#tumblr add more than 10 choices challenge (failed)

[perpetual-stories]

How To Fight Writers Block

hello, hello. hope everyone is doing well. as you can all tell, this post will be about how to fight writers block.

it’s really annoying to me when I hear people say “oh you don’t have writers block, you’re just lazy.”

first of all, yes, I am naturally lazy. second of all, how dare you. writing isn’t as easy as many think. granted, all you have to do is write down words on paper, but it’s not always easy to find the right words to express what you are feeling, or what you wish to say.

I have had terrible writer’s block for the last few days and it’s horrible! as a business owner or a small writing store, I have to be ready to write and fulfill my clients’ ideas and orders.

it’s not easy. It takes a heavy toll on my imagination, and digs me a deep pit of blockage, drowning in the lack of originality because of the constant writing and repetition or certain phrases and sentences in different projects.

i am making this post in the hopes to remind myself about over coming the dreaded and sometimes skeptically believed writer’s block.

What is writer’s block?

Yeah, I know. We all know what that is, but let me define it.

is the state of being unable to proceed with writing, and/or the inability to start writing something new

some people believe it to be a real problem, others believe it's “all in your head”

What Causes Writer’s Block?

in the 1970s, clinical psychologists Jerome Singer and Michael Barrios decided to find out

they concluded that there are four broad causes of writer's block:

Excessively harsh self-criticism

Fear of comparison to other writers

Lack of external motivation, like attention and praise

Lack of internal motivation, like the desire to tell one's story

How to overcome writer's block: 20 tips

1. Develop a writing routine:

Author and artist Twyla Tharp once wrote: “Creativity is a habit, and the best creativity is a result of good work habits.”

it might seem counterintuitive

if you only write when you “feel creative,” you're bound to get stuck in a tar pit of writer's block

The only way to push through is by disciplining yourself to write on a regular schedule. It might be every day, every other day, or just on weekends — but whatever it is, stick to it!

2. Use "imperfect" words:

A writer can spend hours looking for the perfect word or phrase to illustrate a concept

You can avoid this fruitless endeavor by putting, “In other words…” and simply writing what you’re thinking, whether it’s eloquent or not

You can then come back and refine it later by doing a CTRL+F search for “in other words.”

3. Do non-writing activities:

one of the best ways to climb out of a writing funk is to take yourself out of your own work and into someone else’s

Go to an exhibition, to the cinema, to a play, a gig, eat a delicious meal

immerse yourself in great STUFF and get your synapses crackling in a different way

Snippets of conversations, sounds, colors, sensations will creep into the space that once felt empty

4. Freewrite through it:

free-writing involves writing for a pre-set amount of time without pause — and without regard for grammar, spelling, or topic. You just write.

The goal of freewriting is to write without second-guessing yourself — free from doubt, apathy, or self-consciousness, all of which contribute to writer's block. Here’s how:

Find the right surroundings. Go somewhere you won't be disturbed.

Pick your writing utensils. Will you type at your computer, or write with pen and paper? (Tip: if you're prone to hitting the backspace button, you should freewrite the old-fashioned way!)

Settle on a time-limit. Your first time around, set your timer for just 10 minutes to get the feel for it. You can gradually increase this interval as you grow more comfortable with freewriting.

5. Relax on your first draft:

Many writers suffer form perfectionism, which is especially debilitating during a first draft

“Blocks often occur because writers put a lot of pressure on themselves to sound ‘right’ the first time. A good way to loosen up and have fun again in a draft is to give yourself permission to write imperfectly.” — editor Lauren Hughes

perfect is the enemy of good,” so don't agonize about getting it exactly right! You can always go back and edit, maybe even get a second pair of eyes on the manuscript

6. Don’t start at the beginning:

the most intimidating part of writing is the start, when you have a whole empty book to fill with coherent words

instead of starting with the chronological beginning of whatever it is you’re trying to write, dive into middle, or wherever you feel confident

7. Take a shower:

Have you ever noticed that the best ideas tend to arrive while in the shower, or while doing other “mindless” tasks?

research shows that when you’re doing something monotonous (such as showering, walking, or cleaning), your brain goes on autopilot, leaving your unconscious free to wander without logic-driven restrictions

showering is my favourite thing to do if I may add

8. Balance your inner critic:

successful writers have in common is the ability to hear their inner critic, respectfully acknowledge its points, and move forward

You don't need to completely ignore that critical voice, nor should you cower before it

you must establish a respectful, balanced relationship, so you can address what's necessary and skip over what's insecure and irrelevant

9. Switch up your tool:

a change of scenery can really help with writer's block. However, that scenery doesn't have to be your physical location — changing up your writing tool can be just as big a help!

if you’ve been typing on your word processor of choice, try switching to pen and paper. Or if you're just sick of Google Docs, consider using specialized novel writing software.

10. Change your POV:

great advice from editor Lauren Hughes: “When blocked, try to see your story from another perspective ‘in the room’ to help yourself move beyond the block. How might a minor character narrate the scene if they were witnessing it? A ‘fly on the wall’ or another inanimate object?

11. Exercise your creative muscles:

Any skill requires practice if you want to improve, and writing is no different! So if you’re feeling stuck, perhaps it’s time for a strengthening scribble-session to bolster your abilities

12. Map out your story:

If your story has stopped chugging along, help it pick up steam by taking a more structured approach — specifically, by writing an outline

13. Write something else:

Though it's important to try and push through writer's block with what you're actually working on, sometimes it's simply impossible

feel free to push your current piece to the side for now and write something new

14. Work on your characters:

It follows that if your characters are not clearly defined, you’re more likely to run into writer’s block

15. Stop writing for readers:

write for yourself, not your potential readers

this will help you reclaim the joy of being creative and get you back in touch with what matters: the story.

this is something I really need to do. because of my etsy business i don't write for fun anymore, but instead as a business and a deadline. i'm going to have to pull out my old crappy wattled fanfics or write some new ones.

16. Try a more visual process:

when words fail you, forget them and get visual. Create mind maps, drawings, Lego structures — ideally related to your story, but whatever unblocks your mind!

17. Look for the root of it:

writer’s block often comes from a problem deeper than simple “lack of inspiration.” So let's dig deep: why are you really blocked? Ask yourself the following questions:

Do I feel pressure to succeed and/or competition with other writers?

Have I lost sight of what my story is about, or interest in where it's going?

Do I lack confidence in my own abilities, even if I've written plenty before?

Have I not written for so long that I feel intimidated by the mere act?

Am I simply feeling tired and run-down?

once you identify what's wrong, it'll be so much easier to fix.

18. Quit the Internet:

If willpower isn’t your strong suit and your biggest challenge is staying focused, try a site blocker like Freedom or an app like Cold Turkey

19. Let the words find you:

meditate, go for a walk, take that shower

Word Palette is a great app that features a keyboard of random words, allowing you to simply click your way to your next masterpiece.

You can also try AI auto-completers like Talk to Transformer, where you can enter a phrase and let the app “guess what comes next.”

even though they often produce nonsense, it's a great way to help that writer's block.

20. Write like Hemingway:

And if your biggest block is your own self-doubt about your prose, Hemingway offers suggestions to improve your writing as you go

it's a pretty cool app if you ask me.

it highlights your sentences (if need be) and makes suggestions on how to improve them!

well, there you have it! a lengthy post on how to fight writer's block. now i just hope i can combat my own soon.

like, comment and reblog if you find this useful! feel free to reblog in instagram and tag me perpetualstories

Follow me on instagram and tumblr for more writing and grammar tips and more!

[sstabhmontown]

Complete rules for magic swords

Seeing how these are specified in some other old-school games again lately makes me think this is worth pulling out of the booklets onto the blog. In particular, Swords & Wizardry games have these systems mostly removed, despite their importance in OD&D. One of my first tasks when I started reworking those rules for use was to put it back. This is a more complete system than you will find almost anywhere, and it's integrated with morale rolls for followers. When a character draws forth a magic sword for the first time each game, I ask them to introduce them much the same as they do a hench.

An interesting little spot to zoom into these rules is the choice of ability scores for Fighters. D&D originally specifies that the swords Ego is challenged by the Fighter's Intelligence and Strength. AD&D calls for Intelligence and Charisma. B/X calls for Strength and Wisdom. I am swayed from the good argument that Strength allows one to literally wield the sword more effectively by the ways that the rules already reward Fighters for that score. Instead, from these I have chosen to use Wisdom in representation of fate and piety, and Charisma as will and presence, and to make it feel closer to other followers.

There are a few other tables connected to this in the rules, that include “unusual weapons” like flame-tongues, dancing swords, etc. And I've moved to having a full one-in-six chance for all magic weapons to have a minor ability like an extra + to damage or a glow of light. But this is strictly about intelligence and ego.

One idea I'm toying with is a secondary list of sword powers. Over the years I've reshuffled the chart a few times, adding and removing different things, so it's become more distant from OD&D. Equally, you can sometimes guess a sword's age by what common powers it has. In my treasure generator script, I already call out to rare magic items in the other categories, mostly made by trawling through AD&D books and other variants finding spicy magic items to add to the big lists. I'll get there.

If you are viewing this via tumblr the tables will not work, visit it in the web browser to see them

Magic Swords

When you draw a magic sword of a different alignment, you suffer 1d6 damage per step removed. Once unsheathed, a sword is subject to Morale rolls as a follower.

