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thed4rkhand · 3 years

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So today we’re doing Yoongi’s chart and my analysis of it. Let me make it clear right off the bat, that since I’m not a professional astrologer, some things may not match up, further since we’re not super sure of his birth time, it’ll definitely affect the reading. What I can be sure of is that I’ll do my best and I’m completely open to constructive criticism from you all!

Now lets get on with some basic stuff, for those who have not yet read the post with Namjoon’s moon analysis, I’ll again reiterate some principles of Vedic astrology! In the scenario that you’re still confused with all this jargon, feel free to reach out and I’ll be more than happy to help you out.

Starting out, we have to note that while western astrology is usually more advisory in nature, Vedic astrology’s main purpose is to predict. Also, we usually go a sign back from western astrology (24’ back to be more precise) in Vedic astrology, so according to that for example, if you’re a libra rising, you become a virgo rising in Vedic astrology and so on and so forth. All planets will also shift back a sign, so a Capricorn Mercury will become a Sagittarius Mercury.

Now let’s be aware that the chart may be a bit different, but given the main d1 (Lagna) chart remains the same for about 2 hours, let’s focus on that and the moon chart (rashi chart) for this reading. We can also just look at d9 for strength but not house placements as that can be time sensitive. So, we can take a two hour margin of time discrepancy and still predict accurately.

For this reading, we have taken 9th March 1993 as the day and 7:30am as the time of birth, with the location set to Daegu.

OTHER THAN THIS, LET ME KNOW IF YOU WANT ME TO DO A BIRTH TIME RECTIFICATION FOR YOONGI LATER ON SO WE CAN GET MORE ACCURATE PREDICTIONS.

Since this is a general chart analysis, we shall be covering topics briefly and discussing the moon, ascendant and sun. For an in depth reading, do pick a smaller and focussed topic as we can honestly keep going on and on about a chart.

THIS READING WILL BE DONE IN SEVERAL 4 PARTS, FOLLOWING THE ASCENDANT, MOON, SUN AND MISCELLANEOUS.

Lets get started then-

Right off the bat, we can see that Yoongi is born into Pisces, with his ascendant at 10’35’, within the Nakshatra of Uttarabhadprada, within the 3rd quadrant or pada. He has venus situated in the lagna itself, in Pisces, thus exalted. His lagna lord, Jupiter, is in the 7th house, conjuct with the Moon, in the sign of virgo, where jupiter gains the upper hand despite mercury (lord of virgo) being enemies. The lord is directly aspected by mars in the fourth house. The lord of the birth Nakshatra is Saturn here, which sits in the 12th house, conjunct sun and mercury (dispositer of the ascendant lord). Lastly, moon, jupiter and rahu aspect the lagna of this chart. Of course there is so so much more here, but we’ve got a whole chart to cover!

(p.s I can already see this is such a fun chart to read)

Getting on with the reading, we firstly see that he’s born under Pisces lagna, this makes the native calm and collected, as well as fond of philosophy and psychology. What we often forget is, people born under Pisces are said to have been born under all the other signs in their past life, and cumulatively they use their skills and knowledge from those lives in their current one. Remember how on Bon Voyage trips and just about every RunBts, saga seems like the ‘dad’ of the bunch? cooking, cleaning, fixing stuff Joon broke, producing music and the stuff? And all those times that he is so very understanding of other? He doesn’t scold Jungkook, let alone anyone else? These are typical Pisces traits. They’re very domestic and understanding by nature, because they’ve been there before in a past life, and enjoy taking care of people.

The downside to this? They can be extremely manipulative if they want to be, they know exactly what to say, when to say, to whom to say and so on. They have an alarming grip on people’s emotions, and have a magnetic quality to them. Further, this is mostly an observation, you’ll often notice that most pisces natives are fond of alcohol (could be because they exist in a water sign? Could be because its the natural 12th house ruler of addictions too?)

Coming to the Nakshatra here, we have UttaraBhadrapada, the second last Nakshatra of the series. This Nakshatra is ruled by Saturn, and the presiding deity being Ananta or Ahir Budhyana, the deep ocean serpent in hindu mythology. The deity Ananta represents boundless expansion, be it of fortune, goodwill or knowledge. Ahir Budhyana, is a sattvic (sacred or untainted) form of lord Shiv, and resides at he bottom of the ocean. He represents the liberation from illusions and attainment of spiritual enlightenment and knowledge. The natives of this Nakshatra here embody these qualities of their deities. We see them as philanthropic and reserved beings, who enjoy learning about a variety of subjects and spirituality. Such people are extremely progressive in their thinking patterns, and often a magnetic pull like the deep ocean serpent has.

They’re extremely controlled and calculating in their approach, and think more than speak. This by no means is to say that they don’t speak, because such people are great orators by nature. They stand up for the underdogs and have a unique approach to topics. They are extremely interested in occult and metaphysical practices and theories. They however commonly don’t obtain higher education or do well in fields of fine arts, even their primary education is not something they excel at. (i once read that yoongi really likes reading about a variety of subjects, and also Paulo Coelho, definitely his UttaraBhadrapada here)

The bad side to this Nakshatra? They’re very critical and over-analyze everything and everyone. Sometimes, even unconsciously, they manipulate people to suit their needs and whims. They get side tracked too often and have difficulty focussing on one task at hand, often amounting to laziness in other people’s eyes, even if the native is extremely hardworking in reality. However when in comes to personal care, they tend to do things in a very half-hearted manner. These people are also prone to isolating themselves from others, especially when things get hard. Due to the sign falling in pisces here, people also tend to have many different mental burdens and disorders, which arise from their constant scatter-brained self and inability to make out between the spiritual and real realms.

They can also be heavy drinkers and abuse substances in such a Nakshatra, or enjoy partaking in occult practices while under influences. They might’ve also faced a very rough childhood with such a Nakshatra, neglected and misunderstood by people around him. The natives could also have moved away from their parents during their early adulthood for education or job purposes. Such people can have health issues like hemorrhoids, stomach ailments and hernias. Usually they lead a stable period full of health and success in the latter part of life, say about after 48 years(since the south node Ketu matures as 48).

Since Suga’s Nakshatra falls into the third pada or quadrant, its ruled by libra here. Libra here focusses on balance and cooperation. Such people may make a living working with other people, or in industries related to entertainment. They may make great debaters, and think excessively about what other think of them as. They’re very conscious of other’s opinion, even if they don’t show it, so we often find such people wearing extremely covered up and baggy clothes for example, or keeping a low profile. They may have a very practical and unbiased approach to most things in life. Such people are intensely into spiritual practices and often times fully devote themselves at hours at a time to worship of gods, angel or other beings. They may be the type to attract people very easily, or even be the kind to fall in love extremely easily.

The second placement we come to, is Venus in the first house, in Pisces. Venus here is naturally exalted (most powerful). Sure ill give you the generic explanation in a bit but, do you know which type of people usually have this placement? Actual saints and famed occultists. Sure many people within the entertainment industry too, but this placement can hands down be one of the most spiritual and divine placements of Venus in the chart. First ill go ahead and give the normal meaning and effect, and then lets dive into the crazy stuff (istg his chart is so goooood). Such people usually have really magnetic personalities, and given Venus is in Uttarabhadrapa, these are the people who you don’t notice at first, but then its like a whirlpool of being invested in them, as opposed to being in Revati Nakshatra (another Piscean nakshatra) which would be a more dramatic pull, based off an extroverted personality. These people can be very good looking, more feminine looking, could definitely look like their mothers with this position. Brilliant luck in fields of arts and entertainment and also genius level of creativity and talent. Here, people can have brilliant luck too, like god’s hand on their head kind. Accumulation of wealth and property can also be seen here.

Now onto the really fun stuff. These people are actually rarely concerned with someone’s exterior, because often times such people have such good intuition and spiritual powers (some are literally called mystics because of this), they can literally see through someone. For this reason, they actually don’t like associating with too many people, despite having a very charming personality. These are the kind of people that keep searching for ‘the one’. These people often give up everything and go ahead and become priests. The calling to god with such a placement is very strong. They also don’t like collecting too many material possessions, as they feel its redundancy in this very changing world. These people hold the few people they’re close to, very very tightly to themselves. These people also may have a very low sexual drive actually, (i know, I know, how can a strong Venus do this?) because an exalted Venus is about devotion to god, to one person, and leaving sensory pleasures behind in life. A debilitated Venus on the other hand (eg. Jungkook has one) might make someone very invested in worldly matters. These people are happy with being alone and single for a long time, they’re very satisfied with their own company. Such placements can make someone practice magick or astral projection too. (Venus in 12th sign of liberation, liberation from physical body)

Given that in this chart, Venus is his 3rd and 8th lord, we can make further deductions. Firstly, since 3rd lord is going 11 houses away, its an extremely auspicious placement here. Self made person, making wealth through communication, can also have very witty and intelligent responses to things. Since the third house also represents courage and valor, this can make someone very fearless and say whats on their mind bluntly. Since the 3rd house is part of the Kama Trikon houses (houses of desire), this going into the 1st house, which is a part of the Dharma Trikon houses (houses of morality), gives interesting results here. Firstly, such people are fiercely independent, and hate to be disrupted when there pursuing their goals and working towards them. They hate to take help from anyone, and as a result are extremely competent. secondly, such people have a moral high ground, to which they religiously abide. They’re extremely righteous and stand up for those who wouldn’t be able to for themselves. Since from here, it aspects the 7th house of agreements, such people are great at understanding and signing contracts for work.

Now with the 8th house, we have a bit of a conundrum here honestly. It belongs to 2 types of houses, the moksha trikona houses (houses of salvation) as well as the Dushtana houses (evil houses). While this placement isn’t all that bad, it isn’t he best either. firstly though, this is a placement where the native always wins over their enemies (8th lord 6 houses away from itself), be it enemies as in people, or simply obstacles in their life. This also confers a long lifespan to people, given that his 8th lord is also exalted here. However such people are prone to accidents, given that the 1st house is the body, 8th house is sudden events and the natural 8th ruler mars is a karka or signifactor of vehicles. Such people are also against organized forms of religions, since the Dushtana lord is sitting in a dharma house. The native is also extremely private and secretive given the 1st house of self has the 8th lord of secrets sitting in it. Since it also aspects the 7th house of other people, this person has that aura of mystery about them because of this. Such people are deeply critical in nature but can have extreme wisdom in cases of hidden objects or matters of the occult.

Now coming to his aspects. His Venus is aspected by moon, Jupiter and Rahu. The first two are benefic in nature and the latter is malefic. Moon-Venus and Jupiter-Venus are also mutually aspecting each other in pairs here. Moon here gives Venus the property of being constantly cynical of themselves regards to what others may perceive them as, given moon is emotion and the 7th house here is other people. Their thoughts here are deeply influenced by other people, they may always keep serving other people too, through acts of service. This also makes someone who falls in love very easily, but it is important to engage this person’s mind in a relationship, they just cant do without an emotional bond here. Since Moon also represents fame in a chart, this makes a person very famous, as they receive attention from many people, and people want to analyze them, and enjoy their work and presence.

Jupiter here, makes the person level headed and practical. The person wouldn’t be all touchy feely with people they like, because they would like to remain more in control of the situation here. They’d rather engage in a full blown debate with someone, than hold hands. This also makes them very worldly and teacher like, while also being attracted to very worldly people themselves.

Rahu’s aspect on the other hand, makes someone stand out in a crowd (Rahu signifies an outcast), they may have a rough and cold exterior due to this. They may also have had issues with body image (1st house is self), or mental health here. These people are enamored by all things foreign, and love exploring the other cultures. They may have issues identifying with their own community at large, and may identify with the downtrodden of the society.

Now going to Jupiter and moon conjunction in the 7th house. I wont go very deep into this, as its a super interesting concept, and it’ll be better covered in the second part of the reading regarding the moon itself, so ill keep it short and related to the ascendant. Also the mutual aspect part will be explained in more detail in the miscellaneous section later. Plus this is getting far too long for even me now.

Getting on with the reading for now, moon and Jupiter here are in virgo, in a loose conjunction (one is at approximately 2’ and the other at 18’). This is actually one of the not very yogas (combinations)in a chart, about 15% of people have these. Its called the Gaj-Kesari yoga (the elephant and lion combination), because people with this are so extremely lucky, its like the kings of the jungle are together to support it. They have the wisdom of the elephant and the courage of a lion. This is a raj yoga (royal combination). a native born with Gaj-Kesari Yoga is intelligent, strong, and prosperous. Gaj or Elephant possesses immense strength and is devoid of pride and the Lion is known for his foresight and skillful intelligence as well as his strength, quickness, skillful leadership, ability and courage. Thus, when Gaj-Kesari Yoga is formed then that person is extremely successful. They will be a kind and philanthropic person, who will always have sympathy for others. They will be quite humble regarding work, would like to talk nicely to people and aim to attain spiritual progress in life. Many people will recognize them as their mentor or guide and will act according to their instructions or advice. They may have a tendency attracting people and people being magnetized by them. They will be blessed with abundant wealth and become the owner of movable and immovable property(cars as well as homes). They will establish relationships with rich and reputed people of the society and enjoy all kinds of material pleasures in life.

Since this occurs in virgo, it makes a person intelligent, sharp and gifts them with amazing memory power. Such a person is knowledgeable and can become the head of a large educational institution. He may own incomparable wealth and can earn a good name and money from business as well. Often such people earn a high reputation in the Stock Market and make progress in life by working in any financial institution or insurance sectors.

Here jupiter in particular makes someone extremely cynical in nature, and their mind is always, and I mean always, thinking about romantic relationships or platonic ones. However given that jupiter is also the 10th lord here, they could be extremely focused on work too. Their life is surrounded by contracts, and may work with others for a living(7th house is house of courts and partnership). They could be very interested in the financial sector here, they could be extremely money minded and money means stability to them. Moon here on the other hand makes the person very moody, and extremely dependent on their spouse or colleagues. Since it rules the fifth house here, it signifies that such people are extremely creative in their work, may work for children or young adults, have a lot of past life karma related to work, and also that they’re extremely devoted lovers. They tend to criticize their close friends and loved ones, just because they’re so cynical and blunt, and want the absolute best for people. They may hurt people’s feeling without realizing it sometimes. (this was very brief but refer to point 12)

Now coming to Saturn in 12th, as the lord of the birth nakshatra. Saturn over here signifies working in the fields of music, but given saturn represents electronics, it could mean a producer too. Since its in Aquarius here, a sign of dual lordship, this resents a constant up and down of mood and life spirit. The person with such a placement is confused with what truly makes them happy in life, the spiritual realm or the materialistic realm. They keep going up and down the path of being spiritual, till 36 years (saturn matters at 36). They may face a lot of mental disorders here. They may have trouble sleeping at night. Given saturn is also work, they may earn through foreign sources in life. Such a person invests money into properties (saturn is houses) and lacks liquid cash. The person may have a weak left eye (12th house is left eye). They may earn from multiple sources in life, and have multiple talents. Such people have low sex drives as saturn is a dry eunuch planet, and in the 12th house of bed pleasures, it may not allow native to enjoy it. They may not be interested in worldly pleasures with such placements.

Lastly (finally?), we have to discuss the looks! Pisces ascendents usually have the short to medium height, and tend to appear a little fuller even when they’re very scrawny. (its because jupiter is the largest planet). Uttarabhadrapada natives tend to have a very innocent look to them, a very calming nature and vibe. however, like the deep sea serpant, they have very deep and magnetic eyes, and a very expressive face (yoongi memes). They usually have a very beautiful smile, and can literally attract people with it (again the snake like quality). They tend to have a very blank look usually, and if you ever notice, they’ll have the most stunning eyelashes actually, given the yoni is the female cow. They might also have the habit of moving their mouth around when their thinking, quite like ruminating.

Given venus sits here, is gives the person very attractive, effeminate features. Think extremely renaissance type of soft features. It can give them very delicate hands and feet with such a placement. The moon aspect here, gives them a rounded face and pale skin. They might have sparkly eyes and a roundish appearance here, also the tendency to gain weight around their face, with short necks. They make also look much younger than their actual age.The jupiter aspect again makes the native very other worldly looking, almost like you can imagine them in a dark robe literally performing rituals. It gives people a calm and teacher type of vibe to them. The rahu aspect usually just blows qualities out of proportion. Have you seen how small and angelic suga looks compared to the other? (not saying they’re not angelic but still), thats the rahu aspect. Again, rahu aspects only get better with time.

