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lostsoulaltair · 2 years

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My personal rant of OnS Story

Hello everyone, I know I mentioned days ago about being more active and well, today chapter 119 was released and, I think I reached the limit of patience or rather of how much I could keep up following the story.

Note: The purpose of this rant is to merely express where my discomfort focuses on; and of course, you can disagree or ignore this post; that’s totally fine. The only thing I kindly ask is, to be respectful if you disagree and want to share an opinion, I believe respect is a solid base for an exchange of ideas!

1. The story up till now

Back when OnS aired, and of course at such time I didn’t know there was a manga along LNs, I were fascinated by the story; it was the first time knowing about one that would touch vampires, demons and angels; after all, it’s not your every day story of vampires; and I must say that some titles that touch vampires involve romance and fights most of the times, but the involvement of demons and angels in a post apocalyptic world was something rather new and innovating.

The pace itself was strong because there was a solid concept at such time, it was a war, a battle to keep living and finding new reasons to keep going and I miust say that up till chapter 70 the story moved to a good pace; onwards till chapter 90, it became like a rush of events that could have been developed in a better pace or that’s at least on my insight, Mika’s death as a vampire was something I did not see coming; I saw it as a possibility but for the future, not for technically early events due to the arcs that happened after the animation ended.

But after 91 began till chapter 100, the story started to get weaker and seemed to pick an interesting pace and tried to reach a strong point until chapter 106 but once chapter 107 arrived, that’s when everything seemed to go to a downhill, it felt like a total twist of events that I couldn’t see as something surprising and this goes to one issue on my perspective which goes to the Script itself.

What do I mean?

Kagami portrayed Shikama as a mysterious evil force that had the upperhand and was very aware of what the characters that struggled against him thought, but those things such as adding poison to counter him was just that came out of nowhere.

Another issue that I find with the story is the twist but not in the sense of plot twist but rahter, how there may be contradictions within characters. For example, back with the whole Shinoa possession arc; Rigr kidnapped Yuu or rather, sent a soldier to take him, it was unclear for what purpose he aimed to do that and he didn’t want the Sun God Aten and Mikaela to reunite for one unknown reason but now with how the story went, it was more akin that it was fine that happened.

Another issue at hand is, the reason of Shikama’s struggle to possess Shinoa on which ultimately he discarted her after so much work, it simply doesn’t make any sense.

And one of the points I find distressing or rather that stopped being central is the vast distance on how religious figures were used back and how they were tied; the last time angels were mentioned and their relevance was back in chapter 108; it seemed like they had a relevance as to why they were found scary and why they targetted Shikama but ultimately, it was never resolved at the end. Whenever it is resolved later on...my expectations sadly get reduced.

2. Stuff that could have had potential

I think that, there were many points on which the story could have had a better development, for example, things that were dismissed but had such high potential were:

-Yoichi’s revenge against Lacus Welt

-The 7 Sinful keys were portrayed as mysterious objects that seemed to have a deeper purpose but ultimately, their existance was for resurrection along restraining Shikama for a limited time.

-The whole vampire vs human war just seems like a dream; even the vampires that were present once the other progenitors arrrived are long gone; it makes it seem like the only ones alive are the current progenitors we came to know within the story.

-Giving Yoichi and Kimizuki a background of being test subjects along carrying demons from the black series. This had so much potential to dig in with their pasts and what exactly the Hyakuya Sect took them in along why Guren made them be part of the squad if their roles were pretty much soldiers from one sole squad.

-Mitsuba’s destiny along her demon. Kagami once stated that something awaited Mitsuba and this is something I share a lot with @distinguished-slacker ; the girl had so much potential, back when she was introduced, she had a trauma but nevertheless, she was growing; now sadly, she barely appears. I even wonder what even was what awaited her at this point; her relevance to the plot is so small...it’s tragic.

-Shinoa’s character build in the LNs VS Vampire Reign. One of the things that I at least feel disappointed with, is how Shinoa, from the little girl that knew about spells along relying on other weapons, turned into a character that simply relied in her cursed gear alone instead of using those skills that were pretty visible with Mahiru and Guren.

-The whole Sun God Aten and Sword of Michael was once mentioned and ultimately left in oblivion; there was such a good possible build up in this aspect but after Shikama possession arc ended, it was pretty much dismissed.

3. Screentime

I do understand the story affects mainly Mika and Yuu; nevertheless, the characters that are involved as well one way or another feel so distant; like, there were many chances on which there could have been arcs for the characters to face off certain ordeals or develop deeper bonds within teammates; this even includes with the progenitors playing their role in the story.

Back when they were introduced, I was fascinated by how they were made and how powerful they were portrayed as; the more they got involved with the present, it seemed like they would receive proper screentime but now....they seem to fight for their goal but that goal alone feels distant and not so related to them despite being affected by the decisions of the MC and the antagonist.

With Shikama, this issue of screentime applies to him as well; something that makes antagonists interesting is part of their pasts and what makes them follow up such path, but in his case, it is barely known what kind of lifestyle he carried and what exactly happened to the son he once had. It is left in a haze of the unknown.

4. Yuichiro

I know many love Yuu and I respect that a lot. When it comes to stories, we as readers relate to characters, on which that may include the MC which in this case, is Yuu.

Perhaps you might wonder why I am even listing him in this personal rant. The reason goes that, Yuu in a way falls in this strange concept within shounen manga/anime on which he’s the dumb MC that recklessly goes in his path and in a way, manages to fulfill achievements within his path; I understand very well that he had it rough but, one thing that I find it tragic or rather, poorly developed is the fact that Yuu hasn’t matured or learnt from experience along his reckless moves, thoughts or ideas.

A prime example being from chapter 115 claiming to have a plan, to ultimately in chapter 119 not having one which was terribly crystal clear.

One of the things I had hopes was to see Yuu gradually evolve as a character and mature or learn from past experiences, ultimately that ended up in a sour note, there are no consequences for him; if he does something or is struggling, that struggle fades eventually

Despite this somewhat long rant, I must clarify that I do not aim to say the author is bad or something, but rather, it is my discomfort as a reader only; I think that, it is normal when to feel discomfort or dissatisfaction when it comes to something it was once enjoyable in the past.

Thank you very much fo coming to my rant I guess; and I’m really sorry for making this rant but...I felt like, I really needed to express this.

#owari #owari no seraph rant #ons ted talk #ons #seraph of the end #sote #my thoughts about the story #respectful #hello everyone

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slugdragoon · 6 months

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RPG Role Analysis Series #3 - Pokemon Red/Blue vol.I

There's a lot to learn from Pokemon's design as an RPG, for both good and bad. I've loved the series from the start, but when designing an RPG, there are choices I wouldn't want to repeat.

Pokemon, more than anything is what makes me consider how to avoid a monster/character recruiting RPG where units are simple outclassed by other units, or can't find a niche. The competitive scene is broken down into multiple tiers where Pokemon who are just like another, but worse, might have a shot. Shout out to @FalseSwipeGaming on YouTube who gives breakdowns on individual Pokemon.

Theoretically, there's lot's of room to have each one be just a bit different, but it's often by adding unique access to Abilities or moves that are never chosen, or rarely relevant. Pokemon these days have access to attack types of like 5 or 6, or more different kinds by levelling, and offensive moves of nearly all types by TM, which are no longer restricted, so sweepers (attackers focusing on elemental coverage, power and speed) just pick 4 moves with a good spread, and possibly whatever the new super attack mechanic is each generation. Healing and buffing moves like Roost, Recover, Swords Dance, Agility, etc. are self-heals and self-buff because Pokemon is usually 1-on-1, and debuffs are single-target. Moves like Wish and Baton Pass exist to work around these restrictions, and are powerful, but are a design compromise. Status effects don't stack with others, and the de facto poisoning move is Toxic, which is accessible by so many Pokemon, and so often paired with Protect to stall.

Pokemon has a "party" of 6, but an active party of only 1, only occasionally offering you regular doubles matches in the main game, so it isn't much like a party-based RPG, but I think early on, Pokemon actually had more defined roles inspired by earlier RPGs. Lots of Pokemon in the original games had a core of Normal type attacks with maybe access to 1 or 2 other types if they were lucky by levelling alone. TMs gave access to more attacking types, but they were limited use, most often to only 1 per game, meaning if your Charizard learned Earthquake, your Snorlax could not. In that case, while there is a Generation I competitive scene where players trade TMs from multiple playthroughs, the single player experience itself has Pokemon whose role is largely defined by their level-up abilities, and they can be examined as such.

I think starting from the most limited games in the series explains a lot about what the designers were thinking before things get added due to tradition, and Red and Blue are not perfect, some of these mechanics don't even work properly, and Pokemon is generally easy enough that you don't need to fully engage with the mechanics, and my memory of the games I play isn't perfect. I largely am just asking what do they do by reading their list of abilities, but my thought process with this series is examining design intent.

I'll say what I think about specific Pokemon roles in some follow-up posts, these are my thoughts on the game in general.

#pokemon #pokemon red and blue #game design #video games #gamedev #jrpg games #rpg design #rpg

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growing-yet-into-magic · 11 months

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Hi!

I am desperately searching fosome advice on say, negative magic directed towards my household and I. I've grown up around neopagan sort of lifestyles, but have never been a super avid practicer myself.

Im in a real bind here, I usually am an extremely positive minded and confident in my own abilities person, but to be straight, I am 95% sure I'm being targeted by a specific person through bad magic, negative forces, probably a hex, etc etc

But I don't know where to find help exactly...Do you know of any resources I could look into for help on the subject? I have tried a couple things already.

Hi, anon;

I'm sorry I never answered this ask in a timely manner, but I was hoping to source more of my books back from storage before I answered to get you a more accurate/relevant answer. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to do so, and ended up having a late answer with no more information than a quick one would have provided.

The only things that I can think of off the top of my head are to try the usual tests for mal de ojo; I know that Italian superstition uses drops of oil in a bowl, but I couldn't tell you how to interpret it at the moment. It probably wouldn't determine everything, but it would determine something at least.Try adding a nazar to your home, or your car, or your keys, or the common environment they would normally encounter you in.

I'm sure you've tried a hex-breaking bath, which is pretty common, but if they're re-upping the intent, you would have to repeat it over and over to constantly dispel outside resources; grab something protective first to prevent the cycle from repeating. A nazar, a pentacle you can bless or pray over, a rabbit's foot, a cimaruta, a sachet of sea salt and rosemary... Once you have something protecting you from outside influence, you can wash influence you can off of you without having more laid on. I'd generally just buy a small bottle of Lavender castille soap and a canister of sea salt, pour some of each into a container, and then lather it up on a wet wash cloth, but I don't know how much oomph you need.

And, of course, it's always possible that the problems are social as opposed to magical. There is a long and historic power of making you feel unsafe and scared just to make you fear that something might be happening. Take precautions, but don't try to avoid confronting them or calling someone in to help you negotiate whatever argument you may be embroiled in either. Not one without the other.

Best of luck, 🍀

#growing's nonsense

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ausetkmt · 2 years

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Boycotting Adidas and Gap in the Name of Kanye West Is Misguided

Kanye West has a new pronouncement: He is done with corporate America.

“It’s time for me to go it alone,” Ye explained in an interview with Bloomberg that was published Monday. “It’s fine. I made the companies money. The companies made me money. We created ideas that will change apparel forever. Like the round jacket, the foam runner, the slides that have changed the shoe industry. Now it’s time for Ye to make the new industry. No more companies standing in between me and the audience.”

