#two art posts within 24 hours? crazy

[artisticxlly]

Something a little different!

This is fanart for "Blood Upon The Snow" by @sinkat-arts ! I highly recommend giving it (and honestly his other works as well!! he's an amazing writer imo) a read :]

This was loosely based on their answer to an ask I sent them lmao

[tamlinweek]

Tamlin Week 2025: Rules, Prompts, and FAQ

Currently accepting submissions for Tamlin Creator Appreciation! Click here to fill out the form!

First of all, we'd like to thank you all for the support and prompt suggestions! We'd also like to thank @geniemillies for our brand new icon and banner; it's so lovely, so make sure to send them all your love!

The prompts have been chosen for Tamlin Week 2025, which will run Sunday, April 13 - Saturday, April 19. Every day will have two prompts for you to choose from.

This post is intended to serve as a masterpost for the entire event. It will include dates, prompts, rules, and a FAQ. Make sure to click the read more to get ALL the information!

Day 1; Sunday, April 13: Forgiveness/Change

Day 2; Monday, April 14: Dark Spring/Spring Mythology & Celebrations

Day 3; Tuesday, April 15: Polycules & Platonics/Worship

Day 4; Wednesday, April 16: Powers/Hair

Day 5; Thursday, April 17: Biting/Chest

Day 6; Friday, April 18: Spy/Warband

Day 7; Saturday, April 19: Free Day/Crossovers & Alternate Universe

All works must focus on Tamlin! Any and all ships are allowed, as long as the ship with Tamlin is at the forefront. You are also welcome to create general, non-ship content for him.

Any and all gender/sexuality headcanons are allowed! And no ship-bashing, please.

There are 2 prompts for each day. You can choose one or both of them to inspire your work. The last day includes a Free Day, so go crazy! If none of the prompts speak to you, feel free to create your own Tamlin content on any day. The prompts are meant to promote creativity, not restrict it. If you have questions about any of the prompts, you can message us.

NSFW/Mature content is allowed, as long as you tag everything appropriately and follow the rules of each platform. So on tumblr, that means following their guidelines for NSFW images. On AO3, that means giving your fic the appropriate rating and tags.

Any kind of creative content is encouraged! Fanfiction, fanart, edits, playlists, headcanons, moodboards, ANYTHING!

That being said, AI art is not permitted, and will not be reblogged.

Works must be created specifically for this event; previously published works will not be reblogged. New chapter updates of previously existing fics are allowed, as long as they are posted for the first time during this Tamlin Week event.

(click under the readmore for FAQ, more resources, and last year's masterpost)

How do I participate in Tamlin Week?

Create your content and post it on tumblr. If you post on AO3, make sure to share the link on tumblr. Also make sure to add it to the Tamlin Week AO3 collection, which will be posted about later. Tag this blog in the main body of your post (@tamlinweek). In the tags, tag "tamlinweek2025"

If we don’t reblog your post within 24 hours, feel free to send us a message with the link! I’m sure we all know how unreliable the tumblr tagging system is, we would never intentionally not reblog someone’s post.

If I’m not a creator, how can I support Tamlin Week?

The best way to support content creators leading up to and during Tamlin Week is to let them know you support them! Reblog and comment on their work, send Tamlin content into this blog for us to post, etc. We’ll be reblogging Tamlin content from now up until the week itself. Supporting that work now will encourage creators for the event week itself.

Who is in charge of Tamlin Week?

This blog and the event are being run by @goforth-ladymidnight and @praetorqueenreyna, as well as a new moderator @highlordofkrypton.

I have a question that isn’t here!

Feel free to send us asks, we’d love to hear from you all! They can be questions, headcanons, ideas, or anything else! If you have a question you’d like us to answer privately, be sure to let us know in the ask. Otherwise, all other asks will be published on our blog.

Click here for last year's master post!

[topgunalternateuniverse]

Guidelines and Rules

Sign-ups will open on March 1st and will see you receiving 1 card to start off with within 24 hours of signing up.

You can go for an SFW, NSFW, or MIXED bingo card, and once you've completed at least 1 bingo, you can go back for another!

List of fannish creations that count toward a bingo:

✍️ Fanfic (min. 500 words) 🎨 Fanart (1 complete sketch/art piece)

🎞️ GIFsets (min. 4 GIFs) 📷 Photosets (min. 6 photos) 🎬 Fanvids (min. 1.5 minutes) 🎙️ Podfic (min. 5 minutes) 🖼️ Moodboards (min. 9 sections) 🎧 Playlists (min. 10 songs)

A creation, to be counted as a complete square, only needs to fulfill the minimum for that creation type. This means that if you've written the first chapter of a longer piece, only that chapter needs to be counted (so long as it's 500 words or more) to complete the square(s) you're filling.

All pairings, ratings, warnings, tags, and content are up to the discretion of the creator!

An SFW card can result in an NSFW work, and an NSFW card may result in an SFW work. Only the prompts are determined by the card you've selected, not the content.

To submit your card and receive your well-earned badge(s), post your card with a link to your creation and either mark the squares you filled in the graphic or include a list of them in your post. Important: mention @topgunalternativeuniverse in your post.

Posting into the COLLECTION is not mandatory, but it would be cool if you did!

If you don't feel like posting your card/words to Tumblr, feel free to send an email!

Prizes

Earn badges Mav would be proud to put on his beloved leather jacket! So put on your mental aviators and earn a badge for:

Bingo! You completed a single row, single column, or single diagonal on the card.

Bingo, Bingo, Bingo! You completed three bingos in any direction.

Bingo x 5: The same, but you did it five times!

Blackout: You somehow managed to create works for ALL the squares on your card. Go you!

Double Blackout: For anyone bold or crazy enough to complete two full bingo cards.

Your achievement will be posted on topgunalternateuniverse so you can reblog for bragging rights!

For any more questions, please check out the FAQ or send in an ASK!

Thank you,

Alex

[long-hot-stories]

Cáel Leads the Amazon Empire, Book 2: Part 14

Putting lives back together after the battle.

By FinalStand. Listen to the Podcast at Explicit Novels.

Either you embrace Change and are destroyed by it, or you resist Change and are overwhelmed by it. What is your choice?

 (The Politics of 'Not' Being Dead)

The rest of the trip was made in silence. They dropped us off at the edge of Miercurea Ciuc, home base of the 61st Mountain Troops Brigade, of Professor Loma and from whence all this craziness had originated. The meeting was already awkward before I arrived. It only got worse. Where to begin? Well, Russia, the United States, the UK, Romania, Hungary and Ireland were now all interested parties.

And I had gained two personal distinctions:

1.) Not only was I now heralded (and not really joking anymore) by some sources as Magyarorszag es Erdely Hercege, I was thereby re-awakening old nationalistic and territorial fears. Hungary didn't want a Prince, yet they did have an anemic Monarchist party. I might not be a Hapsburg (the last royal house of Hungary), but I could possibly be misconstrued as a long-lost Árpád scion (first King and founder of the Hungarian state), which would be even better.

A crisis was looming in my ancestral crucible. It seems I already had a webpage in Budapest and six hundred "friends" within 24 hours. Worse, they had some pictures of me. Besides being 'of regal bearing' in the descriptions, I was sexy-hot and a soldier of fortune, a modern day 'Wild Geese, (Goose?)' who was wanted for questioning in a, or perhaps multiple, murder(s) involving either a duel over a woman's honor or killing a dozen armed gangsters who prayed on young innocents newly arrived to the big city.

I wasn't alone. My trusty companion was A.) an ascetic Jedi Mistress (my own, personal Yoda), B.) an ancient witch schooled in the necromantic arts (apparently the reason I couldn't die), or C.) a Cold-War Era SMERSH (too much James Bond) assassin repaying an old debt to the descendent of an anti-communist partisan she'd killed years ago, eerily close to the truth for once. That, plus the TEK investigation, were Hungary's main points of concern involving me.

2.) I was now a person involved in significant events for half a dozen nations on the world scene.

Let's start with Romania. Okay, foremost, I was responsible for the single deadliest day in modern (post-WWII) Romanian Land Forces history. There was no covering this up. Close to one hundred men and women had died in combat, and then you added the forty-some dead Amazons, many of them apparently tortured, and this was a political and public relations nightmare.

No one doubted their troops behaved heroically. That wasn't the problem. The political conundrum was how could they explain Ajax and his fifty seasoned killers penetrating into central Romania with no one being aware of the danger? A few politicians wanted to blame Székely nationalists (by that, they meant the ethnic minority who 'vaguely' wanted Transylvania to rejoin Hungary), except they had me, the Hungarian Prince, leading the charge.

Life would have been so much easier for them if I had died. Yes, I could read the minds of those politicians. Screw a girl, then her younger sister, and then his wife, who all say they love me, and you'll recognized the emotional intent a father directs your way. (I'd only done that once, and once was enough.) I was getting that vibe again.

Unfortunately for them, I wasn't dead and three big time foreign governments (and Ireland) seemed really curious about me, my performance and my mortality. So dragging me out back for a firing squad wasn't going to happen. Riki Martin of the US State Department was there and she told me a representative of the US Military Mission was on his way up to debrief me. Russia's sexy military attaché was still on site and looking happy for some reason. Flaviu, who had some experience with me, was soon to be gone; replaced by some person who had some serious lettuce before his actual name and didn't know me from didly. Not good.

