#there’s also life and death stuff but I think those are more advanced techniques

[ghostlycoyote0]

Skulduggery Pleasant-related idea that might one day turn into an OC:

A Necromancer who channels her power through twin duelling pistols. She leans into a pirate aesthetic in general, mainly because it’s, quote, “really fucking cool”

[midnightluck]

i am BEGGING you for those aventurine essays he is legit my fav star rail character

WELCOME TO MY NEW FAVORITE PIT IT'S BEAUTIFUL HERE.

Current essays (full of spoilers) I have already written out:

Why Aventurine is Preservation path and why he doesn't lose (see below)

An analysis of Ratio and Aventurine's interactions on Penacony

An analysis of Aventurine's planning and execution of said plan for 2.1

Why Avigen are Rom-coded and how Aventurine uses his own culture to hurt himself

Aventurine and the Masked Fools

Essays I have not written but intend to:

The incredible level of self-loathing it takes to call yourself a luck build when you only ever gamble against yourself and the inability to trust that it creates

The difference between stage magic and flourishwork and an analysis of the techniques and props he uses, including why he prefers roulette to cards

Presentation!!! The way he dresses and moves and uses his reputation as a weapon

Topaz and Aventurine's friendship and why they would never call each other friends

Literally anything people wanna know about him

That said, let's get started on why, exactly, Aventurine could never be anything but Preservation. SPOILERS!!!!

OKAY so let's discuss

I would like to begin by reminding you that Qlipoth is a Aeon of "patient, sacrificial, and protective actions", and I don't think I need to go into why Aventurine is the first two BUT I'M GONNA.

Patient--yes, duh. The amount of time it takes to set up stuff behind the scenes before you can even announce a performance--we've seen this from him already. He called Topaz directly after we left Belobog for her help specifically, which we can now assume was him asking to borrow her stone. This means that he had his plan already developed months in advance, and this is confirmed by him sighing over how long it took him to book this specific room in the hotel. Aventurine is patient in that most deadly of ways, the focused strategist mixed with the cunning tactician. He gets impatient, we've seen, but in that anticipatory way that comes from the fizzle of excitement in your veins before a performance, the jitters that aren't quite stage fright but aren't quite excitement, when your blood feels carbonated and your stomach flips because you know it's all in place, you know you've got this, but what if, what if-- and even in the face of that, he's patient.

Sacrificial let's take in two ways. Does he sacrifice? Yes, this man refuses to stop, refuses to accept peace, refuses to settle. He's giving up his own happiness because he knows that happiness isn't for the likes of him and he knows this so deeply he's never even bothered to want it. Aventurine isn't happy, he's unsettled in the most literal way, and he's unbothered by it because he isn't chasing a dream. He's not working toward an ambition, he's not after a goal; he's just living because he isn't dead yet, because he refuses to give up and lay down. He is the embodiment of "because I could not stop for Death, he kindly stopped for me," and is, in other words, #relatable to millenials haha.

He's also sacrificial. As a child of ritual, of expectation, and of the embodiment of hope, Kakavasha was born to be the hope of his people and he never got a say in it. He now carries their entire weight and culture on his shoulders because he's the only Avigen on the universal stage, and it hurts more because he barely even had time to truly learn what that culture was before it was taken from him. He probably considers his continued life as penance, as sacrifice, as the payment for his luck which didn't even help anyone he loved anyway.

And then we get to the hard one because people define protective in a very, uh, selfless context mostly? But it's not, or not only that. Aventurine is very protective; he's protective of his past, of his secrets, of his plans, of that which is his. (Sidenote here: money isn't his. Money is a resource, easily gotten, easily spent; gold and jewels and even status are ephemeral. We see this in that fucking bit of dialogue I LOVE ("I can, and it will be flawless" YAS KING IT SURE THE FUCK WILL!!!!), that he doesn't care for the treasure or the mystery, that he's after the role, the action, the thrill of being right, of wagering his life on the bet that he's right and that it's not death that awaits him.

So that's why he's Preservation, is because he could never be anything else. He's not driven, so it can't be Hunt, and he's not careless and instinctive, so no Elation (ask me about his relationship with Masked Fools sometime, I have THOUGHTS). He doesn't seek pain or to sacrifice for others and his wrath is very focused, so no Destruction, and he's not Abundance by any means, and Harmony is out because that's cooperative and unifying and he can't trust. Remeberance is restraint and he doesn't have that, and Nihility is for those who have given up on something, and Aven hasn't, he can't let his past go like Welt has, and all that leaves is Erudition. It suits him but it's offensive, and he isn't, is he, he's so internally focused on playing his little games against himself that he doesn't seek out multiple targets, and also he's not coldly detached; he's powered by self-loathing and that doesn't jive with Erudition, which is reliant on chosen loyalty and seeking.

IMPORTANT DISTINCTION: self-loathing is not self-destructive. Self-esteem and self-worth are not the same thing, and you can hate yourself just fine while still seeing value in what you do. Speaking of which, let's examine that thing he do, which is just straight up setting up giant convoluted plans in order to specifically bet his life on things. HERE'S WHY.

If you bet money and you lose, then you lose, and Aventurine doesn't lose. Aventurine goes for the high stakes, high risk shit because of the risk, because of the stakes. He's chasing death in an abstracted kind of way; he doesn't want to die, but he doesn't value his life and there's not much worth living for anyway. He's also, as previously stated, the only embodiment of his culture, so he can't lose without it reflecting on...everyone, even if they're all dead. The only respectable way he can die as an Avigen is to die in a gamble.

So any gamble with his life on the line is win-win, and god isn't that adrenaline rush of standing on the ledge and jumping good, doesn't that make his pulse pound and his lungs stutter and his fingers shake, in a way that he can feel, physically, that he can know is him, is only him, alive, reliant on his own power, his own fate, his own skill, and on his luck--

Because that's the thing, isn't it, is Aventurine is lucky, but not in the way Kakavasha was. As a kid, he relied on his luck; after it betrayed him (by leaving him the only one left), he doesn't rely on it anymore. He uses it. He puts in time and patience and skill, and he stacks the deck and sets the dice and gambles that he is smart enough to have anticipated it. He's betting that he's prepared enough to weather the uncertainty. Aventurine isn't playing against us, or Ratio, or Penacony; the only one he's ever really betting against is himself.

[blarrghe]

trying to develop Rune's personality bc my first playthrough of an RPG always feels a little bland as I learn the game mechanics and make too many decisions that are just what seems fun/interesting and not ~roleplay~ so here are some notes to make her more Character so that she can make Bad Decisions. Just rambling. Screenshot of Rune looking derpy at the end <3

--

Race: Mephistopheles Tiefling

Class: Warlock

Background: Charlatan

Using that to inform things I think she needs a backstory of being kind of a long-standing capital A adventurer. She's not a Baldurian but she's been through Baldur's Gate a few times so sometimes she takes those dialogues, mostly when it's like "oh yeah I know that bar" and less when it's contemporary important figures because the last time she passed through was like a decade ago.

No qualms with lying or mind-reading, she's got warlock powers for a reason.

I think she likes to pretend to know things, esp about magic. Maybe secretly wishes she was a sorcerer. Using that one time she tried to magic a lock and then wound up punching it instead to inform the character trait 'full of shit about magic'. She tries, but when all else fails she's just naturally very strong and intimidating looking. She has a secret "real name" but goes by Rune because it makes her sound like a Magic Expert. She's like if a circus strongman left the circus and went around pretending to be a professor and selling trinkets.

Entered into a warlock pact to impress a former lover? And fellow performer? I think maybe she wanted to add some fun fiery devil magic to her act and made a pact and then idk ran away from the circus when shit got real. Yeah let's just say that Rune was a circus performer in her (younger) youth.

Soft spot for kids. She was an entertainer after all, the laughter of children gives her life. Kids love the over-the-top scary devil magic stuff and when she leans into it the response is delighted squealing instead of the more Adult critical side-eye. Super hokey sense of humour too. Had a whole teachable moment with that kid selling rings in the grove.

Tiefling racism mostly just rolls off her like. She doesn't feel a ton of connection to their culture (raised by circus performers, maybe a few tieflings but it was Diverse). But not above leaning in to the rep where it suits her. Just doesn't feel a whole lot of attachment beyond a bit of guilt here and there.

She let the pain guy hit her with the "advanced techniques" at the goblin camp. I do not know if she is precisely Into That but she's got a high pain tollerance and a huge daring streak. Flame swallower sword juggler strongman just wanted to see if she still got it. Also the draw of getting any kind of arcane perk just lights her up.

I haven't picked a romance bc I don't think I've even met all the options yet but I do think she might like to see what tricks Gale has. Asterion clearly thinks she's hot but I can't see her hitting that. I CAN see her teaming up with him for just the biggest baddest cons though. She doesn't mix business and pleasure she learned that lesson ;) so.

I can see her hooking up with Shadowheart but just because she's like, really pretty. Rune is still hung up on her bardic ex-lover from the circus (aka the halfling bard I made in early access and didn't really play) and just sampling the fruit idk.

Fundamentally she's a pretty good person. Squarely in the chaotic good camp. Wishes she were a true chaotic neutral and she'll lie or threaten for profit literally any time but actual death and violence makes her pretty squeamish. It's all showbiz baby!! Little reality denying freak <3

I gave her those gnarly facial scars so lets say she has some deeply burried childhood trauma (so repressed that even idk what happened) that makes her a bit of a danger magnet/risk fetishist, super protective of kids, and rigidly opposed to mass acts of violence.

Ok this is fairly solid (and close enough to my usual archetype to be easy to roleplay lmao) here's my gorl:

every time I catch her in this pose her right eye is just a little squinty lmao. lazy eye resulting from a torch juggling incident idk.

[stray-tori]

TPN S02E02 - initial thoughts (anime-only)

^^^ viewing with my friends

__________________________

. More thoughts:

I loved how ep2 used a similar sequence of shots to immediately bring our minds to conny's shipment and further connect us to Emma's association / state of mind.

+ waterdrop of death continues, glad to have it back 

.

. “Humans outside”

I also talked about this in the video, but I find it interesting that we’ve heard two different insights from Krone and Sonju. “Humans on equal footing outside” vs. “there are no humans outside of the farms”. I really emphasized the “equal footing” thing in video, which also still does seems weird to me, and I can come to the following conclusions:

Krone just thinks they’re equals because they’re higher up the hierarchy than she is, but in reality even the top of the farms are oppressed by the demons as well.

for some reason, even after being heavily outnumbered by demons, humans found a way to be close to equal footing --- I mentioned breeding the humans for them in the video, and I still think that could be part of it but I also had a different thought: it’s interesting that it’s 1000 years - sad, my 2000 years theory didn’t hold up - because that implies 1000 years of technological advancement (phones, the camera, electronics are clearly a thing) still happened in the demon “world” (and we’ve never seen demons use them, they seem to be a human thing). The highest up the hierarchy we’ve seen happen to be the scientists. That’s why I think it’s plausible that humans are smarter than demons (cue the fascination and desert of smart people) and they provide technological advancement and food, and in exchange the top of that chain in the humans can “co-exist”. But we haven’t seen a lot of demon society so it’s hard to say if they’re just not as inventive as humans. And even if that WERE the case, I don’t think that’s enough to call it “equal”, it’s still a massive power difference. Though apparantly, SOMEHOW, the struggle used to be equal 1000 years ago, so- like I think “We’ll kill you” is still something that’s likely to be the winning argument even if there was the chance to be on equal grounding again.

But now that I’m thinking about it, even taking the “equal” thing away, it’s still contradicting. Krone specifically talked about the humans delivering goods, which are technically “outside” and still “in the farm (system)” - but they are definitely not on equal standing. So I don’t think she means the other working parts of the forms.

So I just wonder if there are humans who are benefitting from this system in some way for damning others. Hello ominous guy from the OP.

He doesn’t seem too oppressed, going to be honest. 

It’s possible I guess that the demons wanted to make sure that there wouldn’t be an uprising by having humans “on their side” and the higher ups, not concerned for the humans further down the food chain, agreed, thus making it a deal and “equal”. Since they can’t kill every human because they’re their precious food, so it’s a good idea to keep them in check and not have them hate them actively, but I think demons could still stop a human uprising??? It might be unnecessary drama though.

But even then, you can’t really say they keep up a good relationship with the higher up humans to make people further down cooperate, since they are driven by existential angst (become a mom or die). They know humans will cooperate them if you threaten them with death.

So I’m just really confused what makes the higher ups so different.

inb4 it was just Krone’s subjective knowledge and I make a fool of myself but again, ominous guy from the OP seems like he’s really enjoying this (assumingly high) standing he has.

I’M JUST CONFUSED.

I don’t understand politics, clearly.

.

. The Promised Exposition

[someone talking about how it was portrayed boringly]

yeah, I imagined some sort of visual to go along with the exposition bc the music sounded so fairytale / telling ish but then again, the anime never really showed things that were explained; and let the viewer imagine it.

So now I really have no idea if it's like... actual geographical separation (#more walls time) or like,, parallel worlds?? I feel like taking away the visuals kind of leaves more room for interpretations, and imagination but I still agree that it's sad they don't really play with imaginary things. it's kinda grounded in LA techniques in that aspect I feel.

About the reveal itself: I didn’t expect the potential solution to be revealed so soon, and it was different to what I expected. I’m still a little confused on how the demon vs human fighting was so balanced?? did demons use to be more like Sonju and Mujika, because then I can kind of get it I guess? Like humans have a chance then.

Or where they all just dumb dog demons bumping against trees because then I get it too pff-

Either way, as touched upon higher up: The demon world seems to have some classical human inventions. Does that mean that

a) the demon world just happens to have the people in it that made those inventions?

b) someone else invented them and there’s a similar technical progress in the “human world”? 

c) there’s no crossing between the worlds (according to Sonju), so it can’t be that the inventions are from the human world, I think. I wonder if we’ll see it and how different it’ll be from the demon world’s humans inventions.

.

The more I think about it, the more interesting I find this potential solution. It still seems a little too magical, but the setup is already magical and as my friends pointed out, it’s not just a matter of “go over there and be safe”.

Breaking the promise could start the demons being enraged at it and breaking it too, and the hunting could re-start.

Maybe it could be missed or just not noticed if just our group left, but Emma has learned nothing from her compromise in S1 and now plans to take EVERY CHILD, apparantly, probably soon to be replaced with every human. And that’s definitely not going to go down well with the demons.

I wonder if the eventual conclusion will be to save a small group of people, paralleling S1′s conflict. Save everyone vs. saving those you can right now and coming to terms with the sacrifices you made (which technically, hasn’t happened yet. For Emma it’s not like she gave them up, she’s going back for them. But as this story is being setup now, I think it’s highly impossible to take every human/every child). Which has pretty dark implications! You might get out, but the cycle will just start again as long as any humans exist in the demons’ world; the suffering will continue. Escaping already likely endangered the humans in charge of the farms, who likely won’t (or can’t in case of the implants in the moms) escape even if there’s a big scale rescue operation (plus good luck with getting everyone while having all demon forces on your back).

But I feel like that’s a more likely resolution than fighting a rebellion against the demons, which would likely have no end and no satisfying resolution. Obviously I’m not really sure where this story will lead and what will have to be done in order to cross over.

If it breaks the “promise” and figurative “wall” between the worlds, it could be damning all of humanity. So I guess the alternative resolution would be that they stay in the demon world, to not risk that, and do their best living a good life there, and also.... probably coming to terms with not being able to save everyone.

It’s also definitely not as satisfying from a storytelling perspective, but there’s a lot of interesting conflicts and dangers being setup.

.

. Sonju

Yeah it was sweet how he was like careful being like "i can't leave this around the kids", and being like "it's hard to say this" when he had to tell them about the rule to the promise or later when he asked Emma if they should not do the gupna thing this time. Like he's honest and direct but still caring and that's sweeto

.

. Mom Gilda

The scene with Emma and Gilda was amazing, it was so funny, but even then the art actually did look intimidating, which I felt they struggled with in S1 sometimes (Emma holding Ray’s hand telling him to never do it again was just like “pff-”) but this was really well done.

