#Can you tell I like sociology/anthropology lol

[cavernsofdarkness]

OMG I WAS THINKING! Ghost sims would make really good holograms …that sound creepy… but anyways especially the blue one. Also what do you think cyberpunk school would look like… sorry I’ve been searching on Pinterest and can’t find anything. Im at a tie with college like sermon with holograms, some where they’re hooked into vr headsets or computers, and just… there is no school. Idk what your thoughts?

(Sending Love … 98% Complete)

I love when people come to my inbox and posit things like this! I have a lot to say, lol.

As a baseline definition, cyberpunk as a genre is a near-future dystopia, defined by the domination of megacorporations, technology and the escalation of class stratification and its ramifications. So, I think there definitely is school and higher education.

Everything below is based heavily on the workings of US school systems.

There is general education through the high school level provided by the district/city but, much like in our own world, the quality of this education is dependent on the wealth of the district. The schools in poorer districts have less funding, and thus less access to technology and different specialties and extracurriculars for study. I imagine that, if you're lucky, there might have been a wealthy benefactor that decided to be generous and fund the operation of the cyberpunk equivalent of a charter school in your district.

The best schools are going to be corporation-owned or private institutions. These are private schools with all of the best amenities and access to the latest technology. Even amongst these schools there's a hierarchy, with the tuition costs reflecting the level of prestige. In Cyberpunk 2077, corporate workers get access to the corporation's healthcare plan; I imagine that getting discounted tuition for your child to the corporation's school is also one of the benefits, thus incentivizing people to join the megacorp machine (like in the US, how a lot of people join the military because they promise to cover the cost of your schooling).

On to higher education. College/university is astronomically expensive (and that's saying a lot considering how expensive it already is *cries in American with student loan debt*). Only the ultra rich, or those with connections can afford it. If you're not in one of the aforementioned categories, the amount of debt you would incur trying to finance education is a life sentence. For reference, there's an ad in Cyberpunk 2077 offering a loan with a 31.1% interest rate (can you imagine!?) and obviously, poorer people with bad or no credit are going to be subjected to the higher rates.

Now, about your ideas on the different manifestations of school, my answer is 'all of the above'! Dictated by funding, a school/business probably employs a mix of all of those methods. Imagine a guest lecturer joining via holo (in-person/physical classes probably cost more), or a netrunning class where they get to experience the net without the risk via a VR simulation. This applies not only to traditional academia, but other skill classes as well (martial arts, pottery, aerial silks, you name it!); just like in our reality, you can take singular classes in whatever you want, for a price.

As a result of everything previously mentioned, I think the majority of people in a cyberpunk reality make it through basic schooling and then engage in nontraditional/nonstandard methods of education. I imagine that some people may find someone who can train them in their desired trade/skill, and a lot of the hackers/netrunners, techies etc. are self-taught. In this vein, just like currently in our world we have access to lots of tutorials via youtube and websites like skillshare etc., the popularity of this has probably only grown and I imagine that training braindances/simulations are commonplace, both in and out of the workplace.

The one time I did a hologram (of a person) I just used a regular sim and edited them in post to get that holo effect. I haven't messed around much with ghost sims; I'm curious about how the ghost sim form would interact with lighting and such. Maybe next time I do a hologram I'll try it and see if I like it. It might save some time if all I have to add are the scanlines, lol.

[cherryheairt]

Even Cregan, who smiled sometimes in his sleep, seemed to have pleasant dreams.

Cregan was probably smiling in his dreams because they were only suitable for those over 18 and included the memories of Daenys' legs, as well as the memory of her nakedness.

His infatuation with the dragon appeared to be some sort of puppy love.

Dusk is very much aligned and in tune with Cregan's feelings. It is obvious that Dusk's fascination with Daenys began at the same time Cregan began to fall in love with her. Now that Cregan has internally acknowledged his love for her, it makes sense that Dusk would choose to sleep next to Morningstar.

My wife's honor is as sacred as mine, to father a child that was not hers would be unforgivable."

It's as if Cregan is a male bird spreading his feathers to show the female that he would be a good mate for her. However, Cregan's sense of loyalty and fidelity to his future wife makes sense, since wolves in the wild form monogamous pairs until one of them dies or is lost.

She smiled in reminisce. "You remind me of him, slightly."

This makes sense. Although the phrase "opposites attract" has become popular in popular culture to describe when two people of different temperaments are sexually attracted to each other, unfortunately this can only be applied to magnets. Actually, it has been widely proven by psychological, anthropological and sociological studies that people fall in love with what is familiar to them. That is why people who grow up in dysfunctional families tend to repeat this pattern with their future partners and find it very difficult to leave these toxic relationships.

"Mm. Perhaps it is my audience, then. In front of my septas, their stares were so intense that I nearly cried when practicing in front of them. My dragon does not judge as they do, she sings along."

I am sure that the next audience Daenys will be singing for will be her future children. Surely when Daenys disappears for a long time, Cregan will only have to look for her in the babies' nursery and there he will find her singing to them.

"Cregan, please. I need you." She whimpered, cold tears falling onto his face as she leaned over him.

I'm sure Cregan was dreaming of something like this, but surely he had Daenys crying out of pleasure and not out of fear or anguish.

"I love you, my sweet dreamer. It would truly kill me to see you at the mercy of some old and cruel Lord, who would keep you from happiness. If that makes me a selfish man, then so be it. But at least I am an honest one."

Awww! At last Cregan told her, it was so cute, sweet and above all, sincere. It's obvious that man is dying of love for Daenys and has been for a long time.

"How could I not? All I have seen, I adore. Do not simplify your entire being to your dreams–that is merely one part of you."

With such a declaration of love something tells me that Cregan's dreams included Daenys pregnant or holding his baby in her arms.

Return to me safely, Princess. That's all I ask of you."

It was obvious that Cregan's heart was bleeding at having to be separated from his other half. The good thing is that Daenys' heart knows she belongs with Cregan, even if she is too unsure of herself to accept it.

ahaha maybe he was. quite like anthony bridgerton and kate sharma in that one hunting scene 🫣

The wolf of the north (cregan) protects the lightbringer (daenys) just as dusk insists on protecting Morningstar (although she's the being being in westeros who needs it).

yes, i love wolf pack parallels! the dragons of westeros are also seen to be monogamous, like Vermithor and silverwing and caraxes and syrax. I think they both hold a lot of anger to their parents for siring bastards, knowing the kids from the affairs are the ones that suffer from it.

unfortunately that is very true, people with toxic parents often find partners who act the same way. I'm glad Daenys had good parents, or maybe she'd have been with aegon lol

Daenys would be quite unlike other noblewoman mothers. They usually tend to distance themselves from their babes after their birth and leave them to wetnurses and septas. I think, because of her dislike for septas and a want to be close to her babes, she would personally nurse them and oversee their teachings.

LMAO i feared that her words when waking her up sounded a bit double-meaninged, but they were all i could think of

I'm glad you liked the confession scene! Daenys did not get her own yet, seeing as the news was a total mood killer, but I also think she has to figure out her emotions for him a bit more. she sees him as her pillar and associates him with many good things (seen more next chap), but doesn't know that is it as intense as love yet. especially with her stress and mourning.

[kimyoonmiauthor]

Turning a scam on people...

So on LinkedIn, if you post under the hashtag #OpentoWork grifters pour in with a scam that goes something like this: • Where do you want to work? Where do you live?

Send me your resume, I'm a recruiter.

• Our AI bot says your resume is not up to snuff we can offer you editing services, go to non-company website to see this other person.

Usually something like Fiverr, or an employee not related to Adecco, Superior, or whatever company they claim to work for.

You could just simply report them to the companies they say they work for... Or you could counter grift on them. lol. Which is what I did, because I've gotten so much spam over the years in terms of phone calls and grifters, that for my own amusement, I play with them.

When it became clear they were only grifting over the resume versus placement and helping to find a job, I countered their grift and said, "I'm sorry you haven't really sold me." (Basically) "and it's clear from what you said you never really read my resume, or you'd find out that I'm into UX," (which one of the people didn't know what it was, which made it worse for them)

lol I said, tell you what since I have a degree in Anthropology, have taken classes in psychology and sociology, I will charge you 50 dollars an hour to fix your grift so it sounds more believable. And then reported them to the companies they said they belonged to.

Don't fall for this grift. You can do the AI check yourself. And real companies shouldn't be trying to take money from their workers in this way.

I've caught other scammers too... so yeah. I caught a fake pest control guy once which was wild. I caught a fake restaurant. And I tried to get news media to pay attention to the fact that the Atlanta shooter was lying because he was and no one had checked any of the yelp reviews for the stores, so I posted it up, found an Asian news organization, posted the screenshots of the reviews and asked them to try to force the news media to get people who spoke the languages to report. 'cause I'm getting better at smelling scammers.

But if you would like to report all of those people on linked in and have some fun, go ahead, do as I did and counter offer them.