The UK had one of their diplomats coming up as well, just so I didn't get lonely. They weren't driving up with the Irishman, or the American. No one considers their carbon footprint in a crisis, I swear. But wait! It gets better. My Romanian Special Force dudes had brought the rest of their company (around a hundred new buddies) with them, they seriously didn't want me to get homesick and wander off (because, you know, I liked living and freedom).

The Romanian army shouldn't have worried. It seemed that there were some US Army Rangers with NATO in Kosovo, Albania, or Bosnia and Uncle Sam was expressing a desire for them to 'stop by'. Maybe they could share their C-130 with the British paratroopers who were equally concerned about my well-being. I just hoped everyone was going to play nice when the Spetsnaz arrived. Putin was suddenly (and surprisingly to me, anyway) my new pal. I had a feeling I'd soon be discovering my secret Russian heritage if I wasn't careful. I was thinking maybe I could squeeze an Order of Lenin, or a Hero of the Soviet Union out of him. I heard they both looked nice, were obsolete and came without an actual pension.

If Katrina wouldn't let me write off this calamity as PTO, I was going to be irate. I was on the verge of having a large family to support after all, unless you considered me marrying a billionaire's heiress to be compensation enough. The only group involved who weren't trying to actually see me was the Khanate.

Temujin most likely had some shamanistic mojo that would let him know if I croaked. That bit smacked of paganism, so it was kept under wraps because he had to appear dutifully Islamic for the masses. Still, some koumiss would have been nice. Heck, right then I could have gone for an 'atta boy', perhaps even a 'two thumbs up'.

Oh yeah; the general of the 4th Romanian Division wanted me to stop by when I had the chance (if I didn't, he'd send men to kill me, or so it was insinuated). The 61st Mountain Troops was part of his division's combat command and if the General Staff went looking for someone to crucify, he was making damn sure it wasn't going to be him.

It occurred to me that I could send a handsome-looking Spetsnaz (if there was such a thing) to go in my place. They were brother Slavs, right? I was sure that between the 'Fall of the Berlin Wall', Moldavian Independence and Romania joining NATO, they would have much to discuss. Out of the blue, Pamela smacked me on the back of my head, Jethro Gibbs' style. My 'more-evil Russian doppelganger' idea must have been poorly thought out.

Before I could implement that silliness, or trigger the big brouhaha, there was a preamble: I had three compatriots. Of greater importance, I had three heavily armed/gravely-serious bodyguards who wouldn't surrender their weapons and/or abandon me. So I thought "play nice" thoughts to myself.

Diplomacy, sovereignty and legality all reared their ugly heads. I wasn't really an Irish diplomat. My paperwork was still valid, but the Romanian government hadn't permitted my entry into their country under the standard diplomatic protocols. Ireland wanted to talk to me about that, why was I running around armed and killing people in two Central European countries? I was acting more like an Irish adventurer from the 17th century, than a genteel civil servant from the 21st.

Then there was the niggling little complication that involved me, my friends and our criminal possession of military-grade hardware. Chaz had the dubious excuse of being an official British government agent on assignment. That meant he could hope for a prisoner exchange within the next decade. Rachel and Pamela were private citizens with painfully sketchy proofs of US citizenship.

When the Romanian legal system finished buggering them, it would be off to Hungry and its serious inquiry into all the dead bodies we'd left in our wake. Who was I kidding? What I was really worrying about was how many members of the Romanian penal system would die when they escaped. Their flimsy identities gave no clue to how dangerous they actually were. Hell, they'd beat me home.

I had the added difficulty of Ireland and their questions about who the fuck I was and why I had their gold filigree on something I didn't deserve sitting snugly in my back pocket.

So first off, this new band of 'Eagles' wanted to disarm and separate us.

"Don't insult me," I scoffed. "I am your Prince. Don't make me explain it to your widow."

"I'm not married," the Lieutenant snarled back, daring me.

"Well, rush out and marry somebody. I haven't got all day. We don't want me to be caught in an idle boast now do we?" I grinned. Verbal sparring apparently wasn't in his repertoire.

"What?"

"Shut the fuck up, Carl," Chaz blithely inserted himself into the conversation.

"But you don't even speak Romanian," I countered. "How do you even know what I said?" The Romanians didn't know English, but they knew Carl. The tension between us ebbed.

"By the expression on the officer's face, Hercege," he winked. "It's universal to the brotherhood."

"Who is he with?" The officer questioned me.

"You and he are the same," I answered.

"You cannot go any farther armed," he returned to his mission parameters.

"I don't envy you going in and telling the Colonel to come out here, but so be it," I held my ground.

"We could kill you and take them off your corpses," he studied my reaction.

"You are the second handsome man to tell me that today," I shook my head. "I'll tell you what I told him: 'you sure are cute, just not my type'." Pause then laughter.

"You are a madman," the lieutenant snorted. "I'll go talk to the Colonel."

I was a jerk, loved maidens and was a master of bullshit. Did that make me a modern day Minotaur? The lieutenant came back out, then ushered me inside; Riki had to wait for the moment. He motioned my team come along. In the staff room of the 61st were a handful of officers and several suits.

"Mr. Nyilas," the Colonel gazed upon me. "I don't know what to make of you."

"You and my Mother both," I mumbled. Despite the somber atmosphere, a few of the men and women let their moods lighten. They didn't hold my levity against me. I'd been there, on the battlefield and if humor was how I dealt with the experience, so be it.

"Ha," the greying man mused. "It is wholly my fault that I disregard most of the information you supplied my staff. You were unerringly accurate in your assessment of our enemy's capabilities. I know my men and I know how good they are. Veteran commanders can barely describe what my troops endured. You warned us and I didn't believe you. I was wrong and my men died because of it," he sighed.

"Sir, I do not believe you could have done anything else and succeeded," I interrupted.

"Succeeded? Is this what you consider success?" he hardened.

"Absolutely, Sir. Had you been slower to respond, those men would have most likely come here, to Miercurea Ciuc, and you would have fought the same battle, except your civilians would have been caught in the mix," I lied.

If Ajax had escaped he'd have hunted me down. The location would have been irrelevant to him. How he knew where to be was a question for later and something to be presented to smarter, more experienced minds.

"Perhaps," he allowed. "They were heading north when we encountered them.

The Alal in me was going back over the plan. It had been sound.

"Sir, you had every reason to doubt my military experience and to believe I exaggerated the threat. I was right and I take no joy in that, nor do I think anyone can hold your decisions against you," I stated.

Now he gave a bitter laugh. Yes, they could hold all the deaths against him.

"We both know your men and women didn't die for their country, they killed for it. Quite frankly, I believe they killed some of the most vicious creatures to ever walk the face of the Earth. Fuck them for taking so many of us. Pile their bodies up and burn them," I suggested.

"They deserve no more Romanian soil than a spot to inter their ashes," I concluded.

"You do not sound like any diplomat I've ever met," the Colonel regained his gruff exterior.

"I'm not. I'm a fraud. I know as much about Ireland as I do about being a prince," I confessed. "That said, I didn't come here to kill anyone. I came to save lives."

"How has that worked out for you?" a sitting woman in a suit questioned, in Romanian. She was slender, waspish and didn't sound comfortable speaking English, though she knew enough to get by.

"I am not a fortune-teller. I don't know how this is going to work out," I said.

"That's not what I asked," she prodded.

"Yes it was," I corrected her. "You wanted to know if I thought the price of your dead countrymen was worth the life of me, my friends and the lives of your countrymen I came to save. I can't measure the promise of those lives against the loss of all the dead. Don't play games with me. I'm have a degree in Philosophy and I eat morally ambiguous people like you for lunch."

Pamela laughed aloud and lively.

"Kimberly and Katrina would be so proud of you right now," she chortled.

"I don't think you grasp the deep pit your find yourself in, Friend" the suit stayed chillingly calm.

"Oh, I think we all know we both screwed the pooch big time," I smirked. "The difference is me and mine are all happy to be alive after two of the most trying, fun-filled days of our lives. You want to throw us in prison. The Hungarians want to throw us in prison. I'm sure if I get back to the States, they will want to put us in prison too. Have I missed anyone?"

"I'm glad you will confess. It will make it easier on us," she grinned like sexy weasel.

"Wait," Rachel put a restraining arm on me. "I've wanted to say this for some time." To the weasel, "Blow it out your ass, dipshit."

"Rachel, you don't know what she said," Pamela faux-gasped.

"I don't know the words, but I know what he meant," Rachel glowered. She missed Charlotte so much, she was willing to court pain and death. "I want to go back in time and slap her mother repeatedly for not strangling her in the crib. Is that succinct enough?"

"I apologize for ever meeting you, Rachel. I've brought you to a bad end," I gave her a tender look.

"It's okay. I never thought I'd live long enough to sleep with you anyway," she smiled back.

Phifft, sigh. It was so sad that I recognized the sound of a low-caliber, silenced round.

"Listen up, dipshit," Pamela snickered. "Good one, Rachel. If you don't believe the next one is going through your skull, you clearly haven't been listening to us. You are fucking with the wrong monkeys. You have this bizarre idea that if I kill you, your government won't replace your worthless, bullet-riddled hide with someone we find more agreeable. My grandson sent in motion a half million combatants a few hours ago, he nearly died leading your soldiers against your nation's enemies and you want him to kiss your shoes as if you matter at all in the grand scheme of things?" she snarled. "Think again."