Magic swords have an Ego and Intelligence, and will fight for dominance when drawn, or at any time the Ego & Dominance Factors chart calls for an increase in their score.

If the sword wins a higher dominance than the wielder’s Fighter level + Wisdom + Charisma, the wielder must save or fall under its control. If passed, the sword will still make a demand towards its goals: refusing to fight, needing to won over with a gift or a promise, refusing to be sheathed until it has killed a foe, or plotting to be lost or stolen at the next opportunity.

One in 12 swords (a throw of 12 on d12) has a Special Purpose. These swords have Intelligence and Ego both 12. A Lawful sword will paralyze its special foe on a strike (save); a chaotic sword poisons. A Neutral sword gives +2 on saves to the wielder, and a re-roll on saves against its foe, and strives to serve both columns on the chart, despite apparent contradiction.

Sword Ego & Dominance Factors

Ego: 2d6 + great powers

Intelligence + magic plus: already known

Wielder alignment differs: + d6 per step

Special foe present: +d6

Wielder at half HP + d6

Wielder charmed or cursed: + d6

Morale rolls failed: + d6 each

10+ morale rolled: - 1d6

Magic Sword intelligence

2d6† Powers Communication 2–6 – – 7 1 Empathic 8 2 Empathic 9 3 Empathic 10 3 Speaks 1d4 languages 11 3 Speaks & Reads Magic 12 3+1* Telepathic

* 3 plus one great power † At 7+, roll alignment

d6 Sword alignment 1–2 Chaos 3 Neutral 4–6 Law

Sword Special Purpose (1 in 12)

2d6 Law Chaos 2 Slay demons Slay gods & angels 3 Slay elementals Slay lords, raze halls 4 Serve ancient laws, slaying pretenders Slay kings 5 Slay anti-clerics Slay clerics 6 Slay magic-users opposed 7 Uphold the realm, slaying outlaws Wage banditry & war, slaying soldiers 8 Slay fighters opposed 9 Slay undead Slay dwarves 10 Slay lycanthropes Slay elves 11 Slay giants Slay halflings 12 Slay dragons

2d6 Intelligent Sword powers 2 Roll twice (level one spell if rerolled) 3 Speak with animals 4 Wins initiative 5 Detect invisible 6 Detect treasure 7 Detect sloping passages & secret doors 8 Know direction 9 Detect foes/opposing alignment 10 Detect traps 11 Detect magic 12 Great power

3d6 Great powers 3 Roll thrice (level 5 spell if rerolled) 4 Roll twice (level 4 spell if rerolled) 5 Teleport 3/day 6 Telekinesis 3/day 7 Regenerate 1 hp/turn, 6/day 8 Charm person 3/day 9 Knock 3/day 10 ESP 3/day 11 Levitate 3/day 12 Phantasmal force 3/day 13 X-ray vision, as ring 3/day 14 Fly 3/day 15 Giant's strength, as potion 3/day 16 Life stealing (always Chaotic, drains one level on hit) 17+ Wishes, as ring

[ozzdog12]

2020 Top 7 (and 1)

2020 am I right? We saw an insane amount of games come out and 2 brand new consoles. What a wild and weird year for gaming, and life in general. In case you are relatively new here, and to be honest that would be completely fair considering I don't post very often on Tumblr anymore, every year going on the last 4 years (on here) I have done a Top 7 (& 1) for my favorite videogames of the year. Check out 2019, 2018, & 2017. What’s wild, as I look back on my list of games that I’ve completed and played, only maybe 10 came out this year. 2020 was a huge backlog year. 

Lets get on with the ‘And 1!”

Favorite Game that Didn’t Come out in 2020: Control (PS4)

Control may very well have been my 2019 Game of the Year, had I played it in 2019. I LOVED Control. I wanted to play it in 2019, but initial reports that it was a little rough on base consoles put me off until it was fixed. And Holy smokes what an insanely fun and trippy game once I finally started it. I knew within the first 20 minutes this was going to be the shit when I went down a hall, walked into a room and talked to the “janitor” left out a door behind him and the entire building had shifted. I’ve always liked Remedy games, but from a distance. Max Payne 1&2 and Alan Wake all oozed with weirdness and intrigue, but never enough for me to finish them. I missed out on Quantum Break. The story is Control is just the right amount of mind f*!$ for me and builds a universe I didn’t know I needed. It take some time to piece everything together, then everything just clicks. The game does have a weird difficulty spike when fighting bosses and the checkpoints were too far apart at times, but those were later patched. I spent an insane amount of time within the Federal Bureau of Control building and even more time after that with the Foundation and AWE DLC and it STILL wasn’t enough. I wanted more. Outside of Prey, I can’t think of another game that stuck in my brain more after I’d finished it. Control is absolutely a MUST PLAY title. In a world where everything sort’ve feels similar, Control stands out of the crowd.

Number 7: Astro’s Playroom (PS5)

I never thought in my wildest dreams that a game I had almost zero interest in playing would end up on my list of favorite games this year. Astro’s Playroom is being labeled as a ‘Tech demo’ but that feels like an insult to what it is. It’s a full fledged game and its free! I’ve paid more for less. A charming little platformer that lives and breathes the history of the Playstation. So many cool Easter eggs and references. It certainly centers its gameplay around the DualSense controller and everything it can do, but at its core, its a completely approachable and forgiving 3D platformer. I played it just to see what it was about, next thing i knew I had completed all the levels and wanted to further explore all the nooks and crannies within the game. I wanted to see everything the game had to offer and I had an absolute blast doing so. Makes me kinda wish I’d played the previous game on PSVR (I’d have to have a PSVR too)

Number 6: Spider-Man: Miles Morales (PS5)

Another quality title, albeit a spin-off, from Insomniac to add to their Spider Man universe. Gameplay felt obviously like Spider-Man, but Miles has unique abilities that made the game feel different enough, especially the cloak and stealth. I enjoyed the fact that it was short and concise. The issue with most ‘open-world’ games is that they are entirely too bloated with unnecessary filler content (I’ll get to that in a later game), something I felt the first game suffered from, but I also understand why they are there. However I could’ve use one or two more story missions to help flesh out some characters, but it wasn’t required and didn’t change my opinion one way or the other. My one BIG gripe was with Miles himself. He is an extremely smart young kid, but so incredibly naïve. Peter Parker tells him the one thing he SHOULD NOT do is tell people he is Spider-Man. I get it, that’s part of his growth, but Miles thinks he can just solve his problems by revealing his identity and it almost certainly never works out. 

Number 5: The Last of Us: Part 2 (PS4)

The Last of Us Part 2 may be the most polarizing game in the history of the medium, but for the absolute wrong reasons. I’m in the minority that I very much enjoyed my experience with TLOU2, quite a bit actually. Its better in every single way over its predecessor, except the overall story. There are plenty of fair criticisms to be had about the story and various things within the game itself, but I thought the gameplay was so tight and crunchy. There were genuine moments of suspense and terror that I felt that no other game has ever given me. The entire hospital section (2nd time) was so susensful, I had to put my controller down to gther myself. Some of my favorite moments in the series I experienced with a character I wasn’t overly fond of. How many games can do that? The Last of Us Part 2 was meant to invoke emotion, not necessarily joy. I think that's what people lost along the way. Say what you will about the direction Naughty Dog has taken over the years, but you would be hard pressed to find a studio that makes games graphically better than they do. Yes, I know about their crunch culture, but this is not a place for that. I will say, the game was a tad bit too long, which is not something it typically say for a single player, narrative driven game. The pacing and the way the story was told wasn’t my favorite, but I respect what it was trying to do, even if it failed in some aspect of that, I finished the game within the week it was released. Something I RARELY ever do. I’m a father and I related with Joel a lot in TLOU, but I also recognized how wrong he was. There is a lesson to be learned. Your actions always have consequences and while he was doing what he thought was the right thing, it wasn’t his choice to make, and in doing so set up a series of events that were entirely avoidable, but again, that’s the point isn’t it?

Number 4: Grindstone (Switch)

I’m counting this as a 2020 game since it just came to the Switch this year ( less than a month ago) but its not the first time I’ve played it. Grindstone was the only reason I kept my Apple Arcade subscription and when I let it lapse, there was a void I just couldn’t fill. I bought Puzzle Quest on Switch but it just wasn't the same. Its THE perfect game for bite sized play, even though in its addictive nature, you’ll clear a few levels and an hour has passed before you know it. It has the perfect amount of depth that most ‘match’ games don't. You have different weapons, items, and outfits w/perks to use and experiment with to keep it fresh. I went months without playing my Switch and when this was announced in August, I couldn’t wait! Sadly, I had to wait 3 months, but since then I have spent so much time on the Switch. It gave me a reason to play it again. The art style and humour is great. The variety of enemies and challenge is just right. I can’t recommend it enough. Seriously, check this game out!