[mochinomnoms]

I always learn a lot of new things by reading your blog, because yes, the historical and economic topics of the countries you mentioned are completely unusual for me, simply because I am on the other side of the Earth(?) Sorry, I don’t know. I don’t know if I can say that) If yes, then great. In any case, I really like your blog) As for Coco-Sola, I only have Chinese and Korean cola (maybe also Japanese) Just about what, I don’t drink such drinks at all, so I can’t say whether it differs in taste, for me it differs only in hieroglyphs and special badges of Korea and Japan. What am I talking about, I didn’t think that people choose between cola from one plant and another plant

I like telling people fun facts! I really wanted to go into archaeology and museum studies, but I didn't have enough experience or opportunities to do internships in the field, so I went with a social anthropology/sociology field instead. I like sharing all the information I learned cause it feels like it's being used lol.

It's super interesting to me learning what people from other places do and don't know, especially people from different countries. It's super easy to take knowledge for granted and assume that what you know is well known by others, but then you kinda remember that there's an entire half of the world with a completely different experience from you and you don't know about their history or knowledge and that's kinda cool! How people know so much and yet so little and no matter how long you're in school, there's always something new you didn't know!!!

It's so cool that now we can talk to people and learn new things from them everyday, it's so neat. Technology has a lot a faults and concerns, but it's also beautiful in its ability to connect people from different parts of the world in a matter of seconds.

For the cola thing, I think it's definitely expected that cola and soda from other places is pretty varied. My only exposure to Chinese or Korean sodas is from an Asian market I used to live by, and I noticed personally that there was a lot more fruit based sodas and drinks in general than colas, some were cool. I think I say a dragonfruit fanta and I almost tried it but I was on a budget....

[winter-spark]

So... I'm realizing more and more every day that I'm really bad at reading.

Like not only do I have poor comprehension skills, I can't pronounce words properly when reading aloud, I skip around in blocks of texts when I'm not skimming and have to pause and reread words in the right words realizing I skipped words to. Sometimes I'll read a post about something that happened and I'll think its bad or good but I won't fully be sure so I read the comments and read the comments and reread the post and reread the comments and be only slightly more sure. I was taking a personality test the other day and I had to pause at this sentence:

"Safety and Security is more important to me than most people."

And I reread it. And I legit asked my sisters if it meant that I care more about safety and security than most people do or if I care about safety and security more than I care about most people.

Perfect example of me skipping around. I saw this post that read: "every time i come home from work i'm like how do people have the energy for kids and relationships. like in the most literal sense. how?" and my mutual who reblogged it had tagged it "LITERALLY" with three crying emojis.

One of the times I read it I went "how do people have the energy for kids and relationships. like literally how?" another time I read it as "Literally how do people have the time and energy for relationships." One time I read it properly all the way to "relationships. like" then I read "literally". (I saw it a couple different times while scrolling and initially was gonna put a screenshot here of it. So yes even when I know what it says I can miss read it completely)

Like what?

IDK if this has to do with anything but One time I saw a post and then the reblogs were like "lol reblog if you understood without the missing words"/"reblog if it took you a while to realize there were words missing". And I reread and reread the original post and could not decipher what was missing.

When reading aloud I might read like "The quick fox, wait sorry, the quick...brown fox j,jumped over the... oh. the lazy dog." And it's like why can't I read? like what? I literally had practice in school with popcorn reading and I still can't do it.

As I mentioned earlier, I can't pronounce words. The words "Fort Apache" came up in a conversation with my mom, and I pronounced it a-pa-chay. and my mom was like 'Don't they teach anything in school these days (I graduated with my associate's in 2020, this was earlier this year) it's A-pa-chee.'

And it probably bleeds into my writing. I spell words phoenetically a lot. Like a day or so ago I was writing and twice in close succession to each other, I wrote 'know' as 'no', I had fixed the first time before writing it the second time too. Often I mix up homophones when writing to be honest. I'll write 'our' as 'are' because that's what it sounds like. "There" and "their", which one will I use? Will it be accurate? Was I supposed to put "they're"? (Also not phonetic but sometimes I write "what" instead of "wait" and "want" instead of "what", also sometimes I get g and q mixed up)

idk. but I do feel really dumb sometimes. Once in my 6th grade English I was asked to answer a question and I was trying so hard. But was doing so poorly my teacher called on another student while I was talking. In my Junior & Senior year of high school, I was also taking college classes and so I was taking screenwriting classes and one of the assignments was to sorta explain the characters journey. Why did one of my classmates explain my main characters story better that I did? I took an anthropology/sociology class with my younger sister. She got a better score on the final essay, with more points under [while I don't remember what the part was called that I know I struggled with and she did really well on but I remember it had] something to do with understanding and explaining... something. And that's just it. I'm so bad at that.

Last night I was telling my big sister about a really small blurb I read the other day, like maybe 5 sentences long probably shorter, and she was like 'wait is it saying [that] or [this]'. And the way I was like '0.0 I don't know but that second one makes so much sense' (I had thought it was the former) and she was like 'yea, I think it was saying [this].'

Speaking of my sisters. They are so much better at research than I am. A good chunk of the serious stuff I know is because my big sister reads stuff and tells us about it. When my younger sister writes she spends half her writing time researching so she can make it as accurate as possible, my older sister researches stuff for writing too. And like... It's not that I don't research things but I get a headache trying to figure things out after short periods of time. I can't spend half an hour researching and the other half writing because if I tried to it'd be half me crying over not understanding what a specific source was saying.

Recently, I had this grand idea that I would use this account to keep people updated on the news, so I thought I'd read news articles and post links to them. I opened one up and I read it. and I read it. And the next day I reread it. And I just couldn't fully understand what it was saying. I got some of it. I did. But I couldn't fully get it. So I scrapped that idea altogether. I can't share something I don't understand. (Besides people are sharing more informed stories on social media anyway so it's not like I would've been helping much with news articles anyway probably.)

and it goes hand in hand with why only one thing really stuck for one of the assignments we did in 12th grade government. because I just lack reasonable reading comprehension skills. (yea I posted that before this as a reference for what I'm talking about.)

And idk how to end this. I just feel sad this morning about how bad my literary skills are.

[lgbtq-history-museum-cfl-intern]

Am I What I Am?

How often do you feel “Imposter Syndrome”?

Imposter Syndrome is that feeling like you’re somehow not qualified for what you’re doing.

That even though you’ve been invited into a space, you somehow don’t belong there.

Like you’ve tricked everyone into thinking that you’re, say, a public historian, and now they’re just letting you design an entire exhibit!

Okay, so by now you can probably tell this is personal (lol).

My last post definitely gave away some of this brewing self-doubt, but I remained positive. However, I had one day where it all overwhelmed me at once.

That happens as students with everything going on PLUS school. As a student living with disabilities, I carry the extra load of the maintenance work that comes with chronic health conditions, and this was just one of those weeks when I had to balance my academic responsibilities with a wad of follow-up appointments and testing!

So, it all just felt like too much for a day and the imposter syndrome sunk in as I was preparing for the meeting with the Board. It was so bad that I questioned whether I even wanted to keep pursuing public history anymore! The field I have been actively building relationships and experience in for over 2 years now!

I know I’m not the only one who has been there, though. If you’re doing things right, you’re frequently entering spaces where you question your place until it becomes familiar.

Well, you can imagine my relief when I met the rest of the board, and they were incredibly warm and inviting. And to top it off, they were all very excited about what I brought to the table! They gave great feedback and suggestions giving me direction as I transition into the writing and design process.

The pressure I have felt this semester to impress is all my own because everyone around me has only been happy with my work and encouraging about my ideas.

After reflecting, I found that as an Interdisciplinary Studies major, I find it intimidating speaking to fellow students or professors who’ve specialized in History for years (or literally any of the disciplines I’ve covered in my degree program like sociology and anthropology, or humanities and Latin American Studies.)

And so there I was, in a room with incredibly smart and experienced individuals, most of whom I’d never met, about to present my research and exhibit idea for the first time. You hear the word “Board” and titles like “Doctor” and as a student, you can feel so inexperienced in just the worst ways.

However, something to remember in moments like these is that sometimes we build others up in our heads as figures to look up to. And yes, they may be accomplished and admirable people; And yes, we should respect them, but they are just people.

I think if we try to reframe these “figures” in our lives - humanize them, remembering that although they are professionally your superior, they’re normal people too – we can overcome some of that imposter syndrome.

They were in your shoes once, just starting their career and perhaps with less ground under their feet.

They can be just as endeared by your accomplishments as you are by theirs.  

So, the next time you’re nervous about meeting with that potential mentor whose positive reputation and track record overwhelm you with excitement and anxiety, remember: They also misplace their files; their emails also get stuck in their outbox/drafts; They also fumble with their materials; They also forget that one very important thing they needed today.

So, claim your place and remember you are where you’re meant to be!

Thanks for following along 😊

[postmodernbeing]

Shingeki no Kyojin headcanons: 104th training corps (College AU)

Hello, Postmodernbeing here. This time I wanted to write about things that I actually know, since I’m a college student and I’m studing History and Social Sciences I found myself wondering about what would the 104th training corps focus their studies on if all of them had chosen humanities as their career. I hope you find this funny and at least a bit accurate.