No one was moving because Pamela had her silenced 22 Beretta out and pointed at Weasel's head. The SF's were caught flat-footed, as was everyone else. No guards came rushing in because the closed doors further muffled the sound. "I think this is a good time for us to get a drink," Chaz advised as he slowly reached out and lowered Pamela's gun hand.

It was Pamela's gunboat diplomacy yet again. She hadn't meant to kill the women. Hell, she'd been a random target of opportunity. What Pamela had done was clear up the doubts in the room. Everyone on the staff could self-consciously let themselves off the hook for not being in the front lines, risking themselves with their comrades. Thanks to Pamela, they too had confronted violence.

'Crazy' Grandma had fired off her piece and everyone sighed with relief when Chaz got her to lower it. I was pretty sure Chaz was in on this dangerous game. It resided with the Colonel as to how to resolve this hiccup in our dispute.

"Mr. Nyilas, why don't we take a walk outside, just the two of us?" he 'requested'.

I nodded because I'm not always as dumb as I look. He was letting my people off with incredible temperance and I could honorably send them away. They'd scoped out the scene and believed I'd be safe enough. He, in turn, had an excuse to take a step away from his political watchdogs.

"I think that is for the best," I nodded. "Do you want me to leave my guns behind?"

"No, Mr. Nyilas, we might run into trouble out there and one of my Captains has suggested you are a man who can take care of himself," he replied. That was very nice of him indeed. If I did do something stupid, he had a ton of troops about who would make my regrets rather temporary. I decided to behave as if I had a passing acquaintance with sanity.

His first questions were about the fighting at the ruins. I peppered our exchange with my interest in what had happened to the advance force of the 22nd. It was bleak news, yet the Colonel felt a sense of relief. He was coming to accept the lethality of his enemies, which in turn, led to an understanding, if not acceptance, of the carnage his men had been subjected to.

He was in a cycle of context, grief, context. He'd gambled on me and men died. Once the battle was joined though, his soldiers had done precisely the right thing under considerable stress. He could be proud without dishonoring the dead. Only Pamela and I had engaged Ajax earlier. Only I had talked with the man.

The Colonel had to look into my eyes to get the spark that led to understanding the mind and ruthlessness of his opponent. The name 'Ajax' never came up. That was more than a rational mind could accept at the moment. He knew his men had fought and killed the best and that helped him cope a tiny bit. Our interview ended when the first of the unwanted guests arrived.

Only when I walked inside did it occur to me that this had been my first soldier to soldier chat. We had respected one another and discussed matters like men who knew the score. That was depressing in its own right. It was well passed nightfall when we went back inside. In our absence, Riki had started to redeem my existence. My salvation lay in Romantic Americana Symbolism.

Translation: I was a Horatio Alger, a working class kid raised by a widower father, who earned a scholarship to a quiet New England college, graduated near the top of my class and gotten an excellent job (salary and benefits not disclosed). That was the was the first part of the Americana, proof positive that America was still the land of opportunity and a place where poor children could still reach the highest levels of society (umm, okay?).

The second Americana Part: my Father had been murdered in a case of mistaken identity. Those heavily-armed foreign corporate/rogue governmental-sponsored terrorist mercenaries (their exact origin was shrouded in double-dealing misinformation) had ruthlessly murdered my Pa to cover up their error. Like any true Son of the American Dream, I had sworn vengeance.

The Symbolic Part: My compassionate, understanding government (the good governmental servants of Republican Democracy, not the bad, hires the covert, secret, black-bag, unaccountable private contractors/ pawns of the Wall Street Elite bureaucrats) allowed me to participate in a multi-national taskforce. These selfless guardians of the freedom had formed a coalition which had hunted down the villains.

With the priceless assistance of two Central European countries, who currently had to remain nameless (cough: Hungary and Romania), we'd achieved a final, violent confrontation in which my allies and I had emerged bloody, scarred, yet victorious. Once more, free men and women had answered the call of duty and some had made the ultimate sacrifice.

See, I had a good government that cared enough about me to let me become a gun-toting menace to the civilized world. Like a Hollywood Western hero of the 1950's, 60's and 70's, I had taken personal revenge against the forces of wickedness, exit the railroad tycoons and cattle barons, enter the shadowy world of private security forces and uncontrolled corporate capitalism.

The Romantic Part: My behind-the-scenes personal protectors (Riki, Javiera and Katrina) were prepping Hana Sulkanen, my fiancé, Brooke Lee (my good female friend), Libra Chalmers (my other good female friend) and Yasmin Palhavã (my sultry Brazilian, single mother and co-worker) to subtly tell the Globe what a sweet, caring, modern, passionate, warm-hearted guy I was.

According to their presentation, I had given up my philandering lifestyle because I only had eyes for Hana. I was a handsome, sexually-successful man who was cleaning up my dark past before devoting himself to family life. The other girls were merely friends. How that didn't make me a metrosexual wasn't clear to me. Also, if anyone thought this would become my new reality, they were sorely mistaken. I was hornier than ever and I hadn't sexed up a lady since dawn.

Around midnight, the 4th Division's Commander gave up on me extracting myself from this complicated morass and sent an aide to barrage me with questions, all of which I had answered numerous time before, by the time he got there. He was also to stop me from 'sneaking away'. How me and my forty-something numbered current entourage would accomplish this? Not sure.

Note on the Cáel Geopolitical Situation:

Ireland: Here was their take on the situation, I was an O'Shea. The word 'Illuminati' was never mentioned. This guy was not 'in the know'. I was son of the O'Shea clan and despite having crossed the Atlantic, I remained an honorary member of the Irish Diaspora, a reborn Tuath Dé Danann; a wayward son to be proud of. It was that whole 'manly, vengeance, compassion/warrior-poet' deal going down. I could keep my fraudulent diplomatic ablative shielding (emphasis on the 'ablative).

The United States: The well-wishers who chastened me over yet another staring match with Death were exceeded by the numbers and majesty of those who were telling me don't do another God damn thing that makes the US look bad crowd. If I planned to do anything spontaneous, or show initiative, I had to give them fair warning first. I wasn't sure how that would work.

Somewhere along the line, I figured I'd be awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom while warming a bunk at Guantanamo Bay. I could put it next my autographed picture of Vladimir Putin that I was sure I'd get for Christmas. I got it from both barrels about me being a member of a Secret Society and an obscure public figure (I now had added 1750 online friends in the last few hours and my popularity was exploding exponentially, did that make me a virus?).

I reminded each and every one of them that this was not my god damn job! I was an intern gopher, I lived in a neighborhood that qualified me for the an automatic subscription to the NRA's American Rifleman and a Life Time membership if I remained bullet-proof for a decade, and I was the victim of pent up divine female aggression. I wanted some fucking sympathy.

On the 'we still love you side', I met a really swell US Army Ranger Lieutenant from Mississippi and his 9-man squad. Except for him constantly, loudly and publically referring to the Spetsnaz as 'those Commie Bastards', we got along just fine.

In the bonus round over the telephone, I had three Very Important People, Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs (ASSEEA) Victoria Nuland, Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs (ASSCAA) Robert O. Blake Jr., and Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs (ASSEAP) Daniel R. Russel, all gift me with brief words of encouragement (if 10 minutes counts as brief) plus they HAD to talk with me when I got back home (aka Washington DC, which wasn't my home).

Ass-ee!, Ass-Caa(w), Ass-Eap! Don't any of these people look at their freaking letterheads? I decided I could work with Victoria. Sure, she was a 40-something, married with two kids, but that had never stopped me before. She passed along something for me to consider as my next project; Russia, the Khanate and Georgia.

I wasn't sure how she knew Georgia Lansky and I was sure Georgia would never be up to a gang-bang on that scale. Riki 'suggested' she meant Georgia, the country, not the girl or the state. Still confused, Riki then enlightened me about Russia gobbling up two chunks of Georgia before I was an adult.

Did anyone seriously think I could convince Comrade President Putin to cough up anything he had liberated

ASSCAA Blake Jr. demanded, kinda, sorta, it was hard to pin him down on any specifics, that I give him my contact numbers to the Khanate. I refused (because I didn't want to give up the only one I had, Iskender) and he got pissy. Damn him. Temujin had made his job a hell of a lot easier by annexing half the countries in his jurisdiction. Ivy League jackalope.

ASSEAP Russel was plain pissy; no refusal on my part required. He left no doubt in my mind that our (the US's) friendship with the PRC was a MUsT due to regional security and economic concerns. He seethed pure condemnation at me for turning his plan for policy integration (shrug?) in East Asia on its ear. It seemed that half a dozen diplomats from SE Asia expected him to have up-to-date information on what was going on in their backyard and to make sure they were included in whatever solution the US decided to implement. I was making him look incompetent to his so-called peers. (This level of embarrassment apparently ran contrary to his government servant turned richly paid lobbyist for Asian factions life plan.)

He was also blaming me for the birth of the Khanate and their war with China. I told him to calm down. I explained that I'd read all about him in college (a lie that fed into his ego), had come to utterly despise him for no earthly reason I could put a name to, and had set all of this in motion just to destroy his career and fuck him over. Then I hung up. Only when I saw Riki's face drain of blood did it occur to me that Riki was a 'China Expert' and thus a member of ole Russel's department. Whoops.

