergies or something, also a growth on one of his toes??, and I want to really in-depth discuss a plan for his weight bc ive had no success. Also he's due for annual vaccinations presumably, so. (Wish blue pearl was not so expensive bc they now have Fear Free vet visits and the difference in his behavior when we went there last time compared to other vets weve gone to was just amazing. He was able to wander around the room and it didn't feel like a typical exam room for pets so he wasn't scared and hiding, he allowed the vet and assistant to poke and prod him and manhandled him even if he wasn't thrilled, he didn't cry or hiss or scratch anyone! But for regular vet visits they're really pricey :/)

Work on Eitan and Zahav story/comic

Work on iron man/dragonriders of pern au story

Buy parts for pvc watering system for garden (need to go with dad) and set up

Work on bookcase (with dad)

Window-shop/buy stuff for steph bridal shower (with ma or on my own, but the best store to go to is far enough I'd rather go by car, and it's more fun to go with someone else and discuss ideas and also less likely to impulse buy everything?)

Go to DSW to get new sneakers (with ma, access by car travel only and easier to have a second opinion on shoes. My current pair I have a hole in the top by my big toe...oops)

Work on website: photograph artwork professionally, edit photos, design website layout and complete that. Add artwork to portfolio gallery on the site, add my photo and about me info. Request refund for the dumb add-on I didn't realize was useless. Make the website what I want it to be. May need to learn coding. Need to slim down choices for artwork to include to only the best stuff it makes sense to include, not just things I like.

Design pride plants stickers/pins

Plan for rainbow enamel or just hard enamel autisticat pins. Also, keychains?

Rework/update etsy listings/items available...

Come up with additional ideas for products. Stickers/prints/pins...keychains?

Fulfil current etsy order - soon

Organize my room - try on clothing, go thru piles of stuff, figure out what to do with certain things and if the new bin will help what to put in it, decide what to put back into drawers and which ones for what items, go thru some other stuff like bank statements, organize receipts, etc

Put shelf above window above curtain rod for displaying some stuffed toys (need dad's help)

Hang up new Queer pride flag (need help, also it's way bigger than I expected so may need to fold some of it behind and stitch it to itself to fit on the wall, need help to pin it up on the wall and probably a second step stool at least)

Look for vases for bridal shower for flowers (with ma or solo)

Go thru and organize stuff on breakfast bar

Plan out a budget - figure out how much I tend to spend on different categories of stuff per week or every 2 weeks or monthly, figure out how much I earn in that time period (if it's weekly it's half of my pay bc I'm paid every other, if it's monthly gotta double that amt, also gotta average it out/pick a general usual amount since depending on how much OT I do my pay is more or less lol). Consolidate that info together to decide on a basic budget for each category/ overall spending for the time period.

make list of things I need/want to buy or tend to buy, marked with priority or how often for repeat purchases, compare with budget for what impulse items/wants I can acquire in a given time frame and which to save for the next etc

Get a new bike or get mine fixed...

Spend time outside/go on walk

Water plants

Draw for fun. Draw tony or stevetony or dragons or cats

Read...

Get ice cream at some pt like tomorrow night if I'm off Thursday or on Thursday if I'm off Friday 🥺🥺🥺

Plan days to do activities! Kayaking/beach/farmers market/street fair/museum. With steph?

Plan to do something fun w work friends outside of work

Pride fest: who is going with me?

Renfair when it's time???

Pay for tallis!!! Today preferably! Write check and take it over to shul?? (Or give to ma to take to services this evening or go with her?)

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lil-lycanthropy · 4 years ago

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How to write an essay (especially when you struggle with writing essays)

[Image Description: A graphic titled “BASIC ESSAY STRUCTURE”. There are 3 sections. The first section is regarding the introduction, labelled “Agonize for an hour”. The second section is regarding the body, labelled “oh hell yes i can do this no problem i got stuff to say i’m on a roll”. The third section is regarding the conclusion, labelled “I am going to walk into the sea”. /End Image Description]

I saw this post about essay writing with this as the structure and I just. Screamed a bit. The outline above (imo) makes a very boring essay that is UNNECESSARILY DIFFICULT to write. I was gonna just add onto the post, but I thought I’d make my own because I have a LOT to say.

So, to start off, I have spent far too long making this handy-dandy graphic with an essay structure that I find to be a lot more helpful.

[Image Description: A graphic titled “ESSAY OUTLINE”. There are 7 sections. They include the outline for the Introduction, Body, and Conclusion, along with tips for all three, and then a section for General Tips. /End Image Description]

There’s some pretty lengthy explanations under the cut, and I spent way too long on this. However, I’m passionate about writing and hate seeing how much people struggle to write simply because they haven’t been given the right tools.

Without further ado, here we go!

Introduction (1 paragraph)

Opening Statement: This is your intro/hook. With an effective opening sentence, you want to introduce the main topic of the paper, and make it interesting for the reader to draw them in. The introductory sentence should be somewhat objective; your thesis will be your arguing point, but we need to know the general topic without the bias. As for the hook part—your prof/TA/teacher/whoever is grading your paper has read the same paper 600 times. Your paper probably won’t be entirely unique, BUT you can still make it stand out. This is where the “hook” comes in. An easy way to do this is to simply start with a verb. Reading papers that all start with “the” or “a” can get really repetitive and boring, so an action word can be a good way to grab the reader’s attention. You don’t want your opening statement to be too long; a sentence or two should be your goal.

Allude to Thesis: Right after the opening statement, use a sentence to briefly allude to your thesis (the stance you’ll be taking on the topic). This way, you can state your argument points without having to worry about wording your thesis correctly right away, or risk your thesis getting lost within the introduction. This is kinda a segue to your points rather than its own official “section”, so keep it brief.

Outline Supporting Points: These are the points that help support your argument. Avoid using a list form for this by using things like semi-colons or commas; each supporting point should have its own sentence. Saying that, definitely use transition words to help the sentences flow together so it doesn’t just seem like a laundry list. Don’t limit yourself to three points unless that’s explicitly part of the assignment. At least two is good if you can expand on them enough to do the paper, but don’t be afraid to use four or five if you’re still able to stay within the limits and expand on them enough to be individual points. However, sometimes too many points can make it hard to expand, so see if you can group some together if you have too many.

Thesis: Your thesis should be a statement, subjective, demonstrable, and specific. It therefore should not be a question, objective, hypothetical, or vague. This is because your thesis is a definitive stance on a specific issue or topic that you can prove with evidence. As for placement, I always put my thesis at the very end of the introduction. I would say it’s up to personal preference whether to put it at the beginning or the end, but please never put it in the middle. When it’s in the middle, it’s very likely that it won’t stand out as a thesis, and then you’d have to come up with both an opening and closing statement, which is hard. I like putting it at the end because I find that if I do it at the beginning, it can be REALLY hard to balance having a clear thesis while also introducing your paper and making it interesting. Plus, if it’s at the end of your first paragraph, it still stands out, you don’t have to do a concluding statement, you don’t have to balance any other aspect of writing (like an intro or hook) with it, AND it creates the perfect transition to your supporting points. Limit your thesis statement to one or two sentences—you want it to stand out to the reader as the thesis, and you don’t want to muddle the message by being too detailed. You’ll have the rest of the paper to expand.

Body (2-10+ paragraphs)

Introduce Evidence: For each piece of supporting evidence (your main points), make sure you introduce them clearly before actually explaining everything about them. Don’t be afraid to word it in an interesting way (although remember, you still want your message to be clear!). I also want to give you an incredibly important tip: the amount of supporting points you have DOES NOT have to correspond with the amount of body paragraphs you have. They drill the five-paragraph essay outline into you for years, and it’s BORING—for you and whoever’s grading your paper. It’s also bad writing, because then you get unnaturally long paragraphs that take up a page and a half. So, unless your assignment rubric says otherwise, don’t be afraid to get creative with the paragraph amount. Always start a new paragraph when introducing a new main point, but definitely consider splitting the main point into two or three paragraphs if needed. Disclaimer: sometimes if you have to split a point into multiple paragraphs, that means you might want to consider splitting the main point into multiple main points. On the other hand, sometimes combining two main points into one can help make a paragraph more substantial.

Expand: For each point, expand. Explain any extra details. Relate the explanations back to your main point so you can stay on target and not go on tangents that take up half the page.

Connect to Thesis: After you expand each point, as a concluding statement, relate the main point back to the thesis (the whole point of the paper!). Anyone can list evidence—show that you understand why this evidence is connected and how it proves your stance. If you can’t connect the point to your thesis, it’s probably not relevant or you need to do more research. By making the connection between the evidence and your thesis, 1. This is how you get bonus marks, and 2. It makes for an excellent concluding statement/transition to the next main point.

Repeat: For each main point, follow the structure of introduce-expand-connect.

Conclusion (1 paragraph)

Restate Thesis/Main Points: Rather than coming up with another introductory statement, restate your thesis and the main points that helped to prove your thesis. Please try to reword it so it’s not repetitive, and it’s best to keep the restating brief. You’ve already established all of this in your paper, so you don’t need too much detail. A sentence or two is fine. Another tip is to avoid basic concluding words. Sometimes it’s unavoidable, but definitely avoid the ones that involve the word “conclude” or its derivatives (e.g. “in conclusion”; to conclude”, etc.). Keep this part to one or two sentences to avoid the dreaded repetition.

Explain Relevance/Make Connections: Here is something I NEVER see in the common essay templates, and honestly, I feel like it’s one of the most important things with essay writing. It’s the difference between just another essay in a pile of 200, and one that stands out as exemplary. SO. We know your thesis. We know your evidence. You’ve even briefly restated it in case we forgot. Now, WHY is your thesis (and by extension, the paper you just spent a few hours on) actually important? Why is it relevant? Who cares? You don’t want to give too much “new” information, but you really should be able to find some connection as to why your paper matters. Because if you don’t see the point in it, how are you gonna convince the reader that your paper is worth reading? Essays are about arguments, yes, and convincing people that You’re Correct and You Know Things, but you need to be able to connect with other things to see the true relevance. Make connections, folks!

Concluding Statement: Truly the bane of anyone’s existence. A good tip is to look at it as your Mic Drop moment—your time to wrap it up, drop the mic, and walk offstage. Tie your thesis, evidence, and connections together into a sentence or two with a little pizzazz and sense of finality, leaving no room to argue.

General Tips

Know your audience: This can sometimes help with finding the balance between over- and under-explaining things. With essays, the person grading (the audience) is probably a bit above your current level, unless it’s being marked by another student or something. So write at your level—or the average level of your class/group. For example, if you’re in a second-year university biology class, you probably don’t need to explain what photosynthesis means. But if your essay is on a little known technique to measure chlorophyll levels in plants, you might need to explain some things that you already know, but others might not. Remember, your goal is neither to dumb yourself down nor put yourself on an academic pedestal—your goal is to communicate a message in an effective way that can be understood by the appropriate audience.

Pick a relevant topic: Sometimes this doesn’t apply, as you have limited choices. But, whenever possible, choose a topic that you actually know something about and/or are willing to write about. Sometimes even asking your teacher/prof if you can choose your own topic is worth it. The main point: picking something you find interesting makes you more willing to put in the work to write a good essay. Pick you favourite topic out of the options (or, at a minimum, the one yo hate the least).

Experiment with the writing process: Some people swear it’s easier to write the conclusion first, while others absolutely have to write the essay in chronological order. Some people need to finish what they start, some people need to flit around and add things as they think of them. Ultimately, the order you write things is very much a personal preference, and something worth experimenting with if you’re struggling!

Cater to your writing needs: Writers will tell you that they need to set up a space to write. Some people like writing on their bed or in a cafe. Some people need absolute quiet while others can’t focus without background noise. Some people need frequent breaks for the best results, others need to sit through until they’re done. The time of day can affect your writing—writing in the morning might be really difficult if you’re most alert at midnight. Lastly, experiment with different media. Maybe writing on a laptop just doesn’t work for you, and pen and paper is the way to go. Typewriters are fun. Microsoft Word might work better for you than Google Docs. Find out what works for you and gets you into a writing headspace.

Repetition and word choice: To avoid sounding like a broken record, make sure you use a different first (and even last) word for each paragraph. I always notice when an essay writer only starts paragraphs with the word “the”. Another helpful way to vary your word choice at the beginning of paragraphs is to use different types of word, preferably words that aren’t articles (a, an, or the). Using a noun, verb, or transition word can keep things interesting and help your writing flow.

Write with an active voice: Writing with an active, positive, and resolute voice fortifies your writing. An active voice is when the subject is the focus rather than the object, whereas a passive voice is the opposite. Example: “Sally ate a grape” is active because Sally (subject) ate a grape (object). “A grape was eaten by Sally” is passive because the grape (object) was eaten by Sally (subject). Essentially, if the sentence includes (or could include) “by [Subject]”, it’s passive. Even if you wrote “A grape was eaten,” that’s still passive. An active voice includes the subject doing the action, whereas a passive voice includes the object having something done to it. It’s a wishy-washy way of writing, though it’s sometimes inevitable in formal writing because you can’t use subjective pronouns. As for a positive voice, it doesn’t mean your essay has to be happy or perky—it means your writing, when possible, should focus on the positive part (what did happen or was added) rather than the negative part (what didn’t happen or was taken away). Example: “Sally didn’t eat an apple” is negative, because it just says what Sally didn’t do. “Sally ate a grape” is positive because it said what she did do. Lastly, use a resolute voice. Be concise and to the point without muddling the message with unnecessary words. Example: “Sally just a grape” is tentative. “Sally ate a grape” is resolute. Word like “just”, “maybe”, “really”, “perhaps”, “necessarily” are not resolute and can weaken your argument. Definitely take this advice for your thesis.

Communicate clearly: Using long or complicated words can improve your writing—but if they’re overused or used unnecessarily, it can actually weaken your argument because no one understands what you’re trying to say under all that academic jargon. If you can’t explain your argument in an understandable way, you probably don’t have a good grasp of your argument. This isn’t to discredit people who have a hard time articulating while writing or people who need to use complicated words—but the whole point of a paper is to communicate a message in an effective way. If you’re too caught up in using big words, it’s very easy to lose the actual focus of the paper.

Fortify your opening/closing statements: If the person grading your paper has a lot of other papers to go through, they’re not gonna read every word you write. Focus on strengthening your first and last sentences of each paragraph to perhaps improve your mark with the graders who skim.

Proofread: PLEASE read through and edit your work. You don’t have to completely rewrite your paper (who has the time???), but definitely proofread it when you’re done. If possible (I know it isn’t always, but it really helps), give yourself as much time as possible, then do another read through. Even waiting an hour or two and then going through it again can help you catch some last-minute mistakes. When you’ve been staring at the same paper for three hours, you kinda just ignore the mistakes because they’re burned into your brain. Going back can help you catch them and fix them before handing it in. Double check the assignment requirements, including formatting, sources, grammar, etc.

Kudos to you if you made it to the end! This took me 4 hours? 5? I hope it helps some of you in school. Essays can be a really fun thing to write if you’re passionate about the topic, and they shouldn’t be nearly as hard as school makes them. Even if you didn’t read this whole thing, I hope my graphic can be helpful! The original essay structure from the other post made me mad because no wonder some of you guys struggle! When you don’t have the tools, it makes life difficult.

Here’s a pic of my cat and dog for making it this far!

End note: I’ve never done an image description so I apologize if it’s not perfect!

#writing #writing advice #quasimodo speaks #i spent so long on this pleaseeee #essay #school #college #university #paper #education #advice #life hack #infographic

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baconpal · 4 years ago

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pokemon rant time

this one’s about the 2 new things, and is at least slightly intended for people actually excited/interested in them, click keep reading or perish

Gonna try and keep stuff short cus there's a lot of topics this time and I've already gone off about how pokemon Isn't meant for me or meant to be a good video game anymore, but gamefreak is right back on their bullshit, so I feel I need to at least point it out.

I'd like to preface all this with, if you are a fan of pokemon still, please realize you can ask for more out of this series. Expect perfection, even if you don't think you'll get it anytime soon. Pokemon won't go anywhere, the old games won't go anywhere, and gaming is a hobby, not a necessity; don't accept low quality products from a company just because you feel like you're supposed to.

With this next wave of pokemon games, gamefreak is clearly testing how little they can put in to a $60 game while still keeping the 2 major audiences they've cultivated. By responding to the most obvious and vocal complaints from the community, gamefreak is aiming to make games that seems like what most players want, without having to put in the work on quality products.

GEN 4 REMAKES Pokemon BS (I am not calling this shit BDSP) is intended for the audience that put up with let's go and RS remakes. The most vocal and obvious complaints for these games is their failure as definitive versions of the games they are remakes of, such as missing features/content, or drastically changed story/dialogue/style. In a way, the recent remakes are inferior versions of incredibly old games, which shows a lack of improvement in pokemon as a whole.