IMPORTANT:  I do not own Shingeki no Kyojin, only these HCs are my own. // Might contain a few spoilers from the manga. // English is not my first language and I study uni at Latin America, so scientifical terms/words/concepts may vary. Anyhow, I thank you for reading and for your patience.

Eren Jaeger

He’s passionate about Military History, not to be confused with history of army. Eren’s rather focused in strategies, weapons and semiotics involved in military speech.

First started with books about great wars in modern era. The use of certain weapons took him by surprise due the technological development.

Then he took classes about discourse analysis, semiotics and such, and felt inspired by the discourse reflected in emblems, uniforms, flags, etc.

Eren doesn’t really have a preference between occidental or oriental, North or South, Modern or Ancient settings. He would simply devour all the books that deal with military strategy and warlike conflicts. Although he has more experience and information about great wars in modern era.

He’s fascinated with the inexhaustible human desire of freedom and the extent that it can reach. This fascination might not be very healthy, he concludes.

Also, finds a cruel beauty in violence when showed in freedom and ideals are protected over one’s own life. But he won’t tell his classmates or professors. He knows is a controversial opinion for he’s still aware the implications of massive conflicts and the abuse of power.

One thing led to another, Eren is now taking classes and reading about philosophy in war and anthropological perspectives about violence through time.

He’s so into social movements besides his main interest in college: “No one’s really free until all humanity is”, that’s his life motto pretty much.

Due his readings and researches he decided it was important to develop a political stance about the world’s problems. Eren strongly believes all lives worth the same, but systems and nations had imposed over others and vulnerated other human's lives.

Yes, Eren is anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist.

Mikasa Ackerman

Asian Studies Major / History Minor.

She thinks by studying these degrees, she pays honor to her heritage. Specially to her mother. Her family is the proudest for Mikasa is also the best student in her whole generation.

Mikasa received a scholarship thanks to Azumabito family, who are co-founders of an academic institution dedicated to Asian historical and cultural research. She might as well start working when she graduates.

Although she’s passionate about Japan’s history, she has written a few articles and essays about Asian Studies themselves and the importance of preserving but also divulging by means of art and sciences.

In her essays and research work, she likes to employ tools from many disciplines since she strongly believes all humanities and social sciences serve the very same purpose at scrutinize the social reality all the same. Might as well use demographics, ethnology, sociology, philosophy, anthropology, archeology, and so on. For it proves to bring light into questions that history by itself could answer unsatisfactorily (in Mikasa’s opinion).

Even her professors wonder how she manages to organize that much information and pull it off successfully. She might as well be more brilliant than a few PhD’s students.

Armin Arlert

Prehistoric studies / Archeology

He’s so into the studies about the prehistoric humans and routes of migration.

Passionate about the ocean and natural wonders since kid, Armin believed his career would be environmentalist or geoscience related.

That was the agreement he had with his grandad since middleschool, until he read Paul Rivet’s “The Origins of the American Man” book and captured him thoroughly. The way the book explained logically the diverse theories about global migration and enlisted the challenges of modern archeology -for there are numerous mysteries- simply devoured his conscience.

He knew from the books he’d read that most evidence of the first settlements are deep under dirt or far away in the ocean whose level has risen over the centuries leaving primitive camps – and answers – unreachable. 

That’s the reason he is so eager to study and give his best to contribute both archeology and history disciplines. Also, he’ll forever love the ocean and nature, just leave him do all the fieldwork, please.

Jean Kirstein

History of industry / Industrial heritage / Historical materialism

Jean first started interested in capitalist industries and production development in first world countries. Kind of rejected other visions and explanations since he’d read about positivism studies.

His interest in such matters started when he was a just boy. He often found himself wondering how things were made and that question captured him ever since. As he grew up, he realized that machines and industrial processes were highly involved in the most mundane objects creation.

Nonetheless, he learnt that not always the best machinery was used, nor the best work conditions were available for mass production. From that moment he’d started to read about the First Industrial Revolution and his mind just took off with questions. Invariably, he learned about labour struggle and the transforming power due workforce.

Between his readings and university classes, he’d knew more about labour movements, unions. And in the theoretical aspect, he'd learned about historical materialism analysis.

One could say that Jean possesses a humanistic vision of the implications in mass production under capitalist system along history and nowadays.

Marco Bodt

Royalty's history / Medieval Studies 

I wanted to keep his canonical fascination to royalty and the best way to do that was including Medieval Studies.

Marco would study since the fall of Roman Empire until the latest gossip of royal families all across Europe.

Might get a bit of Eurocentric with his essays but in real life discussions he’s always open to debates about decolonization. He has even read Frantz Fanon books and possesses a critical thinking about colonial countries and their relations with the so named third world.

Nevertheless, Marco finds a strange beauty in the lives of monarchs and he’s interested in study from their education, hobbies, strategies, relationships, everything.

I’d say that his favorite historical period is probably the establishment of the descendants of the barbarian peoples in the new kingdoms such as the Visigoths, Ostrogoths, Franks, Vandals, Huns, Saxons, Angles and Jutes (holy shit, they're a lot).

Because this would transcend as the beginning of his favorite matter of analysis.

Sasha Braus

History of gastronomy, development of cooking, antropology and archeological studies.

Sasha’s interested in the history that shows human development of food and cooking. She finds wonders when she inquires into cultural aspects from the first farming till modern artistic expressions that would involve food.

Such as gastronomy. But her attention got caught in literature’s food representation too, with its symbols and allegories, also in paintings that belong in still life movement, but also Sasha finds interest when food is used as rhetorical devices (for example: the apple in Adam and Eve’s myth).

She’s curious about primitive systems of irrigation, cultivation, food distribution, adaptation of wild species; as well as the domestication of animals, the diversification of the diet and its link with sedentary life, as well as the subsequent division of labor once the need for food was assured in humanity’ first cities.

Sasha’s convinced that alimentation is the pilar of civilization as we know it. For it involves cultural, artistic, economic, emotion and social aspects. Food is a microcosm of analysis of humanity.

Sasha hasn’t a favorite historical period or setting. But she definitely has a special fascination for first civilizations and their link with alimentation. Also, she likes to study the development gastronomy in occident world around different regions, social classes, and time.

Although, let’s be honest, Sasha would devour (lol, couldn’t help it) ANY book about agriculture, cattle raising, cooking or gastronomy. 

Connie Springer

Micro-history / History of everyday life.

Connie loves his hometown, has a deep respect to his family and traditions. That’s why he finds himself wondering about the most ordinary events that developed in his dear Ragako. 

The book “The Cheese and the Worms” by Carlo Ginzburg changed the way he used to understand history and capture him into meaningful discussions about what he learned was called micro-history.

His favorite quote from that book is: “As with language, culture offers to the individual a horizon of latent possibilities—a flexible and invisible cage in which he can exercise his own conditional liberty.”

Once deep into studying the Italian historians and their works, he decided to give it a try, and ever since he’s mesmerized with the mundane vestiges craftsmen that worked in his village left behind.

Connie’s parents are so proud of him and his achivements, but mostly because he became a passionate academic over human and simple matters, (so down to earth our big baby).

His attitude towards his essays and research works truly shows his great heart and humility. Connie is aware that academic works have no use if they are not meant to teach us about ourselves too and current times.

Empathy and hard work, that’s how one could describe the elements that integrate his recently started academic career.

Historia Reiss

Political History / Statistician

Her father’s family pressured Historia since she was a little girl into studying History just like his dad. For he’s a very famous historian that had made important researches and books about the greatest statesmen of Paradis.

She thought in numerous ways that she could sabotage her career or study any other career without her family’s consent and end with her linage of historians. But she ended up enrolling in tuition and so far, she is trying her best in her studies. Historia swears this is the right path for her.

But don’t let the appearances fool you, even thought she studies her father’s career and the very same branch of history’s discipline, she has her own critical sense and she’s so talented on her own, very meticulous with her research papers.

Definitely wants a PhD about women, power and politics. We stand a Gender Studies Queen.

Her complementary disciplines are Political Sciences. Historia also has a talent for philosophy and owns a diary with all her thoughts about them. She hopes one day she would write a book or a manifesto about an innovative methodology for research and teaching History of Politic Thinking.

Ymir 

Religion’s History / Theology

Just like Historia, Ymir was pressured into studying History. And if she’s totally honest, she still has some doubts about it. Even if she couldn’t imagine herself studying anything else.

Anyways, Ymir thought that she could build her career around topics that she enjoys. So, she finally chose theology for unusual reasons.

Her classmates had grown up in religious families or had experience studying the doctrines they practiced. But she, being an agnostic, found satisfaction in unraveling belief systems in different cultures and time periods.

Albeit she studies in Paradis’ University, she currently has the opportunity of taking an academic exchange at Marley’s University. This only made Ymir more conflicted about her future, for she wants to stay (near Historia) but she’s aware that Marley would offer her more academic opportunities for her specialization.

Nowadays she’s working in some collaborative research paper with some people from Mythological Studies from the Literature department. She’s nailing it, writing some historical studies about titans in Greek mythology and its impact in shaping neoclassical poetry. Her brains ugh, love her.