So this was my analysis! If anyone has any questions or doubts, hit me up! Let me know if you enjoyed it!

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rookie-ramsey · 4 years

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Thinking Out Loud, Chapter 9 (Ethan X MC AU)

Description: Ethan and MC are two single parents coping with loss. Their daughters see their chemistry.

Preview: Ethan shook his head in wonder. “I’ve never seen anyone this enthusiastic about going costume shopping.”

“Are you trying to say that taking three kids under the age of six Halloween shopping isn’t how you want to spend your Saturday?”

Ethan grinned. “I might be able to survive it, given the company I’m in.

https://rookie-ramsey.tumblr.com/post/630062667441258496/thinking-out-loud-chapter-8-ethan-x-mc-au (previous chapter)

The following day, Olivia found herself in her apartment, explaining the events of the previous night to the police.

“My ex-husband used a lockpick to break into my apartment. He got my address by calling my cell phone provider.”

The officer nodded, writing something in his notebook. “Did he steal anything?”

Olivia shook her head. “No. He wasn’t here to rob us. He was here to try to convince me to come back to him.”

“Was he violent?”

“Somewhat. He grabbed my arm and pinned it to the table.” Olivia rolled up her sleeve, exposing the bruise that had formed.

“Did you retaliate?”

She nodded. “Well, yeah. I had to get him off of me. I did slap him, and he let go of me. He was getting angrier and probably would have become more aggressive if our daughter hadn’t walked into the room.”

“Did your daughter witness anything in particular?”

“She only saw us arguing. We stopped when she walked in. The point should be that Ryan knew that children… his children… were in the apartment and he chose to behave the way he did.”

The officer made another note. “What did you do when he left?”

“We went to my boyfriend’s apartment. Ryan had broken the lock, and I didn’t trust him not to come back. I felt that the safest option was to leave for the night.”

She watched as the office finished taking notes, then pocketed his notebook. “We’ll see what we can do. I’d apply for a restraining order. If we can track him down, we can book him for breaking and entering.”

Olivia frowned. “That’s it? What about physical assault? Child endangerment? Surely there’s something else he can be charged with. This isn’t new behavior for him.”

“Well, the fact that you physically retaliated makes it harder to justify an assault charge, especially since all he did was grab your arm instead of hitting you. Did he threaten your kids?”

Her frown deepened. “No. But he’s the one who started the altercation. I had every right to defend myself. Was I supposed to let him cause real harm to me?”

“That’s not what-”

“Then what is it? Am I supposed to let the situation get to the point that my safety, my kids’ safety… is at risk? What happens when he shows up again, more hostile than last night? Should I let him hit me, since ‘all he did was grab my arm’ last night, as you put it? And then make it known that when I reported the first incident, it was brushed off as nothing?”

“No!”

“Well, then I suggest you don’t try to tell me I was in the wrong. My kids and I will be staying with my boyfriend until Ryan is in custody.”

She finished giving her statement, then sighed when the officer left. She couldn’t help but feel as if she had just wasted an hour of her time, taking the morning off work for nothing. Grabbing her car keys, she left the house, double-checking the newly-installed lock.

After making a food run, she drove to Edenbrook, where she found Ethan on his lunch break. “I brought something edible,” she announced, setting a takeout container on his desk.

“How did it go this morning?”

She sighed, opening her takeout container. “It felt like a waste of time. The cop said they’d try to track Ryan down and arrest him, but the charges against him aren’t going to keep him in jail. The only way he’s likely to face any real charges is if he violates the restraining order once it’s in place.”

Ethan frowned. “When is the order effective?”

“The temporary one will be in effect within 24 hours. They’ll set a court date to try to establish a real one.” Olivia huffed and ran her fingers through her hair. “But there’s nothing I can do right now. I’m ready to focus on something else.”

“Like what?”

“Work… or the fact that Halloween is next week. Both things are extremely important.”

“I always take Leah trick or treating around my neighborhood. Jacey and Liam would probably enjoy it, too.”

Olivia smiled, relieved to have something else to discuss. “They would. I humbly accept your invitation.”

XXXXXX

Halloween gave Olivia the distraction she needed. For now, the restraining order was in place, and she had yet to hear from or see anything of Ryan. She planned on keeping it that way.

Halloween easily ranked as her favorite holiday, and having kids only made it more exciting when she got to help them pick out costumes, buy entirely too much candy, and take them trick or treating.

Ethan shook his head in wonder. “I’ve never seen anyone this enthusiastic about going costume shopping.”

“Are you trying to say that taking three kids under the age of six Halloween shopping isn’t how you want to spend your Saturday?”

Ethan grinned. “I might be able to survive it, given the company I’m in.”

“How sweet.” Olivia picked up Liam as they waited for the girls to emerge from Jacey’s room. “Halloween is fun when you have kids to parade around in cute costumes.”

When the girls joined them in the living room, they walked outside to Ethan’s car. A fifteen minute drive found them in Target, where they set course for the Halloween aisle. In the baby seat of the shopping cart, Liam entertained himself with a plastic pumpkin while the girls began browsing the costumes.

“I was thinking that after this, we could get some lunch. Shopping always seems to work up an appetite.”

Ethan nodded, watching as the girls gathered armloads of costumes. Leah held up a disturbingly gory clown one that Ethan felt did not belong in existence, let alone the children’s section. “Daddy, look!”

“Absolutely not.”

Giggling, Leah returned it to the rack.

Jacey grabbed a tiny costume and held it up. “Look, Mommy! It’s Baby Yoda! Liam can wear it!”

“I think that’s perfect for Liam.” Olivia took it from her and added it to the cart.

After several rounds of debating between costumes, the girls finally selected theirs, choosing pirate costumes. Despite having entered the store with the intention of only buying costumes, they managed to fill the cart with candy and decorations as well.

A week later, Olivia settled Liam in his stroller, gently stopping him from chewing on the ear of his costume. “Ready to trick or treat so Mommy can eat the candy you’re too little to eat?”

Liam blew a raspberry. “Candy!”

“That’s right. Mommy’s gonna ‘inspect’ the candy and make sure everything that doesn’t pass inspection goes in the ‘trash’ right away.”

A few moments later, the girls bounded into the room, dressed in their pirate costumes. Olivia grinned.

“How cute.”

“Nuh uh!” Jacey shook her head and brandished her plastic sword. “We’re the scariest pirates in the world!”

“Yeah!” Leah held out her sword as well. “You’re gonna walk the plank, Daddy!”

“Why me?”

“Cause I said so!”

“How can I argue with that level of authority?”

“You can’t!” Leah grabbed his hand as they left his apartment. It was an unusually warm night for a Boston October, making the girls even more excited as they led the way down the sidewalk, walking a few feet ahead of their parents.

Olivia lowered her voice. “The court date is next week. They’ll be finalizing the restraining order, assuming Ryan doesn’t win his attempt to repeal it, and possibly pressing charges. It may not happen, but for some reason, I don’t feel too worried about it.”

Ethan slipped his hand into hers and squeezed. “Do you want me to go with you?”

“Are you sure? It’s during work hours.”

“I’m sure.” Ethan nodded.

“In that case, I’d appreciate that.”

“Then I’ll be there.”

Next Chapter

Tags (part 1): @princess-geek / @buzz-bee-buzz / / @lapisreviewsstuff / @polishchoicesfan / @msjpuddleduck / @silverlitskies / @paulfwesley / @dr-brianna-casey-valentine / @timmagicktoad / @choicesstanblog / @lucy-268 / @trappedinfandoms / @alexis0280 / @junehiratas / @ramseyandrys / @cecilecontrera / @justanotherrookie / @imescullen / @bellcat2010 / @desmaranj / @lion-ess24 / @mkamra2355 / @openheart12 / @mvalentine / @choicesfanaf / @whatchique / @smilex1104 / @elephant9998 / @nooruleman / @caseyvalentineramsey / @kaavyaethanramsey / @xee-na-art-blog / @edith-eggs1 / @oofchoices / @noboundariesplease / @schnitzelbutterfingers / @tefigranger / @laceandlula / @paisleylovergirl / @simsvetements / @crazy-loca-blog / @somegdchoices / @jlynn12273 / @ramseysno1rookie / @sanchita012 / @forthebrokenheartedthings / @lilyvalentine / @parkerattano / / @loveellamae / @drramseysownsme / @misswhit12 / @drethanfreakingramsey / @juneiswriting / @macy-ray85 / @swimmingauthordreamerbonk / @myusualnerdyself / @siaramsey / @takemyopenheart / @queencarb / @drakewalker04 /

#open heart #choices #choices: open heart #ethan ramsey #ethan ramsey x mc #ethan x mc

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goodomensblog · 5 years

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Afterward - Part 4

A Good Omens Choose Your Own Adventure Fic

Here’s how it works:

I’ll write a scene.

At the end of each scene, you’ll be presented with 2-3 options for what the characters will choose to do next.

Comment or reblog to vote for your choice. I’ll count all votes within the first 24 hours after each update is posted.

Read: part 1, part 2, part 3

(A TON of you voted for option #3, but option #1 also got quite a few votes, so I COMBINED THEM. You’re welcome.)

Afterward - - Part 4

- - - - - - - -

“I don’t like this.”

The drowsy Cumbrian hills swallow Crowley’s words. Somewhere, in the distance, a lone bird warbles a somnolent melody. The Bentley is parked at the edge of a meandering country road. Brushing his fingers over the hood, Crowley glares at the surrounding countryside.

“We’ll come back for her, darling,” Aziraphale says, helping Beelzebub from the back of the car.

“I’m talking about the other part of the plan, angel.”

Huffing a breath, Aziraphale hauls Beelzebub’s arm over his shoulder - and wonders why on earth he’s the one stuck helping Crowley’s ex boss.

“Well,” Aziraphale says, starting up the dew sprinkled hill, swaying demon lord at his side, “the consecrated ground is not ideal, I’ll admit, considering, ah-” he pauses, gesturing between his demon companions. “But, I think it will slow him down substantially. And the more time we have, the better, at this point.”

“Still not the part of the plan I mean,” Crowley says, breath fogging as he lopes up the hillside.

“Ah,” Aziraphale says, sparing him a glance. “The angel blood summoning-”

“Yes of course I’m talking about the sodding angel blood summoning,” Crowley hisses.

“It’s perfectly safe-”

Crowley makes a loud sound of derision.

“Would you both shut it,” Beelzebub growls. “I can feel the holiness already. It’s giving me hives.”

Hands pressed in his pockets, Crowley meanders closer, sniffing the air. “Can’t feel it yet.”

“Because you’re a shit demon,” Beelzebub replies, and adds, “It takes a good bit of blood to summon an archangel. It’s not not dangerous.”

“Yes, well,” Aziraphale answers, scanning the valley for the origin of the holiness pulsing through the air. “It’s not like we’ve got many other options. Perhaps if you’d just explain why we need Gabriel-”

“Keep walking, angel,” Beelzebub snaps.

Bristling, Crowley circles closer, “Don’t call him-”

“Don’t call him what?”

“Actually, thinking on it - it’s probably better if you just shut up entirely-”

“I’ll shut you up-”

“Quiet. Both of you,” Aziraphale cuts in. “We’re here.”

The parish church is tucked between two sloping hillsides. Green moss has reclaimed it’s walls of dark, damp stone. Two black, arching windows are carved into the front of the church, and they stare out like blank, empty eyes.

“Charming,” Beelzebub mutters.

“It’s old,” Crowley replies, hands still tucked in his pockets. “Humble, unassuming - and holier than St. Paul’s or Notre Dame.”

“Most angels actually prefer the flashier churches, if you’ll believe it,” Aziraphale says, gaze tracing the forgotten stone.

“You don’t,” Crowley says, then clarifies, “Prefer them.”

“No. I’ve always liked the quiet places.”

“Touching as this is,” Beelzebub cuts in, voice dry. “Can we fucking please-”

“Yes, alright. Fine,” Aziraphale mutters, and drags Beelzebub along as he marches them forward.

They’ve taken no more than three steps when Beelzebub shudders in his grasp. Cursing violently, the demon lord stumbles, legs folding beneath them. Catching them, Aziraphale feels Beelzebub’s stomach clench as the demon coughs and dry heaves.

Stopping beside the pair, Crowley rolls his shoulders and cracks his neck. “Yep. Starting to feel it now.”

Limp, Beelzebub heaves again. Coughing and spitting, they glare up from between sweat drenched bangs. “Have I told you how much I hate you, Crowley?”

“Not today,” Crowley says, and bares his teeth in a sharp, white smile.

“...this isn’t going to work,” Aziraphale says, hauling Beelzebub up as they slump in his grasp. Turning a circle, Aziraphale looks from Crowley and Beelzebub to the ancient church between the hills.

It won’t work if he isn’t inside. And seeing as they’ve yet to even approach the threshold, it’s doubtful Crowley would last in the church for more than a few minutes. Aziraphale isn’t sure Beelzebub would even make it as far as the front door. And they can’t exactly leave Beelzebub outside the holy grounds because Satan is pursuing them.

But perhaps, here is safe enough. Beelzebub is clearly feeling the effects. If Crowley waits here and holds Beelzebub so they aren’t making contact with the ground, Aziraphale might have enough time to -

Yes. It could work.

“I think-”

“If you’re about to even suggest going in there, alone, to bleed yourself half to death, kindly shut up and think of something else,” Crowley says, coming to stand at Aziraphale’s shoulder.

Crowley is warm, and his nearness is a balm Aziraphale hadn’t realized he was desperately in need of. Closing his eyes, Aziraphale shifts, and their shoulders press together.

The air fogs as Aziraphale heaves a long, shuddering breath.

“Alright angel?”

Yes. Er - no. Maybe.

It depends, Aziraphale supposes, on if the new, arguably insane, idea taking form in his mind, actually works.

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

“Two demons and an angel walk into a church….”

Aziraphale’s arguably crazy plan involves:

Bestowing a minor blessing on Crowley and Beelzebub (Yes it will hurt. Awfully. But it might act like a temporary vaccination and lessen the effects of the consecrated ground. For a very, very short time).

Crowley picking up Beelzebub and Aziraphale picking up Crowley (aka the piggy back ride in which no one wins) to at least get them into the church, and hoping like heck Crowley can stand on his own once they are in there ((this one is inspired by @skcirthinquememen ‘s fantastic art))

BOTH 1 and 2

NEITHER - Aziraphale insists on going in alone

Comment or reblog to vote :)

Read Part 5 Here

#my writing #choose your own adventure #good omens #good omens fic #good omens fanfiction #good omens fanfic #ineffable husbands #ineffable husbands fic #ineffable husbands fanfic #ineffable husbands fanfiction #aziraphale #crowley #good omens beelzebub #otp: ineffable

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steve0discusses · 5 years

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Yugioh S4 Ep16: Rex and Weevil Do Not Understand “Rock Bottom”

Hey guys.

Hey.

So... kind of crazy out there, right?

Well, you know what they say. When life gives you lemons, you watch Netflix.

Anyway, Yugioh is racing down this canyon that should be going up alongside the 101 and through the middle of many cities. Don’t worry about it.

And then I found out the name of a card I haven’t seen yet and wow it’s a name.

I’m really glad that Rex Raptor, dinosaur enthusiast, has just no idea how to name dinosaurs and does so like a 6 year old child. Hornsaurus.

(read more under the cut)

So this episode is mostly about Rex and Weevil’s tragic backstory, and thankfully, it’s really not that tragic. We’ve had SO MANY bizarre and weird backstories under our belt, that to have a completely normal one is just...wild to me. They’re so freakin normal.

And on the way, our train just...

OK Train...anyway, I’ll do my best to show which scenes are flash back and which are not, but like bear with me because it flashes back like every other scene it feels like.

So Rex waxes long about that very short time in which he and Weevil were the best ever duelists in Japan (other than Kaiba, I guess, who they failed to mention in this flashback.)

(I used to have a very soft performance fleece sweater the exact same shade as Weevil’s jacket there, popped collar and everything, with piping outline. Don’t judge me, it was the 00′s, I’m just shocked that Weevil also shopped at Old Navy.)

(However I have no idea what’s going on with Rex’s three layers of clashing outfit styles that he has going on. A turtleneck under a thick button up jacket under an open fringe jacket is so much of a 90′s vibe.)