The United Kingdom: God praise the Queen! Somebody loved me. Maybe it was because I was screwing two of their traditional headaches, the Bear (Russia) and the Hooligans (either Manchester United, or the Irish), but they were the only ones to give me a pat on the back. I could keep my two British 'bestest' buddies in the World, plus they sent some paratroopers to stop the Rangers from engaging the Russian Killer Death Squad in any unpleasantness.

Otherwise, it was 'keep up the good work', stay alive and if I ever attempted to set foot on the British Isles, they'd blow up the Chunnel, torpedo my vessel, or blast my plane out of the sky first. I blithely inquired about a spaceship crashing to Earth. The Russians did that stuff all the time.

The polite woman from SIS/MI-6 at the other end requested I give the phone to Colour Sergeant Tomorrow (Chaz). I looked at him, then informed the kind lady that he was in the WC at the moment. I could relay a message if she liked. She told me I'd clearly gotten the message, so that would not be necessary. Delilah told me the lady was joking. Chaz didn't look convinced of that.

Hungary: Officers Gala and Kupec of the TEK showed up to talk to me (and Pamela), armed with a Judicial request for Romania to hand us over to Hungarian law enforcement (aka them), if things got nasty. It got nasty real fast.

"We told you to stay in Mindszent, you didn't. Instead, you beat up a foreign national (the German Pamela had convinced to give us his motorcycle, once she'd rendered him unconscious), stole his conveyance (his BMW, a sweet ride) and fled the country," Gala started.

"The language of our hosts, if you please," I sighed. "I made my case clear. We didn't want to die, or a repeat of the inn, so we left."

"I see, so you brought death to our neighbors instead," she taunted me. "You did a great job of getting the Romanians to do your dirty work for you. You brought this upon them."

That misinterpretation of events could have been a problem.

"Don't be stupid," I snapped. "Did I kill the forty-six women and children too?"

"I wouldn't put it past you," she glared right back. I took a deep breath. My eyes migrated to the floor. I wasn't shying away from her gaze. I was trying to not commit murder.

"I'm going to take a companion home for burial, Officer Gala. I'm never going to forget all the Romanian 'Vânători de munte' bodies lying beside her," I murmured. "Apologize, or fight, because I swear to God, in five seconds I'm going to beat that apology out of you if you don't," I promised in my native tongue.

"Lady, I'm not like him," Chaz mused smoothly while looking at Officer Kupec whose hand was migrating to her firearm. "I'll kill you without hesitation and then go eat breakfast."

"Who would you be?" she countered icily. "I'm an officer of the law and you aren't Romanian."

"Colour Sergeant Charles Tomorrow of her Majesty's SRR," he was unperturbed.

"Five," I muttered as I launched myself at Gala. Even with a warning, my speed caught her off-guard. Boxing perfection, straight to the chin. She bounced off the wall, stunned. My follow up was a body blow that drove the air out of her lungs despite her ballistic vest. Rachel and one of the Rangers snared my arms and yanked me away. Gala slumped down.

Once pulled back, I saw that Chaz had his L129A1 sighted on Kupec. Her hand hasn't even touched the butt of her pistol and I was pretty sure she knew death was an electron's pulse away.

"Son of a bitch," Gala shook her head. "You hit me," she screamed in Hungarian. The two Romanian soldiers, men of the 24th, began to react and not in Gala's favor. I relaxed so Rachel and the Ranger let go.

"I was wrong. Everyone back off. This was my fuck up. Officer Gala, despite of what you think of me, I did this. This battle was mine. Ajax followed me here, but he tortured and murdered those women for his own twisted reasons. This was part of a vendetta that goes back a long, long time. He's dead, his men are dead and some very good men and women died to make that so," I confessed.

"Congratulations. You got me. I'm guilty. He came to Romania to kill me and now he's dead, and the fight is still not over. There are thousands of men of his mold out there, organized and ready to fight me and my friends no matter where they find us," I ranted. "You arrest me, they will kill me in jail, and the fight will still go on."

"This is nothing more than vengeance for you dead father," she retorted.

"Yes, and?" I shrugged. "That doesn't mean I'd put innocent lives at risk. They killed my Father. I want to make them pay for that. That is about as primal and human as it gets."

"That is why we have laws and a system of justice," Gala wouldn't relent.

"Ha," I huffed. "Have you tried to arrest any of them? You know; the people actually butchering people?" Selena slipped into the room, taking in the tense stances.

"Who are you with?" Kupec asked Selena.

"Cáel, what seems to be the problem?" she asked me as she ignored the cop.

"TEK," I told her. "They are here to drag me back to Budapest to stand trial."

"Right," Selena laughed. "That's not going to happen Officer, "

"Kupec and Gala," I designated each one.

"Oh, that's where I've seen you before," Selena eyed TEK Officer Gala.

"Do we know each other?" Gala kept me in her line of sight.

"My Mother's oldest brother knew your Father, you are 'Forbidden'," she stated without explanation.

 "Forbidden? What does that mean?" Gala swiveled toward Selena.

 "Life for a life," Selena tilted her head slightly. "Your father saved my uncle's life, so until that debt is repaid, you are 'Forbidden'," again with the half-answer. I lived in a small, all-around screwed-up world except the Black Hand was a tiny, mostly familial, organization. Selena's uncle must have been the Black Hand Assassin that Gala's father sprung from jail.

Not from any jail either, a political prison, probably with very high security, which was why the old man hadn't escaped on his own. That had to be its own separate adventure; I wasn't going to rush down the rabbit hole to figure it out.

"You are, " Gala dared not say it in a room with so many strangers. She held up an open hand.

"What have you been telling the outsiders?" Selena's eyes skewered me.

"She knows 'of' your group plus a few nom de guerre's," I replied. "I told her she was on the right track, but I was the wrong person to be talking to."

"You are with the Black Hand?" Kupec studied Selena seriously for the first time.

"The Black Hand is a criminal boogeyman," Selena scoffed. "There is no such thing."

"So, you are," Gala said. "If so, what are you doing here?"

"Strangely enough, I'm doing your job, seeing that justice is done," Selena responded.

"Were you at the firefight?" Kupec asked.

"Yes, I followed Cáel into battle and I witnessed him challenge the enemy champion to single combat. The pyrotechnic grenade going off over their heads obscured my sight of the confrontation," Selena replied. "When the smoke cleared, they were both down. Only Cáel got back up."

"So the grenade killed their leader," Gala wondered.

"No. I personally examined the body before the Romanians took it away. Not a burn on him and his facial lacerations were not caused by shrapnel. He had more dagger-like wounds, cauterized, and he'd been disemboweled. The man died in a great deal of agony," she related.

"What did you do to him?" Gala returned to me. Since Selena neglected to mention that the majority of Ajax's wounds happened beneath his intact clothing and armor, I decided to do the same.

"I'd tell you except you are already questioning my sanity," I sighed. "Suffice it to say, I knew two things that he didn't and I used that advantage to make him dead." Chaz's stomach rumbled.

"Let's cut to the chase," he yawned. "He killed the one called Ajax in front of dozens of witnesses. He's not going to tell you how he did it. He's not going to tell you why he came to Romania. He's not going back with you to Hungry. By now you should realize there is crap going on that is clearly above your pay grades.

Give it a rest, get a bite to eat and tell your superiors you are reexamining the available data. This is what they really want to hear anyway," he reminded all present. Maybe it was the tone of his voice. It could have been his casually lethal demeanor. Whatever the reason, his advice ended the discussion and I finally got to eat. I hadn't been able to eat last night, too much on my mind.

Romania: After much hand-wringing, late night cups of coffee and copious amounts of cigars and cigarettes, somewhere at the top of the Romanian hierarchy it was decided I was a hero. To paint me as a criminal would ruin all the pain and death I'd brought with me. It would make all the dead men and women of the 22nd and 24th stupidly dead, not martyrs.

At that moment, they needed martyrs in order to rally public opinion over what had happened. I wasn't going to be a divisive figure, despite my claims of Transylvanian nobility. Let the Székely rejoice at their Warrior-Prince's return, as long as I loved Romania and the Vlach people, too. While Flaviu's report was, as usual, a tad indecisive, many voices within the 61st Mountain Troops Brigade spoke volumes in my defense:

-I had provided useful and accurate information.

-I hadn't usurped anyone's authority (they didn't count enlisting Master Corporal Menner in my mad plan against me).

-I had fought bravely and in a manner most considered to have saved soldiers' lives.

-Also, one of my companions had perished and another had been gravely wounded in the defense of Romanian soil.

-I was a good guy, who should consider going to another country really really soon.

The Russian Federation: They apologized for any confusion concerning their men in New York and Hana. At the time, I had no idea what they were talking about. When I did, I felt like punching a Russian in the nose. Considering the twenty Spetsnaz close by, my ignorance probably saved me some quickly administered bleeding and bruising.

In their favor, they offered to help the Romanians hunt down the two remaining Greeks. One escapee had been taken, shot up, but alive, at around eleven pm. The Russian Military Attaché to Bucharest (Romania's capital) was getting into her groove. Riki gave me some of her 411. She'd had a promising career in the GRU until she was caught having an affair with her boss's wife, now she was in the hinterlands.

