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anyoneseenadam · 4 years ago

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Home: Chapter eight

azriel x reader (acotar)

summary: (y/n) is a daughter of Persephone, still recovering from the trauma of her fall into Tartarus and doesn’t have time for a stupid, handsome, annoying, stunning, injured man. But now they’re stuck together in the middle of nowhere and there only chance of getting home is if she can heal him, and fast.

warnings: big spoilers for mark of Athena and house of Hades, also for the acotar series, eventual smut, blood, PTSD, graphic descriptions of violence, injuries and torture, enemies to lovers so az is a bit of a dick to start, swearing

word count: 1.6k

a/n: ahhh this is the last part and I’m kinda sad but at the same time I don’t want to drag it out, I also have a new idea for a dorian x reader so it’s a good thing to finsih one but am still sad. I hope you enjoy I made it extra fluffy (also had a cheeky wee hint back to the first part)

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You were sat in front of a large mirror, taking in your appearance as you listened to the noise downstairs, the hustle and sounds of people speaking as they rushed about in preparation a sharp contrast to the silence of your and Azriel’s shared room. The girl looking back at you in the mirror was beautiful. Her hair was pinned up, revealing a long neck adorned with a simple necklace your lover had gifted you. Your skin was clear as well, any blemishes you had, any scarring from acne you had picked at, was gone, replaced by dewy, glowing skin. In fact everything about you seemed to glow, your hair was shinier, your skin had a new ethereal sense about it, and you looked more like your mother than you ever had before.

You heard a clatter of plates downstairs and bit your lip with a slight smile, running your hands over you dress. It was baby pink, as you had commented that white may be a little on the nose, with a deep V-neck and white and pink flowers trailing down the heavy skirt, you had picked it out with the help of Feyre and Mor who had dragged you out shopping, giggling when you had stared in shock at the sheer number of dresses you only believed existed on Pinterest. You reached over the vanity and picked up the delicate gold dangling earrings that you had ‘bought’ (Azriel had technically bought them but you certainly paid him back) and put them on, gazing wistfully at your now pointed ears.

So much had changed so quickly. Azriel’s family were extremely welcoming, instantly treating you like they had known you forever. You became incredibly close with Cassian and Nesta, much to Azriel’s amusement, as you bonded over books with Nesta and a general love of Azriel with Cassian. Nesta was officially sold on you when she finished ‘Call Me by Your Name’ the day you gave it to her, the two of you discussing it all night as you made promises to find a way to show her the movie. Rhysand and Mor treated you like a sister, the three of you soon teasing each other, Amren genuinely laughing when you let loose your more creative insults. The only one who seemed reserved at first was Elain, but soon the two of you were spending hours in the garden as you taught her about the different needs that different plants had and how to grow them most effectively.

Azriel had never been more in love. He already knew you were mates but now that it was official, and possible, he felt like he was on cloud nine. He was in love with how quickly you feel asleep in his arms. The way you lit up when talking about your passions, hands moving widely. He was in love with the way your eyes sparkled constantly now, only rarely being overcome with shadows, ones that he had learned to help dispel, you were laughing more and had even started showing your back again. When you went to the House of Wind to train with Cassian and Azriel one summer afternoon you had removed your top, leaving you in a simple sports bra, not missing the mix of pride and desire in Azriel’s eyes as you continued your exercises.

“Can I ask what happened?” Nesta had asked late that day, Feyre looking up from her book, Nyx cradled in one arm. You had explained, and after, when you expected to be pushed away, Feyre had simply passed Nyx to Nesta and wrapped her arms around you, holding you for a long while, even when the Illyrians entered the room. When she pulled away you noticed the tears in her eyes and offered her a small smile, as she whispered to you.

“You’re with your family now, nothing like that will ever happen again.” And then you were crying too.

Now you were sat in your low-back dress with your hair up, scars on display for anyone to see. You had been woken at nine am by an excited chorus of fae women and all but shoved into a bath, your hair washed, and skin scrubbed until you felt new-born. You had been brought a strong, dark coffee and some honeyed toast as you sat soaking in the bath, your friends moving about outside tidying your room and fishing out everything you needed, before you were pulled from the bath and forced to dry. When you had walked back into the room, you found Mor wiggling her eyebrows as she passed you a bag which, on further inspection, you found contained an intricate set of baby blue lingerie making you laugh loudly as you thumbed the material. They had then crowded you, Nesta drying and styling your hair as Feyre did your face, treating it alike one of her beautiful paintings, Elain painting and filing your nails as Amren and Mor sat sipping on champagne, both donned in beautiful, dark silk dresses, as they discussed the day ahead. You felt alike a princess when they were done and had commented as much, gaining you a glass of champagne and a comment on how you looked like one too. However they soon left, claiming there was much to sort out downstairs and that they had no faith in the boys to get it sorted.

Now you were sat alone, your gaze had moved to outside your window where light snow had started falling. You stood and moved the open window, perching on the ledge, smiling when a robin landed next to you, flying to rest in your palm, it’s ruby coloured breast not making you flinch. You still had nightmares as you were still part god and probably always would have the dreams you had grown used to; however you were making progress.

“If you’re planning on running away that ledge is too high,” You smiled as you heard his voice, turning to see your beautiful mate smiling at you.

“Maybe Cassian can come and fly me out,” you challenged,

“Ha, ha.” He deadpanned and you giggled, standing to wrap yourself in his arms,

“In my world it’s bad luck for the groom to see the bride before the service,” you whispered into his chest,

“This technically isn’t a wedding,”

“That’s a fair point,” you muttered, and he smiled down at you,

“It would be a shame to deprive me of this sight, you look beautiful princess,” he spun you out of his arms and you giggled, making his heart swell with love.

“It would, wouldn’t it?”

“C’mon, we should go soon, Cassian’s already crying,” you laughed and grabbed his hand as he pulled you along and down the stairs. You gasped when you reached the bottom, there were flowers everywhere, the whole room transformed into a fairy wonderland that made you feel giddy. You smiled when you saw that Cassian was in fact, already tearing up as he stood to greet you, complementing you and thanking you for making his brother so happy, you had laughed and shoved him away in your emotional state, not wanting to cry so early, as you moved to the sink in the room that was spraying a fine mist of water, creating a rainbow.

“Oh Iris, Goddess of the Rainbow, show me Nico Di Angelo, Camp half blood.” You threw in a golden drachma, the image wavered before revealing your friends and family on the other side, waving, and sending greetings. The inner circle came over and you all conversed for a while before Azriel was rather impatiently tugging on your hand and you moved onto the ceremony, with just your found families present. Having been raised mortal you insisted on exchanging rings, and Azriel was completely happy to oblige, obsessed with the feeling of pushing the ring onto your finger and kissing you, having someone that was wholly his, and who he was completely devoted to.

The rest of the day was spent curled under Azriel’s arm, sipping cocktails, and laughing as you were told all the most embarrassing things the inner circle could dig up. You ate delicious food and laughed with your friends, you heart aching at how naturally this happiness came to you now as you gazed at the man you loved.

You stood outside, breathing in the fresh air, and enjoying the slight chill that came through the thin shawl you had wrapped around you shoulders. Soon you felt a familiar hand press into your hip, pulling you into his side tightly. You looked up at him, still in wonder of how you landed such a beautiful man.

He caught your gaze, brushing a snowflake of your cheek and grabbing your hand, pressing a light kiss into the palm. “Penny for your thoughts?” He asked, gaze so full of love that tears welled up in your eyes.

“I’m just so glad you got stabbed,” you muttered, and he laughed before you continued, “I’m serious, I don’t know where I’d be if we hadn’t met, but you are everything to me and I’m so glad we pushed through, I’m so glad we fought to be together.”

“I love you.” He whispered into your hair as he pulled you in tightly, his scarred hands moving over your scarred back as you sighed, content.

“I love you.” You replied, pulling away and watching as a red admiral butterfly landed on a nearby poppy.

#acofas #acomaf #acotar #azriel #azriel x reader #acowar #heroes of olympus #acosf #acofs #rhysand

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rpbetter · 4 years ago

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Sorry if this isn't the place to ask but I'm in need of advice. I have a canon character I truly adore, but I haven't gotten muse or any opportunity to write them at all. My blog is collecting dust and the fandom is kinda dead at this point. Not to mention, it's hard to find compatible writing partners, especially with how picky I can be. I'm honestly considering deactivating the blog (for the nth time), but I don't want to lose the writing I have. I know I could archive, but I hate having blogs just sitting around.

In short, I really want to write the muse/keep the blog but I'm not getting any incentive to do that.

Hello, Anon, it’s totally the place to ask!

I will say, though, that since finding and keeping muse can be flavored rather personally, I can’t promise that what works for me is going to work for you. I’ll even confess that in over two decades, I’ve never personally lost muse. I don’t know if it is due to underlying, neurodiverse style, fixating, or if it is due to keeping myself continually invested in both my muse and writing regardless of what else is going on. (Probably a combination of both, though, and the things I do to keep myself highly in touch with my muse I’ll be recommending.) I’m definitely happy to try to help, however.

That really is a very frustrating spot to be in, wanting to write the muse and keep your blog active, but logging in every day to be reminded of what little reason you have to do so. Since we’re drawn to the characters we are for reasons of personal appeal and writing in itself is a pretty personal form of art, it can also feel depressing on top of the frustration.

However, that’s also the good news, in my opinion, because your incentive here is, or can be, yourself.

You were drawn to this character because you connected with them. They mean something to you, you can relate to them, maybe they have qualities (good or bad) that you wish you could experience. Whatever it is, there’s a reason why you had this draw. Writing is like that as well, there’s a reason why this is a hobby that drew you, that you get enjoyment out of. Again, though all art (it doesn’t matter if it is a hobby) has personal bits of the artist in it, writing is uniquely personal. When you write, you’re exploring thoughts and feelings, giving them life in a character that matters to you. I know, all of that sounds really convoluted and hokey, but it’s true.

And it’s good! That means you always have a reason to write and that you have the tools necessary to find and keep muse without any outside push necessary.

I’d say, firstly, work on getting muse back.

Get back in touch with your muse the next time you feel a particularly strong urge to write. Instead of spending time trying to find people in a silent fandom or forcing yourself to write something you don’t want to, just do some exercises that will help you get back into your muse.

I don’t know what media type your character comes from, but especially if it is something like movie or show that you can have on in the background of what you’re doing, do that. If it’s a comic or a book, think about your favorite scene and read it over first. If you’ve ever made some playlists for writing/your muse, you can always do that instead or as well. The point is to do something passively inspiring while you actively create. Now, that creating...

You want to do something that requires you to think about your muse so you can get in touch with them, not something that is going to make you feel overwhelmed and shut down. So, maybe don’t pick writing prompts for this - you can work up to that. Try out headcanon and character development memes and other question lists instead for right now. Things you can scroll down a list of, find questions that jump out as interesting (or even simply answerable to you at this point, you’re jump-starting a dead battery, it’s alright) and answer them. You can also do something as simple as write down what you like best about the character or their story, or put down the basics of filling in missing information that has always bugged you.

The beauty of this is that it is all on your own terms, your only objective here is to answer what you want, as much as you want. You can stop any time, but you can also answer a single question for three hours, making it eight pages long if the inspiration strikes you. It’s only about recharging your inspiration and establishing a connection with your character again. (This is also going to help you with getting back into writing, or approaching it for the first time, with a more internalized focus of interest.)

When you feel like you’ve done that, you can branch out on these exercises more. Answer the memes more in-depth, answer more of them/the ones you don’t have immediate answers for. You can also try writing out scenes from the character’s canon from their perspective, if it wasn’t already so, adding in their thoughts and feelings, or changing the scene in some ways that would be interesting to write out. This is the point where it’s a good idea to try a writing prompt or two, as well! Take the prompt as a sort of starter sentence from a mutual, you’ve got the situation, fill in with your muse.

Write when you feel like writing. The RPC is great at saying this when it comes to muns not wanting to write, but kind of ignores the other side of the equation. The side where you want to write, have the inspiration and muse to do so, but it might not be the best time. As in, you’re not home/wherever you usually write, with whatever device you tend to write on accessible. No, you’re not going to be able to get as much done, but you can write without the usual situation and device regardless. You can write a scene or ideas down using your phone or tablet, or go old school and use a notebook. If you’re at work and your job isn’t applicable to being able to get down a single sentence, that still doesn’t mean you have to wait 8+ hours to get home; while you’re taking your break, write a little bit. It is a break, and writing is your hobby, it isn’t work. It’s good to do things you enjoy on breaks, and far more fulfilling to have also accomplished something you happen to enjoy.

Not writing when you have the drive to do, putting it off and holding it in until “the perfect moment,” is a great way to lose your inspiration and never actually have that moment. If you feel like doing it, that means it is the perfect moment. Life is restricting, don’t impose even more restrictions on yourself by having to be at home, in a specific spot, with a specific device, at a specific time, on a specific day. Was that annoying repetition? You’re right, it was. And that’s how your creative mind processes all the crap piled onto it that doesn’t allow for creativity.

Now, the other problem, the fandom situation.

There isn’t anything you can do about that, to be absolutely honest. I’m not going to blow smoke and tell you to be positive, wait it out, maybe the fandom will spring to life again. You know, maybe it will...but you could be waiting literal decades for that to happen. Not cool. Please, take my word for that, it’s personal experience that it blows even more than you imagine it will.

What you can do is take the matter into your own hands in other ways; putting yourself out there with more availability in multiple ways.

Are you a single-fandom blog, or are you crossover friendly? If you’re not crossover friendly, try to think of a single, relatively popular fandom that you enjoy. Don’t look at it like a hassle, but rather, just another creative exercise. A serious pitfall of creating alternate universe versions of muses is to take the simplest route, merely picking something you want from that other universe and applying it to your muse with no relevant changes that would naturally occur from it. It isn’t just reductive as hell, it’s not remotely creative, it’s like sticking a sticker on your muse’s forehead and saying that’s a whole different muse. It’s neither attractive to potential partners nor going to sustain your own interest for long. You want this to be a passionate investment on your own end, for yourself.

What not to do:

Let’s say the fandom you picked to do crossovers with is based around magic, the main characters are witches, and they are divided into factions based on how their magical talents display and develop. Not only do you decide to make your muse a witch, you pick the most badass faction. It’s the one full of assassins and action and (metaphorically or literally) sex appeal. Well, that’s also going to be the most popular faction in the fandom. That means there will not only be plenty of big name canons there but also that there’s going to be a plethora of OCs designed just for this universe...and other crossovers from other currently active fandoms.

While that might sound like it’s great for maximizing interaction chances, it’s really not when you’re just starting somewhere new with a character from another fandom that might not be known or liked. It can also take a minute in another fandom’s RPC to identify where the good partners are. Every now and then, it is the most popular and over-populous era/faction/etc., but most of the time, it isn’t. People who write with considerable dedication and talent fairly rarely are in the popular kids club even in their fandom choices. By inserting yourself into that area, you might be bypassing (and being bypassed) by better partners on the assumption that their characters are simply going to bore you to death since they’re not within the scope of your focal point.

It’s not a situation of not being allowed to be picky, you not only have that right regardless of your situation, you also should be. This is not a “beggars can’t be choosers” situation, you’re not beholden to anyone on the basis of being new and bored. However, some of my best, and longest lasting, writing partners over all 23 years I’ve been RPing didn’t/don’t fit with all the exact surface details that automatically draw my interest. It is as true within my own fandom as it is in dealing with crossovers. Opposites (with enough similarities) really do attract and work out well together!

Don’t judge and write people off for anything that isn’t an issue of compatibility with your muse, your writing, or yourself. Decline someone because they do one line only and you are novella, they write topics that are upsetting to you, you can see no way your muse and theirs can interact without instant murder, or because you cannot stand writing with someone who is pulling 90% aesthetics and purple prose. Not because their muse is a witch who uses life-based magic, loves nature, is a healer, and into their health...while your muse in this AU is all about the death, only appreciates an urban environment and is grossed out by animals, kills as an occupation, lives on cheeseburgers and caffeine. You see what I’m saying? Don’t limit yourself unnecessarily!

What to do:

Did you consider if, in that hypothetical idea of a fandom, your muse based on their purely canon self would even fit into that faction? Or is it just something you wanted to see? If you didn’t consider this, or it was the latter, fix that. That’s bad.

If you’re not absolutely dead set on that and only that, think about what really does fit the muse better. Maybe, they would be better as a healer, someone who messes with the very fabric of reality, or someone who manipulates natural elements at will. Then again, they might not even be a witch. They could be more mundane in terms of power, but more accurate and interesting as a normal, human (or whatever). They could even be greatly opposed to the use of magic and witches. Use your muse’s original canon as a base to decide these things.

If you are absolutely dead set on it, though, you have a lot of work to do making the character into what amounts to a markedly different one while still retaining some recognizable aspects of themselves. Consider what events, in this new universe of fandom, might have happened to alter the character thus. Keep in mind that even small changes can have great consequences in a character’s development, and you might need to think about the myriad ways in which that can display, how it changes still more things for this character.

While that job becomes so much more intense when you haven’t planned out a path that matches your muse’s canon characterization at all, it is still an important part of constructing an AU, of any kind, in general. Ask yourself what experiences led to the character you know as you already know them (including your own headcanons, yes). Then, find similar possible experiences within your new fandom verse that can have the same effect. Again, though, it’s important to understand that you are never going to have an identical set of experiences, so you need to explore relevant changes still.

When you do this, you’re allowing your muse to more seamlessly fit into this other universe in a fleshed out, interesting way. Interesting both new partners and yourself.

Okay, next obnoxious question from me! Do you have multiple verses, or are you single-verse?

Whether you are already exploring new fandoms or not, by creating a variety of verses for others to interact with, you’re increasing your chances for interest and activity. When you have a verse from a different fandom you can then, additionally, advertise your presence in both that fandom’s tags when you do a promo or applicable open starter and on active RPer lists for that fandom.

Every popular fandom has such lists. You can get on them by messaging/sending an ask to the blog or by reblogging their post to be added, following the directions. I haven’t seen one yet that doesn’t allow for crossovers. You simply have to tag it as stated in the post, such as “your canon’s name here - original fandom name - crossover.” By tagging your open starter or promo as “-insert fandom here- rp” and “-fandom here- open starter” you allow people in that fandom to find you to interact. Either way is excellent for getting started in totally new places with a character others might be unfamiliar with.

Please remember that if you tag a promo as “promo,” it’ll not show up in searches off of your blog. You know, where it actually needs to be searched. Thanks, tumblr, for being janky! Being more specific as to the fandom and character will help others actually find you. Don’t shoot yourself in the foot by tagging it as “promo.”

Make your verses accessible on your blog itself, in the nature of those verses, and how you set up your page or post that lists them.

Don’t put any page behind an impossible or complicated aesthetic. You really shouldn’t anyway, but when you’re needing interactions, it’s actively hurting your chances. Many people don’t want to have to play a game with your theme, it’s a turn off. Try a pinned post that lists all of your links to important pages like rules, verses, and bio instead. It means that, even from the dash, that information can quickly be found while other muns are first interested, and also that anyone who might be using the app can access it more expediently. (I’m genuinely not a fan or big supporter of doing google docs for rules, verses, bios, etc., as it forces people off site, so I can’t personally say, in good conscious and honesty, that I’d recommend it, but you do you!) You want to keep things quickly accessible is the idea here; when people are interested, you want to catch them right then and there before they have a chance to forget and lose your blog.

As to the nature of the verses themselves, give people real options. Don’t have 20 verses that all read same way. Same themes, plot possibilities, and backstories, or incredibly similar names. Have a diverse list of verses that can act as foundations for a variety of different muns. As many fandoms as you can reasonably have a good portrayal of, and different types of fandoms; not all the same genre (all fantasy, all horror, all scifi). Verses where your muse has substantially different goals, occupations, and other life situations that will involve another muse; don’t make your muse A Warrior™ in every verse, you can keep plenty of those aspects without being that literal. People love “modern” verses set in our own universe and, usually, in our own era. That doesn’t mean you have to go stereotypical or otherwise bore yourself by doing the standard “high school/college verse,” for instance. You don’t even have to designate that sort of thing, let alone make it the focus; simply create the verse by considering what your character really would be like if they existed within your reality.

As a final note on verses as pertains to this point, when you’re doing crossover verses, it’s alright to do some verses where your muse from their own canon existence somehow ends up teleported or whatever to another fandom’s reality, or even our own. Just don’t make every verse like this, it puts the onus of a great deal of creativity and effort onto the other mun by default; your muse has cluelessly dropped into the universe, and while it is high drama time for you, the other mun has to babysit, educate, deal with fallout, etc.

On making the list of your verses accessible, you want to focus on ease of browsing and not being overwhelming. People tend to look through a verse page and not read every verse listed, rather, they look at the titles and breakdowns to see if it is of interest, then read it. Don’t try to make everyone read them all, it isn’t going to happen, and shouldn’t change your effort any as the right people are going to find the verses that interest them...if you make it clear and easy enough.