It just heavily parallels Isabella trying to tell Emma to become a Mom so that’s??? an interesting thing, that kind of threw me off for a bit.

But maybe that’s just confirming that Gilda is indeed the mom.

i feel like the art in general improved a bit tbh. Obviously with nature and fantastical elements there’s a lot more to MAKE look pretty but idk, it’s just nice! 

.

All the stuff surrounding this was so sweet too, Jemima is too precious and panicky Ray as she’s crying is just adorable udshdjs. Also Lani and Thoma being like “can’t leave him alone for 2 seconds, keeps trying to die” is a big mood but also RIP Ray.

.

. RIP Ray

Speaking of RIP Ray......

:>

[pacific-rimbaud]

(1/2) i recently discovered, and subsequently devoured, all of your works (i don't even normally go here). i have to say, you seem like the type of person to appreciate quality fiction and i am jonesing for some more to read. i rarely see anything but long, involved stories recommended in the wild weeds of tumblr and i was wondering if you have any "under the radar" recommendations for short fanfictions. I just blew through the Pansy x Neville list from yesterday. just things you've read that

(2/2) resonated with you regardless of length or ship. thank you in advance. a dress with pockets is one of the best fictions i have ever read. one more question! what is your favorite thing you've ever written and why? i feel like i should buy you a coffee/a bottle of wine to compensate you for the joy you've brought to me in these dark times. ☕🍷🍻 cheers! XOXO

First, “I don’t even go here,” is up there with my favorite expressions, so thank you for that.

I’m possibly one of the worst fic reccers around, but I’m going to do my best.

Rare Pair Spring Fling 2020: Summer Camp

Pairings: Various

This is unintentionally a self-rec, but @grangerdangerfics @provocative-envy and @scullymurphy, while they are some of my favorite humans on an absolute and personal level, are legit among my favorite fan fiction writers. Everything these three write is gold. We collaborated on a project in the spring where we each wrote two fics for a total of eight interconnected works that share characters, setting and events. This is some of all of our best work in one place. Start anywhere you’d like, but taken as a whole it’s something really unique and wonderful. All short works. Muggle AU.

Room Serviced by pir8fancier

Pairing: Draco Malfoy x Hermione Granger

Tags: infidelity, character deaths, angst

This is The Fic. This is where I went “Oh.” Fanfiction is just ... fiction. It’s all over the place in terms of style and genre, and some of it will get right under your ribs and wound you. This is one where I really have to go “And they lived happily ever after,” at the end, because it’s just so sad and real.

Three Steps Forward, One Step Back by @willhavetheirtrinkets 

Pairing: Draco Malfoy x Hermione Granger

Tags: Mentions of pregnancy loss

Musyc is super prolific, and also SUPER GOOD, so I haven’t read her entire body of work by a long shot, but this one, for whatever reason, is the one I keep going back to. It feels so genuine and achey in just the right way, I get my HEA but 100% in the way I like, with the characterizations I love the most. I’ve read it multiple times. It’s one of my favorites.

Point to Point by @worksofstone-blog-blog 

Pairing: Draco Malfoy x Hermione Granger

Worksofstone is another one of those people who writes very dynamic, natural fiction, where you’re drawn in, held and then let go, you know? This little paper dragon is writer goals, this Draco and this Hermione is the best. Hugely influenced my headcanon of the ship.

The various rare pair fics in Amortentia by @olivieblake 

I pay a lot of attention to Olivie Blake’s craft when I read her stuff. I love short fiction, so my favorites of hers are mostly in the Amortentia collection. Just a few off the top of my head:  Better (Pansy x Percy), Movements (Pansy x Sirius),  Survival Techniques (Pansy x Percy), and Beautiful People Will Ruin Your Life (Blaise x Parvati).

And my favorite of my own stuff? I like different pieces for different reasons. A Dress with Pockets made me walk around with a bruised heart for ages after I’d finished writing it. I’m also, on a regular (near daily) basis, floored and humbled that it’s been received with as much love as it has. Notes on the Temptation of Peter and Heloise is a wee box of fussy little gears and metal teeth that somehow make music when you turn the crank, and when I finished writing it I went ::claps hands in tiny:: I think a lot about these two, honestly.

Thank you so much! ❤️ Cheers. ☕ 

[letterboxd]

Beautiful Day: The Don Hertzfeldt Q&A.

In which the singular creator of It’s Such a Beautiful Day and the World of Tomorrow trilogy answers 57 questions put to him by the Letterboxd community, about death, gills, snacks, back flips, the best time of day to watch a movie, and the sick pleasure of emotionally destroying people.

Since his first animated outings in the 1990s, filmmaker Don Hertzfeldt has had a way of staring deeply into humanity’s soul via a humble stick figure, and his skill at blending existential questions with situational humor breeds intense reactions. To browse Letterboxd reviews of Hertzfeldt’s animated works is to meet film lovers at a rare, collective gathering point: heaping great piles of love for films that do “the exact opposite of helping with depression”.

There’s something optimistically anti-feel-good in Hertzfeldt’s works; a bleak view of the future, and a frank appreciation of death’s inevitability, that makes viewers urgently want to fix the way they’re living right now. “I’ve built a lot of my life philosophy on the messages of this film,” writes Misty, of his acclaimed It’s Such a Beautiful Day. “It has kicked my ass completely,” writes Dirk of the first, Oscar-nominated World of Tomorrow instalment, “making me angry at myself for letting trivial stuff take over things I love and making me happy I have so very, very much in my life to enjoy and be grateful for.”

The filmmaker’s magic lies as much in the process as the content: “Hertzfeldt is able to make every moment count,” writes Artpig, of the second WoT instalment, The Burden of Other People’s Thoughts, “every line of dialogue, every moment of silence, every note of music, every line of animation.” The World of Tomorrow films, says animation expert Toussaint Egan in our Letterboxd Show animation episode, are “some of the best science fiction films, period”.

And his timing. Oh, his timing. Just as the northern hemisphere days were turning cold, and the drawn-out misery of the pandemic was really taking hold all over again, Hertzfeldt tweeted:

WORLD OF TOMORROW EPISODE THREE everywhere october 9 5pm est 🚀

— don hertzfeldt (@donhertzfeldt)

October 8, 2020

And like that, World of Tomorrow Three: The Absent Destinations of David Prime was ours, an overnight gift to the quarantined and bereaved-weary, on Vimeo for all to rent or own. The gifts, they keep coming: a master list of movies that have their fingerprints on the World of Tomorrow universe, and now, in recognition of our community’s love for his films—and in his signature lower-case—the answers to questions asked in an exclusive Letterboxd Q&A.

To make things easier for Don, we grouped similar questions (and have noted which members asked what). Read on for more than you ever thought you might get to know about Hertzfeldt’s process, brain, heart and influences.

Filmmaker Don Hertzfeldt.

From “holograms that yell at you!” to the stunning colors, textures and folds of the blue mountains, to attributes David progressively deletes to make room for memories, would you please give us an insight into World of Tomorrow Three’s world-building process? —Letterboxd in the grand scheme of the series, episodes one and two still felt like baby steps to me. episode three was my first chance to really start blowing things up and exploring this universe. when i’m writing, i don’t want to worry about going over the top or think about structure or meaning or really much of anything yet. writing is playtime, it should be fun and messy. i want to go over the top. there is no top. i don’t want to start thinking too much until i’m rewriting and sorting through it all. thinking too much too soon can get in the way, like being too aware of when you’re trying to fall asleep. when you write a diary entry or a text to a friend, there’s no self-consciousness or creative blocks, you just write. it’s casual and fluid and automatic. but if you’re asked to write a term paper or a screenplay, suddenly all those lights turn off. it can be paralyzing. it’s hard to get to that place of truly not caring what anyone thinks and approach all forms of writing just as freely as writing those immediate thoughts in your diary. but that’s what i try to do.

When you start writing a new piece, do you usually start with a plot idea, a thematic idea, one uniform philosophical notion, or a little bit of each? —Kodiak J. Sanders, Trenz, Mr. Tables i don’t think i ever write in a straight line. i’ll jot down a hundred stray ideas over time, and one day i’ll sit down and see what connections might be made out of them. i really want this scene to be in the movie, so how do i get there? this is a good line, how can i get a character to say it? so the actual story usually only starts to reveal itself when i sit down to logic all these bits and pieces out. hey, in order to connect this strange idea to that strange idea, suddenly there is a very interesting third scene.

I’m astounded by how much the animation and the visuals improve with each instalment of World of Tomorrow. What have you done differently for each one? —Aske Lund, Cringetacular the characters needed to physically perform a lot more in episodes two and three so there were more demands put on the animation. when emily 4 dances or david staggers up a mountain, those sorts of scenes were animated in “ones”, which means doing 24 drawings per second versus my usual twelve. it’s still all 2D hand animation, just more of a classic disney approach that gives the movement a smoother look and a little more room for nuance. and obviously it takes a lot more work. but i hesitate to call such things improvements because i’m not sure i like the idea of different techniques being thought of as good or bad. it’s just another way of doing things. it really depends, sometimes super limited animation can be more effective.

Likewise, Part Three’s sound design is incredible. What conditions did you create it in, and what are all those sounds, and how do you have such an incredible command of the cut-to-silence trick?! —Letterboxd thanks, the sound design is always my favorite thing to do. other than julia’s lines, it’s easy to forget that all the animation starts with dead silence. obviously there’s no sound coming from a live-action set. so adding sound and music to everything, usually pretty late in production, is when all the stuff i’ve been working on suddenly starts to feel like an actual movie. this is not a future that works very well—particularly david’s, which predates everything else we’ve seen so far by a century or two—so you’re hearing a lot of creaky old hard drives booting up, electric distortions, and bent circuits from broken toys.

Emily and Emily Prime in a still from ‘World of Tomorrow’ (2015).

World of Tomorrow used to fill me with existential dread, but now with the current state of the world it’s become more and more comforting in a strange way. Do you feel that at all as you make new episodes? —mariano gg i wish that were possible but when i’m making something i’m usually so close to it i’m unable to see anything but all the things i need to fix.

Can you talk a little bit about sourcing the photo-realistic images for the backgrounds in Part Three? —Jack Moulton most of the environments were 2D images i built in photoshop, usually starting from close-up photos of different textures (like sandstone), all sort of reshaped and puzzle-pieced into something new. an easy to see example was david’s cockpit, which was cobbled together from all sorts of different old aircraft engine and machine parts. the trick in building and lighting these locations was always figuring out where the line was drawn in making these places realistic, but not too realistic for minimal characters to inhabit. i kept landing on a sort of painterly looking middle ground.

If the cloning process in World of Tomorrow existed right now, would you go through that process and create clones of yourself to prolong your life? —tim probably not, that process doesn’t seem to work so well.

If you were put into the world you’ve created, would you buy gills? —Lauren Torres i tend to avoid putting my head under because i almost always get water in my ears so i guess i wouldn’t need them. gills also seem like they’d be a real nuisance to keep clean.

What does love mean, and why do your characters go through so much effort to find it? —Andrew Michalko oh man.

In this year of years, what do you hope people will understand about death and its inevitability (or is it all there on the screen, and if so, that’s okay too)? —Letterboxd understanding death and its inevitability is maybe the most valuable thing a person can do for themselves.

Was the absence of Emily Prime in Part Three a practical decision [Don’s then-four-year-old niece Winona provided Emily’s voice] or an intentional departure from the first two films? —Michael it was both. i couldn’t find a way to fit her in naturally and i also felt like the series needed to start growing in other directions and not rest on the past. episode two had also been really difficult to write, it was so reliant on winona’s recordings, and it felt like the dam was really broken when i was finally able to write without any restrictions this time.

In a series like World of Tomorrow, where you headed in a direction that is a lot more plot-driven than your previous work, how far in advance do you plan? Did you always know this was in David’s past, or are these stories told one at a time? —Ryan Welch, Kodiak J. Sanders, julius, Alex Leon i could tell early on that this wasn’t a story like it’s such a beautiful day with a clear beginning, middle and end, but a much wilder thing that could continue to grow. the openness of it is still what makes it so interesting to me. i have all sorts of notes for the next episodes but if i already knew what would happen in episode nine i think that would take a lot of the air out of the tires and i’d start to feel like i was just connecting the boring dots. while writing, i’ve also had to be aware that there someday might be an episode nine so i can’t go wrecking the timelines before i get there.

What were the rocks and the gas pump that Emily fell in love with meant to represent? —Ekaneff she was learning how to love, and like all of us, in her youth she gravitated to a bunch of individuals that were wrong for her.

Aside from the ability to release more frequently, is there something about the episodic structure that you prefer/appreciate, as opposed to creating one larger feature-length film? —SiddFinch1 there’s just more freedom. the traditional running time of a feature film, 90 to 120 minutes, is a totally arbitrary number.

Have you ever considered writing a World of Tomorrow book or graphic novel? —Jay Smith the earliest ideas for world of tomorrow were sloshing around in a graphic novel called the end of the world that came out in 2013. but i don’t have any talent or much confidence in making another book like that. it’s a different world. when i look at someone like chris ware and then look at something like the end of the world, it’s like, “wow, baby made a mess”.

A page from Don Hertzfeldt’s graphic novel, ‘The End of the World’ (2013).

What attracted you to the unique style [of minimalist stick figures]? Is there a sense of intimacy that you feel you can achieve with this simplicity? —Evan Whitford when i was little, before i wanted to make movies i wanted to be a newspaper cartoonist. i think my drawings today might have more in common with newspaper comics than the sort of characters you usually see in animation. comic-strip panels were always composed in a very reserved way because they were generally intended to be skimmed. you needed to be able to read the strip in five seconds so you could be off to read the sports pages and obituaries. the comics pages were also under constant size and space restrictions. so they were minimal by design and the artists reduced their characters to only their most essential parts. there was no room for fussing. charles schulz said “i only draw what’s necessary”. and that’s actually incredibly hard to do. you’re accomplishing so much more with so much less.

i’ve also found that if there’s a scene that’s not playing right and bothering me, most of the time it’s because my composition was too cluttered. i almost always find myself removing things from the frame and trying to pare it down to only what’s necessary. very rarely do i ever think ‘i need to add more stuff in here’. because this shot is only five seconds long and i want you to be looking over here when this moment happens and this character says something, and if you’re distracted by this other flickering junk i put in the corner it’s going to throw everything off.

Animation-aside, which creative medium do you resonate with the most? —Bronkdan music.

How much did you pull from real-life experiences to make It’s Such A Beautiful Day, if any? What research did you conduct into memory? —Gunnar Sizemore, David Sigura, Micah Smith whenever i got a little stuck writing it’s such a beautiful day, i’d go back and reread my journal and pull more things out of it. dreams, conversations, small scenes. reading the journal now, it seems like i stole something from it every few pages. i also heavily researched neurological problems. it’s never said in the movie what exactly’s going on with bill, but i needed there to be a real diagnosis to base the medical writing on. so all the things he’s going through are real treatments or symptoms based on an actual condition. i didn’t want to ever come out and say, “he’s got terminal brain clouds”, or whatever in the movie, because then it becomes a “brain-cloud movie”, and that’s too easy for the audience to compartmentalize and distance themselves from… “brain clouds are so rare, that will never happen to me”. but not being told exactly what’s wrong with bill might help make the story more relatable and universal.

In what ways have you kept your mind fresh creatively? How do you keep yourself from slipping into complacency? —Watchmoviez, Drew’s reviews most creative blocks or stagnation come from anxiety, second-guessing and doubt. over the years i’ve learned to just sort of calm down and trust myself more. it’s like the old aesop fable: when you stop thrashing around in the water, the water becomes clearer and you can see more. if a scene isn’t working right, i can more easily chill out about it these days and trust that i’ll eventually figure it out—because i’ve figured these sorts of things out a hundred times before and i know by now that i’m not the sort of person who’s just going to allow a scene that isn’t working to remain in the movie. there’s a little more panic about that sort of thing when you’re young: “oh no, the movie sucks right now, will it always suck?!” i’ve reached the point where i know that i will not let it suck. and that sort of thinking allows all the movie gears to turn more easily.