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West is referring to Adidas—with whom he has an arrangement to produce his sneakers that expires in 2026—and Gap Inc., which is under contract to produce his apparel until 2030.

"They my new baby mamas,” the rapper now legally known as Ye added. “I guess we’re just going to have to co-parent those 350s.”

In recent months, West has called Adidas out for allegedly “blatantly copying” his designs—notably with the AdiFOM Q and the Adilette 22. As for the Gap, the rap game’s David Koresh claims the clothing company was copying looks from his Yeezy Gap Engineered by Balenciaga line.

“No one should be held in that position where people can steal from them and say we’re just paying you to shut up,” West explained to the outlet. “That destroys innovation. That destroys creativity. That’s what destroyed Nikola Tesla.” I don’t think that’s quite what led to Tesla’s demise, but Yeezus also complained about being left out of business meetings. He posted screengrabs of text exchanges with various executives on Instagram.

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Rich people fight all of the time about money. Why are some of us pretending this is some kind of civil rights issue worthy of a boycott?

Last week, Sean Combs, who I still prefer to call Puffy, wrote on Instagram: “Since the era of Run-DMC, @Adidas has always used Hip Hop to build its brand and make billions off of our culture. BUT WE ARE MORE THAN JUST CONSUMERS NOW, WE’RE THE OWNERS. @KanyeWest and YEEZY are the reason Adidas is relevant to culture. WE KNOW OUR VALUE!”

The post was accompanied by a screenshot of an apparent text exchange with our distressed fashion king/doll. “I’m done wearing Adidas products until they make this right!! We have to support each other!! Everybody repost this please!!” Puff added.

Separately, Swizz Beatz wrote: “I usually mind my business but this is DEAD WRONG! If we let them do this to @kanyewest it will happen to us also! This man created this groundbreaking innovation and it should be respected as a creative !”

“YE is only asking for his work to be respected and not stolen that’s not crazy to me !! We not buying these !!!!!!!!!!!!” he continued. “@adidas you’re supposed to be original do the correct thing please !!!”

Of all the issues to bring attention to, this ain’t it.

Once again, Ye is painting a picture of persecution when the reality is that he has been lobbying these corporate giants to give him billions of dollars and carte blanche to “create.”

Details of West’s contract are unknown, but Bloomberg reported that Yeezy made $191 million in royalties from the Adidas partnership in 2020.

Kanye made a choice to sign a contract with those enormous brands. It presumably allowed them to do whatever they want—including taking some of his creative direction and applying it elsewhere within the product line. They want to make money and since his affiliation alone arguably saved the brand, they’re going to target the customer as much as possible.

As I recall, after complaining about the major fashion houses ignoring him, he was happy to sign with them.

In an interview with Angie Martinez in 2014, he announced his deal with Adidas and said, “I’m going to be the 2Pac of product.” I still don’t know what that means, but he tried to do it on his own then without as much success. Then he retooled, used other people’s money and infrastructure, and now has an estimated worth of more than $1 billion.

And he seems to know that. Regardless of what he said this week, last week he suggested an interest in partnering with Authentic Brands Group, whose roster of brands includes Forever 21, Barneys New York, JCPenney, and Reebok. Ye also told Bloomberg he’s working with former Adidas executive Eric Liedtke, who now operates the plant-based clothing label Unless Collective, to help establish his empire.

Good for him, but I’m not sure starting a corporation is the best way to cut ties with corporate America.

By now, Kanye has an established pattern where in the event of a perceived transgression, he uses his Instagram page to malign people with insults and accusations—and then deletes everything. If anyone knows this, it’s his estranged wife and her now-ex-boyfriend. If he can go at the mother of his kids like that, close business partners are certainly not safe. I’m less inclined to treat major corporations as individuals, but there is something very Trumpian about his approach. He has a built in audience/cult that will fall for it, but this comes across as the frustrations of a manipulative micromanager who probably slowed down production (see his perpetually delayed and disjointed album releases).

Sidebar: I love how he ignores all of the times he’s been accused of copying.

Once again, Ye is painting a picture of persecution when the reality is that he has been lobbying these corporate giants to give him billions of dollars and carte blanche to “create.” He got what he wanted and they got what they paid for.

I don’t back Trump supporters with their boycotts—he shouldn’t have signed that contract if he wasn’t cool with the terms. If anything, all of these complaints have made me want to buy Adidas even more, just to spite him. Unless Beyoncé tells me something bad about the company, I’ll pass on the boycott.

I understand Puffy and Swizz want to support their fellow rich friend, but this feels like civil rights-themed hustle with beats. Sorry, not sorry, and thanks but no thanks.

Update: Kanye has since severed his relationship with Gap, announcing on Thursday (9/15) that he’s terminating his partnership with the Gap because of “substantial noncompliance.”

In a statement, his lawyer Nicholas Gravante said West was left with “no choice but to terminate their collaboration” because the retailer allegedly breached their partnership by not opening branded Yeezy stores and distributing his apparel as originally planned.

“Gap’s substantial noncompliance with its contractual obligations has been costly,” Gravante wrote. “Ye will now promptly move forward to make up for lost time by opening Yeezy retail stores.”

Let that be a lesson to all: Rich people will always be fine so long as they complain to their lawyers rather than IG.

#yeezie trash #boycott yeezie for confederate jackets #Slavery was not a choice kanye #kanye is asleep #Boycotting Adidas and Gap in the Name of Kanye West Is Misguided #get him help please #Gap #Adidas #fashion market #lies and games in corporate america

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cboeck-webdesign · 1 year

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Is it possible to build a completely new online business using only AI?

What is already possible with artificial intelligence is enormous. But can you build an online business with AI and practically start from scratch? Let's find out in this article. ChatGPT and other tools can help you identify a niche, write copy, create logos and designs, and launch a new YouTube channel. And the areas I've listed don't stop there. Many are now using ChatGPT primarily for blog articles and Midjourney for web design. And I agree, it's an insane time saver and can be a great help to you. But to build a complete online business with it, I think is difficult.

What it really makes sense to use ChatGPT for in business

If you are just starting out, you can use ChatGPT and of course other tools to find a name for your brand and generate some logo suggestions. The same is true for websites. If you want to start a blog, you can use artificial intelligence to find new ideas and even implement them in no time. For example, you can have ChatGPT write meta descriptions and optimize existing articles. The tool is therefore ideal for introductions, summaries and FAQs.

Is it possible to earn money with ChatGPT and dropshipping?

Dropshipping is one of those things. Some people promise you a five-figure turnover, others advise you against it based on their own experience. Even though I have no personal experience with dropshipping, I have read and researched a lot about the topic. I can tell you, it's definitely not easy to get started with it. However, AI can help you overcome some of the barriers to entry. Among other things, you can target niches that have little competition and find suppliers that fit your needs. When building a dropshipping business, however, you still have to take action yourself. That means you have to create a store with Shopify or another software, take care of all the legal aspects and, of course, run ads for it. And these two reasons are exactly why I would advise you against dropshipping, apart from the low margin that comes out of it. Nevertheless, even in 2023 it is possible to find a niche in the dropshipping market with ChatGPT.

Can ChatGPT help you find a good niche for an affiliate website?

At least tools like ChatGPT, Chatsonic and Japer.ai can give you new ideas and suggestions. Of course, the implementation is up to you. The tool has suggested two interesting niches to me, namely balcony gardening and camping outdoor equipment. Since I don't know anything about the latter, I don't create niche pages for such topics. Of course, now you could argue that you can let Textbroker or the AI write the texts, but my tip is: choose a niche where you know your stuff and where you can become an expert, keyword authority site. So you can feed ChatGPT with different interests and hobbies so that it determines a relevant niche for you. But again, you have to check the competition yourself with tools like Market Samurai. And in general, I'm not a big fan of niche sites.

How costly is it to sell AI art on Etsy and Fiverr?

The easiest way to make money with ChatGPT is Etsy and Fiverr. In a relatively short time, I managed to make money through them, even independently of AI. Of course, with tools like Midjourney, Dalle-E2 and ChatGPT, it becomes even easier. Most importantly, I've also had the idea of brushing up on my old Photoshop skills and combining them with AI art to offer for sale on Etsy. Only catch: you need a very good printer or print shop if you want to print and frame multiple images in high quality. And second drawback, of course, was the high competition on Fiverr, which already offers gigs on AI art using Photoshop. Again, you would first have to identify a niche and then get traffic accordingly. But it's entirely possible to build an online business with print-on-demand and ChatGPT. However, don't imagine it to be too easy.

The supreme discipline: YouTube channel from zero to start - How ChatGPT can help you with it

It's not easy to start a new YouTube channel, and by that I don't just mean creating content or article ideas, but also generating enough views and gaining new subscribers. After all, there are billions of videos on YouTube on every conceivable topic, especially marketing and online business. But artificial intelligence can help you find a niche topic here as well, improve existing YouTube video descriptions or give you suggestions for new videos, including scripting. However, more complex topics like competitor analysis, keyword research, and checking statistics remain things you should keep track of yourself. What's really fascinating, however, is the use of artificial intelligence with larger YouTube channels. This makes learning extremely easier, information can be processed even faster, and AI saves YouTubers massive amounts of time. However, I wouldn't rely solely on YouTube, nor would I rely solely on artificial intelligence. You can, however, use it as a great addition to your website.

Conclusion - Can you build an online business with AI?

The simple answer to the question is yes. However, the slightly more complex answer is that you still need to take action yourself to be successful. You need to improve your skills, set up a store, create a working website, and analyze the competition in niche sites. However, tools like ChatGPT and Midjourney can do a lot of the work for you and help you with your projects. Artificial intelligence and tools like ChatGPT can provide tremendous support in various aspects of an online business. They help generate new ideas and suggestions, identify niches, write and optimize texts, create logos and designs, as well as help you build a YouTube channel. Nevertheless, one should remain realistic and keep in mind that the actual implementation and work ultimately still lies with one's own commitment. For starting an online business, whether in dropshipping or other areas, AI can provide helpful insights and remove barriers to entry. However, it is important to be familiar with your own area of expertise and a niche to be able to act as an expert. Competitive and legal aspects must still be considered. In addition, it is advisable not to become too dependent on niche sites and to consider the potential challenges. Read the full article

#onlinebusiness ai #ai

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foyil420-blog · 1 year

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Creating A Creative Blog Name