Reiner Braun

Official History / Biographies of heroes and great wars.

His mother convinced him with numerous books about great national heroes, but mostly because she knew that would mean sure job to her son. All political administration in every level requires of an official chronicler. 

When he started his college courses, Reiner felt motivated and he was actually convinced that he had the vocation. But the more he read the less sure he felt that the academic world was for him. He wondered if he made the right choice. If he did it for him or for his mother.

Stories and myths about heroes have always cheered him up. That gave him purpose and consoled him when feeling down. Or at least it was like that when younger. Reiner truly didn’t feel like himself when regretting his choices, but he couldn’t help it for he was changing in more than a way.

That’s why he decided to experiment with other disciplines and with time he would find joy in historical novels. He would analyze them just as good as a litterateur and research about historical context in the written story AND study the artwork’s context itself.

His favorites theorical books are: “Historical Text as Literary Artifact” by Hayden White and Michel de Certeau’ “The Writing of History”.·        

Heroes stories would always accompany him, just differently now.

Bertolt Hoover

History of mentalities / Les Annales

Intimate relationships, basic habits and attitudes. / Culture

Bertie has always been a much reticent and shy guy. As he grew up, he consolidated his sullen personality, but maintained a friendly attitude towards anyone who needed him. That’s why he thought that the priority in his studies was to be at the service of his classmates.

So, although he was passionate about research and was a fan of the French Les Annales current, he considered his mission to be in the Archive. As a cataloger, organizer and curator of ancient documents.

But the ways of History are always mysterious, and Doctor Magath showed him that other way of being was possible. Before Bertolt picked his specialty, he met Theo Magath, a professor who recently had finished writing a book: “The Idea of Death in Liberio’s Ghetto in Marley During its War Against Eldia (Paradis)” (long-ass titles are historians specialty btw). After Magath ended his book’ presentation, Bertolt reached him. They talked for hours and finally, he felt inspired into pursuing his true passion. Magath gifted him “The Historian’s Craft” by Marc Bloch as a way to reminding him his way.

By the time Bertolt took History of Mentalities as optional class, he already had some basic notions about Les Annales, Lucien Febvre, Marc Bloch, Fernand Braudel, Jacques Le Goff and such. 

Being the gentle giant he is, Bertolt finds joy in reading about different lifestyles in diverse cultures. He constantly wonders about the origin of social constructs and the way they shape thinking as much as identity.

This boy is a wonder, he might not be the best in oral presentations or  extracurricular activities but sure as hell he’ll graduate with honors.

Annie Leonhart

Oral history, about institutions. Particularly, police and justice system in early XXs.

Albeit she got into the same University than Bertolt and Reiner, even shared classes and hopes, Annie regularly felt disconnected from her studies. With time she realized it wasn't due her career itself but rather because of the currents that her professors had suggested her taking. Until now.

Talking with Hitch and Marlow about their doubts concerning subjects and departments it came up the topics of history and present time but also oral history. She’d never heard something like that before. So, that very same week, Annie started searching for information about that.

She ended up with more questions: is it all of this just academic journalism? Or maybe sociology? When we can talk about regular history and when it starts being present time? If she introduces interviews due oral history, then that makes it an interdisciplinary work? Which are the best systems for analyzing data? Definitely, she’ll need help from anthropology and sociology departments if she wants to keep going. 

Contrary to her initial prognostic, philosophy and history of historic writing became her new allies, and the text “Le temps présent et l'historiographie contemporaine” (Present Time and Contemporary Historiography) by Bédarida among others, provided Annie another perspective. 

Regarding her favorite topics, she wouldn’t say that she selected them freely. They were just practical preferences. For institutions own extensive archives and numerous functionaries. One way or another, she ended up tangled in judicial system and police issues.

With new tools and object for studying, one could find Annie having a blast as detective too. Even if her academic essays focus on institutions’ history and configuration, she’s also working in corruption and more. She doesn’t do it because she believes it’s the right thing, but besides, the thrill of the tea is spicy. Although she won’t admit it. 

[sugarcomatosed]

i love your stories so much!! and was wondering if you can give some writing tips perhaps? 🥺👉🏻👈🏻

Breaking this up into sections for you + putting it under a cut cause I went overboard. 😅

General Writing Tips

These work for both academic and creative writing.

Make an outline.

It doesn't have to be a formal one, but having at least a general idea of the scenes you want to include is helpful. If I know my fic is going to be a longer one (like Don't Hesitate was and my current WIP is), I break down the larger story beats i want to hit on a piece of paper or my iPad.

It's good to know what you're planning to do, in a any piece I usually have a single specific scene I want to do and depending on what it is, I might either just do the scene I want to or turn into something longer.

Draft, draft, draft.

I cannot stress the importance of going through and reviewing your work. This is a big part of any sort of writing.

Your first idea isn't always your best idea. As you work on a piece you might find your original idea is holding you back, focus shifts! Don't be afraid to let your work change as you go. It's not always easy to let go of your original idea but if you find it's not working, you have to let it change. Sections will need to be rewritten, things have to be readjusted to fit with later sections. Reread for clarity while you're drafting and look to see if this makes sense to you, or reads well to you. If you can't follow it and you wrote it, chances are your reader can't either. Did you use the same phrase again and again? Find and search it on your doc to double check.

Sometimes you have to cut things you really like because they just don't contribute to the fic anymore. Save those bits and use them somewhere else!In a lot of my longer pieces I will write a paragraph, realize that's not where it should go and cut/paste it into another part of the doc because the pacing/scene doesn't make sense where I had it originally, but it works somewhere else.

If you're stuck, skip around, come back and then stitch the bits you have written together.

Don't Focus on a Word Count

This might be controversial, but I'm of the opinion just because something is longer does not make it better. Some works are short, and that's okay! I very rarely try to aim for a specific count of words unless it's for a prompt exchange or a personal challenge. I write till I feel the piece is done. Some stories require more words, some require less.

Don't Hesitate is a great example of this again, because all I wanted to do was a bittersweet first kiss fic, but jumping write into the kiss wouldn't get the full effect I wanted. Meanwhile, with Old Habits all I wanted to do was write dumb comedic kisses, we didn't need a 2k preamble.

Get Someone You Trust to Edit

My go to editor for the past six years or so is one of my good friends. She has edited everything from college papers to my fics for me before I post them to read for clarity, find any funky phrases or misspelled words I missed, and I do the same for her when she asks! A fresh set of eyes makes a world of a difference. Find someone to trade fics with or ask a friend! They might have good suggestions you never thought of, or be able to tell what you were going for when you don't even know yourself.

I also rely on my friends a lot to brainstorm and talk my ideas out before I start because it helps me think and figure out what I need. It's super common for me to text someone and say "im gonna spitball at you, that okay?" and then spend twenty minutes chatting through my ideas.

Have Reference Material

For my 13sar fics, I regularly go back and review/screenshot videos of the dialogue to make sure I am staying consistent with story events, character nuance and small details. You don't have to go crazy, but it is really helpful to have your source material to go back to and check yourself against. In non creative writing I always had a pile of papers highlighted with my own notes on the margins.

Take Breaks/Pace Yourself

Know your own limits, and if you are working and working on something and it's not coming out leave it alone and come back to it. I'm really bad at this personally because when I get an idea in my head I want to see it through but sometimes you gotta step back! It's not healthy to keep working on things and overwork yourself. Stretch, get up go for a walk.

Write What You Want to Write

Don't focus on what people want to read. Focus on what you like. Find a topic, a scene, anything that you are passionate about and the rest will follow. The only time I write fic for other people is when I am writing for a friend. Even prompt requests I only take open ended ones, if I am not interested in writing it it's not gonna happen. I know it's super hard and I get really anxious sometimes about letting people down now, or worrying people won't like something but then I step back and remind myself this is a hobby and I'm doing it for fun.

Play to Your Strengths

You shouldn't try to write like me, you should try to write like yourself. Find what skills you have and use them to your advantage!

I can't give you a step by step list to write like me, because nobody in the world has my background! We're all unique. Everything I've listed so far I know because I'm not a beginner anymore! I'm in my twenties and have come from a strong academic writing background.

I took on an intensive course load in high school, and then went onto college for a sociology degree. I very rarely had test based finals and at the end of each semester would have five 10-15 page papers to submit. Straight up some of my skills come from having read and studied the works of anthropologist Clifford Geertz. I am not saying you should read anthropology/sociology texts. Unless you like that sort of thing lol

I also have 6+ years of theater experience (acting & directing), I use this all the time for my writing. When I think about a scene, I think about how I would work through it as an actor, how the character would move, and how would things read to an audience. The GOTE ("Goal, Obstacle, Tactics, and Expectation") method of acting by Robert Cohen is really useful hear if you want a more technical breakdown of what I mean by that.

This leads to a lot of what we called "business" in acting, doing small tiny things while you talk or move around on stage to give the sense you're a real human. I don't have to think or try on these sort of things because they're in my skill set already!

Things I do Personally

As in, these are not transferable skills this is just the stuff I do while working on projects.