Up until now, bro has been PRETTY SURE every episode that Rex and Weevil are originally from America. I don’t know how I feel about being so right on the money about this one when the episode outright said that they’re from Japan. I don’t really want to out-Yugioh my brother, because at some point, I’ll accidentally let slip that in writing this blog I have accidentally gained all Yugioh knowledge, just like Noah did that one time when he was stuffed into that brain orb.

Just please don’t don’t ask me how this game works, I still have absolutely no idea.

Weevil and Rex had adoring fans in two-shaded polos exactly just like the type I used to wear in high school. But, their fans all left them the moment Weevil lost one single game against Yugi Muto.

Harsh. But granted, I feel like the people of Domino have rabbit memories and if you aren’t actively in the news every day because your blimp got abducted by sea pirates, then who the hell is EVER going to know who you are?

But youknow, Rex and Weevil are pretty sure that dodging getting murdered by Pegasus was actually their last shot at fame. It’s over forever. They’re done. Done until they beat either Joey or Yugi which...very specific, but, it would make you somewhat famous if you did that by simultaneously destroying the Caltrain.

And Weevil is like gunning for the King of Games title but...apparently no one in this episode wanted to mention to Weevil that the “King of Games” moniker actually went to Raphael?

That he needs to beat Raphael...not Yugi Muto?

Nobody?

Nobody feels like mentioning that neither Yami nor Yugi could possibly still be King of Games and that Weevil has no really good reason to be here? I mean it would save Weevil a lot of time. It would also save me a lot of time. We could just walk off this train and go back to what we were all doing before this happened, but nah, lets keep the lie going, because apparently Yami can’t bear to tell the truth, just like his host.

Waiiiit, isn’t Rebecca the King of Games because she beat Yugi in S1?

It’s the freakin Malfroy/Elder wand, it’ll be important in Ch 40 I’m sure of it. I’m sure they’re not going to just...forget...all of the people that beat Yugi before.

Man. Maybe that’s why Yugi is so hell bent on keeping tabs on Rebecca? Just to youknow...make sure she doesn’t tell anyone that she hella beat him that one time because otherwise Kaiba would have lost his freakin mind (again) that Yugi lost that title basically the same afternoon he came back from Pegasus’ island.

Also Rex and Weevil once charged for headshots and this makes them vile, terrible people for some reason.

Apparently this is a bad practice? I mean if you’re famous enough please charge for head shots, you need to make money between playing cards. Take it from this jaded artist, always sell out so you can save money for when you will absolutely get carpal tunnel.

Whatever. Back to Rex who is certain that he is not famous anymore because he lost to Joey.

S4 and still everyone is certain that Joey is bad at cards. Joey will just never be free from this.

It was beautiful anime food for like ten seconds until he did this. How dare. Literally though, how did he do that? Was that burger made out of potato chips?

Can we talk about what a freakin crime it is I can’t watch my Nick at Night retro shows on Netflix or Hulu? Like hell I’m going to get a third streaming service so I can watch and admire how bad “I Love Lucy” aged. I want to see how incredibly off-putting Fonzie is as an adult. But nah. Not even allowed. You can only watch Cheers.

Cheers. What am I? 65? Cheers wasn’t on Nick at Night. My Mom watched Cheers. Gross.

This show trying to convince me so hard that Rex and Weevils lowest point wasn’t when they were 5 seconds away from being set on fire and having their soul removed by Maxamillion Pegasus.

Like for reals, the lowest point for ANYONE (except for the Ishtars) on this show was when they were trapped on that island, without any camping supplies, surrounded by human skulls, Bakura pre-exorcism, and so many other duelists who were probably going to eat them had the tournament gone 24 more hours than it had.

The island that also had a basement that was entirely full of cultists who absolutely murdered a guy right in front of us.

Like when they finally got out of the island’s huge ass forest, their dinner included a soup filled with Pegasus’ eyes.

I would have gotten pissed on by like 70 stray dogs to get off that island, y’all.

So one of the best things about this blog is I don’t have to worry about the restraint of a.) looking professional b.) the fear of sharing my actual real deal opinion. Everywhere else I post, I can’t share anything. I’ve come to terms with this, and so I hide my hot takes deep, deep within this Yugioh blog and the only people who suspect my art rage are like...y’all in the corner of Tumblr who do not care about what I’m talking about.

++++++++++++THIS IS MY HUGE RANT ABOUT ART POLITICS AND ART BITTERNESS FEEL FREE TO SKIP THIS. WE’RE QUARANTINING SO MUCH OVER HERE DUE TO THE VIRUS THAT I AM GOING A LITTLE BIT HOUSE CRAZY+++++++++++++++

But like MAN I need to mention something. Both Joey and Rex are completely off base. Both of them.

Like I’ll be real, because of the sudden extra time I have on my hands, I was originally ranting quite a bit about art culture and stuff and I will admit it was projecting somewhat onto a TV show that was written before the recession and the gig economy basically came and laid a huge dump across the creative industry.

However, I really, really, really don’t like it when people naively say “I’m successful because I did the research, I did the work, and then I got a following despite doing no marketing at all,” LIKE HELL YOU DID, DUDE. And there’s certain places I go where this is the mantra of a hell ton of ppl who don’t believe in luck, and I have to just suck it in because they succeeded at a young age. Because inversely, if anyone doesn’t succeed right away--clearly they don’t work hard enough, right?

I won’t dig into real world stuff because that’s...the real world and the real world is a bummer, but even in the universe of Yugioh there’s this crazy disparity in duelers that the people on the top refuse to acknowledge and the people on the bottom have absolutely no way to cope with so they become insanely bitter about it.

Mai has mentioned that despite all of her hard work and success--because she isn’t the top 4 duelists of Kaiba’s tourney--no one knows who she freakin is. The card industry is so toxic, that even KAIBA dropped out.

And even without Kaiba to compete against anymore, Mai still wasn’t able to get in there to fill that void. The void that also has Marik and Odion in it, despite the fact that I’m pretty sure Marik will never touch a card ever again and might be back to living underground or on a boat in the middle of no-where. And we don’t even need to mention Bakura, right? Bakura who should have also been here to fill the void of fame, but his face probably only comes out fuzzy on camera like people haunted by that girl from the Ring. So we’ll just ignore Bakura, that makes sense, I can accept that canon.

But really...it’s just Joey and Yugi at the top of the crop when there should have been room for at least 4.

So, it’s interesting that the Oricalchos in this situation is the “get me popular quick” drug that will somehow give Rex and Weevil what they need for automatic success because I see people desperately looking for this SO MUCH online. I have seen so many post “This is how I got 100000 followers in 100 days,” and it’s always the same story that isn’t so much about hard work, but more how to game a broken system until all other competitors are invisible. And then there’s the hidden factor about...luck...that really offends people although we all know that it exists.

But just remember I’m not allowed to have this opinion that luck...exists...So if anyone asks, I never said this.

And also...if Rex and Weevil had any support up until now from these kids who have been stuffing them in the trunk for over a dozen episodes, they wouldn’t have done any of this.

So talking as a jaded Millennial, I’m not gonna judge you if you take your Oricalchos, if you know what I mean. Everyone has their reasons, and no one’s too good not to ever do it, lets be real.

+++++++++++++++END OF THIS RANT, WOW, I WANT TO SAY THAT WHILE SLAPPING A WHOLE LOT OF PEOPLE IN A GENTLE MANNER+++++++++++++

So I realized something. This cliff face is sort of an iconic train, but it’s the wrong train.

This is the Amtrak in the middle of Nevada/Utah, pretty sure. I know that shade of orange. I’ve done the Nevada drive a lot.

And part of the reason I’m even sleuthing into this is because as an artist I like to see where art inspiration comes from. It doesn’t just come from a void--they clearly did research and I just want to find out...how it happened.

So anyway, like I said last time, the Amtrak is in charge of the Caltrain management, although the Caltrain is not part of Amtrak. And so you get similar paint jobs--it’s just that Amtrak has blue topped cars, and the Caltrain cars are typically red. Yugioh safely did red, white and blue, which both cars do, to an extent, being American trains.

It’s possible that they decided to look up scenic trains in California and were like “this one looks neat.” This one is also named the “California Zephyr” which makes it seem super Californian but in actuality it goes from Emeryville, California to Chicago. Only problem is that Emeryville is North of Oakland, and we’re supposed to be taking the train “to the airport” when the airports are in Oakland or San Mateo. This train doesn’t go to the airport. You just drove by the airport.

This train also doesn’t go to Florida. Chicago is North, way north. This train exists to be a slow, scenic train for old tourists who want to sleep in cramped spaces or jaded millennials writing their award winning novel. It has no other purpose.

So, it doesn’t at all match anything story wise...but it looks cool. They would never take this train if the world was going to end, and Rebecca wouldn’t know it exists, but, it looks cool.

But anyway, onward to the next episode. I’ll be kind of bunking in my home for a while since my entire area basically shut down, so maybe I’ll get the next updates done earlier than usual? Maybe even catch up on my backlog? hm. Possibilities.

And if you just got here, this is all the Yugioh recaps in chrono order.

#Yugioh #ygo #Yu-Gi-Oh #recap #photo recap #episode recap #yugi muto #yami #train #joey wheeler #tristan taylor #rex raptor #weevil underwood #S4 #Ep16

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plantfeed · 5 years

Text

ok turns out i am 100% that dumbass bitch who still aint posted my intro on main....... so for reference..... hello! im nora ( she / her ). im a 24 year old creative writing graduate currently residing in sheffield, south yorkshire. when i’m not hunched over a keyboard writing, i enjoy independent cinema, chinese food, and big nights out that i’ll remember only in fleeting snapshots. i currently work as a barmaid and a tutor for a filmmaking project.

without further ado, here is my interpretation on the skeleton ‘ophelia’, a development of a character who’s been brewing at the back of my mind for absolutely AGES now so thank u for giving me the push to actually flesh her out.

ive included a full biography, but please feel free 2 skip to bullet points if TLDR because it is LOOONG..... and im so happy 2 be here.... new home.... chefs kiss.... yes lov u all

IN CHARACTER.

skeleton: ophelia name: theresa rigby. (goes by diminutives tess, tessa, tea or thea. the only time she’s theresa is when she’s in trouble.) age: 21, born july 10 (cancer) faceclaim: diana silvers. gender: cis-female. pronouns: she/her degree: comparative literature & ancient history (joint honours)

INTRO.

trigger warnings.

loss of a parent. missing person / disappearance. drugs and alcohol reliance. death.

BIOGRAPHY.

i. narragansett, rhode island.

1999, an Austrian sunrise, it is the year of the Water Monkey. A water baby, first screams under the surface, the catch of it gargled in your throat. A birth mark the size and shape of a door handle pressed into your pelvis like a lover’s badge. Born like a clenched fist. Annie always wished you’d be more like an open palm. You still carry that tension with you, an unreadable kind of silence when you slink around the edge of a room or perch on an arm rest like a bird about to startle and fly off. Nobody knows a thing about you and you like it that way. Conceived in the winter, some of that coldness still lingers in you.

The only perfect girl is a dead girl. That’s what you learned, last-born runt of the litter growing up in the bedroom of a girl who would be forever cold, young and pretty. In the beginning, they thought you were a blessing — Bet’s soul reincarnate, the same pale face they’d seen as they’d signed her into the pick ‘n’ mix family. You were given her clothes, her room, even her middle name, stripped and rebranded like a toy doll bought after the last one’s head was chewed off by the dog. Four boys, a dead sister, and you who — with your birdlike features and unrelenting eyes — was merely a walking ghost. Tennis skirts, nail varnish, a shag rug, a rotten corsage; these were the staple reminders that you were living in a shrine, the room never quite your own lest you disturb the lingering presence of Bet. Soon, you began to see it as not a room but rather a prison cell caging you in the imprint of a sister you never met.

Your mothers met at an undergraduate socialist meeting when the fall semester fell into winter, Kath in a mustard coloured beret, Annie in a blood-orange duffle coat, a philosophy major and an art historian respectively. Your childhood was a montage of potato printing eels onto the walls of a Rhode Island boarding house next to the sea. Five children — some adopted, some surrogate — a permanent rotation of rooms and always a handful of lodgers to foot the bill. Travelling salesmen, students on gap years and tinkers in search of odd-jobs became a flipbook of faces etched into your memories like fleeting figures in the wings of a theatre; you sketch them into the body of your work. They become the characters to haunt the pages of your notebooks, stashed beneath floorboards lest they fall into too-hungry flour-caked fingers, scones baking in the oven two floors below. A house that seemed to physically inhale every time a new body entered it, tall and thin, too small to house all that weight. The gaps beneath the floorboards are the only spaces that feel like your own, untouched by a girl who’s shadow you were born in. In your diary, you scribble her name until it tears through the pages thinking that if you wish hard enough, you’ll make yourself her. It’s never enough.

At twelve, you lose Annie to a boating accident. You lose a piece of yourself with her and stop wearing yellow. Grief makes a better writer out of you though it sounds selfish to admit it. Kath remarries the following spring, a man named Peter. He is ordinary in all the ways Annie was magical and when he sits in your mother’s chair you feel yourself slip out of your skin and into the body of a raven cawing in the woods, scratching at the dustmites. You try to teach yourself how to be a girl, though you’ve always felt more like a wild thing crouched in the attic window of the lighthouse, screaming at the crash of the waves. You wanted to love the sea as closely as it owned you. In the sea you were rewritten into a tide, into a shell, into the swell of a rockpool around the body of a crab. You wanted to be like the ocean —a tangible, changeling thing —making paper boats and setting them out to sea, wishing you could shrink yourself into one, sail away. For a while, you toy with the idea of starving yourself into something the size and shape of an eel; of growing gills in the night and darting into the ebbing current. They’d think you crazy if you told them.

ii. concord, massachusetts.

You butt heads with Kath on a daily basis. She tells you you resent her for moving on with her life when you seem unable to move on with yours. That maybe a clean break would be best for all the family. A fresh start. A change of scene. You lock yourself in the bathroom and cry for an hour until your mouth feels raw, like running a cheesegrater down the inside of your throat. The following September, they send you to boarding school, two suitcases and an armful of Annie’s jumpers. Kath has decided they don’t compliment her skin tone, and she’s not twenty-five or studying philosophy any more. New England becomes the best decision for you that your family have ever made. You thrive on the independence of living in a dormitory on a corridor of Alison’s and Margaret’s and Ruth’s. From the names on their doors, you paint them into people in your head, red-haired Ruth who collects birth stones and can count to twenty in Mandarin. They turn out to be nothing like the versions of them you’ve spun. You love them anyway, their rough-softness, the scuffed knee thrill of growing up half-wild. There’s a brightness in their girlhood that you try to capture in your words.

Though you never quite find yourself settling into a group, Dr. Franklin becomes the anchor to which you tether yourself to, a little girl leeching onto her Literature professor for a sense of stability in a tempestuous world. The others might think it sad, but she sees something in you — an inner restlessness, a need to analyse and observe and contain everything within poetry and prose — that reminds her of herself at your age. You begin one-to-one sessions after the school day has closed, whisper about Proust and O’Hara over frothed lattes in a campus-run coffee shop, ink blots on the pages of dog-eared copies she’s gifted to you on an indefinite loan. Sometimes, you think you love her. You run your fingers over the buttons of her typewriter, close your eyes, and imagine yourself pulling on her skin like a new coat.

The woods become your saviour. In Narragansett you never knew woods, only harboursides, seafood restaurants, the smell of the ocean breeze and a lighthouse calling you home. You learn to love the smell of the earth after rain. The feeling of soil between your toes. The sense of belonging you feel trailing through the woods in stark white nightgown, twigs catching on the mud-stained hem. Massachusetts becomes a place of revision. You remake yourself as a fawn, elegance in your limbs and hunger in your heart. You learn how to write yourself into being. There’s a violence in your grace — simultaneously glass and the hammer that shatters it — and despite the ethereal way you move it’s the leonine stature of a tigress, claws bared, teeth sharpened into fangs, but a smile like butter wouldn’t melt. Lady Macbeth was always your favourite of Shakespeare’s heroines. There’s something dark in her that resonates with you, the way when a pimple appears you have to squeeze it until it bleeds. You tell yourself that everybody has a morbid fascination.