Do you have a specific thematic, emotional or other miscellaneous motive in mind when including classical music pieces? —James Y. Lee when i’m listening to music and suddenly the right piece arrives, it’s usually blindingly obvious to me: there’s just no doubt this needs to be in the movie somehow. it’s like the idea has always existed and i’ve just finally uncovered it. it’s the same with writing. when the right thing floats along, it is striking and obvious and into the pile of notes it goes.

How much of your animation style lends itself to experimentation, such as discovering new tricks and pretty shots, that is then discarded if you learn it doesn’t work as intended? —Adam, Jacob i think i’m always experimenting. i figure if it doesn’t work, at least i’ve learned something.

What is the strangest compliment or critique you’ve gotten personally or of your work? —Elliot Taylor i’ve always remembered this one. i am so proud of you came out a couple years after everything will be ok. it was a continuation of that story, so it was basically the first time i had ever made a sequel. and everything will be ok had done really well when it came out. it won sundance and got all these great reviews. so i am so proud of you comes out and i remember reading this review that says, “everything will be ok was probably my favorite animated short of all time. it honestly changed my life. it was funny, sad, beautiful and just so wonderful. everything will be ok, boy did i love it. incredible. two thumbs up. truly, best thing ever. wow. so, unfortunately, its sequel, i am so proud of you, just feels like more of the same.”

A still image from ‘It’s Such a Beautiful Day’ (2012).

Are there any pieces of fiction that have influenced your work that we probably wouldn’t think of? —Gyani Wasp, Mikolaj Perzyna, Aaron McMillan, Harrison, Axel, Cringetacular, The25centman, Hunter Guidry one thing that pops to mind is the phantom tollbooth. my favorite children’s books were the ones with all the fun metaphors and clever wordplay. when i was plotting out episode two i wanted to lean into that, where visiting different sections of emily’s brain would be like milo visiting the land of math, the land of letters, the land of sound, with different looks and logic to it. so we had the bog of realism, glimmers of hope, broken memories, the logic center, and all the stuff in triangle land and square land. i guess that’s a lot but i wish there had been a bit more.

How did your friends and family respond to the “my anus is bleeding” part of Rejected? —Alex Tatterson they were pretty used to me by then.

Do you know of the work of David Firth, the internet animator? His work is also surreal and has dark humor, but more sinister than whimsical. Would you ever consider making an animation in the realm of horror in future? —KEVIИ HДWKIИS i’m afraid i don’t know him. i’d love to make a horror movie. from a certain point of view though maybe it could be argued that most everything i’ve made is a sort of horror movie?

My first tattoo is of Billy from Billy’s Balloon hanging from his ankle and it was the best decision I’ve ever made. How do you feel about people having your work tattooed and do you have any ink from other creatives that have meant something to you? —Elias it really fucking enrages me when people get my stuff tattooed on them. no just kidding. mostly i feel embarrassed but i’m glad you haven’t changed your mind about it yet. sometimes i wonder how many people have.

Have you ever thought about directing live action? —Abeer, Noah Thompson yes.

Is there an update on your feature film Antarctica? —Rylan California it’s one of many things swirling around.

Will you do a remake of Robocop and why not next year? —Simon no, because robocop is already sort of perfect.

Do you ever see yourself directing a large studio film? Or working with a large team to make something with a higher budget, maybe through a crowd-funded project? Or do you just strongly prefer working on your own? —Vteyshev, Monotone Duck sure. i’ve never preferred working on my own at all. it was usually just the only way to ever get anything made. i haven’t had the funding to pay a big crew, or really much of a crew at all. there’s the old saying: you can make something good, you can make it fast, and you can make it cheap, but you can only pick two. if you make it good and fast it won’t be cheap, if you make it cheap and fast it won’t be good, etc. so my only route in hoping to make something good and cheap has been to totally forget about making it fast.

What did you find digital animation added or took away from your work, and what did those changes do for your storytelling? Will you continue using the digital medium when/if you decide to move on from the World of Tomorrow project? —Alec Lai, Slipkornbizkit, Aldo digital just sped everything up. it’s still one person drawing everything, so we need to remember that speed is relative here, but i felt like i went from riding a bicycle to driving a car. there are many pleasant, wonderful things about riding a bicycle but you’re not going to get anywhere very quickly. and i’m not in my 20s anymore, in fact my 20s and 30s were mostly entirely devoured by making movies in what was maybe the slowest way possible. so these days i am appreciating the speed of digital.

If you could have a conversation with any filmmaker, dead or alive, who would it be and why? —ToBeHonest, Cringetacular if i could resurrect one of my heroes from the dead i think i would feel terrible wasting his time forcing him to have a conversation with me. he might also just sit there, covered with graveyard dirt, screaming in horror.

What is the best time of day to watch a movie? —Sammy night. i always feel a little nuts coming out of a movie and the sun is still up.

What’s your all-time favorite science-fiction film, and why? —Letterboxd 2001. because come on.

What is your favorite of Julia Potts’ films, and why? —Letterboxd i like the one with the severed foot.

Are there any animated films that you felt had a profound impact on you as a child? —Sprizzle probably fantasia. and ray harryhausen stuff. whenever there was a sunday-afternoon movie on TV, my brother and i learned that if in the opening titles there was a credit for “special effects” we should keep watching because we might eventually see something cool.

Which one of your movies is your personal favorite? —Jakob Böwer, RodrigoJerez i don’t know. sometimes it’s the newest one because it’s usually the one with the most experience behind it and therefore feels like it has the fewest mistakes. but then over time i realize they’re all riddled with mistakes. of the it’s such a beautiful day pieces, i think my favorite has always been i am so proud of you. and then i’ll see reviews that say “clearly the second chapter is the weakest one”, and i’ll think, man you guys don’t know what you’re talking about.

One of Don’s layout sketches for ‘I Am So Proud of You’ (2008).

What’s your favorite Pixar film? —Jordan inside out.

What film would you want to be the last one you watch before you die? —Gavin honestly if i’m in the process of dying i hope i won’t be watching movies at all.

Do you have faith in humanity? —Connor Kriechbaum not often.

What is something that worries you about where humankind is headed? —Felix_Bouchard social media.

What is the most valuable thing you have ever lost? How often do you think about it? —Siminup well now i’m getting sad.

Can you do a back flip, mister Don? —Doug maybe with the help of a catapult.

What is your take on the after life? What do you think happens to us when we die? —Luisdecoss i guess that it’s probably a lot like our memory of what the year 1823 was like.

Do you want anything from McDonald’s? —Andrew Rhyne only if i’m in an airport and desperate.

What’s your favorite meal or snack? —Pfitzerone, Evan lately in quarantine i’ve been discovering this particular breakfast burrito.

How’s your quarantine life, Don? —Ivan Arcena it’s okay thanks. eating lots of breakfast burritos.

Hi! I can’t believe you’re going to read this. I am currently filled with an unparalleled amount of joy, wow. This is a long shot but here I go. I’m 17 and your (self-proclaimed) biggest fan. I’ve seen It's Such a Beautiful Day eight times now and every single time I pick up on more details. I’ve watched a few of your interviews and in the AFS one about Rejected you said that the louder you play a movie, the funnier it is. On my seventh watch of It’s Such a Beautiful Day I hooked my laptop up to three huge speakers and I must say—you were so, so right. I made a video essay about the movie. Lol, I’m not sure if this will get to you but Michael Jordan once said something about missing shots or not taking shots or maybe about tequila, I am unsure but I know it was important. Thanks MJ. Not you, Mr Jackson. I’m sorry Ms. Jackson…

I actually do have a question, sorry about the rambling. Every single time I watch the guy at the payphone flip his pencil and go “fantastic, fantastic” I cry. And I think what really does it for me is that “we’ll finally have our day”. Earlier in the movie, Bill’s co-worker talks about how all of time is happening at once. So what I constantly ask myself is if the guy at the payphone is simultaneously having his day and waiting for it. And I’m no longer speaking to that one specific example or even to the movie as a whole but I guess I’m wondering if the idea of all events happening at once comforts you?

In Slaughterhouse Five, Kurt Vonnegut writes: “The most important thing I learned on Tralfamadore was that when a person dies he only appears to die. He is still very much alive in the past, so it is very silly for people to cry at his funeral. All moments past, present and future, always have existed, always will exist.” When I read this I immediately thought about your movie. I think the idea of all of time happening at once makes all of life feel less important but more special. You know? Anyway, I suppose I’d just like to know what inspired the lines about time in the office scene. This isn’t much of a question, more an incoherent ramble but thank you so, so much for all you’ve done. I feel so incredibly inspired and so deeply moved by your work and I know that so many people in this comment section and around the world would agree. I can’t believe I’ve been given the opportunity to ask something. It really is such a beautiful day. :) —Eli Osei (co-signed by Vooder) that old guy at the payphone was someone i saw at the laundromat once and he borrowed my pencil and the whole thing just played out like in the movie. i just thought it was such a perfect little scene that i’d just witnessed. anyway, the idea of time being a landscape and everything taking place “at once” just came straight out of a science magazine. i don’t know how, but apparently it’s been more or less proven to be true? we perceive time in one direction, but the past and the future are always all around us. think of it as though we’re driving our car through a landscape. even though the mountains we saw ten minutes ago are behind us now, it doesn’t mean those mountains have ceased to exist. they’ve only ceased to exist from our point of view. we’ve only just driven past them. the mountains, like your childhood, are still going on back there. anyway, i had never heard of that before and thought it needed to be in a movie.

A still from ‘World of Tomorrow Episode Two: The Burden of Other People’s Thoughts’ (2017).

Are you a fan of Kurt Vonnegut by any chance? It may be coincidental, but I love how you both utilize science-fiction settings and concepts like being “unstuck from time/memory” to explore the human condition. I feel his writing and your animation are both capable of making me laugh wholeheartedly one minute and weeping genuine, sorrowful tears the next. —Vooder i’m embarrassed to say i’ve never read him and i’m told on a regular basis that i should. that all started after i am so proud of you came out with those discussions about time being a landscape. but i almost only ever read non-fiction. it’s a long story. but now i’m almost afraid to ever read vonnegut after all these years of build-up.

Hey Don, this is really cool. I don’t have as much of a question, more of a comment. It’s Such A Beautiful Day has gotten me through a lot of hard times, being in middle school sucks, I think everyone knows that: and your movie has made life just a wee bit better for me. It also gave me the inspiration and motivation to finish my first feature! Thanks lots. Love from Indiana —Blood Mountain: Experimental Cinema <3 hey thank you. yeah middle school was pretty much the deepest pit of hell. there’s this old saying, “if you find yourself in hell, keep going”. and i’ve never understood that saying. “keep going”, because, i guess, you can always just go deeper into hell?

Hi! Has the vitreous humour in your eyes started to deteriorate and have you experienced floaters within your eyeballs? If not, that’s okay. Just remember it’s part of life, so don’t get scared when it happens! Just keep moving on! But if you do have them, follow-up question: Do you think it’s funny that the body of vitreous fluid that allows your sight to be clear is called the vitreous humour, and when it detaches it’s anything but humorous? I find that pretty humorous myself, in, like, an ironic way. —Clbert1 i actually blew a blood vessel in my eye a couple weeks ago and the whole thing turned bright blood red. it didn’t hurt or anything, i just walked into the room all disgusting and my girlfriend was like, “what the fuck?!” and then the next day i had further weird eye problems. i just went to the eye doctor yesterday. i think i will be fine but i was thinking, wouldn’t it be like the most heavy metal thing ever for my biography if i just suddenly went BLIND? “and then in 2020, HE WENT BLIND.”

Will Intro ever be released to the general public outside of theater screenings? —Melissa okay yes you’ve talked me into it. on that note, i noticed that the poster of intro used on letterboxd is a weird fake and i’m not sure where it came from. someone just used a picture from rejected. if fake posters are to be made i would prefer it if they used a picture from raiders of the lost ark or something.

Do you have plans to combine the World of Tomorrow shorts into one feature-length film à la It’s Such a Beautiful Day? —David Sigura, Sam Stewart, An_Person no, it’s going to be much longer than a feature-length.

Will we ever get a ‘Hertzfeldt 4K Collection’? Or at least a Blu-ray with It’s Such a Beautiful Day and all episodes of World of Tomorrow? —Teebin, HippityHoppity there is actually already a blu-ray for it’s such a beautiful day. up next we’ll do some sort of world of tomorrow blu-ray of the first three episodes. but 4k is too many k’s. you don’t need that many k’s.

Would you ever consider comprising an OST album of all the songs you used and mixed from your films? —PhiloDemon i don’t think so. i read that for many years cat stevens resisted releasing his original songs from harold and maude on any records because he thought they were more special if you could only ever hear them in the movie. i like that.

Do you get a sick kind of pleasure from emotionally destroying people with your movies? —MaxT26 yep.

What’s been your ongoing experience of the outpouring of joy and love of your work? —Henry gratitude. how sad for me if, after all this work, nobody was watching at all.

Related content

Don’s invaluable Twitter thread about “old-school animation camera stuff”

A Few of the Fingerprints on the World of Tomorrow Universe: a list of influences curated for Letterboxd by Don Hertzfeldt

Modest Heroes: the Letterboxd Showdown for indie animation

The Drawn Cinema: Analena’s list of rough animation, pencil textures, watercolor effects, dynamic brushes and other poetic artistry.

Beloved Indie Animation: a list by Gui

Animated Sci-Fi and Fantasy: an extensive list by Stonefolk

‘World of Tomorrow Three: The Absent Destinations of David Prime’ is available now through Bitter Films on Vimeo.

[girl-in-the-tower]

Dorm Prefects as MtG Colours + Requests

Ok, so I know that the number of Magic the Gathering fans that are also Twisted Wonderland fans must be low, but I’ve been playing with this idea in my head for a while now and said ‘screw it! I’m gonna make it anyway!’

For those not aware, MtG is a card game that’s been around for a long time now and there are basically five main colours that each represent a particular type of magic. Those colours are White, Black (the best colour, btw), Blue, Red and Green. They also represent five different ‘philosophies’ (ie, the way in which a person sees the world around them and their relationship to it) and by combining these colours you get even more possible ideologies. 

So what I am about to do is to try and match each dorm leader with the colour or colour combo that I think best suits them based on their personality and Unique Magic. Some of them may even have a counterpart in a specific card or playing style which I will mention in this short analysis. (I am excluding Idia, Malleus and Vil from this part given that we don’t know their Unique Magic yet.)

Anyway, I mentioned requests! So basically if your interested in this and are curious to see what ‘philosophy’ best fits your OCs, go ahead and send me a link to your OC or OCs profile(s)! You can also contact me via DMs!

What I’ll do is match your OC with a colour philosophy, give an explanation as to why and try to find either a specific card or playing style that I think is similar to your OC’s Unique Magic. 

Now, without further ado, here are the matches for the dorm prefects! 

Riddle Rosehearts - Azorius (White/Blue)

Riddle was pretty much the first one that came to mind when I was thinking about this crossover and it became immediately obvious to me that he was an Azorius character. Why? Because it is the colour of ‘structure’ achieved through order (White) and knowledge (Blue). Basically, Azorius people believe that happiness can be achieved through adherence to rules and regulations.

Riddle is obviously a model student who made it a point to learn all the rules that Queen of Hearts has instated and he literally Overblots due to people not following said rules.

Moreover, both White and Blue are the colours most likely to lock down an enemy. White has ‘Pacifism’ which makes it so your creatures can’t attack or block anymore, while Blue has counterspells which basically kill your card before it has the chance to enter the battlefield. It basically leaves you completely defenseless to their attack, which reminded me of his Unique Magic.

Azul Ashengrotto - Dimir (Black/Blue)

Azul was the second character that came to mind, as his philosophy was a pretty good match for Dimir. Like I said before, Blue is the colour of knowledge and those that are characterized by it are often people who possess an intrinsic need to understand things as well as finding other people’s secrets. Black seeks power and independence. Black players always seek to subvert things to their benefit, so the overlap between these two colours can be pretty high.

As we all know Azul is the type of character that uses knowledge to advance and his main concern is to gain power. His whole backstory is about how he used other people’s desires for his own benefit with magic that he learned for that express purpose. 