Find a Vibe™️

I come into any fic with usually a goal I want to hit, a line of dialogue or something I want to capture. Just like, the general idea of a feeling a song even if the lyrics don't match up. Make a mood-board, a playlist, just find something you wanna do. It's less about the actual words on the page and what you're aiming to do.

Look to things that inspire you

Don't Hesitate got written because I wanted to write a fic that captured the same vibe as a scene in Macross Frontier, where two characters have a bittersweet kiss before the final battle and that scene still has me fucked up six years after watching it.

My current WIP is doing the same thing but with the song All I've Ever Known from Hadestown. Two characters working through loneliness, the sudden feeling of falling in love and the frustration that feeling can bring on sometime.

I don't plagiarize them word for word, but these are scenes that inspire me! I also patchwork quilt ideas together. Using Don't Hesitate again, I also ended up pulling from a bunch of shoujo anime, Toradora, Sailor Moon, Yona of the Dawn, Princess Tutu...specific scenes I enjoy to blend and create something new.

Goof Off While You Write

I name my documents stupid things, I write dumb placeholder dialogue or vague sentiments like "insert better word here", I make memes when I'm struggling and roast myself and my predictable tastes.

I spent twenty minutes texting a friend Juro's name with different letters spelt out and then the "fuck your chickenstrips" vine saying it was Juro during destruction. Just have fun with it!

Listen to J-POP On Loop for Hours at a Time

i am not kidding I do this all the time. Perfume, AKB48, anime idol osts, Sailor Moon's OPs/ED, vocaloid songs. I like technopop and Japanese is good because it usually doesn't distract my brain since I only know random phrases, but still know what the meaning og the song is.

I love music, it helps me vibe out.

Thank you so much for enjoying my work ;o;

I hope this is useful to you in some way! I'm so sorry it's so long winded but I am overly thorough and love to teach people ;w;

[vyvesvi]

yo I'm sorry if this is coming out of no where but I'm in hs and I realllllly wanna study anthropology and since you're an anthro major,,,, can you tell me what that's like, ik every prof and school is a lil different but like . yknow

yeahhh no problem! if you have specific questions that might be easier for me to answer but i’ll keep it a lil general for now. edit: i tend to ramble so my main points are bolded.

it’s kinda important for me to note that i started as a government major but found my school’s department to be really impersonal (idk how to describe it but the vibes were rancid, that’s the best i can do rip). so i switched to sociology the first day of classes lmfao. i later ended up having the same problem with soc, but it was kinda late in the day so i just kept it and added my other two majors, one of which is anthr

all of that to say, i’ve found the anthr department to be a much more “human” place? like in terms of caring about people and how academia impacts the “real world,” which is extremely important (imo).

in anthr, at least at my school, we focus a ton on methodology and for lack of a better word, morality. stuff like how the history of anthr’s formation and establishment as a legit academic discipline impacts future study (super basic version: sociology as “a study of the west” and anthr as “a study of the rest.” obviously that’s very based in racism and colonialist ideals, so an important question becomes “how do we proceed in a discipline with such a past? how can we use that to make us better academics?” etc.)

in terms of workload: very reading heavy, right now im taking two anthr classes and i would say i have around 70 - 100 pages to read a week? that’s light/average compared to other humanities (i’m also majoring in religious studies, that’s like 70 - 150 pages? and soc, as a social science is more like 30 - 80 pages. i minored in east asian history and that was actually pretty light for humanities, it really ranged from 40 - 100 pages iirc). also, i think this is often the case but at the lower level you have more quizzes and busy work, usually with short response and short (5 page) papers. as you take upper level courses you have less busy work, more readings, more presentations, and longer papers (10+)

random advice: i would really recommend taking a language! idk if you have specific goals for what you want to do after graduation but one of the best things is to get a PhD and do research. personally i want to focus in methodology (bc i suck at languages lmfao) but the more typical (and fun) part of anthr is the area studies part, and knowing a language makes you incredibly competitive. of course, you don’t need to do anthropology in an area that requires you to learn a language (like i can do english speaking places as is, and there are also like a billion sublevels of anthr at the grad level, like medical, historical, etc that don’t require a language) but it will def make getting into research easier

the really cool thing about anthr is that it pairs well with most stem and social sciences! you can pretty much pick anything subject in those fields and there’s a subfield for that. like i know a grad student who’s doing the anthr of math (don’t ask me what that entails bc i have no clue), a friend of mine did a final project on the anthr of modern witchcraft, i know a few people who are working on projects related to college students during quarantine. personally my undergrad work is on marginalization and apathy + immigration and humanitarian aid. the possibilities are truly endless.

on that same topic, im not sure that people in creative writing would agree but i’ve heard some famous author give this advice to aspiring writers: don’t major in english. their rationale is that you can learn to write anywhere, and that it’s much more important to have other knowledge so that you have something to write about. i would say something similar about anthr- it’s a lil useless on it’s own. that being said, i personally think minoring or double majoring is a must with anthr. like, it just means more if you have other outside interests.

i’m not sure if you’re a college student but if you’re not yet and don’t know where you’re going yet, this seems obvious but definitely look at the course offerings and major requirements before you apply (if possible)! there’s always gonna be stuff you learn by being a student (and if you can connect with students in the department, definitely try to do that!) but there’s still info that you can glean from the websites. simple stuff like “how would i build a semester schedule from this? would i enjoy these classes?” etc. you can also email professors if you want! most of them legitimately want to help students, and the worse they can do is not respond!

that’s kind of it off the top of my head, but if you have any specific questions about anthr or college feel free to ask! i kinda just rambled because i wasn’t sure lol

[thelittlestcheshire]

Hello! I’m Katie, and this is my muse Ches. If any of you were in Luxor over the summer, you know this pain in the ass so I’m probably gonna do a quick “here’s where this brat was” recap at the bottom, along with anything I’ve changed between that Ches and this Ches! I’m really excited to be back, and I’m really looking forward to roleplaying with everyone.

I also have the habit of writing crazy long bios when I do bother to write them so there’s a tl;dr for that, also some wanted connections at the bottom. I love plotting so if you ever have any ideas, feel free to come excited scream with me here or on Discord! So without further ado ♥

TWs:  Gun Violence / Murder / Death (not by Ches), Blood, Abuse (Relationship), Cheating, Mental Illnesses, Drugs/Alcohol, Overdoses (also not by Ches / did not result in death)

Is that HAILEY CHESHIRE “CHES” ELSWOOD? Wow, they do look a lot like KATHERINE MCNAMARA. I hear SHE is a SEVENTEEN EIGHTEEN year old SENIOR who originally attended CARNIFEX Academy. Word is they are an ARISTOCRAT student. You should watch out because they can be IMPULSIVE and STUBBORN, but on the bright side they can also be ENERGENIC and LOYAL. Ultimately, you’ll get to see it all for yourself. [KATIE, 23, EST, SHE/HERS]

Last Edit: 8/26/2020

♥ basics; Full Name: Hailey Cheshire “Ches” Elswood Preferred Name: Ches Elswood Age: 18 Birthday: July 19th, 2002 at 03:22 am Sexual Orientation: Biromantic bisexual Relationship Status: It’s complicated ( @ Elliot ) Occupation: Student Nationality: American [with French dual citizenship] Ches’s Car

♥ classes;

Anthropology

Shakespearean Studies

Linguistics

Latin

Music

Advanced Sociology

Advanced Psychology

World History

♥ extracurriculars;

National Honor Society

Theater Club (Actor)

Concert Band (Piano)

♥ background; Place of Birth: Paris, France Hometown: Manhattan, New York, New York Health Issues: Borderline Personality Disorder and PTSD, not that she likes to admit to it, however. She’s also highly allergic to the Perciformes family of fish (tuna, mackrel, perch , and bass). While she’s okay with the  salmoniformes (Salmon and Trout), she really doesn’t touch fish outside of... literally salmon she makes herself since that’s all she trusts ok. ((Shellfish is fine though) Traumas: Watching her mother die (mugging gone wrong/shot to death)

♥ physical; Face Claim: Katherine McNamara Eye Color: Green Hair Color: Red Height: 5′3 ½” (not at fc height quick side note) Weight: 115 lbs Tattoos, Birthmarks, Scars, etc: Mole above her belly button, a few moles on her thighs, freckles and face moles. (Face Ref 1, Face Ref 2,  Body Ref 1, Body Ref 2) . She also has a tattoo now.