By the looks I was getting from Major Tatianna Semenina Volkov, she was at least bi-sexual. Despite my dubious nature and her being in a building full of prime physical specimens, there was her knowledge that I'd suddenly and unexpectedly resuscitated her prospects for advancement in her chosen vocation. Big people in Moscow were reading documents with her name on them.

If Operation: Funhouse was counted a success, there was a Podpolkovnik (Lieutenant-Colonel) promotion in her immediate future. If things fell apart, there was always that hope of being posted to the further hinterlands, maybe Uganda? A little past midnight, by way of Riki and the NRO, I got the first inkling that the Great Khan was implementing the directive I had suggested. It was the dawn of a new day and all I wanted to know was" how had I ended up here?"

End Cael's Geopolitical situation, Begin World News

While I was being beneficently informed that Russian troops had crossed the Nei Mongol border, their reconnaissance elements were racing unopposed toward the critical junctures of Morin Dawa and Zalantun. The Khanate was even clearing the designated routes of all traffic to ease their advancement, while Russian and Khanate Air Forces cautiously patrolled the same airspace.

By US estimations, the Russians had better hurry, too. The Mongolians at Morin Dawa were barely clinging to the eastern (Chinese) bank of the Nen River. Elements of the PLA's 69th Motorized and 7th Reserve were making near-suicidal attacks in an effort to collapse the shrinking Mongolian perimeter.

Meanwhile, repeated sorties by the PLAAF had damaged the bridge, but not brought it down and their planes paid a hellish price going up against the Khanate Air Force and anti-air defenses to get that much done. In doing so, the PLA had to leave the Amur River guarded by only a thin layer of lightly equipped military police units to oppose any Russian move.

To counter this crisis at Morin Dawa, Kazakhstan C-295's parachuted elements of the Panther battalion of the former Kyrgyz Army into the combat zone. The Kazaks had transport aircraft, but no paratroopers. The Kyrgyz used other nation's aircraft to train their paratroopers. As one Finnish journalist noted, it was bizarre to watch two military units from the same country, but who couldn't speak each other's languages, coordinating their actions on a dry-erase board and with hand signals.

At Zalantun, another desperate struggle was being waged. By the time the first Russians arrived, the Khanate had secured every one of the city's main chokepoints as well as the heights overlooking the southeastern end of the mountain pass. The 1st Mongolian Defense brigade (their National Guard), the North Mongol Banner Tumens and the 330th Mongolian Special Task Battalion slugged it out with the 3rd PLA Reserve Division.

In the final battle for the gateway to the Manchurian Plain, both sides threw in everything they had left. It was the ill-equipped versus the ill-equipped, the senior (largely made up of the men closest to retirement) battalion of the 1st MDB versus the support and security battalions of the 3rd Reserve Div. Both sides knew the price of failure.

In the last gasp, only concentrated counter-battery fire and close air support broke the final Chinese counter-attack. The death toll on both sides was ghastly. In the northeast, the Khanate and the PLA were spent forces. The Chinese would recover faster. Both sides were being forced to field older equipment, but the PLA had a massively larger force pool to draw from and much more equipment to field.

By this time, the logistic realities were eating away at the Khanate forces. High-tech equipment needed intensive maintenance. Soldiers needed to eat and sleep, ammo carriers needed to be reloaded and vehicles refueled. From a strategic standpoint, the Chinese military had plenty of fight left in them and were getting more units into the fight every hour.

The Tumens couldn't bypass every PLA strongpoint. Whenever they had to assault a place, their advance was paid for in priceless men and equipment. This was a factor known to every major military establishment. That the Khanate's initial offensive's first thrusts would run out of steam was a limitation Temujin accepted and the Chinese were counting on.

As critical as logistics were, there was a whole new category of woes applying a stranglehold to the conflict. Stocks, bonds, monetary exchanges and the flow of resources were all being strained. For 24 hours, at the urging of the key world governments, the major markets had remained calm. When it was revealed that the Khanate was an actual and long-term threat to global stability, panic set in.

Historically, every conflict ran on the strength of the involved countries' ability to feed and equip their armies and to tax their populace. In the modern age, colonialism, imperialism and mercantilism had complicated the equation. Suddenly nation-states were consuming materials in their martial efforts that they didn't personally possess.

When the British Royal Navy adopted fuel oil engines, the pattern of warfare changed forever. At that moment in time, the British Empire didn't own any oil fields, the fields were in Iran, the Ottoman Empire, Russia and the United States.

In the post-Imperialism, post-WWII period, China dropped off the economic radar, but the developing African, South American, Middle Eastern and Subcontinent nations more than filled in the gap. China reappearing in the 1970's and the fall of most of the Communist regimes furthered global interdependence.

Whether or not you considered the concept of the nation-state a dead ideal, the power of international banking had been a fact of life for over a century. Financial institutions, national banks, stock and commodities markets developed their own independent interests. When countries went to war, their governments rapidly had to float credit to finance their war debt.

At some point, their debt got so crushing they couldn't afford to lose, or, their bankers couldn't survive their failure. You could make a fortune in a war, or you could lose everything. Magnifying the issue was that virtually every nation now had to purchase foreign resources and goods they didn't have/produce locally. That caused massive price fluctuations, usually up, way up.

The Khanate had enough petrochemical resources to destabilize world oil prices. China produced so many manufactured goods for others that consumer price indexes worldwide were skyrocketing. China had massive financial reserves, mostly in the form of other nations' foreign debt. The Khanate had a massive inherited monetary 'Sword of Damocles' hanging over its head: Would the Khanate repudiate the debts of the old republics it had absorbed? Would close to a € trillion of electronic currency instantly evaporate?

The Chinese yuan (¥) wasn't globally traded. Until this moment in history, that had benefited the PRC. Now they were about to spend billions and billions in whatever currency you chose to mention for weaponry they couldn't produce, thanks to the Khanate's aerial campaign against their armaments industries.

In turn, the countries that had the resources and technology the Chinese needed were considering the possibilities of how to redress the fiscal and trade imbalances that had previously existed. The Khanate also needed a great deal of financial and technological assistance. How could a broke-ass, infant, semi-autocratic country afford anything?

Well,,

A) The Khanate was currently winning the war. It was slowly sinking into the monetary minds that the Khanate would last at least six months, if not longer. You can roll over Certificates of Deposit (the original CD's) that fast. Those financing Khanate War Bonds wouldn't have to roll them out at 'pennies on the dollar'.

B) Harsh fact; for those who economically and/or militarily opposed the People's Republic of China, every dollar ($), Euro (€), or Yen (also ¥) devoted to assisting the Khanate would cost the PLA/PLAAF/PLAN four or five times that amount to defeat. By its very existence, the Khanate was forcing the PRC to invest a far larger chunk of their (now shrinking) GNP into their defense budget and rebuilding their war-battered infrastructure.

Face it, the Khanate could slap a JDAM on a Russian made FAB-500 for around $30,000. Four of those would shatter a multi-million dollar dam in one minute. When you started tacking on the cost of automotive/rail bridges and tunnels, that bill ballooned terribly fast. Then you could add the lost revenue from the trade network disruptions. All for $120,000.

C) The Khanate started with a sizeable piece of the world's 'Oil and Natural Gas Reserves' pie as well as sizeable critical mineral supplies to boot. You could combine that with the fact that the sections of China she'd overrun held nearly a third of the Chinese oil fields and capacity. Those fields they hadn't snatched up, they'd bombed. Many of those were in Manchuria.

That meant the commodities the Khanate had to sell were earning them more money. If the Khanate did succeed, they could make good on their debt and then some. To solidify that deathly specter, Iran announced they were preparing to send twice as much oil by the end of July to China as they had in all of June, all at inflated prices, of course. Iran would make up their domestic petroleum shortfalls by purchasing the slightly less expensive Khanate oil. Woot, revenue for the Khanate.

D) Geopolitically, the Khanate, if it survived, would transform Asia. A week ago, Asia was dominated by two global powers (China and Russia) and two 'also ran's (India and Pakistan) with a slowly waning US presence. Regionally, India and Pakistan had wasted a huge amount of their potential on wars (with each other and China) and dealing with religious strife.

Russia had been rebuilding itself since its sudden experimental plunge into Free Market Capitalism and Democracy in the 1990's. She was getting stronger, even as the lives of her dissidents became more arduous. To the outside world, China appeared to be a titanic, monolithic state, where the life of dissidents was equally unfortunate.

Along came the Khanate and, for the US and the strongest European states, this was a global chance to regain some of their fading influence and polish their prestige on the world stage. For Taiwan (ROC), Vietnam and Japan, it was a chance to buy some much needed breathing room against the rising threat of the Chinese Colossus. There was no ignoring the rumblings of a much anticipated (by some) creation of this Islamic Super-state either.

That's how.

China had been about to become the World's largest economy. When the northern ports came under aerial attack, the exports the Chinese treasury relied on slowed down. Imports, especially oil and natural gas deliveries, were becoming cripplingly more expensive and under constant threat.

While I was having my chat with the Colonel of the 61st, a fully-loaded Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) tanker about to dock at the port of Guangzhou (Canton for us ignorant Westerners) struck three mines. It was a stupendously ill-fated contact. You might as well have dropped a nuke on the city. Buildings a kilometer away were flattened. The fire departments, medical facilities and civil authorities were completely overwhelmed by the magnitude of the disaster.