Have a basic format you stick to, firstly. I do it this way: small verse banner, title of verse (linked to its overall tag so that muns can look through the tag at headcanons, aesthetics, pictures of the FC, and threads), muse age/age range, small blurb, possible triggers found uniquely or just heavily within this verse. In that order, one following the other in a simple, but pleasing way. Below that, is a more in depth breakdown of the “verse canon.” Sometimes, that is giving a brief rehashing of canon itself and anywhere my muse differs, be it in this verse only or overall, ending with where my muse is in this verse. Not literally where. I mean their present occupation, emotional and general state in life. At the very end, I provide any other relevant links and/or an expansion on the triggers mentioned at the top of the verse description if they’re that serious/recurrent so that muns can decide this isn’t the verse for them. I happen to have a potentially triggering muse, triggering verses, and writing triggering topics, though. That’s not something everyone needs to do.

Secondly, group your verses in a sensible way. I do my short list of default verses first. (And, I do mean short, you don’t want this be any more than four or five, it is overwhelming right out of the gate.) For me, that is two default verses of canon at different points on the timeline, one default AU that is a bit of a reversal of canon, and one default “modern” verse. Then, I list the verses that are in line with the altered canon one, just different possibilities, changes, points in history. After that, the different “modern” verse options. Then, verses for other fandoms, the crossover verses. And so on. This way, a potential partner can find the type of verse that might appeal to them and have an easier time picking from those possibilities and getting ideas.

Lastly, don’t be so succinct that you give too little information and underwhelm, but also don’t be so excessive that it takes all of the mystery of interaction away and overwhelms someone. It can be a difficult balance to strike, and some verses require more information than others, just experiment a bit. Additionally, it’s fine to link to pertinent information for the other mun to view aside from this, but don’t just link people to a fandom wiki as your “description/bio.” That isn’t giving information on how you write this muse, approach this fandom, or what another mun can otherwise expect. Keeping your descriptions interesting is important, you’re not giving a boring lecture, you’re trying to inform someone while making them hyped for their choices. It’s more interesting, and informative, to read if you do them with an ear to the “tone” of your muse in that verse. Is it a sad one? Sound that way. These can, indeed, function as snippets of your writing, so be sure you are writing them with the same care you should be giving your replies; spellcheck, good word flow and use, mind the grammar, and read over what you’ve written for common, easy mistakes.

Again, by giving a genuine variety of verses to choose from, you’re allowing for a greater reach in potential partners. Everyone from those still in your original fandom to those in new ones, all the way to fandomless muses will be able to interact with you this way.

Finally, in regards to what you can change or do when you’re in a dead fandom and seeking interactions; make sure you are increasing your reach by using proper tags, being honest about what and how you write, and don’t wait for others to stumble across you.

When you use tags properly, you’re increasing your chances of being seen at all. Every time you post something at all applicable on your blog, tag it with relevant things. Tag as described above with whatever fandom it is and “RP,” your character’s name, “open RP,” character name and RP, indie RP, open starter, and so on. Be sure you are optimizing your tags by placing the most relevant to finding you in the first four, those are what show up in site-wide searches only. Anything after that isn’t going to appear in a search across all tumblr.

By tagging your character’s name, as a canon, you should know that you are likely to get personal blog interaction. I’m pretty against being nasty to personal blogs for no reason, as I don’t appreciate personal and fandom blogs being shitty to me for the sole reason that I am an RPer. Please, use clear, short, attention getting directions for them. If you want no interactions with them, put right in the description of your blog “RP blog, does not interact with personal blogs.” When you say things like, “personals dni,” or “personals blocked,” you’re not doing anyone any favors. Personal blogs often don’t even know what the hell a personal blog even is! They do not denote themselves this way, to a personal blog, they’re just a blog. By designating first that you are an RP blog, you’re making it clearer that they’re the personal; they’re obviously not an RP blog, so that must make them a personal. Follow this up in a pinned post, right on top. Give a note to personal blogs that describes them as “any blog that isn’t an RP blog” first, then either tell them in brief what they can and can’t do or that you don’t interact and will block.

I don’t recommend taking your blog off of being findable, however. That’s alright once you have the RP activity you are looking for, but until then, it’s working against you. Other RP blogs cannot easily find you either, they will only find you if you’re on a list or appear in their recommended blogs, if you interact with a mutual, or are recommended by a mutual. You’re not just lessening your chances of personal blogs finding you, so if you have that turned off, turn it back on.

Don’t entirely rely on others finding you regardless, though. You can’t be 100% passive when you have no interactions, and by relying solely on serendipity you’re far less likely to get them. I know that everyone here is terminally shy, but seriously, you have to do more than put your silent will into the universe that someone perfect find you. You have to make this happen. Once you get a few people, you can afford to be more passive. Not only do you have some people to write with, you will be more visible to their mutuals, and more established as a presence. I’m not saying this is easy, or that it will become easy, not awkward or stressful, if you have a legitimate issue behind the shyness. Just that it is the only way to really proceed, and I believe you can do it!

So, go looking for interesting blogs. Be crossover and OC friendly (again, this doesn’t mean “accept everyone,” there are valid reasons for not accepting people you won’t work out with that have nothing to do with their fandom or being an OC), and search those fandom’s RPCs, following any blogs you think you might work out with upon reading their rules and other pages. Search for fandomless OCs and do the same thing. Fandomless OCs aren’t just floating around in the ether, they just weren’t created expressly for a particular fandom and within its confines. What is excellent about that is their ability to have a wide variety of verses and many possibilities to fit into any fandom or verse. So, don’t count them out solely on the basis of being an OC and fandomless. It doesn’t mean what people seem to think it does!

Do not stop at having followed 50 blogs. I mean, other than that you probably should stop following people for a bit. That you should do, as you need to be building writing relationships here, not following so many people that you cannot get to them. Don’t just stop at the follow, though. Since you’ve read their rules and information like a good RP partner, you should have some idea of what their interests are and where they align with yours, as well as how they prefer to be approached, if they accept memes right away to start, need plotting, have a rules password. When they’ve followed you back, proceed with interaction!

Ask if they’d like to plot when they have time, you’re really looking forward to writing with them. But...have some idea of a plot, please. It is a serious turn off to have someone message you wanting to plot, only to reply and get “lol I don’t have any ideas, anything works for me/whatever you want to do.” That isn’t plotting, it’s one party coming up with ideas and constructing a plot while they’re being told “I’m fine with anything.” That may be true, but it’s disheartening and a red flag for many people. If you genuinely can’t come up with anything, pick verses that match up well and suggest doing something within them.

“When you have the time, would you be interested in discussing writing? I was looking at your verses, and I think your verse -name- and mine, -verse name-, would mesh well.” Is a good way to start. Once you have a discussion flowing about the verses meshing and the muses, it’s typically easy to organically develop some plot ideas to go off of.

If both you and the other mun are alright with plot-free interaction and memes, you can send a meme any time. If you can’t find any memes on their blog, look for a wishlist or navigation page that shows you the tags for memes/wishlist. Still can’t find it? Ask them if they’ve got a wishlist or meme tag you can look through.

Additionally, if open starters are a thing you both do and are alright with, find some of theirs and respond. Post your own, tag it appropriately to be found in general and on your blog, and reblog it once or twice. Don’t excessively reblog it, and don’t get upset on the dash if no one interacts with it or any memes you reblog. Both are demanding to outright guilting, and not a good way to get partners. Just provide them with the ability to easily interact by making the posts available in the first place and by making them findable on your blog search and navigation.

Provide something for potential partners to see. Since you said you already do have writing, that’s great! That’s content on your blog that your partners can view. However, since you’re also having the issues you’ve stated, it’s likely that you haven’t many new posts. Show that you are active, interested in being here, and how you write your muse (and in general) by posting some newer content. For original content, do a headcanon or some meta, or post about new verses you are adding, the changes on your blog, a promo. For reblogs, things pertaining to your muse like canon imagery, fanart, quotes from canon or that generally express your muse, and aesthetics relevant to your muse are all excellent things to queue.

Use that queue. Not only do very few people appreciate having dash spam of similar content for the comparatively short time you might be around, but also, running these things on a queue means you spread that out for maximum view. While there are hours of heavier activity, you’ll have mutuals who are on at unusual hours due to their life and preferences or their timezone. This way, you’re not appearing inactive, if not outright invisible, to those mutuals. It’s not a bad idea to use a queue tag so that people know if they interact with a post that’s been queued, you might be here to quickly respond.

Ultimately, to fix your fandom and lacking partners problem, you just need to up your availability and reach beyond that fandom alone. Be proactive in following and approaching, decline blogs based on not working out only, utilize tags and fandom RPer lists, have everything on your blog easy to follow and not overwhelming, and have your verses meet as wide of a range of people as possible while also not being overwhelming.

Try updating your promo, as well, by the way. They’re not dead, they just really tanked when people kept making them based solely on aesthetic principle instead of being at all informative about the muse. They do seem to be coming back, so it’s a thing to consider.

Yes, make it visually appealing, it will draw people to reading it. No, do not just use a song lyric or quote with words highlighted linking your rules, verses, bio. Tell people basic info like the age of your muse and yourself, if you are multiverse and multiship, your muse’s canon verse and a couple of big interest verses of other major fandoms or themes that tend to be of interest to people, and what kind of RP you write - one line/para/multipara/novella. Absolutely give links to rules, verses, bio, and either memes, wishlist, or open starters, but give them just like that; make it very clear what this link is to. Put a very short statement of interest on there denoting that you’re expanding to new fandoms and looking for writing partners.

Do not sound desperate, demanding, or devaluing of yourself. Don’t say shit like “because my fandom is dead,” “trying this before I give up and delete my blog,” or “I suck at interaction/writing/ooc interaction/being a person but welp giving it a try, so follow and hit that heart.” (Conversely, calling yourself derogatory things and implying that your partners are too, such as the “we’re all just losers here” shit.) All of the above are not attractive, and they’re not even surprising enough to stand out anymore. It’s another reason to scroll right by that promo because nothing at all was different or of interest.

And as a wrap-up/rehash of the first topic, getting muse back: try starting over at the beginning by approaching the media involving your muse that has really stuck with you emotionally over the years, and exploring and developing your muse again.

Don’t tell yourself you can only write, for example, at home, on the laptop, after 7pm, and with a pop toy staring at you. The best thing about writing, as opposed to so many other hobbies, is that you can do it anywhere! So, do that. Do it any time you both feel the inspiration to do so and aren’t going to get fired or expelled for it. This isn’t work, it’s something enjoyable that does take effort (like literally all creative activities and skills do), but approaching it as though you need to follow novel writing advice from someone who has never published anything of note and isn’t you on the internet, with strict rules for success makes it feel that way. So does being frustrated with a dead fandom, no interaction. It’s disheartening, feels as annoying and fruitless as work often does. You probably need to break out of that mindset, and you can only do it by beginning to allow yourself to be creative on your own terms, entirely for yourself.

Do write simple things at first that you are inspired to do (you can’t get a scene out of your head, or a bit of dialogue), and/or headcanon/character development memes and question lists. Build from there as you get back in touch with your muse, writing things primarily or entirely for yourself still. Expanding on headcanons, doing some meta, or maybe writing out a missing piece of canon or what you’d be interested in seeing happen in canon if some event was altered.

Doing this sort of thing, you are getting in touch with your muse again and back into the real spirit of writing creatively, simultaneously.

Whatever you find most inspiring, do it. If it’s watching the movie or show again, do that, have it on while you write or simply think on the character’s actions, thoughts, and emotions during those scenes. If it’s reading the material again, do that, and read snippets of personal importance before you write. Maybe it’s some past playlists you can have on while writing, or even while you’re cleaning, walking the dog, driving or riding somewhere. It could even be your own previous writing! Go ahead and re-read that, it sounds like you still appreciate it, and that’s truly promising. If you find that you’re horrified by some of the things you’ve written in the more distant past, hey...that’s not just valid as hell, it’s natural. You know what else it is? An inspiration. You can clearly see that you could do better, that means you now know how to do better and are ready to do so. Validate yourself, prove it to yourself by rewriting or fixing something.

Don’t delete the blog or archive it. It is unpleasant to have a dead blog around, but don’t keep it dead. Use the same blog and simply transition it into wider things that will net you more partners and the interactions you deserve.

Look, even if you weren’t the most popular blog in your fandom before it went quiet, you really appreciated the blog, muse, and writing you were doing. You’ve defined that it wasn’t something you did to cause this situation, you just had the shit luck we all run into eventually of being in a fandom that ran out of material or interest. People are really fickle, so by taking a wider approach and fixing on the writing and muse instead of fandom now, you’re stopping this from repeating. Seriously, on a long enough timeline, every fandom dies or goes into hibernation. If you make a whole new blog with a different muse, it is going to happen again eventually.

So, don’t feel like you’re ridiculously clinging to the past and need to move on, you’re just sticking to something and can continue to stick to it through the next five fandom deaths. Just because it is the most popular thing to do to drop muses, constantly add new ones, and have this attitude that you can “blog refresh” your way out of recurrent, and inherent, problem doesn’t mean it is actually the right thing to do. It’s not even the most sensible, and certainly not the best thing to do with anything you’ve spent time and effort on.

That’s your incentive; yourself, the time and care you’ve put in, and your continued interest in writing and the muse. You’ll find good people, and bluntly, everyone else can fuck right off when you’re incentivized by yourself. It becomes a self-fulfilling activity at that point, I swear, and it feels really nice.

Just get back in touch with your muse and writing itself so that you can begin to expand and start interacting again!

#rp advice #rp problems #rp help #muse loss #dead fandoms #rp better #Anon E. Mous #answered

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spookyspemilyreid · 5 years ago

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Happy Anniversary “Meteora”! (March 25, 2003)❤️

Meteora is the second studio album by American rock band Linkin Park. It was released on March 25, 2003 through Warner Bros. Records, following Reanimation, a collaboration album which featured remixes of songs included on their 2000 debut studio album Hybrid Theory. The album was produced by the band alongside Don Gilmore. The title Meteora is taken from the Greek Orthodox monasteries sharing the same name. Meteora has a similar sound to Hybrid Theory, as described by critics, and the album took almost a year to be recorded. It is the first Linkin Park studio album to feature Dave Farrell after he rejoined the band in 2000.

Meteora debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, selling over 810,000 copies in its first week. Linkin Park released singles from Meteora for over a year, including "Somewhere I Belong", "Faint", "Numb", "From the Inside", and "Breaking the Habit". The song "Lying from You" was released as a promotional single. Meteora received generally positive reviews, although critics noted that the album's musical style was similar to its predecessor Hybrid Theory .

Meteora has sold over 27 million copies worldwide, making it one of the best-selling albums of all time. It is certified 7x Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). It was ranked number 36 on the Billboard Top 200 Albums of the 2000s. Some songs from the album were remixed with some of Jay-Z's songs for the EP Collision Course (2004). "Session" was nominated for Best Rock Instrumental Performance at the 46th Grammy Awards.

Initial writing for a second album dated back to early 2001, while still touring in support of Hybrid Theory. The band had written around eighty different demos during their Hybrid Theory World Tour and LP Underground Tour, within the span of just eight months. Rough song ideas written then would find its way to the final album; notably the intro for "Somewhere I Belong". Bennington recorded guitar notes for it, but found it too folk rock sounding. However, Shinoda and Joe Hahn reworked it, adding effects to it, and then played it backwards, molding it into something the band was happy with. As explained by Shinoda: "Since I reversed it, it was playing 4-3-2-1. The chord progression was reversed. Then I cut it into four pieces, and I played it 1-2-3-4. And that's why it has that sweeping sound.

In early 2002, after the touring, the writing continued in Mike's home studio, pre-production of the album began there. The band worked in pairs during the writing process, whereas Shinoda was always involved in all the songs. The recording of the songs mainly used Pro Tools, whereas the band used the traditional method of writing, in main studio. In June, pre-production terminated and the band headed for main production. The band finalized Don Gilmore as their producer. When Reanimation was released, the band had started to write the main content. Rob Bourdon spent eight hours a day in the studio for the recording of the album. By August, the band entered NRG Studios as Bennington also began writing songs with the band.

Linkin Park had finished versions of many songs before the actual recording process had begun, but they majorly wrote the finalized songs included in the track list in the studio. By October the drums were finalized and guitar parts were introduced by Brad in the control room of the studio. By the end of October, the bass parts were introduced. Don Gilmore himself being a bass player helped Farrell in his recording. The sampling part by Hahn was introduced just a month before the deadline, thereby Mike finished the recording of "Breaking the Habit" with strings arrangement by David Campbell; the song had been worked on by Shinoda for five or six years. The vocal production started in November. The mixing process as well as the album itself was finished in New York City.

Lyrically the album contains elements including depressing emotions, anger, and recovery. Explaining to MTV, Bennington said: "We don't talk about situations, we talk about the emotions behind the situations. Mike and I are two different people, so we can't sing about the same things, but we both know about frustration and anger and loneliness and love and happiness, and we can relate on that level." In the same interview, Shinoda explained it as: "What we really wanted to do was just push ourselves and push each other to really find new ways to be creative." He continued: "We wanted each sample that was in each song to be something that might perk your ear – something that you might not have ever heard before." In a promotional interview, Rob Bourdon stated: "We wanted a group of songs that would sit well together because we wanted to make a record that you could pop into your CD player and, from beginning to end, there would never be a spot where you start daydreaming." In titling the album, Mike said that "Meteora was a word that caught my attention because it sounded huge." Dave, Joe, and Chester elaborated that just like how Meteora, the rock formations in Greece, is very epic, dramatic, and has great energy, the band wanted the album to have that same feeling.

Genre-wise, the album is categorized as nu metal, rap metal, rap rock, and alternative rock.

The promotion for the album began well ahead before its release, as pictures of the band recording were distributed to the media. To support the album, there were many photo shoots of the band on October 29 at the Ambassador Hotel, where the band took a break from recording the album for two days, for designing the cover art of the album. "The Flem" and "Delta" helped the band for the art works, for the album as well as for the singles spawned by it. A TV commercial for the album was premiered on January 1, 2003. "Somewhere I Belong" was released as the first single, premiering on US radio on March 18, 2003. Being released only nine days before the album release, it influenced the album sales performance worldwide. The second single off the album was "Faint", released before the band started its world tour. The third single "Numb" was released when Linkin Park performed it live in Madrid. "From the Inside" was released as the fourth single off the album before the North American leg of the world tour. "Breaking the Habit" was released while the band was in Indonesia. The album was released with various limited edition content for promotional purposes.

There is a special edition of Meteora, which includes the "Making of Meteora" DVD documentary. The special-edition package was packaged in a blue tinted case with the blue Meteora cover that can be found in some parts of Asia, United States, and more commonly in India. An alternate Indian version contains an alternate DVD and alternative cover that is packaged in a slimline case with the disc in original packaging. The "Tour Edition" of Meteora is packaged in a two disc set. The second disc, which is a Video CD, has the music videos for "Somewhere I Belong", "Faint", "Numb", and "Breaking the Habit". The tour edition is packaged in a standard Compact Disc case, rather than their trademark digipak case. The album was also released on a very limited quantity of vinyl records (spread across two LPs) under Warner Brothers. These are coveted by collectors and fetch high prices at auction. In 2014, Linkin Park released a demo version of Shinoda singing the song, on their 14th annual fan club CD, LPU XIV.

The band promoted the album with their Meteora World Tour and various other supporting tours. The world tour was supported by Hoobastank, P.O.D. and Story of the Year. The band played shows at Pellissier Building and Wiltern Theatre on the day before the album release and on the release date. The shows were called "'Meteora' Release Show". The European leg was cancelled because Chester was having severe back and abdominal pains. As a result, half of the music video of "Numb" was shot in Los Angeles and the Czech Republic. The album was also promoted by the Projekt Revolution festival. A live album was released in support of the album titled Live in Texas. Linkin Park played various special shows worldwide, including "Reading Ireland", as well as performing during the Kerrang! Awards, "Livid", "X-103's Not So Silent Night", "The End's Deck The Hall Ball" and "KROQ Almost Acoustic X-Mas", in promotion of the album.

Meteora received generally positive reviews, although critics noted that the album's musical style was similar to its predecessor, Hybrid Theory (2000). The overall Metacritic score is 62. E! Online rated it A, and expected it to "shoot straight for the stars". Entertainment Weekly described it as "radio-friendly perfection". Dot Music described it as a "guaranteed source of ubiquitous radio hits". Rolling Stone said the band "squeezed the last remaining life out of this nearly extinct formula". Billboard Magazine described Meteora as "a ready-made crowdpleaser". The New Musical Express said it had "massive commercial appeal" but left the reviewer "underwhelmed".

AllMusic described the album as "nothing more and nothing less than a Hybrid Theory part 2.", but added that the band "has discipline and editing skills, keeping this record at a tight 36 minutes and 41 seconds, a move that makes it considerably more listenable than its peers... since they know where to focus their energy, something that many nu-metal bands simply do not." Sputnikmusic writer Damrod criticized the album as being too similar to Hybrid Theory, but praised the album's production quality and catchiness, stating "the songs just invade your brain".

Blender described it as "harder, denser, uglier", while Q described it as "less an artistic endeavor than an exercise in target marketing." Entertainment Weekly gave the album a B+, calling it a "thunderously hooky album that seamlessly blends the group's disparate sonic elements into radio-friendly perfection".