Number 3: Doom Eternal (Xbox One)

I will be the first to tell you, I did not like Doom (2016). I found it extremely boring and trite. I understood what Doom(2016) was doing and it succeeded, maybe too much. Nostalgia is a helluva thing. So in saying that, I was mildly interested in Doom Eternal. Doom Eternal is nothing like 2016 outside of it being a Doom game that connects to the rest of them (& also being a sequel to 2016). The mechanics are drastically different with more platforming (for better or worse). Eternal is challenging, at times very hard, especially early on. Eternal has no respect for its players, in a weirdly good way. It laughs at how you’ve played FPS before this one and WILL MAKE you play it its way, not your way. Yes, you point and shoot, but ammo is scare and you MUST use everything in your arsenal. No more using just 2 guns for the whole game. The enemies are relentless. Sometimes you have to pause and take a breath after a battle because you go a 100 mph for the whole fight. You have to continuously move or you die. There is an enticing rhythm to it. I categorize Eternal as ‘Blood Ballet’. Its a game where when your feeling it, much like a rhythm game, you get in the zone and there is no stopping demons from getting slayed. Surprisingly, unlike most games in the genre, it seemed to get easier (sans one extremely frustrating platforming section late in the game) the longer you played it. Was that a testament that I ‘learned’ the Eternal way or it truly did get easier? I don’t know, but the final Boss(es) were....easy.. I had more problems and deaths within the first 4 hours than I did the final 8-9 hours. The multiplayer was also surprisingly fun. The older I get, the less interested I am in multiplayer, but I found myself coming back for more for a good month or so. 

Number 2: Gears Tactics (Xbox One)

As 2020 comes to a close, I came to a stunning realization. I might be a bigger Gears of War fan than I had previously thought. Don’t get me wrong. I love Gears, but I seem to love Gears more than I thought. I'm way more invested into the lore than I recall. Anyways, Gears Tactics is everything XCOM 2 SHOULD’VE been. Not only does Gears Tactics utilize the Overwatch action, its makes it EXTREMELY important. The story revolves around the father of Kait Diaz, Gabe and a ragtag group of mostly random soldiers to take down Ukkon. Anyone who is remotely interested in the Gears universe will love the story and references. The gameplay is just so damn satisfying. The bosses are very challenging and different. I actually had to change my strategy to finish the final boss. I experimented with a totally different style of class and was rewarded for it. The post game stuff is also aplenty. This game scratched a VERY specific itch for me and I’m itchy to jump back in. I’m glad this came to Xbox One because I’m current computer could not run it.

Number 1: Ghost of Tsushima (PS4)

I have a very odd relationship with massive open world games. I love them, but I get very burnt out on them. They all have a relatively same-y formula and are often populated with bloat. GoT does have some of that but to its advantage, its not very populated, in a good way. One of the things that I really appreciated about GoT and its side quest is most of them felt meaningful. The thing that really stood out to me about GoT is the absolutely satisfying combat. It just feels SO GOOD. It requires timing and patience. There are different fighting styles for different enemies and even the armor you wear is more than just cosmetic. The combat is so fun and satisfying that I was immediately excited when they announced Legends, a multiplayer add on, for free. Its so much fun and is a blast to play with a group of friends. I’m sporadically still playing the Legends mode. I initially wanted to play the game in ‘Kurosawa’ mode but I am glad I didn’t because the game, even on the PS4 is stunning, and on the upgrade on PS5 is jaw-droppingly smooth. I did play the entire game in Japanese with English subtitles. I still don't know what Jin’s English voice sounds like. GoT does a good job a drip feeding you new abilities and things to keep things fresh. I love stealth and once I unlocked it, I spent the majority of every battle taking out as many enemies as I could while in stealth mode. Ghost of Tsushima does a lot of things very well, that the few things it doesn’t can be easily overlooked.

[goodgirlsfanficawards]

It’s Wednesday and today we’re featuring some classic WIPs! Check them out or give them a reread. We can’t wait for more!

A Rational Choice by fireinsideforfun

22 Aug 2020, E, 122K, 7/?

Sometimes they’re fucking, in her marital bed, just like the last time. He’s all over her, invading every sense and feeling and she’s so close to coming. But then her hands will be at his chest and her fingers will be trailing over open bloody bullet wounds and he’s giving her that look from where he rests above her, the one he gave her after the gun went off. She always wakes up in cold sweats and has to pull back the covers quickly to run to the bathroom to vomit.

Sometimes they’re back in his apartment. And he’s dying, bleeding out all over the floor, spluttering and in pain, but all his furniture is back and Marcus is running in calling for his daddy like it’s just any other day and she’s trying and failing to stop him from seeing. She has choke back sobs when she wakes from those dreams.

But then sometimes it’s just them sitting out in the backyard at her picnic table. It’s a summer’s day, he’s got his chin resting in his palm as he leans against the table watching her. They’re just talking quietly, conversations she can never remember upon waking, him occasionally teasing her and letting out that big belly laugh. It’s a pleasant dream. It’s a familiar one. And although there’s no throwing up or crying, it’s by far the worst one of all. Because there’s always a split second when she wakes, before reality can sink back in, that she finds herself smiling.

delinquents by foxmagpie / @foxmagpie​​

06 Sep 2020, T, 82K, 8/?

Elizabeth looks at him curiously. “Why are you calling me that? Everybody calls me Beth.”

“Yeah, but I know you think of yourself as Elizabeth.”

Elizabeth stares at him. “How could you possibly know that?”

“‘Cause,” Rio says simply. “It’s what you write on your papers. With a li’l heart over the i and everythin’.”

Elizabeth opens her mouth to say something, but seems to find herself speechless.

Rio leans over into her space, face coming dangerously close to hers. He can smell her shampoo—something peachy and sweet. He expects her to jerk away, but she doesn’t. She just sucks in a breath, still as can be, eyes darting back and forth wildly.

He could count her eyelashes if he wanted. He could brush his lips against her neck.

Then, just as suddenly, he straightens back up, throwing her math book that he’s dug out of her backpack onto the table.

“Ready?” he asks her.

Playing House by flashindie / @pynkhues​​

25 Oct 2021, E, 147K, 24/?

She spits out her mouthful of toothpaste, rinsing the brush and then her mouth before turning sideways to face him, pushing her hip into the basin as she bites her lip, looks up at him through her lashes. Reaching over, she hooks a finger in the belt loop of his jeans, rocking sideways and Rio looks down at her lazily, lowering his razor down to the sink and splashing some water on his face to wash off the last of his shaving cream.

“You ready for bed, mami?” he asks, voice raspy, and Beth grins, sidling a little closer to him.

“The kids are asleep,” she says, holding onto his belt loop a little tighter. She’s still not very good at this part – at touching him first, but she thinks maybe he doesn’t mind so much, seems so responsive to everything she does, and even now he tilts his hips towards her.

“Yeah?” he purrs, leaning over to push some of her hair, still damp from her shower, back behind her ear, and Beth is just starting to rise up on her tiptoes when he adds, “Don’t want to give your new friend a call first?”

Just like that, she tears her hand off his jeans, raising it instead to point a finger up at him, something hot and weirdly pleased snapping in her belly. She really does love the thought of them being on the same wavelength, but she also really, really loves being right.

“I knew it,” she says. “I knew you weren’t going to be able to let it go.”

The Space in Between by Slow_Burn_87

10 Jan 2021, E, 66K, 16/?

Bolting upright and starting around the table, Rio throws his arms wide in an exaggerated show of contrition, "Oh, I'm sorry sweetheart, I must have got you confused with that other basic bitch that tried to lock me away."

Beth chokes back a sob as he comes to a stop in front of her, the barrel of the gun resting lightly against the hard wall of his chest, beneath the soft cotton of his black t-shirt.

Up this close, she can see in detail the bloody scrapes that mar the usually even tones of his honeyed skin; evidence that her husband does in fact have more fight in him than even she expected.

But the cuts are nothing compared to the swollen mess of Dean's face and she steels herself against any hint of pity, fighting to steady her arm as, for the first time, she slips her finger into the silky steel cradle of the trigger.

The infinitesimal shift in the tense lines of Rio's jaw tells her that he has seen the movement. Even as his hooded, black gaze continues to burn heatedly into her own. The tiniest flicker of a smile curves the corner of his beautiful lips as he raises an eyebrow and challenges again, "You think you got what it takes?"

He is the beginning and end of her focus now; all other detail of their surroundings fades into obscurity as Beth frantically considers it; does she?

a song inside the halls of the dark by ms_scarlet / @mego42​​

06 Aug 2021, E, 89K, 10/12

And now the thing on the floor is at her feet, and the sputtering, coughing, choking sound is all she can hear. Her own breathing is speeding up, stuttering, breaking, and she looks down. It's Rio, of course it's Rio, lying on the floor, blood pouring from his mouth, dark shirt going darker as more blood spreads out in a pool beneath him like wings.

Beth drops to her knees and leans forward, slowly, every bone in her body aching in protest. She reaches a trembling hand towards his chest, and right before she makes contact, a bag's yanked over her head. Everything goes dark, and it's suffocating her—the musty dryness filling her nose, her mouth, creeping down her throat into her lungs and she can't breathe, she can't breathe, she can't breathe-

Beth jerks awake, fingers flying to her throat, grasping for a bag that isn't there. And it's dark, so dark, and everything's moving, and she's going to be sick, she needs-

She fumbles along the car door, rolling down the window, gulping for air. The wind rushes through the car, and she forces herself to take a long, slow breath. Then another. Then a third.

Beth can feel each muscle in her body start to unlock.