The People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN)'s frigate Huaihua (PN-566), augmenting the harbor's air defenses, was close enough to the vessel when it exploded that the warship capsized. A Chinese Coast Guard cutter in the vicinity also caught fire. The flames and the resulting secondary explosions doomed that ship as well.

The People's Republic of China began screaming about the latest Khanate atrocity. An hour later, an oil tanker in the Port of Ningbo-Zhoushan (East China Sea), the world's busiest sea transport center, erupted in an incendiary series of detonations. Suspiciously numerous and abnormal catastrophic failures cascaded through the petrochemical refinery and cargo container areas, setting two dozen square kilometers of the dock area ablaze.

This time, the authorities caught two of what appeared to be a gang of saboteurs. Before they could be questioned, both women took their own lives by overdosing on opiates they had hidden 'inside' their persons. A group calling itself 'The True Chinese Resistance' took credit for both attacks. The outside world only found out about this a few hours later from multiple internet uploads from Kuala Lumpur.

For those in the know, death by surgically implanted opiates was the preferred method of suicide by Black Lotus members of the 9 Clans. In the embryotic New World Order, Katrina Love, my boss, relayed that information to Federal Prosecutor Javiera Castello. Within minutes, MI-6 and the CIA were in the loop. There was a spy network operating on the Chinese mainland that those two could access.

There was a price for the cooperation of the Black Lotus. An hour after Javiera and Katrina called Japan, an Amazon diplomat in Nagasaki requested the Ninja set up a meeting between their Chinese sectarians and members of the Amazons, British and US intelligence services. The cost for this favor was rather odd.

In Okinawa, a small, ancient Secret Society dating back to the 16th century and the Ryukyu Kingdom, wanted something that only the US Marines stationed on that island could provide. For this favor, the Okinawans would join the Ninja in their struggle to regain control of the Nipponese Underworld, expelling the agents of the Seven Pillars of Heaven and the traitorous Ninja family they had subverted.

The Ninja would be able to keep the money spigot flowing to the Black Lotus and the Black Lotus would keep the Americans and British up to date on the internal disruptions and dissent the war was causing the PRC. By that convoluted logic, the US and UK weren't 'really' committing espionage on the Chinese mainland. The world kept turning.

End World News

(Echoes beyond battle)

"Cáel?" a voice said over the phone. Tiger Lily had roused me from a trance by handing it to me. I didn't sleep that much anymore.

"Hana?" I mumbled. "It has to be, way early where you are. Is anything wrong?"

"No, I'm fine. Rumor has it you were in a firefight," she countered.

"Ya, yes," I replied.

"I was told that one of your bodyguards died," she tentatively explored my mood.

"Yeah. Her name was Charlotte. I wasn't involved in the majority of the fighting. I let the Romanians carry most of the weight," I lied.

The whispers and looks my two constant 24th Mountain Troop guardians gave me told me one of them understood English and they knew I was lying. I mouthed 'fiancé' in Romanian as an explanation to them. More whispers.

"Buffy says you are lying," Hana accused me. That was bad, Buffy and being caught in a lie.

"What did she say?" I groaned.

"She says you were in the thick of the fighting," Hana stated.

"That's not really true. As I said, the Romanians took the brunt of the action. I sort of observed the fight as it developed and helped out where I could," I evaded.

"She says you are lying again," Hana snorted. Oh, Buffy hadn't just informed Hana what was going on, she was also present.

"May I talk to her, please," I requested. Rustling noises came across the airwaves.

"Buffy," I spoke first. "Don't tell Hana what I really do. She doesn't understand."

"No, you listen to me," Buffy fought back. "She needs to know the generalities of what you do. Lying to her will only ruin your marriage." Not what I expected. Buffy was almost endorsing my matrimony. Then there was a pause. "Cáel, Charlotte was SD (Security Detail, the Amazon Elite). They are all volunteers and they want to fight for the Host.

None of them want to die, yet if they perish, they want to do it in battle against our enemies. I imagine you are hurting right now. I want you to know that no one holds her death against you. Had you been attempting something truly stupid, everyone knows Rachel would have stopped you. We are Amazons and warfare is what we do.

In war, people die and from what I read of Rachel's report, Charlotte killed at least two people and died saving Vincent's life. It was the best death any member of the SD can ask for. Got that?" Buffy drove her point home.

"That doesn't help," I answered.

"I know it doesn't right now," Buffy softened. "In time, it will make more sense. That you mourn for her makes you all the more worthy of being an Amazon."

"I need to send in some sort of a report, don't I?" I sighed.

"Yes. You are our Chief Diplomat now, as well as Head of House Ishara and in contact with allied agencies," Buffy reminded me.

"Fine. You are right. Saint Marie and Katrina need to look over what I've figure out to date. It is real important news." The current leader, Saint Marie, the Golden Mare, and Katrina Love, my boss, head of Executive Services at Havenstone and their Spymaster.

Oh, I wasn't going to tell them the whole truth about me and Grandpa Alal. Unlike Pamela, my 'sisters' would kill me in a heartbeat to significantly reduce the threat to the Host that his/my existence presented.

"Yes you do," Buffy's voice soothed me. "And Cáel, "

"Yes?"

"40 days, Bitch," she teased me. Mother-fucker.

"Screw you," I snorted. She was trying to make me happy and succeeding. "I'm going to let Aya win," I taunted her.

"Aya is too young to compete," Buffy scoffed.

"She's small. I'll smuggle her inside the hunting grounds in my backpack," I chortled. "They'll never see it coming." Pause.

"Your secret is safe with me," Buffy became soothing once more. She'd relayed her emotional messages and could now let me off the hook. "Here is Hana."

"Cáel, are you going to keep lying to me?" my fiancé asked.

"Yes, but only when I think I can get away with it," I answered.

"Sigh," she vocalized. "Meet me in Rome?"

"Huh?"

"I'm going to be in Rome this evening on my way to the Khanate," she told me.

"Oh!" I grunted. "I almost forgot. I got you two bodyguards. Where do you want them to meet you?"

"Astana. That's my next stop," she replied. "Are they any good?"

"First time on the job. Normally they are hired assassins," I joked, "but they are very good at it."

"I feel safer already," she joked back with me. "Rome?"

"I'll see what I can do," was all I could really say at the moment.

"Ms. Chalmers will be with me," she slipped a test in on me.

"Libra?"

"Yes. She says she wants to get involved, so she's coming along as my back-up assistant Gunga Din in case things get dicey," she added on.

"Wow, that's something I didn't expect," I mused. "I would have gone with 'Kim', except that could get confusing. If I can make it to Rome, it will be to see you, Hana."

"Is there anything you want me to pass on to her?" Hana asked.

"Yes, tell her to wear that turquoise thong. She'll know the one," I got smarmy.

"You really are a reprehensible human being," she chuckled. "Does anyone tell you that?"

"A surprisingly large number of people, mostly women," I confessed. Pause.

"If I've done things that have made your life more difficult, I apologize," she said softly.

"You have," I said in dour tone. "We are working so well together, everyone thinks I've already got a life-partner. It is cramping my 'Playa' image."

"Oh, keep up that Playboy attitude and I'm going to make you behave. Desiree suggested a shock collar," Hana showed some faux-outrage. She was also getting to know my crowd,

"I don't think I have enough turtle-necks," I snorted.

"Your neck isn't what is going to be wrapped around," she retorted.

"You are not encouraging me to abandon my dangerous lifestyle, I'll have you know," I sighed in far better spirits than I'd started this conversation in.

"No need to worry about it. Buffy informs me you'd kill yourself in a libido-induced act of auto-erotic-electrocution," she yawned. "No collar for you, I guess."

"Thanks for the call, Hana, and Buffy," I said. "Get some sleep. I need to check up on my people. I'll call you when I know what my plans will look like."

"Good night, Cáel," she yawned again. That was that for now. We hung up.

"Virginia wanted you to know they are flying Vincent out to Ramstein Air Force base in Germany in two hours," Tiger Lily told me.

"Is he in any shape for me to see him before he goes?" I stood up.

"Sure," she nodded. She handed me my windbreaker. Even in summer, Transylvanian mornings could be chilly. As we exited the room my small group had used as a bivouac, the sounds of the Romanian military base surrounded us. Rachel and Wiesława were sleeping. From my last report, Mona was still working beside the Romanian hospital staff.

I had been told that NATO was also flying in supplies and medical personnel. I supposed that they were arriving by now. I'd also been told the less critically wounded had been moved to neighboring hospitals in this and other counties. The Jandarmeria Română (Romania's paramilitary police force) had taken over the hunt and the foot work of the investigation. The military units were returning to their barracks, there had been no declaration of Martial Law.

From the perspective of the various national and foreign intelligence services, me and mine had best get the Hell out of Dodge as well. They'd want me to come back in a few weeks, once the Romanians had sorted out the legalities of what had transpired at the ruins.

It was personally depressing to see I didn't need to worry about personal protection without my Amazons. Besides Tiger Lily, I had one each of the US Rangers, the British Paratroopers, the Romanian 24th and the Spetsnaz. It appeared that the 24th itself had adopted me and sent their own Special Forces home. The trip to the hospital was sad. We had to park way down the street due to the official traffic: the wounded going out, the dead headed to coroners and supplies coming in.

Our Romanian trooper quick-stepped it up to the woman in charge of Jandarmeria Română's outer cordon of guardians. She knew who I was. Still, she double-checked our ID's before letting us inside. I didn't have to ask the harried receptionist were Vincent was. He had inherited two of my Rangers as his personal security, so my guy knew the way.