Hello and How is your day? GmaKelly here with some Creative ways to name your Blog. I found a fountain of information on Creating a Creative Blog Name. I love it, wish I had found this when I named mine. This makes it so much fun to come up with a name that you can be proud of for years to come. Creating a Blog Name Determine Brand Value You already have determined your Niche and probably some Keywords. You want your Blog Name to be relevant to your Niche. Something that has visibility, and it relatable to you, meaning when they see the name they see your Blog or Product. Identify Target Audience Along with identifying your Niche, you should have also identified your Target Audience. You want your Blog Name to be a recognized term for that demographic. ie: someone that is 50 yrs old will not have the same understanding of someone that is 25. Brainstorm Potential Names Make a list of all the Names you can think of. Even the ones that are just stupid. Don't laugh, stranger things have happened. Take that list and run them through Google, see what's available, what's taken, what is similar. Check a Niche Research Tool and compare the result Is the Name Available: When you settle on 2 or 3 names you want to make sure those names are available as a Blog Name or even a Domain Name. You don't want to end up promoting someone else's site, Test It! Test it by asking your friends, co-workers and anyone else whose opinion you value, how do they like the name for this product or service. Roll around in your mind. Is it easy to say, spell, is it memorable? Put Brand Everywhere! Once you have established your Blog Name or Domain Name, you will still need a Logo. Your Brand includes not only the Blog Name but also the Logo. They both need to be memorable and connected to your Niche. Then spread that EVERYWHERE you can, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, etc. You want to get as much exposure as possible. Post your Blog regularly to all these sites. It not only expands your exposure but it also breeds trust with your readers. See my Post:Building Your Money Making Brand Ways to Create Crazy Names I looked up some Creative Names On-line and came up with this list: (note: According to Kinsta.com these are live sites, so none of these are available). Unique Names - Arctic Wolf Network - (security) - Purple Mango (multiple businesses) - Blue Kite Website Solutions - The Maroon Door (restaurant) - Unchained Carrot (market) Use or Make-up Words - Intrepid - Adventurous (travel marketing) - Defendify - security - Kaboom Fireworks - Wanderer - travel - Semi Colon Bookstore Use an Idiom, Adage or Common Phrase - When Pigs Fly - food - Light As A Feather - health - To Each Their Own - beauty - Bent Out of Shape - jewelry - Soft As A Grape - clothing Something Epic - Atlantis Sports Club - Titan Alarm - Jarvis Surgical Catchy Business Name - Combine Words - Groupon - Omnilert - Securiteam - Intelivision Rhyming - cognitive memory key influencer - 7-Eleven - Hobby Lobby - ElemenOPillows - The KnickKnack Shack Miscellaneous Naming Suggestions: - Use your Focus Keyword or 2 and string words together, create your own word. - Use your Own name - best if you have already have a following - Use a Thesaurus - find like words ie: Target - Bullseye - Use Alliteration - ie: Starbucks Stories - Use Acronyms or Abbreviation - ie: NASA, AARP, - Portmanteau (2 words added together) ie: Labradoodle - can be confusing - Common Saying - - Words in Another Language - ie: Blog de Pelis - Choose a Random Name - ie: The AV Club - movie reviews - Check Competitors Names - ie: Allstate has an Allstate Blog Final Thoughts There are over 600M Blogs posted daily around the World, standing out will be difficult. But keep your Niche and Target Audience in mind and that narrows down the target quite a bit. Naming your Blog or Domain can be a daunting task for some. You have to take so many different factors into account. I hope you enjoyed this post. I was amazed at some of the options to come up with names that I never thought to consider. If you have questions or comments please leave them below, or do you have a Unique or Creative Blog Name leave me a message and tell me about it. Thank you for sharing your time with me. Have a great day! GmaKelly To learn more about Blogging and How to Make Money from Home click here. Read the full article

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financialsecrets · 1 year

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Creating A Creative Blog Name

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floydsingleton · 2 years

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Strategy in digital media has to be one of the most important aspects. Without a strategy results would be too difficult to measure. Not only that, but your ad campaign will suffer, the budget will suffer, and you will most likely not have a job, so you too, would be suffering.

Strategy is useful because it sets you up with a clear goal in mind while helping you understand the market more in general (Sacred Heart). Those goals help you set objectives. Objectives should also be possible and time oriented. This ensures in the review stage, that we have adequate data to look into so that we can determine if the campaign was a success based on what we set out to do (brilliantmetrics)

I think one of the main purposes of strategy is it ensures efficiency. Money makes the world go ‘round of course. However, we can not throw caution to the wind whenever we are spending as dollars. The goal is to spend the money the most cost efficient way as possible. So identifying what the business wants or needs to accomplish is important. Just from personal experience, awareness campaigns have been the trend since beginning my time at USF. These types of campaigns are fun but the methods are all geared towards impressions because the more numbers the better. That’s where strategy comes into play.

In digital media we are so focused on the content that we are trying to purposely consume that if ads that target us are not relevant to us, then it could just be a real bother. I think carving out your demographic is the best thing you can do to avoid miss targeting folks and ultimately wasting your money.

Strategy is important for efficiency and conversion. At the end of the day everyone can see our ad but only the people that are potential customers need to see our ad. With the digital landscape getting more and more competitive I think strategic planning in digital media will only grow with importance.

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nabrizoya · 3 years

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honestly would LOVE to hear your thoughts on the nikolai duology because i really only see blanket praise or blanket hate for it whereas I see a lot of wasted potential. Bardugo's actual writing was beautiful as ever for the most part, but the choice of the plot/beats feels baffling to me. I love Nina, but her parts felt so separate from the rest of the book until the very end, and even that felt off. I liked the first 2/3 of KoS enough, dealing with the monster, political tensions, 1/2

and even the cult of the starless saint was at least interesting because dealing with people trying to rewrite the narrative of their greatest enemy (who hurt these young leaders in deeply PERSONAL ways) was really compelling (making him literally come back was. a choice) but I feel like somewhere in the last third, KoS went in a wholly differeent direction, and RoW has this vibe of feeling like she definitely wrote it after reading the show scripts or even seeing some footage. idk. 2/2

I will try to be brief (1/12)

Hey anon! Thank you so much for asking this even though it took 38756588247834 years to answer this I’m so sorry !! The Nikolai duology was good—wonderful too maybe because of the myriad of themes and topics it discussed and explored, all in addition to how beloved these characters are. For me, it’s the end of KoS as it is for you, and the entirety of RoW in particular that irk me the most.

I have very little issue with KoS, and I agree with everything you’ve said. The political tensions, the sort of urgency in trying to secure a country at the cost of personal reservations, preparing for a war that seems unforgivably near the door, etc. was all thrilling. After all, it is the first installment in the duology, and it’s supposed to set the course for the upcoming books.

KoS managed to introduce the stakes and the circumstances, lay the rails for what the characters will face and what it might mean to a vast set of entities connected to the events. And it’s hardly out of sense to expect Rule of Wolves to pick up where the previous book left off and carry forward the themes and plot points introduced in the first book.

Except, RoW failed spectacularly in that aspect.

Rule of Wolves: the second book, and the supposed finale to the Grishaverse and the Nikolai duology; it fails to continue the other number of threads that KoS set up for it, effectively compromising the characters, their characterizations, the themes and other political tensions and stakes. The due importance that should be given to the heavy set of topics that get brought up in the povs are not through, nor are the small details that Leigh added to the conversations evolve into something worth talking about, which are the actual points that could have been given some more page time to explore than just making them facts or points of nostalgia for the characters.

If you take a step back and analyze the whole timeline, events, characterization, objectives of the arcs and the plot points etc. etc., all the way from Crooked Kingdom to Rule of Wolves, there’s so much that is left out and tied in, quite haphazardly, which leads me to believe that Leigh wanted to attempt writing a duology that is more plot-driven than it is character driven. And we know that Leigh writes character driven stories brilliantly, and SoC, CK and TLoT are testament to the same. Heck, even TGT has more consistency than whatever TND has.

So, objectively? Plot possibilities? Characterization? Potential? Personal goals? Addressing the very serious themes it brought up, in little or major light, but give no proper elaboration about them?

The lost potential readily compromised the characterizations of many characters, and it all amounted to their arcs being very underwhelming.

I’m dividing this into four parts and here’s the basic outline.

Writing and Plotting

The Plot, Possibilities and Potential.

Characters, Characterization, Character Potential.

Remedy (what I think would've worked better to tie this all up)

This can get very looong, so be forewarned.

I. Writing & Plotting

Now, Leigh Bardugo’s writing is exceptional, no doubt. The sentences are short and flowy, and convey the tone, psyche, environment and the setting and its effects on the pov character marvellously. It's also immersive. It’s the same in Rule of Wolves, except, a little or a lot weaker.

The two main parts of this is that one, that Leigh slightly overdid showing a lot more than telling, and two, that the RoW (and perhaps KoS too), was more plot driven than character driven, the latter of which is actually Leigh’s strength.

In Rule of Wolves, Leigh’s writing seemed very choppy and snappish. The descriptions were lacking, or maybe that’s just me wishing for more internal conflict and dilemma, and going back and forth in one's own head for a bit. It felt like she showed more than she told.

Example being how Zoya ‘snaps’, ‘drawls’, ‘scoffs’, or ‘scowls’ less, and even if that’s supposed to be show Zoya beginning to be a little less unpleasant than she usually is, the tone in those chapters was not strong enough to distinguish how and why the character was acting a certain way. Nor pinpoint an explanation on what brought that change about. (And there were many instances like this with many other characters), which resulted in the characters themselves feeling so off to me.

Leigh’s characters are important to the story. They carry tremendous weight and actively contribute to the plot. Except, by focusing a lot more on the plot, some parts of these characters’ relevance was not up to the mark. It is greatly due to how weak the plotting and pacing of the book was, tbh, more than just her writing.

Consider: Mayu Kir Kaat. She is integral to the story, but she is thrust into responsibilities, and that doesn’t give us much time to see her as a person, and then as a person with a duty, like we see with most other characters. Whatever parts of her we did see were very circumstantial and timed, which is probably the reason why not many we’re unable to appreciate Mayu as much as we should. (Maybe fandom racism also plays a part, so, well,,,).

Like, we know from Six of Crows and with The Language of Thorns, how great care went into describing the characters’ state of mind, which further heavily influenced their choices and decisions. This time though, I think she wanted it to be more plot driven, hence the whole crowded feeling of the book and general worry about oh my god too much is happening, how will all this be solved and all that.

And this, I think, greatly hampered Leigh's writing, leading to unsettling and rather unsatisfying character arcs. Not to mention that there was quite little space given for the characters to develop or let them grow in a satisfying way which touches on most of the elements and themes that get brought up with regard to their powers and potential,,, and when it was indeed brought up, it was all in vain since they were never followed through.

That's one of the biggest problems for me in RoW: Plot points brought up in KoS were not brought forward in RoW.

II. The Plot, Possibilities and Potential.

Phew. Truly buckle up because this train has too many coaches. And to discuss them all, let’s keep the starting point as Crooked Kingdom.

a) Parem

Now, by the end of Crooked Kingdom, we know some important things about the parem.

It's dangerous asf for the Grisha who have to sacrifice their will and capabilities for a short time superpower high that they didn’t even ask for

Which means they are more often than not forced to consume the drug

Shu Han is the creator of the Parem and are also creating a new kind of soldiers called Khergud (who additionally require Ruthenium, but we’ll talk abt that later)

Fjerda snatched the formula after kidnapping Bo Yul-Bayur, keeping him away in the Ice Court and in their possession, and used the Parem to further their own heedlessly heinous agenda

I think it’s easy to understand how KoS started off on the right track, considering that Kuwei Yul Bo is mentioned, the antidote and jurda is brought up and so come the political tensions alongside it (what with the impending war, the demon, the lack of funds in the coffers and security and peace for the country alongside safety for the Grisha).

The point is, parem is a character of its own. CK was its inception, and its fate was decreed along with its lifespan and its doom. Ideally, by the end of RoW, parem should have been vanquished while addressing its nature as a deadly drug, the addiction and aftermath, and the key person who will guide the plot: Kuwei Yul Bo.