To address these issues, BS is very, very, VERY clearly aiming for a more 1-to-1 recreation of the DS games, but with fully 3d graphics. Clearly the map layout has been transferred exactly, and gen 4 already had mostly 3d environments to begin with, and everyone knows about the future-proof pokemon models at this point, so the amount of effort required to create something like this is absolutely minimal. Assuming dialogue, trainer teams, move lists, etc. are also lifted directly from DP, then this game could be developed in basically no time at all, leaving the team time to ensure the product is of decent quality and includes ALL of the content of the originals, if not more, like the earlier pokemon remakes did to ensure they were truly definitive versions of the games. That being said, it is unlikely the team behind BS has been making use of this saved time to improve the game.

One failing already clear is that the quality is not very good, at least graphical quality. The footage we have shows environments lacking in color compared to the original, with messy, unpleasant textures that contrast poorly with the simplistic environments. The characters especially do not work. As cute and fun the fanart of tiny dawn has been, BS dawn and all other characters look awful. They have gorilla arms that reach down to the floor and lifeless faces, as well as incredibly stiff/simplistic animations. As it stands, BS is a visually inferior game to DP, though most consumers will simply see it as 3D>2D without any understanding of what an artstyle is, so this might not be a problem for many, but that doesn't mean you should accept it.

What remains to be seen is what content will be added/missing from pokemon BS. It is very possible that massive parts of the game, such as the underground, variety of online modes, postgame areas, and content from platinum could be missing entirely. We also do not know if pokemon from after gen 4 will be worked into the region, or even supported. Gen 8 still currently does not support a large number of pokemon, and the remakes may continue this limited dex trend.

Even assuming the remake includes everything from the DS games and doesn't add anything that slows down the story or harms the experience, it will still only be an exercise in forced obsolescence. The main reason people can't really play DP still is that the online isn't supported anymore. If BS turns out to be exactly the same as DP, then you're buying the same game for at a higher price, only to play it until the online service goes away again, or the next game comes out, if both don't happen at the same time.

Don't let yourself buy a 13 year old game at twice the original price.

GEN 4 NOT-REMAKE KIND OF NEW THING On to legends now, gamefreak is targeting the people who put up with sun/moon and sword/shield. The obvious problem with those games to most people was simply a lack of change from the standard pokemon formula. Even when changing the gyms to trials or stadiums, most people still understand that the format and story structures are mostly unchanged. Of course, this problem has seemingly been addressed by changing the game structure a fair bit, but almost entirely by removal.

Trainer battles, and by extension, gyms and tournaments/elite 4 have been confirmed to be absent, meaning all battles are only vs single pokemon, in spite of the player likely having a team of 6 pokemon. Even if battle difficulty is increased to compensate (doubtful), this will still drastically increase the simplicity of combat and make it even less likely for the game to include any meaningful challenge. Exploring towns and meeting NPCs is also seemingly missing, as the game is confirmed to have only a single village, which frankly looks incredibly boring and we've yet to see a single NPC inhabiting the village.

Battles now use an ATB format instead of a turn-based format (for those of you who don't know what that means, it basically means nothing, it's still turn based, it just means the speed state determines who gets more turns instead of who goes first, that's it), but beyond that there seems to be no noteworthy changes, pokemon learn 4 moves with limited PP, type advantage will still definitely be the most important aspect to battle, and the player being able to walk around during battle provides no meaningful impact. While the little dash the pokemon do to approach each other is cool, it is already a sign that gamefreak will not be addressing the issue of lacking animations for pokemon battles, as they can't even be assed to animate and program pokemon walking around the environment during combat, and lucario doing 1 kick for a move described as a series of punches isn't a great sign either.

On the topic of lacking animations, the new "pet simulator feature" for legends seems to be an advancement on the ride system from sun/moon, which presumably people missed from sword/shield. Being able to ride on your pokemon to do stuff sounds cool, but in all likelihood, this system will be limited to only a select few pokemon who will each do a select few actions, and is not a reasonable replacement for all the other pet raising features that have been removed in the past. Similar to BS, the total number of pokemon included may also be limited arbitrarily, in spite of the fact that no new pokemon need to be added, as these games are not claiming to be a new generation.

The largest issues I personally have with this new game is the horrible technical quality and gameplay quality shown in the initial trailer. Unfortunately, these types of problems seem to be difficult to explain to the average consumer, even though the issues seem incredibly obvious and inexcusable to people like me. Most people were able to understand the problem with the berry trees in gen 8, because it was easy to explain, "this tree doesn't look like the other trees, and it sticks out, isn't that weird?", and so gamefreak has eliminated any immediately obvious issues like that, sticking with a very consistent artstyle for legends, making it almost impossible to easily explain its faults to the average pokemon fan.

People have been really quick to compare legends to BoTW; the game that invented grass, trees, and mountains. In spite of these comparisons, nobody seems to point out that legends looks dramatically worse than that almost 5 year old game from the previous generation. Plants are stiff and lacking in energy, draw distances are poor, colors are drab, and textures are messy. Many parts of legends seems to ape BoTW on just the surface, essentially just following market trends. Even the controls seem to follow after modern 3rd person shooters/stealth games, including a seemingly pointless roll and a clunky looking ball lobbing arc that feels unfun before even getting to play it myself.

The largest issue, painfully obvious to some, and impossible to explain to others, is the framerate. The trailer clearly was ran on actual switch hardware, and not prerendered, which would be a good mark for gamefreak if it didn't result in a trailer that never once hit 30fps. Even with empty fields, with only 1 or 2 characters on screen, the game was incapable of meeting the target speed, and had to resort to optimizations like reducing the frame rate of pokemon only inches away from the player to stop-motion levels of choppy. If situations with almost nothing going on result in slow-down, how will the game perform during actual gameplay? Even though slow-down is something everyone can feel, many people aren't capable of identifying it.

The major things to wait and see for legends is if the removed aspects of the series are made up for by some additional systems or content, and definitely wait to see if the performance improves. As with BS, preordering a game like this only shows that gamefreak only has to market the game by saying it's different, not improved, like they've been doing for years now.

TL;DR FUCK GAMEFREAK One major thing of note is that gamefreak is releasing 2 games based on gen 4 at the nearly the same time, meaning they have no obligation to design new pokemon or even include pokemon not from sinnoh, and also that the sales of each game can be used as an indicator for which of their 2 audiences is more loyal to them. Both BS and Legends are in a position to be pushes aside if they fail, but if either succeeds, gamefreak can continue in the direction of the more successful game and reap the benefits, without any need to innovate, improve, or adapt to criticism.

The last thing I feel I have to remind people about is that gamefreak is a company; you don't need to be "grateful" to them. I've seen that word thrown around far too much by people who seem to buy pokemon games like its a tax, and not something they want to do. You don't have to suck up to a company that made games you liked as a kid if the games aren't what you want anymore. Pokemon is so wildly successful that it can't possible die, so don't buy the games out of pity, or out of some feeling of obligation. Buy the video games you want to play and nothing more.

Basically, if you are considering getting any of these new games, please wait until the games are out before purchasing them, and decide for yourself if they are worth your money, and more importantly, your time. Preordering these games only lets gamefreak know their audience will buy and put up with anything. They have no real competition at the moment, so the only thing the audience can do to encourage improvement is show some of restraint.

#juvenile rant #pokemon #if you read all that then good job cus jesus that got long #please just respect yourself #you deserve better games #you arent weird for wanting things to be good #anyway have a good night

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tigerkirby215 · 3 years ago

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5e Fluttershy, the Element of Kindness build (My Little Pony: FIM)

(Artwork by SophiesPlushies on DeviantArt.)

Like, it took me a solid 5 minutes to find the first image in this post and I had to sift through so much softcore porn to find it. I didn’t even find it by searching DeviantArt I had to go on fucking derpibooru oh my lord.

Anyways: here’s another shit brony build because people don’t hate me enough! Well that and I do genuinely love the characters from My Little Pony, and think that they’d be fun to make builds for. But feel free to call me a garbage brony at your leisure.

These are the words of a man who has been beaten down after being a brony for around 10 years.

GOALS

I'm just good with animals - Fluttershy talks to animals. That’s one of the main things she does really.

I'm doing this because you're my very best friend - As the element of kindness we of course need to share our heart and soul with our friends.

Nopony pushes new Fluttershy around! - MLP Wiki makes an express point of mentioning The Stare in Fluttershy’s powers, so of course we’ll do our best to include that.

RACE

Before you say anything no I’m not a pegasi stan just because I did both Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash. Regardless Aaracokra still makes the most sense for Fluttershy unfortunately because there’s few bird races and fewer flying races.

As an Aaracokra you +2 to Dexterity and +1 to Wisdom which we’ll be keeping because I don’t know if your DM will allow Tasha’s rules. You also get 50 feet of Flight but you can’t be wearing Medium or Heavy Armor to do this, which means I don’t get to say “something something Medium Armor.” And finally you can buck someone to deal damage equal to a d4 plus your Strength; technically their Talons which deal slashing damage but feel free to view them however you want.

If I was to build Fluttershy I’d honestly use the Owlfolk UA race (which will hopefully be out in Wild Beyond the Witchlight and / or Strixhaven) for a multitude of reasons, the most notable of which being the fact that you can fly with Medium armor as an Owlfolk. But the Detect Magic Ritual ability is also nice as is the reaction to stop yourself from falling. Unfortunately Aaracokra technically made more sense since Fluttershy can’t detect magic.

Basically even I have to make choices which are suboptimal in order to ensure maximum roleplay, and even when I play my builds I change them to make them better to play.

ABILITY SCORES

15; WISDOM - You are compassionate and good with animals: both those things are Wisdom skills!

14; DEXTERITY - Since I can’t go “something something medium armor” for this build (yay Aaracokra) I guess getting a 16 in DEX thanks to your race is a good call. If playing an Owlfolk or something you can afford to having 14 total in DEX, as you can then wear medium armor.

13; CONSTITUTION - Look, roleplay stats are great and all but so is not dying.

12; CHARISMA - You are cute small pony... bird... Pony-bird...

10; INTELLIGENCE - Most of your time was spent taking care of animals and most of your knowledge comes from on-hand training as opposed to studying. Basically you’re not Twilight.

8; STRENGTH - As a young filly Rainbow Dash would do most of the heavy lifting for you. As a young mare Rainbow Dash still does most the heavy lifting for you. She is a Barbarian after all!

BACKGROUND

Most ponies know to come to you if their pets are in trouble, and if you’ve ever had pets you know the doctor that helps them is a true Folk Hero. As a Folk Hero you get proficiency in Animal Handling (yay) but I’d swap the Survival proficiency out for Stealth because well... you’re very good at hiding. You also get proficiency with Land Vehicles (most Land Vehicles in D&D are controlled by animals; usually horses! Wait... aren’t you a horse?) and an Artisan’s Tool of your choice: go for Carpenter’s Tools to make some bird houses and chicken coops!

After living in Ponyville for so long most ponies are willing to give you some Rustic Hospitality, giving you a warm place to rest and recover... as long as you can get over your crippling shyness! Eep!

(Artwork by probablyfakeblonde on DeviantArt.)

THE BUILD

LEVEL 1 - CLERIC 1

Starting off as a Cleric because I thought Wisdom and Charisma saves were more fitting for Fluttershy, and for the Insight and Medicine skill proficiencies.

As a Cleric you get to choose your subclass at level 1, and there’s nothing you love more than a little bit of Peace and quiet. As a Peace Cleric you get proficiency in Performance thanks to Implement of Peace, for those great MLP song numbers. But more importantly you can call on the power of friendship for an Emboldening Bond!

As an action, you choose a number of friends within 30 feet of you (this can include yourself) equal to your proficiency bonus. Your friendship bonds them together for 10 minutes or until you use this feature again. While any bonded creature is within 30 feet of another they get a d4 they can add to an attack roll, ability check, or saving throw once per turn. You can use this feature a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and you regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.

And finally we can talk about the Spellcasting! You get three cantrips from the Cleric list at level 1: Guidance is always welcome among friends, and Spare the Dying can be a literal life safer! Other than that you are still expected to fight in D&D so take Sacred Flame to defend yourself. You can also prepare a number of spells equal to your Cleric level plus your Wisdom modifier. As a Peace Domain Cleric you can inspire Heroism among your friends, or protect yourself (and hide!) with Sanctuary.

Other than that Healing Word is a staple healing spell (we aren’t taking Cure Wounds right now for reasons but feel free to prepare it), Shield of Faith will let you defend your allies, Protection from Evil and Good will help you invoke the Elements of Harmony against the big bad of the season, and Detect Evil and Good will help you find the Elements of Harmony!

You could also take Bless, but I’m not going to tell you to take Bless because optimizers would crucify me for telling you to double up on d4s.

LEVEL 2 - CLERIC 2

Second level Clerics get their Channel Divinity once per short rest and you have a variety of options to choose from:

Turn Undead will make skeletons and zombies not want to hurt the cute little ponies, which will force them to run away for awhile.

Balm of Peace (the main reason we took the second level in Cleric) will let you run around and heal all your friends for 2d6 plus your Wisdom modifier.

And Harness Divine Power (ty Tasha’s) will let you recover a spell slot, but can only be used a limited amount of times per Long Rest.

You can also prepare another spell and be a little less nice with Command. Telling your enemies to “LOVE” isn’t going to be that effective, but making them grovel or drop works just as fine.

LEVEL 3 - RANGER 1

When you spend enough time around animals you’re automatically either a Ranger or a Druid. Quinn? Never heard of ‘em. Regardless multiclassing into Ranger gives you proficiency in a skill from the Ranger list and it’s good to know about Nature so you can find plants to help your fluffy buddies! Deft Explorer also gives you two language proficiencies (again: pick your poison) and Expertise in a skill. You’ll never guess which skill we’ll be getting... it’s Animal Handling. You’re good with animals.

We actually aren’t going to be taking Favored Foe because we aren’t using weapons for one, but more importantly despite it’s name Favored Enemy is also good for tracking friends! You have advantage on Survival checks to track your favored “enemies”, as well as on Intelligence checks to recall information about them. Go for Beasts to easily find a feathered or fluffy friend! Oh and you also get more languages because I don’t know why, so again pick your poison.

LEVEL 4 - RANGER 2

Second level Rangers get their Fighting Style, or as I like to call it your Helping Style because we’ll be going for Druidic Warrior! You can pick up two cantrips from the Druid list: I opted for Druidcraft (you can grow some flowers for your friends; yay!) and Mending to tend to your cottage.

And of course with cantrips we also get more Spellcasting! You can learn two spells from the Druid list: you’re never not going to want Cure Wounds (which is why we didn’t take it earlier btw) and Animal Friendship is an obvious must.

LEVEL 5 - RANGER 3

Third level Rangers get to choose their Ranger Archetype and we’ll be going for the Gloomsta- Ah you all know it’s going to be Beast Master. You get a Ranger’s Companion not from the PHB but from Tasha’s! The Beast of Land would make the most sense and while it’s probably expected that they be a wolf or something you can pretend that you’re playing Fighting is Magic and have Angel Bunny fight for you! Anyways here’s a crash course on your new fluffy friend:

Their AC is equal to 13 plus your proficiency bonus (currently 16.)

Their health is equal to 5 + five times your Ranger level (currently 20) and they have a number of d8 hit die equal to your Ranger level.

They have a 40 foot movement speed and a 40 foot climbing speed.

You can command it to attack with your bonus action; it has the same hit chance as your spell hit chance (WIS mod + Prof Bonus [currently 6]) and deals a d8 + 2 + prof bonus damage.

If they move at least 20 feet straight toward a target and then hit with an attack on the same turn, the target takes an extra 1d6 slashing damage and must make a Strength saving throw against your spell save DC (if they’re a creature.) If they fail they’re knocked prone.

You can command the beast to attack, dash, disengage, or hide with your bonus action.

If you don’t command it they take the dodge action.

You can revive them with a spell of first level or higher 1 hour after they die, and can change your beast after a long rest.

Man, who knew that taking care of a pet was so difficult? Well you also get Primeval Awareness (because Primal Awareness actually doesn’t work that well for this build.) You can use your action and one spell slot to sense the following types of creatures within 1 mile of you: aberrations, celestials, dragons, elementals, fey, fiends, and undead. This lasts for one minute, and doesn’t reveal the creatures’ location or number.

And you learn another spell: Goodberry is good to feed yourself and all your friends! As long as they’re okay with eating berries, of course. C’mon... they’re good for you! Pleeeease?

(Artwork by AssasinMonkey on DeviantArt.)