Dimir has a few archetypes, but the one I had in mind for Azul would be the ‘Surveil’ mechanic. Surveil basically let’s you look at the top cards of your deck and lets you decide whether you want to keep it or trash it for something better that may come along. Moreover it has cards such as ‘Thief of Sanity’ which lets you steal from your opponent’s cards and use them as your own. 

Leona Kingscholar - Rakdos (Black/Red)

Leona was a bit difficult to pin down, because while I was sure he would fit in with the Black philosophy, he wasn’t 100% in sync with it either. Black’s main concern is independence, which makes it similar to its neighbour on the colour wheel, Red. Red, as the colour of passion, seeks to avoid coercion and pressure from outside sources. Rakdos as a result characterizes people that are dismissive of society’s standards and pretty much just march at the beat of their own drum.

Like I said, Leona is a good fit for Black because he is cunning and uses underhanded techniques to achieve what he wants. But he also is surprisingly passionate and impulsive at times and it’s clear that he dislikes people interfering with his way of life.

Rakdos does not have any particular cards that would fit Leona’s magic, but the main strategy of Rakdos players is to beat their opponent into submission through sacrifices. There are a big number of creatures whose main job is to get killed and then inflict additional damage upon the opponent in order to reduce their life points. You just need to be smart about what to sacrifice and when. 

Kalim Al Asim - Selesnya (White/Green)

Kalim was also a pretty easy fit for Selesnya, as he matched quite well the White philosophy. Though White is the colour of order, it is also the colour of peace. White is often said to be suffering from ‘good guy syndrome’ in that it has a very low number of ways to actually kill an opponent’s creatures. The best they can do is pacify it, exile it or imprison it temporarily. Green meanwhile is the colour of harmony as it seeks to live life according to the natural order of things. Selesnya places a big emphasis on community and they both believe in the greater group taking precedence.

Kalim immediately brought to mind this notion of suffering from ‘good guy syndrome’, as well being very big on community. He is the sort of person that doesn’t seem to stress out over smaller stuff and is ready to just accept things as they are.

The biggest similarity with Kalim’s magic would be White’s hexproof ability, basically it prevents an opponent from targeting your creature with a spell, and the prevalence of creatures with Lifelink, which means that when that creature does damage the players gains life equal to the damage done. Oasis Maker is said to have healing properties which reminds me of these two concepts, as it seems to cure ailments and fatigue, much like White would protect a creature from being killed.  

Idia Shroud - Simic (Green/Blue)

Idia was another difficult character to pin down (not as difficult as Vil or Malleus, but still). He obviously fits in the Blue philosophy which is characterized by progress, knowledge and technology, but also has some Green traits too, as it is the colour of preservation and restraint. Simic combines these two notions and creates a philosophy whose main goal is to improve upon the already present foundation. In its view, change is natural and technology merely speeds up the change that it would inevitably go through.

Idia’s talent for tinkering is in line with the Blue philosophy, but him being based on Hades, the Greek God of the Underworld, also brings to mind the colour Green. Yes, Black is the one associated with death, but the Underworld wasn’t only Tartarus, it was the Elysium too. For me, Idia embodies that notion of preserving life through the intervention of technology.

Malleus Draconia - Bant (Green/White/Blue)

Malleus was hard. I’m not gonna lie. Dragon boy has a lot of traits, but none that really stuck me as belonging to any particular colour combo. So I decided to approach this differently. Instead of thinking about which colour best fit him, I thought about which colour didn’t and the answer I came with is Black and Red. Black is the colour of those that work only in their self-interest and Red is too extroverted for someone like him. Malleus seems to me more of a White person, he’s a good guy and even a dork in some instances, with a bit of Blue as well since he’s a fairy with a bigger lifespan than normal humans, so he must know a lot of things even at a young age. But he didn’t really fit the Azorius character either and it seemed to me that the missing element would be Green, which is the colour of maturity and serenity.

Bant people can be characterized by a calm and patient attitude. They are certain of the stability that they posses and work towards evolving and bettering themselves through the acquisition of knowledge about the world around them. The colour that is primary for Malleus is Green, as it centers the other two quite well.

Vil Schoenheit - Grixis (Red/Blue/Black)

Vil was hard too, but after I applied the same thought process that I did for Malleus, I realized that his main colours would be Black, Blue and Red. Black is the colour of independence, as mentioned before, and while Red’s passionate search for authenticity compliments it well, it needed to have Blue’s quest for perfection added in order to properly represent Vil’s character. 

Vil is definitely concerned with expressing himself and going against society’s restrictive norms, but he is too focused on perfection for Rakdos’ taste, which revels in chaos. Instead he fits with Blue, whose personal goal is to achieve excellence through knowledge. Similarly Vil excels in potions and is often looking for way to expand his knowledge regarding beauty.  

[lev1than]

10 Famous Inventions that were the particular culmination regarding other people’s work

An unclean (yet open) secret regarding innovation is most wonderful breakthroughs seldom happen due to a single only genius.

Whereas history is rife with stories with famous inventors, who are generally national game characters, in almost every event they were just the first reduce weight improve a preexisting system to your final level where the item achieved muscle appeal.

Imagine how research discoveries with hundreds of years in the past inspired the works for subsequent ages of professionals.

Or what sort of iPod changed personal song thanks to the actual combination of advancement in the despropósito fields about digital favorite songs compression, hard drive miniaturization, affordable ARM microprocessors and other sorts of technological innovations.

1. Galileo and the telescope

Even while Galileo is normally credited having devised the main telescopes, there was actually a good Dutch individual called Hans Lippershay who had been making addition devices making use of the ever bettering qualities of glassmaking at the moment.

Allegedly, Galileo heard about all these and chosen to build his personal, even generating some changes in the process. Having been also the first person to work with these brand-new optics being a scientific musical instrument, which is where his true value was initially added.

2. James Watt and the steam engine

While I was in secondary school, my scientific research teacher thought it was funny individuals “What was the name of the man who seems to invent the particular steam website? ” Very funny, because “Watt” was the reply, so the problem was a fashionable statement.

Merely steam applications predated Watt’s design just by almost 58 years. Brit Thomas Savery patented the very first steam serps design for 1698, to take out water from coal fosse. Subsequently, Jones Newcomen superior the design to function at atmospheric pressure, of which became the normal design for concerning 50 years.

Watt’s real advancement was building the program with an independent condenser, which made the full process now more efficient.

3. Eli Whitney and the cotton gin

During periods of captivity in the USA, Georgia predominantly expanded cotton that had quicker fibers. The didn’t are very effective with the products at the time which usually tried to take away seeds on the fibers (roller gins), plus required a great deal of manual job. So the point out of Ga sponsored a good engineering force to come up with an improved design.

Whitney improved within the roller gins by updating the sturdy rollers by using wire your teeth.

While this drastically improved manufacturing ability with regard to cotton, this also had typically the sad complication of increasing the requirement for slaves to a fella the career fields.

You may also interesting in invention ideas

4. Elisha Otis and the elevator

Equipment capable of working out with people straight into tall architectural structures has endured since the early Egyptians. And since the industrial wave and the regarding cities triggered taller homes being designed, people started to be tired of being forced to climb various flights associated with stairs. And so elevators had been invented, applying either steam or power engines which often pulled uplifts with ropes.

However, rules have a tendency to bust. And even having an elevator just one or two stories excessive, if the rope broke so you plummeted while using carriage it will result in no less than severe personal injury, if not the loss of life.

Otis truly invented the safety break, which will stop often the elevator through crashing when it was initialized by quick falling every time a rope got destroyed. This took off a major potential for death coming from buildings tall than several stories and even spurred around the building in the first skyscrapers.

5. Thomas Edison and the light bulb

It's perhaps the most popular invention in recent history, and its sign actually sums up the concept of a notion.

And yet, Youngsters Edison didn’t invent the sunshine bulb. Not necessarily the wine glass bulb, or perhaps the glowing filament inside it. They merely better the previous styles to the point that they can become otc practical, in 1880.

The initial electric light product, called a great Arc-Lamp, was made by Humphry Davy with regards to 78 decades before in which but did not last long together with was too bright. Throughout 1850, Ernest Swan has seen that carbonized paper was much better stuff for a filament and put to use them to help make light bulbs. But he could not get the design to be more effective or durable.

After furthermore experimentation, both equally Swan and Edison uncovered subsequently more beneficial materials, and ultimately their a pair of companies amalgamated to market most of their new improved upon design jointly, though most of the people only recall Edison.

6. Guglielmo Marconi and the Radio

In the 1890s, both Marconi and Nikola Tesla have been fighting to formulate the radio. Tesla actually got more of the beginning patents to the technology. Still, the initial treasure of electromagnetic radiation was actually made seven years earlier by German researcher Heinrich Hertz, who was capable to both broadcast and acquire radio swells in his research laboratory.

However, the guy couldn’t imagine any sensible applications regarding his knowledge.

It was after Marconi who has been able to acquire all these technological innovations and switch them perfectly into commercial merchandise.

7. Henry Ford and the car

Honda released the exact Model Testosterone levels in 1908, and it is the first auto to gain block market elegance and good results at a time any time many people nonetheless traveled through the horse.

Nonetheless, the car while powered simply by an internal combustion engine was really created by Karl Benz within 1885, and many other engineers, therefore, improved about the design for greater efficiency, coziness performance.

Precisely what Ford reached was improve production technique of the machine. Her assembly line advanced production productivity significantly, slashing the cost of every single unit for a price point in which people could possibly actually have the funds for it.

8. The Wright Brothers and the airplane

Teens have been hoping to see flight intended for eons. Via Leonardo Kc Vinci’s sketches of hovering machines to story regarding Icarus, many people desired to clear themselves on the shackles involving gravity.

And then the Wright Brothers were not really the only people of their time to try and establish a machine competent at powered airline flight.

George Cayley was the first person to move via designs regarding flapping similar to birds towards a “fixed wing” design. Yet another engineer referred to as Otto Lilienthal then implemented a lot of those models to create genuine gliders through fixed wings and examining them, putting together a lot of files which the Wright Brothers would likely subsequently usage.

Additionally, the very Wright Siblings were able to implement another the latest invention within the time: the internal combustion algorithm from vehicles. They were all-around at just the right age when this kind of became offered.

Their real innovation was a student in their patterns which authorized their planes to actually always be steered as well as controlled. And also rest is usually history.

Also, check out: invention help

9. Philo Farnsworth and the TV

An excellent sort of an invention that had been only probable thanks to quite a few other pioneering technological advances across market sectors.

Farnsworth had the ability to take the trends of the cathode ray tubing (by Ferdinand Braun) and also combine them with an approach to scan graphics using electrons which the person apparently started out thinking of inside high school.

This design likewise outperformed other competing TV SET technology at that moment: mechanical TELEVISION SET.

10. Bill Gates and the Graphical User Interface

Beginning computer systems were being primarily command-line driven, this means you had to know every one of the inputs for you to type right keyboard in order to the machine that which you wanted it all to do.

A lot of people credit Roshan Windows utilizing introducing the globe to the Gui (GUI), which you could use a rabbit to just click on-screen materials to tell it again what to do, making the whole course of action much more simple.

However, much of the progress throughout GUI growth happened very much earlier. Some sort of pioneer was basically Douglas Engelbart, who exhibited an Operating System which has a mouse pointer in 1968. This plan was subsequently taken up by simply Xerox, exactly who released their valuable Alto pcs which were the 1st with a duck and GUI.

As figures go, Apple’s Steve Work opportunities saw an Alto when visiting Xerox’s PARC study center along with inspired him or her to make sure the main Apple Macintosh personal computer would have some GUI, the initial mass-market GUI computers. This unique then flat the way to the even more business-focussed Intel Windows Main system, which got the idea absolutely mainstream.

[hiruzensux]

Whats in Hiruzens desk? N does Danzo steal from it?

yes yes good question

(sorry in advance, this gets kind of cracky; this touches on a few of the dumber conversations my partner and i have had) 

What’s in Hiruzen’s desk?

lots of stuff! such as:

his pipe / other smoking supplies (we know from a databook that he likes to smoke while doing desk work; i don’t know if he keeps his pipe in his desk bc he probably smokes at home too, but he’s probably got an ashtray and a stash of weed tobacco in there)

sentimental pictures; Hiruzen’s a sentimental bitch and has probably got an excess of old photographs both on and in his desk — pictures of his teachers, pictures of his teammates, pictures of his students, pictures of his family, and probably a drawing or two his kids/students made

regular office stuff probably i guess? sticky notes. paperclips. file folders. (im sorry i’ve never had an office i have no idea what lives in a desk)

a bottle of lube (for when Danzō comes over ;) )

porn (for when Danzō doesn’t come over ;( )

Tobirama’s old research notes; Tobirama had several unfinished experimental jutsu he was working on when he died; Hiruzen found the notes while going through his old files and made it a sort of personal project to continue Tobirama’s work. whenever he has time (or is avoiding his actual responsibilities) he likes to dig them out and have a look at them. the problem is, they weren’t written for anyone else to actually read them; they’re all in such specific involved jargon and weird shorthand that a good 70% of them is pretty much unintelligible to anyone but Tobirama himself. on top of that, a few of the techniques he was developing were ones that by nature necessitated testing methods of... delicate ethical considerations. in any case, methods that weren’t really practical during peacetimes, without a consistent supply of war criminals to expend on scientific pursuits. those ones Hiruzen set aside and more or less did not return to.

probably a big bottle of strong liquor (for depressed desk drinking)

(not in the desk, but on it) “Susan” the Hokage office fish; Susan is not the fish’s real name, but no one still living knows that. (in the last few years preceding his death, when he was drinking a lot, Tobirama (wasted) came across a fish in a shop one day that reminded him overpoweringly of Madara (a betta fish, if that doesn’t go without saying). upon awakening the next morning, he was horrified to find that he’d impulsively bought the fish, who was now sitting in a bowl on his desk, trying to fight the potted plant next to it. he realized of course he needed to man up and take responsibility for his actions, so he hastily made up a cover name, bought a nice large bowl, and took great care of Madara Susan the fish for the remainder of his own life, entrusting it to Hiruzen and taking the secret of its true name to his grave)

(also on instead of in) Hashirama’s long-lived and somewhat molesty plants; several potted plants originally belonging to the First Hokage — he grew and tended to them with the wood style, to which one could attribute their unusually long life. it may also be the reason they can be kind of... grabby. sometimes banished to the windowsill for bad behavior

and snacks!!! you should always have snacks 👍

and...

Does Danzō steal from it?

remember those sketchier research notes of Tobirama’s? Hiruzen may be hung up on petty trivialities like “ethics” and “morality” and “sanctity of human life”, but Danzō is what he likes to think of as a problem-solver (fortunately/unfortunately (subjective), Danzō has even less success than Hiruzen in making sense of them, and most of his carefully-procured resources never see their intend use

Danzō also makes a regular habit of rummaging through the desk, ostensibly to steal snacks/petty office supplies, though he spends longer than he’d care to admit staring at certain old photos from their younger years. he has his own copies of most of the relevant photos in Hiruzen’s desk, but there’s a few of the dumber ones — particularly of Kagami and Hiruzen teasing him — that he’d said he didn’t want at the time. Hiruzen would probably gladly have copies made for him, but i’m doubtful whether Danzō would admit to himself, let alone Hiruzen, how much he misses those days.

[scripttorture]

Hi, a couple of questions if that's okay. Firstly: how does medical torture differ from torture used to obtain a confession both by technique/attitude/methodology and by impact on the victim? Secondly: does punishment used by, for example, prison officers work to prevent inmates/victims/etc. from causing trouble or fighting back? You often say that torture makes victims more resistant to their torturers but is this always the case or more in terms of interrogation?

Sorry, me again. I don’t think I was clear when asking about medical torture. I meant to ask more about torturers attitudes towards keeping patients alive, especially if there is a limited number of people they have access to (e.g. people who are born with a genetic mutation that is not very common). Would more advanced technology be more likely to be used, and would that depend on who the torturers are (or who they are supported by). Sorry for asking lots of questions, just answer a few

-

Just answer a few? My friend have you seen the blog? I type more then half of tumblr and there’s no one here to stop me. :)

 In seriousness, I’m passionate about this stuff and I run the blog because I want to share my knowledge. I really believe that we can build a better, kinder world by gaining a better understanding of violence and the long term effects it has on people.