Each night you take a torch, a book and a bottle of Merlot, and you wile away the hours reading in the woods. At home, sleep never came easy to you. You’d pace the floorboards counting sheep and wake having barely slept a blink. This, on the other hand, seems useful, though when you’re never asleep, you’re never quite awake, floating through the school day like a ghost, part removed, the dark circles pulling your eyes to a close. It’s a tiredness you carry in every aspect of your life, limbs heavier than usual, pen slower when it grazes the page. Soon you start taking tablets each night. Two white ones, no bigger than a baby’s fingernail. For the first time, you begin to dream.

When February rolls around you take your exams. Pass with the grace of a swan in everything except AP Calculus. You say you’ll try again next semester, but you don’t. You apply for Yale, Cambridge, Harvard, Columbia, Ashcroft. You wait. And wait. And wait until it feels like your skin has shed itself since the letters left your hands, before an envelope comes marked Theresa. No one ever calls you that name. Right from the start it’s been Tea, Tess, Thea, common names in your house as fickle as the tide that swallows it. Billy’s never been a William, and Sebastian sounds all wrong. You can scarcely remember what Brodie’s short for. Rejection after rejection until Ashcroft answers the call, a cawing in the dark of a wasteland you’ve not yet walked. You’ll read literature, follow in the footsteps of Ginsberg who you clumsily try to quote as you bid the girls goodbye, a bonfire and the smell of cinnamon whiskey.

iii. ashcroft university, edinburgh.

You’d read of a boy who went missing there. It happened in the woods. Seventy years and all they’d found was an emptied bottle of wine and one shoe. Newspapers claimed involvement in an elite society, perhaps a hazing gone wrong, and you imagine them burrowed in underground tunnels wearing wellington boots and tweed. This is what draws you to Ashcroft ; to Imperium. It’s not so much the mystery of it —you’ve never seen yourself as a Nancy Drew — but more the idea of living in a place where people can disappear. That’s always been an idle fantasy of yours. One day, you wonder if you’ll write yourself out of the world and into the pages of a book, nestled between a title and contents page.

From Concord to Boston, then a ten-hour flight ; for the first time in months, you sleep through the night. A line break cancels your train and you have to take a replacement bus service instead. By the time you reach the school, the open day is almost over. You feel it at the gates, like a tingle on the back of your neck, something crawling down your spine. It only grows as you close in on it. It feels like it knows your own heartbeat. You’ve never known a building to have so much soul. You imagine yourself walking the cobblestones on the quad each day, climbing the steps to a dormitory, sprawled on a library table, scribbling frantically, willing the clock hands backwards. It’s a life you want to lead.

In a matter of months, Ashcroft has become not only your home but your life. You are utterly consumed by it. You meet Lysander at a poetry reading. You recite Shelley. He recites Keats. He compliments you on the steadiness of your voice, clear as a bell. A voice for the stage. You tell him your father had a powerful voice. It’s a lie. You’ve never had a father, but it’s fun to imagine one slouched on the couch, wire-rimmed glasses on the end of his nose. He invites you to dinner the following week. Grilled sea bass and risotto. You don’t have the heart to tell him you’ve become a vegetarian, swallow each mouthful with your pride. You try out for the orchestra, though your hands shake a little too much and you hear more from the inside of your own head than the keys. You leave without waiting on an answer. It’s too contained for you, anyway. You need something more chaotic, like jazz. You wish for chaos, so Imperium opens it jaws and swallows you whole. They like you because of your voice, a voice that speaks scarcely more than a low whisper in life, but when written wins you a Bysshe-Shelley Prize. In poetry, you give that voice to the voiceless ; bring dead girls buried in the woods out of the ground and into being, like soil in your hands. A voice like that is a powerful thing to have in your ranks. It becomes every page in your diary, every catch of your skirt on a tree branch, every rap of your fingertips against the desktop, imperium, imperium, imperium.

You’ve never been able to do things by halves — you always let them consume you. One glass becomes a bottle. One paragraph becomes scrawling until sunrise. Obsession takes its form in Hamlet, strong in all the ways you appear weak. You like the smell of his breath when he tells you to stub out your cigarette. That’ll kill you one day, he says. I know, you reply, and your pretty lips curl upwards. One drunken night, you fall into his bed and imagine stitching yourself into his sheets so you can sleep with him every night. Tongues on your thighs like a voice in your throat. Touch me, touch me, touch me. Never been held like this before. Like you’re not glass, but something material and robust. You like the way his hands feel under your skin. Perhaps you’ll keep him there like a splinter. Tall for your age but thin as a rail, he makes you feel like more than an eel of a girl. You like the way he catches on your spindly elbows where others have snagged leaving trails of cotton. At first, it’s only physical, but you get greedy and want more. You’re not sure when a love of beauty became something more than skin deep. You’re not sure if you even loved him until he’d stopped loving you. In October, you find the body. The day all the clocks stop ticking. The day something inside of you snaps like the branch of an elm.

You become a cocoon, velvet ribbons in your hair and rope around your throat. Or maybe it’s lace, and you’re only imagining it that way. You drink wine, stumble blind-drunk through the woods, lose textbooks to nature and curse when you can’t find them the following morning. Most nights, you appear like a ghost in the wood, a linen nightdress with mud clinging to it’s hem and feet laden in soil. You’re not sure if it’s conscious at this point, or mindless sleepwalking. Everything you do feels like sleepwalking these days. Shadows move in the corners of your eyes at night and you turn to the tarot cards for answers. They tell you only of that which you already know. Death. The Hanged Man. High Priestess. You think of Octavia, of Lysander, and of you pulled like a ragdoll between them, with the intuition that comes from living by the sea but without the evidence to execute it. The pills have stopped working. You wake in sweats, guilt swelling in the pit of your stomach. In a therapist’s waiting room, you watch as a girl scratches the skin off her own arm.

Soon news of your occultist proclivities becomes gossip on everyone’s tongue. Witch becomes a synonym for your name, and one you’ll happily wear like a noose until you’ve stolen Lysander from the drop. Finding the truth becomes the only thing keeping you sane, runes scrawled on the walls of a dormitory where pages of novels are tacked up like wallpaper. And still, you can’t shake the fact that she hasn’t come to you when the others who scarcely believe in such phantomed are rattled by her ghost on a nightly basis. Competing and girlhood go hand in hand, but the longer it gets, the more it feels like she knows your desperation to absolve Lysander isn’t entirely selfless. Perhaps she saw you lingering in doorways, waiting in the wings for him to change his mind and tell you it was you all along. Or maybe the sight of her corpse is making you search for answers in places they don’t exist. You’re hanging on my a single thread, one glimpse away from fleeing to the woods to plant yourself into the earth.

The snow is crisp on the November ground when you learn to love melancholy like a dance you were taught as a child. You think it adds depth to being a writer. How can a person write about pain if they live in a state of blissful oblivion? You tell yourself that all of the best writers were depressed; Plath, Fitzgerald, Dickinson, Rice. If you say their names each morning, followed by your own, perhaps you’ll become one of them.

BULLET POINT SUMMARY.

here is a bullet point summary of theresa, as i understand my writing can get a little dense.

Mother always said that people who grow up near water are different to other people. That there’s something more primal in their bones. A kind of knowing.

In Theresa, the knowing is a kind of silence. She’s always struggled with verbal communication, and it’s rare that she can ever let herself go in a conversation. She’s the one on the outskirts of the group, only speaking up to deliver a poignant metaphor, before fading off again. On a good day she’ll ramble, perhaps, on morbid longings and fascinations, but it’s like she’s always skipping around words she can’t quite pinpoint.

Writing’s different. When she’s writing, she feels like all the dead souls of Emily Bronte and Virginia Woolf and Sylvia Plath are all rising up from their graves to possess her. It is, perhaps, a rather egotistical thought -- but it makes her feel less alone. Like writing isn’t so much a solitary pursuit as it is a reigniting of what’s been lost, a way of listening to the dead. She’s militant in the way she writes, has been for as long as she can remember -- every night when the clock strikes twelve. Even if she’s rolling on mandy in an abandoned warehouse or dropping acid in a shipyard with her toes in the sand, she’ll start scribbling at twilight, for as long as she can. Back home, there weren’t too many bars that allowed underage kids, and the ones that did would nail your phone to the wall like you’re living in the eighties, so they made their own fun getting high in places long since infested with rats on baggies bought cheap in the back of the dry-cleaners shop.

Theresa’s always felt more able to relate to dead people than to living ones. That might sound depressing, but she doesn’t think so. Death has never been far from her. She grew up in the room of a foster sister who had died the previous winter. She lost her mother to a boating accident at twelve years old. She lost Octavia last year, found her body in the woods, and was thankful that she -- and not someone else -- had seen her crumpled like a fawn. Because even though it clings to her and burrows under her skin, she knows how to drown it out now. In words. In wine. In pills crushed against the veneer of a sink and snorted through a twenty-dollar bill. She’s getting good at losing herself completely. Theresa herself feels like a girl half-dead, like something ghostly, trapped between two planes. Which is why it hurts so much that she still hasn’t seen Octavia’s ghost. She’s supposed to be the special one. The one who’s vision isn’t clouded by idle dogmatism. The one who believes in all that fate, juju, third eye stuff that the others seem to scoff at. It feels like a personal attack. Like somehow, in keeping hidden, she’s blaming Theresa for her death.

Theresa is the month of November. There’s something mysterious about it, something cold. It’s on the cusp of the end of the year, but it doesn’t quite reach it. I feel like that’s what Theresa’s like. Always reaching for the apples that are just out of her grasp, or perhaps, reaching for apples which aren’t even there.

She knows grief like an old friend, but somehow, she still doesn’t trust it. When she was twelve years old she lost one of her mothers. Annie was always the brighter of her parents, and Tessa never really believed that someone so full of life could just disappear. Her soul had to be somewhere. When Kath remarried, Theresa never forgave her. Between grief and anger, their relationship became fractious, and Kath decided to send her to boarding school. She went to a New England college where she learned art, history, literature, english, athletics, the sciences and the classics. Boarding school was probably the best decision for Theresa that Kath had ever made. She became fascinated with the girls around her, so feral and wild in their girlhood. She fell in love with another girl more than once. She fell in love with the freedom of New England, of being in the woods, of a gaggle of girls with bottles of wine sat around a campfire, scared half to death that the matron would find them.

But death’s never far from her. She’s been searching for Annie in the linebreaks between poems, in the chaos of clutter under her bed, under lace and linen in her underwear drawer, but somehow she can never quite find her and never give up. Finding Annie was perhaps the reason she came to Ashcroft at all. She intended to go to Columbia, read Literature, and clumsily follow in the footsteps of Ginsberg. But Annie had spoken of Edinburgh with such a childlike awe.

Lysander was the first of the society she met, at a poetry reading in the autumn of her first semester. He brought her into the club because he saw something in her, an otherworldliness, a still but powerful voice. Her eyes saw more than they let on, always glinting at something more. She thinks her closeness with Lysander is the reason she still hasn’t seen Octavia’s ghost, and now Hamlet’s out of the picture she’s starting to think she might love Lysander. Or maybe she just needs to be loved by someone, and absolving him of blame is the key.

She was never really sure how she felt about Octavia. One moment they were friends, the next they were rivals. It was something like love and hate combined, but perhaps that’s just the curse of being a woman. A fierce sense of competition in everything you do, even if it’s just competing for air.

She likes old French music, European cinema, art that doesn’t come in her mother tongue. She’s always thought English pointless. The French say things so much better.

Her favourite TV show is Twin Peaks. She likes the absurdist truth in it, the style, the colour, the oddness. She likes the mystery of it all. She loved the woods in New England and it reminds her of that. A kind of home away from home. Tea brings a pocked dictaphone out with her, for she’s so often absent-minded that she misses half the day. That way, she can replay conversations, the sound of a bird in flight, the particular inflection in the voice of someone she loves. She’s obsessive when it comes to lovers. She doesn’t want to be loved -- she wants to be respected, understood, devoured. She thinks love is a kind of mutual lying.

She finds truth in the unusual. In tarot cards and horoscopes, in the position of the planets through a thrifted telescope. She’s a night owl, never in bed before 3 or 4 in the morning. She visits the woods each night to write until her fingers ache. Sometimes with wine, sometimes with mushrooms, sometimes with a tab against the flat of her tongue, imagining herself to be Alice in Wonderland. She feels like she’s getting close to the truth, but maybe she’s just closer to losing her mind.

LETTER TO OCTAVIA.

My dearest O,

I wish I could find an adequate way to write you an epitaph. You saw a poet where everyone else saw a foolish dreamer and yet you’re the only one I can’t put into words. But in truth, there is no word large enough to contain you. You were the ellipsis I was always looking to conclude, and it’s so like you to steal even that from me. Some days, I think I could love you.

Please know that death cannot touch girls like us. That you’re more than just skin, teeth and bone. Death itself has you only on a short-term loan. As Thomas puts so eloquently, Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Thank you for filling me with life. I’ll see you in the next one.

Tea.

anything else?

mock blog.

wanted plots.

someone who theresa knows purely from seeing them at the library. recently, she hasn’t been visiting as often. she’s less in the world and more in her head. her schoolwork is suffering. someone who feels this absence like a missing tooth.

unlikely bc ashcroft is in scotland but if they’re from rhode island maybe distant relatives.... ophelia / theresa is adopted so could work regardless of heritage. her family lived in narragansett, but she went to boarding school in vermont. could have met if ur character is new england based??? maybe

give me fellow wanky pretentious art-lovers and poets and historians who will go to museums and galleries with her and listen to the velvet underground on vinyl

people she gets mortally fucked off her tits with at parties bcos this baby is not alright. she drinks at least one glass of wine every night. sometimes a bottle. she’s always a little bit high or a little bit weary with a comedown. she can’t seem to keep her feet on the ground.

theresa was pretty numb after finding the body, as you would be. she stayed in her room listening to enya for three days straight and just eating cereal straight out the box. then thalia broke up with her and that fuckin shook her too, and now she just thinks she’s unlovable. she’s always been pretty bad at sleeping but now she just wanders about in her white nightdress looking for a door with light spilling beneath it so that maybe she can find someone who’ll hold her for the night and make her feel like she’s still alive

she’s currently hooking up with a lot of people. a lot of very detached sex, so if she has any sort of close connection with your character this might not work. could be good for angst or awkwardness though, or she cld get like.... super attached after a one night stand and complicate the shit out of everything. theresa’s kind of obsessive when it comes to her affections, she loves with her whole heart or not at all

people she used to date or unrequitedly likes, but to them it’s just a physical thing, give me all the thirsty angst plots, and maybe some softness too, i need some religion in this girls life jesus

honestly everything just give me all the plots

#stands on the rooftop and screams like a banshee as i fling this into the woods #spectreintro #very late and personally i think that's incredibly sexy of me x

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bensolotags · 4 years

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FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS, BEST PRACTICES, AND TIPS FOR TWEETS

From @BenSoloTags

(Scroll down to see Best Practices and Tips)

Frequently Asked Questions

* How can I participate in a BenSoloTags campaign?

To participate in our hashtag campaigns, first, follow @BenSoloTags, our official twitter account to find out when they are planned. We suggest you turn on notifications for our account, so you can get notified whenever we tweet something official. You can do that by clicking the button with the alarm icon on it on our profile. We send out the official campaign notices from that account, including themes, time zones, best practices, and updates.

* Where can I suggest a hashtag idea for a future campaign?

Please send a tweet to @BenSoloTags if you have a campaign idea!

*How often do you do campaigns?

We try to do campaigns about once a month.

* Why don’t we do more campaigns?

Disney and Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL) see a LOT of tags, 24/7/365. We’re working to present unique monthly tags that are fun, positive, and creative. Disney and LFL will certainly notice when we trend a hashtag, even if it’s once a month.

* Are you the only people doing campaigns?

No. There are other groups out there working to bring Ben Solo back to Star Wars. We’ll try to share information about specific campaigns and the accounts/groups promoting them, along with our own monthly hashtag campaigns.

Twitter contacts for some of the other groups include:

@kiara_solo

@KarolV14070769

@solosaberx

* Why do you list different time zones on your campaign schedule?

The way to get attention for our cause is to “trend” on Twitter. The easiest and best way to trend is to have the most people possible tweet the same hashtag at once. Fans all over the world want to take part in the campaigns, so we try to accommodate as many of them as possible. So, for example, people in Los Angeles are tweeting at noon local time, which is 3:00 pm in New York, 8:00 pm in London, 11:00 pm in Germany, etc.