Parem is a political tool that pitted countries against each other, making one another their allies or enemies. (Though parem is not the only one factor). Ravka doesn’t yet know about Kerch’s neutrality. The Shu made their move to assassinate in the end, just as Fjerda cleared the air about their goals.

Point is, parem is weapon, a new kind of warfare that keeps getting alluded to in KoS. The first book gave a glimpse of how the Shu and Fjerda are using parem, thereby exploiting, prejudicing etc. the Grisha in their countries. Khergud whose humanity is washed away with parem + ruthenium, and the Fjerdan Grisha (are targeted) drugged and exploited while be subjected to torture, training and imminent death, parametres of these outcomes being severely gendered.

Ravka too wanted to weaponize it and create a usable strain that would still give the Grisha their powers but at a minimal cost, until Nikolai’s conversation with Grigori convinces him out of it and to use only the antidote for the Grisha.

And when are the contents of this conversation brought up again?

Never.

Another aspect of parem (that the conversation also covers) is this: that what was once merzost, parem is its strange cousin. Parem parallels breaking the bounds of Grisha norms unnaturally, while merzost takes it a step further to break the bounds of nature itself, which comes with a heavy price. They're both the same with little differences. Amplifiers are in tune with this discussion, hence the conversation between Zoya and Nikolai about how, and whether or not the abomination in him, the parem, and the amplifiers are tied together. This gets brought up again in the conversation with Grigori.

Parem parallels the superpowers, something that Zoya too manages to achieve once the corruption of the amplifier business is resolved, which makes her realize how in tune with nature the Grisha must be, and how limited the Grisha powers until then had been. And why the amplifiers were a corrupted piece of magic.

Zoya was supposed to be the conduit in that sense that she reversed the Grisha norms and understood the importance and nature of small science. This is alongisde parem getting abolished or resolved in the least, be given a redressal.

Yet instead in RoW, we barely see any of Zoya’s powers, nor even her experimentation and hunger for power which would give her protection. We don't see how she begins to realize that while power was indeed protection, it was also a responsibility. Not clearly, anyway.

So like, not only is this entire discussion thrown away in Rule of Wolves, but no matters are resolved either. Parem did not reach its end like it was supposed to. Merzost with regard to parem would have been an excellent thing to address, with or without the Darkling being present, because the blight is there. But that doesn’t happen.

What happens instead? We get one chapter of Grisha getting the antidote during the face off at the start of the book, the women in Fjerda are not brought up again and instead we jump to Shu Han. Kuwei is also conveniently forgotten because hey, the Zemeni are here so it’s all sorted!

RoW could have (should have actually) sought to address both the political and medical (?) aftermath and implications. Maybe it did succeed in showing the political side of it, with regard to Mayu, Ehri, Makhi and Tamar’s storylines. But that’s only in Shu Han, whose state of affairs we had NO idea of until RoW. No idea, so much that it was completely out of the blue.

And what we did know (get to know about in KoS) is Fjerda and the affairs there remained… unsolved.

(...sorry).

b) Grisha Powers

Re: From the conversation between Nikolai and Grigori, and Juris and Zoya, about how parem and the amplifiers are parallel to each other in terms of being abominations, a corruption of Grisha powers. Now the theory of it is not entirely explained, but we do know that the parem and whatever Zoya learnt from Juris was meant to move along in the same direction.

But we don't see another mention of it, except maybe we could dig a little deeper and realize that it all adds up because Zoya is the Grisha Queen of Ravka, Summoner, Soldier, Saint, all of it rushed and unnecessarily magical in a war so dire and realistic in RoW.

Welp.

c) Spy business

Just… genuinely what even was Nina up to in RoW? A spy, sure, but only to garner information on the pretender?

Why couldn’t there have been two responsibilities for her to uncover: the lies or truths about the pretender while the Apparat causes hindrances, and Nina trying to seek out more documents of the locations and labs where the Grisha women are being tormented and the other Grisha being weaponized? It could have been a leverage to discredit Fjerda in front of everybody in the Os Kervo scene. Imagine if Nina whipped out the documents of Grisha labs and brought the truth of the exploitation and killing and kidnapping etc. in front of the convention of all nations. All of it together would have upped the political tensions by quite the notch.

Even then, there’s a possibility that it wouldn’t matter either because the Grisha aren’t exactly valuable to all the nations. But killing and exploiting is still wrong so maybe it might have worked? Or see, even if it wouldn’t have, the slow and sluggish realization of Mila’s identity by Brum, and alongside writing it as a tragedy where Nina’s efforts seem to have gone to waste, or where Nina is telling Zoya about not accounting for Prince Rasmus’ word and she informs her about the documents she has snatched? Something could have been done here?

The point is, KoS focused on Fjerda and its unraveling, and it wasn’t continued with and through in Rule of Wolves. Instead it sought to find the problem in a whole new country, Shu Han, and fixed it within the same book leaving the other country as it is.

d) Ruthenium and the Blight

Ruthenium, the metal that is an alloy of regular metal and Grisha made steel, could have been utilized more significantly in the books.

I mention it in association with the blight because while on one hand it is true that the blight is an area full of nothingness, ruthenium as a metal could have been utilized to show the effects of rushed industrialization that is leading to the ground losing its essence. This is supposed to be advanced warfare after all. Besides, Makhi loses someone very dear to her. Perhaps ruthenium is more dangerous in Shu Han because the Shu use it to create the khergud, so the constant manufacturing of it has been leading to the metal leeching the lands of their fertility, along with the blight.

And so also to broker peace, Ravka could have provided aid in some ways. :

1) The Darkling sacrificed himself, as a result of which the blight vanishes. While the blight took away her niece, the possibility of a blight persisting despite the ending of RoW could be attributed to ruthenium.

2) Ravka could provide the reversing effect to the alloy of ruthenium and metal using Grisha and otkazt’sya engineering and ingenuity to replenish the lands.

All in addition to whatever will be Shu Han’s policies to bring lushness to their lands.

e) Women and War:

Holy fucking Shit, where do I start with this?

Whatever we saw in Fjerda was haunting, and we see it from Nina’s chapters. There’s literally no resolution for it, nor is it ever brought up again, at all. In Zoya’s chapters, we see through her eyes the brunt that Grisha faced with the war, and in a country that has refused to recognize Grisha as the citizens and considers them expendable.

Add to it her own narrative of how the women are never mentioned, let alone the ones that she has lost or has known to suffer, at the hands of the war, at the Darkling's torture and powers. The description of these women suffering, often being forgotten and thrown aside as mere casualties… where or when was it ever going to be brought up again?

Like, switching between such horrifying things happening in Fjerda to whatever was happening with Zoya and Nikolai and Isaak is such a contrast, horrifyingly demeaning and insulting, even more so when it failed to align with the importance of parem and offer a solution to both these problems.

Now switch to Rule of Wolves, where the Tavgahard women immolate themselves on Queen Makhi’s orders. Not only is that such a cheap and insensitive thing to do, it gets treated a simple fucking plot point in the book, and it barely gets addressed afterwards. Women in Asia have a vastly complex and complicated history with fire, and this is a serious criticism that culturally affects readers in personal ways. And what gets done about it? Fine, Zoya feels baaaad, sorry oops why would the women do that?!?!?

Where is the adequate sensitivity to the topic? Where is the continuation of the pain Zoya feels for many people, despite them being the enemy? How does she honour them? Where is all that dilemma and pain? Why does she not think of them or just get a line or two to talk about them?

Where is the due importance for this suffering given? Structurally and culturally?

f) Soldier, Summoner, Saint / Yaromir the Great

We never really get any explanation for why Zoya deserves to be the Queen, and why she is the best. But we do get to see why Nikolai isn’t the one supposed to be on the throne, and it’s not just because of his parentage but also because of his failings and doubts and the need for acceptance with the secrets he carried.

Here's the thing though; it’s not just about her showing mercy. It’s very subtle, and in good sense, should actually have been given a little bit more importance that be loosely brought up at random times.

Keeping aside the fact that Zoya is representative of Ravka—a woman, a Grisha, a Suli girl who changed the course of war and who knew what it was like living in poverty, being as an underprivileged person of the society in addition to the trauma from then and the state of living at her aunt’s place—which is meant to be covertly apparent, the other reason tracks back to Yaromir the First, who with the help of Sankt Feliks of the Apple Boughs—the one who raised the thornwood—lead Ravka at that time into the age of peace.

The Darkling testified that in his POVs, that while Feliks and Yaromir worked in tandem for Ravka, Aleksander worked for safeguarding the Grisha. In one sense, Zoya is supposed to reflect that moment in history in the present moment, except she is Queen and Sankta, and Grisha, all three at once.

It is brought up in one of the Darkling’s POVs and once in the conversation with Yuri in KoS. Other than that, we never actually get any more hints of this explanation in the text, which is the reason why the entire ending felt so so rushed, and like a fever dream, that even if it was a plot twist, it was kinda very baseless when it should have been more ohhhhh sort of a thing.

g) The Starless Cult and Saint Worship

This cult had immense potential to blossom into many things, some of which were indeed touched upon in KoS when Zoya says that she saw a bit of herself in Yuri, and brings up time and again how easily she’d been led and had not been aware enough of what’s right and wrong, just as she supposes Yuri is too. And to some extent, there is truth there, because in the Lives of Saints, we do see why Yrui comes about to hail the Darkling and how it parallels Zoya’s, of being helpless and ten being saved by a different power/ their own power, respectively.

That’s where it forks, that Zoya is older and realizes the path that Yuri has chosen and understands that it won't happen until he realizes it himself because the Darkling’s crimes are so obvious.

Even then, there’s still more potential: This cult could have been the mirror that would make Zoya reflect on the questionable methods of the Darkling, and the ways in which she might be mirroring them, despite or not it is the necessity because of the war. How she is training soldiers too, just as the Darkling did, and while the need to take children away from their homes just as soon as they were discovered Grisha was abolished, it was war, and they needed soldiers.

So like, there’s quite a big narrative going on here, how mere children are pushed into one path of becoming a soldier and the whole system that was that the Darkling followed to train the Grisha and all of that. All of this in addition to the juxtaposition to the Grisha being seen as elite despite them being hunted, and the people who are not Grisha frowning upon them. This is also the work of the Darkling, which actually paves the way to see how there can be a world where the Grisha are not feared or seen as abnormal, despite or not they are given a Saint-like narrative.

This cult could also have been the segue to discussing Yuri and his brainwashing, and the sort of cult-ish behaviour of believing in something firm when you couldn’t believe in yourself, or not seeing the magnitude of the crimes of their supposed Saint, alongside always staying focused on becoming a soldier only and never actually thinking beyond what is told.

Some of these are very subtle and some are brought up, but never given too much of an explanation.

Genya brings up another good point in the funeral chapter, about how Fjerda seemingly taking into the whole Saints thing could mean that if the Darkling moved there, he could very well sprawl his influence there to bring in supporters. Which leads to another discussion that gets brought up towards the end of the book: about Nina telling about the Ravkan Saints to Hanne and therefore to the Fjerdans,,, which doesn’t exactly sit right with me. It’s still a very nascent topic, and I think SoC3 will explore this path of faith and personal beliefs etc. but leaving it just there, while talking so much about Saints in both the countries,,, don’t exactly know how to put it into thoughts here.

