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sunnyskies0602 · 2 months ago

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Curse of the Sanctus Medicus

Brief Summary: Guiying, a member of the Alchemy Commission, goes missing, and the Luofu is thrown into chaos. A/N: This is copy/pasted from a google doc I use to write these sorts of stories, and this is just testing the waters. If it is well received, I'll open up req's, and start posting more. If not, it'll go back to being private. o/ thanks for reading!! If there are any questions, I'll do my best to answer them! Don't be afraid to send an ask my way, I'm happy to answer!

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The day in the Luofu was rather uneventful thus far, as far as Jing Yuan was concerned. He was training Yanqing, and that took all his time and energy for the day. There was a reason he was called the “dozing general”, after all. He enjoyed his time to himself, to rest and relax. The only person even close to permissible to interrupt this was Guiying, one of the best the Alchemy Commission had. Hell, he’d pay her to interrupt every moment of his life. But alas, with their paths chosen, that wasn’t quite possible.

Yanqing looked rather ragged, out of breath from the rigorous training Jing Yuan put him through. With a quiet chuckle, he speaks up and sets his spear down beside himself. “I think that’s a wrap for today. You did well, Yanqing, now go get some rest.” He says, dismissing his pupil. Yanqing opens his mouth to object, before nodding, realizing he’s far too tired to continue. With a rather curt and polite bow, he takes his leave, and Jing Yuan has time to contemplate by himself. With a rather relaxed position, he takes a seat, ready to doze off for the time being.

However, before he can drift off, he hears the clamoring of nearby Cloud Knights, clearly looking for someone. Curiously, he gets up, thinking they must be looking for a fugitive. They’d had a lot of trouble recently, with the Astral Express’s rather… Unusual form of docking. With a hefty sigh, he approaches one of the Knights, who only looks at him with what he can describe as “terror”. He stops, concern etched on his face. What could they possibly be so scared of? Was someone impersonating him, instilling fear in his ranks?

“G-General!” The Knight exclaims, laughing rather awkwardly. Jing Yuan does a bit of a double take at their forced laughter, and pinches the bridge of his nose. “Wh– H-How funny to see you here!”

Jing Yuan can only raise an eyebrow in response, clearly getting nothing more unless he speaks. “You know this is where I train with Yanqing.” He states bluntly, earning a rather panicked look from his subordinate. “There is something you’re not telling me. What are you doing around here, and what are you looking for?” He asks, growing impatient. The Knight, clearly lost for words and still terrified of the man before them, exhales shakily through their helmet.

“I-It’s about Miss Guiying.” They muster out, quietly. “She’s been missing for a few hours now. The Alchemy Commission last saw her leaving to get herself lunch in Aurum Alley.” They explain, anxiously watching Jing Yuan’s expression. Of course, he’s as stoic as ever. Internally? That was the very last thing he could have ever anticipated, and was a worst case scenario. Guiying, gone missing? She wouldn’t run away, she was far too level headed for that. Everyone who knew her knew that fact. So, where did she go?

“Last seen at Aurum Alley… So you’re checking here? About as far away as you can get from Aurum Alley?” He asks. “Surely you don’t think I’d be hiding her here.” He crosses his arms, staring at the Knight. They just nod in response, composing themself for a few moments.

“We checked all of Aurum Alley. The Shopkeep there said they hadn’t seen her, someone supposedly took over the shop she normally goes to while Shopkeep was out grabbing a book. Aside from that, nobody’s… Nobody’s seen a trace of her. We thought that maybe she’d run off to see you. B-but that’s clearly not the case.” What a peculiar statement. For her to sneak off and visit him? She’s far too responsible for that. Sure, all of her time off is spent with either him or Yukong, but for her to shirk her responsibilities for him? He wouldn’t believe it.

“I’ll join you in the search. Any help is better than none, no?” He wouldn’t take no for an answer, this time. He walks past the Knight, who helplessly calls after him. Jing Yuan pulls out his phone on his way out, sending Yukong a brief message. He receives no reply, which he expected at this time. He considers asking the Nameless aboard his planet, but decides against it. This is a problem for his planet. Besides, he didn’t think any of them had even met the woman. How do you find a woman you know nothing about?