"You throw up in my car, we're gonna have problems." Beth looks over, and Rio's focused on the road, not looking at her, jaw clenched so tight she can see the muscle jumping.

If you know of anyone’s tumblr/twitter and we haven’t found it or tagged incorrectly, please send us an ask or DM to let us know.

[longinglook]

I’m going to be gone for most of the day so I thought that the best way to use up my last 10 minutes before leaving would be to write a multi paragraph post on what I think about Fighter’s behavior so here we go

(under a read more because this could get very very long)

so. fighter. our confused messy boy we are just starting to understand

i’ve read a lot of tweets/posts/comments of people that don’t understand his behavior or think that his storyline doesn’t make sense which has always left me a bit perplexed because to me everything he does seems justified and coherent to where his mind is at the moment so i’ll try to explain

but first, something about me kfmslkcls 

i identify as lesbian but i have struggled with compulsive heterosexuality all my life, i’ve spent years identifying as bi because the scary part for me was not admitting that i liked girls but admitting that i did not like boys past the occasional crushes on fictional boys and let me tell you: a lot of what fighter does/the way he thinks reminds me so much of how i was and here’s a list of things:

1) he seems a lot more at ease with same sex friends, the only times we see him with hwa you can tell that he’s forcing himself to act a certain way, he knows he’s supposed to do boyfriend things like taking her on dates and kissing but he is not comfortable with it, he tries and fails at it. of course part of the reason is because of his father but not only does he seem uniterested in her, there’s always a sense of uneasiness when he’s with her, like he’s scared of actually having to kiss her. he’s fine with the relationship as long as it’s just texting and hanging out (like a friendship would be) but he seems not to want it to become phisical. since he’s a very confused boy he’s probably blaming all of this on his father forcing him into the relationship, instead of knowing right away that he’s not interested in her

2) thinking whatever he has with tutor is just friendship and teasing: i feel like this is such a common experience for most lgbt+ folks, thinking you just have a deep friendship with someone of the same sex, only to later realize it was actually a crush and you had no idea. ex. liking the casual cuddling and touches and looking for more, paying close attention to all the displays of affection, wanting to always be close and being a little jealous of everyone else that they interact with. I feel like a lot of people go through this thinking it’s just a friendship, especially if it’s with someone of the same sex because they are not even considering the option of it being a crush. that’s why fighter keeps saying that they’re only friends and he’s behaving like a close friend would, he just doesn’t let himself consider the option because it would be way too scary and that leads us to point #3

3) being too scared to say what he wants: he does this A LOT. instead of asking for something, which would mean saying it out loud and admitting it, he just acts. words can be so scary (again making this about me, i have id’d as lesbian for over 2 years now and ive come out to a lot of friends but ive never said the word lesbian out loud because it’s just terrifying to me), and fighter seems to only use them after he has acted to justify whatever dumb shit he has done with an excuse. saying something like “i kissed you because i wanted to” would mean admitting he wants to kiss another man (meaning he’s not straight) and that man is fighter (meaning he has feelings for him). it’s much easier for him to go with the flow  and do first, explain later. and by explaining i mean lying, even to himself because deep down he knows, of couse he knows what’s going on but acknowledging it would have serious implications on his life.

also the way he reacts to tutor asking him if he likes boys is a big indicator of what's going on with him, it's his way of answering, not his way of avoiding the question. he can't say it out loud so he shows it but then he's scared of the consequences and no homos it. and the choice of replaying the question scene while they're making out shows us that fight is tormented by it, he's scared of other people asking him that as well, now that tutor has noticed it more people could as well and that's why he pulls away. 

4) on a similar note, teasing until tutor does something/not wanting to be the one to start it: this is pure fighter behavior, hoping tutor will be the one to start it so he doesn’t have to. i called this gay chicken last week, it’s fighter making everything into a challenge so he can blame it on tutor and say that he was just reacting. we can see how desperate he is for tutor’s attention, how happy he is when he has it and how frustrated he is when he doesn’t. he’s like a child who wants people to pay attention to him but doesn’t know how to ask for it, so they start annoying people. fight knows very well that he could just say hey tutor i’m here, please talk to me but how could he give a realistic reason for it other than because i have a massive crush on you meaning i’m not straight. he knows tutor doesn’t back down from a challenge and he riles him up because he has learned what that will lead them to. it’s like he knows there’s an easier way to get to that, but it’s scary so he just keeps going with his soundproof tesing tacting which so far has worked every time. also in general reacting is a lot easier than acting, again a personal example: if someone asks me if i like girls I’ll say yes right away, but if i have to start the conversation i won’t. (one thing i do a lot is to be like “hey i have something to tell you about myself but you have to guess it”)

5) backtracking/giving mixed signals: again he’s terrified, he knows what he wants but he knows what /wanting it/ implies. sometimes he follows his heart, but then his brain comes back to tell him that, hey, you’re kissing another dude and you’re enjoying it and of course he freaks out and leaves. i would be way more annoyed with him if the show had been portraying tutor as pining and in love, meaning that fighter has been giving him false-ish hopes, but after ep.6 we see that tutor himself still hasn’t admitted to himself that he likes fighter (in bold because i feel like this part is very important and often overlooked) so they are both confused about their feelings. 

i don’t think they are actually confused, they know but they are scared which in my opinion is very realistic of how someone behaves when they thought they were straight and they are not. It’s not about being dumb or being slow, it’s about realizing that once you take that step and acknowledge you’re not straight your life changes. idk how many of you are actually not straight (i assume most just because tumblr) but like…… coming out is so stressful being straight is just so much easier you dont have to do shit i wish that were me

6) his father: i feel like we only grazed the surface of fighter’s daddy issues, but he seems to be a very controlling and inflexible man, meaning that he probably wouldn’t be thrilled at the idea of his son dating another man. we don’t know about fight’s past, and maybe he has already had crushes on men and had to repress them. fighter seems to be used to a pretty luxurious lifestyle, he can’t just fuck off and go against his father because he would lose his support.

so it’s not just admitting things to himself, which can be insanely hard on its own especially if you were brought up in a traditional family, it’s also having to deal with the reactions from everyone around you

I KEEP THINKING ABOUT NEW THINGS TO ADD TO THIS POST SORRY anyway i think fighter has already shown multiple times that he does care for tor, it's just in a very shy and lowkey way because he's scared of giving himself away but he does indeed worry about tor (ex. he notices tor is stressed about his test, he tries to help outat his part time job). it also seems that in times of urgency he's more explicit about ex. offering to pay off his debt when tor was being threatened or saying he's his boyfriend when the gross cafe dude was hitting on him

also can we talk about how heartbreaking and soft fighter can be when he lets down his guard and shows his emotional side ex. telling tor nobody has ever taken care of him like that or the way he looks every time tutor pulls away first... this poor boy is touch starved and he craves affection but he can't ask for it yet. he's going to be a real gem once he can be honest with his feelings

for future episodes i think that tutor and fighter are well on their way to realizing their feelings for each other and there's going to be some development soon, but i dont expect fighter to come out to anyone else in the next few episodes because there's a lot of work to be done still. i just hope they dont pull the /i dont like boys i just like you/ trope because i WILL drop this show. so. fast. please don't ruin this character please let him accept his attraction to men fully

in conclusion. i dont blame fighter for anything he has done so far, he’s scared shitless but knows what’s going on, i trust he will soon be brave enough to start being honest with himself and with tutor

man this did NOT  take 10 minutes to write and i dont have time to proofread

[queenmorgawse]

transmigration for dummies

mdzs scum villain au, chapter two. read chapter one on tumblr. fic on ao3. as always, credits for the og idea to @lee-luca.

Here’s a life lesson from yours truly : if you don’t give yourself time to think about it, you won’t worry about it.

Getting into Gusu Lan’s white robes is so much of a hassle that, as he struggles with the unholy number of layers and conventions, Jingyi has no time at all to mull over the OOC function or how to get rid of it as soon as possible. To think he used to complain when his mother wanted him to wear a dress shirt and a tie to family events — if she could see him now, she’d probably tear a muscle laughing.

Fortunately, Sizhui seems to take it all into stride. Or, more accurately, he thinks Jingyi’s still too out of it to properly function, and therefore sees nothing wrong with having to walk him through the process of putting his own clothes on step by step like he’s a toddler learning about shoelaces for the first time. He imagines the original would feel humiliated, but Jingyi himself is all too glad for a plausible excuse to ask for help to care. The System grants him this one favor, and stays mercifully silent as Sizhui secures his hair into a high ponytail and shows him the proper way to tie his forehead ribbon (I really can’t do it for you, he says, and Jingyi understands. There’s no helping the virginity ribbon.)

Speaking of hair, he’s got to figure out what to do with his. He hasn’t had a chance to look into a mirror yet, but he knows that this body’s hair reaches his waist. From the looks of it, it’s lustrous and well-cared for, but it’s still a huge change from Jingyi’s style, trimmed whenever it threatened to grow past a finger’s length. His head feels heavy.

Right as Sizhui pats a speck of dust off his shoulder and declares him ready to go, the chime of a bell echoes through the Cloud Recesses, which Jingyi guesses means breakfast is served. Oh, well. His hairstyle’s a problem for tomorrow-Jingyi.