 I think I’m going to leave the first question til last because it’s a little more complicated and it depends on whether you’re talking about something that’s closer to an unethical experiment, or torture with pseudo-scientific trappings. More on that later.

 I’ve seen no evidence that suggests the context or setting torture takes place in effects a victim’s tendency to resistance.

 Most of my regular examples of resistance aren’t actually from interrogation because there is less good record keeping and less evidence. It’s from slavery, forced labour and, yes, prisons.

 Torture in a prison setting makes it much harder to run an effective prison.

 Partly because it increases resistance in the prison population and partly because by doing this it cuts off the best source of information the guards have: reporting from prisoners.

 This does not necessarily mean more overt violence though. When I talk about resistance I mean anything that runs counter to the aims of the torturers. In a prison setting I’d count increased suicides as an act of resistance, because many victims in that setting frame it as an act of resistance.

 Torture can make victims less physically capable of fighting back. And victims can also decide after torture that fighting back is not likely to be successful. But that’s not the same as removing resistance and the flip side of that is some victims will become more aggressive towards the guards (even those who didn’t participate in torture), some will use fighting the guards as a form of self harm and some will just become more determined to keep fighting.

 Essentially whatever your setting as a method of discipline torture fails spectacularly. It might not mean everyone physically fights but it very quickly converts everyone associated with the victims to broadly ‘causing more trouble’.

 The resistance torture produces in survivors seems to be due to how it effects the brain and nervous system. It radicalises other people because we are wired to sympathise with other people’s pain and seeing such extreme examples of it moves us and naturally makes us more supportive of the victim then the attacker.

 There’s nothing in the research that’s available to suggest that the setting or the torturer’s motivation effects the victim’s response in the slightest. Resistance appears to be not just natural and common but a key part of how our brain deals with extreme adversity.

 I think it’s likely that it has old evolutionary roots, predating our species- that’s entirely my opinion because there isn’t much research on torture anyway, let alone on the roots of our responses to it.

 I think that brings me to the ‘medical torture’ portion of your questions.

 I’m still not sure what you mean by that term. Doctors can be torturers and torture has taken place in medical establishments but I think it’s a mistake to label these incidents as ‘scientific’ or ‘medical’.

 For the purposes of writing I tend to draw a distinction between ‘unethical experimentation’ and ‘pseudo-scientific torture’. The difference is whether the villain in your story is actually conducting experiments or not.

 Experiments are not compatible with torture. Experiments require consistent conditions, thorough record keeping and making precise, small, singular changes to measure the effect they have. Experiments require control at a level which is frankly somewhat insane.

 Torture by contrast is completely uncontrolled; it undermines attempts at controlling the environment, confounding factors and any record keeping.

 I think you should start off by reading about what medical testing is actually like. I have a post on how we conduct medical experiments here. I have a post on what unethical experimentation looks like and medical ethics more broadly here.

 Experiments can be smart and cruel but torture is not and can never be inventive or intelligent. My advice is not to conflate the two.

 If you want your villains to be acting like scientists then I’d suggest reading about Tuskegee Syphilis trials, Henrietta Lacks and the Minnesota Starvation experiment. Then step back, put yourself in the villain’s shoes, think about what they want to discover. And pretend the victims are cell cultures or pieces of plant.

 If you want your villains to act like torturers then there’s no room for science. There might be scientific-looking decoration like white coats or bunsen burners or bottles of chemicals, but that doesn’t mean any data is being collected or any systematic control is being applied to the victims.

 In torture the point is pain. In science, ethical or not, the point is results and records. Torturers avoid recording things, lie in records and destroy records. They also regularly refuse to follow instructions or don’t follow them properly, things which would render most experimental results void. Oh and they can also be so focused on causing pain that they don’t even notice the victim’s responses.

 Whichever setting you pick I say again: there is no evidence that the setting, trappings or the torturer’s motivation effects the victim’s response to torture. The torturer has no control over the victim’s response, behaviour or symptoms.

 The rest of the questions depend on whether you’ve decided you’re showing unethical scientific experiments or torture.

 Torturers are unskilled and avoid using complex equipment of any kind.

 Scientists rely on specialist skills, knowledge and often high tech equipment. However most of the famous unethical experiments on humans have not used high tech equipment. Most of them have been variants on ‘lets watch how people die from this awful wound/disease’.

 That said- I do know of a few extremely unethical experiments that did use high tech, specialist equipment. It’s not impossible.

 I don’t remember seeing any examples of unethical experiments where scientists went out of their way to keep experimental subjects alive. The only example I can think of off the top of my head where subjects might have been considered ‘rare’ are- some of the experiments Elsie Lacks was subjected to*.

 Some of the experiments Elsie was subjected to were limited to children with epilepsy and there weren’t very many in the institution Elsie was housed in. To the point where it seems as though every single epileptic child in the institute was used in several experiments.

 No measures were taken to preserve the lives of these children and Elsie herself died very young.

 I can’t say for certain that this is typical because I don’t have enough examples where the experimental subjects were rare. But based on other unethical experiments- I’d say it’s unlikely scientists conducting these experiments would protect the lives of their victims.

 The victim’s death is a result.

 I can’t decide whether torture or unethical experimentation is the right choice for your story. I think if you want any sort of emotional response to the victim (anger, hate, etc-) then a torturer is a better fit. A scientist conducting unethical experiments is unlikely to- see their victim as any more then a piece of equipment.

 In a prison setting both torture and unethical experimentation are possible.

 I think it depends on what you want your villain to be and what they see as the point of the abuse. If the abuse is the point then you’re writing torture, and you should really avoid suggesting it’s scientific.

 If the abuse is incidental and it’s the experiment that’s important to the villain, then a scientist might be a better fit. Which means that- the best way to approach the abuse is as a side effect. It’s not about actively causing the character pain, it’s about ignoring things that are harming the victims. So, a scientist might keep their victims in solitary confinement, not because they’re trying to cause harm but because they don’t care about the fact humans need social interaction.

 Without more details about the story I think I’m going to leave that there.

 If you’re interested in writing unethical experimentation I’d highly recommend reading The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by R Skloot. You might also want to look up Unit 731 from the Second World War.

 I hope that helps. :)

 *See The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by R Skloot

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[enigmaticjblake]

We have failed humanity

If you are reading this, chances of you being an intelligent and a self-aware human being just escalated.

Although I would admit that a bleak possibility of a hyper advanced alien race capable of travelling across time and space has discovered us already and has deciphered all possible forms of human communication only to come to the conclusion that we are among the most stupid races of all and are just not ready to join the ranks of the universal union. I guess that explains why aliens do not want to talk to us. We aren’t ready for an introduction yet.

We humans, on countless number of occasions we have exhibited our immaturity, selfishness and ruthlessness towards humanity.

We have educated ourselves to the tooth, invented newer technologies but we have lost the vision of protecting our planet. We have abused our oceans, our forests and our resources. Our planet is 4.543 billion years and humans are approximately 300-200,000 years old. If you mathematically condense the age of the planet earth into 24 hours, we humans have inhabited it only for a mere 3 seconds and look at what we have achieved.

Countless number of wars have ravaged our civilization over the years, ever since mankind emerged but there are two wars in particular that have changed the world forever. World War 1 and World War 2.

While WW1 lasted for approximately 4 years and lasted between Jul 1914 to Nov 1918 , it lead to the mobilization of more than 70 million troops and stands among the darkest phases in human history. Ironically it was supposed to be a war to end all wars, as the perpetrators claimed.  

More than 15 million human lives were lost in the war.

It is shameful because there was another World War.

WW2 took place on a global scale and lasted between 1939 to 1945, that’s approximately 6 years of endless mindless destruction of humanity as a whole. As much as 30 nations participated in the war, which eventually turned into a battle of 2 factions; the Allies and the Axis. The major players in the war disposed off their entire economic, industrial and scientific capabilities to fuel the war and as a result, there were 90  million deaths all across the planet.

While that wasn’t enough, the world witnessed an unimaginable horror, imagine the world’s most excellent minds capable of thinking outside the box working with the express purpose of creating something that can wipe off humanity.

The atomic bomb was made in order to put an end to the war but it was more of showing the world who is the big daddy.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki saw something no one in this world should see. When the bombs dropped, the whole world changed that day. Both cities were burnt to crisp and the whole region was plunged into radiation. The effects of the same are evident till this day.

It was a demonstration to the prowess of the super power as we know it.

To be honest, not much has changed ever since.

As humans we were supposed to be on but we have divided ourselves.

Our egos have become so fragile that we jump into conflict too fast. Apes did that, pre historic man was no different and intelligent homo sapiens are also no exception.

If you are well aware of your surroundings, chances are you must have heard or read about World Wars. If you have not, you are probably too young or never got the chance to educate yourself.

On the third day of a fresh new decade humanity woke up to memes of World War 3.

There was this sudden discomfort, confusion and realization that we have damaged ourselves beyond repair now.

Whatever the reasons maybe, I see two ignorant world leaders trying to justify their fragile ego and are ready to take down the world along with them.

The possibility of the world engulfing into a third world war has never been so real, let us dive into the consequences humanity will have to face if a third world war erupts because the chances of it have never been this real.

1. There will be black rainfall

Soon as the bombs drop, the skies will go dark and there will be black rain. The rain wont clear the sky and the drops won’t be water. These will be oily drops which will possess harm if come in direct contact with any life form.

In Hiroshima, the black rain started 20 minutes after the impact, the rain covered a rough area of about 20 miles. The whole region was drenched with this black gooey substance which was highly radioactive.

The skies were burning and oxygen levels were dropping, people were struggling through the flames and dying of thirst. Out of desperation most started consuming the mysterious black liquid only to later succumb to a radioactive demise.

The substance was so radioactive, it altered the blood of the people it came in contact with, there is no doubt that if we witness such weapons of mass destruction, we will definitely see this black rain.

2. An electromagnetic shock wave will disrupt electricity causing a massive black out.

Any nuclear explosion will be followed by an electromagnetic shockwave that can potentially fry electric grids and circuits on a nationwide scale. Nuclear tests in the past were capable of doing so on a 1000 miles radius and this was discovered by accident. Ever since, or so called scientific minds have designed nuclear bombs in a way they emit these shockwaves. So not only it will turn off your Xbox or Playstation, the data on your computer will be erased, the food in your refrigerator will become inconsumable and water treatment facilities in the area will shut down eventually granted access to contaminated water.

For a long time, we will be living without electricity and contaminated water.

 3. The skies will become so dark, the sun will black out.

Wherever the bombs fall, there will be an unfathomable amount of energy in that area will consume the surrounding area and will create a dense mushroom cloud almost 15 kms above ground level. This mushroom cloud will spread out into the sky which will cover up the entirety of the sky leading to a long lasting darkness. Survivors of this event will only see a black sky for almost a period of 30 years. Only after 30 years there will be chances of seeing the blue sky and a clear sun.

4. The planet will become too cold for food cultivation.

Dropping temperatures will be a direct consequence of blocking of sunlight by the dark clouds. The dark skies cause a nuclear winter on the planet, there won’t be any summer. It is possible for the animals to starve to death and all the flora, fauna and vegetation that exists at that point will wither away and die.

It will take approximately 25 years for the planet to recover from this climate change.

5. The Ozone layer will be damaged badly.

As we all know, pollution and carbon emissions are slowly damaging the ozone layer, in case of a nuclear holocaust the ozone layer is estimated to take a damage of 50%, this will allow the suns radiation to enter our atmosphere and will be lethal for all kinds of life forms. Life will just not be the same again.

Surviving life forms will go through extensive mutations, crops will become smaller and weaker and will even stop reproducing, humans will suffer from skin cancer and will die a painful death.

6.Billions will die of starvation.

It is estimated that even with continual efforts of harvesting any kind of crops or even if we adopt modern scientific farming techniques, it will take at least 5 years for us to get the first post war yield.

Low temperatures, high amounts of radiation in the soil and water will make it immensely difficult to harvest any kind of crops.

We just won’t be able to feed everyone. Those who will learn to survive will somehow manage to find food and people living beside coastal regions might find it a little easier but again, as there will be a black sky, most of the plankton in the sea will wither away which will kill our oceans. Anything fished out of the oceans for consumption will be dangerous; the first five years will be harsh and challenging and most of us won’t be able to survive.

7. Packed foods will be safe for consumption.

Sealed food is what will keep us alive for the first five years, bottled and canned food come with preservatives, granting them longer shelf life and it has been proven through experimentation that they can protect the contents from radiation. Stuff found on ground zero will contain smaller tracer of radiation but will still be consumable, just don’t expect them to taste good. The challenge will be to stock them as everyone will scavenge the wastelands for them. Just like how we see in most post apocalyptic sci-fi tales.

8. Radioactive bones.

Surviving humans will suffer from cancer, as earth will be bathed in radiation in the initial days of fallout. Strontium-90 is one chemical that tricks our body into believing its calcium and easily accepts it. The body sends this chemical directly into our bone marrow and teeth and thus leads the victim into bone cancer.

The only way to survive is finding out a solid enclosure and stay put till a few weeks have gone, two weeks is the safe period for radiation to reduce a 1000 folds. Birth defects, genetic mutation and deaths will be common. Same were observed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

9. There will be massive storms all around the globe

The first month will witness a crazy pattern in the weather, the nuclear debris wont just block out the sun, it will enter the stratosphere and there will be massive storms, heavy destructive rainfall, blizzards of radioactive snow and cold darkness. It will be a push back into the dark ages where the cave man used to struggle for basic necessities of life.

Things beside water bodies will be worse as temperatures will plummet into a dark nuclear winter.

10. Power vacuum

There will come a time when people will emerge from their shelters, bunkers and eventually try to re-establish civilization. This is will a very dangerous phase, imagine a shift of power into the wrong hands, imagine the world going back into a much darker age. All the efforts humanity took to establish social, economical and ethical systems will have to be redone. Again there can be misuse of power.

11. People will survive.

It is not secret that billions of people will die the moment a bomb goes off, billions more will die a slow and a painful death, be it starvation, freezing in the cold or radioactive poisoning. There are just too many ways to get consumed by the harshness of the post apocalyptic world while handful of us will make it. The handful of us will adapt, be stronger than ever, have the will to survive against all odds.

Those who survive the first 30 years of this apocalypse will be the one to see a new earth. An earth where plants will start growing back, the skies will be clear and the sun will shine like it used to.

The new world will look something like Chernobyl where nature has reclaimed everything.

 Life will go on and people will start rebuilding everything and I hope that they do their best to learn from the mistakes their past foolish and selfish leaders have made.

Hopefully they will evolve into a much mature race and finally have the aliens talk to them some day.

[zenosanalytic]

Theorizing Role: Seer of Life

strongman-freakshow:

Hey there! I was trying to look for some specific posts of yours and was having a bit of trouble. Do you have anything on the seer of life, specifically?

Hmmm, Not much, but I think Seer of Life is an interesting one, so I’ll give it a go.

Ok so a Seer of Life seems kind of tricky to me. Life tends to concern itself with practical matters(Biology, Wealth, Physical Ability, Acquisitiveness, Agency, Creativity) which don’t immediately lend themselves to precognition the way Aspects like Light, Mind, or Time do. According to Aradia’s formulation, a Seer of Life would be one who “Knows Life Comprehensively”(with Certain Important Provisos for how that might work, and for how one might Perceive of that working, I’d argue), and combining that with the concepts above certainly suggests a wide utility, but the primary Role Seers fill is identifying incoming threats and directing their team through or around them; where’s the foresight in “Knowing Life Comprehensively”? We haven’t seen many Life-powers in action, but Life has, on top of those already mentioned, all manner of Associations; it’s a rather abstract Aspect that seems at its core to most directly be about “The Ability to Do”[1]; though “Comprehensive Knowledge of Nebulous, Open-Ended Practicality” sounds like a fun approach to it, to me, in its own way :p Agency obvsl plays an important role in ”Doing” and, as a result, in Life-Hero stories[2]. Life-Players tend to be good Problem-solvers with a particular knack for thinking outside-the-box, and in-even-MORE-particular with finding ways to continue life, in some form or another, through any trial, even death; giving them a bit of a Sleeping Beauty/Orpheus&Eurydice/Persephone vibe(and I’d argue you really shouldn’t ignore the mythic aspect of Homestuck Titles u_u). 