* How do you decide which tag to use?

We have spoken with some social media experts who have experience with how corporations read social media. According to our sources, corporations like positive hashtags and public engagement. Companies tend to “tune out” what they consider “negative” hashtags, or even categorize them as spam so they remain unseen.

Therefore, using hashtags like #YouKilledMyFavoriteCharacter would not bring us closer to our goal of bringing Ben Solo back alive to the Star Wars universe.

Longer hashtags mean fewer characters to tweet with, so those would be limiting.

We try to make it fun as well as send a message to Disney/LFL. We had so much fun before TROS came out, and we’ve been so bummed since, that we want to promote enjoying each other’s content.

* Is every tag featured on the Ben Solo Tags twitter account sponsored by BST?

No. We try to let people know about campaigns hosted by other accounts, as well as the monthly BST tag. Anything that isn’t our campaign will have “FYI” at the beginning and links to find more information (where possible).

* Why don’t you use the same hashtag every time? One that everyone can remember?

According to “15 Shortcuts to Get Your Hashtag Trending on Twitter:”

“...if a trend goes on too long, it ceases to be a trend. Twitter prefers trends to last for a day or two at a maximum, and trends that go on for too long are no longer spikes in traffic; they’re a new baseline. There are hashtags with 5,000 tweets in a day, while other tags are getting 50,000.

“If your tag hasn’t trended within the first day of using it, it’s probably not going to reach that spike without some exceptional circumstances. It’s better to abandon it and try to get something else trending than it is to try to get an old tag to trend again later.”

Source: https://follows.com/blog/2017/04/shortcuts-hashtag-trending-twitter

* Why don’t you campaign for other characters besides Ben? Rey (Rose, etc.) deserves some love too!

As much as we feel all the sequel trilogy characters were given a hard shake by TRoS, Ben is the only major sequel trilogy character that died. So even if Rey and other characters suffered, they still have a (hopefully better-written) future. However, unless we can garner support to bring Ben back to life, his story ends where TRoS ends.

In light of this, our campaigns focus exclusively on Ben, or Ben as a part of Reylo, but we would love to support and help spread information about campaigns to celebrate other characters. Just let us know how we can help at @BenSoloTags.

* Why aren’t we allowed to use any art we find? If it’s on Pinterest, it’s fair game, right?

Well, no. Most artists don’t appreciate your re-posting their work without permission. The best way to share an artist’s images in a way that acknowledges their work is to retweet the artist’s original tweet from their account whenever possible. A direct tweet is better than a quote tweet. If you can’t find the original tweet, you can try asking the artist to repost their work so you can share it, or ask them to grant you the permission to repost it.

* Where are you on social media?

Twitter @BenSoloTags

Facebook Ben Solo Tags

Instagram BenSoloTags

Best Practices

Feel free to amplify the signal and RT the BenSoloTags tweet about the campaign with your own followers.

If possible, use ONE hashtag per tweet (two maximum), so the Twitter algorithm won’t filter out your tweet as “spam.”

Try to tweet during the time zone recommended for your country, but if that doesn’t work for you, participate when you can the day of the campaign. Do not use third-party services or bots to tweet for you.

Retweeting other hashtag tweets helps the tag trend, but don’t go crazy. If you retweet too fast, you will get put in Twitter retweet “jail” for up to 72 hours for “suspicious activity.”

Never tweet the hashtag alone. Made sure to add some text or a picture to your tweet. Otherwise, it will be filtered out as “spam.”

Tweets with a visual component work especially well and get retweeted more often. You can include your own artwork or semi-official/official photos from the movies or of the actors.

Only share fan art from the artist’s original post or with their permission.

Tips for Tweeting with the Current Hashtag

Here are just a few ideas for creative, fun campaign hashtag posts:

Post photos of yourself with friends and family.

Fanfic writers - share a sample of your work or a URL of one of your stories.

Create memes and/or photo manipulations.

Create and share photos with appropriate quotes and/or poetry (your own or your favorite poet’s).

Share pictures of your own Ben Solo/Star Wars cosplay.

Express what you love about Ben Solo or how you feel about him.

If you’ve written a letter to an actor or one of the filmmakers, you could share it or a sample of it.

Edit your favorite Ben Solo film scene, or create a Ben Solo-themed music video; post it or a link to it.

Take a photo of yourself or a friend with a Rey-inspired hairstyle or a Kylo inspired pose...or vice-versa!

Please Do NOT tag official Disney or Lucas Film accounts or those of their employees.

PLEASE - DO NOT FEED THE TROLLS! Do not engage with them. Your replies count as negative discourse and may be used to invalidate the tag by the algorithms.

Please be respectful of others.

And most importantly, have fun sharing your love and enthusiasm for Ben Solo.

Never tweet the hashtag alone. Made sure to add some text or a picture to your tweet. Otherwise, it will be filtered out as “spam.”

Tweets with a visual component work especially well and get retweeted more often. You can include your own artwork or semi-official/official photos from the movies or of the actors.

Only share fan art from the artist’s original post or with their permission.

Please Do NOT tag official Disney or Lucas Film accounts or those of their employees.

PLEASE - DO NOT FEED THE TROLLS! Do not engage with them. Your replies count as negative discourse and may be used to invalidate the tag by the algorithms.

Please be respectful of others.

And most importantly, have fun sharing your love and enthusiasm for Ben Solo.

#SaveBenSolo #hashtag campaign #BenSolo Lives #BringBenSoloBack #BenSoloTags

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thecartoonarchivist · 6 years

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My Thought on The Dragon Prince

So, the first season of The Dragon Prince released on Netflix yesterday and like the cartoon nerd I am, I binged watched all the episodes at like... 12:00 at night. (Sue me.)

And I’m gonna be honest: I have some opinions.

For those of you who don’t know who I am, or haven’t seen my posts popping up from time-to-time over the past month or so, I’m the Cartoon Archivist. I’ve watched a lot of cartoons over the years and I help people find the cartoons that they’ve looking for; in my spare time, I write exposés on different cartoons that used to premiere on various networks and rate them. I won’t go into detail about my “cartoon resume” but if you’re interested in what I do, go ahead and check out my blog, or read this post here to get started.

Regardless, I feel that it’s my duty to my followers and my blog as a whole to write an article about what I’ve seen thus far and my opinions about The Dragon Prince.

And honestly?

It’s not that great. Shocking, I know. Unpopular opinion? More than likely. Will I get flack for it? Probably, but I’m more than willing to accept that.

Here’s the thing. While watching this series, I was keenly aware of all the things that it lacked; I knew exactly what it could be and that’s just not a spot that you want to place you want to put your audience into. It then appears to be half-baked, rushed, and disappointing because you know how much work went into the show--- you know how much was sacrificed to get it out on time.

And that’s just sad.

Now, before I go into detail, I feel that I need to clarify a few things.

As much as it seems extremely unfair to compare this series to that of Avatar: The Last Airbender, that’s exactly what I will be doing but for a good reason. You see, Avatar: The Last Airbender was a trailblazer in a lot of ways. Although it wasn’t the first western animation that featured a large, complicated, overarching plot, it was the first to do so with, not only a plan of how each season was to go and lead towards the finale, but to have such important character growth as well. Shows like Teen Titans, Ben 10, and Samurai Jack to varying degrees all had similar types of storytelling that was present in Avatar: The Last Airbender and these groundbreaking shows helped pave the way for Avatar to even exist. But it wasn’t until Avatar was released that it helped show western audiences the types of stories that could be told in animation. Anime was already telling these stories over in Japan, even premiering some of their stories in the west with television programming such as Anime Network, or Toonami--- but these never really seen such sweeping popularity, and for the most part, was catered towards kids and early teenagers. However, Avatar was so popular that I haven’t met a single person who was a child when this show was airing that hasn’t at least seen the show. (I’ve met one or two individuals who didn’t like the show, but they’ve at least seen it. [Needless to say, they turned out to be very nasty people but that’s neither here nor there...]) It’s probably one of, if not the, cartoon that went from being considered a “children’s show” to being a family show. My parents watched it! My parents loved it! It wasn’t a weird thing to watch this show because it managed to cater to many demographics. And for that, it becomes one of the most influential cartoons within the past 20 years. Avatar has turned 13 years old this past February and it feels like it could of been released this past year. It is simply, a classic.

However, aside from Avatar, there’s not many cartoons to compare The Dragon Prince to. I could compare it to shows that I’ve stated before: Teen Titans, Samurai Jack, Ben 10, Codename: Kids Next Door, and many others. But the problem is that many of these shows focus on one type of storytelling. With Ben 10 and Codename: Kids Next Door, there wasn’t so much of an “overarching plot” that drove the series forward as much as there was character development over a series. You could make a case for Ben 10, saying that Ben 10 gaining the omnitrix and trying to remove it was the overarching plot of the show, but to that I say, there wasn’t a particular finale planned for that “goal.” It was more of a vague possibility that they worked and not every season funneled towards it. There wasn’t an escalation. Not everything was working towards this goal. It was simply there. For Teen Titans and Samurai Jack, there was an overarching plot but at the expense of other things. For Teen Titans, there was an overarching plot for a season; it focused on the problems and the struggles for one of the Titans for a season, maybe even a couple of episodes within a season, but there wasn’t a particular end goal. There wasn’t a final boss to defeat. There wasn’t an overarching plot that connected the overarching plots. It was primarily focused on character growth. For Samurai Jack, it had an overarching plot at the expense of character growth. For the most part, Jack stays the same throughout the series. He may learn some new tactics, become more accustomed to his new surroundings, fight new and increasingly difficult challenges, but he doesn’t grow towards something. He continuously tries to go back home and defeat Aku, but there’s not the constant escalation towards a final battle like there is in Avatar. Because of this, The Dragon Prince is in the difficult position of not only having such a ridiculously small venue to compare itself to, but also the fact that it’s going to be compared to its spiritual predecessor. It’s unfair. It’s cruel. But it’s the only other show that uses the same complete range of techniques that The Dragon Prince uses. I may compare it somewhat to Anime, but seeing as that’s eastern animation versus western animation, I’ll try to refrain from that as much as possible. So while it appears that comparing The Dragon Prince to Avatar: The Last Airbender pre-establishes a bias and unfair advantage towards Avatar, I’m only doing that out of lack of options and opportunity. Otherwise, I will try to remain as objective as possible. After all, The Dragon Prince needs to be able to stand on its own merit, regardless of its predecessor.

Now that that’s out of the way...

One of the first things to comment on is the art-style, and for a lot of people, it’s a bit of a turn-off. For one thing, it’s animated using cheaply produced CGI, which leaves the animation rather choppy.

However, that doesn’t really bother me too much. The character designs are fantastic. The establishing shots and aerial angles of the backgrounds are absolutely stunning. And even while using such a generic type of animation, they were still able to create a unique look to their animation that anyone would be able to identify this cartoon from a mile away. For what the technology they were working with, they did a great job. Could they have used better technology? Certainly. But for what they had, I was generally pretty happy with the result.

On top of this, I was an individual who was able to sit through the awful animation of Ajin: Demi-human and still enjoy myself so... really... it’s not as bad as it could’ve been. (And for those of you who never saw Ajin, here’s a clip of the animation. It’s just... hot garbage...)

Watching all 9 episodes that released yesterday on Netflix, I feel that I can identify 3 major problems that I had with the overall quality of the series.

1.) The Plot Felt Rushed.

The best way I can describe the overall feeling I had from watching this series is if someone tried to explain to me their DnD campaign in the span of 9 twenty-five minute episodes. And to any DnD or Table-top RPG player, this seems like a dream come true. However, in practice? This is a very poor way to tell a story. Having watched way too many hours of DnD livestreams and YouTube shows, I can tell you that when you try and summarize a DnD campaign, it just doesn’t amount to actually sitting down and watching each individual session. Many of the things that the average individual wouldn’t include in their overall summary of the campaign help us feel closer to the characters involved! The weird, crazy antics and conversations that players get themselves into help reveal to the audience (and to each other!) the type of people each character is. If we don’t spend enough time with these characters, getting to know their personality, they’re speech patterns, their quirks, it becomes a whole lot harder to care for what they want or are striving towards. It becomes difficult to relate to them as people and you begin to view them more as symbols, or objects than actual living beings. Watching this series, I felt like I was constantly being fire-hosed with information and plot and world-building and backstory and character growth and new characters and my god how much can you fit into one fucking episode I’m so---- I never had breathing room. I never had enough time to get to know these characters. I never got to see them when things were dull, or they had a long stretch of road to travel, or just having a moment to process all that’s happened. To be honest, I wanted some filler episodes. I wanted an episode or two where we weren’t focused on all the terrible things that were going wrong. I just... I wanted a moment to breathe. And seeing as they only included 9 episodes instead of the standard 24, I can’t help but feel that they should’ve put it off. Now, maybe there was some pressure from Netflix to get this baby out to the public, but really, it was to the show’s detriment. It wasn’t ready. It needed more time. The scripts needed a better once over, another look to say, “You know what? Maybe we should put another couple one-off episodes to make this breathe a little better.” It just... it needed more time.

2.) The Characters Felt Like Chess Pieces, Not Characters.

What do I mean by that? Well, let me explain.

In writing, one of the major things that they tell you is that your characters should fuel your plot. Their actions and reactions should help push your plot forwards; in every scene, they should be working towards their goals and what they want, and if they aren’t well... you should cut it.

If you’re using your characters as chess pieces, that simply means that your characters aren’t fueling your plot, your plot is fueling your characters. Each character does a certain thing, not because your character wants to do X thing, or does something because of X reasons, but simply because the plot calls for it. When this happens, characters become wishy-washy. The small little problems that arise come, not from conscious character decisions and personality clashes, but from lack of communications and convenient drama problems. On top of this, small character quirks, lines of dialogue, actions that actually affect the plot of the story, could be fulfilled by any one of the cast of characters. They aren’t individual people with their own wants and desires, their own personalities and flaws. They simply become pieces to fill a role that’s empty and as an audience member, how am I supposed to empathize with that? How am I supposed to care about these people and their struggles when whatever “3- dimensional personality traits and backstory” could’ve been fulfilled by... anyone...

On top of this, it causes character motivations to become muddled. They may have a “reason” as to why they act the way that they do, but it doesn’t really affect their personality.

Let’s take Zukko for example. It’s goal, his motivation, is to capture the Avatar at all costs. Why? To restore is honor. To be accepted back into the Fire Nation with open arms. To make his father proud of him for once in entire life. Because of this motivation, Zukko is desperate. He wants so badly to be accepted by his father that he’s willing to do anything in order to capture the Avatar. This affects his actions. He’s very rash. He doesn’t think things through to their fullest extent. He’s a very angry character because of the fact that he’s so desperate for the love and acceptance that he’s never received from his father that every single failure, every single step back, every single moment that he has to wait and plan and think things through seems like a delay of his desires. If you were to place Sokka, or Katara, or Aang, or any other character in the same exact situation that Zukko was placed under, they wouldn’t react the same exact way and that’s what makes a character individual. If we were to compare Zukko to Rayla, we see that Rayla’s actions... could’ve been Soren’s actions, or King Harrow’s actions, or even Callum’s actions if placed in the same exact circumstances. The fact that she spared a random human soldier, or the fact that she’s teaming up to save the Dragon Prince doesn’t seem like a decision that she’s actively made. It only seems like she’s made those decisions because the writers wanted her to, or because the plot called for it. The writers say that it’s because Rayla wants redemption for her parents cowardice but I don’t really believe it. If Rayla really wanted to redeem herself, she wouldn’t have hesitated to kill the human soldier. If she found the Dragon Prince with the human princes, she would have taken the egg for herself and became the hero of her people. Why would she care about some war? Why would she care about the “fear in the soldier’s eyes” or “the right thing to do?” The only thing that is established that we know about is that she’s trying to redeem herself for her parents mistakes, which is why she’s the fastest, the strongest, and the most skilled in her group. All these... additional actions? They make no sense. They’re out of character. They just don’t... fit. And because of that, they don’t feel real. They simply feel like chess pieces that the author uses to further the plot. Granted, we’ve only seen 9 episodes of Rayla, but even in the early seasons of Avatar, every character’s actions had a purpose even if we, the audience, couldn’t see it, we could feel the consistency within the character. But with The Dragon Prince? There was no character consistency and because of that, the audience could feel that.