Their dorm’s disciples make their way to the common hall in orderly fashion. In Jingyi’s opinion, they look like a row of ducklings toddling after Sizhui, to whom the younger boys cling to like he’s their father, mother and brother all wrapped into the same person. Truly worthy of being the protagonists’ son! Perhaps in someone else, he’d dislike the model student, can-do-no-wrong attitude. In Lan Sizhui, though, it’s endearing — admirable, even.

They reach the dining hall before Jingyi can elaborate on that train of thought. On the doorstep, he has to take a moment. The donghua’s version was gorgeous, but even it pales before the real thing. The hall is all dark wood, draped in blue and white and delicate silver, the cloud patterns of Gusu Lan running across the banners. There’s something engraved on top of the doors, which Jingyi assumes is the sect’s motto, Be righteous.

One of his fellow disciples squints at him and he realizes, belatedly, that the original has probably seen this place a million times before and wouldn’t bat an eye at the scenery, no matter how enchanting. He immediately puts on the most dazed look he can manage, letting his eyes go blank, until the other boy turns away with a shrug.

Damn right, I’m a weirdo! Leave me alone!

The most anyone here seems to open their mouths for is to exchange quiet greetings, and Jingyi’s not quite comfortable enough with his surroundings to attempt it. What if he accidentally offends someone important? That’ll be the end of him for sure. Instead, he busies himself with trying to identify characters among the gathered disciples.

As it turns out, the task isn’t much of a challenge at all. The main branch of the Lan clan sits at the same table, though it does not particularly stand out among the others save for the cloud-patterned banners hanging directly above it. The guy in the middle must be Lan Xichen, Jingyi guesses, if only because of the respect others address him with, obvious even though he can’t hear their voices from where he stands.

From what he can tell, the unsmiling man sitting to Lan Xichen’s right is Lan Wangji, the main love interest. The intuition is further confirmed when Sizhui excuses himself from their group and flits to his side. Father and son barely exchange a few words, their dark heads bent together, but Jingyi could swear he sees Lan Wangji’s eyes soften a little.

He really does look sad. It’s not like Jingyi didn’t know, having read an entire novel about it, but seeing it for himself still makes his heart tighten in his chest a little. Worry not, Hanguang-Jun! he wants to say. Your future husband is coming back real soon! But of course, the System would probably nuke him instantly if he tried to, so Lan Wangji will have to be miserable for a little while longer.

“Come sit with me,” Sizhui’s voice says, and for the second time in less than two hours, Jingyi snaps himself back into reality to come face to face with the other junior’s kindly face.

It’s pretty wild how much effort Sizhui puts into being nice to him. Is it because he was there when Lan Jingyi was hurt? Does he feel responsible for him now? It’s not like the original was exceptionally pleasant to be around. He really does have to do something about it ⎯ or at least, he’ll take care of it when the System’s no longer on his ass about remaining in-character.

When Sizhui doesn’t seem to come to his senses and retract the offer, he hesitantly settles into the seat on the other’s left. Hopefully, everyone will just chalk up the delay in each of his movements to typical post-traumatic event confusion. What even happened on that night-hunt?

The silence that reigns in the dining hall is eerie, only disturbed by the clink of chopsticks against ceramic bowls and the occasional whispered thanks when a dish is passed down the table. It reminds Jingyi of an exam session, which does nothing to help his nerves.

He’s in the middle of his second bowl when the alert chimes in his head.【OOC behavior detected : -10 points. Current balance : 90 points. 】

What the hell? I didn’t do anything!

【The original Lan Jingyi never manages to stay silent during meals, effectively breaking Gusu Lan Sect’s two hundred and fifty-third rule. Points were deducted accordingly. 】

Was this even mentioned? Now you’re just pulling canon out of your ass! When the System doesn’t answer, Jingyi adds, plus, he’s sick, he doesn’t feel up to talking. It’s weird to refer to someone who’s technically himself in third person, but he can’t help it. He and the other guy probably wouldn’t be friends if they met, nevermind body roommates!

【... 】For the first time since Jingyi arrived, the System sounds somewhat irritated.【Objection considered : +5 points. Current balance : 95 points.】

A wide smile worms his way onto his face. So he can negotiate, huh? Jingyi’s always been pretty good at debate ⎯ he verbally wiped the floor with Huan Hua High’s team last competition, okay? He can definitely duke it out with an omniscient AI!

...Put like that, it sounds a little more daunting than before. But if he doesn’t want to end up booted off into a potentially dead body, he doesn’t exactly have a choice either.

Out of sheer spite, Jingyi finishes the third and last bowl of his breakfast in stubborn silence.

-

He shouldn’t have underestimated the soporific effect of a never-ending lecture. God, and he thought two-hour classes were bad. It's been three, and his soul feels like it's going to throw itself out of the reincarnation cycle.

Jingyi steals a mournful glance towards the window. The sun is shining outside, dammit! This is no time to keep children indoors! Yet Lan Qiren drones on, pacing back and forth in front of them and reading from one of too many foot-long scrolls, seemingly oblivious to his students’ boredom.

Why does he even have to be here? He was born a Lan, he’s supposed to know these things already! Jingyi conveniently ignores the fair point his brain raises (how the original must have known, but Jingyi himself could only recite a handful if he tried) in favor of complaining that, if pointless, is at least relaxing.

One of the Jiang guest disciples is dozing, head strategically propped up and brush in hand to give the illusion of attention. Lan Qiren hasn’t noticed yet. God, I wish that were me.

As if to offer convenient narrative contrast, Lan Sizhui and perhaps a couple others are making a valiant effort to stay focused on Jingyi’s other side, dutifully taking notes. Even Sizhui’s eyes have started to glaze over, though, and when their gazes meet (the umpteenth time Jingyi lets his sweep over the room in an attempt to spot something of interest before he bores himself to death), the other boy actually slumps a little before sitting up ramrod-straight again, just in time to look pristine when Lan Qiren’s eyes sweep over him.

It’s kind of reassuring, to see that even the Lan clan’s resident golden boy is a little imperfect.

Just as Jingyi glances down at the dregs of his notes, wondering if it’s worth it to pick them up again, chaos erupts on his right. Random-Jiang-Extra’s steadfast elbow pose has finally failed him, sending him crashing onto the table. Ink spills everywhere, drenching his notes, the lapels of his robes and even the hem of his neighbours’. Jingyi saves his in extremis by scrambling back, almost knocking over his own desk in the process.

The guest disciple blinks, like he doesn’t realize yet the magnitude of Lan Qiren’s wrath about to descend upon him. There’s a rather large smudge of ink on his chin. From a distance, it could pass for Lan Qiren’s goatee.

Jingyi snorts before he can think that decision through.

Beginner’s mistake. Lan Qiren turns towards him, eyes narrowing, and his laughter dies in his throat. “Do not laugh at others’ plight,” their teacher fumes. “Three thousand and fourth rule, Lan Jingyi! I postponed the punishments for your previous offenses on the grounds that you needed time to recover, but since you’re obviously well enough to embarrass our sect again, you won’t need that delay after all!”

I don’t even know what the other guy did! Jingyi almost protests, but since that objection just sounds like it’ll get him hit with another rule about not telling lies or whatnot, he keeps his mouth shut. Instead, he bows his head and says, “Sorry, Teacher. I’ll try my best not to do it again.” Screw his pride! Anything to escape copying rules! Especially not while doing handstands!

Not to the original’s credit, Lan Qiren looks, for a moment, genuinely surprised. Not for the first time, Jingyi feels a small stab of resentment towards Lan Jingyi. He’s been trying not to, given that he has no idea what happened to the guy’s soul and he may be in a worse situation than Jingyi is right now, but why couldn’t he have been a good, well-behaved student like Lan Sizhui?

...In retrospect, maybe it’s just as good that he wasn’t. Jingyi would have gotten way too many points deducted just because he couldn’t sit still in class.

【OOC behavior detected : -10 points. Current balance : 85 points. 】

Ouch. Must be for the apology. Well, if it saves him from the dreaded handstand copying, he can make up for the loss later.

Against all odds, it works. Lan Qiren rubs the bridge of his nose, stifling what Jingyi is fairly sure is meant to be a long-suffering sigh. “One copy of our sect rules, to be done in the Library Pavilion. Lan Sizhui will supervise you...after his guqin lesson, is that right?”

“Yes, Teacher.” If Sizhui’s annoyed to have to take time out of an assumedly free evening to watch him butcher calligraphy, he doesn’t show it. From the look in his eyes, though, it may not be the first time.

Jingyi tunes out of Lan Qiren’s next tirade, directed at the hapless Jiang boy, who’s still staring at his ruined notes as his martial brothers make sympathetic noises. Can’t say this day started out all that well, but it’s not that bad for a beginning. It definitely could have been worse.

Then Lan Sizhui gives him a tiny smile that carves a dimple into his right cheek, and maybe today really is going to be a pretty good day after all.

strolls in with starbucks almost a month later,,, hello, i haven’t abandoned this fic, mini exam period just punched me harder than expected. i hope this chapter wasn’t boring - i’m trying to set things up before the actual mdzs plot kicks in, but we’re in for some zhuiyi fluffTM. also, i made a twitter! feel free to follow me over there for random au ideas (but mostly crying). still taking questions + prompts, both here and there. and finally, would you guys read a more serious / plotty / angsty fic with ljy x jl as the main ship (though romance would probably take a backseat to the plot)? i wrote a small premise over here, but i crave feedback and validation.