So, given all that, I think one clarifying way of conceiving this would be to render the Aradia-description from “Knows Life Comprehensively”  to “Knows Doing Comprehensively” thence to “Knows Solutions Comprehensively”. “Comprehensive Knowledge of Solutions”(or, for the Colloquially minded, “How Do”) probably sounds really straight-forward, so let’s complicate it :p :p

Solution/=Good. The morality of a particular “Solution” lies in what it entails and its outcomes, not in its nature AS a “Solution”. The Solutions a Seer of Life Looks for, Sees, Chooses, and Directs others towards will depend on the Life-Seer’s own moral compass, and Life-Players haven’t exactly proven themselves conscientious in the maintenance of that particular piece of personal metaphysical kit(with the exception of Feferi, who was never but a Most Excellent and Totally Righteous Dude u_u u_u But that’s 1 out of 3 which is Not Gr8 Odds :T)

Solution is Big. Most problems can be solved, conservatively, in about 16 Million way, Most of them only minorly different, yet still distinct. The answer to “How Do?” can often approach a practical infinity. This seems both Overwhelming and Monotonous to me

Solution; Then What? Terezi can see vast webs of Decision and Causality; Rose the Objective “Fortune” value of any particular chain of events; but “Solutions” end at the problems they solve. As Above, so Below: Whar Foresight; Whar?

At the same time it also sounds a bit limited, so let’s expand it :p :p

Sight Bleeds. Rose isn’t limited to just knowing how “Fortunate” a plan will be, nor Terezi to only the “Choices” involved; they both See some varying level of detail of the specific events and those leading up to them, otherwise they wouldn’t be able to advise about and intervene in relevant events. So in all likelihood, a Seer of Life WOULD see both the specifics relevant TO, and probably those events immediate(and possibly circumstantially simultaneous) Of, said events and their Solution.

Aspects are Broad. Terezi can also effectively read Minds(because, you know Mind). Rose can look through solid objects(probably because visible or optical light isn’t the only KIND of “Light” out there. Emanations be both Numerous and Numinous u_u u_u u_u). All Aspects, regardless of what sources professing to be reliable in canon have claimed as their Boundaries, have displayed a vastness of meaning, ranging from the mundanely literal to the abstract, esoteric, and even mythical(which is to say: Wildly Subjective[early HS occasionally lampshades this subjectivity with variants of the phrase “personal mythos”]). So Life-Sight would probably cover all sorts of other stuff, connectable to “Doing/Solutions” but not immediately apparent as such. Most basically, the ability to See the Lifetimes of particular individuals or groups of individuals, which would effectively allow Seers of Life to See the future of those individuals(at least until they die), and necessarily the after effects of any particular Solution upon them. Not to mention the connections to Death, Life-After-Death, and Resurrection which all Life Players have shown, and how THAT, through ideas such as History, can apply to the “Life and Death” of ideas, events, and outcomes(not to mention their connection to temporally non-linear Dream Bubbles, and how that could be used for future-seeing).

“Know Comprehensively” is Big. What does it mean to “Know”? What does it mean to be “Comprehensive”? Early on Seers struggle to answer these questions without really realizing it, and plenty of others, as they struggle to master their Title, but successful Seers, unlike displacer beasts, don’t deal in approximate knowledge. If a Seer of Life’s Knowledge of How Do(and Life, and Wealth, and Agency, etc etc)can be said to be “Comprehensive”, then it seems very unlikely to me that their Sight, when mastered, wouldn’t given them some sense of(and thus control over) the ultimate outcome of the Solutions they choose. And as an aside, I’d bet they’d also be absurdly skillful in general(since Comprehensively Knowing a Solution means knowing how to carry it out), and just absolute Gangbusters at figuring out Alchemiter recipes.

On top of Title-development every Player faces personal challenges, of course, and these tend to share similarities between Classes and Aspect. Seers often struggle with self-confidence and self-worth, with maintaining Perspective on themselves, and issues of achievement(failed perfectionism in Rose and Terezi, and perhaps over-estimation[in response to fears of not fitting in or being excluded] with Kankri? It’s difficult to say given the limited material) often simultaneous to significant personal losses(Mom Lalonde’s murder; feeling compelled to kill Vriska for Terezi; again it’s difficult for Kankri, but how he pushes away Porrim may be his example). Aspect is frequently tied to all of this(I discuss how in This Post on Seers of Heart). So something tied to Life(perhaps the Seer’s own privileged position or, in a more Feferi-like take, the restrictive cloistering it brings) would cloud the Seer’s Perspective on events, and promote a crisis of confidence(most likely self-doubt, but given Kankri it’s possible OVER-confidence could also be a problem, particularly given the natural gifts and material condition Life-Players tend to possess), at a time when, due to the loss of relationships and people, they would be in a stressful and emotionally vulnerable place. And always, as mentioned above, there would be the temptation of taking the “easy” way; of putting themselves First, dismissing the equal being of others, and manipulating their friends into circumstances the Seer prefers, without consideration for their consent or well-being.

So Seers of Life would face a tough row to hoe. They’d have to learn how to sift through a staggering number of options to find the 8est(as they define it) Solution, with limited knowledge of where it could lead, all while being aware of how their own desires and moral flexibility can undermine the whole project while seeming to advance it and bring harm to the people they care for. But this isn’t really new. Perspective, Judgement, and Self-Awareness are vital to ALL Seers using their Sight effectively. While these challenges may be more vast and immediate for Seers of Life, they wouldn’t be fundamentally different from what all Seers struggle with. With time and focus and the patience to consider others instead of taking the quickest and shiniest roads, a successful Seer of Life would learn how to achieve clarity of purpose, and refine and focus their Sight with Knowledge of other facets of their Aspect. I think a Seer of Life is no less likely to be useful, and even game-breaking, than any of the more obviously Oraclely Aspects.

Ok that’s my general ideas about a Seer of Life; what about some specifics?

Aggrieving Anatomist

Let’s Take This Early Discussion on Seers of Life as inspiration(h/t to deliverusfromsburb and thegrimsqueaker ^v^ these are mostly their ideas). You could have a Seer of Life interested in Anatomy and Biology/BioChem, who likes martial arts movies and who, as a Life-Hero, is both preternaturally strong, and headstrong(and, tbf, given the 3 canon Seers, “Headstrong” could very well be a Seer trait as well :T). Based on their interests, they’d have a tendency to envision Solutions that involve the body and biological or chemical processes, and their personality would tend to bend this towards combat; either by seeking out combat theirself, leading others IN combat, or trying to teach others their ridiculous, biomantic fighting techniques(which, given how alchemiters allow Players to lend and merge their powers with those of their Friends, ought to be possible). I DO NOT think this would necessarily be a bad thing, both Rose and Terezi mix it up in HS, but this sort of Seer might have trouble letting themselves(or learning how to) delegate to others, and direct them along their own quests. Given the tendencies of Life Players, they may even go so far as to have a hard time conceiving of their Session as being bigger than their own Quests, and thus struggle with tunnel-visioning(though, given how The Game’s very structure interweaves Players’ quests together, there’d be plenty of stuff working to counteract that). 

Their powers could start as an encyclopedic and precise knowledge of anatomy, eventually developing(ala Rose and the 8-ball) into an x-ray-vision like ability to See anatomy directly, allowing for improbably devastating(and cinematic) blows in combat. Terezi’s Sight takes the form of interconnected Neurons stretching into infinity; Rose’s, what little we see of it, of and bursts of Revelation, Enlightenment, and Emanation; This Seer’s might eventually manifest as a vast system of Temporal Veins and Causal Nerves, as if they were Seeing the body of the Universe Frog itself from the Inside. They could trace each Vein to see where it blocks and withers(what events Doom that TL) then, working back from the Event-Clot, develop a Solution to clear or bypass it. By tracing the Nerves they could see how events outside the timelines interact with and direct the shape, direction, and operation of each Vein, and work out ways sever, limit, counteract, or manipulate that influence in what they consider a useful or “Healthy” direction. Through this Awareness of how those around them relate to the inner-workings of the Vast Croaker, they could identify which actors in their story play the role of “Antigens”, harming the Body-Realistic, using that knowledge to direct and counsel teammates, and plan their strategies. 

Chess Doctor

A Seer of Life interested in Medicine could share that sort of Life-Sight while having a totally different personality and approach. Meenah, Feferi, and Jane saw their cloistered lives as oppressive, but maybe this Seer isn’t really all that social or adventurous to begin with, and so doesn’t mind. So long as they have any book they want, the best tutors to teach them, and immediate easy authority, they’re perfectly fine with taking on the restrictions and responsibilities that go with them. This sort of Seer of Life would take naturally to the Role of strategist, observer, and advisor, focused less on personal combat than understanding the challenges facing them and developing solutions, but along with that could come a casual, condescending arrogance, and tendency for viewing others as instruments for their plans rather than people in their own right, which could cause just as many problems. Whereas the last Seer struggled with seeing the larger picture, this one would struggle most with understanding that THEIR views aren’t the only ones out there, nor necessarily the most important, nor the “right” ones.

Endless Observer

Another approach might be a more literal one; a People-Watcher. This Seer’s main interest would just be People, as a subject; the things they do, how they think, how they go about their Lives. While somewhat detached by their station and socially awkward as a result, they’d be filled with an infectious ------Enthusiasm for everything even vaguely anthropological: history books and films, documentaries, works of psychology, How-To Shows, ~Reality Television~, National Geographic; you name it. Maybe they’d have an EXHAUSTIVE LIBRARY, exhaustively read, of these SEMINAL TEXTS ensconced safely within the heart of their TASTEFULLY HUMBLE SUBURBAN MEGAPALACE 0u0 Whenever a problem comes up, they’d immediately have the know-how to solve it(and the best tools to solve it with, cost irrelevant). As an expression of this maybe they’d start with a maxed-out strifedeck and Robust, easily navigable Sylladex, or maybe they’d have a special Debit Card Sylladex Mode which stores only currency, but allows it to be converted to any item on request :p :p Or maybe(!) rather than a Sylladex Mode, they’re Strife Abstrata would be Cardkind and, like a suped-up version of Kanaya’s lipstick, their Card could be converted to a whole host of items on command.

This Seer’s powers might start off manifesting as having “coincidentally” just looked up a relevant subject right before the problem it could help solve arises. Rose’s viewing orbs expressed her interest in the occult so maybe this Seer would alchemize a Book or card-catalogue or How To Video which could provide information on any topic(or possibly a FLASH CARD TAROT, filled with detailed solutions). Perhaps the visualization of their Sight would be different, too; rather than Seeing through an anatomical model, they’d See a chattering ocean of flashing images or monitors containing every possible “life” branching from that point, which they could resolve, through concentration, into a picture of the problem they’re trying to solve, and the solution to it they like best. Maybe the very volume of their knowledge would begin to make it difficult for them to choose a solution, causing bouts of indecision(or physical pain). A fun branch from this idea could be having the Seer create a clone of themselves, or maybe some animate agent, to attempt alternate solutions or do the Seeing while they do the Doing, who eventually gets out of hand ala The Sorcerer's Apprentice. I could also see a Seer like this, so used to dealing with people as objects to be watched rather than equal people, developing problems with listening to and considering the needs of others, despite a friendly and positive demeanor.

Ok; I think that’s all I’ve got in me for a Seer of Life right now. I Hope it helps ^u^

[1]all the Life Heroes we’ve seen have been physically quite gifted, Convincing speakers, and born into Influence and Wealth

[2]Fef’s desire to be free of her hemocaste role, choosing of Sollux over Eridan, and negotiation with the HTs; Jane’s subliminal schooling by Condy, forced cyberization and mind-control, her inability to tell Jake of her romantic&sexual interest, her mistreatment of him while CrockerMaid; Meenah’s desire for power without responsibility, basically Everything she seems to have done in their Session(including the Cake and secretly murdering everyone so they wouldn’t be erased), and there’s def a discussion to be had about age and consent re: her rom with Vriska

[acertaincritic]

Various Donghua Reviews

I watched or tried to watch a whole bunch of donghua in the past few weeks, and since I see little discourse on this type of animation, I decided to compile them into a list with my short opinions attached. If you are toying with the idea of watching this or that Chinese animation, check out below for both recommendations and a couple of no-no series ^.^”

First things first, some notes. “Wuxia” is a popular genre in Chinese media, based off martial arts, and most often it strays into fantasy territory (from what I’ve seen, at least). It comes with a set of already established tropes and world building details. Think about Western fantasy - when you see elves in it, you don’t have to be told what they are. There are variations, but generally elves = pointed ears + beautiful + magical, and everybody knows that. Wuxia has similar things that do not get explained in every story, so it might feel overwhelming at first, though many translators do try to explain them in the notes. Just for the sake of those who want to know before starting watching, here’s what might make your life easier:

Cultivators - people a little like mages, except they have flying swords and generally are well-versed in martial arts. Usually their purpose is to battle evil supernatural beings. In some stories they are ageless (as in, they don’t grow old) and very hard to kill, in others it’s toned down. Above a certain level, they often train by remote meditation.

Golden Core/Core Formation - sth like the source of their power?... Not exactly, but they have to form it through training if they want to use advanced techniques. It’s situated somewhere between chest and belly, I suck at anatomy, don’t kill me.

Paper talismans  - rectangular pieces of paper that are amazingly easy to toss at your enemies. Used for casting spells, easy to understand just by watching. Also if they seem to be glued to sth, then they usually serve as a seal of some kind.

Various demons/spirits/other magical beings - gosh, there’s a ton. TBH I don’t even know if some aren’t completely made-up by the authors for the sake of their stories. Generally be ready that a new demon/beast/something can jump out from every corner, and the characters are going to know what it is, while you don’t. Resentful energy seems to often be tied to them, as in, it’s what often fuels them.

All right, without further ado, here’s what I’ve tried already. The list is more or less in the order of recommendation, aka from those I liked best to those that I didn’t like at all.

Title: Mo Dao Zu Shi / The Grandmanster of Demonic Cultivation

Throughline: The supposed villain of the cultivators’ world gets reincarnated into an adult’s body 13 years after his death. Things escalate from there.

My take: 

+ my entry point into donghua.

+ I was hesitant to watch because of the BL tag, but there really is no need to get scared by it. There’s plot proper, well-developed characters, both main and side, and overall this clearly is a fantasy series with a romance rather than a romance with fantasy setting.

+ beautiful art and great animation with only sparse moments when CGI looks kinda clanky.

+ wonderful music, too.

+ honestly though, I’ve been on a low when I came across it and was brought back to life. It’s been a long, long time since I fangirled over a series so much.

+ if you follow my blog you must’ve already seen about it.

+ Just give it a try, OK?

- some things in the beginning are not clearly explained and many names get tossed in at once; especially if you don’t know any Chinese, they might all sound the same. The characters also all have long black hair and bishe faces. I recommend first checking them online and memorizing at least the main casts, it really makes watching it much easier - focus on the bangs and clothes, and try to remember their names. Or you can always rewatch the beginning after you get better at recognizing who is who.

- the cut to flashbacks is confusing, as it happens at the very end of episode 2. Then episodes 3 to 14.5 take place in the past - another thing that’s not super clear and worth keeping in mind.

Title: Di Wang Gong Lue / The Emperor’s Strategy

Throughline: The Emperor and his loyal noble ally take on many problems that befall the country.

My take:

+ This is the closest series to “Mo Dao Zu Shi” I found so far, though there aren’t that many specific similarities. Only the overall ‘feel’ is similar.

+ Also tagged BL, but TBH, if I didn’t know about it before watching, I still wouldn’t know it.

+ The relationship between the two main characters is like, funny and cute at the same time.