But regardless, the cult of the Starless had different potential to talk of (blind) worshipping of an ideal without critically examining why the person must be put on the pedestal in the first place (and if it is simply power, then there is actually a narrative right there, which RoW gets right, about the people valuing the power still, as a result of which the monarchy still persists at the end of RoW. Even then, there’s more discussion awaiting there).

Not sure if any of this makes sense, but I’ll leave it at this here for now.

edit: 05/07/2021 | I think what I was trying to say here is that we do not have any kind of narrative evidence to seeing how and why it seems right that the Fjerdans will worship Ravkan Saints; is it merely because they are all Grisha? Or is it because of the segue explore this path of faith and personal beliefs and all of that, of the talk of the monastery and the Grisha there being of all identities, that a monastery is in Shu Han, that it has Djel's sacred Ash tree so far away from Fjerda... much to think about.

III. Characters, Characterization, Character Potential.

Mostly going to be about Nina and Zoya, but I’ll bunch up the rest of them at the end.

a) Nina

*head in hands*

I severely mourned how poorly Zoya was written in RoW, but then I realized that more than Zoya, it’s Nina whose potential was severely undermined and wasted. On one hand, I’m glad she uses her powers and quick thinking,observation and her own tactics to analyze the population and opt for the best way to make them see the truth she wants to show them (eg: making Leoni and Adrik and Zoya saints and also showing that the Grisha are the children of Djel via people’s belief to Joran and Rasmus’s mother).

But then, it’s like you said; her parts were so offbeat and outpaced and completely disjointed, when in fact, Nina is the thread that ties all the characters, their plotlines and potential, together. Nina is connected to Zoya and Hanne, two equally important characters and main characters of the duology. Whatever scope Nina has, they are greatly in parallel to Zoya and Hanne. And it’s all literally there, in the text! What a waste.

Though keeping aside these parallels, Nina’s own journey from Ketterdam to Ravka to Fjerda, while is spoken about, doesn’t touch some other parts that I see potential in. Or this is just meta.

Nina has grief not just from Matthias’ death but also from the loss of her powers as Heartrender. So much of the Second Army was built on being a soldier, and perhaps the Darkling was not outright disdainful of racial differences in his army, yet he still stripped every part of the children away until they weren’t children anymore in his view. They’re all soldiers… (albeit his soldiers, preparing them to do his bidding because hey, give and take right?). Nina was a soldier, and she is a soldier still under Zoya’s role as a General, but an ‘other’ of a soldier. That’s her only identity, and the loss of her powers means that she’s a different kind of soldier.

I imagine that this entire time, some small part of Nina longed for normalcy, or whatever settled as normal for a life like hers. In the sense that she wants to go back, but what is back and where exactly did she want to go back to? What was the before and after and where did things go wrong or change? There’s tragedy in the realization that whatever you were before what you became is not a place you can return to, and that’s a different kind of loss that she has to bear, and all by herself. She has powers over the dead now, a strange power she learns to grow to, but all the places she has been, all the lives she has led and people she had been, everything might seem like they’ve all been locked away in some strange place leaving her barren and indisposable.

She’s off to Fjerda as someone she isn’t, figuratively and literally. In KoS, Nina brings up many times how odd she feels as Mila and in some capacity longs to be Nina Zenik again. This ties in with the previous point of returning to somewhere, but where?, but is also a segue towards body dysmorphia, the thing that Nina and Hanne’s storylines parallel and connect too with in a small way. It’s a great line to follow to discuss what her discomfort with her body means to herself while it means something entirely different to Hanne, who is also not entirely comfortable being who they are. (This discomfort further which leads to gender dysphoria, while for Nina, it will be about learning to accept her powers. I’ll add on to this in a bit,).

I'm mourning the lost potential of that experience being a parallel to Hanne’s own feelings, of a discussion between people being uncomfortable with their bodies, something that can mean multitudes to each person and on their own accord.

In parallel to Zoya, I like to draw it from the fact about Nina wanting to go back to who she was, while Zoya actively tries to lock her past away and drown it somewhere or throw it to the storm, never to hear of it again. She has no identity other than being a soldier, and that’s enough for Zoya, because who she was before she was a soldier is not pleasant. But moving from being just another expendable shell of soldier under the Darkling’s rule, Zoya becomes the one third of the Triumvirate, and then the King’s general, all of which bring self-awareness of Zoya’s capabilities and challenges that are bound to excite her. But all of these also compel Zoya to be many other people to others as she slowly grows to realize that power is not just protection but also a responsibility, and it will inadvertently mean confronting her past of her lost identity, realizing the how of the Darkling, and how harmful it was. As Genya puts it perfectly in Rule of Wolves, that they were all taken away when they were young kids, not even barely children, and then thrust into responsibilities that didn’t allow them to be anything else other than what the Darkling told them to be.

Back to Nina; a few other great parts about Nina’s arc could have been about her connection to languages, as language being a mode of strengthening identity, in addition to growing to her powers. In RoW, there’s this line that goes ‘how sweet it was to speak her language [Ravkan] again’, and the feeling of homesickness. Like, Nina is trying to connect to Ravka through what she knows best—language, and then stories. In that, Nina realizes a part of her identity, which could also act as a segue to Zoya reclaiming her own heritage and ethnicity. Not only that but Zoya and Nina’s stories are literally so intertwined that it’s hard not to see how their choices and line of thought affect one another’s arcs, in the grief they have and how they choose to treat it, and also show why Zoya is particularly protective of Nina (and keeps wishing that she doesn’t become the monster Zoya had become, in the sense that Nina is more mature in handling her grief than Zoya was and the entire mercy plotline ties Nina, Zoya and even Genya together. More meta, haH).

And that’s why the ending doesn’t make sense. Even though the part about her not being comfortable as Mila is not brought up many times in the continuing chapters (and that’s why perhaps naming Nina’s discomfort as body dysmorphia may be wrong), there’s still the part of Nina readily accepting to be who she was a Mila and remain in Fjerda that seems iffy to me. Especially when Nina and Hanne literally a few chapters ago think about running away (it may be just another alternative they might be fantasizing about, but I think it still means that they both want to be their true selves without hiding any parts of it away). So her staying as Mila… well, it doesn’t exactly add up.

I’d also add the part of Nina’s story mirroring Leoni’s, and how she is from Novyi Zem and being a part of the Second Army meant that she had little to no connection with her past, her culture etc. But maybe that’s just wishful thinking on my part that Leigh went for that arc.

edit: 05/07/2021 | I don't agree with my point anymore about Nina not having the kind of ending I assumed she might have, considering that it is very well possible for Nina to treat her identity as Mila as a fresh start, as a Grisha with a command over the the dead and begin a new normal that is suited for her. You can read more here.

b) Zoya

For one, white passing Zoya is not canon to me. I simply pretend I do not see it.

See, her race was handled very badly. Making her half-Suli was supposed to show the struggles and the trauma that the ridiculing of her identity by other people has caused to her. Except, not enough time nor text is given to thoroughly discuss it. Not to forget how problematic of a narrative in itself it is to make Zoya white passing.

It would have made more sense to make her dark skinned and predominantly Suli-looking than whatever yt bs she was put through. Her not being white-passing would have led to conversations about tokenization, or people caring little about her and not giving her any respect because she is Suli. Or being called beautiful to the face and praised just for it or a harmless tumble in their point of view.

So like, instead of making the ‘mistake’ of seeking for acceptance, seeking appreciation and love, from her mother at first and then the Darkling, Zoya instead makes herself someone to be feared, if respect was not what she deserved. The iciness is a part of her and has always been, but all of it soon became a shield, an armour that she vowed to harden her heart with. Just the sheer impact of this narrative and her reluctance, and seeing Nikolai love her for beyond who she thinks she is… if all of this was canon, I’m pretty sure I’d have built a shrine for this duology.

Let’s now talk about her grief, and...

…

Okay it’s not for me to point fingers at how Leigh chose to write about grief because there’s no one way or one proper approach to go through that pain, and if that’s how she chose to write about grief for Zoya, fine! But I really wish we’d have gotten a little more into her head to see how the trauma has affected her thoughts and how she struggles against why and what exactly it is that Juris wants her to do. That enough time and text was dedicated to Zoya’s feelings and the mayhem it caused her, as a result of which the dragon’s eye took its cue and made things more unbearable to her because she was the only one to bear them all.

Like, I feel like Zoya was overwhelmed throughout the book and in between she had some skyhigh responsibilities to discharge and it’s all so inconsistent and poorly woven,,, it completely dissolved her character from KoS and made it 10000000x more miserable for me to read her POVs. And honestly, what even were her assignments that the Kirkus review mentioned? Never an inch of text in RoW is given to decipher her complications of her mind, the muddled sense of hopelessness and fear that grips her time and again. Why overwhelm her so much that you fail to do her mental state and capacity any justice?

I’m not going to be harsh about how much David’s death bothered me-- no actually fuck that; what’s the point? Fine, he died. All because you wanted to make his death a plot device to make Zoya reconcile with loss and deal with it? Where was Genya’s grief? Literally no point of having a death in the book at all, and it didn’t even achieve anything. (I’m still trying to wrap my head around why David’s death was important and maybe if I find some straws, I’ll consider…)

There were so many other ways around it; could have brought back Lada and killed her off, or have the Darkling piss her off so badly or just. Something. Instead of whatever happened with David. I think this is too harsh and insensitive of me to say about Leigh, but still… there’s a myriad of other ways to have gone about it. Helping Zoya deal with her grief with Nikolai at her side, to understand that the rage that was fueled from her loneliness, like it had been in the past, could now be a weight that Nikolai was willing to carry with her… Helping someone with their grief, staying and choosing is also a love language you know?

So in that regard, I won’t regret saying how flat the garden scene was to me. Zoya’s lines, though tinged with grief, were so out of what I would expect KoS Zoya to say. Maybe it’s also because of how bitter I was reading about David's death, despite that part being spoiled for me.

The cost shouldn’t have been David’s death, especially not when his death too wasn’t properly handled at all, and Genya’s grief was never spared a second thought beyond bringing Titanium.

Now let’s talk about how Out of Character Zoya was throughout the book. Her punchy attitude was missing, and even if she was warming up to her friends, we see little of the iciness she continues to retain. Another part of this is about exploring her relationships, particularly with Nikolai and her growing feelings for him. I wish we’d have seen them grapple with more of their confusion and propriety, if only for the yearning™. Besides, no matter how cute their scenes were, they were mostly (like maybe some. 70%) awful to read them, simply because it felt so odd to see Zoya be so open with Nikolai, all of a sudden.

A part of this definitely has to be the fact that we don’t know just how much time has passed between the end of KoS and the start of RoW, and we never, never see any description of they regarded their feelings for each other and how they understood it themselves. I don’t actually know how exactly I can put this into words in a manner that will make sense, but the only scenes where I appreciated Zoyalai were in the Ketterdam chapters, ONLY. The rest was… bleh lmao. Their scenes were so cute and brilliant, and if only we’d seen more of the internal conflict and had given some more time for them to practically approach their feelings but still end up in the puddle of it. If only.

Their scenes apart were the good ones, because that’s where we finally see Nikolai feeling the loss, no matter how temporary (on the verge of being permanent since it’s the war), of not having Zoya with him, of not being there with Zoya because who else would it be if it wasn’t her? Zoyalai had good scenes but they barely lived up to the mark lol. Their feelings are never thoroughly explored, nor their mental capacities.