♥ zodiac;

Tropical

Sun: Cancer Moon: Scorpio Mercury: Cancer Venus: Virgo Mars: Leo Jupiter: Cancer Saturn: Gemini Uranus:  Aquarius Neptune: Aquarius Pluto: Sagittarius Lilith: Aries N Node: Gemini

Placidus Orb

I ASC: Gemini II: Cancer III: Cancer IV: Leo V: Virgo VI: Libra VII: Sagittarius VIII:  Capricorn IX: Capricorn X MC: Aquarius XI: Pisces XII: Aries

♥ relatives;

Father’s Full Name: Edward Valentine Elswood Father’s Status: Alive Father’s Occupation: CEO/Owner of a multi-billion dollar luxury goods conglomerate  (net worth of 50+ Billion in fact - in turn, Elswood kids do NOT bat an eyelash at prices) Mother’s Full Name: Julia Andrieux Elswood Mother’s Status: Deceased [shot by a mugger on the twin’s 8th birthday] Future Step-Mother: Rebekah Carroll (soon to be Elswood, watch this space lol) Step-Mother’s Occupation:  Siblings: 6 brothers and sisters (family page here) Elswood-Carroll Children Oldest to Youngest:

Logan Elswood (24)

Jamie Elswood (22)

Emmett Elswood (19)

Cade Carroll (19)

Jonah / Ches Elswood (TWINS)

Flynn Carroll (16)

Effie Elswood (14)

Ella Elswood (10)

She also has a niece named Isabella (Belle) who’s now almost 8 months (DOB: 07/10/2019). Belle belongs to her oldest brother, Logan (and Belle’s mother isn’t in the picture).

This is a link to the Elswood family page if you’d like to know more about her family.

♥ relationships; Ex-Significant Other(s): Probably a handful of people tbh, hit me up if you want this as a WC Reason for Separation: Stuff not working out, Ches getting bored before she got attached, so on - she’s a flirt tbh, it takes her wanting to get invested for her to stay Current Significant Other: N/A

♥ misc;

Hobbies and Talents: Ches’s main hobbies are playing piano and archery (she forever misses her bow and arrow while she’s at school), as these are also the two things that are best at calming her down. She has an intense love for acting, so it’s not uncommon for her to be one of the first people to sign up for auditions, and she tends to sing a lot so musicals are truly her shit. It’s not uncommon to see her in the library, reading a book late a night.

However, a talent she doesn’t exactly own up to often is her talent for forgeries and lockpicking. While she doesn’t use these skills as they’re intended for often, she does tend to practice them a lot, so she’s not rusty for when they are actually useful.

Pinterest Section // Musings Tag // Playlist (it’s an in general Ches playlist tho)

Ches speaks English and French fluently, her mother was born and raised in Paris so she learnt them both at the same time

DO NOT CALL HER HAILEY unless you really want to end up on her shit list, it’s her biggest pet peeve, she will glare at you for hours.

She’s the mom friend if your mom friend also goes “I HAVE THE BEST IDEA” and drags you into trouble. Literally, the one who frets over you and proceeds to get you into trouble.

This muse does what she wants, I just write it down I apologize always for her

Doesn’t really... seriously date too much because of past situations (Her older brother slept with the first person she truly loved) and she tries to avoid falling in love

That being said platonic I love yous are her shit, she loves her friends a LOT

Ches is very serious about her studying (and wanting to be among the best of the best because - this girl has Ivy league college dreams and she has no intents on fucking those up), so like expect her to do shit like read an entire textbook at the start of school and study at midnight when her insomnia is kicking her ass.

She’s a bit of a closet nerd - if you look under her bed she has a chest of comic books, she’ll just lie if you ask her about them

Ches left Luxor due to a family emergency in October, it was a really hard decision (and it was a really hard decision to come back). She is just now coming back to school.

She got her tattoo while she was away from school, using a forged note of parental consent in New Jersey.

♥ bio;

TWs: Gun Violence, Murder, Death, Blood, Abuse (Relationship), Cheating, Mental Illnesses

Growing up as an Elswood means two things, you have a lot of siblings and a lot of money. Her parents had decided to raise their children in Manhattan, New York, where they could keep a close eye on their multi-billion dollar conglomerate. Her mother, Julia, would take them on trips constantly too - when she wanted to get the children away from the hustle and bustle of the city they’d go to their vacation home upstate, or their private island, or even to visit their family in Paris. At that point in life, Ches was happy. She had a solid group of friends, she had the best friend she could ever imagine having in the form of her twin brother, she had a loving and warm family, and she had a parent who would tell her no.

When she thinks back to her life before the incident, it feels like a completely different story. A fairytale even, perfect and happy in every way compared to her life now. However, it wouldn’t last, after all, fairy tales didn’t exist and reality was a much crueler mistress. One could say Lin-Manuel Miranda described it best; “life doesn't discriminate between the sinners and the saints. It takes and it takes and it takes.”

Everything changed on her eighth birthday when her mother took her out shopping to get a present for twin brother Jonah at Palisades Mall. A man came up with a gun while they were in the parking lot and asked for all of their money. Julia Elswood compiled but she made one mistake, the simple utterance of “Cours, Ches” as she gave the man her purse.

Ches might have gotten out of the event alive, but not she was not unscathed. Julia Elswood was pronounced dead when medics finally arrived on the scene, her blood coating her daughter’s hands and clothing from Ches’s attempts to stop the bleeding. She might have survived the event without physical harm but she was never the same child she was before after that.

One day she had an intact family, the next day the Elswoods were in ruin. Her father completely shut himself out from the family, only coming out for birthdays and holidays. Her oldest brother stepped up as their parental figure, first starting out with homeschooling before he eventually dropped out to ensure his siblings were getting as much of his time as they possibly could. He tried his hardest to make the loss of their mother easier on the younger girls especially, given how young they were at the time. She helped him with the girls as much as she could (and overtime she slowly started filling the role as their second parent). Because of how busy the younger Elswood children kept him, sometimes Logan didn’t have the time to comfort Ches when she woke up in the middle of the night, haunted by their mother.

That was when Emmett stepped in. It wasn’t uncommon for him to sleep on her floor so he’d be there when she woke up terrified out of her mind, and he was there when she just eventually stopped sleeping like people tended to. Over time she realized that Jonah and her weren’t truly two peas in a pod the way they used to be, that Emmett was the only Elswood who truly got her. He wasn’t perfectly normal either, his thoughts and feelings were flawed like hers.

In a family that made her feel so broken at times, Emmett was a saving grace - a reminder she wasn’t alone.

Going to school in Carnifex was an easy decision when you felt so alone at home, at school she found a close group of people she loved and cared about - she felt less alone and less like her family were judging her, and when the feeling came up - she could always toss herself back into her schoolwork and pretend that maybe, just maybe, she was just a normal kid living a normal boring life. Family issues easily bred vulnerability though, and it was that vulnerability that was exploited not long before she was set to start Carnifex.

Long-distance relationships weren't’ supposed to be easy, but when she fell in love for the first time. At the time, she had thought she was as fucked up as she could ever be, that at this point she was just focused on healing the wounds her mother’s death had left in therapy and after that, everything would be fine. James Ruth quickly showed her how mistaken she had been, even now she doesn’t like thinking about everything he had done to her. She doesn’t discuss everything he had put her through in the time they were together nor does she have any intentions on truly discussing the worst of the abuse she endured while dating him and she was home - even in therapy. It did, however, have an effect on her, it made her terrified of truly falling in love with somebody again.  (Note: James is also a massive reason why she doesn't get along with her brother Jamie, the two Elswood siblings never recovered from Jamie sleeping with Ches’s boyfriend. It causes a good deal of tension in the Elswood home but Ches can’t just forgive him, her brother never even apologized for his actions, she wasn’t going to pretend he didn’t hurt her because her father wanted them to get along for his own sake. They were on the rocks before this and afterward, the tension just got a whole lot worse.)

Going back to Carnifex her sophomore year was a key factor in helping Ches get away from her relationship, and it became as much of a home for her than her actual home was the longer she attended. Sure, she still misses her younger sisters, she misses Emmett and Camellia, and she misses her friends in the city. She also dislikes just how restricted she truly is when it comes to Instagram and trying to grow her influence while she attends Carnifex. Networking had to wait until she was home and sometimes she questions why she decided boarding school was a good idea. And then Ches looks at her friends, at the education she’s receiving, and all the fond memories she’s developing. Carnifex, and now Luxor, was well worth the fear of missing out she feels. 

If you had asked her at the start of this school year, she would have told you nothing could have gotten her to leave school for any amount of time her senior year, she had spent the whole summer at Luxor (even after hearing about her baby niece, that meant a lot) - she finally settled in, she couldn’t imagine anything happening that would cause her to leave the academy. And then, on October 16th at two am in the morning, she got a phone call from Ella. Their oldest brother, Logan, had overdosed. While his drug addiction had never been a secret to the family, his relapse had been a surprise to Ches. Her brother had sworn up and down he was fine, that everything at home was okay. Going back to New York was a no brainer, her family needed her - and she needed them.

Logan, who’d been the closest thing to a parent she had since her mother died, almost died - she almost lost all the parental figures she ever knew. It was hard, getting adjusted back to New York City, she threw herself into her school work and did her best to fill the shoes Logan left open as he went through rehab, and then, adjusted back to being home. While she stayed in touch with the people she had at Luxor, she wouldn’t come back until her brother way okay - until she felt safe about leaving him with his daughter and their siblings without her as a backup. Coming back to school this time was really hard on her, the homesickness is worse than ever and she’s constantly trying to check in on her siblings (because mom!Ches is truly in full force and she’s trying to get it back down) but she’s glad to be back. She’s missed being at Luxor, a lot, so she’s glad to be back.