Upon arriving back at the Seat of Divine Foresight, he’s greeted by Yukong, who’s instructing some of their subordinates to locations for searching. Yukong seems very distressed, concerning Jing Yuan. This must be dire, considering the level of concern from everyone involved. “Good to see you, General.” Yukong greets once she’s finished with her instructions. “I’m sure you’ve been brought to speed on the situation at hand?” He nods in response, his brow furrowed. How could they lose her so quickly? Did nobody see a kidnapping in broad daylight? Yukong seemed to share his worries, as she spoke up. “I was thinking of sending some of the Astral Express crew to search for her. I feel a fresh pair of eyes could do this situation some good, but I wanted to ask your opinion first. I know you are loathe to entrust an important task like this to outsiders, but–”

“But what? Are you implying we cannot handle our own affairs, Madam Yukong?” Jing Yuan sighs. “I understand your logic, but to ask outsiders for their help with this goes against what we stand for.”

“I was afraid you’d say that. So, I went ahead and already sent their newest trailblazers. I believe you met Stelle and Caelus. They’re going to infiltrate the Sanctus Medicus, who we believe might be behind this. They’ve been looking to kidnap one of our medics for a long while, and this was their first open window in a very long time.”

“You what?! Behind my back, of all places, you–” Jing Yuan sighs frustratedly, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Madam Yukong, you must surely realize there are repercussions to this?” “Of course I’m aware, General. That’s why I did it. If it truly is the Sanctus, the only people who can reliably get her back are the Nameless. I knew you wouldn’t approve.”

“For damn good reasons! Outsiders, we are taking their help in such a monumentous task! Surely you can see why it’s a terrible idea?!” He was growing more frustrated by the second. Aeons, this was the deepest mess they’ve found themselves getting into in what felt like centuries.

“On the contrary, General. I believe in their capabilities. They’ve shown no reason for us to doubt their capabilities. To think with the mind of an outsider is to see strategies we could never think of. You may be angry with me after Guiying is returned to us safely.” Jing Yuan has no response for her. She walks past him, leaving the building and leaving him with a silent rage in his chest. He could do nothing but think of the woman’s smile, leaving him to realize just how much he cared for the missing Foxian. She was so precious to him, and there was the possibility that she was dead.

No, he couldn’t think on that. He said he’d join the search, and so he was going to keep his word. He takes a deep breath, exhales, and exits the building, throwing himself into the search. Even Fu Xuan, normally not bothered with menial tasks, was using her divination powers to seek the missing woman. He didn’t realize just how powerful the bonds she’d made were, until she was gone.

The day crawled forward, and night began its creep in the sky. With the moon hanging overhead, they could no longer afford to keep looking. Everyone needed rest, and that included their infallible General. He was loath to give up for the day, but realized she needed him at full strength, and decided to check in for the night. The cycle repeated; Day crawled, night fell. It had been days since she’d gone missing, but Jing Yuan wasn’t giving up. Neither were the Nameless twins hard at work.

Jing Yuan was at a loss. It felt hopeless. He sank into his seat, about ready to throw in the towel, before the door to the Seat opened with tremendous force. There she stood, the woman who went ahead of Caelus in the Sanctus. Stelle, with her shirt coated in blood. He stands up, about to open his mouth before she beats him to the punch. “I found her.” Is all her shaking voice says, her lip quavering. She was on the verge of tears. No, nono, she couldn’t be–

“She’s alive, but she’s not in good shape. B-before she passed out, she was calling your name.” He freezes. For her to be in her most vulnerable state, calling for him… He had to see her, no matter how she looked. But, was that good enough? He couldn’t find her himself. Aeons, he wasn’t even the one who found her! How could he show his face, knowing that he was too pathetic to find her himself? “General?” Stelle calls quietly, staring at him with concern. He walks forward, patting her head gently with a smile.

“Thank you.” He says quietly. “I assume she’s with Lady Bailu in the Alchemy Commission?” He asks her, receiving a nod. He nods back to her, giving her hair a gentle ruffle before heading out to go see her. It was so quiet on his way out, and it felt strange. Like everyone was mourning someone who wasn’t even dead. With a heavy heart, he opens the door to the Alchemy Commission, feeling sick as he lays eyes on Guiying. She was unconscious, and looked to be in tremendous pain despite it. The Dragon Lady was tending to the large wound on her chest, what looked like a giant hole exposing her heart. Bailu was pouring the water from her gourd onto Guiying’s chest, which was sealing at rates he wouldn’t normally believe possible. But, it was Guiying, who came back from everything. No matter what, she would always come back, and so would those closest to her.