Vincent looked like re-tenderized road-kill. Some of that had to do with the antiseptic they scrubbed him with when they operated. His right calf was in a cast, his tibia, fibula and heel had taken the brunt of a grenade's explosion. Even with his Romanian heavy vest, bullets had crushed his right collar bone and shoulder socket.

As a final indignity, he'd take a rifle butt to the left side of his head. That ear was swathed in bandages and he couldn't see out of his left eye. I prayed there was no permanent damage.

"Hey kid," he mumbled. "They told me we won." Multiple comebacks came to mind.

"We did. Two are still at large. We captured a few and killed the rest," I answered.

"Charlotte, she's dead, isn't she?" he rasped. They had removed his breathing tube a half hour earlier and still had an oxygen tube going up his nose.

"She's dead. We found her near you," I told him the truth.

"She saved my life," he murmured. "I was pretty sure I'd bought it when I emptied the shotgun."

I was going for my pistol when this son of a bitch appeared out of nowhere. I was prone. He unloaded on the Romanian about a meter away, emptied the last of the magazine. Before I could bring my gun up, he smashed me in the head. I reflexively shot him in the foot. He screamed. Someone blew his head off the, I saw Charlotte kneeling beside me for a few seconds, firing in three directions.

She, I thought, she was yanked back. It must have been the bullets hitting her," he ended in a whisper. "Does she have family I can talk with, when I get back?" He meant the States.

"I'll relay your request," I put my hand over his. "Are your daughters being contacted?"

"I'm sure Javiera will send some people around. Don't worry about me," his grin was more a grimace.

"How did everyone else do?" he cleared his throat.

"Mona is still doing her medic thing, going on half a day now," I began. "Selena, Rachel, Pamela and Chaz are fine. Saku got battered, but she insists she's walking-wounded. "Virginia, "

"She stopped by about a half an hour ago. I was pretty groggy," he then coughed. "The kid is upset that she wasn't around to save Charlotte and me. Don't let her beat herself up about that."

"No more beatings, got it," I tried some levity. He grinned/grimaced again. He had to be on some serious pain-killers. "Tiger Lily," I looked behind me, "is right there, watching over me."

"Riki, Odette, Wiesława and Delilah are fine. No one showed up with questions and guns, just guns," I snorted. "Politically, this is a shit-storm. I am afraid I shat on Riki's boss, because I was cranky by the time I got around to him."

"How are the Romanians handling it? If their losses elsewhere were like what we faced on the ridge, " he muttered.

"Worse. The blocking force had over a hundred casualties, Vincent," I told him.

"Hmm, then you were right to call in the Army, Cáel," he struggled to squeeze my hand. "Police would have been wiped out. I've never seen so much firepower. I'm sorry our guys died, but the civil authorities would have died and lost."

"People keep telling me I've done the right thing, and I think I'm beginning to understand what they mean. I've got to accept that it could have been far worse," I nodded. "I've got to get past the faces of the dead and think about what comes next. This isn't over."

"Correct, Cáel," Vincent couldn't even nod in his current state. "Pick up the pieces, figure what their next move is, like you did here. We both know this goes far beyond any type of terrorist conspiracy our government has seen before. Javiera is on the ball. Your Ms. Love seems to have her mind in the game as well. The United States is better off working with you. I'm sure of that now," he ground out through the residual pain.

"It is not just Charlotte. Men like Colour Sgt. Tomorrow wouldn't follow just anyone into battle. So Cáel, don't waste your time knowing you are not the best man for this job," he grunted, stressing his point. "What matters is that you were the man on the spot when this began and you've got to see it through, no matter what."

"You don't fight the war with the army you want," I recited.

"You fight the war with the army you have," Vincent completed. "By the way, pass a message on to Pamela for me."

"Sure."

"Tell her she didn't have to go so easy on me. I would have understood," he dry chuckled.

"No problem," I smiled. "I'll tell her 'you knew' and she'll do all the translating on her own." Two medical technicians showed up, ready to move Vincent to the airport. They were in a hurry, had a backlog of critical tasks to accomplish and I was selfish to stick around. I gave Vincent's hand one more squeeze. The tech's closed in and my people withdrew.

No one who owned a piece of me was demanding that I be somewhere doing something I didn't want to do, so I migrated to several tents they'd set up in one of the parking lots. The emergency room was the center of the Romanian/NATO triage efforts. Three seriously wounded Jandarmeria were being brought in as I was walking around the outside of the hospitals main building.

Those three and one other had been ambushed by one of the two Mycenaean's still at large. From what information my 24th'er was able to retrieve for me, the man had held a rural family hostage, then had the father flag down the Jandarmeria, claiming that he'd seen the intruder close by in the woods. He hadn't been lying.

While the three had started a foot-bound search, the lone Greek snuck up, slit the driver's throat, and then gunned down the rest from behind. They had been caught in an open field with no cover. As Vincent had said, these were policemen, super-tough cops, but still law enforcement. That bad news was balanced by the arrival of Romania's superior Vlad Ţepeş counter-terrorism formation and their K-9 unit.

I spent an hour, walking among the wounded that could wait on surgery, or could even be up and moving around in a few days. In a peculiar bit of misplacement, I remained a foreign civilian. That meant I wasn't bound by the judicial and military codes of conduct, thus I could call various soldiers' loved ones without breaking the law ~ or at least breaking it badly.

Chaz and my 24th guardian were similarly constrained. Tiger Lily wasn't and before long, she and I were relaying messages from the wounded to their loved ones. To stay within the letter of the law, the trooper couldn't directly talk with the person I had called, so they had to tell me then I could tell the person on the other end, even though I was close enough for them to actually listen to one another. It had the emotional rush that an illicit, false-ID keg run had provoked at school, yet felt a thousand times better.

I stayed two hours. Rachel called me and said the gang was regrouping at the Professors house and I needed to be there as quickly as possible. We had to create a new itinerary, prepare Charlotte for her flight back home and plot our next moves concerning the Secret War, sort out the mystery of the true House of the Dragon, House SzélAnya, and determine how to move against the pseudo-Amazons who were masquerading as that house. More work to do.

Suddenly, I really wanted to go to Rome.

To be continued in part 15.

By FinalStand, for Literotica

[thed4rkhand]

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!

[goodomensblog]

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

[steve0discusses]

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.

[plantfeed]

        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.

 pinterest 

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

[tamlinweek]

Tamlin Week 2024: Rules, Prompts, and FAQ

Click here to download Tamlin coloring pages!

Click here for the AO3 Collection link and instructions!

Thank you all for the support and prompt suggestions! The prompts have been chosen for Tamlin Week 2024, which will run Sunday, April 14 - Saturday, April 20. Every day will have two prompts for you to choose from, and the last day will be a free day.

This post is intended to serve as a masterpost for the entire event. It will include dates, prompts, rules, and a FAQ. Make sure to click the read more to get ALL the information!

Prompt List

Day 1; Sunday, April 14: Heir of Spring/Human Tamlin

Day 2; Monday, April 15: Poet/Warrior

Day 3; Tuesday, April 16: Mates/Flower Language

Day 4; Wednesday, April 17: Calanmai/Happily Ever After

Day 5; Thursday, April 18: Shapeshifter/Masquerade

Day 6; Friday, April 19: Dreams/Fairy Tale AU

Day 7; Saturday, April 20: Free Day

Ideas for interpreting the prompts: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3

Rules

All works must focus on Tamlin! Any and all ships are allowed, as long as the ship with Tamlin is at the forefront. You are also welcome to create general, non-ship content for him.

Any and all gender/sexuality headcanons are allowed! And no ship-bashing, please.

There are 2 prompts for each day. You can choose one or both of them to inspire your work. The last day is a Free Day, so go crazy! If none of the prompts speak to you, feel free to create your own Tamlin content on any day. The prompts are meant to promote creativity, not restrict it. If you have questions about any of the prompts, you can message us.

NSFW/Mature content is allowed, as long as you tag everything appropriately and follow the rules of each platform. So on tumblr, that means following their guidelines for NSFW images. On AO3, that means giving your fic the appropriate rating and tags.

Any kind of creative content is encouraged! Fanfiction, fanart, edits, playlists, headcanons, moodboards, ANYTHING!

That being said, AI art is not permitted, and will not be reblogged.

(click under the readmore for FAQ, more resources, and last year's masterpost)

How do I participate in Tamlin Week?

Create your content and post it on tumblr. If you post on AO3, make sure to share the link on tumblr. Also make sure to add it to the Tamlin Week AO3 collection, which will be posted about later. Tag this blog in the main body of your post (@tamlinweek). In the tags, tag "tamlinweek2024"

If we don’t reblog your post within 24 hours, feel free to send us a message with the link! I’m sure we all know how unreliable the tumblr tagging system is, we would never intentionally not reblog someone’s post.

If I’m not a creator, how can I support Tamlin Week?

The best way to support content creators leading up to and during Tamlin Week is to let them know you support them! Reblog and comment on their work, send Tamlin content into this blog for us to post, etc. We’ll be reblogging Tamlin content from now up until the week itself. Supporting that work now will encourage creators for the event week itself.

Who is in charge of Tamlin Week?

This blog and the event are being run by @goforth-ladymidnight and @praetorqueenreyna.