3.) Who’s The Villain?

Consciously, I know who the villain is. Viren is supposed to be this big man-ba-jama that’s supposed to be out to kill the prince. Why? Because he wants the throne... supposedly. But... why? What does he gain by becoming the King of an empire at war? Power, sure but... nobody wants power for the sake of power. If he really did, he would have killed King Harrow a long time ago. But instead, he’s simply trying to pull Scar (from The Lion King) with... no real reason? I mean, Scar wanted power because he wanted people to respect him. But I’m still baffled as to why Viren wants the throne...

And as far as The Dark Magic is concerned, I mean... I get why Dark Magic is supposed to be bad. Using someone’s life-force against their will is... it’s kinda horrific. Not to mention, the process appears to be pretty fucking painful, so yeah. Bad Idea™. But like.... what’s the benefit of using Dark Magic? What do you gain by using it? Like, we have 6 different sources of magic. We have multiple different magical ways to solve a problem, why do we need a new “evil terrible” one? On top of that, Viren isn’t... a threat? Like... yeah, he orders to kill the princes. Yeah, he places Runaan’s soul in a coin which is pretty fucking bad but like... with Firelord Ozai, he killed millions of people. He burned his own fucking son just because dared to speak out of turn, like that’s straight up sociopathic. He uses his children as tools and doesn’t care for anyone but himself. But Viren? He... actually cares? And he has legitimate feelings? And maybe he uses his children as tools but at the end of the day, he still actually cares about them and like... Viren legitimately seems like he’s just trying to do what he thinks as right, but doing it in the worst fucking way possible.

And maybe that’s the point of the series. Maybe it’s the idea that “the road to hell is paved with good intentions” but there just... isn’t enough indication of that fact. The series tries to paint these children as “right” and Viren as “wrong” and Runaan as “overzealous” and General Amaya as “misguided” and... when you want to use gray morality, you have to show the good actions people take along with the bad actions. You have to show that the villains are capable of good, that the heroes are capable of bad, and that there’s a reason for everything someone does.

That’s how you write gray morality. But seeing as the characters aren’t solid personalities and there isn’t really a reason for a character to make any particular action, it becomes nigh impossible to do so.

So, where does that leave us?

Well, it’s not a bad show. The world-building is so vibrant and so alive that I would love to see a DnD campaign or some other form Table-top RPG to come out of this series. The animation was actually surprisingly good for what they were working with. Yeah, backgrounds were a little recycled and a bit bland from time-to-time. They could’ve used some more in-between frames to make the animation more smooth and connected. Even some shots leave me going, “Ewwww.... You really skipped that one for time, didn’t cha?” But at the end of the day, I could dig it. I could ignore it for what was happening.

The problem is that the writing was so rushed. The characters felt lost. The plot was running at a break neck pace. I didn’t understand why anything was happening the way it was. I was just... disappointed. While looking through some gifs for this post, I feel like this one really describes my overall impression of the show.

It needed more.

It needed more time, more character development, more episodes. Just... more.

Problem is that it’s a quality show. It’s so much better than many of the animations that I’ve seen in recent years that it really does become a cut above the rest. However, like I said before, I know what it could be. And that just makes me extremely sad for its lost potential.

Overall, if I had to rate it, I’d give it a solid 7 out 10.

I’m going to keep tabs on it. The first season is always the roughest one, so in the future, it very well could live up to expectations. But for now, it’s just... disappointing. It isn’t bad by any means. I’ve seen some bad animations in my time and this doesn’t even come close to that. But I just feel like it could be so much more and that really bothers me.

If there are any corrections you’d like to make in regards to this post, please feel free to send me a message with your corrections and I’ll get back to it as soon as I can!

Do you remember a cartoon your friends have never heard of? Got a scene from an animated film that you’re dying to know the name to? Send your questions to The Cartoon Archivist and I’ll see what I’ve got in the vault!

#the dragon prince #tdp #tdp spoilers #the dragon prince spoilers #netflix #2015-present #I see one of two things happening #1: I'm gonna get a big boost in followers #2: I'm gonna get a lot of hate mail for this #Or both #I don't really care all that much #I just felt the need to share my opinions on this because let me tell you: I HAVE SOME OPINIONS #I JUST WANTED MORE GODDAMN IT

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humansun · 3 years

Text

Parables, Distractions, Creative Dev, & People | February 8, 2022

Top of Mind: Finished Parables Series!

I can’t believe it! I finished Parable of the Talents. This book - wow. I mean, I don’t have enough words to even put together all of the amazingness of it. I think the biggest thing I felt with this book was gratitude. I feel grateful to have been recommended this book from my best friend, Mai, and to have related so much with the characters and Octavia as well. I feel grateful that this person wrote, through fiction, so much of what I was already feeling inside about our society and what we should do about it.

I want to dedicate an entire post to it at some point, but definitely need to type up all my quotes as I do and watch some YouTube reviews and discussions on it before I wrap it up and start The Sympathizer.

Breaking Things Down, Specifically Distractions One aspect about today I wanted to flesh out a bit more through writing was the thought I had about distractions, mainly brought in by Thich Nhat Hanh’s lectures which I put on from time to time during the morning shift at Disney. Distractions are a 21st century norm I believe at this point, but they have become a norm that are unconsciously ingrained in our lives. This happens to a point where we are no longer able to sometimes catch ourselves in the middle of entering a distraction.

It’s essentially the mental pacifier to pick up our phones or engage in another task when we do not want to think or complete a task that will work our brains a little harder. We seek for a distraction, sometimes and most times subconsciously by checking our phones for notifications or pacifying our minds with something novel. I hate doing this. I hate that I am unable to stay focused on one task because my mind trails off with another exciting thing like Instagram or a task I had to do yesterday that may not be as important as the task at hand.

It’s a lot to break down, but I am grateful I am more aware than I was before about these mental pacifiers and how obstructive these distractions can be to my productivity and efficiency. Not that productivity and efficiency are the most important things in the world as we are conditioned to believe, but I just like to get things done (which I may have been conditioned to feel as a child of capitalism, yes! All disclaimers are here).

Creative Development, Truly Lots of things have already happened within the past 24 hours that I have learned. I learned that I love writing poems. I mean, shoutout to this poem application that has me writing and using my creative juices like crazy - and not even in an unhealthy way. I just write when I feel an emotion come to the surface or when I feel like expressing something that I might want to confide in with a friend about. You know? And it’s awesome to be able to do it in a literary art form, like writing on my personal blog, but it’s a different channel of creativity.

I’m thinking about giving my blog posts sub-titles in each section of the post so when I look back, at least I know what I’m writing about instead of just having it be a huge block of text about nonsense or random things that may not be applicable to my life. It really just is a big block of text and word vomit most of the time, so I can let my feelings out in that moment. (Future Betty, which is now Present Betty, which when you read it is Past Betty, has added sub-titles.)

Social media check in: everything is great in this realm. Muni Long saw me singing, I’m getting updates on casting calls and virtual events, I even get to support all of my favorite Asian American creatives which is so fun and exciting.

Relationships, People, and the Usual - Gratitude! I spoke with Justin today, the one and only Mr. Phan, and it was great catching up. Only two thirds of the way through did I realize I didn’t talk to him for a few years because he was problematic. I definitely don’t stand for it now, but I’m also a different person and have a changed perspective when it comes to educating. I didn’t bring it up, but I’m hoping at some point I do, because it’s important to me that I surround myself with people who are more so ethical.

Talk about that though! Jesus Christ, I can’t stand ignorance. In any form. Even with people who are indirectly associated with me. Anyways, conversation for another day. Today was a blessing and I’m learning that every single day is, because I have all that I have. I got some good phalanges, at least my foot is not falling off, and I got a great mind and heart with the best people around me. Being grateful for your life is starting to make a lot more sense on days like these, so I’m going to bathe in it! I miss Uncle Jeremy so much and he truly came in at the right time. Big big shoutouts to Amy, Erika, and Lina, my bad bitch crew.

Good night! So grateful!

0 notes

jantherweek · 7 years

Photo

Please read this before you submit any work for Janther Week!

Greetings everyone!

As you know, Janther Week will be here soon, and we have certain rules and guidelines that must be followed before anyone can submit an entry. We will also be providing key information in this post. Please know that you can access this information and more on our page (under ‘The Rules’ tab and the FAQ tab).

What kind of works can be submitted?

We will be accepting many different types of media! You can submit

Art

Gifs

Aesthetics/Moodboards

Videos

Fanfiction

If you want to submit any other type of work that isn’t listed, let us know and we may add it to the list!

What kind of works cannot be submitted?

- No old art or stories will be accepted. Only entries that follow the prompts and are submitted during the event can be included.

Please know that while we do appreciate all of the hard work put into older pieces, we want to make an effort to upload new content. New works help breathe life into small fandoms and invoke creativity. We wish to make the event extra special, and look forward to seeing what everyone has in mind!

- Also, all work must be your own. We will not accept stolen or traced submissions, and if your work is found to belong to someone else, it will be removed immediately.

Theft has ZERO exceptions. Both Mod Biscuitweevil and I respect artistic integrity, and will do what we can to prevent stealing of any kind. Please know that while we enjoy this fandom dearly, we’re very serious about this. Repeated offenses from a user will result in him/her being unable to submit for Janther Week at all.

- Any work that doesn’t contain Jane and Gunther.

It’s perfectly OK if Jane and Gunther aren’t in the same space, but Janther Week is a promotion of the ship, therefore, your story should contain some element of both characters. You cannot submit works for other ships you prefer (ie: Rake/Pepper, Jane/Smithy etc), but you can submit pieces of OT3 (ie: Jane/Gunther/Jester, Jane/Gunther/Pepper) if that’s what you prefer. Angst where Jane/Gunther fight, die, or break up is also fine, so long as the attention still remains on the ship.

Can I submit NSFW pieces?

Yes! But please note the following:

- Any NSFW art submissions must contain a clean cut/preview, with all sensitive material going under a “read more” link. This is in consideration towards any participants who may wish to not read/view such material. Here is an example of what that should look like:

(this work is originally made by @biscuitweevil and can be found here! This image is SFW)

However, NSFW material will in no way disallow your entry from being accepted provided you adhere to the above. Please also tag your work as #NSFW so that those who have Tumblr Savior can be double safe.

- Gifs and Aesthetics must also follow the same rule.

- Videos and Fanfictions must be tagged as NSFW and stated as such in the post, but no other action is needed.

Works that don’t follow these standards will not be accepted.

I want to submit my fanfiction. What should the post look like?

We’re both very passionate about fanfiction, and so, to help fanfictions gain attention Mod Biscuitweevil and I have designed a specific manner in which fanfiction will be presented. Fanfictions must be submitted in this way or they will not be accepted.

All fanfiction pieces will have three standard parts:

A title and author name

A summary and a link

A preview image

- A preview image will be displayed on top of the summary, as an aesthetic piece.

This helps draw attention to the story and gives everyone an idea about its plot. The aesthetic contains images, the title, and the author’s username. Any font can be used, as long as it’s legible, but the dimensions must be kept the same. We’ve provided the picture below at the top of this post as well, so that you may save/use the image with its correct dimensions.

- The summary should be the body of your post.

It can be a simple synopsis or a chunk of your story that you like the most. You cannot submit your entire fanfiction work into the post. We’ve decided on this for two reasons: one, we noticed that written works that are fully posted are often times overlooked or ignored by viewers, and we really want people within the fandom to take the time to read your stories! We know how much hard work goes into them, and that should be appreciated. Two, we want to encourage readers on Tumblr to visit your fanfiction/Ao3 page and review the work! By clicking on the link, they’ll be able to check out your other awesome stories!

- Be sure to include the link to your full story!

Overall, your post will look like this:

If you don’t have a fanfiction account of any kind with another website, and want to submit a fanfiction through Tumblr, then please still make an aesthetic, a short summary, and place your full story under a Read More/Keep Reading option (Ctrl + Shift + K).

Important: If you don’t want to create your own preview image/aesthetic, let us know! We will create one for you! We’ll be readings all fanfictions!

I have an aesthetic/gif/video but it doesn’t use J&tD footage/images, is that OK?

Yes!

- You don’t have to use direct footage/images from the show in order to submit your piece. You can use images that resemble the characters to get your point across. Face claims are perfectly acceptable as well, as long as we can tell who’s who.

- We do encourage participants to use footage/images from the show though! It deserves recognition and encourages outsiders to view how awesome it is!

Wait, I don’t see my submission even though I uploaded it?

If you submitted a piece to our blog but still don’t see it, it could be for several reasons:

- Your piece was submitted, we just haven’t been able to post it yet, so please wait a full day before contacting us to ask if we received it.

- The piece was not properly submitted, so please try to re-submit your work using the instructions provided on our blog, and contact us advising that you resubmitted it so we can keep an eye out for it.

- It’s a site problem that we aren’t in control of. If you notice that your work is not reaching us properly, then please upload your submission onto your own blog as a post and add #jantherweek and/or @ our blog. We’ll be checking the tags regularly.

-We might’ve missed it! Mistakes happen and we’re far from perfect, so if you believe we missed your work then @ us or send us an Ask and we will rectify the issue!

How creative can I get with the prompts?

As creative as you want! We’re pushing for creativity and open-mindedness for this event. If you want to express your piece in a metaphoric or symbolic way, or be simple and straightforward--then please do so!

- Some of you may have noticed that some prompts have more than one meaning. This is because we want you to pick whichever inspires you the most! Don’t feel pigeon-holed into writing/drawing/creating something you might not like, just because you want to stick strictly to it’s most basic meaning. Get as crazy with it as you like! So long as we can see the influence of the prompt within your work.

- Any and all AUs are accepted! You don’t need to keep the knights/squires theme or in the medieval period.

Why is the last prompt a quote? What does that mean?

In an effort to be innovative, we’ve decided to do make the last prompt a quote from Anna Karenina instead of a word. Quotes offer more substance and paint a more detailed image. We want Janther participants to show or tell us what they imagined when they read the quote. What story played in your head? What is its tie to Janther? We’re excited to see all of the different ideas come to fruition!

I’m late! Can I still submit for the event?

NO.

Yes. :^) But we will not be actively updating the blog past the final day of the event, so make sure you get your submissions in before it is over!

- BUT, if you do have a submission after the event is over and you really want us to add it, then please @ this page or @ one of our personal accounts so we can see it.

- It’s fine to submit works for Janther Week months or years after the event is over, but if you are very late, please tag it as #Janther Week (year of the week event you want to submit for). Also, please be patient! As stated before, we won’t be actively checking that area. Even if all of these steps are taken, we may be busy with other matters and may not be as active as you’d like. The process may take some time, so keep that in mind.

- Spamming us will not make it better for you or anyone!

I have a question! Who do I contact to get it answered?

- Contact this page using our Message tab on our blog. Both Mod Biscuitweevil and I circle it every once in a while, so either she or I will catch it. Please don’t ask us Janther Week related questions in our personal blogs (unless you can’t contact us through the Ask/Message option)! Please note that all answered questions/posts will be deleted after a 24 hour period or when we know you’ve received the answer. All questions asked through the Ask option are made PUBLIC by default.

- JantherWeek also has an email: [email protected] where you can send us any questions or personal problems you have regarding submissions. Please note that this email will only be checked around the time of the event. If you’re a late submitter than please contact us via our blog.

❤ Mod Batbladders & Mod Beefbrain

#jantherweek #janther #otp: mismatched #jane and the dragon #jane and gunther #guidelines #rules

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myspookysunshine · 7 years

Text

Original Poetry Dump Post

These were written under dustyirish, my other url, so I promise I am not plagiarizing myself. Bad poetry, but what the fuck. It was heartfelt at least. : )

NYC

I got your number. NYC; confusion, cacophony, crazy smell of taxi exhaust inexplicably smothered by the smell of roasted beans mocha latte grande whatthefuckever just give me Coffee boring and hot you laugh and it sounds genuine but my hearing isn't what it used to be. the horde floods past, fighting for air threatening to sweep us up in the flow you stand firm and vanish them with a drawl southern magician in a Ramones tee your hand brushes my arm accident or promise? that pinky sure felt like promise. yeah I got your number better yet I got your smile.