LEVEL 6 - RANGER 4

Finally an Ability Score Improvement... or Feat? We’ll be going for Eldritch Adept, which is admittedly weird but it’s the only way to get Beast Speech so you can Speak with Animals at will! Is total level 6 a little late to finally be able to speak with animals? Yeah, but this is unlimited so it fits better and doesn’t spend your spell slots.

LEVEL 7 - CLERIC 3

Finally back to Cleric land which means finally we can prepare some second level spells! As a Peace domain Cleric you automatically get Aid and Warding Bond prepared, both of which are very good for keeping your friends alive. You can also finally get Hold Person to finally have The Stare!

LEVEL 8 - CLERIC 4

Level 4 in Cleric means another Ability Score Improvement: Wisdom is still your core stat so increasing that by 2 would be your best choice.

You also get another cantrip at this level, and can prepare two more spells! For cantrips I’d recommend Light to see with your dumb bird eyes unless you’re an Owlfolk, and I’d recommend preparing Lesser Restoration and Enhance Ability to further boost your friends.

(Artwork by Koveliana on DeviantArt.)

LEVEL 9 - CLERIC 5

5th level Clerics can now Destroy Undead of CR 1/2 or lower with their Channel Divinity. Don’t feel too bad about it; they were big dumb meanies anyways!

You can also prepare third level spells too! As a Peace Domain Cleric you get Beacon of Hope to help with healing, and Spike can send letters out for you with Sending. You can also prepare Dispel Magic in case Twilight needs help with more dangerous spells.

LEVEL 10 - CLERIC 6

6th level Peace Clerics get Protective Bond. When a creature affected by your Emboldening Bond is about to take damage, another bonded creature within 30 feet of the first can use its reaction to teleport to an unoccupied space within 5 feet of the first creature. That creature then takes all the damage instead. It’s worth mentioning that since this specifies “creature” you can actually bond with your beast companion and have it use its reaction, or have others go in to defend angel.

You can also prepare another third level spell like Revivify, so you don’t lose any friends. And to top it off you can use your Channel Divinity twice per short rest! Woohoo!

LEVEL 11 - CLERIC 7

7th level Cleric, 4th level spells. As a Peace Domain Cleric you get Aura of Purity to protect your friends, and Otiluke’s Resilient Sphere to put your enemies in time out. You can also prepare another spell like Freedom of Movement, in case you need to run!

LEVEL 12 - CLERIC 8

8th level Clerics get a variety of features. To start off you get an Ability Score Improvement, which means we can finally cap off your Wisdom for maximum spellcasting! This also means you can prepare more spells, but we’re actually going to hold off on getting more spells for now.

You can also put a little more LOVE into your spells with Potent Spellcasting, adding your Wisdom modifier to the damage of your Cleric cantrips. And finally your Channel Divinity will now Destroy Undead or CR 1 or lower.

LEVEL 13 - CLERIC 9

The reason we held off on getting more Cleric spells last level is because now we get those big 5th level spells! As a Peace Domain Cleric you can help your friends out of any jam with Greater Restoration, and know what they really mean to say thanks to Rary’s Telepathic Bond.

You can also prepare some of those big hitter spells like Mass Cure Wounds to save your friends, and you can cast both Dawn and Summon Celestial to call on Celestia herself! Isn’t that Twilight’s job? Well, it’s still good to have contacts!

(Artwork by CigarsCigarettes on DeviantArt.)

LEVEL 14 - RANGER 5

Now that we’ve got all the support we could need for our friends it’s time to return to our roots and focus on Angel! Feel free to focus more on Ranger instead of Cleric if you so desire when building this yourself; I simply opted for more healing instead of damage.

We’re finally 5th level with Ranger which finally means you’ll be getting an Extra Attack!... Which you probably won’t use because you can use cantrips instead. Well it’s still nice to have?

The good thing though is that you can learn more Ranger spells like Healing Spirit, which is a really strong healing spell that was kinda gutted by erratas. But it’s still nice and efficient regardless of what spell slot you casted it at, effectively being a 6d6 heal for a second level spell slot!

LEVEL 15 - RANGER 6

6th level Rangers can now add Roving to their list of skills from Deft Explorer. Your movement speed increases by 5 feet, and you get both a climbing and swimming speed equal to your walking speed. Is total level 15 a little late to get a 30 foot movement speed? Yeah probably, but every little bit helps!

Speaking of another little bit you get another Favored Enemy... I mean friend! ...I don’t know pick whatever you think will be relevant for the campaign. Also yes: you do get more languages, because Ranger.

LEVEL 16 - RANGER 7

7th level Beast Masters have Exceptional Training with their Animal Companion. You can use a bonus action to command the beast to take the Dash, Disengage, or Help action on its turn... which you could already do anyways thanks to Tasha’s.

I’d say that after Tasha’s this feature would work even if you don’t command your beast, but as always discuss the rules with your DM.

Well at least Angel’s attacks count as magical to overcome resistances, which is good because you were probably dealing with nonmagical resistance for awhile now.

You can also prepare another spell like Pass Without Trace, so you and your friends can sneak around unseen. Pass Without Trace is one of those spells that is always useful regardless of what level you are, so picking it up now is still useful!

LEVEL 17 - RANGER 8

8th level Rangers get another Ability Score Improvement. You’ve probably noticed our uneven Constitution score by this point: yeah that was because we were going to grab Resilient Constitution at some point. Increasing your CON gives you a nice +17 to your health and makes your Constitution saves (and concentration saves!) a +8 total.

You’ve also spent so much time on the ground moving through nonmagical difficult terrain costs you no extra movement thanks to Land’s Stride. You can also pass through nonmagical plants without being slowed by them or taking damage from them. Additionally, you have advantage on saving throws against plants that are magically created or manipulated to impede movement. You may be able to fly but that doesn’t mean being able to move on the ground isn’t useful!

(Artwork by AssasinMonkey on DeviantArt.)

LEVEL 18 - RANGER 9

9th level Rangers can learn third level spells, and you’ve probably spent enough time training with Rainbow Dash by this point to make a Wind Wall to protect your friends! (Basically the Ranger spell list sucks and we’re only really going down Ranger still for more subclass features.)

LEVEL 19 - RANGER 10

You get a new feature from Deft Explorer at this level: you are now Tireless! As an action you can give yourself a number of temporary hit points equal to 1d8 plus your Wisdom modifier (so 5.) You can use this action a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest. Additionally whenever you finish a short rest your exhaustion level is decreased by 1.

You’re also a master of avoiding social interaction. Nature’s Veil lets you turn invisible as a Bonus Action until the start of your next turn. You can also use this feature a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and regain all expended uses when you finish a Long Rest.

LEVEL 20 - RANGER 11

11th level Beast Masters can invoke Bestial Fury! With 11 level in Ranger and 20 total levels in this build your Animal Companion can now... attack twice! Look Beast Master is playable now, I never said it was good.

At least you can learn one last Ranger spell: in your ultimate stand against darkness Daylight will help you banish the dark! ...Or something. Look again: the Ranger spell list sucks.

FINAL BUILD

PROS

You do not hurt my friends! You got that? - Even with the multiclassing you still get spell slots up to 7th level, and have more than enough magic to shake a stick at. Not to mention that Angel will always be by your side to pump out a bit more damage with your Bonus Action!

You’re the cutest thing ever - Maxed out Wisdom was rather expected from a Cleric, but Expertise in Animal Handling combined with unlimited Beast Speech means that you can easily make friends with any beast you come across! Just make sure your DM is okay with you giving a hydra belly rubs.

Whatever you wanna do is fine... - You’ve got quite a good mix of features that will help you both in and out of combat, meaning that there’s plenty that your friends can rely on you to help with! In fact there’s a lot of things that only you can do as a Ranger which are quite helpful!

CONS

You’re such a loudmouth... - Most of your class resources only come back after a Long Rest, with only your Channel Divinity coming back after a Short Rest. You’re still plenty capable with just Angel by your side but don’t spend everything in one fight, or else you’ll be left with nothing but Sacred Flame and Animal Companion attacks.

Are you coughing because... - So let’s talk about Angel: even with 11 levels in Ranger they’re not great. AC of 19 is pretty good but they’ll probably max out around 60 HP. Your average Wizard will have more HP than this by level 20. Two maul attacks will do decent damage but you could get equal value out of Spiritual Weapon, and you only get the second attack with Angel at total build level 20. And yeah for most of this build Angel is going to be sitting around 25 max HP, meaning they’re likely to go down a lot. Aid can help keep your pets healthy and happy but don’t be upset when your level 4 Ranger companion keeps going down.

Awful, just awful! - We kinda miss the best of both worlds for the sake of a build that’s “in-character.” No 10th level of Cleric means no Divine Intervention (even if it’s only a 10% chance it’s still good to have), and no 12th level of Ranger means no ASIs. One good thing about this build is that it does peak around level 10 or so where the multiclassing doesn’t start to damage it, but if you really expect to run all the way to level 20 I’d sooner play either a straight Ranger or a straight Cleric.

But you’re coming along to share your kindness with everypony around you, and guide your friends to victory! Use your expertise to keep your friends alive while Angel kicks some major tail! Get down and be assertive, but remember not to push yourself too hard. Everypony already loves you for who you are, even if you’re in fact a little shy.

(Artwork by Rodrigues404 on DeviantArt.)

#dnd #dnd build #dnd guide #My Little Pony #Friendship is Magic #mlp: fim #brony #dnd ranger #dnd cleric #fluttershy #flutter pony #animals

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torchwoodfanfests · 3 years ago

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Step-by-step guide on how to participate in the Bingo Fest: a manual for the uninitiated

As there may be people who have never participated in a fandom event like this before, we thought we’d provide you all with a step-by-step guide you can refer to throughout the fest in case you have difficulty figuring any of it out.

This post will walk you through how to sign up and participate in our current fest, but if you have any further doubts don’t hesitate to ask us :)

Step 1: sign up

The first thing you need to do to participate is to go to this google form to sign up. Signups will be open from June 25th to July 31st. All that we require is a way to contact you (like an email or your tumblr url) so we can send you your bingo card. Once you’ve done that, you’ll receive your card shortly and can start creating!

Step 2: the bingo card

Here is an example of what the bingo card will look like:

As you can see, the cards will be 5x5 with a total of 25 prompts. After you read all the prompts, consider which one(s) you’d like to use as inspiration. Some people start with whichever prompt inspires them, some try to find which line of prompts they like the best (remember you get bingo by completing a straight line of 5 prompts, horizontally, vertically or diagonally). Some even attempt to complete the entire bingo card!

Once you decide which prompt(s) you’ll use, get started on your writing and/or art! You can combine different prompts for one piece or make one fanwork for each. For example, you can use the prompts ‘family’ and ‘prequel’ in one work. Remember that for this fest we set a minimum word count of 500 words per prompt for written fanworks, so if you choose to combine prompts into one fic, the minimum word count adds up (if you choose to combine ‘prequel’ and ‘family’, that’s 2 prompts, so that fic should have at least 1000 words; if you choose to combine ‘prequel’, ‘family’ and ‘torchwood one’ into one fic, the word count should be at least 1500 words, and so on). There is no maximum word count.

Artists can combine as many prompts into one piece as they want, but the total number of individual art pieces we require for bingo is three fanworks (can be a mix of different types of art). Participants can also combine writing and art as their submissions to get bingo.

For fanvideos and video edits you need a minimum of 30 seconds per square to fill the prompt. Prompts can be combined, and there is no maximum length. For playlists and tracklists, you need at least 3 tracks per prompt, plus a few lines of text to tell the story you’re putting together. This explanation can be written however you want, it can read like a summary of the story, like not!fic, like a short drabble, or you can just say why you picked the songs (e.g. “I picked this song because this lyric fits how this character was feeling when X happened”, or “this song illustrates this character’s opinion about Y”). As usual, prompts can be combined, and there is no maximum length.

Let’s use the sample bingo card to give you some examples of what completing a line might look like.

Note: for the prompt squares that have more than one option separated by slashes (like “plants/vegetables”) you need to use only one of them, the slash stands for “or” in this case.

Example 1: vertical line bingo (writing)

Fic #1: bed sharing, 650 words

Fic #2: rarepair + meet the family, 1000 words

Fic #3: torchwood one, 1400 words

Fic #4: the hub goes on lockdown, 520 words

In this case, each fic reaches the minimum word count of 500 words per prompt, as you can see. This could also look like one fic of at least 2500 words which hits all the prompts. More on posting after a few more examples.

Example 2: diagonal line bingo (art)

Art piece #1: bed sharing, moodboard

Art piece #2: crossover+undercover, digital painting

Art piece #3: family, edit

Art piece #4: plants/vegetables, digital painting

This example has one piece that combines two prompts, and three pieces for single prompts. With a total of four pieces, this counts as bingo (minimum for art submissions is a total of three if all your fanworks are art).

Example 3: horizontal line (writing+art)

Fic #1: torchwood one+prequel, 1200 words

Fic #2: family, 2000 words

Art #1: dancing, traditional drawing

Art #2: andy davidson, 30-second video

This example combines different types of fanworks and clears all the requirements (at least 500 word count per prompt and more than three pieces total).

Sidenote: if you’re having trouble thinking of what to do with a prompt, a good way to come up with ideas is to crowdsource the brainstorming process! Post about it on your blog asking for suggestions, ask a friend, discuss it in groupchats with other fans, or send us an ask for some suggestions.

Remember, you don’t have to go with the most obvious interpretation of a prompt, trope subversion and creative interpretations are welcome here! You got ‘mpreg’ but don’t want to get into an mpreg story? Write about Jack mentioning how there’s a humanoid alien race where men are the ones who get pregnant! Or have him make a comment about a male friend of his from the 51st century who carried a child. Or have any male character have a dream about being pregnant, whether that’s possible for them or not (and this is Torchwood, so nothing is quite impossible). Take the prompt and twist it into something you like!

Step 3: posting your works!

Once you start completing some fanworks, you can post them at any point for the duration of the fest (June 25th to August 25th). While you do not have to post them as you make them and could wait until the last day, we do not recommend that as we foresee there will be more people finishing some works at the last minute and so it’ll be easier for your fanworks to get attention if you post them early.

The posting process is simple: you need to post your work on your own tumblr first. This post needs to have: 1) the fanwork or a link to the fanwork, and 2) any relevant content warnings (check our list of mandatory content warnings here). Please note that anything that requires a content warning (including sexually explicit content) should be under a cut.

For fic, we recommend that you share some information in order to give potential readers an idea of what it’s about (title, summary, rating, prompt, and you can add an author’s note or more details if you want), and if you post to ao3, you should add it to our ao3 collection! You can do this when you first post it (or go back to edit later) under ‘Associations> Post to Collections / Challenges’, where you simply have to type torchwoodbingo2021 and select our collection. Art and fanvids can also be posted to ao3 and added to the collection!

Step 4: submitting your work for us to reblog

After you post your fanwork to your tumblr, you need to copy the link of the post and submit it to this google form so we can reblog it. We will not reblog posts that don’t have the appropriate content warnings so please be sure to warn as needed.

Step 5: creating your masterpost (optional)

Once you’re done with the fest, whether you’ve managed to get bingo or not (or, if you’re very ambitious, if you’ve cleared the entire card), we would recommend that you make a masterpost with all the works you’ve made for this fest. This is not required, but it’s very satisfying and it’s a good way to look back on what you’ve accomplished and to promote your fanworks again :)

Like the examples above, the typical masterpost would have your bingo card (with the prompts you’ve used marked in some way) and a list of your fanworks with links to each of them and which prompt they fill.

You can submit this masterpost to the same google form as above and we will reblog it as well :)

And that’s it!

If you have any further questions, you can send them here and we will try to answer them as soon as possible.

We hope this post helps clear some doubts about how the fest works and that we get as many people involved as possible ^_^

#torchwood fan fests #torchwood bingo fest 2021 #how-to bingo

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leerongrong · 5 years ago

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Your Baby?

Pairing: Nct Dream x Reader

Word Count: 1.8k

Summary: You and Mark have been best friends ever since childhood, staying by each others’ side even after he became a Worldwide Idol. When he finally introduces you to his members, who think you’re older than you actually are, what a mistake.

A/N: my first fic lmao i’m soo nervouss, also shout out to my girl @neoculturalshit for handling my shit while writing this

Shoe sole squeaking fills the air with the constant jagged breaths and stuffy humidity coming from the room, intensified with multiple voices mixing in with groans. Mark’s rambles are like mumbling in your ear, replaced with constant buzzing like bees and an unfamiliar feeling resting in your belly. Your bag is on your left shoulder, clutched between stiff fingers as you try to keep up with his fast footsteps.

His twelve a.m to twelve p.m schedule and your eight a.m to eleven p.m schedule proved hard enough keep up with. In between his dance practices, studio recording and your everyday micro engineering studies, there was only little time to catch the other without one having to run off in between hangouts. And even then, Mark always had the dreamies call on him about some unforeseen circumstances that’ll make him leave you all alone.