+ Politics and fantasy intertwined.

+ Also a lot of interesting side characters, though maybe they could’ve been given more screen time.

+ great character designs and music.

- animation. It looks like anime from around the year 2000, even though the series came out in 2018.

- some flashback stuff seems really cheesy. There’s not a lot of it, thankfully.

- the first three or four episodes aren’t very engaging. I got invested around episode 5, though as you see, the beginning isn’t so terrible that you can’t wade through it.

Title: Mi Yu Xing Zhe / Uncharted Walker

Throughline: A group of people are put on a tropical island, forced to play an escape game under extreme circumstances.

My take:

+ an interesting set of characters with various backgrounds, most of them likable or at least understandable.

+ despite the setup, it’s not as bloody as many similar series. Characters can die, but they don’t die that often, which really builds tension and keeps you on the edge of the seat, because when there’s a close-to-death moment, you never know if it’s one when the character will really die or when they get rescued last-minute.

+ there is a very strong “game” feeling to this, where characters generally have to figure out how to use their resources to overcome various obstacles.

+ some psychological stuff here and there.

+ very good animation and designs.

-/+ there are borderline supernatural elements, though generally playing pretend at scientific. I personally don’t mind it, but some people might be put off or disappointed.

- it turns much more creepy in the last 3 or so episodes, to the point that it becomes more of a horror than a survival and mystery story. Even worse, the horror stuff comes in a setup that’s pretty realistic, so I have flashback ‘till this day (I don’t like horrors, and being realistic makes it much worse). TBH if I knew, I’d probably resign from watching, because as much as I enjoyed everything up until that part, the creeps aren’t worth it... However, perhaps you like horrors better than I do.

- a HUGE cliffhanger at the end. But like, HUUUUUGE HUGE.

Title: Shuangsheng Lingtan /  Twin Spirit Detectives

Throughline: Twin brothers take on cases of supposed supernatural phenomena, bent on proving that they are not real - only that one of them appears to be a ghost himself...

My take:

+ interesting setup.

+ detective stuff - I have a soft spot for mysteries.

+ likable main characters and a few well-developed side characters, too.

+ animation is overall quite good.

+ has a solid arc, though with an open ending and kinda a cliffhanger about a side character at the end.

-/+ bordering on the supernatural territory again.

- horror elements, but thankfully, this time they aren’t that realistic.

- some things in the first few episodes feel rushed or not properly developed (apparently the issue is with the donghua adaptation, and the original manhua had a slower beginning).

Title: Quan Zhi Gao Shou /  The King’s Avatar

Throughline: The top player of “Glory” is forced to give up his account and retire for a year. What will he do now?

My take:

+ a decent setup, though it gets old quickly.

+ a large cast of interesting character with various strengths and weaknesses and strongly-defined personalities.

+ great art style and characters’ design.

+ great animation during fights.

- the main character. Just. I’ve rarely encountered such a Gary Stue, I really wish I could see him lose for real. Like, I’m OK with him beating noobs, that’s realistic, but he doesn’t stop even after other pros come into play.

- the plot seems generally directionless so far, and gets tiring easily.

- originally I was supposed to binge-watch it with friends as a series none of us knew beforehand, but we gave up after 6 episodes and I switched it to MDZS instead. I finished it alone later, and mostly for the sake of the side characters and animation.

- it is generally watchable, but like, far from best.

This point marks the end of series I watched whole. The following are series I dropped after 5-6 episodes (which I consider a fair amount).

Title: Ling Qi / Spritpact

Throughline: A guy dies and is given an ultimatum - to pass away or become a spirit companion of a demon-battling, Korean priest.

My take:

+ setup and world building. This seems just like the kind of fantasy that fits my taste.

+ ...character design is not terrible, I guess?

+ apparently the animation gets better in season 2.

+ the demon-battling priest seems like a character archetype I might like.

+/- TBH this series wasn’t tragic, I may still go back to it one day, if I really feel like it. The idea has potential and the plot probably gets better later, I just wasn’t able to prevail until then.

- animation in the first season is kinda meh. Could be worse, but it still doesn’t please. Don’t let the marvelous poster above deceive you!

- the main character. He’s so whiny, I was unable to stand him. He’s the main reason I dropped this, and I honestly have no idea if he gets any better later.

Title: Quanzhi Fashi / Full-Time Magister

Throughline: Three months after a guy gets transported into a magic-filled alternative reality, he struggles to get into magic school to become the best mage and get a lot of money for his family.

My take:

+ setup/world building again hit a soft spot in my fantasy-loving heart.

+ ...I’ve seen some fragments from season 2, apparently animation is good there.

- I hated the MC of QZGS, but he at least had half a reason to be so unrealistically OP. This guy here... he’s a new low... Basically “How to Write a Gary Stu?” example. Like. C’mon. You can have an OP cool protagonist without making them a GS.

- despite the potentially interesting premise, this is as simplistic as it could be. The MC is ridiculed, but he turns out to be super powerful with talent for not just one, but two most rare elemental magics. He gets bullied - then he shows off how much better he is than the bully during magic exams, stunning everybody. One of the Big Bad Rich Guys tries to recruit him - he flat-out refuses in a infuriatingly arrogant manner. Etc. etc.

- Characters are as deep as a puddle during drought.

- Look, there’s a set of tropes that are generally laughed at in this type of premise, like the MC having an OP secret power, getting put down by everybody to an unrealistic degree etc. Here they are played painfully straight, and there’s nothing more to the story. Absolutely nothing, not a single interesting character or plot thread. I kept watching for so long hoping that something would turn up, but it didn’t.

- animation in season 1 is pretty bad.

That would be all for my donghua experience so far. I had many ups, though I guess some salt pits were unavoidable +_+

[phroyd]

A Little Late,  but, ... whatever! - Phroyd

There is this rare thing that will happen in the universe on June 19, when Mercury and Mars oppose Pluto on the same day. According to VICE senior astrologer Annabel Gat, this means we’ll be susceptible to a lot of fighting, power struggles, and generally catastrophic energy—and it could be the worst so far this year, if we're not prepared.

“There are going to be lots of fights breaking out, huge egos, jealousy. It’s going to be all the treacherous drama in Game of Thrones, multiplied by 20. Just imagine everything is extremely confrontational,” Gat says. “Mercury rules the mind and communication, and it’s all about negotiating. Mars is all about taking action, and it’s also the planet of war. Pluto can do both those things to an even higher degree...It’s an overwhelming energy.” In other words: If Mars is a fist-to-fist bar fight, Pluto is the astrological equivalent of nuclear warfare.

Adding to that, emotions have been building through last week and into the full moon Monday: hopes have been dashed, and people have been paranoid or too trusting, she says. Jupiter’s square to Neptune, compounded by Mercury opposing Saturn, brought heaps of rejection and gloomy energy on Sunday. June 19 brings a critical climax with “the moon in Capricorn opposing Mars and Mercury and meeting with Pluto, making emotions especially heightened.”

Rather than sit back and fall victim to whatever pandemonium awaits, or worse—relive those last few episodes of GOT—I asked Gat for tips for all of us on how to prepare for this terrible cosmic weather.

1. Be on high alert during rush hour

Whether you’re on a train or bus, or driving during the morning rush, be aware that the aggressive energy around you could lead to higher-than-usual tension. Think: road rage, people snapping at each other. “The commute is time when people’s tempers are set off very easily,” Gat says.

Along those lines, leaving early will do you some good. If you’re not in a rush, you’re less likely to be the person on edge and you won’t have to worry about delays from the chaos around you. If you have the option to work from home, this would be a great day for that!

2. Avoid your usual caffeine fix

This is a day to calm yourself down, not psych yourself up. “Do your best to stay chill during everyday interactions—that [could] mean swapping out your coffee for chamomile tea,” Gat says. (That said, if you’re a person who is cranky without caffeine, leave enough time to brew a cup so you start your day on the right foot!)

If you want to take that a step further surround yourself with calming scents, like lavender—if you can’t burn a candle, perfume works. This wouldn’t be a bad week to try some meditation, or learn some breathing exercises (one called “resonant breathing,” which has been recommended to veterans and survivors of genocides and natural disasters, takes just a few minutes to learn).

3. Hang out in threes

Having a third party present can be useful for keeping things in check when tempers flare. “When you’re arguing with someone, what they’ll say to you will be different based on whether you’re alone or if a teacher, parent, or boss is watching,” Gat says. “Make sure someone is watching.”

Just make sure that third party is someone who will make things better, not worse. “The best way to deal with Pluto problems is to bring in...an unbiased third party who can help mediate. The worst way to deal with Pluto problems is to cheat on someone or have secrets,” she says. And if no one else is around, “ask yourself what you would do if a parent that you really respect, or your hero, was in the room.”

4. Turn your revenge fantasy into a success fantasy

If you’re feeling an impulse to get back at someone on June 19, remember that revenge is almost always better in your imagination. If you can’t shake the impulse, however, lean toward a healthier version of it.

When they say, “‘Success is the best revenge,’ there’s still a lot of ego behind it,” Gat says. “But it’s a better place to lean into than, ‘I’m going to ruin your life.’” So if you’re feeling fixated with the day’s “relentless energy,” consider channeling that energy toward your own passions and healthy obsessions; tackle some research and let that energy propel you in the direction you’re going with those things.

5. Pick your battles, or at least delay them

It’s generally good practice to pick your fights, but we all have those moments when things that have been building up to be released. Wednesday is not the day for that. If you can’t hold back, save it for Thursday at least—then if you’re still moved to say something, you won’t be as relentless about it.

“Whenever you see Pluto, you always have to worry. Opposition means we can’t avoid things anymore. Mercury has a mouth, and Mars wants to pick fights,” Gat says. You may find you will be “clinging to your ego, refusing to surrender to change. The worst qualities in people can come out—jealousy, obsession, possessiveness and manipulation.”

6. Give yourself permission to be a little fake, just for a day

“Be smart about the battles you pick. You might have to be fake-nice to someone,” Gat says. So you may have to tell a little white lie, or smile at someone even if it’s through gritted teeth. This “might be really inauthentic for you on any other day, but [on June 19] you have to do the right thing in terms of your own sanity, and to keep everyone else safe, too,” she says.

If you can’t bring yourself to pretend, try to practice some compassionate communication. Remember: everyone has the capacity to blow up, even if you’re the most laid-back person you know. “No one is safe from this—we all have the capacity to blow up at each other,” Gat says. “It’s all about learning patience, being able to breath through things, and not acting on impulse.”

7. Write down your amazing comebacks, then maybe burn them

Carry a notebook around or have your phone handy to jot things down privately before saying something out loud that you may regret—especially with comebacks that feel justified in the moment. “Mercury is the planet of the mind and it’s currently in Cancer, which is a sign we think of as being really intuitive, but it doesn’t know the best way to ask for what it wants because has been in opposition with Saturn, the planet of restriction, this month,” Gat says. That means “there have been a lot of blocks around communication, and we haven’t been feeling as heard as we usually do,” and if we’ve been carrying something around in our minds we’ll want to just say them.

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But the energy is very impulsive, so if you are going to give someone a piece of your mind, you may as well do it after you’ve thoroughly thought your perspective over (and when the astrological weather is more conducive for problem solving). Then, if you revisit those written thoughts another day, you may find they’re more harsh than you intended. You can also get a lot off your chest by unleashing all your anger out in a letter—and then safely burning it or ripping it up, Gat says.

8. Remember that your intentions don’t always translate

When it comes to communication, we often get hung up on the intentions behind our messages instead of the way they are received. Gat reminds us that during this intense day, lashing out for any reason—even in self-defense—isn’t going to produce desirable results.

“Mars is the planet of action and of war, and Cancer is the sign of the crab, which has a hard shell as its armor. Mars in Cancer has a lot to do with protection and safety, so when it’s opposing the planet of the underworld, Pluto, we really feel we have to protect ourselves,” she says. We may lash out, thinking we’re defending ourselves, not realizing it’s also offensive. We lash out for our own safety but it may not be solving any problems or getting you the closure or result you desire.”

9. Pre-empt miscommunications in bed by setting ground rules

If you don’t already have a safe word with your partner(s), Gat advises that you set them now. Establishing boundaries in advance gives you both the tools to avoid crossing them during sex. She notes that, “if you haven’t been getting what you want in bed due to not knowing how to ask, you will definitely reach your breaking point and will feel pushed to figure out how to request what you have been craving.”

10. Take your anger out on inanimate objects

Sometimes anger just needs an outlet. Luckily, those outlets exist. You could try renting a rage room, or if you have something you can safely smash with a hammer or an isolated place you can go to do some primal screaming, this is the day to do it, Gat says. “Anger has a real place in the world [and] in our lives. But let’s not get into silly fights on the commute, or destroy a relationship over ego.”

In the book "Trauma and the Body,” somatic psychologist Pat Ogden cites a technique where you push against a wall with all your might to release aggression. But if all else fails, a traditional punching bag could work, too.

11. Look for happy, productive endings

“Pluto is the planet of death and transformation and Mars rules knives and swords,” Gat says. “It’s all about severing things, so things are getting cut off.” This could mean an extremely dramatic urge to quit your job, or breakup with lovers or friends; but instead of having a soul-crushing confrontation, why not save it for a calmer day and purge your belongings instead? Get rid of stuff you no longer need, or in Gat’s words, “use the energy of endings for your benefit.

If you’ve thought it over and you really are ready to say goodbye to a person or situation, however, watch out for manipulations and power plays. “If you dump someone on this day in the hopes that they’ll try to win you back because you are testing them, you won’t be in luck!”

The good news is, Mercury only opposes Pluto once a year, and Mars only opposes it once every two years. But Gat warns we are also approaching eclipse season, which will “bring even more shocks and shake ups, as secrets are revealed and changes in power take place,” so there is more turbulence to come (hello, Mercury retrograde on July 7!).

Phroyd

[yogaadvise]

Giving to Receive: 10 Practices Using the Law of Karma

Karma, as a mainstream concept, is typically deceptive. Some would certainly limit its definition to "reaping what you sow" or the universe getting also with incorrect doing, Karma actually lugs an extra details truth. "Fate" in Sanskrit indicates "action." The old spiritual traditions of the East speak of life as an expression of awareness. This way, life is an outcome of consciousness meeting a desire to experience.

The origin of Fate is your heart's attachment to the activities and also intentions you select during your life. As an individual soul, you are a witness to your life, also though you may really feel that you are the "doer." This accessory to action demands Karma. In simplistic terms, Fate is the result of your actions and also intents.

As the central awareness of your own life, you are not just experiencing, but additionally "creating" the experience from the globe at big. This means that you analyze and adjust your fact, if no place else, most definitely within your Self. From this perspective, Fate is a responses mechanism for what you do as well as assume. You can think about it as life's means of leading you as well as growing you, with any luck on a great path.

There is a lot that can be stated regarding the subject of Fate, however right here are 10 useful uses the law for your life.

1. Forgiveness

Forgiveness is very crucial to living a life of positive Fate. When you think of Fate as something good or bad, you misunderstand. Truthfully, all experience is positive Karma because also when you experience harsh or adverse situations, you are actually releasing the demand for those scenarios to occur.

You might have unwanted experiences due to previous Fate. This planetary financial debt can just be paid once the lessons are learned as well as experiences have actually been completely refined. Mercy can be a powerful tool for completing this release. Initially, you have to learn to forgive others. When somebody does you wrong, try to see them as the carrier of Karma instead of as an adversary. That is not to say that you enable others to hurt you, yet it is to state that you don't allow on your own to carry the weight of the action.

2. Detachment

This one is sometimes hard, and also in fact a massive step on the path to Knowledge as a whole. As you set about trying to spread and also show up excellent Karma, it is very important to keep in mind that you are not the doer. You are a witness of your Self. It is important for you to attempt to act without add-on. The present of this ability is that it releases you as much as be spontaneous. It can be as straightforward as making a left or an ideal kip down the roadway. Your mind will do its job of considering all the opportunities as well as hiding risks of either instructions. You'll have all the typical internal dialogue and issues. You are not your mind. From this perspective, you already have a suggestion of which means is the best path, and also even if you don't recognize the result, you understand which means you want to go. This comes from instinct and a deeper intuition.