[natsthinkitythinkthinkthonk]

Seiyuu Challenge: Bonus Rounds

This is inspired by the seiyuu challenge I saw @rukiinightray doing on their Tumblr. Check out the #Seiyuu Challenge tag on their Tumblr to see the questions. 

I just picked my favourites from Rukii’s to add to the compilation. After this, I will be posting the masterpost for my fully answered 30 Day challenge (it’s a separate one) including this bonus round!

Bonus Rounds Include:

Favourite Seiyuu above 40 Years Old

Favourite Singing Unit/Group

Seiyuu with Cute Voices

Seiyuu with Attractive Voices

Seiyuu with the Best Smiles :D

Bonus Round #1: Favourite Seiyuu Above 40 Years Old

Hiroshi Kamiya (pretty much 44)

Akira Ishida (51)

Romi Park (46)

Good luck finding current female seiyuu that still get hired above age 40 without having “legendary” status. Hahaha... why is the industry like this.

Tomokazu Sugita, Nana Mizuki, and Yuuichi Nakamura are all 39. I just wanted to mention that.

The gifs are just the most iconic character for them (although I had a tough time choosing)

Bonus Round #2: Best Singing Unit/Group

I’ll be honest, I don’t listen to units often, but I do come across the occasional song, so I’ll be sharing a few of those! I’d say that the three following groups are the only ones that I’ve actually listened to on their own. 

The original question was the best 2.5D and 3D group, but I didn’t know exactly what those meant. I’m guessing 2.5D means there are anime characters played by seiyuu who also perform live like Utapri whereas 3D have real people performing and not as characters.

I’ve been listening to Yoshimasa Hosoya and Toshiki Masuda's Maxboys, but they’ve disbanded. I personally think this was due to bad timing, lack of variety and risk, and Masuda being a little less experienced on vocals. (if you can see the thumbnail of the video) *passes towel* 

I did listen to a few TrySail things, but often, female units to me sound a bit too high-pitched and cutesy. I had the same problem when listening to a few K-Pop songs, but hey, I now know a song or two from Girls’ Generation and Twice (who the heck wouldn’t know those groups?) The members of TrySail include Momo Asakura (pink), Sora Amamiya (blue), and Shiina Natsukawa (yellow).

Alternative: Adrenaline - Eromanga-Sensei ED

But my top pick would probably be Sphere. Sphere was one of the first groups that caught my eye which was only got noticed because they sang a Honeyworks song. With members like Haruka Tomatsu, Ayahi Takagaki, Minako Kotobuki, and Aki Toyosaki, they are a bit older than their TrySail counterpart (TrySail members are 22-24ish while Sphere members are late-20s to early-30s). All of this group’s members are listed as actresses and voice actresses as well as singers. Yeah, so they voice act in various anime (each having their own list of shows), occasionally live-action act and make appearances, and sing and practice dancing. In fact, Ayahi Takagaki is one of the few women to appear on Kenichi Suzumura’s AD-LIVE event, and she went twice. I knew each of these members individually for their voice acting first, but they can also go solo (and they do) for their music, but as far as I’m concerned, Sphere is still on hiatus.

Alternative: Here are their top tracks. I couldn’t choose. (I could’ve added a lot more than 15 tracks)

I’d also like to mention that there is a top 20 list for male units (not mine) [source]

1 – ELEKITER ROUND 0 2 – E.M.U 3 – ST☆RISH 4 – QUARTET★NIGHT 5 – HE★VENS 6 – D.A.T 7 – 神谷浩史+小野大輔 8 – フェロ☆メン 9 – Marginal#4 10 – CELL DIVISION 11 - G.Addict 12 - Maxboys 13 - KAmiYU 14 - Trignal 15 - CONNECT 16 - X.I.P 17 - STYLE FIVE 18 - Stella Quintet 19 - R-16 20 - アニ○ズ

This is purely opinion-based obviously, and since I don’t listen to most of these groups (I’ve heard of them), I trust these people’s word. I just don’t like Hiroshi Kamiya’s singing, and I know I will be kicked in the shins again for saying that. Some of these groups are old too so you can see them with funny hairdos. Seriously, Sakurai had a mad mop on his head. I wonder if it was real.

I’d also like to give a quick shoutout to the Honeyworks seiyuu because even if that’s not a “unit”, they still sing a lot of songs from them.

Natsuki Enomoto (CV: Haruka Tomatsu) - song

Yuu Setoguchi (CV: Hiroshi Kamiya) - song

Akari Hayasaka (CV: Kana Asumi) - song

Souta Mochizuki (CV: Yuuki Kaji) - song

Miou Aida (CV: Aki Toyosaki) - song

Haruki Serizawa (CV: Kenichi Suzumura) - song

Saku Akechi (CV: Hikaru Midorikawa) - song

Koyuki Ayase (CV: Tsubasa Yonaga) - song

Hina Setoguchi (CV: Momo Asakura) - song

Kotarou Enomoto (CV: Natsuki Hanae) - song

Sena Narumi (CV: Sora Amamiya) - song

Midori Hamanaka (CV: Gero) - song

Arisa Takamizawa (CV: Nao Touyama) - song

Ken Shibazaki (CV: Yoshimasa Hosoya) - HOW IS HE THE ONLY ONE THERE ISN’T A SONG FOR (or one that I can’t seem to access???)

There’s also Nobunaga Shimazaki and Kouki Uchiyama in LIP x LIP. [Song Recommendations] [Newest Song]

Honestly, I can make more than one post about them. Stay tuned for that! I’m going to make all my song recommendations and explain this whole universe. 

Bonus Round #3: Seiyuu with Cute Voices

Kana Hanazawa

Sora Amamiya

Maaya Sakamoto

Saori Hayami

Ai Kayano

Sumire Morohoshi

Maaya Uchida

Nobuhiko Okamoto

Yoshimasa Hosoya

Yuuki Kaji

These don’t even need explanation. If you’ve heard them, you know exactly what I mean.

Bonus Round #4: Seiyuu with Attractive Voices

Mitsuki Saiga

Megumi Ogata

Hikaru Midorikawa

Kazuhiko Inoue

Akira Ishida

Takahiro Sakurai

Junichi Suwabe

Yuuichi Nakamura

Yuuichirou Umehara

Kouki Uchiyama

Ryouhei Kimura 

Yoshitsugu Matsuoka

Yoshimasa Hosoya

Mamoru Miyano

Toshiyuki Morikawa

Shizuka Itou

Eri Kitamura

Kikuko Inoue

Miyuki Sawashiro

Kana Hanazawa

Saori Hayami

Aki Toyosaki

Haruka Tomatsu

Asami Seto

I probably missed a ton, but this is such an open-ended category. 

Bonus Round #5: Seiyuu with the Best Smiles :D 

Kouki Uchiyama He doesn’t smile too often, but apparently, he smiles when misfortune happens to others. I sympathize. Why do you think fail videos can be funny sometimes?

Miyuki Sawashiro

Mamoru Miyano

Tomokazu Sugita

Nobuhiko Okamoto

Yoshimasa Hosoya

Saori Hayami

I feel like I had to put that tadbit for Kouki because he’s such an odd choice. The other ones are quite obvious. There are certain smiles that just make you smile, and that’s my list.

[eorzeasntm]

ENTM Tumblr Cycle 10 Round Seven Results

Hi folks!  Last week we sent our models out into some bad weather.  This round presents some unusual challenges, specifically capturing the environment and balancing dimmer lighting against the gloomy background.  

While all the models emerged from this round slightly damp (or dry if they were smart enough to get out of the rain), the model whose photo most captured the hearts and minds of our voters this round was:

Odharnait “Ona” Greene

Congratulations!  Rongi Pongi was so impressed with this picture that he said it will inspire a future round of ENTM called “Doors.”  The judges and community agreed that this shot was lovely and a fantastic use of the watercolor filter to brighten the stormy night. 

We have one more week in Tumblr Cycle 10.  In the meantime, ENTM Instagram Cycle 1 is in Week 2 and community voting will begin shortly!  Please visit our Instagram Page for more information. 

Also the October Haukke Manner challenge will be closing at 10 PM Eastern TODAY (Oct 24th) so hurry up and get your entry in for a chance to win a minion from the Mogstation.

Our judges have feedback for our models after the cut. 

Judge Kai

Adam: This is a nice shot. It looks like you're trying to outrace the coming storm and reach a safe haven before getting drenched. You did a good job with the lighting, and used the surrounding area to your advantage! It was a very smart decision to have those glowing flowers in the shot and surrounding you. I can believe that the light that is hitting you is coming from them, and that is why the area (and you) are brighter, despite the darkness that seems to be engulfing the area. There are only two things I can think to suggest. The first is I wish you were just a little closer in this image so we could see you better. Which also leads to my second. I might have gone for a slightly lighter outfit, color wise. Because the image, and the background, is so dark a lot of those black tones start to blend in with what's behind you. Overall, you did a great job!