He’s been apologizing ever since the last time he left you, albeit in a super creepy rooftop at midnight, and wouldn’t stop until you brought on the idea of introducing the dreamies as an apology and here you are now, in SM entertainment heading straight to the practice room where you’ll meet them for the first time. And on the contrary, you feel more scared than excited.

“And there’s Chenle. He’s like realllyyy loud but like really funny and he has this dolphin laugh that’ll make you- Are you even listening right now?”

“Mark, i’m scared.” Saying it out loud makes you feel like a baby, some helpless child afraid of going to their first day of kindergarten, afraid they won’t have any friends or anyone to talk to. You’re embarrassed for feeling this way but right now you have Mark and he knows you. The best out of everyone in your whole life, “what if they don’t like me?”

“They’ll love you,” he chuckles, “If anything, you’ll be the one begging Chenle to shut up.”

Your entire walk there had remained quiet, an occasional quip here and there from Mark whenever he sees you still so stiff. He had done a good job at getting rid of your initial fear, the feeling reducing until all that’s left is jitters and a bit of shyness. Despite your previous fear of them, you still wanted to meet them and become friends, it doesn’t matter if one of them doesn’t like you, you’d at least add one more person to your mark’s-friends-that-became-yours-too list.

“You stay here, aight? I’m gonna gather them first.” He nods to your direction before opening the door and going inside. You hear him greet multiple people, the noise inside exploding with screams and laughter. The nerves come at full force and suddenly your feet feel like jelly and the constant reassurance from mark has lost its grip on you.

The weather outside has calmed down significantly. The storm has reduced itself to raindrops pelting down the window, the constant patter doing nothing to calm you down. Your heart is beating erratically inside your chest and you have to thank Mark for his timing because you feel you’d have burst if he hadn’t come out faster.

All eyes are on you the moment you step in.

Multiple lights shine down the wide room, creating an illusion that it’s bigger than it already is. Gray walls surrounding the space loom high and act as pillars to hold up the entire architecture. your eyes move to the corner where there are an abundant of water bottles looking as if they were thrown messily along with multiple bags, one you recognize as Mark’s.

You’re broken out of your trance when mark leaves your side and crosses the room to the corner, effectively grabbing his bag and water bottle from where they lay. You see him exchanging a few words with the choreographer before he makes a beeline for the door just behind you.

“Where are you going?” You snatch his bicep in a tight grip, frowning when you see him slowly chuckle.

“I have a recording session with the hyungs,” he mumbles, “But i’ll be back in 3 hours?”

Mark flinches when your grip tightens, said boy visibly shrinking under your gaze. “mark lee, i swear-”

“They’re really nice! i promise!”

“I don’t care if they’re nice or whatever. You’re not leaving me-”

“Noona, watch us dance!” The voice breaks you and Aark from your whispering match. You turn your head, only to have Mark break away from your grip and run out of the room at full speed leaving you to stare at his retreating form with a face full of disbelieve. “Don’t worry about hyung, he’ll be back soon!”

The dreamies all surround you, each one introducing themselves in their own unique way. Your heart’s still beating erratically as you try to learn and differentiate their names and personalities, making a mental note in your brain; Jeno’s the shy one with an adorable eye smile, Donghyuck or Daechan is the tan one with a knack for jokes, Renjun’s a little shorter than the others with the sharp mouth, Jaemin’s the one with weird blue hair, Jisung’s the youngest but the tallest, and Chenle’s the one who called you noona.

The jitters and nerves melted away completely in the first hour, the boys doing a good job in including you with them. They told you funny stories about Mark, about when they first debuted, they even went into a detailed explanation about how they knew your name from Mark and how they’ve asked him multiple times to introduce you to them. They insisted you didn’t need to reintroduce yourself because they pretty much already know everything there is, courtesy of Mark. Well almost everything.

Jeno, Jaemin, and Hyuck had decided early on to call you by your first name, the three agreeing that you’re roughly around their age. While on the other hand, Renjun, Jisung, and Chenle had decided to call you noona. You don’t consider yourself to look mature for your age and you certainly didn’t think any of them would be calling you noona, when in reality you’re younger than Jisung.

‘Do i really look that old?’ The annoyance is simmering in you at the thought, little bits of it breaking to the surface when you pout and cross your arms while you watch the boys goof around after finishing their routine. The thought of them thinking you were older leaves an unpleasant feeling in your mouth.

“Time for revenge.”

The multiple shoe screeching in the room had lessened a significant amount, the boys having done their practice and are currently playing a few rounds of rock-paper-scissors to decide who’ll be buying food. You watch from across the room as Renjun walks to the corner to pick up his water. “Renjun-ah! Can i have some water too?”

You giggle to yourself when he crosses the room to give you some from his bottle, the boy completely oblivious to your sneaky intentions. “Thank you, Renjun-ah.”

“Noona!” Chenle’s shrill voice is something you’ve gotten used to both before and after officially meeting him. Mark’s always let you listen to snippets of their unreleased songs and you’ve been able to recognize their voices for years to help with giving your inputs and comments. “Can we go to the store?”

“Why’d you need to ask me?” You cut yourself off before opting to rearrange your choice of words. “I mean, you can go if you want? I’ll stay here to wait for Mark.”

“We didn’t want to leave you alone!” he smiles, “but it’s okay, Jeno hyung and Jaemin hyung are gonna go for us!”

You watch as Jaemin and Jeno gather up their shoes and put on masks, the two chatting around with the other members for a bit and your heart clenches when you see Jaemin squishing Donghyuck’s cheeks, the latter shooing Jaemin’s hands away before pushing them out the door. “Adorable.”

Donghyuck’s gaze is on yours the second the words drop from your mouth and he sticks his tongue at you when he sees you looking at him, a teasing gesture the two of you have adapted. You’ve been acquainted with Donghyuck for the last two months, the two of you starting out awkward before one day, he had stuck out his tongue at you and now you’re always sticking tongues out at the other for no apparent reason, something Doyoung doesn’t approve of.

“Donghyuck oppa, lemme pinch your cheeks.”

Your response is a perfectly trimmed eyebrow raise, “Oppa? We’re like the same age tho?”

“Chenle-yah, let noona pinch your cheeks!” You ignore Donghyuck’s statement in hopes of not blowing your cover, smiling brightly when Chenle comes over and plops himself right in front of you. His cheeks are like mochi in your hands, the skin all dewy, soft to the touch that you have to remind yourself to stop squishing before you become addicted. “Gosh, Chenle, you’re too cute. Like a baby!”

Jeno and Jaemin get back just in time, multiple managers and choreographers burst into the room just moments after them, stopping by to check on their progress. Long hours have ticked away while the sun sets, casting its golden rays and warm hue through the window and into the room. the air is filled with low chatters and you’re in a conversation with Jeno when the door opens again.

“Hey everyone-”

You recognize the voice to be Johnny’s but his next words are muffled from multiple footsteps coming into the room at once, some faster and bolder while others are quiet and dainty. You’re listening as they increase from slow steps into full out sprints and you don’t react quick enough and you shriek when you feel someone heavy crash onto your back, making you face plant to the hard floor, them tumbling down with you

“Mark, really?” Doyoung nags before turning towards you, “Hello, little bugs.”

“Noona, look. Mark hyung’s back.” The minute those words fall from Jisung’s lips, the person on your back, who you realize to be Mark, looks at you with furrowed eyebrows. The air turning awkward for moments until two laughs explode from somewhere behind you and he joins in.

“Noona?” Johnny laughs, “Jisung, she’s younger than you by months!”

Both Chenle and Jisung launch onto their feet, crowding beside you and Mark. You try to push Mark off of you while looking at the two boys and how their mouths are moving so fast you don’t understand what they’re saying, while the expressions on their faces make you laugh along with Johnny and Doyoung.

“Yah! I’ve been your Oppa the whole time?!”

“Call me Oppa!”

“Jisung you’re a few months older than I am! And you’re a babie.”

“Well you’re a babie too!”

“This is disrespectful!”

The room bursts into chaos as each of them try to convince you to call them Oppa, Hyuck and Chenle protesting the most out of the six. The laughs and giggles echo throughout as Doyoung and Johnny shake their heads and watch from afar, smiling fondly at the way you’re slowly blending in with the dreamies. Mark’s hand is on yours for a while, the emotions in his eyes too misty for you to read until he grins. “Told you they’d love you.”

Your laugh is airy and full of emotion, “Yeah and its all thanks to you.”

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script-a-world · 4 years ago

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How could I create enough living spaces for an earth with 90 billion population? Could there possibly be a lot more reclaimed land, man made islands? How about with populating currently mostly uninhabited or barren places, making what are currently towns into a big city? What would the poverty line be? How does all this affect animals and plants?

Tex: So originally I was going to say “be incredible inhumane and pack people tighter than sardines in a can”, but after a lot of math, it turns out this isn’t even remotely possible. I’ve left some margin for error, but you can read for yourself below how I’ve done things.

This is a formula that’s been calculated and re-calcuated for years, though admittedly I don’t really understand the point of the exercise in packing the planet with as many people as humanly (hah) possible.

In terms of sheer brute numbers, you could physically compile not only the current world population (as of this writing, ~7.7 billion), but also the all the previous generations put together (~101 billion people), in about 10,800 km2 - “which would easily fit inside Jamaica, Qatar, Kuwait, The Gambia, or Connecticut.” (WaitButWhy).

This doesn’t calculate for living space, as in the area an individual person needs to use such facilities as a bedroom, a bathroom suitable for washing oneself and not just a powder room, and possibly a kitchen (something of varying inclusion historically, see: Rome). It could be argued that bathrooms could be outsourced to a communal area as well (see: outhouses and public toilets).

What you would like to include for a residential unit varies by what you’d like to include in it. Insider posted an article titled “25 photos of tiny living spaces around the world”, where the sizes of a microapartment can go as small as 15 square feet (~1.39 m2; National Geographic). Quite likely the most basic amenities like showers, toilets, and washing facilities are outsourced as communal spaces - these are often apartments, though depending on the landlord they can be just as cramped.

Technology has enabled these microapartments, single room occupancies, and even capsule hotels to have a comparative level of luxury. As many college students who live in cramped quarters can likely tell you, it makes a substantial difference in living quality to have such things as hotplates, microwaves, laptops, and miniature TVs when space is at a literal premium.

We’ll take Hong Kong as an example, since they were technically already listed in the Insider article with their “coffin homes”.

The country has a population of ~7.5 million, with a land mass of 1,104 km2. 7.5 million divided by 1,104 km2 = 6,793.478261 people per km2. This is going to be a reference number, and we’ll be using it again later to do comparisons.

Now, to fit the same population per coffin home apiece, let’s take that same 7.5 million and divide it by 1.39 m2 - this comes out to 5,395,683.453 people per m2. That needs converting to km2, which multiplied by 1,000,000 (to cancel out the m2 in the stoichiometry) now results in 5.39568345x1012 people per km2 for coffin homes.

To compare these two numbers, I’ll take a percentage - if we assign the coffin home number (5.39568345x1012 people per km2) as A, and the original Hong Kong land mass number (6,793.478261 people per km2) as B, we can more easily calculate the percentage of each value to each other according to the following steps:

Plugging in the numbers, we get A (coffin home) as 7.94244604x1010% of B (original Hong Kong). That’s several billion percent more people per square kilometer than the original density.

This means that if we squish people into coffin-sized homes as that Business Insider article mentioned, 90 billion people - living requirements outside of a bed excluded! - could exist on 6.4780814x1016 km2.

Earth’s habitable land mass as of 2019 is 104 million km2 (Our World in Data), and this makes the amount of land required for 90 billion people - presumed as a single layer and only on Earth’s habitable land - 6.22892442x1010 percent more than the amount of habitable land on Earth.

Now, a converting everything into multiple levels might work, yes? Skyscrapers are classically 10-20 levels, and 40-50 in the modern age (Britannica), but I’ll go whole-hog because of the scale of numbers we have and go straight toward the largest number I know - Coruscant at 5,127 levels (Wookiepedia).

6.4780814x1016 km2 divided by 5,127 levels is 1.2635228×1013 km2 per layer. This single layer is still 12,149,257.7% more land required than there is habitable land on Earth.

Now, I don’t know if you’d like to expand this to non-habitable land, but either way, you would still need to calculate in the amount of space required for other requirements such as bathrooms, areas to cook/eat, medical services, transportation, educational spaces (provided you haven’t somehow squished everything into a helmet for “flash training” à la Star Wars clone troopers, detrimental to mental health as it is), places for people to work at jobs that can’t be done from their bed, and agriculture and manufacturing.

If you assume that these coffin homes are “only” a third or half of the cumulative living space, you would still need to multiply your required amount of space by at least 2-3x of the coffin home requirements.

Because of this, your question doesn’t account for the more humane theory of optimum population, as the above types of raw arithmetic calculations are inherently unable to factor in intrinsic values such as happiness with one’s life, enriching interactions with others, or the relaxation that comes from being around nature.

I would have to assume that the level of technology necessary for packing people like sardines in a can would need to be, at minimum, space age, but there are still space requirements (aside from the above-stated) for things like utilities and like… how big the walls are. I did not calculate for walls! This would realistically place people in mid-air and that’s not even feasible because you need to construct the coffin homes you’re wanting to shove people into.

My questions to you are these - what prompted you to consider this many people on a planet sized and shaped like Earth? Is it critically important to your plot, or does this have some function of novelty that appeals to you?

Is this plot based on Earth, particularly of a parallel or observable future, or is it based on some fictional world like Coruscant from Star Wars? How does this kind of world factor into your story, and how would it impact the plot if it were removed?

90 billion people on Earth - of any timeline or parallel universe - is so exceptionally far over the maximum carrying capacity that it’s flatly catastrophic to the environment, if it’s not equally as disastrous to the people from the way they would need to be treated in order to make your idea feasible.

This amount of population is far more sustainable on a substantially bigger planet, so I’m deeply curious why you’ve picked Earth. Is it because it’s the most familiar one for you, or something else?

Utuabzu: As Tex says, density is your friend. Theoretically you could pack billions of people into just a few towering megacities if you built them right, but at that level of technology you have to ask yourself why. It’d be a similar level of effort to build colonies in orbit and on other bodies in the solar system, with the added bonus of not having all your eggs in one basket and gaining access to more resources. Thinking about the reason for having that many people on Earth will lead you to a much better idea about how they’d accomplish it. If Earth is like the capital of a galactic state, then likely you’d have one huge gigacity wherever the government actually is, and the rest of the planet would be fairly normal, maybe even better protected as nature reserves and parks. If space travel (and contraception) are unworkable, you’d probably have vast sprawling slums clustering around every city and constant food and water shortages. Reclaimed land is certainly a possibility, and can take multiple forms, but be wary of using it in earthquake prone areas as liquefaction is a nasty thing.

As for currently uninhabited places, they’re usually uninhabited for a reason. Now, technology might be able to overcome that reason, but you’d need to consider why people would bother when they could instead use the same tech to add to the carrying capacity of the major cities that already exist and that people already want to live in.

Another thing to consider when siting your megacities is local culture and geography. It’d be a lot easier to convince New Yorkers to cover their region in huge skyscrapers than Parisians, while the geology of Cape Town (largely bedrock) is better suited than that of St Petersburg (swamp) to supporting very tall structures. Consider climate too. The hotter or colder the area, the more energy will be needed to heat or cool buildings, while past the Arctic and Antarctic circles seasonal depression would seriously impact residents’ lives. Unless heavy use is made of green roofs and greenspace, a city of this size would produce an absurd heat island effect, maybe even enough to start affecting weather patterns.

Any city of this size would need to produce its own food and water, otherwise its hinterland would have to be unworkably large. Here, hydro/aero/aquaponics, desalination and recycling are your friends, with the added advantage of helping to offset some of the environmental strain the city will inevitably put on the planet.

#pylons #mega city #population #Anonymous

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unsteadyshade · 4 years ago

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may i please request from the prompt list : 33 and 56 together 😅 any pairing is fine..surprise us

i took this and ran with it. i barely remembered 56 towards the end, so if it’s a bit odd, forgive me asdfghjkl thank you for your constant support and for sending the ask! <3 i hope you enjoy! AO3

It’s been five years since Weiss has seen either Yang or Blake, ever since the partners--in what she believes is an accurately vague description of their current relationship, or lack thereof--decided to take time to tour Remnant together after everything settled down. She had sent them off with a fond farewell, steadfastly ignoring the odd pang in her own chest and had thought that would be the end of it. Or at least when they saw each other again, it’d be easier somehow for Weiss to face them.

But she should’ve known that reality wouldn’t be as easy to face. Especially alone, since Ruby had just taken off on another mission with Penny. Weiss wasn't going to just cancel though. That would be rude. It's not like she missed them.