As he stepped closer, he felt his illness leave his body, alongside all of his exhaustion. All the plants in the room were flourishing, overflowing with life force. Even Lady Bailu was looking ever healthy, her gourd pouring with even more life force. He’s stopped before he can make it to her side, and he doesn’t push his luck. The hole in her chest was sealing itself, oozing with liquids he couldn’t identify, but assumed were not good for her.

“They poisoned her.” Bailu states, pointing at some of the liquid seeping from her. “There’s a lot that I can’t identify, but they’re not good. They’re meant to slow her healing…” She sighs. “They were trying to kill her, it looks like. Stelle said they were taking her heart, but failed ‘cause she got there and beat ‘em up. She couldn’t take any of them back alive, but I think she just killed them out of rage. It was really traumatic for her.” Bailu sits back, huffing as she realizes she’s done all she can for Guiying.

“She’ll come back, though.” He didn’t sound so sure of himself, not knowing if she’d wake up after all of that. Bailu just nods in response, being more confident in her treatment of the ill and wounded. She finally lets Jing Yuan get closer, and he just takes her hand in both of his. They were so small compared to his, and so… Cold. He was distressed, of course, but just held onto it, knowing she’d be back to him sometime soon. It took everything in him to not hunt down whoever hurt her like this, to set the fear of Lan the Hunt in their very being… But she needed him more. Her final words were calling for him, a plea for him to be there. So, he’d wait there, as long as it took until she woke up.

Bailu gets up and leaves her to tend to other sick and wounded patients, leaving Jing Yuan alone with Guiying. He tears up a bit, bowing his head in shame as he realizes he can do nothing for the one he cares so much for. She’s beautiful in sleep, so peaceful, but he was selfish, damn it. He wanted to see her smile at him, he wanted to hear her laugh again. His jokes were so stupid, and he hated them, but they made her so happy. That alone made everything so worth it. Everything about her made his job worth it. Aeons above, he loved her. He loved her so much. “Please come back to us, Guiying.” He whispers to her, holding her hand tenderly in both of his. It was warming up thanks to his body warmth, but the rest of her body was like ice.

After what felt like eons, night fell. Bailu came back in to tell the General to leave, so that they can both rest, but instead found him with his head in her patient’s lap, tears staining his face as he slept. She didn’t have the heart to separate them, and instead gave them some privacy, pouring some fresh water onto her wound and leaving them to it.

When morning came, Jing Yuan heard soft humming and felt a hand brushing his hair. He slowly came to, and heard that soft chuckle that never failed to make his heart skip a beat. “Good morning, sleepyhead.” He sits up, meeting the eyes of the woman he’d been so worried for hours before this. Her hand falls to her lap, and she holds them together. “Fancy catching you here.” She teases him, looking much better than she had the previous night. The hole in her chest was practically patched up, completely scarred over.

“Guiying…” He starts, feeling his words catch in his throat and practically choke him. He had so many things to say, the most pressing being a stuck ‘I love you’. He couldn’t bring himself to tell her so suddenly. “I’m so glad you’re okay.” He finally says, going to pull her into an embrace. She wraps her arms around him tightly, taking a deep breath.

“Me, too.” She doesn’t delve into what she went through, instead opting to comfort him as she could tell he was distressed. “It’s all thanks to the Trailblazer. She was very courageous, and fought on my behalf.” She says, running her fingers through his hair. “I’m here, General.” She says softly, closing her eyes as he buries his face into her shoulder.

“Don’t call me General… Jing Yuan is fine.” He says quietly, keeping his arms tightly around her. She smiles a bit, brushing her fingers through his hair and nodding. She debates flirting with him, but figures there’s a better time and place than here and now. He takes a deep breath to compose himself, before pulling away.

“It feels wrong to call you Jing Yuan after calling you General for so long.” She retorts, chuckling and shaking her head. “But, if it’ll make you feel better, I’ll call you whatever you’d like.”