The song "Session" was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Rock Instrumental Performance in 2004.

In its first week, Meteora debuted at number one on the Billboard 200. The album sold at least 810,000 copies its first week of release. As of June 2014, the album has sold 6.2 million copies in the US, and over 27 million copies worldwide. The album was ranked number 36 on Billboard's Hot 200 Albums of the Decade.

#linkin park #meteora #march 25 #march 25th #3.25 #3.25.03 #3.25.2003 #march 25 2003 #march 25th 2003 #2003 #mike shinoda #brad delson #rob bourdon #joe hahn #dave phoenix farrell #chester bennington #2000s

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guaizine · 4 years ago

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About #Menswear Selected By Guaizine:

Digital Fashion Week - A One Time Only Event?

Milan S/S 21 Menswear @showstudio Round-Up Discussion

Just a few @guaizine reflections about some of the opinions from the experts panel:

..."we are not going to get into a pandemic again"... well, I would not be so sure about it, and I think that is the main reason why we should get digital fashion weeks seriously and realize about the potential they have as a format if we manage to take advantage of it in the proper technical way. Those designers still presenting traditional runway shows have different audiences, broader ones, in comparison with smaller brands where the designer as a person is not as important as the product itself. For these smaller brands digital fashion weeks become crucial, as they represent the only -effective- way to reach a client; direct one or an eventual retailer.

..."give the youth more control of the creation"... this is a very good point of view, and I am pretty sure that many of the people involved in fashion for years, -for generations actually - like happens in many of the houses that take part on the MFW for example, had or still does have that great idea of bringing new blood to their business in mind too, but I am pretty sure also that such a thing won't ever happen if that “old” generation do not effectively see that the new one has the proper tools to make it work.

..."Brands are forced to bring their narratives to people and audiences"... Yes! that is right and that suppose to be the right way to approach the digital fashion week from a brand point of view, that is why I was surprised about not hearing about brands like MSGM or Zegna XXX, that having a quite sharp knowledge of their audiences manage to arrive directly to the core of it with a couple of beautiful presentations undoubtedly effective, taking a few steps away for the storytelling and focusing way more on the product itself, a product that seems to be made for their very specific buyers, and not focused at all on trying to generate trends during the next season. Playing safe is always a valid way of being part of the game.

Another interesting point of view is the budgets brands have to put digital shows online, and is obvious that a bigger budget gives you the potential to do something better in theory but this is not always the case and this is the perfect opportunity to bring the Magliano presentation to the discussion, a low budget presentation with an original collection presented is a creative way, nothing was left behind, and everything works as a perfectly executed puzzle. The video is simply a video art piece, that gives to a group or fashion insiders with an unique point of view the task of sending a message to an audience they know well so they manage to address them exactly what they are expecting from the brand, going even further away by pushing forward the brand appealing with content that to me is interesting to look at also to people who is not actually interested in fashion.

..."I really didn't watch a lot of the films and stuff...because they are so much content to sort of digest"... and? so? What do you think editors do then during fashion week? How can someone build some criteria to later go and write a piece to be posted or published if it is not by watching in this case, or attending in person to every single show in each city season after season? How can you give an opinion about a fashion week by only looking to a few instagram feeds of two or three brands? would that be the proper way to approach a panel discussion?

About Philipp Plein, Pierre was quite clever about going further instead of giving it time to be discussed. I have the feeling that the main reason why we still listen about him and his "work" during every fashion week is because with plenty of resources you manage to survive even if people only talk about you to criticize what you do. Maybe a bit less attention will give him the chance to reflect on his strategy and realize that maybe he has a market -obviously he does have one- but fashion weeks are not the kind of platform his brand needs and that huge budget can be invested on design or marketing.

About Etro doing a physical fashion show instead of a digital one in a city that has been suffering so much during the last months, I think is a topic very difficult to talk about especially if you are out of the social, economical and even political context of it. So I will leave to the brand itself and their PR team to deal with it, but also will avoid giving my free opinion about it on social media because saying that the event was inappropriate because I saw people not wearing masks for example is not only superficial but shows a huge lack of understanding of the context of the industry of fashion in the country, of the circumstances of the city today and so many other topics that goes beyond fashion. So saving the social media hubs our opinions about it I guess is the right attitude towards an issue we all know so little so far. Let's focus on fashion guys, please.

..."The people who were invited to Etro...most of them were white"... how can we be surprised about this in 2020?, there is not much black people involved in fashion, it is been like that for decades, so for me the element of surprise has no place at all in this discussion, what should be the brand doing instead? Inviting a bunch of random people just to make the show look diverse? I think the problem we need to face here once again is the lack of diversity in people involved in the whole industry and not in a particular fashion show that happens to take place immediately after the world has been facing weeks of protests that fight racism. Ironically seem to me like is way more honest a show like that, than the attitude that the most of the brands adopted for digital fashion week trying, desperately to look "inclusive": Being "inclusive" in fashion in 2020 according to digital fashion weeks, from Russia to Paris is "to exclude", Yes, exclude automatically from any fashion presentation or show any blonde model, as simple as that, Go for it and you instantly become "inclusive". Sounds exactly like a few years ago when we saw in the industry suddenly loads of oriental models to reach runways, presentations, and magazines after the fashion insiders finally realized that the oriental market was exploding and greeting western fashion and lifestyle as never before.

About the @gucci presentation and "...who would wear that"... is funny that after years of Alessandro Michele, a panel with plenty of stylists think that way about the brand and seems not to have done the exercise of to look at the clothes produced by the brand and designed by the designer and his team, properly, closely and separately. They all seem to stop instead at the styled looks they get from a magazine, or sadly once again, from the brand's instagram feed...

Let's move on..."There are a lot of brands struggling to survive, struggling to sell"... I agree, that is not a secret to anyone these days, But ironically you only had time to "watch and digest" two, maybe three digital fashion shows and they were of the biggest brands, so? What is the point here? won't those small brands be struggling less if we all will be talking more about them? showcasing them more on our websites and YouTube videos? "watching and digesting" more of their design and ideas? Don't you all guys think that would be a more fair approach to it, and without a single doubt an easy and effective way to "help" them?

..."Milan is always a step behind Paris"... please, let's be careful about this kind of opinion because we risk to look like people that see and live fashion -once again- from and around Instagram and Tik tok. The only reason why Paris and Milan are different is because the brands they showcase are different between them, different because they have different audiences, different markets, different targets, those factors make the difference and are not the trends they generate or not after the runway shows the relevant matter on this issue.

About Versace, the approach I agree was quite good, very much attached to the times. But I still have the feeling, even a few days after, that they missed a huge opportunity to make something great! They have everything that they need to make a video successful, but the director seems to be behind on the timing of the scenes, and rhythm was the big absent on the film, the whole final product seems lacking energy and action, which seems to be difficult not to be able to reach with such a vivrant tune, an stunning dancer, and good clothes - either you like the brand or not- at the end the whole looked more like a music video and not as a fashion presentation. With probably a huge budget you would expect a pretty much perfect piece of content, especially if in the past, smaller brands like Grace Wales Bonner, did stunning pieces like Practice, directed by Harley Weir and Grace herself and Devonté Hynes as a collaborator, demonstrating that is not money to make the different in this cases but talent mixed and balanced in the right way is.

The collection was presented under the title of "flash" because it was a "see now, buy SOON" collection and not a "See now, buy now" since as you mentioned it was not very successful at the end a few years ago. Keeping on Versace, I agree Gianni Versace was one of the main designers of the 90's but saying today that the brand needs to be given "expertise, fabric development and technical design" sounds to me a bit irresponsable. If you want "something a little bit new" I suggest you once again to look and focus on NEW brands, If we like -or not- brands like Versace is because they manage to keep a concept during their history and they try their best to present it in a different way season after season; sometimes they reach better results than others, ( becoming a "miss more than a hit" ;-P ) but at least there is a constant attempt on going beyond fashion and transforming those ideas more into a lifestyle for the people that likes, follows, and more importantly buy the brand products.

Moving into the JW Anderson presentation I heard ..."A designer explaining the meaning behind it...we do not get that from the designer mouth anymore"... come on, that is what designers do to press right before every single fashion show is about to start, and they do it once again to press and buyers after the show ends, is part of the fashion protocole, it is been happening for years, decades, so you will get that from "designers in the future" still, there is nothing to worry about.

A final word goes to Pierre A. who I talked to very quickly on Twitter to express my feelings about this round up discussion and he mention that "a live panel is not an easy exercise (specially on Zoom)" and of course underlining that it was his first time doing it, but from my very personal point of view you managed very well, in this cases one of the most important things to keep in mind is to give space to your guests and you definitely mastered that bit! Very well done! <3

#Selected By Guaizine #showstudio #MFW #menswear #Pierre A. M'Pelé

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staliasjeronica · 5 years ago

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Betty Cooper Personality Profile

According to my knowledge, Betty Cooper would be an ENTP. Note: These are from a website, and therefore is what the website says for this type. I went through every single one to figure out the right fit for Betty and this one was the closest and fits her well according to how she is in the show.

The Debater personality type is the ultimate devil’s advocate, thriving on the process of shredding arguments and beliefs and letting the ribbons drift in the wind for all to see. Debaters don’t do this because they are trying to achieve some deeper purpose or strategic goal, but for the simple reason that it’s fun. No one loves the process of mental sparring more than Debaters, as it gives them a chance to exercise their effortlessly quick wit, broad accumulated knowledge base, and capacity for connecting disparate ideas to prove their points.

Playing the devil’s advocate helps people with the Debater personality type to not only develop a better sense of others’ reasoning, but a better understanding of opposing ideas – since Debaters are the ones arguing them.

Taking a certain pleasure in being the underdog, Debaters enjoy the mental exercise found in questioning the prevailing mode of thought, making them irreplaceable in reworking existing systems or shaking things up and pushing them in clever new directions. However, they’ll be miserable managing the day-to-day mechanics of actually implementing their suggestions. Debater personalities love to brainstorm and think big, but they will avoid getting caught doing the “grunt work” at all costs.

Debaters’ capacity for debate can be a vexing one – while often appreciated when it’s called for, it can fall painfully flat when they step on others’ toes by say, openly questioning their friends, or picking apart everything their significant other says. This is further complicated by Debaters’ unyielding honesty, as this type doesn’t mince words and cares little about being seen as sensitive or compassionate. Likeminded types get along well enough with people with the Debater personality type, but more sensitive types, and society in general, are often conflict-averse, preferring feelings, comfort, and even white lies over unpleasant truths and hard rationality.

This frustrates Debaters, and they find that their quarrelsome fun burns many bridges, oftentimes inadvertently, as they plow through others’ thresholds for having their beliefs questioned and their feelings brushed aside. Treating others as they’d be treated, Debaters have little tolerance for being coddled, and dislike when people beat around the bush, especially when asking a favor. Debater personalities find themselves respected for their vision, confidence, knowledge, and keen sense of humor, but often struggle to utilize these qualities as the basis for deeper friendships and romantic relationships.

Debaters need to remember that for their ideas to come to fruition, they will always depend on others to assemble the pieces – if they’ve spent more time “winning” arguments than they have building consensus, many Debaters will find they simply don’t have the support necessary to be successful. Playing devil’s advocate so well, people with this personality type may find that the most complex and rewarding intellectual challenge is to understand a more sentimental perspective, and to argue consideration and compromise alongside logic and progress.

STRENGTHS

Knowledgeable – Debaters rarely pass up a good opportunity to learn something new.

Quick Thinkers – Debaters have tremendously flexible minds, and are able to shift from idea to idea without effort, drawing on their accumulated knowledge to prove their points, or their opponents’, as they see fit.

Excellent Brainstormers – Nothing is quite as enjoyable to Debaters as analyzing problems from every angle to find the best solutions. Combining their knowledge and originality to splay out every aspect of the subject at hand, rejecting without remorse options that don’t work and presenting even more possibilities, Debaters are irreplaceable in brainstorming sessions.

Charismatic – People with the Debater personality type have a way with words and wit that others find intriguing. Their confidence, quick thought, and ability to connect disparate ideas in novel ways create a style of communication that is charming, even entertaining, and informative at the same time.

Energetic – When given a chance to combine these traits to examine an interesting problem, Debaters can be truly impressive in their enthusiasm and energy, having no qualms with putting in long days and nights to find a solution.

WEAKNESSES

Very Argumentative – If there’s anything Debaters enjoy, it’s the mental exercise of debating an idea, and nothing is sacred. More consensus-oriented personality types rarely appreciate the vigor with which Debater personalities tear down their beliefs and methods, leading to a great deal of tension.

Insensitive – Being so rational, Debaters often misjudge others feelings and push their debates well past others’ tolerance levels. People with this personality type don’t really consider emotional points to be valid in such debates either, which magnifies the issue tremendously.

Intolerant – Unless people are able to back up their ideas in a round of mental sparring, Debaters are likely to dismiss not just the ideas but the people themselves.

Can Find It Difficult to Focus – The same flexibility that allows Debaters to come up with such original plans and ideas makes them readapt perfectly good ones far too often, or to even drop them entirely as the initial excitement wanes and newer thoughts come along. Boredom comes too easily for Debaters, and fresh thoughts are the solution, though not always a helpful one.

Dislike Practical Matters – Debaters are interested in what could be – malleable concepts like ideas and plans that can be adapted and debated.

ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIPS

(ATM Jughead Jones, possibly Archie Andrews)

For people with the Debater personality type growth is key, and even before they’ve found a dating partner, they imagine all the ways that they can experience new things together, to grow in tandem. This can be an overwhelming process if their partner doesn’t match up, but when Debaters find someone who shares their love of intellectual exploration, watch out.

From the earliest dates, Debaters test their partners’ limits for this kind of potential, pushing boundaries and traditions, looking for open-mindedness and spontaneity. Dating Debater personalities is hardly a boring experience, and they make use of their enthusiasm and creativity by delighting and surprising their partners with new ideas and experiences.

Debaters’ idea of fun is often rooted in self-improvement, and people with this personality type bring their partners along the way, as much in a spirit of sharing as in a spirit of expectation. Debaters see either growth or stagnation and don’t buy into the idea of a happy status quo, making them demanding as much as they are exciting. Some may tire in the face of this constant improvement – while Debaters’ vigor can be attractive, it can also wear down even the most patient partners

Debaters’ desire to improve in the intimate department makes them fantastic partners when the relationship reaches that point, but their attitude towards this process is also evidence of their most glaring shortcoming – their emotional obliviousness. While Debaters are more open-minded than other Analyst personality types about others’ perspectives, they are also more likely to express their disdain for such things as emotional sensitivity in cuttingly well-phrased and clear terms, easily hurting their partners’ feelings without realizing it. Debater personalities may even ignore their partners’ feelings altogether, instead immersing themselves entirely in some distant idea or opportunity, inaccessible.

Debaters’ best compatibility rests with other Intuitive types, with one or two opposing traits which help to create both balance and opportunities for growth. If they are with a more sensitive partner, this can be an excellent way for them to find another quality that they can work on together, making this weakness yet another opportunity to be creative, challenge themselves, and to deepen the attractiveness that this sense of progression brings to their relationships.

FRIENDSHIPS

(ATM Archie, Jughead, Veronica, and Kevin)

Loyalty, support, emotional feedback – these are not what Debaters look for in their friendships. The last thing people with the Debater personality type want to hear is “you’re right”, not unless they have absolutely earned the distinction in a heated round of intellectual debate. If they’re wrong, Debaters want to be told so, and they want every detail of the faults in their logic to be laid bare, partly in their quest for oftentimes arbitrary truth, and partly just so they have to work to defend that logic with counterpoint and parry.

It’s often easy for Debaters to test compatibility with a potential friend – they just need to test combatability. Debater personalities are quick-witted, and their primary means of expressing this is in the form of arguments and discussions, where they will easily spend an entire evening debating an idea they may not even believe in. These debates are never taken personally, no matter how heated they become or how striking the disagreement.

Debaters are actually remarkably good at communicating with friends and acquaintances of other personality types. Their natural tendency to argue as effectively as possible means that Debaters are accustomed to communicating in other people’s language and frame of reference, and this translates well into normal conversation. Where people with the Debater personality type do have difficulty relating to others is in emotional expression, the Achilles’ heel of all Analyst types.

Being inclined to suppress their emotions and feelings, when Debaters are faced with a friend who, figuratively or literally, needs a shoulder to cry on, they have no clue how to handle the situation. They are perfectly willing and happy to offer a series of rational, reasonable solutions to the problem at hand, as Debaters do for any situation where a problem needs to be fixed, but they are certainly not known for their sensitivity or outward affection, no matter how intuitively they may understand another’s position.

Worse is when Debater personalities try to turn these emotional situations into something they find more comfortable: a debate. Given how remarkably good Debaters are at arguing both sides of a point, they are remarkably bad at putting themselves in someone else’s shoes from an emotional standpoint. Debaters should avoid at all costs the temptation to turn a discussion about the causes of a friend’s recent breakup into competitive intellectual fodder.

So long as everyone understands not to take their words too personally, anyone who isn’t afraid to discuss new ideas is likely to find stimulating and thought-provoking friends in Debaters. It’s not a compatibility that clicks with everyone, but Debaters don’t really care about being liked by everyone anyways. As long as they get to alternate between being the sounding board and the megaphone, Debaters and their friends are bound to enjoy each other’s company for a long, long time.

CONCLUSION

Armed with a powerful intellect and vivid imagination, Debaters can overcome or outmaneuver obstacles that seem unbeatable to most. At the same time, their many quirks, such as often unconstrained rationalism, lead to many misunderstandings.

#Riverdale #Betty Cooper #Personality Profile #ENTP #Bughead #Barchie

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strangelyokay · 4 years ago

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A How To on Acrylic Nails

Beauty tends to change just about every month and depending on the location it can be entirely different than what it is at a different place in the world. Sure, people like to advocate for the natural beauty for the simple and just be yourself platforms but sometimes what we add to our appearances define our moods and confidence. Accessories are part of our self-expression and I like to believe it adds extra personality to someone's individual style. Now am I a certified person to be talking about the beauty trends of the world? Simply put no. I am not a fashion student or guru for that matter, but I do have interest. Specifically, in one beauty trend that seems to change and grow each year. Nails!!!

Well acrylic nails to be more specific. They have always interested me, sometimes in a good way and sometimes in a bad way. See, as a kid I didn't understand them. I remember seeing girls around school with perfectly French tip nails. And as a young naive kid, I used to believe that those were their original nails. I always thought, “Wow their nails are so pretty, why are my……” Yes, I used to think my nails were less than desirable but hey can you blame me? No one told me the secret. My mom didn't understand the concept of spending money on unnecessary things. And to be honest I thought the same into one day I walked to my very first nail salon. I felt powerful, beautiful, different. When I got my very first set of acrylic nails something clicked. Sure, there were downfalls like not being able to open jars, sodas, and sometimes doors, but the perks were so good. I felt like an inner diva rose and said,” You look good.”

Now this blog isn't just me going on and on about how I love Acrylic Nails or how they are a good accessory or even about how they fit in in the new beauty era. Nope, I was interested in how to affordably get my nails done. I figured YouTube is popular with “how to” videos so I figured it was time for me to get a new hobby. I know very little on how to create beautiful nails, but I can give you the information that I have learned from my new hobby, first with what you will need and second the steps to create.

What equipment/products are needed to achieve beauty long acrylic nails?

● Acrylic Nail tips- These are used as a template for nail shapes/lengths and it makes the nail stronger. Also, if you are like me and nervously chew your nails, these help a lot.

● Nail Glue- Self-explanatory but this is needed for the fake nail to stay on your real nail.

● Acrylic Nail Clipper/Nail File- Used to cut and shape the nail. I don't recommend using scissors, because they wouldn't be able to clip the nail even, and it would look bad.

● Electric Nail Drill- Use to file, buff and shape the nail so that it doesn't look like a hot mess. You don't have to have a drill, you can always use a simple file, but it will take longer, like a lot longer.

● Acrylic Monomer/ Acrylic Powders- When combined they make the substance use to create acrylic nails. They smell bad.

● Acrylic Dish- To hold Monomer and the brush

● Acrylic Nail brush- It's a must to have a good quality nail brush, because if not it wouldn't last long and it can even make your application impossible to make.

● Nail Polish Remover- It helps to clean off the brush and fix small mistakes, plus it removes you know, nail polish.

● Nail Primer- Use to make nails last longer, I personally don't use this because I am still learning how to create good nails and they are easier to take off without the primer, but if you really want to use it go ahead.

● Nail Dust Remover/ Mask- Trust me, there will be a lot of nail dust everywhere.

Acrylic Nails Application steps.

Clean your nails- Your body naturally creates oil. Remove all nail polish and overall make them look neat.

File- File your natural nail so that it's in manageable length and then file the top of the nails so that it leaves a little rough surface. This is to help the fake nails stay longer but be careful and don't over file them.

Cuticles- Now you can put cuticle remover and push your cuticles back, but I like removing them with the drill. If you don't know what cuticles are, they are that thin layer of extra looking skin on the edges of your nails. If you don't remove them. It looks like your nails have grown out and they will make your nails look, well messy.