"So did you miss us?" Yang immediately asks after settling into the chair across from her, Blake having successfully convinced them to let her pay. Weiss tried not to focus on the soft smile she gave Yang before walking away or the way that amethyst eyes lingered on her retreating form before turning back to Weiss. Unfortunately for Weiss, this means that she has to focus on the question, which isn't one she thinks she should answer honestly.

(The answer is with all of her heart. And then some.)

Finally settling on rolling her eyes, Weiss scoffs for emphasis. "No. Of course not."

It’s been five years since Weiss has seen them, but Yang can still read her so well. Her emotional intelligence is not something that Weiss likes in this moment, however. The blonde squints, her eyes brighter than Weiss has ever remembered, and barks out a single word. “Liar.”

Rolling her eyes once again, Weiss tries another tactic. “It’s unfair to ask that and not answer the question yourself.” She knows that Yang is smart, that she’d understand what Weiss is truly asking in what she’s not saying.

“I have missed you.” Yang says, softly and with so much certainty that Weiss’s heart aches to close the gap between them. She’s so close yet so far, and Weiss is still speechless by the time she senses another person’s presence approaching them. Weiss is grateful for the interruption.

“Excuse me, ladies.” Weiss is not grateful for the interruption anymore. She sighs before turning to look at the approaching blue-haired man. His cocky smirk reminds her of boys who try to make a move--oh.

Oh no. “Not interested, man.” Yang attempts to curtly cut off any attempts at his potential flirting. The man only smirks before continuing.

“Not interested in what? I just want to talk to you two lovely ladies. It’s a shame you’re here alone.”

“We’re not alone.” Weiss and Yang say at the same time though for likely different reasons. She tries not to overthink it as she gives him her best glare. The man clears his throat awkwardly but doesn’t move away from their table. He gestures vaguely between them with a hand, which Weiss finds is an alarmingly accurate way to describe their current relationship.

“What do you mean? You two aren’t together. If you were, you’d be more...obvious.” He smirks, as if that mental image alone would satisfy him. It makes Weiss’s skin crawl, memories of being treated as some sort of trophy for Atlas boys clawing at her mind.

Yang’s chair scrapes loudly as she stands then, startling Weiss out of her thoughts. She’s quick to stand too, knowing how quickly things may escalate. Her friend jabs a finger into the man’s chest, and Weiss can already see the familiar redness spreading over amethyst. “Listen pal. I’m only gonna say this one more time. We’re not interested. Either get that in your head and leave us alone or I’ll make sure the message sticks.” Her gauntlets shine ominously as she raises them for effect, and he swallows nervously while looking over at Weiss.

“Hey come on. Can’t you ladies take a joke or lighten up? This was all for fun.” Weiss looks him over quickly, noticing the tailored button up he has on and unscathed hands. He’s just another Atlas civilian, and she sighs as she places a firm but gentle hand on Yang’s shoulder. Almost red eyes meet hers in disbelief, but Weiss just shakes her head. They stare at each other for a few charged moments, the heat radiating off of Yang impossible not to feel now, before she sighs and closes her eyes. When she opens them again, amethyst is all that’s present now, though that doesn’t stop Yang from shoving him and grabbing Weiss’s hand to practically drag her out of the café.

It’s only after they’ve walked a fair ways away from the café that Weiss squeezes the hand gripping hers hard enough that she pauses and turns around with wide eyes. “Weiss?”

“What was that? We didn’t need to scare him. In case you’ve forgotten, I do know how to reject unwanted advances.” Yang looks down, and it’s when she feels a gentle prosthetic thumb rubbing over the back of her hand does Weiss realize that she hasn’t let go yet. Weiss isn’t sure if she should pull away or if that would make things awkward, so she stays for now.

“I know! I just...I didn’t like how he was looking at you.” Weiss frowns. Yang is overprotective, of course, but there was something new in her tone that she isn’t sure how to interpret. She must’ve recognized it too because she looks away with a clenched jaw.

“Yang, I’m used to this. I assure you it’s no issue if I have to reject someone. I know how to handle these situations.”

“But you shouldn’t have to! No one should be treating you like you’re owed to them. I just want that to stop.” Yang declares, blazing now red eyes meeting Weiss’s frigid blue ones. Weiss actually gasps, the look more intensely passionate than any other time her friend has looked at her. Then those eyes move down to her still slightly parted lips, and Weiss immediately licks them to test the waters of their bond. She feels like she’s burning up already as Yang starts trembling, almost as if she wants to--

“Kiss me.” The words leave Weiss’s wet lips unbidden. She’d take them back, but Weiss doesn’t do things halfway, even if they are accidental. Besides, the way that Yang’s gaze flared after she spoke only encourages her.

“What?” Yang sounds so affected, and Weiss wants to taste all of that hunger.

“Just kiss me.” Weiss repeats. She’s barely done before Yang is practically crashing into her, mouth meeting hers over and over with a frenzy she’s learned is a staple of their bond. She’s not sure who decides to add exploratory hands to the mix first, but they’re grasping and gasping now, Yang picking her up and pinning her against the alley’s wall.

Undeterred, Weiss moves to plant kisses along her neck, reveling in all of Yang’s reactions, whether it’s from her body or mouth. Yang reacts with her entire being, not shying away from loud sounds or movements that leave no doubt as to how affected she is. When she gently runs a hand through Weiss’s short hair while feeling her teammate’s tongue soothing another bite on her neck, Yang can’t help but rasp out what’s been on her mind ever since first seeing Weiss again after five years.

“How’d this happen?” Her voice is so hoarse now, and Weiss loves it even if it took a few moments for the question to register. Especially because it took a few moments to register. She leans back, relishing how easily Yang can hold her in place even as she’s trying to catch her breath.

“A few years ago someone accidentally cut off a part of my long hair in the middle of a fight. I decided to just...keep cutting it.” Yang fiddles with her hair as she talks, smiling at her fondly, and Weiss can’t help but wonder if she has a type she goes for. The thought immediately leaves her as soon as it surfaces, but it’s hard to ignore the heated look in Yang’s eyes that she’s only ever looked at Blake with.

“It looks good.” Their moment is broken by an all too familiar voice, and Weiss’s eyes widen even as she sees Blake walking up to them. She’s unsure what to say or if she even should attempt to explain herself. Then Blake tilts her head up, and Weiss is suddenly staring into a second set of darkened eyes. “You look good. I forgot to say that earlier.” Weiss stares, unable to speak for multiple reasons. She had expected Blake to react...differently, to say the least.

Was her assumption wrong? Were they not together? Or did they just have a different kind of relationship to what she had initially assumed?

Or did they normally include a third person? The possibility of that is too much for Weiss to consider right now, heated hands and heated looks searing through her. She takes the safe way out, locking all of her thoughts away for now.

“Did you bring us our coffees or will we have to go somewhere else?” Weiss asks. Blake slowly swipes a thumb across her slightly swollen bottom lip while answering.

“I have them.” Blake smirks, and Weiss regrets ever asking. “You’re still thirsty?” She swipes them lightly on their shoulders as they chuckle with a huff. She can’t win with them.

(They all decide to stay at a hotel for some reason that night. The receptionist informs them that there are two rooms available, and Weiss immediately accepts one for herself before anyone can object. She doesn’t know if she’s just missed an opportunity of sorts with the way they look at her as she bids them a quick farewell but doesn’t regret her choice...until she’s alone with her thoughts in a too big bed at least. The bed could fit two or three overall, and that’s not helping her racing thoughts. Blake and Yang have a room to themselves, and Weiss wonders if they would’ve selected so if she hadn’t claimed one for herself first. It’s the last thought she has before falling asleep and falling into dreams of dark, dark coal fanning the flames of bright, bright flames that Weiss is all too happy to be consumed by.)

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It’s been two weeks since Weiss misspoke and made the best worst mistake of her life, and she’s been working on how to appropriately apologize to Blake. Her friend deserves it. Weiss crossed a line in their relationship--whatever it is--and she refuses to ignore it any longer, even if it may make things awkward. She finds an opportunity for some alone time with Blake when Ruby drags her sister down for a mission in Mantle while Blake and her stay up in Atlas.

Except Weiss forgot how focused she and Blake are during missions. The duo have crafted a plan to eavesdrop on suspected dust smugglers and are currently sitting in the same Faunus friendly restaurant that they were just in a few weeks ago. No blue-haired men are in sight, so Weiss counts that as a win. What feels significantly less of a win is how she still hasn’t spoken about anything that didn’t count as small talk to Blake yet.

They’re seated close to the suspects to overhear but not close enough to be suspicious. The men are sitting much too close to be considered casual and talking quietly. From this angle, Weiss is having a hard time overhearing anything, and she’s not sure if Blake is faring any better even with her Faunus hearing. Weiss stirs her cup of coffee as she speaks quietly.

“Can you hear anything?” Blake frowns and sighs, placing her teacup down.

“No, I can’t make out their words. If I angled my head just a bit, I’d be able to tell. I’d have to do it in a way that wasn’t suspicious though...” Blake stares at her for a long moment as if considering something. Weiss raises a brow.

“If you have an idea, I’m open to listening.”

“Kiss me.” Weiss nearly chokes on her next mouthful of coffee but manages to barely swallow it down. She briefly wonders if karma is real after all for her to be hearing the exact same words she used on Yang the last time they were here.

“What?”

“Just kiss me.” Weiss stares as her friend tilts her head, Faunus ears now angled towards the other table. Blake nods, indicating that she can hear them now. All Weiss thinks as Blake slowly leans forward is that this is for the good of the mission.

When their lips do meet, Weiss considers asking for similar missions in the future. And because she’s been on her mind for the past two weeks, Weiss can’t help it when her thoughts start drifting from the past to the present. There are differences--the lingering taste of tea on her tongue--but also similarities, and Weiss is breathless from their passion long before Blake leans back. She doesn’t move far, their heavy breaths intermingling in the small space between them.

“Did you get what you were looking for?” Weiss whispers, unable to take her eyes off of her.

“I did.” Blake whispers back. Weiss isn’t sure if they’re still talking about the mission and is too afraid to ask so just nods.

“I’m really glad I came back early.” A voice startles Weiss again, and she’s already planning to apologize when Yang’s cheeky wink makes her pause. The blonde leans over their table and smirks, reminding Weiss of how Blake had a similar expression after catching them. “So is there room for one more or...?”

Blake’s lighthearted laugh and fond smile makes her heart flutter, but she’s too focused on the question to answer. Room for one more? Could she possibly be...?

The rest of the mission goes flawlessly of course, but Weiss would be lying if she said she was focused on it the entire time. It frustrates her enough that she decides that she’s tired of being left out of something that feels like it should be obvious. She intends to get some answers one way or another, even if she has to put her heart on the line to do so.

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This time, Weiss only waits a few days before putting her plan into motion. She makes sure they celebrate Ruby’s birthday at the Schnee mansion since it’s large enough for everyone to gather. It makes Weiss’s heart beat pleasantly as she observes their friends--family now--mingle with her kin. There’s still a ways to go in repairing certain relationships, but Weiss is proud of the progress they’ve made, individually and together.

It’s likely past midnight by the time Weiss heads to her room to change after Ruby had spilled some punch on her accidentally. Weiss had rolled her eyes and assured her best friend that everything was fine. It had taken several more reassurances before Ruby believed her, but she truly didn’t care about appearances much now.

In her room, Weiss pauses before the large mirror and grimaces only slightly at the dark stain on her button up shirt. She’s honestly just glad that her short hair wasn’t dirty. After unbuttoning her shirt, Weiss looks back into the mirror to see her other teammates standing behind her near the door. They had been stealing glances at her all night, individually and together, and she knew it was only a matter of time before they decided to talk to her.

Turning around, Weiss crosses her arms as she stares them down, taking silent satisfaction in how their gazes travel to the unbuttoned shirt before refocusing on her face. “You two have been staring at me all night. Is there something you need?”

The partners share one of their wordless glances before turning to face her together. “So we’re not gonna talk about how you’ve kissed us both?” Subtlety, not Yang’s strong suit. For once, Weiss is glad for it since she wasn’t sure she’d ever have brought it up herself. She shifts a bit as she leans against her dresser.

“If I’ve offended either of you, I apologize. The situations weren’t ideal, and clearly things spiraled beyond what was appropriate.” They stare at her, perplexed. Weiss huffs and glares back. “Well, say something!” Yang continues staring at her while Blake clears her throat.

“Um...how do you feel about that?” Weiss stares at her. She had expected Blake to formulate a different question but notices how nervous her friend is. Raising her brows, Weiss glances at Yang and notices that she’s just as nervous. And now knowing that they’re both nervous makes her feel the same.

“What...do you mean by that?” Weiss asks carefully.

“You know...did you like it? Wanna do it again sometime maybe?” Yang asks, the last question blurted out so quickly Weiss had to take a moment to decipher what exactly she said. When she does comprehend, she stares back with wide eyes.

“Excuse me? I thought you two...” She clears her throat and tries again. “Is that...something you’re both interested in?”

“Wait. What were you going to say?” Blake asks, intentionally avoiding answering. Weiss rolls her eyes but indulges her, looking directly at the partners as she speaks.

“I thought you two were together.” They look at each other, and Weiss raises her brows when she see small blushes on their cheeks. It’s Yang who speaks up first.

“We’re always together.” She rolls her eyes again.

“That’s not what I meant. I thought...” Weiss trails off as she sees their reddening faces. Wait. They weren’t...? Oh.

Oh. She’s not sure if she just made the best or worst mistake of her life. But there is one thing she is sure of. Weiss grabs a fresh button up shirt and moves towards the door.

“I’ll let you two sort things out then--”

“Weiss--” They call out and each grab one of her hands. She stares at the uneven circle they make, points of connection with no definite beginning or end. Weiss slowly looks up at her friends’ similarly conflicted faces. They’re both confused now, and she knows they can both feel how quick her pulse is beating through their gentle holds on her wrists.

Maybe saying what she’s been burying for years won’t help, but maybe it will. Either way, Weiss can’t bear to have them look at her like that any longer. She takes a deep breath in then looks at Yang. It’ll be easier to say this when only looking at one of them.

“I’ve been in love with you for years.”

#with a rare update to anchor #this got out of hand #bees schnees #bee’s schnees #23deecy #asks

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noodlewright · 4 years ago

Text

Characters: Clockwork, Danny Fenton, Maddie Pairings: None Rating: G

“So will it be between seventy and a hundred, or lower?”

“No. Keep working.”

At the heart of Clockwork's lair, Danny stared unseeingly at the math worksheet in front of him. The numbers were starting to blur together.

Today, Danny was visiting Clockwork after having a fit of homework frustration that was quickly becoming routine. He was lucky to have found a mentor in Clockwork and studied with him as frequently as he could. Danny had quickly found that the ghost was, apparently, scary good with numbers, but there was nothing to be done to make math less mind numbing.

“No, as in it'll be higher?”

“You know perfectly well Danny.”

Danny wanted to know if all his extra study sessions would pay off when it came to Friday's big test, but he knew what Clockwork was getting at. The spirit was concerned that knowing his future test score would make him slack off, either because of an expectation that he would do well regardless, or that he would see no point in studying with failure to come anyway.

He needed to study for now and later exams, Clockwork insisted.

Danny huffed in annoyance and stared harder at the problem that gave him such grief.

It didn't yield.

“Do you want to go over it again?”

Danny hung his head in defeat. “Yeah.”

Clockwork left his terminal and made his way to Danny's side with a spare sheet of paper, half of it covered in a scrawl from earlier.

Halfway there, the spirit paused. Clockwork stared just over Danny's shoulder, as though a thought had just occurred to him.

It wasn't the first time this had happened. Just the other day, while Danny visited, Clockwork had done a similar action. He hadn't given it much thought then, or the ones before. Everyone did it on occasion. In Danny’s case, it usually happened when he walked through a doorway. Most people though, Danny considered, didn't do it this much.

Maybe Clockwork was a little scatterbrained?

It was, by now, what Danny recognized and referred to as one of Clockwork's “Moments”.

Danny had come to learn that Clockwork had these frequently. Clockwork didn't have all knowledge of all things, the spirit had once explained. Clockwork knew of the past, if he cared enough to know it, and knew of the present, but not all of the present. If he wanted, he could learn it all but there were, he said, very many things that were dull and unimportant, and taking the time to see every bit would be a torture unimaginable.

The future was similar to him, in that he didn't endeavor to see every scrap of it, but even if he tried, it wouldn't have the same easy clarity.

The real take-away was that, when it came to the future, all things weren't set in stone, and as Clockwork explained, the ghost often felt that some events got lobbed at his head and he needed a moment to sort out the new information. Danny could understand that. He had trouble grasping the rest of the hour-long, complicated discussion that included half a dozen different metaphors and some math chalked onto the wall, but he could get that at least, and was glad to gain a little more insight on how Clockwork's abilities functioned.