While we’re talking about Zoyalai, let’s also talk about how lame it was for Zoya to say that Nikolai was the golden spirited hero all along, from the very start, when canonically we know Zoya had little to do with him in the earlier books, that she may have only been physically attracted to him and never saw him as more than just some guy with a responsibility to manage, and had sooooooo much distrust about him. And that it was only in the next few years of working with him and alongside did she grow to recognize his efforts and relish in the hope that he was building for Ravka, inadvertently making Zoya hopeful too.

Nope. Instead, we’ll just throw in some destiny bs that he was the one all along rather than show that the beauty of their relationship did not stem what they perceived of each other, but was instead built on strong respect and admiration for one another and their capabilities. 100% destroyed their relationship for me.

Some good parts about Zoya’s arc in RoW was how she acknowledged her past mistakes, and the nuance that was touched upon in seeing sense in becoming a soldier from the start, that offered her a chance to be anything other than a bride. That some part of her was grateful for the Darkling for teaching her how to fight, while still keeping Genya’s words in mind about how they were mere kids, children who had only one path to traverse because the Darkling (who wanted their acceptance and loyalty) nor the Kings of the country let the Grisha be anything else other than pawns of the war. That she recognizes her mistakes as a teen and how self centred she was, that her being snotty had at times cost some peoples’ lives too. And she doesn’t take the blame all up on herself, because it’s not hers alone to bear. Super good.

Also, the way Zoya comes to view power as responsibility instead of merely as protection was something cool to read about. It’s not clear in the books, but Zoya actively tried to not be the Darkling while still continuing to build an army for the war out of necessity, and actually sharing some parts of the dream that the Darkling had for the Grisha. I can’t articulate this so perfectly, but the point is, Zoya trying to avoid becoming a tyrant like the Darkling was an active process that she was constantly trying to change, and where Zoya could not recognize her own feelings and inherent thoughts about warfare that in some ways did mirror the Darkling’s, by the end of book, Zoya is much more self-aware and conscious of herself and her power than she was at the start of the book. And this was well done.

Now, what is up with YA and making people turn into giants or animals lol wtf. Why couldn’t we have seen Zoya use her dragon powers in a way that symbolizes the conditions of her dragon amplifier and the power of the knowledge she obtained from Juris? She is a Saint, and we’ve seen that their powers allowed them to cause ‘miracles’ and such, as we see at the start of KoS and at the end.

Why couldn’t we have seen Zoya dabble with her newfound powers and completely lose her shit in anger during the wae, only to rein back in mercy, just as someone from Fjerda begs for forgiveness since they see her then as a Saint? Adrik and Leoni used their powers in Fjerda, so having Zoya bring about a conundrum of all orders and do something about it would also have been cool, wouldn’t it? In the funeral scene we see her turn water into ice, thereby making a path for Genya. Why couldn’t we have had more exploration of the importance of the dragon’s eye and the general nausea of being overly empathetic every. damn. time? Why didn’t we get to see her powers? Why couldn’t we have seen her fail in them and realize that the reason she was not perfect was because she was trying to be strong on her own and was not relying on others and joint effort?

Her turning into a dragon was genuinely the most baffling part bc here’s a war that’s so serious and dire with metals and bombs, and then here’s this magic that will solve all of it entirely. Like I’m not saying it was bad, (I am actually saying just that) but I also don’t know what I am saying, except that the ending felt like a fever dream.

…?

Not sure if I’ve managed to convey it properly, but well. Zoya felt out of character throughout RoW, and that the only place I saw KoS Zoya was in the final Os Kervo scene where Zoya finally agrees to be the queen.

c) Nikolai

Nikolai’s arc was very satisfying and brilliant to read about in RoW. In KoS, he seemed very much like a passive character, one of the reasons why his stunt with the Shu in RoW was appreciable, no matter how ill-timed of a plot turn it was. His journey throughout this book was also introspective to see why others deemed him unfit as the King, and even if they were his enemies who thought that in want to dispose him from the throne, Nikolai realizes that him being on the throne is not of much value and that this book was entirely about him seeing his privilege and making decisions to counter and correct the mistakes he’s made. That was nice. Oh, also his father not being an antagonist was a pleasant surprise.

I don’t have many complaints about him, except perhaps wanting some more internal conflict and elaboration about his feelings for Zoya. Them being apart was where it was satisfying, and then in the Ketterdam chapters. His arc could have been better in KoS, but that’s to blame the plot for the characterization.

d) Hanne

Now, from the very start, their arc was super good and it only got better and better until… the ending. Except it’s so odd that Hanne, a poc, has to now live as white person, while feeling comfortable in their transmasc identity. Icky, no? That you need to eliminate one part of your identity in order to feel safe and comfortable about another? Add to this the whole white-passing Zoya thing,,, doesn't exactly send off the right message.

Together with Nina, the ending seems uncharacteristic for both of them. Them coming to accept their powers and knowing to use their powers on their own accord was brilliant, though the entire husband business felt very,,, eh to me, even if it did make sense. The ending about their name and their new identity was too vague.

e) Genya, Leoni and Adrik, Kuwei, Mayu,

Genya is the one who faced the most disservice along with David. While there were exceptional parts to both of their plotlines, it's still sad that even if David's death was necessary, we don't get to see the entirety of her grief and the possible anger, and that her kindness is simply used as the justification for lack of portrayal of grief.

It really did take me by surprise, mostly because I wasn't a fan of the original Shadow and Bone book, but seeing David's conscience and self-awareness, along with Genya's (and Zoya thinking of how she wouldn't let any harm come to them, which shows a bit of her development towards her character development), was plenty refreshing. David and Genya were genuinely the highlights of the book and to kill David off was just. doesn't sit right with me.

Leoni and Adrik deserved more page time. They’re saints and immensely capable (no wonder they’re now the Triumvirate), but a few more pages for them to shine would not only have been nice, but also a necessity.

And now, Kuwei...

....

I mean,,, parem should have been the plot, alongside the entire weaponry and the discussion of making a city killer. But uh… that didn’t happen.

There's not much I have to say about Mayu, Tamar and Ehri, except that their plot was superb, only very badly timed.

There's more to talk about them in the remedy tho.

IV. Remedy

Here’s the deal. Before KoS release, there should have been a Nina novella.

Nina is a very important character. All of her potential, alongside many other parts of her personality--from dealing with grief, to accustoming to her powers, to growing stronger--there could be so much to do with her as a protagonist, alongside another character: Mayu.

A whole book dedicated to Nina in Fjerda with Hanne? Brilliant. Show Stopping. Mind blowing. It gives SO much page time to explore not just Nina and Mayu, Hanne, but also Zoya, Leoni and Inej. All together.

How?

Nina’s plotline carries the entire medical effects of the use of parem, just as Mayu’s will carry the pain she feels about her brother being a part of the khergud program. The novella will give ample time to flesh them out as characters and protagonists, each dealing with plot problems and problems of their own--like the loss of ones powers and newfound responsibilities, and the shared loss of a beloved person in parallel, even if neither Nina or Mayu interact on page.

Fjerda and Shu Han could be tied together with one chapter as a POV from Zoya (or maybe two), who, along with the Triumvirate and Nikolai, are completely at loss with the political scenario in the country, and are debating over what should be the course of action. Zoya receives news from the scouts, and missives from Nina, and Tamar takes care of the information she garners from the rest of the network, including Shu Han.

Like, the entire surprise of finding a Zoya POV, from a character whom until CK we’ve known as cold hearted and stern and not giving a fuck about anything or anyone, be humanized in that one chapter, thereby building up the anticipation for her arc,,, the very potential,,, *chef's kiss*.

And by the end of book, we could have an POV--or maybe a cameo if not a POV--of Inej meeting Nina on one of her travels of slave hunting. Inej could help take care that the women that Nina has rescued (as Nina does in KoS) reach the Ravkan shorelines safely. But, for a price.

The entire parallels between Leoni and Hanne and Nina could be set up, while also building up the narrative for the Saints’ plotline with Adrik's, Leoni's and Nina’s powers (like it was at the end of KoS). KoS and RoW would thereby continue it by tackling the weaponization and the antidote, Sainthood and the rest of the politics of it all.

Coming to Shu Han: one key aspect that I’d love to have explored would be the importance of art, during or despite the war. Of how war or pain chips away culture, while detailing on the ill effects of it from the commoners' perspectives, from the soldiers etc. Art is integral to Shu Han and could be portrayed by Mayu’s pain finding balm in poetry, of seeing glimpses of Ehri poring over poetry also mayri ftw, of politics that Makhi is weaving against Ravka, etc.

Or also add some more length to Zoya’s POV and explore a bit of Tamar and Tolya and Kuwei’s interactions and perspective added to it, of missing a home that they seemed to not know, or know; of discussing culture and differences on the basis of where they’re from (maybe the twins are from the borders, while Kuwei grew up near the capital or somewhere distant from the borders etc.), all while directly pointing at Zoya’s heritage and how it ebbs at her conscience, no matter how much she wants to bury it.

POTENTIAL !!!

Like,,, Nina novella would have been too powerful. It would have been perfect. I think I’d excuse bringing back the Darkling too if this was the case. (Or maybe not).

But welp.

Hey, thanks for reading! Not sure if you could make it this far, but if you have, you honestly deserve a medal for sitting through this all. I can’t imagine how tiring it must be to read through this, considering it seemed to take it more than month to compile this there’s also me procrastinating on it too so i’,mbhbdhshfsdn

Drop an ask if you want to talk more about this!

Sincerely, thank you!!!

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venomremmy777 · 3 years

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-sigh-

A lot of you did not understand my last post, so let me explain

I KNOW THAT SAYING A SHIP IS CANON IS MEMEING

Hell, I do the very same thing MYSELF. I know they’re just enjoying ships, but some people GENUINELY think the ship is canon. As usual, the MHA fandom took this too literally, and too generally, so let me walk you through this-

Horikoshi: Makes Deku play a big role in helping Todoroki from his trauma, and gives fanservice

The Fandom: OMG TODODEKU CANON

I know when people say TodoDeku is canon, if any, they’re joking. I originally wasn’t going to put TodoDeku, since it wouldn’t make much sense to put it. But I decided to anyways, but just as a lead. That’s all it was, a lead, into this-

Horikoshi: Has Uraraka get a crush on Deku

The Fandom: NO! IZUOCHA CANON NOW, NOT TODODEKU

Honestly this doesn’t have much importance either, I was just adding the TodoDeku vs IzuOcha stuff for relevance, and the fact I wanted to include as many mainstream ships as possible, without targeting one group.

Horikoshi: Writes an intimate and relationship between Momo and Jirou

The fandom: THEY’RE LESBIANS! 🥰

A lot of people GENUINELY think this. Jirou has been shown to blush or get shy around girls, and her Momo are often featured next to each other in Horikoshis sketch’s, BLUSHING. No, no- I’m not saying they’re canon, I’m just saying canon things. Take it as you will.

But…

Horikoshi: Makes Jirou the most important person to Kaminari

The fandom: IF THATS NOT ON THE ROAD TO CANON IDK WHAT IS! 😍

Okay so, now that Jirou is important to Kaminari, all of a sudden the MomoJirou stuff is irrelevant? KamiJirou is considered one of the most canon BNHA ships in the MHA fandom, because of this. But how come people considered MomoJirou a possibility, but they don’t now? And yes, I know, not everyone thinks that. Some people think KamiJirou is canon and others think MomoJirou is, I don’t really think anyone changed their minds on this one.