Fake Nail tips- Make sure to take your time getting the right sizes for each finger. If they are too big, it will cover the skin and your nails will hurt, especially if forcefully removed (I used to laugh at any girl who cried for a broken nail until it happened to me, it hurts really bad).

Nail primer- After your nails are in place put a small layer of nail primer. I usually skip this step and I recommend it, if you are new to the nail game like me.

Acrylic monomer/ powder- Acrylic dish and Nail brush will be needed. Put the brush inside the dish with the monomer. Gentle rub the brush against the glass side to remove excess liquid. Gently place on powder and create a bead and then place on the back end of the nail. Repeat the steps but this time apply the bead on the middle of the nail and then on the tip of the nail. Each time you do this remember to swipe the brush so that I combine gradually and nicely with the fake nail. This takes practice and I mean a lot of practices. You will mess up but don't get discouraged and try again and remember you can always use the electric drill to fix your obvious mistakes. Make sure to apply the mixture fast because it will dry out.

Electric Drill- With the drill you will trim the bumps and undesirable mistakes, then file and buff.

Overall

It's fun to create the nails I want but it does take practice, and patience. I sometimes take a day to finish a set of nails. I manage to do one hand and I get too tired to do the other one. After they are created the fun part is decorating them. I personally like gel nails because they last longer than regular nail polish. To decorate with gel polish, you will need a UV Nail Light because gel polish only dries under it. I am serious, you can wait 20 years and gel polish will not dry on its own. Now after all these steps you are probably thinking,” I prefer paying for acrylic nails” or “this is too much work.” But let me tell you, you will save money and it's actually very rewarding when you create them on your own. Sure, nails aren't for everyone and with the way beauty trends change there's a good chance acrylic nails will be a thing of the pass. But I still recommend learning to create them. It's a form of art, which helps reduce stress, you save money in the long run (well if you get your nails done regularly), and it's a form of expression. It added a spice of, THIS IS ME, vibes and you get to create something from nothing. Plus, you can also show off your new skill to your friends. If you do decide to learn this skill remember to keep practicing, it's okay to take your time and don't give up. I advocate for this trend because it gives me confidence that I can do anything. I like to express my mood through the colors that I chose and give my personality a voice with the designs I chose. I also ran out of things to do in my time off and when thinking about what to do in my isolated boredom I came to the realization that doing acrylic nails could be fun. I did think of the more common hobbies to pick up like exercising , painting, even writing, but I wanted to challenge myself in a way that those other hobbies couldn't ( I hate running, I paint like a three year old and writing acquired extra focus/ thinking). Creating nails challenge me on a creative artistic level. It also gives me motivation to succeed because doing all that effort for them to come out ugly was not an option. I recommend looking at a lot of videos and overall staying positive. Yes, they will come out looking a bit funky at first and your fingers might feel like they are going to fall off but it's really fun to try. Whether it's this beauty trend or a different one just remember don't let others stop you from expressing your individuality.

Here are a couple of links to some helpful videos:

Acrylic Nails At Home: Step by Step How-To Tutorial

💅🏼Acrylic Nail Tutorial - How To Apply Acrylic For Beginners 🎉📚

DIY Nail Workshop - Acrylic Application

#acrylic #beginners #a how to #ahowto #nail #nail art #creative #hobby #art #tutorial #trying something new #nails #acrylicnail #acrylicnails #acrylicnailart

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buckysgoldenheart · 6 years ago

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Coffee Shop: Bucky Barnes x Reader AU

Summary: Reader gets set up at a Coffee Shop.

Words: 4,188 (Sorry its long)

*Bucky stuff starts at about 1,300 words, so stick it out if you want him.

Part: 1/3

Hope you guys like it. Comments are appreciated!!!!

Coffee Shop

Y/N

Most important stop of your mornings: Jason’s Coffee Shop, where your friend Jason just happened to work, not own it. The name was merely a coincidence. No, your Jason was a barista, though if any cute woman asked, he was the dedicated entrepreneur who took a risk to follow his dream and opened this quaint shop. Something about successful men who took the time to work in their business rather than leave it to his employees was a major turn on for women young college-aged and older gracefully-aged alike. And Jason had a way of appreciating every, single, lady that fell for his charming smile.

Nine a.m., not too crowded to find a seat at the coffee bar that Jason’s was known for. Being set up like an industrial bar/club with a long counter, booths instead of small tables, and retro music playing in the background drew the people in.

You smiled at the way the sun shown through the large windows and reflected off the mirror behind the counter. This was without a doubt, your favorite place in the entire city. There were very few customers this morning. Not unexpected on a Saturday at this hour, and that was just how you liked it. The only people there were a lovey-dovey couple in a back booth sharing croissants and muffins, a ridiculously attractive man sitting two seats away from your average spot, and your very best friend, Jason.

“Right on time, as always,” Your blond buddy said as he placed your steaming mug of liquid life in front of you; cream and two sugars. You slipped your puffy, yet stylish, coat off your shoulders, tucked it around a stool, and plopped down.

“You’re getting good with this timing thing. You already had this made?” You chuckled, blowing away the steam before taking a small sip. You loved the way the temperature heated the ceramic and warmed your winter-chilled fingers.

Jason smiled, drying a recently washed mug with a rag. The movements forced your eyes to his biceps. They always moved and rippled magically in a way that used to drive you crazy back when you were both in college, but you quickly grew out of your little freshman lust-crush. The next year, Jason had actually developed one for you, but like you had, came to the realization that friends was the better way to go. A relationship would never blossom from you spending some lonely nights together and would only result in a lost friendship. Not worth it in your opinion.

“I’ve only known you five years. We lived together. You only come here every single morning like clockwork. To be honest, if I still didn’t know how you prefer to fuel your caffeine addiction, then I would worry for my ability to pay attention to the important things in life.” He laughed. “And,” He paused. “If I can’t even pay attention to the details of my best friend, then how will I be able to get myself a long-term chick? She’ll think I don’t care about her. Remembering the details is what you ladies like, is it not?”

You took another sip. “It doesn’t hurt. But ‘long-term chicks’ are far from your thing.”

The man a couple seats down snickered a little as he took a bite of his pink-frosted donut. You turned your head to meet his perfectly outlined profile. Puffy lips. Masculine nose, but not too large or bumpy like some men’s; perfectly proportioned for his face. Neatly trimmed scruff along a jawline that you kind of wanted to trace with your finger. Long, dark lashes. Strong chin. Soft looking, fluffy hair. To put it simply…he was insanely attractive.

You must’ve stared a little too long, because Jason felt the need to distract you from your thoughts. “See something you like?” He whispered, his elbows perched on the counter, a smirk on his handsome face. Thankfully he was quiet enough so the stranger didn’t hear Jason’s little joke.

Your head whipped back to his and you playfully pushed him back by his shoulder. “Absolutely not.”

“Why not? You need a good lay.” At his words you looked down into your mug, avoiding his eyes. Suddenly, you were noticeably too silent to fool your friend. “Y/N?”

“What?” You asked with a causal, yet unconvincing, tone.

“Oh, Y/N, you didn’t. You did not call that asshole, again.”

Meeting his disappointed look, you sighed and placed your mug back on the dark cherry surface. “I was bored.”

Jason crossed his large, muscly arms. “Oh, c’mon darling, you know very well that if you are ever bored,” He stopped and untangled an arm, using the hand to brush your chin with his knuckle, “I’ll take care of you.”

You groaned and swatted his hand away from your face. “Don’t be an ass. We’ve been down that road.”

Jason laughed, loud enough for the sound to echo through the quiet shop. “Nah, I’m just kidding sweetheart. You know that. I tried to get in your pants and you turned me down. Multiple times if I recall correctly.”

“You know it was for the best.” You smiled. Your eyes sparkled from the laughter that nearly passed your lips.

“Very true. But in all seriousness, Y/N, you gotta find someone else to go to when you need to release some tension. Charles always says some dick thing to you every time after the sixty seconds he spends inside you.”

“I know.” Your fingers went to your long locks but got slightly caught in the tangles of your un-styled do.

“So, what’s with the self-punishment?”

“I don’t know. But enough about me, let’s talk about you. Bang a ‘lucky’ lady since yesterday morning?”

Jason smiled as he served a drink to a new customer before returning to you. “Ladies…”

You chucked. “So, same old?”

He nodded. “Same old.”

Silence passed between you, and Jason watched as you took the opportunity to gaze longingly at the attractive stranger. “Darling, I wanna strike a deal.”

“Hmm?” Your Y/H/C eyebrows scrunched together as once again, your attention was drawn from the man. “What kind of deal?” You asked warily.

“I’m gonna scour the land for a man for you.”

You winced at how desperate the phrase made you sound. You didn’t need a man. And you certainly didn’t need a friend setting you up. “Jason…”

Jason wagged his finger. “Nope. No ifs, ands, or buts. I’ve made up my mind. But I do need a small favor in return.”

“In return for doing something I don’t even want you to do.”

“Yes.”

“Fine. What?”

Jason leaned in close, his brown eyes sparkling with mischief. “Set me up with Amanda.”

That, you did not expect, but you didn’t know why. Jason slept around enough, you should know his habits by now. “Amanda Smith, or Amanda McMeyer?”

“McMeyer.”

“McMeyer???” You made a disgusted face. “Really?”

Jason shrugged his broad shoulders. “What? She’s hot.”

“She’s also a mega bitch.”

“Yea…” He drew out the word. “I don’t really care…like at all. I want that pussy and those sexy tits.”

“Fake tits.”

“Again…I don’t care. She’s sexy. And why should I care if she got a boob job? She didn’t like something about her body and she did something about it. It’s like exercising to lose weight or gain muscle. I think it’s kind of admirable.”

“Makes sense. Now you’re making it seem like a great idea. Maybe I should do it.” You sarcastically replied.

“No, Darling. You’re pretty perfect as you are. I’ve seen that body naked, remember?” You chuckled at the memory of your once roommate walking in on you just as you hopped out of the shower. “So? Get miss McMeyer to sleep with me?” He asked as you downed the rest of your coffee, stood, and reached for your coat.

“I’ll do my best, but she doesn’t really sleep around.”

“Convince her?” He asked with a puppy-dog smile.

“Do I look like I magician?”

“You don’t not look like one.”

You giggled, smiled, and blew a kiss goodbye to your friend as you headed for the door. “I’ll work on it today and report back tomorrow.”

“God Y/N, you are the best. And don’t worry, I’m gonna get you a great guy.”

You rolled your Y/E/C eyes, sarcasm on your cherry painted lips. “Yea, yea. I’ll see ya later.”

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

Jason

Through the windows, Jason watched you walk away, then he turned to the stranger you found so captivating. Jason smiled at the blue-grey-eyed man long enough that he looked up from the newspaper in front of him.

Jason’s lips curved upwards. “You’re quite the attractive man, aren’t you?”

Seemingly unphased by the barista’s words, the man scratched at his brunet eyebrow. “Uh, Thanks. Not that that’s not a very nice thing to say, but it’s awfully random. Or are you just hitting on me?”

Jason laughed and threw his head back a bit, strands of his short blond hair flinging with the movement. “I admit, I did experiment in college, but no, ended up not swingin’ that way. However,” He said, raising a slightly darker colored eyebrow than the shade of his light locks, “I couldn’t help but notice that your very pretty eyes happened to make their way to my good friend more than once this morning.” The man met Jason’s smirk, unashamed at how he had stared at the side of your face and studied every soft, but significant curve of your body when you weren’t looking. “Pretty isn’t she?”

Puffy lips turned upwards at the question. “Very.”

“How would you like to go out with her? I warn you, she’s a tough chick, and it takes her some time to open up, but she’s totally worth it. In more ways than one.”

“She didn’t seem to eager to be set up on a date.”

Jason waved his hand in a brush-off. “It makes her nervous, but like I said, she’s worth it. Besides, you’re attracted to her. And I can tell Y/N’s attracted to you.”

“Do you do this to all of your friends?”

“Only the ones who deserve it. So, what do you say? Beautiful woman. Smart, witty, creative. She even reads. Also has a bit of culture under her belt.”

“I guess I would be an idiot to say no, wouldn’t I?”

Jason smiled wide, tiny crinkles forming at the outer corners of his eyes. He knew he just accomplished his goal. “You know it.” He scribbled something down quickly on a square napkin. “Here. This is my number. If you really wanna go out with her, text me later and I’ll give you hers.” He handed off the napkin to the man, who grinned down at the numbers before folding it in half and sticking it in his back jeans pocket. “I’m Jason.” Jason extended his hand.

The blue-grey-eyed brunet gripped the hand in front of him. “I’m Bucky.”

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

Bucky

Bucky hadn’t texted you when Jason gave him your number after confirming he want to go out with you. He didn’t know why. He’d been out with a ton of girls, plenty of dates, a fair amount of hook-ups, but for some reason, you made him kind of nervous. And texting you out of nowhere seemed too impersonal. So now, Bucky sat back in the same seat he had the day before at Jason’s and waited to see you again. He heard Jason say you came to the shop every morning at nine a.m. sharp and so he made sure to get there at eight-fifty-five.

Jason glared at Bucky as he poured him a fresh cup of coffee. “Why didn’t you text her?”

“I just wanted to talk to her in person. Texting her without even speaking to her first seemed too weird.”

And yep. Nine a.m. as promised, you strolled in with a wide smile that brightened your entire face. The same cute, puffy blue jacket wrapped around you draped in your gorgeous Y/H/C hair, leggings that fit snuggly to your ass, accentuating one of the curves Bucky had become quite fond of in the short amount of time he had looked at you.

“You better make your move.” Jason whispered to him as he grabbed the coffee to greet you while you took a seat in the same stool.

“Thanks, Jace.”

Bucky received many side glances from Jason as he listened to you recount your attempts to get some girl to sleep with the barista. His eyes clearly said, ‘get a move on.’ Bucky cleared his throat, removing any scratchiness before you heard his voice for the first time. He didn’t want to scare you off by sounding like Godzilla mid-screech.

The first break in your conversation with the blond, Bucky turned to you, plastered an easy smile on his face, and said, “Hi.”

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

Y/N

Holy shit, You thought. That right there is the deep, sultry, sexy voice of a Greek God. It startled you for a minute and your eyes widened.

You met his eyes. Big mistake!

You couldn’t tell if you were smiling, though you hoped you were and that you didn’t look like a deer frozen in space ready to be squashed by an oncoming car.

Swallowing your anxiety, you parted your lips and licked away the dryness, an act that you saw did not go unnoticed by the man before you. “Um, Hi.”

Jason stepped back with a smile as he watched you both, then turned to attend to the Sunday customers.

“Do you mind if I sit next to you?”

“It’s a free country,” You chuckled awkwardly, internally imagining slapping your palm to your forehead from stupidity.

He, too, chuckled, but took no time lessening the space between you. He stuck out a strong, firm hand and you felt yourself suck in a breath at the veins that trailed from the back of his hand, up his strong forearm and disappeared under the short sleeve of his tee.

You took it and, Oh good lord, so rough. Those fingers would feel too good inside me.

“I’m Bucky.”

“Y/N.” You matched his panty-melting smile. Now this guy, You thought, This guy I could definitely see replacing Charles.

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

Y/N

One Month Later

He insisted on waiting to sleep together, wanting to get to know you first. He hadn’t even tried to kiss you yet, but now, at the end of your third date, you were ready to have him. No more waiting.

Bucky smiled down at you, a certain joyful glint in his eyes as he tucked a loose piece of your hair behind your ear then stroked your cheek with his thumb. “I had a great time.” He near whispered. “I’m really glad you agreed to go out with me…three times.” You chuckled, but you were too. Bucky was amazing. Sweet, kind, sexy as hell, funny, passionate about his dreams, an amazing listener. The list could fill a book. Bucky was worth more than just a Charles replacement. “And I am really, really glad Jason said something to me about you. I mean, really fucking glad.”

You groaned with a smile. “Oh lord, do not mention Jason. That man is driving me nuts over Amanda McMeyer. Apparently, he wants to date her now, which is beyond weird, but I guess after they slept together, he realized he actually liked her.”

“And he’s requesting your matchmaking services again?”

“You bet he is.” Though, to be honest, you didn’t really mind. Sure, he bugged you about her every time he could, but you were happy he finally wanted to be with someone for more than a night. And according to him, Amanda isn’t as bitchy as you thought. So…Bonus!

Your thoughts quickly snapped back to the concern at hand. The man you wanted so bad, that seemed to want you too, had not kissed you. He gave every indication that he wanted to, but nada. Not a single attempt, not even a half-second of those delicious looking lips on yours. “Bucky, I’m really happy we are going out too, and I don’t want to stop anytime soon, but I’m kinda concerned.”

Bucky’s eyebrows knitted together as his thumb began to trace the curve of your bottom lip. Who the hell does that if they don’t want to devour your mouth with theirs?

“What’s wro--?”

“Why haven’t you kissed me?” You blurted out before you lost your nerve.

Bucky dropped his hand from your face and ran it through his neatly cut and styled hair. For a moment, he avoided your gaze, then took a deep breath and looked back. “Believe me, I want to. So damn bad. I want to do more than kiss you, but…”

“But?” You asked, tilting your head like a puppy.

“Don’t get mad.”

“Um, OK.”

“Jason told me you don’t really do relationships. That you aren’t quick to trust and have a tendency to turn all the men that like you or want you into fuck-buddies, if anything at all.”

Your lips formed an ‘oh,’ but nothing came out.

“I just didn’t want to be one of those guys. I like you. So much. You’re beautiful and smart. Funny. Amazing. Just…all-around great. I was drawn to you the minute I saw you, but not in the way I’ve been to other women in the past. Yes, I wanted you, still do,” He chuckled. “And I’m not saying that I wouldn’t have taken you on the counter the second we met if you let me, but only if I knew it would lead to something more.” He took another deep breath. “So, that’s why I haven’t kissed you. Because I knew if I did, then I wouldn’t be able to stop, and we would’ve fucked each other senseless the first time we went out. I wanted to prove to you that that’s not all I want from you.”

You smiled and cupped his cheek. “Well, mission accomplished.”

“Oh yea?” Bucky grinned, slipping his strong arms around the curve of your waist and pulling you even closer.

“Absolutely. I never really thought I would do this again. The whole dating thing.”

“So, why did you try it out with me? How did I get to be the lucky one?”

“I just had a feeling you were one of the good ones.”

Bucky’s smile forced an explosion in your heart. You looked down to his parted lips, your own opening slightly in preparation for his plump lips melding with yours. Slowly, his head tipped down as you stood on your toes the little bit you needed to meet him halfway. Inch by inch the space disappeared between you until nothing was left. He did not solely kiss you and you did not solely kiss him, but you kissed each other, both with equal passion and sharing the control. When you slid your tongue into his mouth, his would compliment yours perfectly. If he sucked your bottom lip, you bit his. If you moaned, he groaned. It was more than you had ever felt at one time in your entire life, and it was perfect.

Bucky pushed you back against the door, making sure to keep you away from the doorknob for the sake of your lower back. He tangled a fist in your hair and groaned again from so deep within him that it tingled over every inch of your body, lighting your nerves on fire.

You broke apart at the same time and your foreheads rested against one another. Neither of your eyes opened as Bucky muttered a quiet “Fuck” into your ear. “That was, uh…God, I don’t even know how to describe it.”

“All I know,” You said between slow breaths, “Is that kissing you was well worth the wait.” Another deep breath. “Bucky?”

“Hmm?” He hummed, his hands roaming up and down your curves. Ribs, waist, hips, ass, hips, waist, ribs. Not breaking his hands away from your body for a second.

“Come inside.”

Bucky’s head rose form it’s leaned position on yours. He flitted his eyes back and forth between your own, processing your words, and trying to figure out if you meant what he thought you did. “But—”

“Don’t you want to?”

He exhaled a silent chuckle. “Do I want to? Are you kidding? I want you so damn bad.”

“Come inside, Bucky.” You said again, opening your apartment door with one hand while the other held on to his. You tugged lightly, and when you didn’t meet resistance, you pulled him fully through the doorway, kissing him again as he kicked the door closed.

“Jump.” He mumbled against your lips and you did as you were told, trusting him to catch you and hold you to him when you wrapped your legs around his waist. “Bed?”

In between pecks, you uttered a quick, “No, here. Take me here.”

Bucky laughed into your kiss, the impact muffled by the seal of your lips. “No. Bed,” He whispered, pulling away enough to look you directly in the eyes. “We can fuck against the wall later. Hell, we can fuck on every surface in this place, but I am having you on a bed first. I want you comfortable when I make you come for me.”

You whimpered at his words then quickly slammed your lips back onto his. Bed it is.

Bucky laid you on the mattress carefully and crawled on top of you, leaving not a hairs width of space between your bodies as he ground his hard-on against your core. No one had ever turned you on so much in your life, and this simple friction was enough to drive you insane, making you softly sob with each thrust.

He straightened up on his knees, pulling you with him. Then, he told you to lift your arms up so he could slip off your top. Next your bra, and the minute the material hit the floor, Bucky’s breath hitched. His thumbs made their was to the underside of your breasts and stroked the softness of your skin. When you tugged on the hem of his shirt moments later, he removed his hands and gripped the back neck of his tee and pulled it over his head. As his arms settled back at his sides, your eyes glazed over at the sight of his muscles moving under his skin.