TLDR / quick important notes bio recap for rereads:

Ches’s mother was murdered on her 8th birthday in front of her

She was raised by her oldest brother, Logan, and is NOT close to her father really. She also helped raise her younger sisters and is very protective of them.

The Elswood she is closest to is Emmett, Jonah and her grew apart after her mother’s death.

Ches’s first real love was James (an NPC), they dated (entire)Freshman-(mid)Sophomore years, it was abusive (much more than Ches will ever discuss unless she gets majorly close to someone and they HAVE to know (cough still hasn’t happened though cough)) and Ches is now terrified of falling in love again. Her messy as fuck relationships & exes all start after this point.

Ches’s history at Luxor is pretty much in-tact, changes will be below in another section!

Ches left Luxor because of her oldest brother, Logan, overdosing. He is alive but she stayed in NYC until he was out of rehab / stabilized in order to take care of her younger siblings and her niece, Belle.

Notable Luxor Notes:

Anything relating to Thomas (for those of you who know what I mean) really hasn’t occurred, so if you mention it she’ll just be like “who?” This seems like the easiest course of action given how things were left off

Other muses of note I’m not going to account for are: Asher (more will be added as needed).

Ches isn’t a member of the Churchill Circle (I’m leaning towards was never one either just because the reasons she joined are no longer a factor so... she probably wouldn’t have ever joined)

If anyone wants to change history and/or keep it intact, feel free to dm me to let me know and I’ll update this accordingly. 

Wanted Connections:

Exes (when Ches dates it’s not for long, but she’s definitely the type to be like “I’ll go out with you” if asked and then... dump you if she thinks she’s getting too attached. So her exes are either on good terms, neutral terms, or they probably dislike her a lot)

Former friends with benefits - while Ches is no longer taking on new ones because of Elliot (and is starting to wean off her current ones), I’m always willing to headcanon past things!

FRIENDSHIPS  (I am weak af for a good friendship plot, never be afraid to be like “hey can our muses be friends” the answer is legit always yes)

Enemies (Ches can... be a lot so it’s not unlikely she’s pissed people off ok)

[wof-reworked]

🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻 (hmu w FIVE !!)

FIVE whole things??? Goodness gracious anon, that’s a whole lot of stuff. I’m gonna use this a little bit to talk about me and some wof stuff ^^;

-Fun fact about me: I’m really interested in studying anthropology and sociology!! You can see bits of this in my hc lists, a lot of them take inspiration from existing cultures (Icewings and Skywings so far take the most from existing cultures, Rainwings the least). Ethnomusicology is also something I’m involved in, but that’s mostly cause of the people around me lol

-I really love folk music, especially folk music from the balkans and roma communities there (it feels a little disingenuous to not mention their involvement in folk music). Part of the reason I give so much Balkan stuff to the Mudwings is just because I have a soft spot for them and it feels all familiar to me. It’s maybe the one thing that doesn’t have any like, real world reason for why they’re like that I just want good things for my big mud babies

-I made a playlist for two of my wof ocs: Mamba and Hurricane and consider it a little bit of a teaser cause I definitely plan on talking about them (A lot of it is about Mamba, but there’s definitely some Hurricane in there). This playlist is also why it took me so long to answer you, sorry!!! D: . It’s also being updated pretty much as we speak lol

Here’s the link!!

-Since I can tell you whatever the fuck I want I also think dogs should vote. 

-I’d really like to talk more here and like, be more personal but I always feel really bad. You all signed up for wof content, not my self-absorbed rambles, which I know is a little irrational but I still feel guilty. I have a lot of thoughts on a lot of things and I don’t really share all of them ^^;

[flying-elliska]

This is really random and I'm kind of a new follower, but from what I could gather you have such a strong opinion on different topics, which I kind of admire bc I find that so important but can't really apply that to myself oftentimes idk. Is it part of your personality or are you trying to be consciously aware to not just 'consume numbly'? Hope that makes sense. And you're giving such good advice?? But an anon has already stated that correctly. Have a lovely day 🎃✨

hey new follower, welcome to you then, glad to have you around <3 that’s a very beautiful compliment, thank you. idk if you were looking for advice too but here it is because it’s late and i can’t help myself apparently lmao. (with the caveat that I too am a moron frequently like anyone)

...

i am sort of a chronic overthinker, so maybe it’s natural. that said, i used to think i didn’t really have an opinion for a long time. i found it difficult to express myself. and i looked up to people who i thought did it well for guidance. so i feel you 

i went to a school where we prided ourselves on being able to talk convincingly about things we had zero knowledge about so eh (not that this is a good thing lmao) but i grew past that 

i think i realized at some point i just tend to have opinions that are very long winded because i like looking at different sides of an issue. i think part of that is me being a contrary bitch, i don’t like going for the obvious meaning (maybe it’s residual trauma from being raised by someone who had a quasi cult leader type of approach to parenting lol). we are so easily tempted to disappear into the group, or a relationship.  i feel like knowing your own mind, defining your own self image, seeing past the easy judgments and surface meanings, being able to understand reality on your own terms, is one of the deepest, most urgent forms of freedom. also empathy - which does not automatically mean endorsement - and trying to understand things and people from their own logic. 

we tend to assign error or folly or bad intentions very easily. but it’s often because of the limits of our own understanding. and well, i have a weird brain. i grew up feeling like some sort of alien, often misunderstanding people, social habits, my own mind. so constant overanalysis is to me, the survival strategy that came the most naturally. and so as not to let my brain eat itself, i have gotten pretty good at figuring out what’s relevant and what’s nonsense ( i still could get better at it tbh). but part of me is constantly checking myself so i don’t do something terrible or terribly embarassing. wouldn’t wish that on anyone tbh. i am increasingly learning not to oversimplify myself for public consumption. my mindscape is a jungle, so be it. what’s the shape of yours ?

i also grew up in a lot of different social spheres. i met people from all sorts of social backgrounds, from billionaires who owned private beaches and designed jewllery for fun to people living in trailers without electricity or in the street, from prissy heiresses who believed using the wrong fork was a sin to best friends who had to work since middle school to help their parents. from all sorts of creeds, from wayward soldier priests baptising people in streams to new age ‘shamans’ whose houses smelled of pee, from staunch atheists to adorable nuns living in stone villages in the mountains and wild mama bear witches. from all sorts of politics, from faithful anarchists to political exiles fleeing dictatorships to crypto-royalists and decrepit neo-colonialist conservatives. from all sorts of cultures too.  i think that’s the fave part of my childhood. people are just so interesting. but everyone operates within their own specific world, and you can’t judge people from your own perspective. of course there are things that are universally right or wrong but beyond that, you have to get into the world in which they move, understand its rules. see how it intersects with others. a lot of social interactions are role play. once you get that, you get the codes, you can move in any circle. (also : very rich people can be so unbelievably boring. they buy into their own hype so much, like spoiled babies. nothing to be very impressed about.) People wear façades and play different roles to different people; that’s not always a bad thing, after all parents have to be strong for their kids even when they’re scared. But now you’re an adult (or getting there) don’t let yourself be too mystified

 also : power. dynamics of power are everywhere all the time. if you’re not aware of them, that’s a mark of privilege. ( in the end, who profits ? is this building empowerment for people and communities or is it stripping it away ?) but they’re not totally all consuming either. there’s also always agency, and chaos, and possibility. and compassion.

i think it’s important to accept that it’s okay not to have an opinion on everything. and also that it’s always growing, evolving, deepening. it’s possible you taught yourself, out of survival instinct or habit or something else, not to trust your own heart/brain/intuition/experience. I don't think it's anyone's natural state to just consume numbly. i’m sure you can step beyond that, everybody can. also ; learn how to embrace being destabilized. there is always this one moment between knowing something, learning you don’t really, and then getting a deeper perspective, that is scary, but it’s okay. you can come back to your center. like any sort of growth, really engaging with difference implies discomfort ; bear it, it’s worth it. 

 i think any opinion that is too static is likely to turn into bullshit in the long run. like a good wine, it should gain in complexity with age. also : read up on sociology/anthropology if you haven’t already there’s just so much good stuff in there (and a lot of bullshit too lol) about what it means to be human and cultures and how minds work and symbols and etc etc. and find good news sources because it can be very easy to feel disgusted by the world otherwise. and read as much and as diversely as you can

find things to love about thinking ? for me it’s ; i don’t believe in this binary between mind/body, feelings/reason etc, i think it’s bullshit and they all influence each other. and so does our environment. we learned to think by looking at and interacting with nature. some of our neurons are in our stomach. we’re made of star stuff. we grow by engaging with others. and not to sound like a hippie but that shit is breathtaking bro. we encoded the world with stories and symbols and use them to tell ourselves and each other stories and built community and we’re all the time engaged in this web weaving. so i see and i want to see more and more thinking like this organic, tangible process. 

in the end, what is it important for you to have an opinion about ? i think it’s about passion, and love, and justice, and truth. what do you want to be moved by ? what do you want to honor with your possibilities for learning and knowledge ? where you invest your energy and time, you invest your life.when you have something you are passionate about, it will be much easier to express the subtlety and depth of a meaningful opinion about it. and then you can apply that to other areas of your life. 

personally i want to (i have to) live like a diplomat, as a balancing act, with elegance and the ability to make tough decisions with grace, moving between all the layers of life and bearing gifts from one to the next. and i want to be able to move people, and give them the kind of stories and knowledge that are tools for them to heal and be happy and make the world better. 

 i have my work to do, like everyone else, of sorting through my shadows and making the dream stuff intelligible. in the end it’s all about finding an authentic life. your own inner logic. the bonds that nourish it, and what you want to give. 

and i think once you find that is for you, i think finding your voice, an opinion that is truly yours and not copy pasted from some one else, will be much easier to start weaving. but don’t worry ; it happens in small steps. i bet you’re already on your way. 