“Are you okay?”

Clockwork’s attention snapped to Danny. The intense gaze made him uneasy. Was Clockwork mad? He got the feeling like he might have interrupted something.

“Uh, sorry.”

Immediately Clockwork's eyes widened, “No no, I’m sorry. I just realized something. I need to go-”

“What?” They had barely started!

A wink was sent his way. “It won't even be a moment.”

Oh right. Well, it wasn't like Danny could just forget the last fifteen years of rigid physical laws that applied to his and everyone else's lives. Clockwork would probably only disappear and reappear between blinks.

A thought occurred to him.

“Wait, have you been disappearing on me this whole time?” he asked. He shouldn’t be surprised, it would be so easy to ditch and return without anyone being the wiser.

“No, just when you’re already engaged in something.” Clockwork admitted.

So basically, any time Danny wasn’t actually talking to Clockwork. Which was a lot.

He shouldn’t be bothered by it. He hadn’t even caught onto it until just now, but still, it sat unwell with him that Danny was someone who was to be put aside for a later date. Couldn’t it wait until after Danny had left? It wasn’t like Clockwork couldn’t just go back to whatever time period he pleased.

It would be polite at the very least.

But what was Danny going to do about it? Clockwork was nice enough, and Danny wasn't about to voice his disappointment when it wasn't actually that big of a deal to begin with. It would just have to be another mannerism to add to Clockwork's growing list.

“Uh, okay. So what's got you in such a rush to go?”

Clockwork opened his mouth to answer, but paused for another faraway look to overtake his face. “. . . Well, how do you feel about coming with me to find out?” he finally said.

There was hardly a thought before Danny agreed. “Sure!”

They set off.

Clockwork's portal led them to a large, immaculate kitchen.

“Very nice.” Danny said as he stepped out and oggled at the sheer size of the room. The number of cooking ranges and pots suggested that he was at a restaurant. “Do you come here a lot?”

Clockwork gave a distracted noise of affirmation as he walked over to a glowing red stove top and fiddled with the knobs until it was completely turned off.

Had he just stopped what could have been a fire?

The ghost then grabbed at unsightly cords that littered the countertops and tucked them into less noticeable places.

“Danny, there is a set of knives to your left. Would you please place them in the cupboard?”

The cutlery in question had been loosely kept in a stainless steel container, not very dangerous in his opinion, but he obligingly shut it away.

From Clockwork's direction, Danny could vaguely make out senseless muttering, “-idiot thinks he's a chef . . . ”

Yeah, no kidding. Idiot was an understatement. Who left a stove on?

Danny startled at a sensation that brushed across his ankles.

He looked down to see a purring cat. “Um. Hi.”

It was long haired, and an obviously very well-kept animal. It was incredibly out-of-place for the current location. The cat gave him a lazy, silent meow.

“I didn't think cats were allowed in restaurants.”

“It isn't a restaurant,” Clockwork clarified. “This is the home of Vlad Masters.”

Danny suddenly snapped alert and floated off the ground in a battle ready stance. His eyes darted around in search of an unwelcome presence.

“He isn't here right now.”

Danny immediately relaxed and found his footing again. He regarded the cat and kitchen before him once more. Now it was looking familiar. This wasn't his first jaunt uninvited to Vlad's house, but he had never paused to really look at the rooms he was darting through.

“Okay, so what are we doing here? I mean, I know fire-safety is important and all, but a blazing house and that guy isn't the saddest combination that I can imagine.”

“I understand,” Clockwork said as he made his way to a nearby window and began working its unyielding frame closed. “Masters has done you a great deal many wrongs. He is, what most would determine, unsalvageable. Unforgivable. Unethical and unrepentant.”

“Yeah. All that times a thousand.”

“He is also incredibly unstable.”

“I could have told you that.” Danny wondered where this was heading.

Clockwork ceased his fiddling and picked up the cat that had only been too content to loll on the ground. It wiggled, displeased at the graceless hold.

“Before you is the crux of all of Masters’ affections.” He lifted the cat further with emphasis, and spoke with sincere solemnity. “The warmth held for you and your family is but a shrinking mote compared to what he has fostered with this animal.”

Shrinking? Anything that lessened Vlad's attention could only be a good thing. “Really? Does that mean he'll leave us alone now?”

Clockwork didn't entirely look him in the eyes when he said, “Not exactly. Masters is the very definition of passion and he can never entirely drop something once he's set upon it.”

“Not in all the timelines?”

“Most of those are currently closed and the few available are too . . .” Danny thought that Clockwork was about to have another Moment, but the spirit soon found his words, “-dreadful. Which is why it is very important that we curtail his fixations, in what ways we can, and direct him to better . . . things. This cat is crucial to that. He's poured all his love into it and should anything happen to it, Amityville will be a flaming crater, and its residents, crumbling charcoal.”

“He'd kill people for a cat?!”

“He'd kill someone for kicking it.”

“Oh my God. I mean, that's a really mean thing to do to a cat, and they deserve something, but the town is innocent. Why would he hurt them?”

“He’s an idiot when he's angry. And a part of him has always wanted to watch the world burn.”

Danny pulled the, now fed-up, cat out of Clockwork's arms and held it with complete reverence. “We have to protect this cat,” he whispered.

“I know.”

“We need to keep it inside and never let it out.”

“I know.”

“Sam can watch it when I can't-”

“Masters will be consumed with rage should it go missing.”

“Right. Okay. Well, it's- it's a cat, and it's been alright so far, right? It should be okay here. It's happy here and Vlad's happy.”

“But there's a problem. It's why I have to come here almost every blasted day. The cat is suicidal.”

“ . . . Is there a therapy for that?”

Clockwork gestured to the room, heedless of Danny, “She keeps trying to kill herself. Last week she was roadkill and the week before, mauled by a pack of dogs. I stop her from eating poisonous plants and she goes right back to them the next second. I keep her from chewing power cords and she tries and tries again- last time she did it while soaking wet from nearly drowning in the toilet. In fact, had we not been here, at this very moment, she would have deep fried herself! I am confident that I have now seen every possible misfortune that can befall an animal and I grow tired of it.”

Danny scrambled to absorb the dire information. “But . . . the deep fryer isn't even on.”

Clockwork glared at the animal pointedly. “And yet.”

Danny looked at the yowling cat in horror. “What can we do?”

“I'm doing all that I can.”

“But isn't there something we can do that is less hands-on? More permanent?”

“I've been scouring the timelines for that very answer and have come up short. Other possible solutions will show themselves eventually, but we're not at the right stage to begin exploring those.”

“Okay, well if we can't do anything with the cat, what about Vlad? Can't we just stop him?”

Clockwork rubbed his face tiredly. “Danny, a future where Masters has that sort of melt-down, and the city regardless saved, is not a future either of us want.”

Danny wished he could fact-check that, but he wasn't the one with foresight. “Are you suuure?” he needled.

“Yes.”

Well, Danny supposed that was that. He didn't entirely believe Clockwork. It was hard to judge when he knew so little of the information as a whole, it could just be that there was something that had been missed. However, he did trust that it was what Clockwork believed.

“Clockwork?”

“Hm?”

“This future you have in mind, is it a really good one?”

“. . . It's not all good, but it has a great deal many good things, yes.”

Something niggled at Danny. It was a thing that had long been bothering him, and it reared its ugly head whenever altering timelines came up, but he had never earnestly voiced it. Mostly because he had yet to see any bad come of it. “Clockwork, I know you can do all these cool things, but do you ever think that maybe you shouldn't be doing all this? Changing the timelines, I mean. I get wanting to have a better future for people, but what if you don't make the right choice? Why not just let it go?”

“Instead, how about you let it go?”

Danny's mouth dropped open in shock at the sheer rudeness, until he realized that Clockwork was pointing at the cat. She writhed in his arms and gave him warning bites to his gloves.

He guessed Clockwork's answer wasn’t as much a brush-off as it was a diversion then. Fine.

He, gently, released the cat and planned to get right back to the questions at hand, but Clockwork addressed him before he could open his mouth.

“I've let things go a time or two before, Danny.” Clockwork had taken an interest in one of his many watches, his head tucked down so that shadow eclipsed most of his face. “And contrary to what some would have you believe, I have learned that it is better to do something, even if it's not the very best, than nothing at all. Inaction and apathy are things that I have fought hard to stay buried, and to embrace them again would be inexcusable.”

What could have possibly have happened? How bad did it get? Did he really want to know?

“What-”

“So, will you help me keep this cat alive?”

And Danny did drop it, just like that. Clockwork clearly didn’t want to talk about it. That didn't mean he wasn't still curious. He was. But for today, and probably for a while, he would leave it be.

Vlad returned to the center of his current frustrations. He had been trying to recreate an old family recipe, when suddenly, he had been called away on business. It wasn't a long meeting, but he had felt the need to rush. A thought had dogged at him since he left.

Had he left the stove on?

He swung the kitchen door open and immediately calmed at the lack of raging flames and burning stove-tops.

It seemed he did remember.

There was also a lack of general mess that often accompanied his random acts of cookery. His ingredients were laid out still, as well as a number of random bowls, but the utensils were nowhere to be seen and the deep fryer had been dumped. Curious. He didn't keep his cleaning staff this late, and even if he had, they wouldn't have been so lazy as to not properly clean up a clear mess.

“Who the shit has been in my kitchen?”

#danny phantom #danny fenton #clockwork #maddie #hahahaha!#at last #I get to share my favorite one #I realize that here his foresight works like Garnet's future vision #but I've had the thought since MiB3 came out #there's also some other caveats that I'm exploring #This is all there is for now #Now we enter a (hopefully) brief hiatus #vlad masters

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if-the-crown-fits-translate-it · 4 years ago

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Discord pt 89

[Date: 17/03, 12.53 PM GMT - 17/03, 02.33 PM GMT]

[This conversation was going on in #arg, partly simultaneously to another in #general2.]

Maxwell: “Give me one sec I’m gonna go check on the buds....

Maxwell: “....you guys

We might have a slight problem

Or well it’s a big

Bad

Problem

Jack the Observer: “Right.

Hit us”

Maxwell: “The buds

There’s more

And the ones from yesterday....they’re opening up and blooming”

Jack the Observer: “Unfortunate. But not surprising.

...”

Maxwell: “what do I do”

Maxwell: “I’m....gonna have a nap...”

Jack the Observer: “Rest well, max

We’ll... work on it”

Maxwell: “Thank you”

[People discuss possible ways of getting rid of the buds that had been brought up the previous day.]

donti (e): “FLOWERS USE PHOTORECEPTORS TO KNOW WHEN TO BLOOM

wear hat 24/7 so no light?”

Maxwell: “I almost always wear my hood but I don’t know if that’ll help

It grew from last night”

donti (e): “if light is hitting the bud its not enough,,,”

Maxwell: “There’s more buds and some are starting to open”

donti (e): “oh no...”

looks like we have til the 20th to figure things out, if that speeds anything to go by”

Maxwell: “I think little leaves may be forming too although they’re very tiny...”

donti (e): “max.. we got this.. you can trust that we'll help you”

Jack the Observer: “Does it hurt to touch?”

Maxwell: “Not really it just feels sore, I can’t feel my hair touching it but I can feel my hands on it

It’s....weird...”

donti (e): “... are you feeling the BUDS or like, the feeling of bUDS being touched

like,,, do the buds have.. nerves

or is it more like you can feel it bc its physically attached to you”

Maxwell: “I think i can feel it cause it’s attached to me like I can feel my hood on em...

It’s not super noticeable but I can still feel it”

donti (e): “alright thats good so theres,, not any nerves that are based on sense of touch,,, thats good thats good”

Maxwell: “Isn’t it technically though?

Since I can feel through em a bit”

LLyr: “is it like how you feel nails?”

Maxwell: “Like if something touched them I could tell cause I would feel it...”

donti (e): “or like hey someone is punching my backpack type of feeling”

Maxwell: “More like a skin thing....”

Jack the Observer: “Like if someone touched your fingernails you can feel it”

donti (e): “uh oh...”

Jack the Observer: “Even tho ur nails have no nerves”

donti (e): “nerves,,,”

Jack the Observer: “And you can cut fingernails safely”

LLyr: “hm. thats not good.”

Jack the Observer: “If there are actually nerves in there. That’s more complicated.”

Maxwell: “Yeah....”

[This means that cutting the buds out is not an option anymore]

Maxwell: “.....”

[But perhaps cutting the buds out could be done as a last resort?]

Maxwell: “Please no”

donti (e): “max, its up to you, would you rather have to keep the laurel or have it be cut off as a last ditch effort”

Maxwell: “I don’t know neither is a good option—”

[Methods of potentially slowing the buds’ growth are discussed instead]

donti (e): “we can also try like,,, straight up trying to freeze the buds off”

Maxwell: “I’ve been outside in the freezing cold a lot cause I’ve been to go to school in person some days and it hasn’t done a thing”

donti (e): “.... im talking colder than that. artificial cold.”

[Were the flowers like spring flowers then? Could they be destroyed by intense heat?]

Jack the Observer: “I feel like anything hot enough to melt metal should not be getting near Max’s head.

Might just be me /s”

LLyr: “no i’m with you there 3:”

Maxwell: “Also if this wreath does have nerve endings that will not feel nice”

[donti (e): “max try the light thing for now... and take a hot bath later”]

Maxwell: “I actually had one yesterday....

donti (e): “did it help at all?”

Maxwell: “It didn’t do anything”

Maxwell: “Maybe it would help if we know what’s gonna bloom from them....?”

fetch: “mona's got hella farmers almanacs and gardening books

somewhere on the bookshelf in the living room, so you can nose around over there”

Maxwell: “But there’s so many different flowers...”

Jack the Observer: “They’re unlikely to be very delicate.”

Jack the Observer: “I would say check early spring flowers. Snowdrops and the like.”

fetch: “also before yall ask yes I've accepted the fact that it is in fact a circlet and not matted hair and no I don't want to talk about it”

Mothbo: “Totally understandable Fetch”

Jack the Observer: “Uh huh.

Very cool, fetch.”

fetch: “what were you expecting?”

Maxwell: “If they’re flowers...did page ever say what his flower was? If this is meant to be like a new circlet maybe it’ll be that”

Jack the Observer: “Oh! That’s a good idea actually

Let me check”

fetch: “page liked freesia flowers”

Maxwell: “Hm...I looked at the meanings and white ones mean innocence and yellow mean friendship...sounds fitting”

https://www.gardenia.net/plant/freesia-single-white

Found more stuff on em

Maxwell: “They require minimum maintenance....”

Maxwell: “They don’t all look like freesias though....I can barely see but the inside seems to be a different a flower? Hold on ima try to find which one it is”

Maxwell: “I think I know which one it may be...”

Maxwell: “I think they may be marigolds”

donti (e): “... i see”

Maxwell: “I don’t think it’s the average one though”

donti (e): “huh. whats up”

Jack the Observer: “Marigolds are usually quite large. If they do end up growing in, it would be quite the sight.”

Maxwell: “Calendula

Or pot marigolds...”

donti (e): “it says overhead watering is bad, but once again, bath. so these are probably way more sturdy”

Maxwell: “I’ve always liked them....”

donti (e): “ah.”

Maxwell: “They can be used to treat different things so they can be helpful for survival

https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/ornamental/flowers/calendula/common-calendula-uses.htm”

Jack the Observer: “So a mixture of what you like and what Page likes.”

Maxwell: “Funny....”

donti (e): “... yea”

Jack the Observer: “It is, a little bit. But it makes sense.

Maybe you should make a memory list for yourself, by the way.”

donti (e): “so guessing from what we've already notices, the flowers that are budding do not have the same characteristics as their natural counterparts”

Maxwell: “Says the plant can tolerate a lot of conditions...

A memory list?”

Jack the Observer: “Marigolds are quite sturdy.”

donti (e): “but the other flower isnt”

Jack the Observer: “A memory list is a list of things you��d want to remember if you were wiped, given to someone you trust. For example, Marcus couldn’t remember his name or his sister right away when he took the circlet off. And there’s some speculation that it could help you “snap out of it””

Maxwell: “Hm...”

Jack the Observer: “Some people have made them already.”

Maxwell: “Do you have a list of things I should add to it perhaps? Knowing me I’d forget important things to add heh....”

Void: “not to distract from the current convo, but have yall checked the doc recently? (please Internet connection let me send at least this message)”

donti (e): “! whats wrong with the doc?”

fetch: “the doc is fine?

trust me I'd know if something was wrong”

jaynoblade: “i can't see anything that's really changed? just a bit of an update to include baroness in the court”

donti (e): “yea,”

fetch: “Yeah, thats all I been doin

Adding baroness, and all we know about her”

Void: “just. about sunflower seeds? well maybe not”

fetch: “:?”