James: First off, I don't know if you did this on purpose, but I find it very amusing and great timing that it looks as if the lightning is coming right down to touch your hand. Moving on from that, this is an image that, to me, seems to hold sadness or loss in it. It's like the rain is reminding you of something from the past, and it's very lovely is a melancholy sort of way. You definitely pop against the darker background, sticking with the blonds, white and lighter grays are helping you a lot in this image. The lighting is very good as well, but I am wondering what the source of the light is? Perhaps a lightning bolt? While the lighting is well done, it just seems a bit overlit for not having a light source in the area. I think you could have pulled back just a bit, and still gotten away with this image. Other than that, I think you did a very good job!

Ni'ko: I am going to assume, from the way that you look in this image, you're the type of cat that doesn't like to get wet. Well, I don't blame you and that doesn't look like the type of storm I would want to be hanging out in either. Overall this is a good image. The lighting is believable for the time of day. It could be a fire burning just out of view, and it's casting its light on you. I also like the outfit that you picked for a few reasons. It matches the surroundings very well and seeing that this is a darker image, your skin tone pops. The dark purple of the swimming trunks is a good pick, it stands out from the neutral earthy tones around you and gives something that draws the eye to you. The pose is a little awkward as if someone caught you in mid-run,  and you're leaving a lot up to the viewer in this instance with the story you're trying to convey but overall you did a good job!

Judge Vederah

Cowbot: There's a really great, almost ominous feeling to this screenshot. Positioning of your character to the object he's looking at is spot on and helps bring the eye across the entire image. Only issue I have is this image reads way to dark. I think if a bit more lighting was used then your character wouldn't blend into the background as much, and we'd be able to more clearly see the rain effect. That detail was almost completely lost with how dark this picture was. Ona: This is, in my opinion, the best use of a gpose filter I've seen in this entire competition. I love how the water color effect really amplifies the rain effect in the background. I also really appreciate how the cool and warm tones of this image come together in this shot.  The only thing I could think of to change is possibly a very small light used to the characters right- the only downside of the watercolor filter is it blurs a lot of the smaller details. Here it cast a very dark shadow on her scales, losing the definition in her face. Wren: This shot reminds me of the scene from the original, cartoon Snow White as she's making her way through the haunted forest.  I just love how innocent and genuinely frightened your character looks against such a foreboding backdrop.  Lighting is the only issue I have here. The background on the right portion of the screen is so dark that just reads as empty space. I think if you had upped the intensity of the lighting on that half of the image just a touch, it would've popped those details in the foreground.

Judge M’Telihgo

Nadede -  I like this.  I love how you stand out against the background.  I also like the umbral static weather effect very much.  I enjoyed playing with different settings and see how images turned out.  Have you ever done that?  It could be fun.  I do wonder what you are looking at while doing your chakra, you seem so intent on it.  I think the bright colors of your armbands and your pants pop against your pale skin.  Which leads to my only real criticism of this picture and is minor.  While your top has some color in it, I think it blends into you a little, not too much but another color may have been better.  Still, you look awesome!

Chee – I love the background.  I like dark colors and things that seem kind of spooky, and this has that for me.  I approve of the location.  For all of that, I like it very much.  Your outfit in a lighter blue makes you stand out against your very dark background and I think the colors suit you well.  There is one thing that makes it so that I cannot enjoy this picture as much as I would like to.  I’m not sure what happened, but there is a ghosting around your face as if you were caught between frames of an animation where it is starting to draw in the next one.  Sadly, that blur makes it so that looking at it for more than a moment makes my eyes water.  It’s a shame too since I really like it overall.

Lantis – Ooh.  I do like this spot for exactly this reason.  FIGHT!!  Anyway, there is a negative though when doing this at night.  Dead space.  I see where your addition of the sakura effect may have been used to try and counter this and it does help.  I also think that a little different timing of your sparring partner would really make this pop much more.  As it is right now, you are in action and your partner is looking away, at their shoes.  If you could have caught it where they are looking at you, it would definitely sell the action seen much more like they are trying to parry your blow by timing their draw.  Adventure on the high seas!  Kind of anyway.  I still give you credit for catching the lightning bolt just right, I’ve done it and I found it to be a chore.  Well done!

Judge Kusuh

Azalea: I'm a huge fan of the overall "mood" of the picture- a paladin standing in a dark storm; did they recently fail a mission? Are they brooding? Is this where the orchestra swells to give a tearful moment? As I've said before, when I'm left thinking about the possibilities behind an image, it's a good sign! This may be one of my favorite pictures from you so far. The setting, the use of the pencil filter to add more of a "rain" effect, and the overall pose show me that you've given some real thought to everything that goes into this picture. The frame choice is also something I love, but it also comes with this one small critique: when you use this frame, you are using it to trick the viewer into seeing three separate pictures in a single shot. When you have parts of yourself spilling over into the other two frames, this kills the illusion and just leaves the picture looking disjointed. My advice for a picture like this would be to play with your zoom and pose options so that you can fit yourself into a single frame! You're improving every week, I can't wait to see what comes next!

Haila: You have a wonderful sense of visual flow going on in this picture. At first glance, I can easily follow from the spark in the top left corner, down the spear, to your face, and then follow your eyes to your fingers and then off the right side of the image. The choice of color (and the limit of color) were also a smart choice here; the limited palette really adds a sense of impact. Something to think about: This is more on the side of a "high fashion" shot as opposed to a story shot. Don't get me wrong, I very much like both kinds, but one of the things I've seen many ENTM models get pointed out (myself included) is when a shot lacks a story. Your shots in the past have always been a mix of both fashion and story, and this one feels like it shoots straight to the side of fashion. Once again, this isn't really a bad thing, but it's something I want you to be aware of as you plan your final shots in the upcoming weeks. Excellent work so far!

Judge Rongi

Lily:  With this shot, I think you found a really great lighting that makes your character look gorgeous. You could crop out this whole shot and just have it on you, shoulders up, and it'd be a beautiful head shot. The shot itself fits the theme of the week, but I wish it had a little more oomph! to it. I have "Summertime Sadness" stuck in my head now thanks to you though. Haha. I would have loved to see more posing, a stronger background choice, and a clear reason for why you are standing in the rain. Rymm:  These colors are everything. Great choice in gear. I love that the backshot is 3/4 of the way so we can still see a bit of your face. I wish we could see more, but its just enough to not be a backshot dead on. I usually would be against a solid black background, but using the lightning and your outfit colors to pop out like that is amazing. Had you been wearing all black, this wouldn't have worked at all. I love the pose of both you and the lightning. It creates a really interested shape in the middle, like dancing. Ysildor: You are going to get electrocuted waving that pick around like that! I love the idea as it beckons to Thor's hammer. I wonder if you had tried or could use an hammer instead. The background has those nice buildings in it that creates a line across the image that leads the viewer straight to you. And then we follow your shape up in to the sky and back down with the lighting. Really well done composition wise. 

[mikemortgage]

Five trends that will change how businesses use social media in 2019

For social media’s biggest players, 2018 represented a trying year. Simmering issues with privacy and data integrity came to a boil at Facebook, with effects felt at the highest levels of government. Networks in the crosshairs of Congressional investigations have had to reckon with their own power and potential for abuse, while users have been left to question the larger impact of social media on politics, culture and civic discourse.

What does this mean for 2019? How will users and networks respond to these seismic shifts? How will the way companies use social media evolve in light of changing attitudes on privacy and meaningful connection? In our annual Social Trends Report, Hootsuite surveyed more than 3,000 businesses, from small agencies to huge enterprises, to see how they plan to adapt in 2019. Here are some of the most salient findings and a look into the crystal ball on what the year ahead holds.

Who needs the Kardashians — Meet the new breed of influencers tapping social media’s ‘gold rush’

Five big-picture trends to help businesses stay ahead of social media shifts

Investors unfriend Facebook in droves as social media giant hits the reset button

Real is back

Waves of scandal have had a tangible impact on faith in social networks. According to Edelman’s 2018 Trust Barometer Report, 60 per cent of people no longer trust social media companies. Against a backdrop of “fake news” and data manipulation, users have grown distrustful of influencers — both celebrities and media personalities. In a major reversal, trust has reverted back to immediate friends, family and close acquaintances on social media, individuals whose personal credibility speaks far more than the size of their followings.

For businesses on social media, this presents a delicate challenge in 2019. Using social media as just another ad channel — filled with flashy clickbait and promo codes — feels increasingly out of step with societal norms and user preferences. Instead, progressive companies will focus less on maximizing reach in 2019 and more on generating transparent and meaningful engagement. Fifty per cent of respondents to our survey agreed that personalizing social content will be a key challenge. Brands such as Adidas and The New York Times exemplify this emerging ethos. They’re creating focused communities and sharing insightful, relevant content, then allowing passionate users to connect with one another.

Stories that disappear

This shift to more personal ways of engaging on social media is echoed in the type of content being shared. Instead of posting on their news feeds, users are increasingly sharing Stories with their network. In contrast to standard updates, these ephemeral slideshows generally disappear after a day, and they’re growing 15 times faster than feed-based sharing, with more than a billion users of Stories across Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp and Snapchat. Facebook’s own chief product officer, Chris Cox, has noted that Stories stand to surpass feeds as the primary way people share things with their friends within the next year.