[dantearroyo]

hi fam, i’m joy and i’m mostly Known for writing trash muses & hating gif icons ( but i will try to match the aesthetic if ya really want me to lol ). i’m very late the party ( fuck being a gmt thot ) buuut i’m here now, ready to introduce my two trash can boys. i’ll start with dante who is a capital d douchebag but and the Actual Worst & i already feel the need to apologize for his shit yIKES.

dante is the oldest of five children. his father puts a lot of pressure on him to excel at everything, academics and sports wise. dad is pretty much a dictator who wants to control everything and everyone and dante highkey hates him, but he super close with his mom and younger siblings. 

the family is very much a conservative catholic household. he was raised with traditional values and used to be extremely closeminded but meeting and becoming friends with new people in high school made him question most of the beliefs he was raised with. 

the arroyos are, not surprisingly, very wealthy. dad is the district attorney and a major workaholic. mom is a socialite and homemaker. 

so, as i stated before, he’s a capital d douche. very pretentious and thinks he’s better than everyone.  also manipulative and shady, and has a temper. im SOZ. 

on a positive note um.. well he’s clever, ambitious and driven, and super protective of his friends. he’s also like really fucking sensitive and soft on the inside but you probably can’t tell cos he acts like That.

at school he’s one of the top dogs. i headcanon he has a self-proclaimed Cool Kids Clique™ thing going on with like 3-4 people who are like super close friends? if that’s something you’re feeling for your chara hmu. 

he’s co-captain of the lacrosse team and highkey hates this because he’s a Leader and he doesn’t wanna share that spot so um cue Angst.

he’s also on the swim team & the debate team. used to be a member of the christian club, but stopped showing up last year.

his classes are 1. english 2. calc 3. physics 4. accounting 5. philosophy 6. latin 7. anthropology, psychology & sociology

okay so i have his stat page here and a basic connection page here. connections i highkey want are close friends for the clique, exes drama and maybe some hook-ups? i’m very open to anything tho so hmu.

[brimay]

Can I ask you more about your choice to study anthropology? I think it's what I want to go into but I have no one to ask what it's like, and I'm terrible at committing to choices lol

yeah, sure! :) but bear in mind, i only just started my first semester, so i don’t know a lot. in fact, i only know the basics. 

but i think anthropology is a good choice for anyone who’s interested in studying human behavior, and the differences/similarities between the countless cultures that exist around the world. on top of that, you have to be committed to reading a ton of scientific theory/data that gives you insight into the anthropological field. 

i’ve had so many people tell me: “anthropology, isn’t that basically just... common knowledge?” and i highkey want to roll my eyes into the next century, because more than anything else, anthropology is a recognized field of social science that bears just as much significance as lets say, psychology and sociology. 

[kayascodelorio]

RULES : ANSWER THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS THEN TAG OTHER PEOPLE YOU’D LIKE TO GET TO KNOW BETTER

thanks to my little bean @dreamingbelle for tagging me, i lob u <3

how tall are you ? 5′... barely lol

what color are your eyes ? blueee

do you wear contacts and/or glasses ? i can’t see shit and glasses are part of my aesthetic

do you wear braces ? nope

what is your fashion style ? ‘it fits’ + ‘it’s black’ + ‘it’s calvin klein or guess’

when were you born ? september 2nd

how old are you ? 19

do you have any siblings? no thank god

what are your favorite subjects ? sociology and anthropology

what are your favorite movies ? i... can’t pick one?? i’m gonna go with the virgin suicides, heathers, eternal sunshine of the spotless mind, brokeback mountain.

what are your favorite pastimes ? being lazy, attempting to finish vids, making gifs n edits, rereading aftg and crying.

do you have any regrets ? don’t we all

what is your dream job ? being a full time rich hoe

would you like to get married ? no

do you want kids? how many? bye

how many countries have you visited? 3:(

what was your scariest dream? my high school math teacher was running after me (well rolling technically, since she was in a mop bucket with a mop) in my hs corridor trying to murder me. can u tell how much i hated hs?

do you have a boyfriend/girlfriend/significant other? does an imaginary friend count?

put your playlist on shuffle and without skipping list the first 15 songs :

i almost do - taylor swift

holocene - bon iver

party monster - the weeknd

one bad night - hayley kiyoko

i dare you - the xx

i’m a ruin - marina and the diamonds

touch - daughter

drive - oh wonder

roll call - the neighbourhood

holy ground - banners

sweet ophelia - zella day

all comes down - kodaline

war of hearts - ruelle

pieces (hushed) - andrew belle

the same parts - tatianna

i tag @syzzygys, @currentreigning, @blairwaldorfsgf, @mistletoeminyard, @exybee, @podzolle, @xavierdalon, @butcheleven <3

[thinkofstars]

i’mma fill this out like it’s 2007 cause i’m bored as if anyone cares lmfao

01: Do you have a good relationship with your parents? indeed

02: Who did you last say “I love you” to? my nieces

03: Do you regret anything? no ragrets lmfao (reference to we're the millers. If you've never seen it watch it.)

04: Are you insecure? i can be.

05: What is your relationship status? lonely bitch lmfao

06: How do you want to die? old and in my sleep hopefully?

07: What did you last eat? cheetos

08: Played any sports? i suck

09: Do you bite your nails? ew gross

10: When was your last physical fight? when i was a kid?

11: Do you like someone? mmm maybe

12: Have you ever stayed up 48 hours? after the 24 hour mark i’m delusional and get anxiety.. i need sleep or i get grumpy D: i’m not the bender type lol

13: Do you hate anyone at the moment? nah fam

14: Do you miss someone? yeah

15: Have any pets? i want a cat tbh

16: How exactly are you feeling at the moment? bored as hell

17: Ever made out in the bathroom? uh yeah

18: Are you scared of spiders? as long as they don’t touch me i’m cool.. i was the spider killer in my household growing up unfortunately

19: Would you go back in time if you were given the chance? pls

20: Where was the last place you snogged someone? can’t remember, lmfao snog

21: What are your plans for this weekend? study probably and do nothing

22: Do you want to have kids? How many? no thank you

23: Do you have piercings? How many? i’m planning on getting a small nose piercing once the world starts again lol

24: What is/are/were your best subject(s)? i loved art and social studies. in college i loved sociology and anthropology.

25: Do you miss anyone from your past? yeah but i guess there’s a reason they’re no longer in my life anymore

26: What are you craving right now? social interaction

27: Have you ever broken someone’s heart? not that i know of? if i have i’m sorry?

28: Have you ever been cheated on? uh yeah

29: Have you made a boyfriend/girlfriend cry? no?? D:

30: What’s irritating you right now? nothing

31: Does somebody love you? my family... i hope

32: What is your favourite color? black or burgundy

33: Do you have trust issues? it’s hard for me to let my guard down

34: Who/what was your last dream about? can’t remember

35: Who was the last person you cried in front of? my mom

36: Do you give out second chances too easily? i try to see the best in people so i do unfortunately

37: Is it easier to forgive or forget? forgive and move forward

38: Is this year the best year of your life? oh hell nah.. this year has been shit so far

39: How old were you when you had your first kiss? 13

40: Have you ever walked outside completely naked? ahahnooooo

51: Favourite food? charcuterie boards paired with wine.. unf

52: Do you believe everything happens for a reason? i believe shit just happens sometimes lol

53: What is the last thing you did before you went to bed last night? did my skin care routine and watched the good place.. i’m hooked

54: Is cheating ever okay? nah. Just tell the other person that you’re not ready to commit.

55: Are you mean? i’m nice until you’re mean

56: How many people have you fist fought? i avoid conflict

57: Do you believe in true love? uh maybe

58: Favourite weather? summer or fall weather

59: Do you like the snow? if i’m in the mood for it

60: Do you wanna get married? no thank you. let me get my career in order before i start thinking about that

61: Is it cute when a boy/girl calls you baby? it can be

62: What makes you happy? lots of things

63: Would you change your name? my name is way too common so yes pls

64: Would it be hard to kiss the last person you kissed? yea no thanks

65: Your best friend of the opposite sex likes you, what do you do? stay friends

66: Do you have a friend of the opposite sex who you can act your complete self around? yea

68: Who’s the last person you had a deep conversation with? a family friend

69: Do you believe in soulmates? mmm no...