Idk if you’ve caught on, but I was mainly targeting a certain group, I just added other ships for fillers and meme- purposes. I also didn’t want to seem biased or like I was attacking, but I suppose I’ll have to since y’all did an r/whooosh

Horikoshi: Says he likes TodoMom-

The fandom: cOnFiRmEd

Again…we’re just going to brush off the MomoJirou progress? Or the fact Todoroki and Momo don’t have a lot of screentime. Yes, Horikoshi likes Todomomo. That does give it a high chance and I DO Love this ship! But a creator liking a ship doesn’t make it canon! Trust me, other fandoms, other experiences…

People genuinely think TodoMomo is canon too. Not like a funny “Haha Todoroki is looking at her in this background panel” No, I mean FULL ON, SERIOUS, ESSAY-LENGTH EXPLANATIONS and GENUINE beliefs

Horikoshi: Writes an arc about KiriBaku and their importance to each other, giving subtle hints and a shit ton of “coincidental” evidence

The fandom: GUYS LOOOOOK! MORE KRBK PROOF! KIRIBAKU CANON! 😍

Welp, here it is. The first of the three I was targeting, and my own fandom. I am, in fact, one of those delusional people, who thinks it’s actually canon. But I am well aware the LGBT does not have the upper hand in a Shounen genre, but I like to hope. Hope that maybe, just maybe, we can find peace here. I wasn’t really talking about the fact of Krbks calling KRBK canon, cause that would have been hypocritical of me. I meant the fact that at a certain point, Kirishima and Bakugo’s relationship was focused on so much in 2018, it basically became this trend. Where EVERYONE thought this ship had a chance. Because they seemed to ALWAYS BE NEXT TO EACH OTHER

You’re probably thinking,”What’s the point of this then?”

Well, here’s the point-

Horikoshi: Drops them to focus on Bakugo and Deku’s redemption and relationship building

Fandom: Oop- GUESS BKDK IS CANON NOW 😄🤭 So sad, I wanted KiriBaku/ IzuOcha oh well 😔

Okay here’s the thing, with the KRBK vs BKDK, I meant it more of a platonic or general sense. People seem to think that just because Kirishima and Bakugo haven’t interacted in a hundred chapters they’re suddenly irrelevant to each other?! As if they aren’t at least friends anymore?!?! I’ve seen people say “Kirishima was used for Bakugo’s redemption so he could get along better with Deku, so now there’s no need for him anymore” Um…no? KiriBakus development is a WHOLE OTHER THING FROM BKDK DEVELOPMENT. And all of you fellow Krbks- Stop crying a river because they haven’t interacted for 100 chapters! Bakugo and Deku redeeming their friendship is important!! LET THE BKDKS HAVE THIS! It’s what they wanted. Just because Deku and Bakugo are becoming friends, doesn’t mean Kirishima and Bakugo aren’t. So, just stop. Please. You don’t become best friends with each other and then all of a sudden say “Hey dude, your important to me n’ all, but there’s this other guy who I used to be friends with, but I kinda bullied him, so…Kinda gotta fix my relationship with him. Anyways lmao bye sEe yA nEVEr-“ I’m preeetttyyy sure that’s not how it works.

A lot of you might say, “No one says that” Oh, Ho, Really?

Now, finally, the last serious one…

Horikoshi: Gives Kirishima and Mina a chapter

The fandom: KiRiMinA cOnfiRmEd

This one I am being DEADASS serious. Horikoshi decided to finally introduce the arc where Kirishima gets over what happened in middle school, and Minas importance or lack thereof, whatever, to him. He saved her, and Mina did a new move “Acid Man” inspired by “UNBREAKABLE”. And apparently, this was leading to the road of being endgame. HELL- Even some Krbks were pouting like, “Yeah, but with the way the manga is going KiriMina is going to be endgame” OH MY GOODNESS GRACIOUS. Again! Just fuck the Krbk development right?! Just fuck it all! Because apparently, they can’t have other relationships of them focused on, without you thinking THATS going to be canon instead. Before you call me biased and delusional, MORE PROOF 👇

The last “IiDaDeKu” one was clearly just a meme, a funny, trending note to end on.

Please oh please understand the purpose of this!! It’s too make those of you doing this award of how guillable you’re being- and that NO SHIPS ARE CANON UNTIL THEY ACTUALLY ARE, FOR NOW ITS JUST POTENTIAL

And as a joke!! So we can LAUGH together about how much of a MESS this fandom is!

I mean- Fuck- I just had to explain a joke to you!!!

Also I’m sorry about my attitude but the replies made me pissed- Y’all made me sound like an Anti or a dude bro

WHO I HATE WITH EVERY SINGLE FIBER IN MY BEING

So don’t compare me to them again!!

I have a feeling- A STRONG feeling, some of y’all will think I’m just being rude and stupid, and I have no right to be mad, and STILL won’t get the purpose or joke of my last post, but if you do…

THANK YOU

BONUS:

Yes I do understand enjoying ships actually. Shipping is my whole life, I more than understand the difference between shipping for fun and shipping for a purpose. I get that some people ship as a comfort and others a hobby. I know it’s both platonic and romantic. I understand it’s not only to pair people together but to explore different possibilities. I know the difference between wanting your ship to be canon and genuinely thinking it is. I know shipping is for enjoyment, and it’s not about which becomes canon. I KNOW people are joking when they say it’s canon, but in the case with some of these they aren’t. And yeah, I know it’s a minority, but it’s an annoying, LOUD minority. No shit Sherlock people say certain ships are canon as a joke when they get crumbs

NO FUCKING DUH

#I’m sorry #but what the hell #imagine being me #a diehard shipper #accused of being a dudebro #I’m appalled and offended #y’all did an r/whooooshh #I actually thought some people would agree with me #and realize Hey yeah maybe this fandom does get too worked up over ships sometimes #maybe we do think every huge interaction is a nod to them being canon #but no #again MHA fandom you have proven to me once again you are the land of the ignorants #kiribaku #mha #anime #shitpost #canon #KiriMina #TodoDeku #BakuDeku #KamiJirou #momojirou #I was JOKING #But at the same time trying to raise self awareness #didn’t work I guess #not that I’m surprised #if parts of other fandoms are separated by gates than this one’s is separated by the GREAT WALL OF CHINA #Am I the only one having to deal with and noticing how ignorant oblivious and guillable this fAnBaSe is like #we all agree this fandom is toxic #but am I the only one who realizes how STUPID we can be?!

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whentherewerebicycles · 2 years

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okay still in a little bit of a funk and definitely experiencing some overwhelm re: job application stuff. i think i need to break some of these tasks down a little further.

immediate targets:

content writer & learning designer (tech job but i think the company is doing good interesting work around parental leave and supporting parents so it feels tied to some of my interests. also probably the most time sensitive one & highest priority in terms of: i could move on my own schedule because it’s remote)

private school english teaching job

assistant director in a student services type role (this one is only worth it if the pay is good... looks like a TON of work)

so i will need to develop the following things:

writing/instructional design resume

writing/instructional design cover letter (short and snappy)

high school teaching resume

high school teaching cover letter (adapt old teaching letter)

higher ed admin resume

higher ed admin cover letter

writing/instructional design resume will focus on teaching, writing counseling, grad research

high school teaching resume will focus on teaching, coaching, mentoring work with emphasis on high school and freshman mentoring experience

higher ed admin resume will focus on program management, mentoring, teaching work with heavy emphasis on current job work

this feels like a lot of work and frankly i feel overwhelmed!! but i am also trying to remind myself that there will be a huge initial burst of work and then things will get much easier once i have a bank of material to work with and am just tailoring and improving. i think i am also experiencing some overwhelm from just having too many tabs open and doing too much online. i think i might take a little break, maybe to go for a walk. then i will do a 1-hour chunk of focused job work, after which i am free to be fully done with job stuff for the day. and the structure will be:

20 min: set a timer and find as many relevant resumes and resources for writing better resume bullet points as possible (ideally with a focus on the content designer/ID job)

10 min: print everything

20 min: closely read and annotate what i printed

10 min: set a timer and take a burst of notes (goal is to generate some initial ideas for the resume and cover letter, so i can hopefully get each of those done in a separate work block this week)

that’s it! then i am released from any additional job search work today (and banned from doing any further browsing of job ad boards... that kicks my anxiety into high gear so let’s nip that in the bud by putting some boundaries around it).

#jes embraces change #job stuff

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zahara-fire · 4 years

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Long Post Discussing Dream TWT: Featuring Fan, Hate, and Trending Talks Mostly (Interaction Absolutely Encouraged)

(A lot of this can actually be applied to all fanbases but I chose the one relevant to my current interests and issues that were on my radar.)

I made a post previously that my love for mcyts (Specifically members of the Dream SMP) was dying because of nonstop Dream hate on Twitter. I felt like I couldn't safely look through a trending tag (which will be a separate discussion in this) without having to also see endless insults, attacks, and belittlement amongst people just trying to have fun with CCs. To make this understandable and easy for me to keep on theme I'm gonna break it down into the relevant topics also this is absolutely open for discussion as long as everyone is being respectful. Do not insult people and if they seem like a troll just leave them be.

Fans vs Stans:

So this, I think, is a center point for the Dream hate. It feels that anyone expressing interest in Dream and related CCs content is immediately targeted and made fun of because obviously you can't enjoy something without being an awful person to people who don't enjoy said thing. That last statement was sarcastic (just so its clear). People especially on Twitter will be relentless in preying on just basic fans for simply posting about a funny moment. They claim its because its annoying and nonstop and all of their fans are obviously brainwashed.

No. Just. No.

Enjoying something means you consume it. If you enjoy sports you watch the team play. No one says yeah this is my favorite team I watched one game once. That would be ridiculous. So it makes no sense to attack people for watching a person's content and knowing their content when they're a fan of said content.

That being said, yes people can get carried away and be rude to people for no reason. This however includes people hating on fans simply for being fans. You can't say you're disrespectful to all fans because one time a few were rude to you. Every fan base has rude people and at this point in the internet people WILL talk more about bad than good so please don't assume the worst because you heard a story or saw one wildly talked about incident where a small percentage of fans were involved and where other fans were actively telling the others to chill out.

Trending and Interaction:

This is the topic I sort of touched on in my last post. So to summarize, Dream and his friends trend A LOT. This isn't surprising as one, they're popular at the moment and two, they're streamers so when something happens a ton of people all know at once and will post at once. That's how trending works after all.

Here's where it gets annoying though, and no, not due to fans. Fans are allowed to post about content they enjoy and are allowed to joke and interact online with people who enjoy the same content. So you can't gatekeep the trending tab. It's literally impossible and just because its not enjoyable for you and not something you're interested in doesn't mean it shouldn't be trending.

This is where interaction comes in. Twitter and pretty much every social media ever tracks what you consume. This is why Twitter actually has multiple trending pages. The "For you" trending is what we'll mostly be discussing now though. The "For you" trending is the first page it opens up and will consist of things Twitter knows you interact with. So in other words, constantly viewing Dream and related content just to get angry and insult people? Guess what! You just ensured it will constantly be on your radar. Easy solution? Don't interact with content you don't enjoy. Yes you won't always be able to avoid it but this is true for everything. Just do your best and watch out for your own interests as best as possible (this statement applies to the actual trending page as well). Unless you're intentionally interacting just so you can continue bullying people its not that hard to avoid. And if you are doing that, I feel really sorry that you don't have something you actually enjoy to consume instead of just spreading hate (this is genuine not an attack).