I have a question that isn’t here!

Feel free to send us asks, we’d love to hear from you all! They can be questions, headcanons, ideas, or anything else! If you have a question you’d like us to answer privately, be sure to let us know in the ask. Otherwise, all other asks will be published on our blog.

Resources for Tamlin Week 2024

The Language of Flowers: ideas for the Flower Language prompt

How to Participate in the Event (including ideas other than art and writing)

Tamlin vs. Tam Lin: A Brief Retelling

Click here for last year's master post, including all the content submitted, the AO3 collection, and the community playlist!

[bensolotags]

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.

[thecartoonarchivist]

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!

[humansun]

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!

[sociallyinsmmagency]

LINKEDIN STORIES: THE ULTIMATE GUIDE

If you’re familiar with Snapchat, Facebook and Instagram, then you’re probably familiar with the “Stories” concept already. Maybe you’ve even got a “game plan” for how your business utilizes “Stories” across each platform.

That’s fabulous, honestly. But unfortunately, (and fortunately) you’re also probably familiar with the concept that just generally posting the same content with the same copy across each platform isn’t necessarily the best strategy.

And in some cases, it can actually be detrimental to your social media strategy, so today we’re going to go over how you can utilize LinkedIn Stories for your business, why you should utilize LinkedIn Stories and answer some of your most frequently asked questions, (so far) around LinkedIn Stories and LinkedIn marketing as a whole.

So, without any further talk, are we ready to get started??

Let’s go.

What Are LinkedIn Stories?

LinkedIn Stories are a brand new feature on LinkedIn that allow you to post twenty second videos, images, stickers and questions for a 24-hour period before disappearing. LinkedIn Stories seems to be an excellent way to showcase particular products, start conversations, introduce team members and even make important announcements and connections on the LinkedIn platform.

A Quick History of LinkedIn Stories

Months before LinkedIn rolled out in the US, it was rolling out across Europe and elsewhere around the world.

It might even interest you to know that despite the belief that it’s a “brand new” concept for LinkedIn as far as a fast, casual, full screen and fun way to share updates, it’s actually not the first time LinkedIn has dipped it’s fingers in the pie.

Nope! In fact, LinkedIn experimented with a similar Stories concept in 2018 for a short while that was limited to University Students and was thus called “Student Voices.”

RELATED: IMPROVING YOUR LINKEDIN SSI SCORE: THE ULTIMATE CHECKLIST

Why Should YOU Consider Using LinkedIn Stories?

If you’re asking yourself why YOU should consider using LinkedIn Stories before most brands are even capable of checking it out, here’s a couple of really good reasons:

#1: There’s Less Competition!

This reason is important to remember because who DOESN’T want less people to contend with when they’re launching a campaign??

I know, you’re probably thinking “but what if it’s a fad??”

Forget it. Because who cares if it IS a fad?

Can it help you gain traction? Yes.

Can it help you start conversations and build relationships? Yes.

And finally, will it help you make more sales?? Most likely.

Sounds like a win-win-win to me!

#2: It Provides a More Authentic Connection With Your Followers

There’s nothing better than going live to show off your new products, announcing giveaway winners and otherwise getting people excited about your upcoming products. LinkedIn Stories can help you get there!

#3: Utilize it as Another Stop on the Buyer's Journey

LinkedIn Stories is a perfect way to promote your brand by telling your followers about the ways you’ve helped your customers and had a positive impact on their brands. It can also be an incredible tool and opportunity for showcasing your own work, products and services through product reels, graphs and more.

LinkedIn Stories: A Glance at the Specs

If you’re going to blow this LinkedIn marketing strategy out of the water, you’re going to want to have a good grasp on what is allowed, what can be done, how long each video can be and all that fun stuff in regards to LinkedIn’s Stories Feature.

Every video for LinkedIn Stories can’t be longer than 20 seconds, must have an aspect ratio of 9:16 and will be visible for 24 hours.

In addition, don’t dally when it comes to collecting insights on your videos because those metrics disappear after 24 hours.

Posting and Creating a LinkedIn Story

You have two options when it comes to posting on LinkedIn Stories: you can either share a Story on your personal profile or on a business page that you’re an admin of.

From the LinkedIn mobile app, you’ll see all of the “Stories” at the top of your feed, followed by your profile picture with a “+” on it.

To post, you’ll select the “+” and it will open your camera. If you haven’t grantedpt allowing you to do so.

Once inside the Stories camera, you can either take a photo, take video or select the image button in the lower left-hand corner to pick something from your gallery.

When you’re done customizing your Story, simply hit “post” and you’re done!

Customizing LinkedIn Stories

Already an extremely “custom” tool, LinkedIn Stories allows for further customization through text, stickers and mentions.

Step Up Your LinkedIn Stories Creations

It doesn’t take much to take your LinkedIn Stories and as a result, your LinkedIn Selling to the next level. Some other cool things LinkedIn has included in their new tool:

#1: You’ll be Able to Actively Connect With Your Viewers

LinkedIn has added “question of the day” stickers, which allow you to engage with your followers and answer questions like, “What is your morning routine?” or “how do you refresh your energy”?

These questions can be fantastic ways to better connect with your first-degree audience, just keep in mind that the questions, at least at this current time, cannot be modified.

#2: Mute Video Audio

Among other things, you also have the option of muting the audio of your LinkedIn Story. All it takes is tapping the little sound icon and tada! No more audio.

#3: Formatting

Among other cool features, you’re also able to change the text color, alignment and size!

#4: Share Away!

Did you see something interesting in another story, or want to share your own? LinkedIn Stories can be sent VIA private messages to other LinkedIn members!

#5: Downloading Your LinkedIn Stories

In case you decide you want to use it elsewhere, LinkedIn Stories can also be downloaded and shared anywhere- all with the click of the … button. BUT be aware: you can only download within 24 hours after posting. When you hit the 24 hour mark, you’ll have to download your account data to see expired Stories.

RELATED: LINKEDIN SOCIAL SELLING INDEX: 5 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW

Incorporating LinkedIn Stories into Your Marketing Strategy

Because LinkedIn Stories allows for much more effective, personal and creative communication with your audience, it can be an extremely useful tool in terms of your marketing strategy.

But HOW do you go about incorporating it into your strategy? We have the answers.

#1: Use LinkedIn Stories for Professional Tips

Whether you’re a new thought-leader in your field or a well established professional, sharing insight and information about your industry can be wildly effective. Especially if you’re just dropping in from time to time with “quick tips” that can help others improve their B2B marketing game.

It builds trust, shows character and professionalism, and above all, helps people get to know you and your brand a little better.

#2: LinkedIn Stories for Real-Time Events Marketing

Whether you’re showing the preparation for the event or documenting the event as it’s happening, LinkedIn Stories will be your absolute BEST FRIEND when it comes to B2B events marketing.

From event updates like choosing a venue to showcasing the epic things your attendees are enjoying, it’s easy to implement and definitely should be in the cards for your next event.

You’ll be able to give the crowd a glimpse of what they’re missing or will be missing while keeping your feed clean and on point. Win-win!

#3: Host a Q&A Around Your Brand or Products

By allowing your connections to submit their questions in advance, you’ll be able to host a LIVE Q&A around your brand and your products incredibly easy with LinkedIn Stories.

Go ahead and try it! You’ll be surprised at the amount of interest and conversions you can get by answering peoples inquiries and extinguishing fears about your products and services.

#4: Use LinkedIn Stories as a Platform for Announcements!

Got a brand new product or service? Making a logo or website update? LinkedIn Stories is the perfect place to announce groundbreaking news about your business. It gets the word out their and will help raise awareness, excitement and interest all in one twenty-second clip!

Optimizing Your LinkedIn Stories for Engagement

This one is huge because it can make or break your engagement rates.

A couple of things you can do to make sure you’re making THE MOST of those precious twenty seconds would be to:

#1: Don’t Forget a Clear CTA

Whether it’s a question, or a sticker with something like “Link in bio!” or “Visit our website” on it, adding a clear CTA is vital to the success of your Stories.

You can also use things like captions, questions and a quick end to your video saying things like “get in touch!” to keep your conversation going.

#2: Spice Up Boring Content With Stickers

Don’t be afraid to go sticker crazy- people love creativity!

As long as it relates, is easy to understand and it’s fun- anything is game.

#3: Stay on Topic

If your LinkedIn is about animation or art or helping business make more sales, your LinkedIn Stories should focus on these things, too.

Stay relevant and on topic and your audience will love you for it.

RELATED: LINKEDIN PROSPECTING: BEST PRACTICES FOR FAST RESULTS

Does Your LinkedIn Need Some Love?

We’ve got a team of highly-skilled professionals who will work hard to maintain your social selling status with minimal effort on your part.

Your LinkedIn deserves to reflect your own professional brand and identity. Give yourself the opportunity to succeed and allow us to help you get there with consistent, direct communication with your followers on a daily basis.

Interested in learning more? Check out a few of our favorite LinkedIn social selling examples!

What are you waiting for? Let’s get in touch and make it happen!

This post originally appeared at https://blog.sociallyin.com/linkedin-stories

[myspookysunshine]

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.

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

[bensolotags]

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?

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.

*

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.  

[geekysweetie]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

23.) Goragoa

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

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

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

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

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

28.) Dragon Quest Builders

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

29.) Mega Man 11

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

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