After tossing his shirt to the side, Bucky placed a hand between the valley of your breasts and pushed you back down on the bed. His fingers when to the waist of your pants and slowly undid the button before hooking his fingers in the belt loops and pulling the fabric down along with your underwear until you lay bare in front of him.

“Jesus,” He huffed out in between rapid breathing. He trailed his eyes over every inch of you from head to toe, but eventually landed them on your dripping pussy. He reached out his hand, extended a thumb, and slowly slipped it between your folds, sliding it up and down in even rhythms forcing you to pant and cry for him. “So pretty.”

“Bucky,” You cried as you bucked your hips with every brush of his thumb against your clit. “This isn’t fair. Let me see you.”

He grinned at your eager tone, but never let up on the torturous movement of his thumb as he undid his own jeans button with his free hand and forced the pants down just far enough to let his cock spring free from its confines.

Giant. Thick. Long. Good God. At the sight of him, you pushed his hand away from your pussy, quickly sat up and scooted close until the tip of his cock nearly brushed against your lips. You looked up to find him thoroughly licking your juices from his thumb and you took this second of his distracted state to dip your tongue out and lick lightly along the underside of the tip. You lit up as his hips involuntarily jutted forward, the first inch of him sliding into the heat of your mouth through parted lips.

Bucky braced a strong hand on your shoulder as you took him in deeper, inch by agonizing inch, swirling your tongue along every bit of skin you could and moaning to create a gentle vibration. “Oh, Fuck.” You took him in and out over and over, your tongue making devilish licks on his shaft. “Goddamn…that mouth of yours is…shit…,” He grunted. “…fucking amazing. So good, baby girl.”

Then, as if he had come to a sudden realization, Bucky’s eyes snapped open and he pulled his dick out of the comfort of your lips.

“What’s wrong?”

“Y/N, I don’t want to come in your mouth, not this time. I wanna come in that pussy.”

You gasped, grabbed the back of his neck, and met his lips in an aggressive kiss. As he crawled back on top of you, Bucky managed to kick the rest of his pants off, then settled himself between your legs. His hips spread them wide until you could feel his tip playfully nudging at your entrance. One thrust and he would be inside you.

Tags: @dugan365 @moonlightimagination @pietrotheavenger @marvel-fanfiction @agentsinstorybrooke @dani-si @alyssiamking @wintersoldier98 @then-there-was-me-emily @prxttybirdz @tessvillegas @xceafh @jazzwoman897 @fandoms-who @meganwinchester1999 @ufffg @debra77 @rebelliouscat @anise-d-castle6 @projectxhappiness @buckybarnesappreciationsociety @lowkeysebby @stringgeek13 @notmyfault404 @jjamesbbarness @stangirl4eva @guera31 @sophiatomlinson23 @youreahandsomedevil @thisismysecrethappyplace @rex-orange-baby @hiddles-rose @vibhati123 @mywinterwolf @stevesaidabadlanguageword @picapicapicassobaby

#bucky #bucky barnes #james Buchanan barnes #bucky au #bucky barnes au #bucky x reader #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes imagines #bucky imagines #bucky imagine #bucky barnes imagine #bucky fanfic #bucky barnes fanfic #bucky fanfiction #bucky barnes fanfiction

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gameofdrarry · 6 years ago

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Drarryland: Info & FAQ

Drarryland is the second iteration of the Game of Drarry game/fests where Harry and Draco and your imagination are the perfect winning combination.

The game/fest is open for writer and artist signups!

Signup here!

Designed to be fun and stress-free, players dictate their pace to fill fun yet challenging prompts. Drarropoly, the previous game/fest, had prompts that were oriented toward HP-themed locations, Drarryland prompts have been crafted based on popular tropes like Eighth Year, Aurors, Creature!Fic, and many, many more.

If you’re seeing this, hopefully, you are a bit familiar with the game/fest concept. If not, you may view a shorter info and explanation post here. Or read the full info and FAQ under the cut!

WHO CAN PARTICIPATE?

Everyone! In the survey we put out at the end of Drarropoly, so many people admitted to being new writers or writers who had been on hiatus for a long period of time.

Writers and Artists can try their hand at shorter stories or smaller/simpler art projects in a super low-stress environment:

I loved the prompts and how it allowed me to try my hand at writing without starting from scratch.

I did really enjoy it, I’ve never been involved in a community before.

yes, it was very nice! although i’ve never done a game like this, or any sort of fanfic exchange of any kind, drarropoly made me want to participate in more in the future!

In addition, Drarryland now offers access to the Game of Drarry Discord server where players can connect with others in the community to get advice and support.

What kinds of art is accepted? Anything from simple sketches to fully illustrated scenes, and mood boards. Some art prompts have colour and perspective parameters but can be met across different kinds of media.

HOW IT WORKS

We asked for feedback after Drarropoly and listened to a lot of your comments! Word count limits are higher, there are more opportunities to pass on a prompt, and there are 6 bonus prompt opportunities.

There are so many opportunities to earn points and be creative, either as a single player or in optional pairs/groups in the larger Game of Drarry community. Your game/fest is what you make of it, and your level of participation is on your terms!

Drarryland gameplay (individual), the House Round Robins (groups), and The Owlery Exchange (pairs) are the three parts of the game, and players may participate in one, two, or all of them.

Players who sign up will be assigned a Hogwarts house at random. The mods have created four new houses (Pennydew, Rowandark, Shadowrose, and Dragonwick) and each mod is a Head of House. All submissions are worth 1 point toward the House cup.

There are lots of opportunities to earn extra points through bonus prompts, Round Robins, The Owlery Exchange, and commenting on other players’ submissions. More on that later.

THE GAMEPLAY

Players are tasked with making their way up the board, weaving their way through the Hogwarts grounds toward the House Cup/End of the year.

The road through Hogwarts is comprised of an array of six coloured squares:

Blue = Potions Class = Angst prompts

Green = Transfiguration class = Non-Drarry POV prompts

Yellow = Charms class = Fluff prompts

Orange = History of Magic class = Epilogue Compliant/Older Drarry prompts

Red = Defence Against the Dark Arts = Aurors/Adventure prompts

Purple = Divination class = The Fates know you’ll write the right thing - prompts open to wide interpretation

While prompts are grouped in these categories, players are not required to fill a prompt based on the category unless the prompt specifically requires it. Someone could land on angst and end up writing the fluffiest drabble ever!

What are the prompts like?

Fic prompts: Many of the prompts will have the same format that was prevalent in Drarropoly: (example) a situation or scenario with either 1) this thing -OR- 2) that thing - Minimum: 276 words - Maximum: 788 words. But this time around there are also photo prompts, song prompts, and a wider array of tropes and situations.

Art prompts: We are hoping to entice more artists to take part! The art prompts have been quite fun to come up with and vary from vague thematic scenarios to stricter palette restrictions or perspectives. Drarry in a video game to Harry and Draco are two sides of the same coin - use an element of gold, silver, or bronze in a depiction of this.

What if a player ends up exceeding the word count? The word count restrictions are there to serve as an exercise, pushing writers to think more about the word choices and styles they use. But if someone ends up writing 3000 words (or 20,000 - as was the case with a team of players in Drarropoly!) who are we to stifle your creativity! Every player is allowed one Free Period which gives them a pass to change the prompt in any way they see fit.

What if a player doesn’t like their prompt? It’s bound to happen! Whether it’s just not your thing or you can’t get a shred of inspiration from it, players will have the chance to pass on a total of (3) prompts. But it comes at a price. Players who pass on their prompt will have to serve Detention. At the beginning of the game, players will be given their Detention Punchcard which has three prompts to choose from that serve as replacements for ones that will be passed on. A player doesn’t need to inform the mods that they are passing on a prompt, the Return Player Form will afford them the opportunity to indicate that when they turn it in for their next move.

Once a player has filled the prompt assignment, they’ll head to the Returning Player Form to request a new prompt from the mods, who will roll the dice, move them on the board, and send out the new prompt.

BONUS PROMPTS

As a player makes their way up the road, every 10-12 spaces they’ll be offered a Bonus Prompt to complete at their leisure. They may submit them at any time until the game cut off on May 5.

There are six bonus prompt categories, one for each landmark on the board.

Hagrid’s Hut = Creature!Fic

The Great Lake = Other Realities

The Quidditch Pitch = Competition

The Library = Odd Jobs

The Forbidden Forest = Hidden Things

The Whomping Willow = Let’s Get Physical

OTHER DRARRYLAND GAMEPLAY ASPECTS

The board has a handful of wildcard spaces that have one mysterious prompt.

Players can land on spots that are connected to various Hogwarts secret passageways which will either take them forward or backwards on the board.

HOUSE ROUND ROBINS

Players will have the optional opportunity to join their housemates in writing collaborative stories. The mods will match players together with similar interests, likes/dislikes, and rating preferences. Groups of 5 will receive a prompt and craft a story together, each writing at least one section (250-word minimum / 1000-word maximum).

*If a player only wishes to participate in the Round Robin, they still must sign up to play the game. They’ll receive their first gameplay prompt, and can simply ignore it, opting to join the Round Robin group and create a delightful, collaborate masterpiece.*

Participation in this is dependent on the player joining the Discord server, where chat options and house channels make it easier to communicate with other players and the mods/Head of House.

ARTISTS

Artists can also join a round robin group. An artist is only required to create one work for the project but can create more equal to the number of rounds completed by the writers.

POINTS

Every “turn” by a player in the round robin is a point. Every “round” completed by the group is another point to each player. A completed story is an additional point to each player.

THE OWLERY EXCHANGE

The Owlery is independent of the game but can be a bonus opportunity to earn points for your House by exchanging letters with another player. You do not have to be a Drarryland player to participate in the Owlery Exchange. It has a separate sign up.

How does it work? When a player signs up, they can specify a preference to write as Harry or Draco or no preference.

They will also commit to a minimum number of letters and a schedule:

The Pen Pals - You’ll fill in your favourite themes and tropes in the sign-up form, as well as squicks, rating preferences, and word count ideals. The mods will match you with a Harry or a Draco that has similar preferences. Pen Pals will remain anonymous until the exchange is complete. This is part of the fun! All letters will be submitted to the mods via email, who will then pass them along. Instructions for this process will be delivered with your prompt information.

The Deadlines - Because this is a round-robin exchange, we’ve set deadlines to ensure that each player has ample time to draft their letters. Of course, you don’t have to wait for the deadline to send in your finished letter. At the same time, do not feel pressured to send it in faster if your pen pal replies quickly. In addition, you can send anecdotal messages if need be to your penpal via the mods, and if you both agree to write more than the required amount of letters, we encourage it! If you finish early, the mods will finalize your exchange and reveal your pen pal. You’ll be able to discuss and edit before being required to post.

Word Counts - The exchange has no minimum or maximum word count limits. We ask your preference on the signup form to try and match you with a similar writer.

Betas - We encourage you to use a beta! We have Harry-beta and Draco-beta rooms on the Game of Drarry Discord server where you can talk about your letters, get ideas, and ask for someone to look over your work.

Pinch Hitters - If you are interested in saving a life helping out and are super enthusiastic about this exchange, please sign up to be a pinch hitter. You may do this even if you are already signed up for the exchange. Simply check yes on the sign-up form. Or reply when the mods send out messages.

Points - If the exchange participant is also playing Drarryland, each one of their letters counts as a point to their house. A completed exchange also counts as an extra point.

Other Awesome Things About Drarryland

The mods are super excited to connect with the players on the discord server and have lots of fun things planned. The discord gives players the opportunity to reach out and meet other people in fandom, share ideas, offer help, and generally flail over the ship we love so much.

Have questions? Send us an ask or contact the mods below. You can also email us at gameofdrarrymod AT gmail DOT com

Spooky @buttertyrant // Fanny @fantom-ftnoise

Sara @glittering-git // Jess @nifflers-n-nargles

We want to answer any questions or concerns you might have, so please reach out!

#drarry #drarry squad #drarryland #hp fests #drarryland mods

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fircbcrn-blog · 5 years ago

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hello frands !! it is me, admin c, introducing my final and most fire muse, bok emrys otherwise known as rhys. beneath the cut you can find a couple of pointers and basics on him, like this for plotting as you can expect and i’ll get to those im’s as fast as i can !! you can find his stats here for some idea and overview of him:

so rhys is like this edgy biker boy but with a heart of gold who is rlly a super big softie, he just looks like an intimidating biker boi with his style.

he falls in love with everything but i don’t mean like he’ll fuck anything with a pulse kind of love or oh wow u were nice to me and now i adore u and want to run off into the sunset, i mean he’s just in love with the world around him i mean it’s a shitty fuckin place sometimes but he sees the small beauties in it, the miracles of nature and human behavior that isn’t learned but just inherent to us and he thinks its fuckin magical so sue him

very wise and mature and down to earth as a person, despite being super popular because he just comes across as very cool and easygoing and in general easy to get along with plus he’s a total heart throb in the modelling world.

pretty artsy for a living, very much a creative soul. he paints and sketches and can mould things and he does actually commission it and earn a decent amount from it but his main career and income comes from the modelling definitely. bc ya know business for artists in general just isn’t amazing even for the richer few.

super in touch with the world and at peace with himself, like he is an immovable force nothing you say or do to him will upset him bc he’s just like lol that’s ur opinion and perspective ig and ur entitled to it so go off but imma do me thanks.

pansexual iCoN, he will love anyone pretty down who he can see something good in and he can see good in basically anything other than actual dictators obviously.

guru of life advice, people often come to him because he offers a sense of stability and security without getting his own emotions attached just from his presence alone and the atmosphere he surrounds himself with.

exudes charisma and magnetism we stAn, fully sits around with fancy expensive wine and his art in his super cosy yet modern and majorly artistic big ass penthouse suite apartment studio and walks around in open blazers shirtless with his long hair all pushed back and wet like the queer bohemian pixie that he is uNF.

he definitely has an approachable just creative and exciting persona without making you feel like you have to be wild to be alive with him. he’s also very spiritual

boi does yoga every morning and meditates every night without fail, very aware of mindfulness and does the exercises for it a lot, very aware of his health and keeps like excessively on top of it. he’s buddhist so he believes in the chakras, is interested in white magic and crystal healing too though, definitely practices feng shui, don’t fuck with his feng shui

he is a dancer however he doesn’t do dance as a full time gig bc he’s worried it would eat away at his time and take away from his other passions but ye he be a busy boi but he choreographs a lot and does cover videos on youtube that are pretty popular.

he gets a reputation from the media for being a ‘playboy’ bc he’s deemed a heart throb fUNNILY enough he is the furthest thing from that, but everyone finds him attractive and tries to get him into scandals. he deffo does have flings like the average amount as anyone else but HERES THE THING…

rhys is an idiot and he has a thing for people who think they’re gods gift who are all don’t go falling in love with me and part of me thinks he likes it for the thrill a lOT as well bc he’s too laidback for that trap so he’s all yeah as if bud u would have to change ur act a loT for that to be possible and they get shooketh like HOLD UP WAIT A SECOND-

he does not have their shit if they do the whole im such a hardass and i don’t do commitment but they want him to fall for them rlly he’s like okay good for u see u in like a week when u wanna fuck again until then i’ll be busy with my perfectly substantial life which i don’t need u in anyway dude

big bitch u aint special energy bc no one is and everybody got other priorities to put first depending on what they choose so like lemme know when u wanna get ur act together if not we can chill

but he a good boi he just floats around the place with his shirtless blazer self all here have a sprinkling of wisdom beyond my years and compassion mi casa su casa bby make urself at home in my crafty creative den.

( @hijinae ) is like a sister figure to him bc they perfectly match in persona’s and energies and she is very close to his familia, they are also adoptive siblings when rhys’ parents legally take custody of jinae. SIBLING POWER DUO I TELL U NOW they’re literally like siblings who are each other’s missing halves and best friends. had they have been biological they would probably have been twins

PLOT IDEAS:

so here’s a few loose ideas to throw around until i have more time to sort a plot page out for him :

but of course some of his much loved flings especially his fave messy boy toys bring em to me

modelling rivals potentially who don’t actually want to be rivals at all but the media simply makes them out that way

dance buddies

running buddies

maybe some people who can help him manage his art business prospects and side of things

best friends bc who don’t love that

childhood friends

friends from overseas yES pls not just america but like china and japan, where he spent time as well..

modelling elite socialite squad u know like kylie and her besties type shit always posing with each other on instagram and going to shows together or promoting together

ex’s bc that’s fun and spicy

childhood love

childhood best friend

frenemies

friends he’s made internationally bc of music or dance or even modelling and got close with

good influence and bad influence either way works with him being the influencer or the one influenced

people interested in spirituality or buddhism and maybe looking to him as a guide on it all

honestly anything else u can think of even maybe a past unrequited love, his first ever boyfriend or girlfriend or just experience with either (also open to non-binary muses ofc) just hit me with it all and i will happily work with it

#daegu:intro #daeguintro #honestly rhys is essentially the only muse i kept entirely the same so not much has changed at all with him #other than that he is now more full time model and dancer and art is a backburner #but hit me up !! have my son !!

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ciathyzareposts · 5 years ago

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Betrayal at Krondor

During the 1960s and 1970s, a new type of game began to appear in increasing numbers on American tabletops: the experiential game. These differed from the purely abstract board and card games of yore in that they purported to simulate a virtual world of sorts which lived behind their surface systems. The paradigm shift this entailed was such that for many players these games ceased to be games at all in the zero-sum sense. When a group came together to play Squad Leader or Dungeons & Dragons, there hung over the plebeian kitchen or basement in which they played a shared vision of the beaches of Normandy or the dungeons of Greyhawk. The games became vehicles for exploring the vagaries of history or the limits of the imagination — vehicles, in other words, for living out shared stories.

In retrospect, it was perhaps inevitable that some of the stories generated in this way would make their way out of the gaming sessions which had spawned them and find a home in more traditional, linear forms of media. And, indeed, just such things were happening by the 1980s, as the first novels born from games arrived.

Needless to say, basing your book on a game you’ve played isn’t much of a path to literary respectability. But for a certain kind of plot-focused genre novel — the kind focusing strictly on what people do rather than why they do it — prototyping the whole thing as a game makes a degree of sense. It can keep you honest by forcing your story to conform to a simulated reality that transcends the mere expediency of what might be cool and exciting to write into the next scene. By pushing against authorial fiat and the deus ex machina, it can give the whole work an internal coherency — an honesty, one might even say — that’s too often missing from novels of this stripe.

The most widely publicized early example of the phenomenon was undoubtedly the one which involved a humble insurance salesman named Tom Clancy, who came out of nowhere with a techno-thriller novel called The Hunt for Red October in 1984. The perfect book for a time of resurgent patriotism and military pride in the United States, it found a fan in no less elevated a personage than President Ronald Reagan, who declared it “my kind of yarn.” As the book topped the bestseller charts and the press rushed to draft their human-interest stories on the man who had written it, they learned that Clancy had gamed out its entire scenario, involving a rogue Soviet submarine captain who wishes to defect along with his vessel to the United States, with a friend of his named Larry Bond, using Harpoon, a tabletop wargame of modern naval combat designed by the latter. Clancy’s follow-up novel, a story of open warfare between East and West called Red Storm Rising, was a product of the same gestation process. To the literary establishment, it all seemed extremely strange and vaguely unsettling; to many a wargamer, it seemed perfectly natural.

Another line of ludic adaptations from the same period didn’t attract as much attention from the New York Times Book Review, much less the president, but nevertheless became almost as successful on its own terms. In 1983, TSR, the publisher of Dungeons & Dragons, decided to make a new series of adventure modules for the game, each of which would feature a different kind of dragon — because, as some of their customers were writing in their letters, the existing Dungeons & Dragons modules “had plenty of dungeons, but not many dragons.” The marketing exercise soon grew into Dragonlance, an elaborately plotted Tolkienesque epic set in a brand new fantasy world — one which, yes, featured plenty of dragons. TSR asked employees Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman to write a trilogy of novels based on the fourteen Dragonlance adventure modules and source books they planned to publish. Thus Dragons of Autumn Twilight, the first volume of The Dragonlance Chronicles, was published in the same year as The Hunt for Red October. It promptly became a nerdy sensation, the biggest fantasy novel of the year, spawning a whole new business for TSR as a publisher of paperback novels. In time, said novels would become as big a part of their business as the games whose names the books bore on their spines.

A third, only slightly less heralded example of the games-into-books trend actually predates the two I’ve just mentioned by a couple of years. In the last 1970s, a group of students at the University of California San Diego took up the recently published Dungeons & Dragons. Growing dissatisfied with TSR’s rules, they scrapped them one by one, replacing them with their own home-grown versions. Meanwhile they evolved a world in which to play called Midkemia, complete with its own detailed history, bestiary, sociology, and geography. Forming a little company of their own, as so many Dungeons & Dragons fanatics were doing at the time, they published some of their innovations to modest sales.