*************************

Discordance

Every night, 9:00 a solo goose flies overhead, late to the party offering his lonesome song to the night he's easy to single out the notes are slightly strange; a hoarse, desperate honking not quite like the others waiting at the pond 9:00, on the nose, I hear his tone deaf journey I always look up and smile. I can relate.

******************

Yarrow

Dawnlight breaks across the land birds call on the hill but in the valley down below the farm lies strangely still cows low crossly, needing milked morning chores gone unattended wash forgotten on the line a rocking chair upended bright flowers bent and broken by a shadow come to pass something that is not paint spilled upon the blades of grass wheat sways gently in a breeze that reeks of secret sorrow and last night's sin lies waiting amongst the fields of yarrow.

****************

Grandmother

You laugh at the sky. The picture's in black and white, but I know that ugly blue bathing suit scuffed in the rear from years of poolside sitting one strap permanently twisted from some washing machine trauma I was mortified by it then; I would give anything to see it now. You laugh at the sky, carefree and wild/beautiful, wind whipping dark hair into something approaching chaos Bettie Page on the edge of a hurricane. Your arms reach for me; I, that sepia child, race for them. As I recall, there was an embrace and promises of baby bunnies but memories are funny things; they seek one another, merge, then hide themselves away in corners.

You're in color now, though the room is kept dim machines beep a monotonous rhythm that some dark part of me wishes would just go silent. I stand, arms outstretched, waiting for my embrace. Time and tubes and coma be damned. You're still laughing at the sky.

************************

Solitary Duck

Eighteen months and here in this youless reality tattered grocery lists become relics tears are shed over cow slippers a stray Butterfinger wrapper lies under the bed, coiled, ready to strike I would pick up a sword to protect a voicemail I would sell my soul to still believe in ghosts.

They said malignancy I became five again; all I wanted was my mommy I settled for sharing the news with a rectangle of sod and a solitary mallard on the duck pond.

Isn't it funny how shared laughter sounds like music the same joke, told alone, sounds like madness

I live to pluck words from the ether The most elusive (and the one I fear most) is goodbye.

Leprechaun

It was a day for celebrating. Exactly what was being celebrated she had forgotten (if she ever knew) but attendance seemed to be required.

So she went.

She took a deep breath, steeled herself and walked into the gathering.

A shirtless leprechaun sat in the corner, softly crooning The Doors 'Love Street', plucking out the notes on a tiny piano held in his lap.

He was no Jim Morrison, granted, but was anyone?

She stepped further into the room and the atmosphere changed.

Whisky bottles were festooned with shamrock stoppers, green beer flowed freely from taps, a musky green scent perfumed the air.

Pretty people getting ugly drunk.

A shoving match broke out between a tall man and a misplaced clown. She side-stepped the melee with ease.

She had crafted invisibility into an art form.

In the center of pushed-back chairs, couples danced to contemporary music. Their bodies moved to the pulsing rhythm but their eyes were dead.

She tried a bit of everything on offer, musky green burning between her fingers as she retraced her steps, back towards the known.

No one asked her to dance, and this was not necessarily a bad thing. She was afraid to be swept up in their nothingness.

There once was a yesterday bride seeking happiness somewhere inside she was dimly aware that the spark was still there But that fucker, it knew how to hide.

In the end, she returned to the leprechaun.

His head rested back against the plaster, hair flowing in loose curls to his shoulders. He had moved on to 'Soul Kitchen' and he was suddenly beautiful.

She slid to the floor beside him, lay a hand on his ankle and closed her eyes.

What she lacked in visibility she made up for in imagination.

********************

Three

His kiss is wildfire, eager and consuming Yours a gentle rain to temper the flames laid down together they alter my landscape forever make way for new growth

(you both taste of conviction)

His eyes shout for desperate truth Yours whisper questions and secret pain combined, they stare into the depths of me clear my path to perception

(you both see into the shadows)

your breaths mingle on my skin which touch is which has lost meaning there is no division here oneness rough and smooth sharp and drawl chaos and peace the differences blend into something nearing perfection Twenty fingers twine, seeking my heart

finding my soul

I take you both into myself and in doing so perhaps I can absorb his laughter and your tenderness

(you are both strength)

two men, one woman evolve into the unknown.

******************

Knotted Noose

I was there when the songs formed in basement band trial and error in beer and sweat and frustration in epiphany I slipped away then you Slipped Away I never heard the music that was formed after you lost yourself among the masks and pharmaceuticals you've been gone so long now memories have faded down to driving, pulsing bass a worn high school jersey and the places where you liked my tongue.

*******************

Cancer

I look in the mirror my silhouette is off-kilter I stand, lopsided and pining for something I never thought I would miss. Two hours under the knife equals twenty years of aging biology isn't supposed to work that way the math is wrong, goddammit. Now, even in my dreams, I am unwhole I am old there is hesitation in reaching hands there is hesitation in my reaching back If I could ask this disease one question it would be this : Was that truly necessary; couldn't you have left me my dreams?

***********

Cowboy Prince

Full Texas moon tinged with blood above a half-gone bottle of Jameson rolls in time with your hips your balled-up army jacket cradles my head your heartbeat cradles my senses your body is the only warmth I need against the chill in the air Zombie on vocals backed by coyotes we merge in this wonderland where a rusted out Silverado becomes a horse-drawn carriage you are my cowboy prince and a hi-top sneaker turns to glass.

******************

Yo--Ville

was what we called it I don't know why but it seemed to fit

(maybe it was a vibe thing)

music never ceased within its walls 24/7 lullaby the tunes created weren't good

(but the intentions were)

tofu was a confusing concept to my young mind and I rode on the back of a Harley in a miniskirt

(that scar is all I have left)

a drifter lived silent in the corner bedroom he carried his life in a backpack he could speak but chose not to

(and nobody thought it was strange)

The singer was a woman who dressed in tattered tie-sye she was angry and mysterious and beautiful

(I wanted her desperately)

Jesus was a man named Bob He never walked on water but we all believed he could

(if he could only find the ambition)

I was on a path back then and somewhere between there and here I strayed and lost myself.

********************

Perspective

Yes, it's true.

There are scars under my fingertips when they whisper along your thigh I run my tongue over teeth that aren't aligned with precision I have to pause ecstasy for a moment to kiss stray tears from your cheeks My arms stay around you in sleep to ward off demons I can't see

It's all true.

But what you don't realize is that your imperfections make you my perfect.

***************

Lesson

don that mask, hide yourself away whisper sweet lies in my ear lay your heart bare to be trod upon drown yourself in fear side with monsters, fight the light let the decades take their toll be the bringer of Death if you must but never whore your soul.

************

To The Unknown

Here you sleep, under cold pink marble and sentiment - well-meant but generic - in lieu of identity. I never knew your heart; if it was nurtured with kindness or made to hide away and beat in fear. I never saw your smile; if it was a shy, sweet blossoming or if it burst like sun flare, lighting up your eyes. I never heard your voice; if it was soft and melodic or booming and brash, filled with mischief. But oh I wish I could hear it now, whispering a name to etch upon this stone.

*************

Effigy

The scent of you lingers on pillowslips the mattress still holds your shape I use an old flannel for a nightshirt an acoustic guitar for a teddy bear I'm left with all the pieces that don't make up a whole You are only here in effigy and I can't find a match.

**********

Zephyr

I was numb before I met you soul shot full of novocaine I'm numb after I left you it's a numbness of the brain you whispered soft instruction a curriculum to maintain you first taught me oblivion then you taught me pain nothing much left standing now only crumbling walls remain you came in like a zephyr and went out a hurricane.

***********

Wish

Last night I discovered your words tucked away among dusty knickknacks on a back garage shelf.

I wish I knew how they had come to be hidden. I wish they had found a more dignified resting place. I wish you could have spoken them aloud. I wish I didn't understand the whys. I wish I had opened that box earlier. I wish I had never opened that box.

Last night I found your goodbye and today I wish I was still unaware that a heart can break twice.

*************

Taboo

The only two left floating high and exhausted in a sea of beer-swept men couch springs prod your spine but he is familiar comfort his lap a favorite pillow a slight shift of your head a slight shift in your friendship and lips are tracing denim steel you know the unspoken language of him you are fluent in his groans this one screams fucking finally fingers catch in your hair ghost along your inked bicep interpreting the coded message

'Break glass in case of emergency'

his cock pulses against your tongue your own thrums in time a driving, crescendoing drum beat he belongs to someone else you don't belong even to yourself together, here, you belong Wrong? Forbidden? Taboo? you wouldn't know as the taste of him floods your mouth words have ceased to exist.

***********

Horse

We flew, you and I, across years wind in my hair, dust in my nostrils wildfire under my skin we rode on trails of deception under the illusion that I held the reins.

One day you balked and bucked me hooved death came down beside my head knocked some courage loose I corralled you, slammed the gate and limped away bruised but triumphant.

I never was good at mending fences.

You've broken free and galloped back whinnied softly against my ear and I can only savor the ride as I settle into this well-worn saddle molded to the shape of me.

*************

Just Be

I first saw you on your rooftop sanctuary hiding tears behind a cigarette you'd forgotten where you put your laughter but managed to find where I'd put my soul your shadow was beautiful Just Be, I whispered you sobbed against my shoulder smoke and cologne and tears and I fell, far more than the three stories to the ground fear of not being everything Just be, I whispered, and guided you into me and it was imperfect perfection I can be strong enough for both of us the sanctuary of my mind the lesson held even if we didn't I saw you yesterday, up on stage doubt in your eyes I closed my own and whispered Baby, just be.

**************

#poems #poetry

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bensolotags · 4 years

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Frequently Asked Questions

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS,

BEST PRACTICES, AND TIPS FOR TWEETS

From @BenSoloTags

(Scroll down to see Best Practices and Tips)

Frequently Asked Questions

How can I participate in a BenSoloTags Twitter hashtag campaign?

Where can I suggest a hashtag idea for a future campaign?

Please send a tweet to @BenSoloTags if you have a campaign idea!

How often do you do campaigns?

We try to do campaigns about once a month.

Why don’t we do more campaigns?

Are you the only people doing campaigns?

Twitter contacts for some of the other groups include:

@kiara_solo

@KarolV14070769

@solosaberx

Why do you list different time zones on your campaign schedule?

How do you decide which tag to use?

Therefore, using hashtags like #YouKilledMyFavoriteCharacter would not bring us closer to our goal of bringing Ben Solo back alive to the Star Wars universe.

Longer hashtags mean fewer characters to tweet with, so those would be limiting.

We try to make it fun as well as send a message to Disney/LFL. We had so much fun before TROS came out, and we’ve been so bummed since, that we want to promote enjoying each other’s content.

Why do you list different time zones on your campaign schedule?

How do you decide which tag to use?

Therefore, using hashtags like #YouKilledMyFavoriteCharacter would not bring us closer to our goal of bringing Ben Solo back alive to the Star Wars universe.

Longer hashtags mean fewer characters to tweet with, so those would be limiting.

We try to make it fun as well as send a message to Disney/LFL. We had so much fun before TROS came out, and we’ve been so bummed since, that we want to promote enjoying each other’s content.

Is every tag featured on the Ben Solo Tags twitter account sponsored by BST?

Why don’t you use the same hashtag every time? One that everyone can remember?

According to “15 Shortcuts to Get Your Hashtag Trending on Twitter:” “...if a trend goes on too long, it ceases to be a trend. Twitter prefers trends to last for a day or two at a maximum, and trends that go on for too long are no longer spikes in traffic; they’re a new baseline. There are hashtags with 5,000 tweets in a day, while other tags are getting 50,000.

Source: https://follows.com/blog/2017/04/shortcuts-hashtag-trending-twitter

Why don’t you campaign for other characters besides Ben? Rey (Rose, etc.) deserves some love too!

Why aren’t we allowed to use any art we find? If it’s on Pinterest, it’s fair game, right?

Where are you on social media?

Twitter: @BenSoloTags

Facebook: Ben Solo Tags

Instagram: @bensolotags

Best Practices

Feel free to amplify the signal and RT the BenSoloTags tweet about the campaign with your own followers.

If possible, use ONE hashtag per tweet (two maximum), so the Twitter algorithm won’t filter out your tweet as “spam.”

Retweeting other hashtag tweets helps the tag trend, but don’t go crazy. If you retweet too fast, you will get put in Twitter retweet “jail” for up to 72 hours for “suspicious activity.”

Never tweet the hashtag alone. Made sure to add some text or a picture to your tweet. Otherwise, it will be filtered out as “spam.”

Tweets with a visual component work especially well and get retweeted more often. You can include your own artwork or semi-official/official photos from the movies or of the actors. Only share fan art from the artist’s original post or with their permission. Tips for Tweeting with the Current Hashtag.

Here are just a few ideas for creative, fun campaign hashtag posts:

Post photos of yourself with friends and family.

Fanfic writers - share a sample of your work or a URL of one of your stories.

Create memes and/or photo manipulations.

Create and share photos with appropriate quotes and/or poetry (your own or your favorite poet’s).

Share pictures of your own Ben Solo/Star Wars cosplay.

Express what you love about Ben Solo or how you feel about him.

If you’ve written a letter to an actor or one of the filmmakers, you could share it or a sample of it.

Edit your favorite Ben Solo film scene, or create a Ben Solo-themed music video; post it or a link to it.

Take a photo of yourself or a friend with a Rey-inspired hairstyle or a Kylo inspired pose...or vice-versa!

Please Do NOT tag official Disney or Lucas Film accounts or those of their employees.

PLEASE - DO NOT FEED THE TROLLS! Do not engage with them. Your replies count as negative discourse and may be used to invalidate the tag by the algorithms.

Please be respectful of others.

And most importantly, have fun sharing your love and enthusiasm for Ben Solo.

#bensolotags #hashtagcampaign #savebensolo #reylolove #celebratebensolo

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easyfoodnetwork · 4 years

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These Soothing Instagram Food Drawings Are Also Raising Funds for Restaurants

Natasha Pickowicz

Folks are putting pen (or colored pencils) to paper as an outlet for stress and as a way to support the industry

The colors of the strawberries, peach slices, and fresh-flower flourishes on top of the cakes — themselves imperfect circles, and slightly off-kilter — are bright, but also kind of faded, and definitely smudgy. These are not Instagram-perfect bakery shots. Instead, they’re all drawings, done by hand, of what might be a cake but is maybe a flan — or a pie.

Natasha Pickowicz’s artistic handiwork has pivoted these days from pastry to paper. As the pastry chef at Café Altro Paradiso and Flora Bar in NYC, Pickowicz was put on furlough in mid-March due to the novel coronavirus; the hardest transition, she said, “was not being able to make things with my hands anymore.”

“I ached to build cakes, develop spring menus, do the early morning bake off, process fruit,” Pickowicz said in an email. “All of these physical rituals just disappeared overnight.”

She turned to drawing and sharing her work online, and she’s not the only one. In the past few weeks, chefs, cookbook authors, and other restaurant industry loyalists have been sharing their hand-drawn art on Instagram. For some, it’s a stress reliever and outlet for anxiety while stuck at home. It’s also a vehicle for doing good, using artwork to raise much-needed funds for the restaurant industry.

Liz Ryan, a professional illustrator, has always used Instagram as an outlet for her work. Last week, she started posting illustrations specifically of small food businesses, mostly restaurants she personally loves in her Boerum Hill/Carroll Gardens/Cobble Hill area of Brooklyn. She’s been posting one illustration per day, along with a caption about the place and a corresponding relief fund to support it. Then someone who has made a donation or purchase to support that place or fund receives the illustration.

View this post on Instagram

Today’s illustration supports @eastonecoffee and the employees that were laid off in light in of COVID19. East One is still open so definitely keep them in mind for your coffee + nom needs, but today we’re focusing on staff relief. Navigate over to their page and donate via the Venmo account pinned to their profile (There’s also a walkthrough video in my stories if you need some help). Anyone who donates between now and 12pm EST tomorrow (03.31.20) will be entered in a random drawing for this illustration, just DM me a screenshot of your donation confirmation. Thank you @eastonecoffee for all that you do and thank *you* for supporting small businesses! #covid19 #covid19relief #eastonecoffee #illustrationforgood #nycrestaurantrelief #brooklyncoffee #localroasters

A post shared by liz ryan (@lizryandesigns) on Mar 30, 2020 at 9:14am PDT

Ryan started by having the first person to DM her with proof of donation — say, a screenshot of a confirmation page, or a receipt for a gift card — receive the artwork; she’s now shifted to make things less of a race, whereby anyone who donates and sends a confirmation within a 24-hour window will be entered in a random drawing for the illustration. So far, each illustration has gotten multiple responses, with the most recent illustration — of East One in Brooklyn — raising $112.