Maxwell: “Seeds?”

fetch: “no clue what you're talking about bud”

Maxwell: “.....lemme check”

fetch: “I mean sunflower seeds are a good snack”

Maxwell: “Where do you see that?”

[This is the referenced doc change, written by fetch:]

#on:discord #by:maxwell #by:fetch #if the crown fits

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satoshi-mochida · 4 years ago

Link

CyberConnect2 has launched its 25th anniversary website, and company president and CEO Hiroshi Matsuyama has released a video kicking off the anniversary year with four topics as its “first round of announcements,” including the opening of the CyberConnect 2 official web store.

The Fukuoka, Japan-based developer was established on February 16, 1996, and opened additional studios in Tokyo and Montreal in 2010 and 2016, respectively. The developer is most known for the .hack and Naruto: Ultimate Ninja franchises, but was also behind games such as Little Tail Bronx, Asura’s Wrath, JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: All Star Battle and JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Eyes of Heaven, Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot, and the upcoming Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – Hinokami Keppuutan.

Watch the video featuring Hiroshi Matsuyama below. A transcript follows.

youtube

Opening

“Hello, everyone! I’m the representative director of CyberConnect2, Hiroshi Matsuyama! Today, February 16, marks our 25th Anniversary! Of course, this is our hard work of the past 25 years. I would like to thank everyone we’ve worked with in the industry, and above all, thanks to the many games we’ve worked on and the fans who loved them. Thank you very much!

“Seriously, though! 25 years! 25 years ago, I was just a young 25-year-old myself. We started with just 10 people, all around the same age. And now, we have 3 studios, in Fukuoka, Tokyo, and Montreal. Including new hires, we have a total of 280 staff members now. We’re doing various kinds of work on a large scale. Truly, every day is a happy day.

“So, we’d like to do various things to convey our gratitude for our 25th Anniversary. Throughout the year of our 25th Anniversary, we’d like to release various information and, of course, games as well. But also manga and other things besides that. We hope you can enjoy and celebrate this 25th Anniversary milestone together with us! We will relay our feelings of gratitude to everyone and also have info broadcasts,

“For everyone watching this video today, I’d like to announce four major topics.”

Topic 1: Illustrations and Congratulatory Messages

“First, Topic 1: On our special CyberConnect2 25th Anniversary website, we’d like to display your illustrations and congratulatory messages. Of course, this includes fans, but also members in the industry: manga artists, animators, and other game creators like us. There’s quite a lot of people who draw. It doesn’t matter if it’s black and white or color, and if you can’t draw, you can write a message. We’ll take it and put it all together, and put it on the site, but this leads into the next topic.”

Topic 2: New Song by LieN

“Topic 2! CyberConnect2 has been producing this for more than 10 years: The music unit LieN. All releases have been through Bandai Namco Entertainment. This is the unit that’s done the main themes from things like the .hack series. But this time, I’m thinking of making a new song this year to commemorate the 25th Anniversary of CyberConnect2. When it’s completed, using the submitted messages and illustrations I mentioned in Topic 1, we’d like to use those and edit them into a sort of music video to share with you. Although these first two topics are a bit connected, we’d be very grateful if you could send us a message or illustration.

“There’s one more thing I’d like to say regarding LieN. The situation with the pandemic is still ongoing, but we are currently in the process of making the necessary arrangements to at least have a LieN concert online. We’ll announce more about this when the time comes, so please look forward to it!”

Topic 3: CyberConnect2 Official Web Store

“About Topic 3, CyberConnect2 has just opened its official web store. This store offers merch and books not only for Japan– but also internationally! We’ve made this site so that international fans can also make orders. Much like this video is in Japanese with English subtitles. Everyone who purchases CyberConnect2 merch from the site, we’d like to give you a special postcard that will change every month during the Anniversary year. Starting this month, we’d like to include a set of three postcards with orders. Numbers may run out, so they’ll be on a first come, first served basis, but items are well-priced and we’ll continue to produce them throughout year. On top of this bargain, we’ll include postcards commemorating the 25th Anniversary, do, if you’d like, it’d be great if you could purchase from our web store. There’s a lot on the site, so please have a look!”

Topic 4: Congratulation Gifts

“And lastly, Topic 4! This is usually an inside topic among companies, but five years ago, when CyberConnect2 had its 20th Anniversary—I’m in the Tokyo studio now, but the Tokyo, Fukuoka, and the Montreal studio hadn’t been made yet, we just had the two studios in Fukuoka and Tokyo—but together I’m very grateful, but we received MANY floral arrangements, mostly orchids, so thank you very much for sending them. We’re still caring for many plants here and in the Fukuoka studio, but actually, I’d like you to imagine.

“It’s thanks to everyone that we’ve made it to our 25th Anniversary. We’ve been working for many people up until now. So, we receive many flowers from all those people. In fact, we receive something everyday. Not just today, February 16, but the next, and the next, and the next day for about a week or more, we receive around 100 arrangements. If that happens, um… we appreciate the sentiment, but our office staff receives flowers all day, from morning to night. When the bell rings, they answer and the florist is like, ‘Where should I put them?’ Our entrance isn’t that big, so it quickly fills the halls and even in the development room. It’s like whole place turns into a flower shop, and our office staff is literally covered in pollen. But they give off such a lovely fragrance, it’s almost like really nice perfume filling the halls, but it’s a difficult environment to work in, right? I’ll talk more about this next, but this time we’d like to decline floral arrangements. We’d really appreciate it if you could refrain from sending flowers.

“Instead, we set up our wishlist for this purpose. As game developers, we at CyberConnect2 continue to do our best more than ever before. On top of that, we always budget our capital investments every year. If we could add a little something, like upgrading tools just enough so things don’t change much, or things to make everyday work easier. When we only thought about how to make the time spent in the office a little more comfortable for the staff. Everybody thought really hard, and we ended up making a long list. Listed items are seriously all over the place, some small things that people are particular about, or just worth 500 yen. We’ve placed some hefty items on the list as well, like some ten thousand yen monitors and such. Of course, we’d appreciate anything.

“So, if you think, ‘Oh, it’s CyberConnect2’s 25th Anniversary. Go send ’em some flowers!’ Maybe people are instructed by their bosses to do this, but we thank all who are watching this video and hope you can share it, too! ‘Actually, CyberConnect2 said they’d prefer this over flowers.’ Actually, there’s many things cheaper than flowers. I’m very sorry for the hassle, but it’s not problem if you randomly pick something form the list. If you’d like, it would really help us if you send gifts this way. We’ll be opening the wishlist to the public, so even fans can use it. Please feel free to send something that’s on the list for cheap. Anything like that would make the staff happy. Of course, there is no obligation, so please have a look if you’d like. We’d be extremely grateful if you could support us in this manner.”

Closing

“So, in this video today, we discussed these four topics. We’re developing the special Anniversary site little by little for this year. We’re preparing quite a lot for it, so we’ll make more announcements at the proper time. This CyberConnect2 25th Anniversary is really all thanks to you. So, we hope you’ll have a fun time along with us and hopefully we can connect even a little online during this pandemic. I hope this will be a special year, and watch out for additional announcements. We’ll be releasing more information in the future.

“As that first step, I wanted to talk about these four topics. Once again, I’d like to start this special year here! This is the official start of CyberConnect2’s 25th Anniversary Year! This is all thanks to you! We will continue to do our best to create various works with our whole being! Thank you very much for your support.

“This was CyberConnect2’s Hiroshi Matsuyama!”

#Hiroshi Matsuyama #CyberConnect2 #CyberConnect2 25th Anniversary #Gematsu

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overthinkingkdrama · 5 years ago

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Jona’s Top 10 Dramas of 2019

A couple words about how I do these lists. Firstly, I only count as “2019 dramas” shows that finished airing in 2019, therefore dramas that started airing in 2018 but finished in the early months of 2019 have been included in my process, but dramas that are currently airing and will finish in 2020 have not been included. Secondly, this list is more based on my subjective experience with each of these dramas than my objective assessment on things like acting, writing and production values, though naturally I take the latter into account when forming my opinions.

Also: Yay! This year I managed to write a full review on every drama that wound up in my top ten, so feel free to click the link on each title and check those out if you want to read my detailed thoughts.

10. Hotel Del Luna

I have a somewhat Stockholm Syndrome-y relationship with Hong Sisters dramas. Though a lot of them are not excellent, or stumble a bit in the execution, I can’t seem to stop watching them. And yes, I’ve seen them all. Something about their particular blend of fantasy, romance and camp just works for me. I do think Hotel Del Luna plays to their strengths. Somewhat like if they got to take a second run at Master’s Sun but with their dream budget, and it’s just fun. This drama is gorgeous to look at. However, it is Lee Ji Eun, aka IU, who carries the entire drama on her lovely shoulders with her mesmerizing presence as Jang Man Wol.

Bottom Line: It shouldn’t be this way, but it’s so rare to get a mainstream drama where the female lead is allowed to be truly dark and flawed, or for a drama to fully focus on its heroine’s journey through the whole run.

9. Encounter

I was somewhat disappointed by the ending of this drama, and I think that might have made me unduly harsh when I looked back at it earlier in the year. However, I got the chance to rewatch episodes with a friend and was reminded of the soft, romantic escapism of this drama. Ultimately that’s the reason this ended up in the list. I like that it plays the rich woman/poor man, noona-romance tropes entirely straight and I liked the quixotic fairy tale it was unapologetically trying to sell me. Park Bo Gum and Song Hye Gyo are a noona-romance dream team up that I’m glad I got to see at least once in my lifetime.

Bottom Line: If you don’t like your dramas slow-paced and highly sentimental then this might not be the show for you, but I can appreciate a drama that knows exactly what kind of show it is and tries to do one thing well.

8. The Light in Your Eyes

If there’s any common theme to these favorites lists in previous years, it’s that they usually include dramas that took me by surprise and did something I haven’t seen before. The Light In Your Eyes fits that description so well, not just because of oddly dark tone or the quirky premise it presents in the first episodes, but because it’s a drama dedicated to showcasing the talents of the veteran actress, Kim Hye Ja, with whom the lead character shares a name. Of the dramas on the list this one made me cry the hardest.

Bottom Line: The Light In Your Eyes is a drama that has a greater emotional coherence than it does logical sense. In fact, if you think about the plot too hard it falls apart entirely. But it feels true, and that’s why it hit me so hard.

7. Search WWW

In my review I called Search a “female power fantasy” and I still think that’s a good description. It’s also sexy romantic fantasy, twice a noona romance, and a corporate drama focused on the very contemporary issues of powerful search engine companies and how they affect the information we see and the way we view the world. I think any of those is an interesting enough angle to make a drama about, maybe several dramas. If this show has one major flaw, it might be trying to wear too many hats at once. But I salute the creators for trying to make us something different than the typical pretty boy chaebol story, and giving us not one but three female characters filling those typically male roles.

Bottom Line: I do believe this drama deserves more love and respect than it got from a fandom that at least in theory cares about women’s stories. But I also understand why a lot of people didn’t connect with the lead character or the business stuff. But for me there was something about the lead couple that rang true and resonated with me.

6. WATCHER

Every time I watch a thriller, I’m hoping for something like WATCHER. Something with deep, complex, gray characters and a story full of twists and turns that keeps me engaged and guessing from episode one until the finale. Add on top of that a powerful cast who can really do justice to these substantial characters, you’ve got a winning recipe. OCN produces a lot of dramas in this genre, and they seem to be more prone to produce sequels than most other networks. Unfortunately, that also means a lot of the dramas they make feel paint-by-numbers and empty on the inside. WATCHER is one of those shows that reminds me why I keep coming back to this network and this kind of story time and again.

Bottom Line: This is one of those dramas that has you second guessing yourself even when they come right out and give you the answer, keeping you in a perpetual state of distrust along with the characters. But it’s built on the strong backbone of complicated and dynamic character relationships, which is why it is one of this year’s best.

5. Be Melodramatic

The higher I get up this list the harder time I have boiling down my thoughts on these dramas to one pithy paragraph. Often even I don’t know what kind of dramas are going to steal my heart. I have a particular weakness for dramas that can make me both laugh and cry, and then laugh through the tears. Dramas like Go Back Couple and Matrimonial Chaos that have deep heartache folded into the shenanigans. I love a funny drama. I like to laugh, but that doesn’t count for much unless I really care about the characters and their lives at the end of the day. That’s what makes me go from liking a drama to loving it, and that’s ultimately what I’m going to remember about a drama when it’s over. Be Melodramatic is special for the way it deals with heavy subjects in a gentle and lighthearted way, and somehow without losing the emotional impact.

Bottom Line: Be Melodramatic is a drama with tongue firmly planted in cheek, lots of laughs, lots of clever dialogue as well as a meta look at the drama industry from the inside, but the reason it works so well is the vein of heart, love and loss that runs all through the story.

4. One Spring Night

It’s so gratifying when a drama delivers exactly the experience you hoped it would. One Spring Night was a drama that ended up on my radar on the strength of the previews and posters, which promised me understated, romantic slice-of-life. I’d really enjoyed Han Ji Min in The Light in Your Eyes and have been fond of Jung Hae In since While You Were Sleeping. The pairing immediately seemed to have potential, but because the drama was picked up by Netflix, in the US I had to wait until it finished airing before I could give it a shot. A lot of the time when that happens, I see enough of the drama through gifs and screencaps that my interest fades. In this case I was only more intrigued. I’ve still never watched Something In The Rain but watching this drama has made me consider that might have been an oversight on my part. And yet I worry that if I watched it now I wouldn’t be able to help unfavorably comparing it to One Spring Night. This drama is truly something special.

Bottom Line: Because of the restrained, faithful realism of this drama and the two leads who seamlessly embody their characters, this drama has the almost voyeuristic quality of peeking into something intimate and private. It’s a palpable and thoroughly involving love story.

3. Nokdu Flower

I can hardly recommend this underrated gem of a show enough. I know nearly every historical gets compared either favorably or otherwise to Six Flying Dragons, which is kind of the recent high-water mark of sageuks, and I’m going to do that again here because Nokdu Flower is really the first historical drama I’ve watched since SFD that is at the same level of quality. One thing that sticks out about my experience watching both dramas is getting actual shivers watching these charismatic leaders rally their followers around them, and understanding at least in some small part why someone would leave behind everything they knew, pick up arms, and risk their lives for an ideal. Nokdu Flower captures the fearful power of revolutionary ideas in the hands of common people, but doesn’t descend into mere jingoism or sand off the rough edges or try to white wash the dark parts of human nature while it’s at it.

Bottom Line: At its most basic level Nokdu Flower is a story of revolution, and one of flawed characters either finding their humanity or having it burned out of them in the crucible of war. As that description would suggest it’s not an easy watch, but it’s a good and worthwhile one and definitely one any sageuk fan should check out.

2. My Country: The New Age

Compared to the far more traditional and grounded Nokdu Flower, My Country is almost fantastical in tone and at times eschews logic and realism for set pieces, sword fights and close range shotgun blasts of pathos. That’s probably why I love it. The larger-than-life sensationalism of this drama is what pushes it higher on this list than the carefully crafted Nokdu Flower, because this drama appealed to me on a more primal way. It’s so unrestrained and epic in everything from the set design, the soundtrack, the cinematography to the characters themselves and the performances of the actors playing them. Lurid, melodramatic, passionate, intense, suspenseful, romantic, raw, angsty, dark...I’ve basically run out of new adjectives to use while describing this drama elsewhere on this site. Basically, My Country is my id on a plate. Bon appetit.

Bottom Line: While there are definitely misguided and flawed elements to the writing and execution in this drama, somehow all of that is swept away in the sheer pleasure of watching it. If it had been specifically designed to appeal to every narrative kink I have, they couldn’t have made a more perfect drama for my tastes.

1. Children of Nobody

I finished my favorite drama of 2019 back in January, and then got to wait around 11 and a half months to see if anything else I watched last year would knock Children of Nobody from the top spot. It’s a mixed blessing to peak that early in the year. On the one hand, there was nowhere to go but down from here. On the other, I’ve had a lot of time to digest this very heavy show, which is something I definitely needed. I mentioned in my original review of this drama that each of the characters is an iceberg, so much more going on beneath the surface than what we can see. And what I’ve realized over the course of the past year is that the whole drama is like that, in a way. It’s an iceberg of a story, and I was able to pour a lot of myself into it, to try to understand it, and that’s part of the reason it was such an emotional watch for me. I don’t know when or if I’m going to be able to rewatch Children of Nobody, but I hope I can do it some day because I feel certain I would appreciate it even more upon a second viewing. The fact that this is a murder mystery and a thriller is almost incidental to the emotional core of the story, which is deeper and more lingering than that. The secrets, once revealed, do not diminish the story but only turn it slightly so that you can see it from a different angle.