Raymond E. Feist

But one of their number named Raymond E. Feist had bigger ambitions. He wrote a novel based on some of the group’s exploits in Midkemia. Calling it simply Magician, he got it published through Doubleday in 1982 as the first volume of The Riftwar Saga. It sold very well, and he’s been writing Midkemia novels ever since.

Unlike the later cases of Tom Clancy and Dragonlance, Magician wasn’t widely publicized or advertised as being the product of a game. It was seen instead as merely the latest entry in an exploding branch of genre fiction: lengthy high-fantasy series inspired by J.R.R. Tolkien, often to the point of one-to-one correspondences between characters and plot events, but written in a manner more immediately accessible to the average Middle American reader, with more action, more narrative thrust, less elevated diction, and markedly less digressive songs and poetry. Dragonlance, of course, is an example of the same breed.

I must admit that I’ve personally read only the first book of Feist’s series, and not even to completion at that. This sort of derivative high fantasy doesn’t do much for me as a rule, so I’m not the best person to judge Feist’s output under any circumstances. Anything positive I do say about it runs the risk of damning with faint praise.

To wit: my wife and I used the book as our light bedtime reading, and we made it about two-thirds of the way through before terminal ennui set in and we decided we’d had enough. If that seems like less than a ringing endorsement, know that it’s farther than I generally get with most fantasy novels, including ones with considerably more literary credibility. I thus feel comfortable in saying that at least the early Raymond E. Feist novels are well-crafted examples of their breed, if you happen to like that sort of thing. (I do understand from others that the quality of his work, and particularly of his plotting, began to decline after his first handful of Midkemia novels. Perhaps because he was no longer basing them on his gaming experiences?)

The world of Midkemia is most interesting for our purposes, however, for the computer game it spawned. Yes, a series of novels based on a game got turned back into a very different sort of game. And then, just for good measure, that game got turned into another novel. It’s a crazy old transmedia world.

The more direct origin of Betrayal at Krondor, the game in question, can be traced back to June of 1991 and a chance meeting between John Cutter and Jeff Tunnell at the Summer Consumer Electronics Show. Both names may be familiar to regular readers of these histories.

John Cutter

Cutter had spent several years with Cinemaware, helping to craft many of their most innovative creations, which blended strong narrative elements with play styles that were unorthodox in story-heavy computer games at the time. In late 1990, with Cinemaware in the process of collapsing, he and several colleagues had jumped ship to New World Computing, best known for their Might & Magic series of CRPGs. But he was trapped in a purely administrative role there, without the freedom to create which he had enjoyed at Cinemaware, and was already feeling dissatisfied by the time he met Tunnell at that Summer CES.

Jeff Tunnell

Tunnell, for his part, was the founder of the studio known as Dynamix, now a subsidiary of Sierra Online. They were best known for their 3D graphics technology and the line of vehicular simulators it enabled, but they had fingers in several other pies as well, from adventure games to a burgeoning interest in casual puzzle games.

Recognizing talent when he saw it, Tunnell asked Cutter to leave Southern California, the home of the erstwhile Cinemaware and the current New World, and come to Eugene, Oregon, the home of Dynamix. Not only would he be able to have a creative role there once again, Tunnell promised, but he would be allowed to make whatever game he wanted to. Cutter jumped at the chance.

Once in Eugene, however, he struggled to identify just the right project. His first instinct was to make a point-and-click adventure game in the Sierra mold, but Tunnell, having made three of them in the last couple of years to less than satisfying effect, was feeling burned out on the genre and its limitations, and gently steered him away from it. (Absolute creative freedom, Cutter was learning, is seldom really absolute.)

At last, Tunnell came to Cutter with an idea of his own. He’d been reading a very popular series of fantasy novels by this fellow named Raymond E. Feist, and he thought they’d make a fine CRPG. Dynamix had never dabbled in the genre before, but when had that ever stopped them from trying something new? He suggested that Cutter give the first few of the books a read. If it turned out that he liked them as well and agreed that they’d make a good game, well, perhaps he should ring Feist up and have a chat about just that possibility.

Glad to finally have a clear sense of direction, Cutter did the one thing and then did the other. Feist was very busy, but was himself a long-time computer gamer, having sat down in front of his first Apple II some twelve or thirteen years before. He liked the idea of seeing Midkemia come to life on a computer screen. Although he didn’t have much time for working personally on such a project, he told his agent to make the deal happen if at all possible. So, a contract was signed that gave Dynamix the right to make Midkemia games until January 1, 1995, with Feist given the right of final approval or rejection of each title prior to its release. By one account at least, it was the most expensive literary license yet granted to a game developer, a sign of Feist’s ongoing popularity among readers of fantasy literature.

Another, slightly less welcome sign of same followed immediately after: upon being asked whether he was interested in authoring the game himself, Feist said that his time was money, so he’d need to be paid something beyond the terms of the licensing agreement itself — and, he noted flatly, “you couldn’t afford me.” This posed a dilemma. Cutter believed himself to be a better designer of game systems than a writer, and thus certainly wasn’t going to take on the job personally. Casting about for a likely candidate, his thoughts turned to one Neal Hallford, an enthusiastic young fellow with a way with words whom he’d befriended back at New World Computing.

Neal Hallford

A fresh-out-of-university Hallford had joined New World in the role of writer some months before Cutter himself had arrived. His first assignment there had been to make sense of the poorly translated English text of Tunnels & Trolls: Crusaders of Khazan, a project New World had chosen to outsource to a Japanese developer, with underwhelming results all the way around. After that truly thankless task, he’d worked for a while on Might and Magic III before playing a pivotal role on Planet’s Edge, an ambitious science-fiction CRPG that had tried to do just a little bit too much for its own good. He was just finishing that project when his old friend John Cutter called.

Like Cutter before him, Hallford found Dynamix’s offer difficult to refuse. Eugene struck him as idyllic by contrast with the crowded, smoggy streets of Los Angeles; meanwhile Dynamix’s offices enjoyed the well-deserved reputation of being just about the most stylish and comfortable in the entire industry, vastly outdistancing even the parent company of Sierra in that respect. Certainly they compared favorably with the chaotic jumble of tightly packed cubicles that was the domain of New World. Thus on Halloween Day, 1991, Hallford shook hands with his old colleges there for the last time and hopped into his Geo Metro for the drive north.

Upon Hallford’s arrival in Eugene, Cutter pulled him into his office and kept him there for a week, while the two hashed out exactly what game they wanted to make and wrote the outline of a script. Hallford still remembers that week of frenzied creativity as “one of the best weeks of my life.” These two friends, different in talents and personality but unified in their vision for the game, would do the vast majority of the creative heavy lifting that would go into it. Broadly stated, Cutter would be the systems guy while Hallford would be the story guy, yet their visions would prove so simpatico that they’d seldom disagree on much of anything at all.

Jeff Tunnel had initially fallen in love with a Midkemia novel called Silverthorn, and the original plan he’d pitched to Cutter had been to make the game a fairly straightforward adaptation of that book’s plot. But such a thing is inherently problematic, for reasons I’ve had ample cause to discuss in earlier articles. Players who buy the game because they read and liked the novel — who are, after all, the whole reason for making a licensed game at all from a business perspective — won’t be excited about stepping through a plot they already know. At the same time, it’s all too easy from the design side to make a game where victory hinges on taking all of the same idiosyncratic, possibly irrational actions as the protagonists of the novel. And so you end up with a game that bores one group of players to tears, even as it frustrates another group who don’t happen to know what Character A needs to do in Situation B in order to replicate the novel’s story.

The biggest appeal of the Midkemia novels, Hallford believed, was indeed the world itself, with its detailed culture and geography and its cast of dozens of well-established characters. It would be better, he thought, to set a brand new story there, one that would let Feist’s many fans meet up with old friends in familiar locales, but that wouldn’t force them to step by rote through a plot they already knew. During the crash course on Midkemia which he’d given himself in the few weeks before starting at Dynamix — like Cutter, he’d come to Feist fandom cold — Hallford had identified a twenty-year “hole” in the chronology where he and Cutter could set a new story: just after A Darkness at Sethanon, the concluding volume in the original Riftwar Cycle that had started the ball rolling. Somewhat to everyone’s surprise, Feist was willing to entrust this young, unproven writer with creating something really new in his world. Betrayal at Krondor was off and running.

Hallford may have come to Midkemia late, but his dogged determination to capture the world exactly as it existed in the novels would come to a large degree to define the project. He calls himself a “born fanboy” by nature. Thus, even though he wasn’t quite of Feist’s hardcore fandom, he had enormous empathy for them. He points back to an experience from his youth: when, as a dedicated Star Trek fan, he started to read the paperback novels based on the television series which Pocket Books published in the 1980s. I read them as well, and can remember that some of them were surprisingly good as novels, at least according to my adolescent sensibilities, while also managing to capture the spirit of the series I saw on television. Others, however… not so much. Hallford points to one disillusioning book in particular, which constantly referred to phasers as “ray guns.” It inculcated in him a sense that any writer who works in a beloved universe owes it to the fans of said universe — even if he’s not really one of them — to be as true to it as is humanly possible.

So, Hallford wrote Betrayal at Krondor with Feist’s fans constantly in mind. He immersed himself in Feist’s works to the point of that he was almost able to become the novelist. The prose he crafted, vivid and effective within its domain, really is virtually indistinguishable from that of its inspiration, whose own involvement was limited to an early in-person meeting and regular phone conversations thereafter. Yet the latter became more rather than less frequent as the project wore on; Feist found his enthusiasm for the game increasing in tandem with his surprise at how earnestly Hallford tried to capture his novels and the extent to which he was managing to succeed with only the most limited coaching. The fan verdict would prove even more telling. To this day, many of them believe that it was Feist himself who scripted Betrayal at Krondor.

But Betrayal of Krondor is notable for more than Neal Hallford’s dedicated fan service. It’s filled to bursting with genuinely original ideas, many of which flew in the face of contemporary fashions in games. Not all of the ideas work — some of them rather pull against one another — but the game’s boldness makes it a bracing study in design.

Following the lead of GUI advocates working with other sorts of software, game designers in the early 1990s were increasingly embracing the gospel of the “mode-less” interface: a single master screen on which everything takes place, as opposed to different displays and interfaces for different play states. (For an excellent example of how a mode-less interface could be implemented in the context of a CRPG, see Origin Systems’s Ultima VII.) Cutter and Hallford, however, pitched this gospel straight into the trash can without a second thought. Betrayal at Krondor has a separate mode for everything.

The closest thing it has to a “home” screen must be the first-person exploration view, which uses 3D graphics technology poached from Dynamix’s flight simulators. But then, you can and probably often will move around from an overhead map view as well. When interesting encounters happen, the screen is given over to text with clickable menus, or to storybook-style illustrated dialog scenes. When you get in a fight, that’s also displayed on a screen of its own; combat is a turn-based affair played on a grid that ends up vaguely resembling the Battle Chess games by Interplay. (Thankfully, it’s also tactically interesting and satisfying.) And then when you come upon a locked chest, you’re dumped into yet another new mode, where you have to work out a word puzzle in order to open it, because why not? All of these modes are accompanied by different styles of graphics: 3D graphics on the main exploration screen, a no-frills Rogue-like display for the overhead movement view, pixel art with the story scenes, digitized real-world actors with the dialog scenes, the sprite-based isometric view that accompanies combat, etc.

The first-person exploration view.

The overhead view.

A bit of exposition. Could this be a side quest before us?

The combat view.

A puzzle chest. The answer to this one, for the record, is “die.” Later riddles get much more complicated, but the mechanics of the puzzles ingenuously prevent them from ever becoming completely insoluble. Many a male player has had a significant other who couldn’t care less about the rest of the game, but loves these puzzle chests…

This mishmash of approaches can make the game feel like a throwback to the 1980s, when genres and their established sets of best practices were not yet set in stone, and when many games that may strike us as rather odd mashups today were being produced. We can certainly see John Cutter’s roots in Cinemaware here; that company made a career out of ignoring the rules of ludic genre in favor of whatever systems best conveyed the fictional genre they were attempting to capture. By all rights, Betrayal at Krondor ought not to work, as so many of Cinemaware’s games tended not quite to work. All of these different modes and play styles — the puzzle chests in particular seem beamed in from a different game entirely — ought to add up to a hopelessly confusing muddle. Somehow, though, it does work; Betrayal at Krondor actually isn’t terribly hard to come to grips with initially, and navigating its many modes soon becomes second nature.

One reason for this is doubtless also the reason for much else that’s good about the game: its unusually extended testing period. When development was reaching what everyone thought to be its final stages, Dynamix sent the game to outside testers for what was expected to be a three-month evaluation period. Even this much usability testing would have been more than most studios were doing at this time. But the project, as so many game-development projects tend to do, ran way longer than expected, and three months turned into nine months of constant player feedback. While our universe isn’t entirely bereft of games that seem to have sprung into being fully-formed, by far the most good games attain that status only gradually, through repeated iterations of testing and feedback. Betrayal at Krondor came by its goodness in exactly this hard, honest way. Unlike a dismaying number of games from its time, this game feels like one that’s actually been played — played extensively — before it got released. The niggling problems that dog even many good games from the early 1990s (such as the infuriating inventory management and rudderless combat of Ultima VII) are almost completely absent here. Instead the game is full of thoughtful little touches to head off annoyance, the sort of touches that can only come from real player feedback.

The final verdict on its mishmash of graphical approaches, on the other hand, must be less positive. Betrayal at Krondor wasn’t a notably attractive game even by the standards of its day, and time has done it no favors; the project desperately needed a strong art director able to impose a unified aesthetic vision. The parts of it that have aged the worst by far are those employing digitized actors, who look almost unbelievably ludicrous, cutting violently against any sense of Tolkienesque grandeur Hallford’s prose might be straining to evoke. Most store-bought Halloween costumes look higher rent than this bunch of survivors of an explosion at the Loony Tunes prop department. John Cutter acknowledges the problems:

We digitized a lot of the actors, and we assumed they were going to be so pixelated that the makeup and costumes didn’t have to look that great. They just kind of had to be… close. But by the time we launched the game the technology had improved… yeah. You could see the elastic bands on the fake beards. It was pretty bad. I wasn’t crazy about a lot of the graphics in the game.

Tellingly, the use of digitized actors was the one place where Betrayal at Krondor didn’t blaze its own trail, bowing instead to contemporary trends.

For all of Betrayal at Krondor‘s welcome willingness just to try lots of stuff, its approach to story remains its most memorable and interesting quality of all. This aspect of the game was so front and center in the mind of John Cutter that, when he wrote a brief few paragraphs of “Designer Notes” for the manual, it came to occupy more than half the space:

We decided the game should be an interactive story. Characters would be multidimensional and capable of stirring the player’s emotions. The story would be carefully plotted with lots of surprises, a good mix of humor and pathos, and abundant amounts of mystery and foreshadowing to keep the player intrigued.

Balancing play against plot is the most confounding job any game designer can face on a fantasy role-playing game. In Betrayal at Krondor, we have integrated our plot so that it provides ample gaming opportunities, while also giving the player a sense of time, place, and purpose. This is achieved by making an onscreen map available to the player at all times, and by creating short-term goals — the nine chapters in the game — which give us a unique opportunity to tell a progressive story that still gives the player plenty of freedom to explore and adventure without being confined to a scripted plot.

In thus “balancing play against plot,” Cutter and Hallford were attempting to square a circle that had been bedeviling game designers for a long time. All of the things that mark a rich story — characters with agendas of their own; big reveals and shocking turns; the classic narrative structure of rising action, climax, and denouement; dramatic confrontations with expressive dialog — cut against the player’s freedom to go wherever and do whatever she wants. As a designer, says the conventional wisdom, you can’t have it all: you must rather stake out your spot on a continuum where at one end the player does little more than click her way through a railroaded plot line, and at the other she does absolutely anything she wants, but does it in a world bereft of any larger meaning or purpose. Adventure games tend to lean toward the set-piece-storytelling end of the continuum, CRPGs toward open-ended interactivity.

Even CRPGs from around the time of Betrayal at Krondor which are written expansively and well, such as Ultima VII, generally send you wandering through other people’s stories rather than your own. Each city you explore in that game is full of little story stubs revolving around the inhabitants thereof rather than yourself; your role is merely to nudge these dramas of others along to some sort of resolution before you disappear again. Your larger agenda, meanwhile, boils down to the usual real or metaphorical collecting of pieces to assemble the big whatsit at the end — a series of actions which can be done in any order precisely because they’re so simplistic in terms of plot. You’re in the world, but never really feel yourself to be of it.

Cutter and Hallford, however, refused to accept the conventional wisdom embodied by even so markedly innovative a CRPG as Ultima VII. They were determined to deliver the best of both worlds — an adventure-game-like plot and CRPG-like freedom — in the same game. Unsurprisingly, it doesn’t quite work as a whole. Nevertheless, the attempt is well worth discussing.

Betrayal at Krondor positively trumpets its intentions via the metaphors which its user interface employs. Once again ignoring all of the fashions of its time, which emphasized the definitively non-textual aesthetic of the interactive movie, this game presents itself as an interactive book with an enthusiasm worthy of the 1980s heyday of bookware. The overriding look of the game, to the extent it has one amidst all its clashing graphical styles, is of an illuminated manuscript, ink on yellowing parchment. The story is told in a literary past tense, save points become “bookmarks,” and, as Cutter himself noted in the extract above, the whole experience is divided into nine neat “chapters.”

The game is relentless about describing every single event using full sentences worthy of one of Feist’s novels. Sometimes the end result can verge on the ridiculous. For example, every single time you search the body of an opponent you’ve just killed — something you’ll be doing an awful lot of, what with this being a CRPG and all — you’re greeted with a verbose missive:

Owyn looked for supplies. Feeling like a vulture, he turned the body this way and that as he searched for anything that might be of value to them on their journey. All in all, he supposed that if he were the dead man, it wouldn’t matter to him any longer what happened to his belongings.

Every character has the exact same feeling when searching a dead body, despite very different personalities. This is one of many places where Betrayal at Krondor‘s verbosity winds up undercutting rather than strengthening its sense of mimesis.

Of course, you can and quickly will learn to click right through this message and its one or two random variations each time you search a corpse. But it remains an amusing sign of just how committed Cutter and Halford were to their “interactive storybook” concept in even the most repetitive, mechanical areas of their creation. (Imagine what Pac-Man would be like if the title character stopped to muse about his actions every time he swallowed a power pill and killed another ghost…)

All of this past-tense verbosity has an oddly distancing effect. You don’t feel like you’re having an adventure so much as reading one — or possibly writing one. You’re held at a remove even from the characters in your party, normally the primary locus of player identification in a game like this one. You don’t get to make your own characters; instead you’re assigned three of them who fulfill the needs of the plot. And, while you can guide their development by earning experience points, improving their skills, and buying them new spells and equipment, you don’t even get to hang onto the same bunch through the whole game. Characters are moved in and out of your party from chapter to chapter — again, as the needs of each chapter’s plot requires. The final effect almost smacks of a literary hypertext, as you explore the possibility space of a story rather than actually feeling yourself to be embodying a role or roles in that story. This is certainly unique, and not necessarily a bad thing. It’s just… a little strange in relation to what we tend to think of CRPGs as being. These are, after all, role-playing games.

As I’ve described it so far, Betrayal at Krondor sounds more akin to the typical Japanese than the Western CRPG. The former tend to lie much closer to the set-piece-story end of our continuum of design; they provide a set, fairly linear plot to walk through, generally complete with predefined characters, rather than the degree of world simulation and open-ended exploration that marks the Western tradition. (A Japanese CRPG is, many a critic has scoffed, just a linear story in which you have to fight a battle to see each successive scene.) Yet Betrayal at Krondor actually doesn’t fit comfortably with that bunch either. For, as Cutter also notes above, he and his design partner were determined to “give the player plenty of freedom to explore and adventure without being bound to a scripted plot.”

Their means of accomplishing that relies once again on the chapter system. Each chapter begins and ends with a big helping of set-piece plot and exposition. In between, though, you’re free to go your own way and take your time in satisfying the conditions that will lead to the end of the chapter. In the first chapter, for example, your assignment is to escort a prisoner across much of the map to the capital city of Krondor. How and when you do so is up to you. The map is filled with encounters and quests, most of which have nothing to do with your central mission. And when you eventually do finish the chapter and continue on with the next, the same map gets repopulated with new things to do. This is the origin of a claim from Dynamix’s marketing department that Betrayal at Krondor is really nine CRPGs in one. In truth, it doesn’t quite live up to that billing. Only a subsection of the map is actually available to you in most chapters, much of it being walled off by impenetrable obstacles or monsters you can’t possibly kill. Even the repopulation that happens between chapters is far from comprehensive. Still, it’s an impressively earnest attempt to combine the pleasures of set-piece plotting with those of an emergent, persistent virtual world.

And yet the combination between set-piece storytelling and emergent exploration always feels like just that: a combination rather than a seamless whole. Cutter and Hallford didn’t, in other words, truly square this particular circle. There’s one massive block of cognitive dissonance standing at the center of it all.