Before he can speak, Bailu enters the room, and ushers Jing Yuan out. “Okay, General, I let you sleep here, now you have to go. She has to finish her recovery, and you’re distracting us.” She begins pushing him, and he relents. “Go get some real sleep in your own bed, and stop using my patients!!” She pouts, and he just leaves.

“I’ll be back, Guiying.” He promises.

“I know you will, Jing Yuan.” His heart flutters at the softness of her voice, and the gentleness of her tone. She waves to him as he leaves, and he feels his exhaustion hit him like a truck. His back hurts from the position he slept in, and he was still so tired.

#hsr #honkai star rail #hsr oc x canon #jing yuan #jing yuan x oc #possible ooc #first post #hsr oc #stelle hsr #yukong #hsr bailu #honkai star rail jing yuan #caelus hsr #twins au hsr

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standfucker · 1 year ago

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HELLO ZEN I hope you don't mind but I decided to send you my slightly unhinged work thoughts bc technically you inspired them

quin reminded me of white out anddddd idk if you've ever seen this image of marco

but uh. him as a marine. so my brain went brrr a little bc like, lets be real he'd probably be really really mean roleplaying as a marine (as would the others, I mean god, pirate scum duhhhhh)

listen. you can't tell me these pirates don't occasionally sneak into marine bases, and have the outfits on hand. imagine just rocking up to them post break in and they're still in them and being like oh and they just immediately catch on and there's some light teasing until another day when you show up and they're just all dressed up saying they wanna flip the roleplay from last time >>

and the marines are gonna get some info from their captive by any means necessary and marco gets to relive his little fantasy get on your knees moment and they're just MEANER as marines a lil more edging than pleasure and they're just saying the most degrading things and ugh

..... some light threats with knives too bc YOU PUT THAT IN MY BRAIN AND IT WONT LEAVE OK

cutting the clothes off tracing around like tell us what we wanna know or elseeeeee (some light cutting too but marco can heal it it's fine)

I had this open for a bit but i'm sending it now so I don't chicken out xD I was hoping to give you a little more but for some reason my brain/to text is not cooperating, I'm very tired but it's still buzzing around in there so maybe... there will be more... if that's ok <33

I reread some of white out when I got home and... that marco moment... zen your mind.... I mean it was ALL good obvi but MEAN MARCO makes my brain melt

Kazi, my dear Kazi, I'm so so happy you were brave enough to send me this. You are so smart and your brain is so big, I have gone a little insane thinking about this, it's SUCH a good idea so now it's gotta happen. Congrats, you single-handedly inspired a sequel for White Out. I've copy-pasted all this down into a new google doc for later.

I have seen that art btw, and I've [redacted]--I mean, saved it to my computer for research purposes :] (The blood splatters? Are you KIDDING me? It's like it's specifically been made to torment me!)

I'm thinking you walk in on them dressed up and Ace is like "look what we stole! :D Want to try one on?" But you're too dumbstruck by the sight of them in uniform, and Izou catches on first, mentioning that he thinks you must like what you see, and you start to protest "don't be silly, of course not--" but then Thatch stalks over to you and cages you to the wall with one arm, leaning over you just to see your reaction. The look on your face is a dead giveaway, all wide-eyed and flushed, breath caught in your throat.

"W-What kind of pirate would be interested in such a thing?" you try to defend yourself.

"You tell me," Thatch grins, and then grabs you and hoists you over his shoulder, carrying you back to the others. "Look what I caught, you guys~"

"Thaaatch," you wiggle and whine, but it's so close to a whimper that they know they have you. "Not in front of the crew--"

He sets you down, and Marco pulls you close to him, whispering in your ear if this is something you'd be interested in exploring further in private. He already knows your answer before you even say it. All you have to do is look at him, and your dilated pupils tell him everything he needs to know.

#replies #kazieai #knifeplay cw #I have to finish other fics first but I'm already going feral thinking about this

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i-cant-stop-fandoming-help · 2 years ago

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About This Discourse

I hope this can be the final post in all this. pages: 15.

CW for mentions of v0re, mentions of g0re, talks of harassment, talks of r-18 things, talks of kinks, s**cide, and the input of the definition of p*d0philia.