“The project was motivated by the responsibility I felt to take care of and give back to my neighborhood,” says Ryan in an email. And with so many folks at home right now, bonding through screens while social distancing, Instagram has turned into a less curated, gentler vehicle for that.

“I normally feel pressure to prioritize sharing polished content but the internet feels incredibly kind right now,” says Ryan, who says response has been overwhelmingly positive. “In my feeds, social media has shifted from a curated landing page to a tool for documenting and assembling authentically. I’m here for it.”

View this post on Instagram

Filipino American, woman owned, sustainability-driven @clairesprouse quickly became a woman I admire and with her, @hunkydorybk quickly became my regular spot, a sanctuary and escape from my apartment and the chaotic, outside world. After work, I decompress with a glass of wine (or two) and cave into ordering their french fries (with extra mayo, please). I work remote there, perched at the bar, enjoying @mariebasile’s company, bartender turned dear friend, after she saved me from a terrible first date, “let me know when you want me to kick him out .” (She did, btw). I won’t find another space as special as this. Here, the @diasporaco turmeric-soaked eggs with black peppercorn, original ph: @abhishek14_. @diasporaco is also woman owned, helmed by @sanajaverikadri, who began Diaspora Co. in 2017 to share the complex cultures of India, and share regional spice varieties to the broader public. Diaspora Co. is donating $4 from the sale of every $12 jar of #PragatiTurmeric to their food communities’ employees’ @gofundme. Turmeric is also anti-inflammatory and immunity boosting — perfect to keep you healthy during this crazy time. Both @hunkydorybk and @diasporaco have @gofundme pages, please donate, or purchase this print! ✨ALL✨ proceeds will go back to the illustrated businesses. DM for details. Stay safe out there. #nkpcreate #illustration #digitalart #foodillustration #cherrybombe #bombesquad #procreate #digitalartist #fooddrawing #supportlocalbussiness #buylocal #shoplocal #newyorktimes #nyt #tumeric #eggs #indianfood #indiancuisine #spices #helpourhunkys #timelapse

A post shared by @ nkpcreate on Mar 23, 2020 at 8:45am PDT

Nancy Pappas is also a professional illustrator. Halfway through March, she also pivoted her feeds to focus on spotlighting specific food businesses and restaurants, sometimes featuring multiple businesses within a single illustration (like the turmeric-soaked eggs from Hunky Dory, featuring Diaspora Co. turmeric).

Each illustration is for sale, with Pappas vowing the split the proceeds among the illustrated businesses. As Pappas wrote on Instagram, “While I am self isolating indoors, I’ll be illustrating some of my favorite local businesses. I’m going to try to do as many as I can while we ride this damn thing out.”

As a food writer, Hugh Merwin’s Instagram feed isn’t typically filled with artwork. But last week, after posting a few black-and-white cartoon drawings, he posted a similar project: Send over a food-based drawing request — “your favorite food, your least favorite food, or your favorite imaginary food” — and proof of donation to a nonprofit like Feeding America or Restaurant Workers’ Community Foundation, or receipt from a local food business, and he will post a custom drawing for you. Since then, Merwin has posted 23 drawings, ranging from a rare New York strip steak to a morel riding a scooter.

View this post on Instagram

An unintentionally goth layer cake, for @zaneta316, made with mango, passion fruit, and pomegranate. (There are a few unasked-for loquats on the middle tier, too, got carried away there, sorry.) ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ _____ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ I will draw your favorite food, your least favorite food, or your favorite imaginary food if you help out one of your local restaurants, food businesses, nonprofits, relief orgs, or any GoFundMe campaign your favorite restaurant may have set up in the last few days). ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ DM me your request with a screenshot of your donation, in any amount, and I will post your drawing here. It may take a few days — apologies! — but I'm excited to keep this going.

A post shared by hugh merwin (@hugh.merwin) on Mar 26, 2020 at 11:00am PDT

Like Merwin, Pickowicz isn’t an illustrator by profession, but has found drawing to be a valuable outlet while out of work. “To help combat my mounting anxiety and stress, I started doodling the layer cakes and pastries that I wished I was making,” she says.

She’s turned to Instagram to post them and sell them as both a personal stress reliever and fundraiser. Her caveats, she says: “Doodles will be mailed out at random with no subject matter requests, please be patient in receiving your drawing, and donate any amount of money you like.”

View this post on Instagram

Cake calisthenics

A post shared by Creeps Suzette (@natashapickowicz) on Mar 17, 2020 at 6:53am PDT

Within 24 hours, she had nearly 100 requests for illustrations and had raised $3,500, with donations ranging from $5 to $100. All of the money is being donated to a GoFundMe set up by Matter House, the hospitality group that owns Café Altro Paradiso and Flora Bar, that specifically benefits their more vulnerable and at-risk employees.

The response, says Pickowicz, “was mind-blowing and so, so moving — people overwhelmingly just wanted to express their support, and suddenly I felt like I had a purpose.”

And Instagram followers — sitting at home, scrolling endlessly, wondering what good they can do right now, especially to support an ailing restaurant industry — may feel the same way.

from Eater - All https://ift.tt/33Z81Mk https://ift.tt/2V6skUb

Natasha Pickowicz

Folks are putting pen (or colored pencils) to paper as an outlet for stress and as a way to support the industry

“I ached to build cakes, develop spring menus, do the early morning bake off, process fruit,” Pickowicz said in an email. “All of these physical rituals just disappeared overnight.”

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by liz ryan (@lizryandesigns) on Mar 30, 2020 at 9:14am PDT

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by @ nkpcreate on Mar 23, 2020 at 8:45am PDT

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by hugh merwin (@hugh.merwin) on Mar 26, 2020 at 11:00am PDT

View this post on Instagram

Cake calisthenics

A post shared by Creeps Suzette (@natashapickowicz) on Mar 17, 2020 at 6:53am PDT

The response, says Pickowicz, “was mind-blowing and so, so moving — people overwhelmingly just wanted to express their support, and suddenly I felt like I had a purpose.”

And Instagram followers — sitting at home, scrolling endlessly, wondering what good they can do right now, especially to support an ailing restaurant industry — may feel the same way.

from Eater - All https://ift.tt/33Z81Mk via Blogger https://ift.tt/2yl9VLm

#Blogger #cooking #Eater #food #recipes

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geekysweetie · 7 years

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Top 2018 Nintendo Switch Games for Girls

30 New Games For Girls on the Nintendo Switch in 2018

One of the most popular posts on this site is our Top 2017 Nintendo Switch Games for Girls

With a new year, I decided to take a look at the upcoming releases for the Switch in 2018 and make a few suggestions as to what games girls should be looking out for in the year ahead. (There may be a few games that released in Q4 of 2017 also on this list as I wasn’t sure of a few of the release dates). Enjoy! And leave me a comment to let me know what games you’re looking forward to on the Switch in 2018. 🙂 I’ll also soon add a list like this for PS4 and PC games as well.

Top 2018 Nintendo Switch Games For Girls

1.) Project Octopath Traveler

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Originally scheduled for a 2017 release, and part of our Top 2017 Nintendo Switch Games for Girls list, Octopath Traveler blends gameplay elements from 16 and 32 bit classics such as Chronotrigger and Saga Frontier. The retro game feel is sure to appeal to many visitors of this site. But that’s not all, Project Octopath Traveler also offers a variety of endings and a branching plot line that is shaped by decisions you make within the game.

2.) Kirby Star Allies

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He’s pink, cute, and the gameplay is fun. Kirby has been a fan favorite of Nintendo gamers for several decades now. In his new adventure, up to four players can join in and you can combine different power ups, as demonstrated in the Nintendo Direct Video above.

3.) Toe Jam & Earl Back in the Groove

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Toe Jam & Earl was a childhood favorite of mine. I spent countless hours (or days, or weeks) playing the original two games on Sega Genesis with my best friend. It’s one of the best multiplayer games of my childhood and this new take on the classic, originally slated for 2017, will grace Switch consoles now in 2018. For those unfamillar with the franchise, you run around colorful crazy worlds with zany characters and crazy powerups playing as 2 funky hiphop aliens.

4.) My Time At Portia

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My Time At Portia is a cross platform title that features sandbox gameplay in a large open world enviornment. It blends together many gameplay elements from Harvest Moon, Stardew Valley, Rune Factory, and Atelier. In this game you can raise animals, grow crops, and restore an abandoned workshop. The developers say the game takes place in a post apocalyptic world where humans are few and that you search for relics from the past to create inventions for the betterment of society. Also just like in Harvest Moon and similar games, all of the NPCs have their own schedules, they will go to work, school, and have their own stories for you to discover by interacting with them.

5.) Avabel Online

youtube

This is perhaps an interesting one to make the list. Avabel Online is a free to play MMORPG that is already available on many platforms, including Android and IOS devices which makes it already portable and playable on the go. Despite that, I’m including it in the list because I do think the gameplay will appeal to girls. Right now, for example, they are running a special Sanrio promotion (makers of hello kitty). You can get cute (sometimes strange) items to decorate your house or dress up your characters. https://avabelonline.com/landing/sanrio

6.) Moonlighter

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A Shopkeeping RPG Simulation game with retro style graphics. You can explore and fight for valueable treasure, as well as craft your own items, and then sell them in your shop. You can also communicate with the NPCs to discover what items they want to purchase. The dungeons are procedurally generated and present new challenges and new loot each time.

7.) Atelier Lydie & Suelle: The Alchemists and the Mysterious Paintings

youtube

Coming in March 2018, Atelier Lydie & Suelle: The Alchemists and the Mysterious Paintings is the first Atelier title to hit the Nintendo Switch. Atelier games focus on gathering ingredients and crafting new items. As you can see from the trailer, they feature beautiful anime graphics, and deep stories. Their gameplay is often long, and at times it can get tedious, however, for those who love crafting and exploring, Atelier offers the ultimate crafting system.

8.) Destiny Chronicles

youtube

This game looks beautiful, and it is inspired by many classic JRPGs. It features action combat and extensive skill tree customization as well as a light hearted humorous story line. You can enchant and upgrade your equipment, as well as interact with your party members and NPCs.

9.) Revenant Saga

youtube

With a level cap of 999, and tons of equipment to collect, Revenant Saga looks to offer some incredible replay value. The ability to tranform in battle and unleash special powers makes combat fun and exciting. While the cute and colorful graphics and dark fantasy story are sure to appeal to fans of classic JRPGs.

10.) Wonderboy: Dragon’s Trap

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This remake of Wonderboy III lets you play as a girl. It also lets you toggle between the original Sega Genesis graphics and soundtrack, or the all new graphics and soundtracks created for this release.

11.) Untold Legacy

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The retro style graphics appeal to me (and probably most of the readers of my blog). But what really appeals to me is this statement that the Devs make about the storyline: “You will be brought to tears as you uncover the twists and turns in this emotionally story-driven experience that will leave you shocked and surprised as you discover the secrets the world of Touchstone has to offer.” – I am a sucker for a heart tugging story. The Devs also indicate that “The Untold Legacy sets out to recreate some of the most heartfelt and gut wrenching moments imaginable.” These two statements make me very interested in this game.

12.) Yoshi

youtube

This game features an art style similar to Paper Mario, and the main character is the lovable, Yoshi, the green dinosaur who first debuted in Super Mario World. The colorful graphics and addictive platformer style gameplay make this game perfect for our list of 2018 Nintendo Switch Games for Girls.

13.) Croixleur Sigma

youtube

With a 9/10 and “Very Positive” Rating on Steam, this anime style hack-n-slash RPG is coming to Switch in 2018. The gameplay is reminicessent of several of the newer Hyper Dimension Neptunia games. The local 2 player co-op makes it perfect for the Nintendo Switch. And playing as the cute anime girls make it a game girls will love to play together.

14.) Your Four Knight Princess Training Story

youtube

A “Raising Sim” similar to games such as Princess Maker and Graduation 95. Gematsu has an excellent article detailing how you will train your princess in this new 2018 Nintendo Switch Game. Basically it involves scolding or praising your princess at various times, for example during conversations or while exploring dungeons. The story and characters change based on your decisions and how you raise your princess. The princesses each have various parameters that you can train to unlock new skills or increase their stats to help them in battle.

15.) Legrand Legacy Tale of the Fatebounds

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Legrand Legacy Tale of the Fatebounds is an impressive indie title with full 3D cinematics and FMV cutscenes. It features tactical turn based combat and interesting city building and mini game mechanics. I’m really looking forward to this title which releases later this month (January 2018).

16.) Shin Megami Tensei V

youtube

I haven’t taken time to organize these recommendations in any kind of “ranking” system, but if I had to pick just one game on this list to play in 2018 it would be Shin Megami Tensei V. Atlus’ dark RPG franchise that sparked the Persona spin off games is one of my favorites.

17.) Tohou Sky Arena Gensoukyou Kuusen Hime

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This looks like an anime brawler with cute girls and exciting special moves. It’s visually very pretty and looks like combat will be fun too.

18.) Valkyria Chronicles 4

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A new title in the tactical Strategy RPG series, Valkyria Chronicles. I’m a huge fan of this series, and this one looks great. It’s due out in March 2018. Valkyria Chronicles is a Sega series known for excellent characters and story lines as well as fun Strategy RPG combat.

19.) The Longest Five Minutes

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This humorous RPG launches in February 2018. The tale begins at the end, as you are facing the demon king, but suddenly you’ve lost all of your memories. From there, regain your memories, remember who you are, where you’re from, where you’re going, and your reason for fighting the demon king. The cute and colorful graphics and retro feel are sure to appeal to my readers.

20.) Mulaka

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With gameplay reminiscent of Zelda or Castlevania, this action RPG features a story and game world that draw inspiration from Mexican culture. The gameplay trailer above shows various abilities and fighting styles, including the ability to transform into different animals.

21.) Yono and the Celestial Elephants

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How could this game NOT make our list??! Look at that elephant. LOOK AT IT!! Has there ever been a cuter video game character in the history of video games? Nope. This adorable little game looks kawaii and charming AF and seems to have some fun puzzles to solve too.

22.) Wandersong

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Play as a traveling bard in this cute, happy, colorful paper-cut-out style world. Coming in early 2018.

23.) Goragoa

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This puzzle game features gorgeous artwork and requires some outside the box thinking. The soundtrack is also lovely and I’ve heard the story is quite sad as well.

24.) Wargroove

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Wargroove promises to be easy to pick up, but difficult to master. Up to 4 players can take control of an army and command it to victory. The colorful retro style graphics really look great and gameplay looks fun and interesting.

25.) Penny Punching Princess

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An Action RPG in Which Money Makes the World Go Round. That’s what Nintendo has to say about their latest RPG that lets you bribe monsters to fight for you. Many are comparing this game to Tingle’s Rosy Rupee Land – a game which I’ve never played (nor even heard of). The colorful and cute graphics caught my eye. I’ll be checking this one out in 2018.

26.) Fallen Legion: Rise to Glory

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Nintendo promises new content and features in this release. “Combining both Fallen Legion: Flames of Rebellion and Fallen Legion: Sins of an Empire for the first time on one console, Fallen Legion: Rise to Glory includes all new art, Exemplars, monsters, bosses and challenges not found in the original releases. I’d somehow not heard of this game until now, so now seems the perfect time to pick this one up.

27.) Lost Sphear

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From the creators of I am Setsuna, comes a new JRPG for the Nintendo Switch in 2018.

28.) Dragon Quest Builders

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Originally part of the 2017 Top Nintendo Switch Games for Girls, this title got pushed back to February 2018.

29.) Mega Man 11

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Fan favorite, and often requested, a new sequel in the Mega Man franchise is arriving on Nintendo Switch in late 2018.

30.) Bayonetta 3 – NINTENDO SWITCH EXCLUSIVE

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Perhaps one of the most exciting announcements, and why I saved it for last, is that a new Bayonetta Game has been announced and it will be available ONLY for the Nintendo Switch.

Top 2018 Nintendo Switch Games for Girls was originally published on GeekySweetie.com - Geeky & Kawaii Anime, Tech, Toys, & Game Reviews & News

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