Consider: you’re told at the beginning of the first chapter that your mission of escorting your prisoner to the capital is urgent. Political crisis is in the air, war clouds on the horizon. The situation demands that you hurry to Krondor by the shortest, most direct path. And yet what do you do, if you want to get the most out of the game? You head off in the opposite direction at a relaxed doddle, poking your nose into every cranny you come across. There’s a tacit agreement between game and player that the “urgent” sense of crisis in the air won’t actually evolve into anything until you decide to make it do so by hitting the next plot trigger. Thus the fundamental artificiality of the story is recognized at some level by both game and player, in a way that cuts against everything Betrayal at Krondor claims to want to be. This isn’t really an interactive storybook; it’s still at bottom a collection of gameplay elements wired together with chunks of story that don’t really need to be taken all that seriously at the end of the day.

The same sense of separation shows itself in those lengthy chapter-beginning and -ending expository scenes. A lot of stuff happens in these, including fights involving the characters ostensibly under your control, that you have no control over whatsoever — that are external to the world simulation. And then the demands of plot are satisfied for a while, and the simulation engine kicks back in. This is no better or worse than the vast majority of games with stories, but it certainly isn’t the revolution some of the designers’ claims might seem to imply.

Of course, one might say that all of these observations are rather more philosophical than practical, of more interest to game designers and scholars than the average player; you can suspend your disbelief easily enough and enjoy the game just as it is. There are places in Betrayal at Krondor, however, where some of the knock-on effects of the designers’ priorities really do impact your enjoyment in more tangible ways. For this is a game which can leave you marooned halfway through, unable to move forward and unable to go back.

Dead ends where the only option is to restore are normally less associated with CRPGs than adventure games; they played a big role in all but killing that genre as a commercial proposition by the end of the 1990s. CRPGs are usually more forgiving thanks to their more simulation-oriented nature — but, sadly, Betrayal at Krondor is an exception, due to a confluence of design decisions that all seem perfectly reasonable and were all made with the best of intentions. It thus provides a lesson in unexpected, unintended consequences — a lesson which any game designer would be wise to study.

The blogger Chet Bolingbroke, better known as The CRPG Addict, made these comments recently in the context of another game:

One of the notable features of CRPGs in contrast to some other genres is that they almost always support a Plan B. When one way of playing doesn’t work out, you can almost always resort to a more boring, more banal, grindier method of getting something done. I tend to mentally preface these fallback plans with “I can always…” Having a tough time with the final battle? “I can always reload again and again until the initiative rolls go my way.” Can’t overcome the evil wizard at your current level? “I can always grind.” Running out of resources? “I can always retreat from the dungeon, head back to town and buy a ton of healing potions.”

The most frustrating moments in CRPGs are when you suddenly find yourself with no way to finish “I can always” — when there is no Plan B, when luck alone will never save you, when there isn’t even a long way around.

This is precisely the problem which the player of Betrayal at Krondor can all too easily run into. Not only does the game allow you to ignore the urgent call of its plot, but it actually forces you to do so in order to be successful. If you take the impetus of the story seriously and rush to fulfill your tasks in the early chapters, you won’t build up your characters sufficiently to survive the later ones. Even if you do take your time and explore, trying to accrue experience, focusing on the wrong skills and spells can leave you in the same boat. By the time you realize your predicament, your “Plan B” is nonexistent. You can’t get back to those encounters you skipped in the earlier, easier chapters, and thus can’t grind your characters out of their difficulties. There actually are no random encounters whatsoever in the game, only the fixed ones placed on the map at the beginning of each chapter. I’m no fan of grinding, so I’d normally be all in favor of such a choice, which Cutter and Hallford doubtless made in order to make the game less tedious and increase its sense of narrative verisimilitude. In practice, though, it means that the pool of available money and experience is finite, meaning you need not only to forget the plot and explore everywhere in the earlier chapters but make the right choices in terms of character development there if you hope to succeed in the later ones.

On the whole, then, Betrayal at Krondor acquits itself better in its earlier chapters than in its later ones. It can be a very immersive experience indeed when you first start out with a huge map to roam, full of monsters to battle and quests to discover. By the time said map has been repopulated three or four times, however, roaming across its familiar landmarks yet again, looking for whatever might be new, has begun to lose some of its appeal.

And then, as Neal Hallford would be the first to admit, Betrayal at Krondor is written above all for Raymond E. Feist fans, which can be a bit problematic if you don’t happen to be among them. This was my experience, at any rate. As an outsider to Feist’s universe, watching characters I didn’t know talk about things I’d never heard of eventually got old. When an “iconic” character like Jimmy the Hand shows up, I’m supposed to be all aflutter with excitement, but instead I’m just wondering who this latest jerk in a terrible costume is and why I should care. In my view, the game peaks in Chapter 3, which takes the form of a surprisingly complex self-contained murder mystery; this is a place where the game does succeed in integrating its set-piece and emergent sides to a greater extent than elsewhere. If you elect to stop playing after that chapter, you really won’t miss that much.

As I noted already, Betrayal at Krondor ran dramatically over time and over budget. To their credit, Dynamix’s management didn’t push it out the door in an unfinished state, as was happening with so many other games during this period of transition to larger and more complex productions. Yet everyone, especially poor Neal Hallford, felt the pressure of getting it done. Not only did he write almost every word of the considerable amount of text in the game, but he also wrote much of the manual, and somehow even wound up on the hook for the puff pieces about it in Sierra’s customer newsletter. After weeks of virtually living at the office, he collapsed there one day, clutching at his chest. His colleagues rushed him to the hospital, believing he must be having a heart attack even though he was still in his twenties. It turned out that he wasn’t, but the doctor’s orders were clear: “You’re not going back to work for a week. Get some rest and eat something proper. No pizza. No soft drinks. It’s either this or next time you leave work it’ll be in a hearse.” Such are the perils of commercial game development.

Betrayal at Krondor finally shipped on June 15, 1993, an inauspicious time in the history of CRPGs. Origin Systems was about to take the Ultima series in a radically different direction after a less than overwhelming response to Ultima VII; Sir-Tech was about to put their equally long-running Wizardry series on ice for similar reasons; SSI was facing dwindling sales of their Dungeons & Dragons games and was on the verge of losing the once-coveted license; other publishers were quietly dropping less prominent franchises and would-be franchises. The several years to come would be remembered by CRPG fans as the Dark Age of their favored genre; relatively few of games of this stripe would be released at all, and those that were would be greeted by the marketplace with little enthusiasm.

Initially, Dynamix’s first CRPG performed about as well as you might expect in this environment. Despite some strong reviews, and despite whatever commercial advantages the Feist license brought with it, sales were slow. Cutter and Hallford had gone into Betrayal at Krondor imagining it to be only the first entry in a new series, but it soon appeared unlikely that a sequel would come to pass. Sierra, Dynamix’s parent company, was having an ugly year financially and wasn’t in the mood to make another expensive game in a passé genre, while Jeff Tunnell, the man who had had the original idea for Betrayal at Krondor, had stepped down from day-to-day management at Dynamix in favor of running a smaller subsidiary studio. Cutter and Hallford begged their new bosses to give the game time before making any final decisions, noting that good reviews and positive word of mouth among fans of the novels could yet pay dividends. The leadership team responded by laying Cutter off.

But over time, Betrayal at Krondor continued to sell steadily if not spectacularly. Then a genuine surge in sales came in early 1994, when a CD-ROM-based version featuring a lovely soundtrack and enhanced if still less than lovely graphics was released, just as the influential magazine Computer Gaming World was crowning the game the best CRPG of the previous year. Dynamix now made a belated attempt to start work on a sequel, asking Neal Hallford to helm it. But he considered the budget they were proposing to be inadequate, the time frame for development far too compressed. He turned it down, and left the company shortly thereafter. Dynamix would never make a second CRPG, whether set in Midkemia or anywhere else.

Nevertheless, that wasn’t quite the end of the story. Feist had been profoundly impressed by Betrayal at Krondor, and now took the ludic possibilities of his series of novels much more seriously than he had before seeing it. As soon as the Dynamix license expired at the beginning of 1995, he began to shop the property around once again. Initially, however, he found no one willing to pay his price,what with the current state of the CRPG market. While interactive Midkemia was thus in limbo, Sierra came up with another, cheaper idea for capitalizing on the first game’s belated success. Lacking the Midkemia license, they decided to leverage the first half of the Betrayal at Krondor name instead, releasing the in-house-developed Betrayal in Antara in 1997. It copied some of the interface elements and gameplay approaches of its predecessor, but moved the action to a generic fantasy world, to less satisfying effect.

And yet the story still wasn’t over: as the CRPG market began to improve in the wake of Interplay’s Fallout, the first real hit in the genre in several years, Feist licensed the Midkemia rights back to Sierra of all publishers. Sierra turned this latest project over to an outside developer called PyroTechnix. Feist played a much more active role on Return to Krondor, the game which resulted, than he had on Betrayal at Krondor, yet the result once again pales in comparison to the first Midkemia game, perhaps because Cutter and Hallford once again played no role. Its mixed reception in 1998 marks the last implementation of Midkemia on a computer to date.

Two of Feist’s later books, 1998’s Krondor: The Betrayal and 2000’s Krondor: Tear of the Gods, were based upon the first and second Midkemia computer game respectively. Thus Midkemia completed its long, strange transmedia journey from game to book to game to book again. Feist continues to churn out books apace today, but they don’t sell in the same quantities anymore, bearing as they do the stale odor of a series long past its sell-by date.

For many of us, Betrayal at Krondor will always remain the most memorable entry in the exercise in competent derivation that is Midkemia as a whole; the game is ironically much more innovative in its medium than the novels which spawned it are in theirs. Indeed, it’s thoroughly unique, a welcome breath of bold originality in a genre usually content to rely on the tried and true, a game which doesn’t work perfectly but perhaps works better than it has any right to. As a writer, I can only applaud a game which takes it writing this seriously. If it’s not quite the revolutionary amalgamation of narrative and interactivity that its creators wanted it to be, it’s still a heck of a lot more interesting than your average dungeon crawl.

(Sources: the book Designers and Dragons by Shannon Appelcline; Sierra’s newsletter InterAction of Winter 1992 and June 1993; Compute! of December 1993; Computer Gaming World of February 1993, April 1994, June 1994, and August 1996; Electronic Games of October 1992 and June 1993; Questbusters of November 1991, August 1992, April 1993, and August 1993; Retro Gamer 84; Dragon of January 2004; the CD-ROM Today bundled CD-ROM of August/September 1994. Online sources include Matt Barton’s interviews with Neal Hallford, Jeff Tunnell, and John Cutter in Matt Chat episodes 191, 192, 201, 291, 292, and 293; Neal Hallford’s blog series Krondor Confidential; the “History of Midkemia Press” on the same publisher’s website.

Betrayal at Krondor and Betrayal in Antara are available as a package purchase at GOG.com.)

source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/betrayal-at-krondor/

#retro games #dos games #retro #crpg #adventure #amiga #oldcomputers #8bit #16bit #blog #repost

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wrex-writes · 7 years ago

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“Rules for writers”

If you have just started writing, you may have seen blog posts listing “rules for writers,” often written by literary agents who are tired of seeing their pet peeves in submitted manuscripts. You may also have seen other blog posts explaining why you shouldn’t pay attention to the first kind of blog post. You may be confused. Here’s my perspective on the matter.

The Problem With Writing Rules

These lists of “rules” usually contain the same basic ones. Caveat: I do not endorse these rules. In fact, skip this part if you don’t want to hear them. But just so you know the kind of list I’m talking about, they often go like this:

Avoid adverbs (and sometimes adjectives)

Avoid the verb “to be”

Avoid the passive voice

When you need a dialogue tag, only use “said”

Avoid verbs of thinking and feeling

Keep your sentences no longer than they need to be

Show, don’t tell

Write what you know

Etc.

These lists appeal to beginning writers because they offer a shortcut: they tell you how to write so you don't have to figure it out yourself. The problem with these rules is that you can’t apply them until you’ve had some experience. They’re very vague; they don’t mean anything substantive if you look at them closely. Okay, you’re supposed to avoid adverbs, but all writers will admit that sometimes you need one—so how do you recognize that situation when you encounter it? Ditto the passive voice, which can be powerful and downright necessary. Again, how will you know when you need it? As for “no sentences longer than they need to be”—a sentence may need to be long! How do you know how long is too long? And the worst one, “show, don’t tell,” is virtually useless, because “showing” often requires you to tell us something. You simply have no context for these rules if you haven’t written and read a lot already.

If you read your favorite authors, you’ll see them breaking these rules all the time. They developed their own taste and sense of good prose as they wrote more and looked closely at what other writers did, assembling their “rules” retrospectively. So if you’re starting out, it’s way more useful to ask, what do the writers you admire consistently do?

When writers make these lists of rules, they often apply them not as “rules,” per se, but as habits of thought that guide them. Rules can’t be followed in advance; writers just use them as psychological tools to keep them on track.

(Also, lists of rules by published authors are usually ironic. They know they’re only telling you how they write and what they like. You have to be a little bit arrogant to be a writer, honestly. Everyone thinks their taste is the best.)

How To Use Writing Rules Safely

For the writer who wants to grow, there is one way these rules can help:

Often, art students do exercises in which they must avoid one or several of the technical resources they rely on. For instance, they might be asked to draw without lifting their pencil from the page, or without looking at the page. They don’t have to follow this rule forever—it’s just an exercise. Writers can do similar exercises. You impose a restriction on yourself just to see what happens, to discover and strengthen writing muscles you didn’t know you had.

For instance, see this essay about V. S. Naipaul. Here’s a quote from Naipaul that the author of the essay seized upon:

...[W]hat had really helped was Naipaul’s telling an interviewer that in an effort to write clearly he had turned himself into a beginner: “It took a lot of work to do it. In the beginning I had to forget everything I had written by the age of 22. I abandoned everything and began to write like a child at school. Almost writing ‘the cat sat on the mat.’ I almost began like that.”

Naipaul didn’t establish a “rule,” he created an exercise that imposed an uncomfortable restriction on him. Also, he only followed one rule: write like a child. As his style evolved, he got away from “the cat sat on the mat,” but he kept that original guideline in mind. Eventually, he does offer a list of rules—use short sentences, avoid big words, keep your language concrete, etc.—but the last is the most important:

Every day, for six months at least, practice writing in this way. Small words; clear, concrete sentences. It may be awkward, but it’s training you in the use of language. It may even be getting rid of the bad language habits you picked up at the university. You may go beyond these rules after you have thoroughly understood and mastered them.

(You can ignore the “every day for six months” part. That’s just Naipaul being an obsessive asshole. He does think he’s the world’s greatest writer, after all.)

Chuck Palahniuk offers a similar example. He begins thus:

In six seconds, you’ll hate me.

But in six months, you’ll be a better writer.

From this point forward—at least for the next half year—you may not use “thought” verbs. These include: Thinks, Knows, Understands, Realizes, Believes, Wants, Remembers, Imagines, Desires, and a hundred others you love to use.

The list should also include: Loves and Hates.

And it should include: Is and Has, but we’ll get to those, later.

These look like rules. But notice he frames them not as rules but as an exercise. Just try not to use these kinds of verbs for a while and see what else you do instead, he’s saying. Writers often rely on certain kinds of words, so what if they took those away and forced themselves to find other solutions? He’s not saying you have to do this forever. It’s a strength-training exercise, like doing squats at the gym. If you read his writing, he does use thought verbs. Sparingly, maybe—that’s his idea of good writing, which is why he’s suggesting it to us—but certainly not as a rule.

Not all of these exercises will appeal to you. But if one does, you can try it in two different ways:

When you write your draft, don’t even think about this stuff. Just download your thoughts onto the page. Only apply the restriction when you rewrite. You can go one sentence a time, rewriting each one with your chosen restriction in mind.

You can try doing it straight out of the gate. This is a lot harder, and it won’t work for some people. You might try it briefly, and if it makes you clench up creatively, stop and try option #1 instead.

(Personally, I’ve found the “write like a child” guideline much easier to apply in a first draft than the “avoid thought verbs” one. Palahniuk’s exercise involves suppressing your initial thoughts and mentally translating your ideas into prose before you fully know what they are. That makes me seize up, so I only do it when I’m revising.)

So that’s my hot take on rules for writers. Don’t read these lists, read writers you like. And if you do try a rule, don’t treat it as a rule that can’t be broken, but as an experiment. Don’t let it limit you. Instead, see if it pushes you into new territory.

#wrex writes original posts

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myshatteredme-blog · 6 years ago

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I’m a senior in college... and I’m having an identity crisis.

I know what you’re thinking. College seniors don’t have identity crises. We’re about to graduate. We’re supposed to have our lives together by knowing exactly what we want to do in the next five years with a career, significant other, and names of the next three currently non-existent children lined up in a crisply wrapped box with a shiny red bow. And yet, here I am, about to enter my senior year without a single clue what I want to do afterwards because what I thought I wanted turned out to be shattered cookie crumbs at the bottom of the Chips Ahoy box I'd hoped to consume as my daily nutritious breakfast. Hey, I’m a stressed college student and Chips Ahoy is delicious.

Anyway, I’m getting sidetracked.

When I applied to colleges during my senior year of high school, there was only one thing I wanted in my four year university: a good dance program. I started taking ballet lessons when I was five years old and continued to try different styles throughout elementary and middle school. Some years I did lyrical, or tap. Others I went back to the basics of ballet. But I never stopped or took a year off. I never even switched dance studios. I loved it way too much to ever put it behind me, and I still love it with the same amount of passion, if not more.

However, things got a little more complicated in high school. Ever since I was eight years old, I’d struggled with my body image. Around that time, my pediatrician informed my parents that I was “overweight” and needed to go on a strict diet. My mom, who trusted doctors, as people should be able to do, just wanted the best for me and therefore became obsessed with the food pyramid which was still widely accepted as healthy and legitimate. Her efforts kind of backfired though. I remember the strict restrictions she put on my food intake only made me want sugar and potato chips and candy more than ever. One time I snuck downstairs to our kitchen and snatched a bag of Lays from the top of the refrigerator where she thought I couldn’t reach them. My plan was to run upstairs and consume the whole bag, but unfortunately I was caught. Instead of taking them away from me, my mom decided to play the guilt card.

“What would Dr. (insert name here) say?” she said as she stood over me with her hands on her hips. Now, my mom is a short woman who has always had a difficult time saying no, especially to her kids. Luckily for her, I’ve always been a people pleaser so it didn’t matter much. Not this time though. I ignored her, ran upstairs, and ate the whole bag while watching Disney Channel on my parents’ TV. I was the poster child for couch potato, or at least that’s how I felt.

That memory ingrained itself in my brain for years.

If only I’d just lost weight then like I was supposed to, I wouldn’t be so fat and ugly now.

I lived in constant guilt and shame until I was 15 and decided to do something about it, thus marking the beginning of my six year battle with various eating disorders, anxiety disorders, and depression. It was also around that time I decided I wanted to be a professional dancer and joined my studio’s competitive team.

I could go into all the details about how difficult that time was, but I think you get the point and that’s not really what this story is about, even though it is a very important component. I will say that there is something incredibly disheartening and heartbreaking about the one thing in the entire world you want seemingly requiring a very specific body type and not being able to achieve it even through extreme, life threatening measures. Additionally, being constantly evaluated and having your body scrutinously examined in class everyday can very easily break you. It broke me.

I asked for help before coming to college, but I didn’t really start to get better until the end of my sophomore year, and I still struggle a lot today to the point where I often skip class simply because I can’t handle being seen in public. It’s a lot better though, and my mental and physical health have both improved immensely. Which I guess brings me to the present day and my ongoing identity crisis.

Part of me wonders if I only loved dance because my eating disorder made me addicted to exercise and I couldn’t imagine a career where I didn’t push my body way past its limits everyday. Another part of me knows that those thoughts are just my eating disorder (I call him? Her? It? Ed) trying to take away something that matters dearly to me. Ed is a jerk like that.

What I do know is that I am in love with dancing, but going to class everyday and facing my reflection in the mirror while being constantly judged by teachers and peers is one of the hardest and emotionally draining things I’ve ever done. I do it because I refuse to give in, or give up. I want to show the world, and myself, that any body is capable of being a talented dancer.

But I do wonder what the point is if I have way more difficult classes than joyful ones. It’s cliche to say, but life is way too goddamn short, and I’m not sure if I want to spend it doing something that doesn’t make me irrevocably happy, at least most of the time.

I actually had a counseling session with my therapist yesterday where I brought all this stuff up. I was a little reluctant to do so because saying it outloud made the doubts and possibility of change real, and I’m not a huge fan of change or decision making. Thank you, anxiety. It actually ended up being a really good conversation though. She said something that really resonated with me and that was that I didn’t have to quit dancing if I decided not to major in it. She told me that it seemed as if it wasn’t the dancing itself that was triggering to me, but the fact that grades and constant evaluation were taking the joy out of it. I thought about it for a while, and realized she was probably right. I’d stop saying “I get to go to dance class” and started saying “I have to go to dance class or I’ll get an F.” I started thinking “I have to be good at this so I can pay off my student loans” instead of “I hope I get to do big performances someday because it sounds really fun.”