Facebook’s Chris Cox

In 2019, companies seeking to stay relevant on social media will need to up their Stories game. Two-thirds of respondents to our survey have either implemented Instagram Stories or plan to this year. This means rethinking social updates as less of a static block of text and more of an intimate, often raw, multimedia glimpse behind the scenes. Integrating video, simple graphics and a narrative arc is key, but it’s important not to lose sight of authenticity. Pioneers such as the Guardian in the U.K. have figured out that less polished and more realistic Stories generate the highest engagement. What’s clear is that, especially for Millennial and Gen Z users, Stories are second nature, and the news feed may be ceding its throne.

LinkedIn comes into its own

While scandal and controversy have rocked other networks, one channel — LinkedIn — has quietly trucked along in the background. The buttoned-down business network passed the 500 million member threshold in 2018. A content powerhouse, LinkedIn now publishes more than 100,000 articles a week on its blogging platform. Beefed up groups for functionality, native video and a new API for integrations with third-party apps all show that, these days, the network is far from just a place to warehouse your resume. At a time when other feeds are increasingly filled with toxic rants and viral memes, LinkedIn’s no-nonsense professionalism has a stronger appeal than ever.

Companies who succeed in social media in 2019 will find creative ways to leverage LinkedIn’s unique place in the social universe — at the intersection of the personal and the professional. A natural choice for B2B marketing, LinkedIn is also, increasingly, a channel to reach affluent consumers. Of its half-billion members, 44 per cent earn more than US$75,000 and more than half boast a college degree. Meanwhile, in a record tight labour market, in which recruitment is an existential challenge for many businesses, the network also offers an ideal platform to showcase employer brand, i.e. a company’s culture and reputation as a place to work. Case in point: Our LinkedIn blog post on how much we value our sales team and how hard it is to find great tech salespeople led to more than 1,000 visits to our career page and 100-plus applications.

Group think

The Facebook Group isn’t a new innovation. Spaces for people to gather and discuss specific subjects — from pets and hobbies to celebrities — date to the platform’s earliest days. But, the renewed interest in privacy and intimacy among users means Groups are suddenly having their moment. In the past year, Facebook Group membership is up 40 per cent, with 1.4 billion people now using Groups every month. Indeed, well before the Cambridge Analytica privacy issue reached its crescendo, the platform had recalibrated its algorithms to prioritize engagement with friends, family and Groups, while downranking public content shared by businesses, brands and media.

In 2019, succeeding on social means finding ways to tap into resurgent interest in Groups and users’ desire to have a safe enclave for discussion on otherwise unruly social platforms. And, here, exclusivity can help. Brands such as Condé Nast have had extraordinary success with carefully focused “Closed Groups,” where users have to seek permission from an admin before viewing or posting content. For instance, the publisher’s Women Who Travel Closed Facebook Group counts more than 50,000 members, three-quarters of whom are active on a daily basis. Scaling Groups without losing intimacy is not without its challenges: active moderation and restraint when it comes to overt sales pitches are keys. But companies that tap into shifting user tastes and shifting network algorithms stand to see big gains this year.

Personal messaging eats the world

Another manifestation of the inward turn among social users: the ascent of messaging platforms. Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp (both owned by Facebook) now count more than 2.8 billion users between them. Add in popular Chinese platforms such as WeChat and QQ, and most of the planet is now on messaging apps. Rather than sharing openly on social networks, these users are opting to engage in private or small group conversations. For companies, this raises new challenges in 2019. As eyeballs shift to private feeds, are messaging channels the next hot platform for reaching customers? Or will users resent the intrusion into “their space”?

While the verdict remains out, one area in which there’s clear demand for more messaging is customer service. Nine of 10 consumers want to use messaging to communicate with businesses, though fewer than half of businesses responding to our survey have implemented messaging apps. AI-powered messaging bots represent a tempting option for bridging that gap, but they’re hardly a panacea — an estimated 70 per cent of Facebook bot interactions fail and require human intervention. Scaling without losing the human touch, always easier said than done, will be key. Makeup company Sephora offers a model for how to do this right in 2019, deploying an army of chatbots to help with tutorials and product suggestions but having real humans on call when a customer requires more help.

from Financial Post http://bit.ly/2Ty8vCB via IFTTT Blogger Mortgage Tumblr Mortgage Evernote Mortgage Wordpress Mortgage href="https://www.diigo.com/user/gelsi11">Diigo Mortgage

[carefreewritingsonthewall]

Every once and awhile I fall into one of these moods. I can’t quite tell if this is what it feels like to be burnt out, or maybe just discouraged. I don’t want to sound like I’m complaining - which may be why I’m writing this here instead of calling my Mum, or skyping a friend. I’ve been back at school for three days, and I was supposed to have two papers done already so that I would have 10 days to study for my methods exam. Instead, I’m sitting here, doddling on tumblr, facebook and watching netflix because I can’t focus. I can’t write these papers. I have two short research designs and everything laid out to finish them (though I have a handful of specifics to look up in terms of concrete facts), but I can’t bring myself to write them and I don’t know why. My room is clean. I have been sleeping well. I have been eating well. I’m not particularly stressed (at least it certainly doesn’t feel like it). But part of me knows it’s because I don’t want to. I feel like I’m done with writing papers. I don’t see the fun in it, in large part because I’m writing on topics that don’t entirely interest me (because the course of outside of my interest area). But I’m also wondering if I made the right choice in coming here. Which says something...

This semester has been challenging. Certainly not the worst, because the second semester of the first year of my MA was something else. In terms of work load, it wasn’t the more intense compared to semesters when I had five reading intense classes during undergrad. And yet, it feels like it’s the most difficult thing I’ve ever done. Acclimating to working with new people, with a cohort that is not particularly social (if anything hostile...) and a department that overall is quite...on the one hand immensely supportive and on the other immediately ready to weed you out. A large part of this is my sense of discouragement in methods, and how much pushback I’ve received from faculty about my math knowledge. My professor seems determined to force me out of the course, even with only the final exam left on the 19th. The worst thing is that I KNOW I should be studying, that I should have written these papers weeks ago. Yet here I am sitting...writing this instead. Writing posts instead. 

So what is it? I’ve been wondering whether it was my trip home or not. My family has never been particularly enthusiastic about my decision to pursue an MA, let alone a PhD. My Mum is going through a semi-depression of her own. She quit her job for my Dad, and now four months without working and she’s housebound. She told me she told him she felt that she had regressed five years in a matter of months. His response: completely offended. But she’s bored, and she’s not ready to take on the bigger renovation projects. In a way, I think she’s torn between being comfortable with things as they are and needing some change - be it a new job, or even a new project. I talked to her about letting the deposit I put on a puppy go towards a hypoallergenic puppy from the breeder (as they breed true goldendoodles and bernedoodles). She’s been growing increasingly allergic to Bella (our current goldendoodle who is far more Golden (ie. shedding) than Poodle) and Bella herself is 7 years old and moody when I’m not around. She wasn’t sure. She might be working by the Spring. She might be doing something else. I hope she is. Leaving her was hard, particularly in knowing how alone she is. And here I am, having interacted with only a handful of people since I got here...not like I have any friends here either. So in that way, I’d much rather be at home. All of this is kind of a surprising thing to feel given that the last two years have made going home extremely difficult. 

Why? Because my relationship with my Dad is rough. He’s there and yet he isn’t. I confessed a bunch of my feelings to my hairdresser, and my Mum happened to be with me. I was being honest, but my Mum got quiet, muttering only that she wished she could have had a better relationship, even something like mine with Dad, with her father. And I know she’s right, in the sense that I have time and the potential to fix it and be the better person. But my Father offends me. I don’t ask him whether his work is legitimate or useful to the world every time I see him. I don’t force him to justify how he spends his time and what he earns from it. I don’t pester him about networking or pursuing better positions with less imposing bosses. I push back against his demands for justifications on my end alone instead. And the result are simply explosive debates that devolve when he decides he doesn’t like my tone. Which leaves me with what? I walk on eggshells around him, trying desperately not to bring things up. 

Last winter, I came back from my Spring break completely demoralized, just weeks before I was going to Princeton for an interview. It showed in my writing when I forced myself to piece something some form of a thesis proposal. My advisor called me out on it, and my tone in the email I wrote accompanying it, pointing out that I didn’t even believe in my work (add flippant remark: so why should I?). It was a wake up call to how much my family can weigh on me. I think that’s what’s happening now, though I certainly didn’t come back after weeks of justifying myself. Nope. I came back after three rather refreshing weeks, where I was busy sure but I felt like I could breath again. And maybe that’s just it. In a way, I’ve been the one who’s been drowning since moving here. Drowning in what seems to be a toxic social scene, hostile faculty and then the work - a lot of which doesn’t seem all that necessary.

So. Here I am. Ranting and trying to write this all out because I actually have no one I think I can talk to about this, which in a way brings me back to first year when I was wondering whether I was at the right school and had made the right choice. My depression then came from breaking up with my douchebag ex of course, but this is definitely coming from somewhere else. Yeah sure, it could probably be hormones too paired with the shit weather that makes me feel far less inclined to leave my dorm. But in a way, I just don’t know. 

I really do need to leave my dorm tomorrow though. Because if I can’t get these papers done by tomorrow night...God help me. I will fail that final (and it will be my fault, not my professor’s vendetta)...