CC Relationships:

A lot of Dream and related creator haters often state that the creators and fans have an unhealthy relationship. This is not a fair statement to the standard fan. People who actually show obsessive traits and attack people over their creators do have an unhealthy connection, but what is not unhealthy is-

Enjoying a creators content

Following their social media

Making posts and content about creators

These actions are literally the basis of being a fan of content. So no, posting about something a creator said or did is not creepy and obsessive just because its not funny or entertaining to you. Its like when your friend does something stupid and you will randomly bring it up whenever you can because it was a funny moment. Thats essentially what this is. No, we are not friends of the creators most of the time, but we do have a relationship to the creators. Most of the time with CCs their fan base consists of people with similar interests, senses of humor, and personalities. So we can relate to the things that happen with them and their friends and since they're broadcasting it we will find it funny when they find it funny. And that's okay and shouldn't be a hot take.

Also creators saying they love their fans is not a bad thing. Platonic love of people who share in your accomplishments, support you, and encourage your growth is not a bad thing. Thats what this type of relationship is and should be with CCs. They are where they are because people connected with them and they connected with those people. Let them express that admiration and gratitude.

Joking vs Attacking:

Final rant because this is already long and probably won't get attention anyways. A lot of Dream fans have tough skin after being a part of this sudden shift to mainstream and constant hate. This means that sometimes fans will make their own jokes about hating the fans even though they are one. However, this can sometimes be extremely misleading and damaging to see. No I'm not saying you can't make these jokes after all some are actually really funny! But try to make it clear that you aren't actually a part of the people who are actively trying to tear down a fanbase. Sometimes intentions don't come across well and insults can actually be, well, insulting when not phrased correctly. This is by no means an attempt at gatekeeping but rather just a general public announcement as a fan who often times saw something that actually added to the sadness of feeling constantly attacked and belittled only to see that the poster was also a fan.

That was long and probably a little all over the place so if you made it this far just know that I appreciate you and hope you're doing well in these times. 💕 I just really needed a place to get out these thoughts and figured hey Tumblr is significantly less mean than Twitter in my experience so let's attempt this.

Final statement! If you see this in a tag you think it shouldn't be in or know a tag you think I should add please let me know! I'm still new to posting my own content and don't want to cause problems where there need not be any.

#dream smp #dreamwastaken #georgenotfound #sapnap #quackity #tommyinnit #wilbur soot #philza #technoblade #badboyhalo #tubbo mcyt #fundy minecraft #ranboo #dream team #antfrost

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ouyangzizhensdad · 4 years

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what’s the line between a good adaptation and a bad adaptation? I’ve been running circles in my head thinking about where cql stands these past few days. Because i was also thinking about other adaptations like the pjo films and howl’s moving castle, like one of these is hated and the other is very much loved but both of them change so much from the original source material that it cannot be considered the same, movie howl and book howl are completely different characters and the plot for pjo was messed w so much in the films. So I was thinking about how much an adaptation can change before it’s considered a bad adaptation? or if changes really even matter if the adaptation achieves what it set out to achieve regardless of how different it is to source material? For the record I think cql is a bad adaptation but I’m unsure how to word it because the line seems kinda blurry

Hi anon,

As much fun as it would be to be the final arbiter on what constitutes a good or bad adaptation, it is a question to which there are unfortunately no definitive answers. But I am of course happy to share my opinion and thoughts on the topic!

I think a good adaptation needs first to meet a crucial condition, which is that it must be, on its own, a good work of fiction. That means on the one hand that it should not rely on the source material to be thematically or narratively cohesive--if prior knowledge of the source material is necessary to understand fully the adaption, I personally consider it a failure. On the other hand, this also simply means that the work of fiction must be competently-made, coherent, enjoyable, etc. on its own merits. However, some adaptations that are well-made and generally self-contained works of fiction remain bad adaptations. There is obviously more to the process than just producing a strong work of fiction based on elements of another work.

It’s good to keep in mind that changes are not inherently a bad thing since the process of adaptation requires change. Generally an adaptation aims to tell a story through a different medium, which requires changes even when the creative(s) in charge of the adaptation want(s) to remain as faithful as possible to the original. Telling a story through a visual medium vs the written form demands a different approach! And technical limitations might end up having a huge sway in the process: do you have the budget or the technology to execute everything described in a fantasy novel, for instance? how much time or locations do you need to tell the same story? As well, since adaptations are generally spear-headed by different creatives, changes to the source material are part of the creative process, by adding another perspective and by being forced, in a sense, to choose a specific interpretation of the source material. And that’s not even covering how adapting something from a different era or from a different cultural moment will require a form of “translation” to make it both intelligible and relevant to contemporary audiences.

In addition to these sort of “unavoidable” changes, there are many other factors that may enter into question. With CQL and MDZS, we have a salient example of how censorship might influence the process of adapting a property. The people who have a veto, in some shape or form, over the project may also pursue their own agendas. Matters of marketability and of targeting a specific market will also influence the direction an adaptation takes, especially when an adaption is done in a medium that requires large initial financial investments.

Personally, I believe that the way to make a good adaptation is to go either of these three ways: 1) take a source material that contains obvious weaknesses and improve upon them; 2) figure out exactly what is the appeal of the source material and what makes it original, and make sure that these elements are kept in the adaptation; or 3) reinvent the source material. In the first scenario, it is a case of stronger story-teller being handed a property that has a lot of flaws, and either doing away with them or filling up the gaps in the original narrative--thereby allowing the good in it to finally shine. A good example of that, imo, is The Old Guard movie, a tight narrative that excised a lot of the less savoury elements of the graphic novels and included a lot more emotional depth and pay offs.

In the second scenario, the most important factor is that the creative (or creatives) in charge of the adaptation really understand not only the source material but also why it became loved enough to be picked up for an adaptation--why it appeals to people, what makes it unique, what stands out. What I mean is that creative liberty and changes to the source material are totally fine so long as they do not lose the identity or appeal of the source material and do not present an interpretation that is not actually rooted in the original text. For instance, I personally hate the Anne with an E adaptation of Anne of Green Gables because to me it fundamentally misunderstands the point of the novels and why they became a phenomenon. Making a story that was written to be an uplifting fantasy about an abused orphan who still managed to find beauty in the world and to find love and acceptance in it into a grim “realistic” drama to try to “appeal to modern audiences” is fundamentally stupid and, honestly, offensive. As well, while I enjoy Pride and Prejudice 2005 as a film, I think it is an horrid adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, mainly due to the fact the director Joe Right clearly did not understand the novel. As a result the film is a representation of what he projects unto the narrative (something that is very clear when he talked about the novel in interviews or in the bts), and not what is actually in the text.

In the third scenario, what would be a loose adaptation is a situation where perhaps very little of the source material may remain. It might only be the premise, or some plot points, or some character relationships that are ultimately kept. These also include for me the “what if X narrative but Y set-up”, which can be awful (the Pride and Prejudice and Zombies movie is so shockingly bad when it could have been a fun, campy romp) but also a way to explore a source material in new ways or underlining certain themes that might have been not given as much light in the source material. In this case, I guess that what really makes it a good “adaptation” is whether it has something new or interesting to add to the source material through this loose adaptation, or whether it is just a gimmick.

To me, CQL fails as an adaptation both on its own merits (due to plot holes, on-the-nose and clumsy storytelling, inconsistent characterisation, technical failings, etc.) but also as it does not retain, for a number of reasons, what makes MDZS appealing imo (WWX’s characterisation, Wangxian’s journey, its heavy reliance on mystery, intrigue and themes, its willingness to show characters do cruel and violent things, etc.), all the while making the cardinal sin of being a weaker story than the source material (when the source material already provided them with all the material they would have needed to tell a story of at least equal complexity and competency).

#anon ask #long post

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scripttorture · 3 years

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In your opinion, would the act of branding be classed as torture? After escaping my villain's lair, my character is recaptured & subsequently branded both as a punishment & to mark him as belonging to the villain. It's mostly for the sake of causing my character immense pain - there was an option to do a more painless way of marking him, but my villain decided to go for the most painful option. I'm wanting to get a few opinions on this, if at all possible. Thanks for any help you can give!!

Whelp you can not get multiple opinions from me, because I am only one collection of ferrets in a coat and hat person. More seriously I think you’re using ‘torture’ in a colloquial sense here and torture is a legally defined term.

The definition of torture used by the UN in international law is essentially that torture is any painful abuse carried out by an on duty government official (or group that controls territory) for one of the following reasons:

To try and obtain information (this does not work)

To try and force a confession (statistical studies suggest this works about 10% of the time)

To intimidate

To punish

If the person being tortured isn’t the one torturers are trying to target it still counts. So if a police officer arrests the brother of a person they want to force a confession from and hurts the brother to try and make the original person confess; that is still torture. It is also still torture if the government officials hire someone to torture for them.

Some countries have torture laws that include international criminal gangs as potential torturers. Some do not.

So the question of whether this ‘counts’ relies on information you haven’t given me. Because legally speaking torture is not defined by the type of abuse inflicted on a victim. It is defined by the position of power and authority held by the torturer.

And honestly there isn’t a lot of leeway in that respect. Either the villain is in a position of legal authority and legally holds power over the victim or they do not. If the villain is essentially part of the ruling or occupying force in the country this takes place in then this is torture. Otherwise it’s abuse and assault.

Here’s the thing: the answer on whether this would ‘count’ or not may not actually have a big impact on your story.

The lasting symptoms torture survivors experience are symptoms of trauma generally. They can be experienced by survivors of abuse, assault, accidents and people who witness horrible events even when they’re not directly effected.

So if this story is focused on the survivor character the list of symptoms I have here is still going to be relevant. So is the post on memory problems over here.

The big difference is effects on a societal level and the scale of abuse. The term torture implies thousands of survivors, it implies abuse as public policy. And that means communal effects. It means communities where everyone knows someone who was tortured, someone who disappeared. It means knock on effects that stop people trusting authority, stop people reporting crimes and encourages recruitment by the opposition.

What exactly that all means and looks like varies a lot. It also seems like a tangent to your question so I think I’ll leave it there. (If you want more information feel free to send in another ask.)

Branding and other burning tortures have been used as legally defined tortures. For the most part you don’t see them today.

But it was common in parts of Europe historically, in England branding is recorded as a punishment in Anglo-Saxon times and seems to have continued into the Middle Ages. So a period of roughly 800 AD to 1400 AD, with it gradually becoming less frequent as attitudes and common torture techniques changed.

I’m sure these tortures were used outside Europe but I’m unsure whether they were as common in other historical cultures. I’ve found references to burning in both China and Japan but in most cases this seems to have been part of execution and I’ve mostly seen it come up in cases where the authorities seem to have wanted to make the execution particularly unusual (ie treason.)

I’ve got quite a few posts on branding, you can find them here.

And if you’ve got any more questions please don’t hesitate to ask. :)

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#writing advice #tw torture #tw scars #tw branding #branding #burning tortures #scarring torture #historical torture #legal definition of torture

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cboeck-webdesign · 1 year

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Is it possible to build a completely new online business using only AI?