For a long time I defined myself as a Dance and Creative Writing double major, and I was proud of that identity, but I think I’m coming to the realization that maybe I can still be a dancer without studying it in school and that’s okay. During the school year, I’m a Resident Adviser, and I tell my residents and friends all the time that almost everyone changes their major at some point at least once. I never thought that person would be me considering I had my whole life planned out before even arriving at college, but maybe I should start taking my own advice and accept that things change and people change and that’s okay.

I don’t plan on ever quitting dance, even when I’m 80 years old and can barely walk. In fact, I actually looked into different dance companies, studios, and programs in the area so that I could still take classes even if I stopped taking them with my university. The prospect actually made me really excited because the studios I looked into offered a variety of styles from hip-hop and tap, to salsa, swing, ballet, and contemporary. Something I’ve never liked about my university’s Dance Program is their lack of variety that branches off from contemporary and ballet, and I think I would actually be a lot happier taking classes in a plethora of styles.

A couple weeks ago, a friend confessed to me their struggle with bulimia because they knew I’d had an eating disorder and wanted a bit of advice for how to tell their parents. I’ve always enjoyed supporting other people and learning about their diverse experiences, especially when they connect with my own because I can help them feel less alone. It’s probably the main reason I love to read. I’ve also always defined myself as a good friend. I try to keep my phone volume on at night so my friends know they can reach me at any hour (despite the fact that it makes my roommates hate me a tiny bit) because I know that sometimes our darkest moments happen in the middle of the night when we are alone.

Helping my friend through the terrifying decision to ask her parents for help was incredibly fulfilling for me. I’d been going through a bit of a relapse with my eating disorder and talking to her reminded me of all the self-care tools I’d learned throughout my years. It sounds awful, but it also gave both of us a good laugh to be reminded that some of the things we think, while totally valid, are also sort of ridiculous. In addition to being a jerk, Ed is also ridiculous.

It got me thinking about what kinds of things make me happy. Reading makes me happy because it allows me to connect with others and learn about experiences different from my own. Writing makes me happy because I feel as if I can share my values and experiences in hopes that they support other people and let them know they aren’t alone. Dancing makes me happy because it grounds me to myself while expressing myself artistically and telling stories with music and movement. I enjoy spending time with nature and taking pictures to appreciate the little things in the world around us. I’m also very passionate about my work as a Resident Adviser because I know I make a difference in the lives of my residents.

Basically the biggest defining factor, the core memory at the center of my islands as they’d say on Inside Out, my absolute favorite movie of all time, is a fascination with the amazing miracle that is humanity, and how we can use stories to spread kindness and awareness into the world.

I’d always had a slight inclination toward psychology. I took a 101 class in high school and another in college. I really enjoyed both and wanted to take more classes in the subject, but wasn’t particularly motivated to go to grad school, which is unfortunately almost necessary if you want to do anything with psychology.

But now I’m starting to wonder if I’d missed my calling.

What if I’m a college senior and I missed my calling?

Ah, there’s the anxiety. We were getting a little too serious and insightful up in here.

But yeah so here I am so close to the finish line wondering if I need to start over. I still want to continue my studies in Creative Writing because it is something I am deeply passionate about. I also want to continue dancing, even if it’s not in a college program. I have this slight dream of maybe opening a body positive studio someday and encouraging dance as a practice for anyone, not just really thin ballerinas. So that’s definitely a possibility for my future. I already have enough credits to change my major to a minor without any repercussions so I’m looking into maybe doing that. I’m also looking into potentially adding a psychology minor to my academic studies.

Somewhat unrelated, but it’s important, I promise. I’m a huge fan of the vlogbrothers, a YouTube channel with John Green (the author) and Hank Green (the science geek and soon to be author). My favorite thing about their channel and their lives is that they do things that make them happy for a living. Hank is a science major of some kind or another but now he’s writing young adult fiction and singing songs about Harry Potter both on stage and on the internet. John started his education and career as a minister in hospitals, and now he writes books about teenagers and makes videos on YouTube about his garden (among many other hilarious and educational topics). I’ve always admired their ability to tackle new projects and pursue things that matter to them while also raising families of their own.

Basically what I’m getting at is, maybe I don’t know exactly where my life is headed but I think this change might be for the better in regards to my personal growth, mental health, and engagement in well-rounded studies that I’m passionate about. Maybe I’ll go to grad school. Maybe I won’t. Maybe I’ll make it big on So You Think You Can Dance. Maybe I won’t. Maybe I’ll become a bestselling author, or counselor, or mom. Maybe I’ll become all of those things or something entirely different. For now I’m content pursuing my options and trying to participate in the activities and studies that make me happy. (In addition to working with Academic Advising and Career Services so I don’t end up broke, homeless, and alone).

So yeah, I guess there’s me, or at least what I understand to be me.

For now.

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chloegrayportfolio · 4 years ago

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Module One - Creating Meaningful Relationships

Week 3 Peer Interaction Task 1 & 2

Task 1: Turn to the instant inventory on page 67 of the textbook “A Teacher’s Guide to Cognitive Type Theory & Learning Style” and determine your own type preferences.

I thought the Instant Insight Inventory was super fun and interesting to do. I was really looking forward to seeing if I would receive the same personality type I was given when I took the Myers-Briggs 16Personalities test—and I did! I would describe myself as someone who is quiet, sensitive, kind, and prefers to be alone. I focus on and remember lots of detail—even the smallest of things. Another thing I enjoy doing is getting away from reality either by daydreaming in my own head or consuming media (books, music, movies) revolving around lives I wish I could live. The results I received told me that my personality type is INFP—meaning I lean towards introversion, intuition, feeling, and perceiving. The INFP is imaginative, idealistic, reflective, independent, creative, stubborn, and easily hurt. My results did not surprise me at all (as I had predicted them and have received the same results every time I have done a personality test in the past), nor do I have much disagreement with any aspect of my results. The only part of the INFP description I feel as though I really do not fit is creativity. I have never really enjoyed creating art (in any form—stories, poetry, paintings, etc) as much as I enjoy consuming art. I appreciate creativity, I just don’t think of myself as a creator. Other than that, I really related to my results—especially the points about being imaginative as well as easily hurt.

Task 2: First, as a group decide who will be in the introvert group and who will be the extroverts. Then please do the following tasks:

As a teacher, what strategies would work for you to get the best energy you can?

With others of your type in your group, discuss what it feels like to be around a lot of folks who are “opposite” to you. (That is extroverts should say what it feels to like to be around a lot of introverts when you are the only extrovert. Introverts should say what it feels to like to be around a lot of extroverts when you are the only introvert.)

Introverts: make a list of how it feels and post it to the group. “Opposite types” in the group please read the list.

Extroverts: make a list of how it feels and post it to the group. “Opposite types” in the group please read the list.

Refer to your textbook to see how others have done this exercise

Come up with a list of how your type behaves in a classroom. “Opposite types” in the group please read the list.

If you have any questions to ask of your opposite type post them now.

As an introverted teacher, the strategies that would work for me to get the best energy I can would be from within, as introverts have a more internal focus of energy. A strategy I think I would use for this is having allocated in-class silent journaling time, for students to share their reflections of the school-day or school-week with me. Not only would this be a way for the students to internally reflect, benefitting themselves, but it would also help me as an educator to get a deeper understanding of my students’ needs as well as what works for them and what doesn’t. When I’m around a lot of extroverts as the lone introvert, I sometimes feel anxious because I’m worried they will take my silence as me being rude or judgmental—like I don’t want to be there (when that definitely isn’t the case). I can also feel quite awkward and uncomfortable as I usually end up doing things that are out of my comfort zone when I am with extroverts (simply following what they’re doing). I can also feel nervous as extroverts are the type to speak their honest truth rather than tread lightly around the subject, which can be a little stressful for an introvert—especially as an INFP, the personality type prone to sensitivity. However, at the same time I can even feel excited because of the new environments and new experiences I am pushed into.

In a classroom, my type behaves as

Cautious

Considerate

Quiet

Thoughtful

Respectful

Private

My question to any of the extroverts: Do you have any tips you would give to inspire the more introverted, quiet kids to participate openly in classroom discussions?

Week 2 Progress Log:

When do you feel…

Safe:

I feel safe when I can stand up and stretch in the morning without my health issues acting up and feeling pain in my chest or seeing stars in my eyes.

The actions I take to make sure I am feeling safe include keeping a glass of orange juice alongside my bottle of water on my nightstand, making sure I have antacids on me at all times, and keeping in close contact with my family doctor as we sort through the variety of blood-related issues I struggle with.

Some other actions I could take to help me feel safe would include being more consistent with taking my iron supplement pills for my anemia, purchasing a wireless blood pressure monitor, and eating a more nutrient-rich, consistent, filling diet.

Loved:

I feel loved when I can talk to someone about anything, such as my likes and dislikes, fears, and opinions, without worry that they will judge, belittle, or speak over me.

The actions I take to make sure I am feeling loved include talking to those near and dear to me often, even if all we really have is virtual communication at the moment.

A further action I could take, and need to take, is to cut off those who I even worry will judge, belittle, or speak over me. I cannot and will not truly feel loved if I am surrounding myself with people who make me feel bad about myself.

Powerful:

I feel powerful when I have had a good, long sleep and I feel well-rested, energetic, and eager to face the day.

The actions I take to make sure I am feeling powerful include reading before bed, taking melatonin supplements, and using a sleep tracker app.

An action I know I need to take to feel powerful in this sense is avoid all technology before heading to bed. My inconsistency with this makes it hard to become a habit, but

Free:

I feel free when I can take time to myself and temporarily tune out the real world by going on long, fast bike rides alone.

The biggest action I have taken to make sure I am able to feel free is bettering my time-management skills. Now that I spend less time procrastinating the schoolwork I need to get done and instead work on it as soon as it is due, I am able to have more free time to myself to actually do what I want to do, creating a nice school-life balance. Another action I could take in order to feel more free (or least in order to be able to do this more often, as I live in Vancouver) would be to invest in water-proof, weather-proof biking gear that will protect both myself and my bike for my own safety.

Pleasured:

I feel pleasured when I eat a good meal, especially when it is a meal I have cooked myself. The actions I take to make sure I feel pleasured include grocery shopping, looking up fun recipes online, and motivating myself to get in the kitchen by following cooking and food blogs onlines.Some other actions I could take to feel this pleasure would be making cooking a fun hobby to do with others, such my family or boyfriend, as well as meal-planning and deleting food-ordering apps, such as Skip The Dishes or UberEats off my phone.

Summary:

Although my answers themselves felt pretty typical to me and did not provide me with any shock or surprise, thinking about the further actions I could take did. While I definitely make a strong effort to make sure I am able to feel those adjectives mentioned above, I’ve realized that the reason I have yet to take those further actions must be out of self-sabotage. The further actions I mentioned were not hard, tedious tasks. They are simple acts of self-care that must be done. Writing this progress log has led me to realize I have been putting off extremely important things, such as taking important health supplements, cutting off people who make me feel bad about myself, and taking further biking safety precautions, as well as reflect on why I have been putting these things off.

Assignment 1: Students With Special Needs

The needs I have chosen to focus on for this assignment are the special needs of the Gifted students of the classroom. The reason why I chose the needs of Gifted students is because I have seen firsthand the neglect and mistreatment they [can] receive from their teachers and classmates due to their differences, as well as how this neglect and mistreatment affects their academic performance, behaviour, development of social skills, and overall well being. The specific needs I will be looking at are their Emotional needs, with a focus on their Social needs as a Gifted student. In “Knowing Your Students and their Special Needs” by Weinstein & Romano, they discuss struggles Gifted students face in the classroom, such as social alienation from peers and a lack of connection and engagement with material (Weinstein, C.S., & Romano, M., Knowing Your Students and their Special Needs, 2015), as well as how these struggles impact things in these students’ day-to-day lives, such as their ability to socialize, interact, and engage with others, their actions, behaviour, and behavioural development, and their level of success in school.

The first article I have chosen is titled “A Case for Affective Education: Addressing the Social and Emotional Needs of Gifted Students” by Stephanie Ferguson. This article discusses the unique treatment Gifted students receive from their teachers and peers, and how this treatment can lead to things such as social isolation. The main points of this article are:

How being Gifted can lead to exclusion and alienation as well as the effects this exclusion and alienation can have on students.

The importance of developing a flexible, special curriculum and routine, leading to a more balanced school life for each student involved.

The second article I have chosen is titled “Putting the Well-Being of All Students (Including Gifted Students) First” by Tracy L. Cross. This article discusses the crucial role teachers play in the performance of Gifted students as well as examines the toxic side effects incessant praise and expectations from an educator has on a Gifted student. The main points of this article are:

In order to truly improve the schooling experience of students, the school board itself and teachers must have each and every student’s best interests in mind when planning school activities—even Gifted students. How teachers’ perception of Gifted students can lead to frustrating, strained, disconnected teacher-student relationships.

The third article I have chosen is titled “Social Emotional Needs: Social and Emotional Development of Gifted Students: A Psychosocial Bill or Rights for Students (Including Those with Gifts and Talents)” by Tracy L. Cross. This article discusses the importance of treating every student with equal respect as well as the rights each student has—no matter their academic capabilities. The main points of this article are:

Every student has the right to receive praise for their academic abilities without receiving excessive and uncalled for pressure or guilt.

Every student has the right to access to a challenging, rigorous curriculum and well-trained educators who are able to properly teach it.

Every student has the right to attend an institution they feel safe and welcome in—mentally, emotionally, physically, intellectually, and socially.

The main ideas and points in these articles go hand-in-hand with one another as well as with “Knowing your Students and their Special Needs” by Weinstein & Romano. The main ideas these articles have in common with one another are that Gifted students are often left behind by their teachers and their schools (thus being left behind by their peers, as well) and regarded as not needing any extra help or support due to their academic advancement. These factors lead to issues such as behavioural issues (classroom disruptions), social issues (unable to effectively or confidently communicate), and self-esteem issues (perfectionism, placing unhealthy amounts of pressure on self). Teachers need to do better and hold themselves more responsible and accountable regarding the level and quality of education Gifted students are receiving as well as the treatment these students receive from their classmates and staff.

The Letter to my Future Self:

Dear Chloe,

As a teacher, I hope you always remember the importance of getting to know your students and each of their special needs. No two students are the same, and what works for one may not work for another. I know that this career will get stressful, but if you start to follow and always remember to follow these rules from your first day of teaching, it will make your life and job not only much easier, but much more rewarding, as well.

Three things I WILL do regarding the Gifted students with Special Needs in my future classroom:

I will pay close attention to how they interact with the work they are given. I will make sure they remain intellectually stimulated and engaged, even if they are levels above other students in the class. I will achieve this through the creation of professional, open, trusting relationships with my students through personal, miniature check-ins to update me on how the student is doing and feeling both emotionally and academically.

I will create a social, safe class environment with students that are able to interact and work with those who are even most unlike them. I will create a classroom environment where students feel comfortable around each other regardless of their reading, writing, and arithmetic skills. There will be no levels of hierarchy in my classroom in any way, shape, or form. I will achieve this through the teaching of respect, kindness, and openness.

I will always make sure to leave an element of open-endedness in each assignment, project, and/or essay I assign. I will give my students this option of freedom and variety as to give them the opportunity to intellectually stimulate themselves in ways I may not have considered as a way to keep them interested and engaged with the material, especially if it is material they are advanced in comparison to or ahead of.

Three things I WILL NOT do regarding the Gifted students with Special Needs in my future classroom:

I will not single them out to discuss their work in front of the class without permission. I will not use them as an example to hold over their classmates heads.

I will not isolate or alienate Gifted students by giving them completely different work, allowing them to work with only each other, or sending them to another room or area of the classroom to do their work away from peers.

I will not place extra stress and/or work on them. I will not let them know of higher expectations or levels of disappointment unless I feel it is beneficial and crucial to their schoolwork.

Here is what I hope would be a poem from the perspective of a Gifted student with Special Needs in my future classroom:

everyday I walk into class

wanting to joyfully skip by the desks I pass

I wonder to myself, “Today what will we do?”

but who’s to say, with Ms. Gray it’s always something new

I feel excited,cheerful, comfortable, too

as I approach my seat, my friends exclaim “We were all waiting for you!

”the teacher asks a question I immediately knew

she calls on me and I say “The answer is two!”I used to fear raising my hand

now I’m no longer afraid to take that stand

my peers pat me on the back and give me praise

and suddenly I know I have reached better days.

References

"A Case for Affective Education: Addressing the Social and Emotional Needs of Gifted Students in the Classroom « SENG.“ SENG. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 June 2015. Cross, Tracy L. (2015). Social Emotional Needs. Gifted Child Today Magazine, 38(2), 128–129. https://doi.org/10.1177/1076217515569278

Cross, T. L. (2002). Putting the Well-Being of All Students (Including Gifted Students) First. Gifted Child Today, 25(4), 14–17. https://doi.org/10.4219/gct-2002-84

“Knowing your Students and their Special Needs.” Weinstein, C.S., & Romano, M. (2015).

Reflection: I included the Peer Interaction Tasks of Week 3 in this portfolio because they reflect me coming out of my comfort zone. I tend to struggle with forming meaningful relationships and connecting with others on a deeper level, so these Tasks definitely pushed me to be more open. I also included these Tasks in my Portfolio as I believe they have taught me ways to connect with my future students, especially those who may be unable to communicate their needs otherwise. I can definitely see myself using Type indicator quizzes with my future classes in order to get a better understanding of their needs and goals as learners. These tasks also gave me a better understanding of extroverts both as teachers and as students, allowing me to explore a variety of learning and teaching styles I hadn’t considered before due to my introversion. I included the Week 2 Progress Log because it shows a moment of weakness early on in the course—it reflects the struggles I had with deep reflection as well as being able to articulate my needs. I was unable to effectively describe how the feelings and actions discussed were linked to my needs. Though it wasn’t my best piece of work, I believe it is important to include as it was a learning moment for me regarding my understanding of what it means to truly, deeply reflect and connect. I included Assignment 1: Students with Special Needs because it provided me with a deeper understanding of the variety of needs students have in the classroom, especially of those I had not considered prior to doing this assignment. For this assignment, the students with Special Needs I chose were Gifted Students—the reason for this being that prior to this course, I had never even considered Gifted Students as having “special needs” in the classroom. This assignment really opened my eyes on how narrow-minded my idea of Special Needs really was. I thought this assignment was really interesting because it forced us, the prospective teachers, to focus on an aspect of learning and the classroom that for too long the education system has swept under the rug. Overall, I chose the assignments I did for two main reasons. I believe they really helped me overcome the anxieties that originally rendered me unable to open up to others and effectively practice deep self-reflection. These assignments also opened me up to different perspectives I was unable to see otherwise—the perspectives of Extroverts; the perspectives of Special Needs students. As an educator, it will be my job to form meaningful relationships with all students—not solely the students who share learning or type characteristics with myself, and I cannot expect to be able to do so if I have a static idea of what students are like, and what students need. I had big learning moments regarding my understanding of what it means to get to know students as well as the realities of this career. Something that stood out to me is how many different ways there are to get to know and understand your students. One way to get to know your students that has really stuck with me is the use of writing narratives in the classroom, which allows you to get to know your students (and vice-versa), with more depth and understanding. After the completion of this Module, I feel much more informed, but I also know that I have much more to learn. Sometimes, I forget the intricacies of this career and what the job really entails, but this Module has made me excited and eager to learn much more in my coming years. I have also been introduced to the raw, real aspects of teaching, such as the inability to interfere with a students life—there will be students that are going through hardships in their lives that I have no control over, and I must accept I am not a psychologist or a Judge. It is a bit disheartening to think of that somewhat powerless aspect of the career, especially as I am very in tune with feelings and empathy, but I know these feelings will just inspire me to be even better at what I am doing and what I do have control over. Understanding and coming to terms with this was a huge learning moment for me. Though I have experienced some change in this aspect, something I am still in the process of learning and developing is the way I approach work. I tend to rely on my own narratives and ideas because that is what feels most comfortable to me. In fact, I used to feel fear and anxiety when I knew I would be completing an assignment on an experience or topic I was not familiar with. However, my experience completing the Students with Special Needs assignment really helped me understand the significance of doing so. This significance has motivated me to work harder, as I consider doing work like this inspiring, decentering myself and truly thinking about others, which I believe has made me less ignorant and oblivious in my work. The area where I saw the most growth was in stepping out my comfort zones. Throughout my entire academic career, I have really disliked personal writing, as I have always felt uncomfortable and awkward in talking about myself. Prior to this course, I did not notice this, but this disliking for personal writing took a toll on my ability to reflect. My inability to deeply reflect and link my feelings to my needs was evident in my Week 2 Progress Log. I definitely believe I have improved since throughout the course, with evidence being shown in my Progress Logs of Week 9 and 10. To aid with this process, I wrote journal-entries about my feelings and day-to-day life to get more more comfortable with the idea of reflection and sharing. Overall, this Module helped me immensely regarding my ability to reflect, communicate with others, and articulate my feelings and needs. I walk away from this Module reflecting on what I have learned about the power of Narrative, Choice & Type Theory, and what I now know about Introverted/Extroverted students, intuitive/sensing students, and students with Special Needs—as well as how to make the classroom a safe, accepting place of learning that will work for everyone.

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