Bottom Line: This drama is certainly not going to be for everyone. I don’t know if I would say it was underrated so much as it’s niche. The difficult subject matter is naturally going to narrow its appeal. But I do think that dramas that require the most from me, mentally and emotionally, are often the ones that stick with me the longest and make me bend and grow as a person.

I sure hope you’ve enjoyed my top 10 list this year and I wish you joy, success and profound wellbeing in 2020. Thank you again--and thank you always--for following me. I’ve got great things planned for us this year.

Jona

#kdramas 2019 #end of year reviews #top 10 #children of nobody #my country #my country: the new age #nokdu flower #one spring night #be melodramatic #melo is my nature #WATCHER #search: www #the light in your eyes #encounter #boyfriend #hotel del luna

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gluestickcherrybum · 5 years ago

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Ahoy there! I'm back with another study post °˖✧◝(⁰▿⁰)◜✧˖°

So if you aren't aware already, me as well as various other study bloggers are notorious for writing aesthetically pleasing handwritten notes. Notes aren’t absolutely necessary if you prefer to do without. A lot of my friends and acquaintances don’t bother with them and prefer to rely entirely on the lecture materials provided. I find that it helps me indefinitely in my studies and as a brief creative outlet which I rarely give myself the time for.

Why take Notes?

Instead of printing the lecture materials given digitally, I've taken it to re-write the lecture notes a few days prior to the lecture. Some lecturers insist their students read the material to get a grasp of the topic before the lecture and this is taking it a few steps further. They say writing something down is equivalent to reading it 7 times, meaning getting into memory this way is so much more efficient which is one of the biggest reasons I insisted myself handwrite my notes. Also writing your own notes is totally customisable to your needs, do you prefer mind maps or lists? Infographics or paragraphs? Minimalistic or colourful? It's all up to you.

Why I personally take notes

Different plants have different needs. Some need to be watered daily, some twice a day and some every other day. Some thrive in nutrient-rich soil and some prefer to sit in dry sand. Just like plants, each individual student has different needs and circumstances to thrive. For me, since I have a relatively low attention span and am a relatively slow learner, I needed the head start of reading topics beforehand to catch on with the rest. To me, with proper preparation for lectures, attending the lecture is like filling in the missing puzzle pieces. At least it should be. Also, I'm more of a visual learner, so if you're like me, then well structured, colourful and easy to read notes are not only more appealing but really help me in my studies and help me grasp topics a lot faster.

SUPPLIES

Probably the part where everyone is pumped for but I'll to simplify as well as be in-depth as possible.

Basically, you need paper and a pen. Need some colours? get some highlighters or coloured pens. Some people usually go one or the other but you can benefit from using both systematically.

What I look for in my preferred paper:

Thicker paper (120gsm) because I use markers and pens that bleed through anything less and I like my paper sturdy because I heavily reference my notes and I don't want them to get worn out as quickly (i want to actually try to use thinner paper and be gentler but not sure how much I can commit to it o(╥﹏╥)o).

Smoother paper is good if you use felt tips so they don't get damaged that quickly.

Line spacing. Its a waste of space and paper if you have small handwriting but largely spaced outlines. Not easy to find though.

Line colour. I prefer lighter lines such as light grey if possible, it just looks tidier that my writing contrasts more than with jet black lines.

Recycled or sustainably made paper. Because environment. Trees happy. Duh.

At the moment I'm a fan of loose-leaf paper because I'm not a fan of wasting notebook paper at the back (plus its even harder to get the paper features I want in notebooks unless I'm lucky) but if I were to succumb to using notebooks, I would definitely prefer thread-bound or hand-sewn over spring bound just because I think metal springs are annoying and if they're plastic, they aren't recyclable. You know me.

In conclusion, it's hard to find test pad with all of these features, you can consider printing your own notepaper if you're as picky as I am but you do you. If you can only afford flimsy see-through paper, that's alright. But make sure your supplies are appropriate for them as most of the supplies I use will bleed even on regular paper

Pens

Don't bother going all out and using fine liners or drawing pens to write notes. Get practical. Pick your poison. Smooth gel pens or dry ballpoint? Ergonomic or Budget-friendly? Disposable or refillable? My only guideline is to make sure they have waterproof ink because in any case, you need to send in an assignment last minute and have to rush through the rain without a folder you definitely want your writing to be at least legible if anything. (yes I learned this the hard way, yes illegible work will cost you a lot of marks. don't make my mistake ｡：ﾟ(｡ﾉω＼｡)ﾟ･｡

Also. Black or Blue? Studies show that writing in blue improves memory collection but black is the more neutral aesthetic. What do I do? I use black as my main colour and write keywords and important facts in blue to take advantage of its memory-enhancing properties.

My current preference: Zebra Sarasa Clip (because its made of 75% recycled plastic and is a good quality pen) with Pentel Energel refill (gel ink that dries quickly. that's all I need)

Budget-Friendly: There are good quality pen sets at the ECO shop (Malaysian dollar store) or buy disposable pens in bulk at any book store. Trust me, it saves a lot more than buying a brand new 80 cent pen every now and again. (Also including the cost of transportation to the store because when you live independently, every cent matters) It's not exactly environmentally friendly but hey, anything to cut the cost right?

Zero Waste option: Fountain Pen with a converter (not the cartridges) and glass bottles of ink refill. Yes, it sounds daunting but its zero waste if that's your cup of tea. You don't have to go all out and buy an expensive luxury fountain pen made of stainless steel, or go fancy and get a flexible nib. If you ask me, I have my eyes set on the pilot kakuno fountain pen, its simple, aesthetic and highly recommended for beginners (although not plastic-free its made out of 85% recycled plastic which is cool since I'm hoping to make a one time purchase, I won't mind it being made from plastic but that just my taste)

Coloured Pens

So I haven't been a fan of using coloured pens for a while but ill tell you I'm currently using a cheap set of coloured gel pens from Kaison just because they have cute patterns but the ink flow isn't that smooth so I should've bought something more practical. The ultimate budget-friendly option which is not only cheap but long-lasting and good quality, and ones that I’d recommend for anyone is the Papermate Kilometrico ballpoint coloured pens. So far I only know they come in five colours but they've been my favourite for years. Most people I know that disagree with me usually don't like the colour range or arent a fan of dry ink but if you aren't that picky and looking for a reliable option they're a good option, plus if you're using cheap paper, they won't bleed or anything so that's cool.

Highlighters

I love pastel highlighters. Its soft, cute, aesthetically pleasing to the eyes and some colours are better at actually highlighting words rather than their neon counterparts like green and purple. Although not the cheapest option, I doubt ill ever go back to neon highlighters ever and ill only be recommending pastel highlighters thanks.

My current preference: I'm currently using Monami Pastel Highlighters just because they were on sale with comparable prices to unbranded cheap pastel highlighters. I will never recommend commonly branded highlighters like Stabilo Boss or Zebra Mildliners because the extra pennies just aren't worth it since the unbranded kind has lived up to my standards. (also I haven't tried those branded highlighters mind you but I doubt I'm missing out on anything)

Budget-Friendly option: While Zebra Mildliners are being sold at RM5 for one and RM25 for a set, Mr DIY sells knockoff brand "BEIFA" for RM7 for a set of six which is a pretty good deal if you ask me (also there are double-sided ones with a bullet and chisel tips if you thought mildliners were the only option with those features). I've also found some rare gems, unbranded pastel highlighters hidden in common bookstores for an even cheaper price, but they're really hard to find unless the pastel highlighter trend decides to catch on. I digress.

Zero Waste option: I heard about highlighter pencils, just wooden pencils with neon colour pigments, but why get trendy when you can use any old wooden colouring pencils lying around? I don't think ill give up plastic highlighters for wooden pencils despite being a strong environmentalism advocate but there are a few options for highlighters made from recycled plastic but they either don't come in pastel colours or too pricey for my taste (yes I'm a cheapskate for crud sake)

Extras

These other things aren't exactly necessary but they add little flourishes and/or aid you in your note-taking. Not exactly an extra investment but its completely up to you

Sticky notes (or coloured memo pads) for extra notes, diagrams or equations which I like for them to stand out a bit. (Pastel over neon of course)

Washi tape to divide subchapters (but a highlighter streak does the job)

Correction tape because never will I ever use correction fluid mind you

Brush pens for headers (completely unnecessary but I don't have any other outlet to practice brush lettering so.) Recommendations: Artline Stix (chunky but super cheap, marker type not for thin paper), Pentel Fude Touch (great for beginners, small and practical, 83% recycled plastic, but will bleed on regular paper)

Alternatively, a regular black felt tip marker just to make the title stand out is good enough.

NOTE TAKING TECHNIQUES

An underrated note-taking method is the Cornell method which is frankly a systematic way to write notes in which you divide the paper into 4 sections, a place for title and date and stuff, the main body for notes, extended side margin for extra info/lecture comments/questions/subtitles and bottom quarter reserved for a summary of the notes. Some people modify this technique by omitting the summary section, depending on your needs.

Bullet points and indents. This is pretty self-explanatory, but it's pretty much notes that aren't chunky paragraphs. Easier to read, easier to register information, easier to skim through. You get the gist of it.

Highlighting system. Some people go all out with their highlighting system and designate colours to certain things such as green for vocab, orange for equations, blue for subtopics. etc. You can try this out if you want, but for me, the plethora of colour is quite distracting and not that aesthetically pleasing, but you do you.

BREAKING DOWN MY METHOD OF NOTE TAKING

My priorities to note-taking are: Easy to read, simple, decluttered and visually pleasing. For colours, I mainly use up to 4. Black pen for the main information, blue pen for keywords (or any coloured pen that matches the highlighter), one or two highlighters as a colour theme and matching sticky notes for extra info, diagrams or equations.

I assign a whole chapter to a specific colour theme, first assigning a certain highlighter colour to the first six chapters, if there are more than six chapters, I use 2 accent colours just to shake it up a bit. This makes it easier to differentiate the chapters when flipping through your notes.

So its, hand-lettered title (i do my lettering quite quickly, mind you) or all caps title in black marker. Mini banner doodle for subtitles (a simple box with a drop shadow works just fine), contrasting coloured keywords (or underlined) and highlighters just for accents like dividing subtitles or drawing boxes for extra info (that or sticky notes). I don't simplify my lecture notes, rather rewriting them in a more orderly manner and leaving a good amount of extra space here and there (or an extended margin if I use Cornell) for extra lecture notes. Also, I highlight whatever notes that my lecturer would point out as important or worth remembering. And that's pretty much it. After the lecture, I then know which parts of the notes were more vital and can then simplify those key points into flashcards which ill discuss in a different post.

Thanks for reading, I know my posts are pretty long but that's the way I like them, long but in depth. As usual, if you would like me to cover any specific topics, feel free to message me or give feedback. I hope to be able to write 2 or 3 articles a month if I can but until then, have a nice day. Study smart peeps.

ヾ(@°▽°@)ノ

#study #studyblr #studygram #studyspo #studyinspo #study inspiration #study motivation #zero waste #zerowaste #zero waste lifestyle #zero waste student #environmentalism #notes #stationery

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rjzimmerman · 4 years ago

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This is a long post, but I want to post something positive (hope for the future) instead of all the negative crap I’ve posted because.......negative crap surrounded us for 4+ years.

While the US Fish and Wildlife Service acknowledges that the iconic monarch butterfly, a major pollinator, should be designated as a threatened species, it has declined to do so, saying it has to focus limited resources on higher-priority species. Noah Greenwald, director of the endangered species program at the Center for Biological Diversity, however, is hopeful the monarch can gain necessary protection under Biden. Wikimedia Commons/Via Center for Biological Diversity.

The photogenic, badger-like American wolverine, known for its round ears and thick fur, is known to patrol up to 500 square miles of snowy territory in a relentless quest for its next meal, scaling mountains in minutes. Wolverines’ historic ranges include northern Eurasia and North America; however, government-sponsored eradication programs and habitat loss in the early 1900s nearly eliminated the animal from the Lower 48. Beginning in the 1960s, they started making their way back to Washington, Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming. Now, an estimated 250 to 300 wolverines roam south of Canada—a stable population, though likely less than half the carrying capacity, or the number the environment can support. The species—which plays an important role in the ecosystem as predators that keep prey animal populations in check, furthering biodiversity—faces a range of threats, from loss of habitat to roads and other development, resource extraction, recreation, and, especially, climate change. Wolverines rely on deep snowpack lasting into May—a condition that, of course, will diminish as the planet warms. As far as climate-change-induced extinction goes, Greenwald describes the wolverine is a “real canary in the coal mine.” He adds, “We’re in court working to overturn the Trump admin’s refusal to grant them protections. If not, it’ll come down to the courts." Nigel Hoult/Via Center for Biological Diversity.

In October, the Trump administration finalized a controversial rule that removes ESA protections for all gray wolves in the lower 48 states, excepting Mexican gray wolves in Arizona and New Mexico. The move, long in the making, turns over management of this imperiled species to states and tribal governments. “We’re going to court, and we’re hopeful that both gray wolves and Mexican gray wolves will be able to expand further into their range in the southwest,” Greenwald reports. “We’re in the process with USFW of developing a new management and recovery plan for reintroduced species, and we’re hopeful it’ll be much easier to work with Biden’s [as yet unannounced] new head of agency. The current director used to work for Monsanto.” doublejwebers/flickr/via Center for Biological Diversity.

Yes, the ESA protects plants too! Advocates are proposing that the whitebark pine gain threatened status this year, due to its struggle under introduced disease and climate change. Noah Greenwald/Center for Biological Diversity.

The lesser prairie chicken, which calls the southern plains states of Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas home, has lost much habitat in recent years to agriculture and oil and gas development. (Its habitat overlays the Permian Basin, which has seen more oil and gas development in the past decade than anywhere else in the world.) They also don’t do well with the addition of utility poles in their stomping grounds, as they double as perches for predators. “We petitioned to add lesser prairie chickens to the endangered list in the late 1990s, and while they got put on the candidate list, during that delay is when the fracking boom started, so threats to its survival only increased,” Greenwald shares. “Eventually, it got listed as threatened, with a somewhat unfortunate conservation agreement that would let the oil and gas industry off the hook, but we’re challenging that decision in April, and we’re optimistic that the Biden administration will list them as endangered, or at least threatened.” USFWS/Via Center for Biological Diversity.

Several years back, male jaguars started moving up from Mexico, and have since been spotted roaming throughout the Southwest and the Grand Canyon. Trump’s border wall, however, threw a wrench into one of the biggest cat recoveries the New World had seen. The fact that Biden has said he’ll halt construction on the wall, however, gives Greenwald hope. “It would at least give jaguars a fighting chance.” Flickr Commons/Eric Kilby/Via Center for Biological Diversity.

The dunes sagebrush lizard, which calls southeast New Mexico and West Texas home, is threatened by oil and gas development on the Permian Basin as well as sand mining for fracking. Greenwald says this fetching reptile is due for another decision on listing next year. USFWS/Via Center for Biological Diversity.

The Trump administration downlisted this pretty, black-and-red American burying beetle—found in South Dakota, Oklahoma, the Sandhills of Nebraska, and, oddly enough, Rhode Island’s Block Island—from endangered to threatened, based on a petition from petroleum lobbyists. Greenwald calls the decision “completely nonsensical,” as threatened status allows some states to all but exempt a species from protection, say, by legalizing gas and oil development in its habitat. Which is what happened recently in Oklahoma. “It was a total handout to oil and gas at the expense of the beetle, which is actually one of the few insects that raise its young,” says Greenwald. Fascinatingly, it does as much by finding bird carcasses, exuding a mucousy fluid from its anus to cover said carcasses and laying eggs and raising young atop them. “It provides a vulture-like service, feasting off carcasses’ nutrients,” says Greenwald, who is in talks with various advocates about action to override industry’s “special exemption” regarding these beetles. Doug Backlund/South Dakota Game, Fish, and Parks/Via Center for Biological Diversity.

There was some movement on the part of the Trump administration to delist the Florida Key deer, but luckily, it didn’t go anywhere. “Their numbers are up, but because they live in the Florida Keys, they’re likely to be underwater in the next 50 years if we don’t do something about GHGs,” says Greenwald. “It’s our smallest deer, so we’re hopeful that we’ll see enough climate action under Biden to give it a chance to survive.” USFWS/Via Center for Biological Diversity.

Coral species including staghorn (pictured) and elkhorn also occur in the Keys and have unfortunately been delisted since the aughts. “With ocean acidification from GHGs, coral in our reefs are disappearing quickly,” cautions Greenwald. “If we don’t get them back on the list, we’ll have lost a gorgeous world.” NOAA/Via Center for Biological Diversity.

#Endangered Species Act #President-Elect Joe Biden

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