Your attachment to the decision-making process and recognition with the vulnerable vanity is what unlocks for unwanted Fate. Detachment from this, as well as developing true trust in your Self as well as deep space, will always lead you to the "best" course. Even when things seem tough, it will certainly be the "right" course. Detachment has a lot to do with belief, as well as you'll get further by working together with the Cosmos in confidence, rather than fear.

3. Give What You Want

Giving is essential when taking notice of Fate, since it's a means for you to take part in the "favorable" end of activity. Below, "favorable" is indicated as a scientific term, as in magnetic "favorable" pole. Normally, individuals see Karma as something you're receiving from past activities, as well as this is accurate in the now. However, you can develop better Karma on your own moving on by being a true blessing and also force permanently in various other's lives.

If you're attempting to deal with something in your own Karmic pool, often it's great to give or share what you desire. For instance, allow's claim you're undergoing some partnership problems and your close friend or colleague "together" involves you for guidance on a person of rate of interest in their life. You might naturally intend to talk down on love, relationships, and also vent your very own stress. You're simply crazy or pain. What you want is a much better connection in your life. The "Karma solution" advised right here would certainly be to motivate, inspire, as well as deal knowledge from your life, with the intent of assisting that individual locate the kind of relationship they want.

In doing so, you are establishing top qualities that enable Karma to be changed in your life:

You're doing some good

You're experiencing your Self as the teacher, and also hearing your very own words of wisdom concerning the lessons in your life

You're being selfless.

4.  Appreciate the Lessons

As an advancing individual, you're right here on planet to discover. Believe it or otherwise, a lot of life's problems can be resolved by merely stopping to value the lesson in them. Considering that this is a core factor of Karma, you can create better experiences on your own by truly valuing the wisdom you obtain from them. As an example, when something negative takes place in your life, often a basic shift in attention is all it requires to change that taking place right into something better.

Allow yourself to regret for a moment, yet place even more focus on what you have actually acquired from the experience. Also when it involves something as grim as death, try to put more attention on the true blessings of the person and the better emotions of the past. This will certainly permit you to feel much better, as well as open you to a higher analysis of the experience. It is not to play down the tough times, but to decide what you desire for your Self.

If your true purpose is to give on your own joy and also love, after that those have to come to be the major "colors" with which you see life. Inevitably, the outer universe is right here to offer your inner being in growth, love, and health. Also the poor stuff is genuinely meant to instruct or aid you with something. Try seeing points from this viewpoint by asking yourself: "What is there for me to gain?" or "What have I discovered via this?" Occasionally this suffices to change also the hardest experiences into Karmic blessings.

5. Conscious Choices

Everyone is trying to become a more aware being, even those that do not recognize where their course is leading them. Essentially, this entails the simple process of paying even more focus in the moment. When you take the time to quit as well as consider what you are doing, with awareness on your inner self, body, energy, and emotion, you have the ability to make a more informed decision on what your next program of activity should be.

You might really feel like you do not always have the moment to stop, breath, as well as enable, but with some technique as well as ability, you really can discover it. Mostly what is needed is mindfulness. As long as you are constantly choosing what you feel is finest for yourself as well as others, then you will as a result generate great Fate. Guide far from situations or people that you think are toxic, as well as move toward positivity.

When it involves a lot more individual decisions, try to maintain your psychological concentrate on exactly how you feel. Also in thought, a choice can have a psychological element. Trust that, examine that, respect that. You will certainly discover that it comes to be simpler as well as easier to live with in this manner of thinking. In doing so, your Karma will certainly make itself known as well as lighten according to your initiatives.

6. Process the Experience

In basic terms, you need to discover methods to maintain your performance via the difficult lessons of Fate. The even more you passively allow things to unfold in your life, the much more particular lessons will certainly proceed to reveal up. This is not by crash. It indicates you're not gaining from them. Remain sharp as well as aware. Notice the little similarities in your persisting Karmic episodes.

Purposefully look for understanding and also deep space will certainly provide it to finish your suffering. If you observe that you continuously finish up in negative monetary situations, take some time to pay attention to exactly how it happens. Do not wallow away in the misery of another fouled organisation choice. Begin with the beginning, the ideas itself. Notice what thoughts and also sensations transpire. View your next moves, the kind of people and power you collect to aid you, and also your planning procedure and also implementation. Become an energetic witness of every component. This doesn't need to be an intense task. Simply focus. Your interest as well as subsequent thoughts are, as a matter of fact, the process of food digestion. When you have fully absorbed the lesson from an experience, your life can do away with the requirement to duplicate it.

7. Transmute What You Receive

You have actually most likely listened to the phrase, "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade." This is a basic lesson for just how to handle Karma, and also in some cases even the point of Karmic experiences. Going back to the processing of an experience, it's essential to find out just how to allow change to occur in your life.

When negative points occur, there are times when the extremely function of the experience is to include toughness to your life in a specific direction. Perhaps situations will certainly come in the future where you require to be much more resistant, smarter, "insensitive," as well as seasoned. Your current experience may include a present for future empowerment. From this point of view of constantly looking ahead, you can better manage the downsides of your existing. Extract from the experience that which serves and use it. This simple action can promptly transform what appears like bad Fate right into a blessing.

8. Cleanse

Sometimes this can have a result on your Fate. Just as your house needs a complete cleansing a few times a year, so does your life. Take a while to remove your added luggage. Cleanse on your own of undesirable junk that you build up in your mind, body, space, as well as time. Do some mild detoxing a couple of times a year, ideally with seasonal adjustments. All of these cleansing practices are intended to get rid of blockage, adverse power, as well as ama. Besides being a good practice as a whole, its Karmic advantage comes from the intention of quality and also purity. As an outcome of cleaning, you will certainly create a benign setting permanently Fate to flow into your life.

9. Spread Good Vibes

While experiencing your daily activities, delicately as well as effortlessly send out love as well as peace to every creature you come across. Regardless of what you do, predict ideas of love within the task. If you are standing in line at the food store, instead of being impatient, try sending love to every individual before you. Think of the cozy light of love originating from your heart facility to all those around you. In case you encounter someone or something that is unwanted, send out even much more positivity as a counter balance. When you pass a pest on your course or a plant, send out a silent message of love, recognizing that you and it are part of the one global experience of life.

10. Give to God

Developing a connection with the Divine is a vital part of the path to Transcendence and self-evolution. Having a spiritual life of your deciding on is healthy as well as even vital on some levels to completely comprehend life. When it concerns Karma, it serves to reveal gratefulness towards the Cosmos and to develop a perspective of service. By being grateful and also always looking for to serve the higher good, you will naturally position on your own within the circulation of collaboration and also congeniality within deep space. When you serve as an agent of universal excellent, advantages occur. In this way, you attract good Karma through your dedication to the Divine.

Create a satisfying everyday reflection technique that will aid you happily provide to others by enrolling in the Chopra Center's on-line Primordial Noise Meditation Course. Learn More.

[pappycat89]

So, talking about early life and some of the things that im pretty sure fucked me up for adult life. under a cut cos boy will it be long and poorly written *finger guns*

i was gonna do this as like a timeline of things that happened, with explanations and shit, but instead im just gonna do a highlight reel, cos why not

My brother and i used to share a room for years, including when my younger brother and sister were born, grew up, and then got their own rooms while luke and i had to share a room into our teens. we fought, a lot, because we were kids and also stupid

when we were sharing a room it would become a huge mess, mostly because we were preteens and why would we put away the toys we were always playing with? anyways, our stepdad would often give us an hour to clean our rooms, which would have been plenty of time if we didnt get distracted by out toys, as kids do. if we didnt get it cleaned in time (which we pretty much never did) we would get flogged. not like a gentle smack to enforce we’d done something wrong (like how you might smack a friends arm when they say something wrong or offensive) but full on belting, often with some kind of tool. he broke a couple duster over our backsides. we would sob for ages afterwards, and often rush around or hide when we heard him coming because we were afraid

i was afraid of him physically hurting me even after i was an adult. i think i was 20 before i had had enough and decided if he ever touched me again i’d fight back. when i was 16 i wanted my eyebrow pierced. he told me if i ever did he would tear it from my face. i got it done when i moved out at 19, and had a panic attack the first time i had to go home because i was 100% convinced he would. my mum had to pull me aside after dinner to tell me he wouldn’t, but to be honest i didnt really believe her

i have two younger step siblings, who were treated as angels, while my brother and i were treated like shit constantly. When my step-brother threw a tantrum and threatened my brother and me with a knife, he got a ‘talking to’, but not before my brother and me were screamed at for being shitty brothers (his temper tantrum was because we kept telling him he had to clean his room before our parents got him. he never did clean it)

once, my step brother was given 3 days to clean his room. days after the deadline, my mum told put her foot down. My girlfirend and i (i had moved out at this point) were visiting and helping get the place ready for xmas. My step brother refused to clean, screamed at me when i reminded him he only had today to do it, literally went crying to mum when she got home from work. I got yelled at,, by both mum and my step dad, until my grilfriend stepped in to defend me. apparently my step brother had told them i hit him, yelled at him and locked him in his room. at this point in my life, i literally couldnt give a shit whether he cleaned his room or not as i didnt live there, so all i did was remind him and let it go

for a few months when i was 18 i worked with my stepdad at a steel mill (the pay was almost worth deal with his bullshit). i had made plans a week in advance to go out with friends, and asked my stepdad multiple times to warn me in advance if i had to work the next day. the day of going out came, i told him that if i had to work to let me know by 10pm, because i would have enough time to come home and be functional for work. He never got in contact, so i stayed out all night and crashed at a friends place. 5am comes around and i get an angry phone call from my mum. my stepdad was pissed that i was out and wasnt ready for work. She knew that i had asked to be told by 10pm, but they both had ‘forgot’, and it was my fault, because i should have come home anyway. this was not the last time they would forget to tell me my shifts (my stepdad literally gave everyone their shifts, he had no excuse). i ended up getting picked up and dragged to work (i was too afraid of him to say no at this point) and went to work very hungover, which was very dangerous at a steel mill, but i was so afraid of him beating me that i put up with it

During my preteens i was part of an athletics club. i liked it, and enjoyed the field events far more then the track events. i hated running, because i would get really bad shin splints. no one believed me, and mum thought i was just lazy. i got into the regional championships for discus and high jump, and state for javelin. everyone was excited for me to go, but when i didnt place no one talked about it again. i felt so guilty over failing i stopped trying as hard. i did well at the weekly events, but never well enough to compete again.

i played soccer for years until mum got a weekend job and couldnt take us. my teammates thought i was useless and would never let me have the ball. one day, when we were short people, i got placed as a forward. i kept up with the others, and even scored a few goals. i got cheered for that game, and finally thought i would be accepted and make friends, but then the next week was back on the bench

similar happened when is started playing basketball instead of soccer (it ran on weeknights instead of weekends). i almost gave up until one of my teammates pulled me aside and actually tested me. when he found i could play, he started including me in games, passing to me and teaching me better techniques. i crushed on him so hard before i even knew what that meant. i never saw him again after that season, so when the next season came with an almost all new team, mixed with the emotional strain of school, i gave up on sports

school was very hard for me growing up. i got bullied alot through both primary and high school (even university, but by that point it didnt bother me as much)

i was a very sensitive child. i would cry whenever i felt too much of any emotion, including happiness. People told me for years to ‘suck it up’, to stop crying, or better, that they’d ‘give me something to cry about’. this lead to me bottling my emotions and literally beating myself whenever i would cry that i physically couldnt shed a tear for over a decade.

i felt so disconnected from everyone in my life that when i was around 12 i decided to try to kill myself. being a stupid kid i thought i could hold my breath until i died. i tried 3 times over about 6 months. it never clicked that it wouldnt work, i just became more scared of death then i did of my bullies.

i ran away from school twice in the same year. the first time one of my bullies set off a cap gun next to me, then started yelling about how i did it. i was so afraid of getting in trouble, not just by my teacher, but by my parents that i just ran. i ended up coming back to the school 30 mins later, after both my parents and the police had been called. no one wanted to hear why i had done it, they just wanted to be angry that i left school grounds.

i dont remember why i did it the second time, but i was gone maybe 5 mins before i came back, fearing not only my parents but the police this time. i knew i would be in worse trouble, but i just couldnt be in the school anymore.

one time, when we had a sex education class, i explained to a ‘friend’ that i didnt like talking about this stuff, cos it made me feel weird (not in a sexual way, but like, grossed out weird) he told everyone i got an erection in class, and people called me boner boy for months. that was actually not long before i tried to commit suicide for the first time

i thought things would be better in high school because i went to a different school then everyone i knew (i missed my friends, but i figured id get a new start). instead i got bullied from day one. the jockish kids in my class saw i was an easy target because at this point i still cried at the drop of a hat. some of those bullies from day one bullied me all the way through to senior year.

as i hit puberty i stopped being so emotional (well, i bottle it up more) and instead became angry at everything. i would lash out at everyone, and when i couldnt lash out at people i hit things. i split my knuckles on walls and doors many times

once, in the library, one of my bullies stole my wallet. he took all the money out, then threw the empty wallet at me and laughed. i snapped and threw the chair i was sitting on at him. i missed, but he dropped the money. i got sent to the vice principals office, where i explained what happened. he called in the other boy, who denied it all. no one else had seen, so i got in trouble and he got off

it was in highschool that i learnt that pain could help clear the bad feelings from my head, and started to self harm. i hated the feeling of cutting, so i burned myself, or scratched mosquito bites and small cuts until that got so bad they would scar

i used to try really hard in to be a good student in high school. i was in the ‘gifted and talented’ classes in primary school, so whenever i didnt do well (i never failed, just was never top of my class) i got told i had ‘so much potential’. no one ever saw the effort i did put in. When the school sent a letter home one time to congratulate me on getting the second top score in a test, i heard nothing of it. i found the letter a few weeks after it had been sent, opened. neither my mum nor stepdad had said anything about it. soon after i decided there was no point in trying if people only ever cared when i failed

i got into a fist fight one day at school. they didnt call my folks, so my mum found out when i got home with a black eye. we got into a fight about it, because i didnt want to talk to her about what happened. when confronted i broke down, and told her that i wanted to die. she yelled at me about being selfish while smacking me across the face multiple times. i decided not to talk to her about how i felt anymore, because i couldnt understand how you could beat someone who just said they wanted to die. to this day everytime i try to talk to her about any serious emotional stuff i start to break down and just cant do it

i to bullied about being gay for so many years that when i started to have feelings for other men i buried them and tried not to think about it. i spent years being scared that i might be gay, worried about what would happen to me if i was. When i started to think about my gender ( i didnt understand gender at the time) and how i wished i had been born a woman, i buried that and just assumed it was puberty hormones fucking with me. i still cant think about it without almost having an anxiety attack. i have so many years of self hatred, of poor body images and of people telling me i was ugly/fat/gross that i cant see myself as anything but

i finally calmed down emotionally around 17/18. senior year. at this point i tried my best to ignore my bullies and the voices in my head. i just wanted school to end so i could run away somewhere. i wanted to go to university to study forensic science. i had two different teachers tell me i wasnt smart enough, and that i would never get into uni. i ended up failing my HSC and having to do a bridging course to get into uni. the course was so good, in both how they taught in the environment (it was held at the univeristy) that i more then doubled my ATAR and got accepted into the two top forensic science courses (in hindsight i chose the worse of the two, but i didnt know at the time)

university was mixed years. i made some amazing friends and learnt some great stuff, but also had to deal with some absolute dickheads. It was a small country town where the only things to do outside study was to drink and play football. id given up on playing sports years before hand, and 9 out of 10 of the football players were super racist and homophobic. One of them raped a friend of mine and the university defended him. thats when my friends and i decided we had to leave campus. add to that that i found out at the end of my third year i had been doing the wrong course for the job i wanted, i quit uni and left

TL:DR - theres a lot of shit that fucked me up, but typing it all out i cant tell if it actually fucked me up or if im just whining about normal shit. ahh well. better to get it out then keep it in

Tune in next time folks! Same Bat-time! same Bat-channel!