(^^^None of the really s*xual stuff was started by myself or my mutuals, I don't think. Please read with caution. In the attacks, it was brought up and had to be addressed.)

As a lot of you know, there’s been discourse surrounding my friends and I. Well, three of my friends and myself.

It seems to stem from a post made about two months ago, by a user who has apologized and taken it down. The post vagued me and made it seem like I said things I did not.

The things implied I said were said by other users on this site. But not myself. admittedly, that post began a huge mental health spiral. The day the post was up, I was having panic attacks and begging for the post to be taken down in the comments.

Eventually, Octo had enough of letting the post stay as it was, and watching me panic. So Octo reblogged it with a 1558 word response. It reads as follows(no editing. Post was copy+pasted into google docs);

“ There is a lot wro ng going on here. And I will admit, you got a bit of "Momma Bear" coming out of me from this. Please, feel free to ignore this. Anything else will be after the cut. Please feel free to look at the original comments and come to your own conclusions on the matter.

My apologies if I switch from using OP to directly addressing the OP.

I would like to preface anything I say here by saying I don't like getting involved with discourse like this. However, in this situation the individual referred to in this post has been stressed out and otherwise affected by this. I would prefer for this to have been a private matter, however the decision for that isn't mine, and never has been. OP, you can get mad at me all you like for not taking your side here, but please hear me out first.

I would first like to address the matter of the post itself. I am aware OP apologized for the R 18 thing, however it still causes an issue here.

Your main point is that a person who writes gore cannot complain about others writing R-18 content because they're equivalent. My arguments are as follows.

1: I disagree with the main premise of this argument. It either condemns both or neither of the two actions. This post doesn't actually let me know which of the ways you choose. If your argument is correct however, then you either are okay with R-18 content, or not. If not, why do you like danganronpa? Or furthermore, a Fanganronpa that is arguably worse than the cannon games?

Either way, this point is moot because the person who you're addressing never stated they disliked NSFW/R-18 content. Feel free to not like it! But this post is unnecessary and causes additional discourse for no reason.

2: You address this post to "SDRA2 Fandom," however this post is about a small group of creators, ones that likely don't make up a majority of the fandom on this site.

And this is a big one.

THIS POST SHOULD NOT INCLUDE SUCH SPECIFIC DETAILS ABOUT YOUR SUBJECT.

Effectively what you are doing is instead of addressing a matter privately, you made it public, called out one specific user by being vague about them, assumed their age, and implied things that aren't true about them. Even if your original point is correct, this behavior isn't acceptable.

Now, I would also like to address the comments below this post.

What first occurs is that the person being addressed in the post explains their past history with OP, and that they don't get mad at R-18 content, they get mad at people fetishizing things about them.

OP then responds by saying, "The issue isn't about ignoring and moving on, its that you; like 14/15 is writing extreme and graphic gore, like that is fucking concerning."

Simply put, this isn't the original point of your post.

Also, people around that age do tend to get involved in those kinds of things. Anecdotally, I became a fan of the Hunger Games around that time. For a less personal example, see creepy pastas, the SCP foundation, ETC. Or Danganronpa itself! Yes, there are adult fans in all of those things, but there are also minors who end up liking dark and creepy things. Again, it could be personally off-putting to OP, but that will be addressed later.

What happens next is that the user being addressed describes their experience getting into darker, more gory things. Further emphasizing why this entire thing should have been handled privately. Then, a mutual friend finds the post and comments. They did not handle the situation the best, I will admit. This leads OP to comment,

"You are literally 14 year olds writing fanganronpa gore; i’m sure the 4chan guro board would love to have you. Considering the previous comments here; you’re still talking about me two days later, while I haven’t even thought about you. It’s actually super flattering you think about me this much!"

Again, OP is assuming the age of the user. If OP is not assuming and thus know from a different source, then OP is potentially releasing private information publicly. I should not have to explain why this is a problem.

For those who don't know, like myself, the 4-chan guro board is about gory anime art. I don't see what the problem is here. This person likes to write about gore, and so a place that accepts it would be happy to have them? Is the gore there worse than what they write?

OP, they're still talking about you days later because this post was a public call out of what should be a private matter at best, and at worst is a non-issue.

No, I will not let that go! This post caused stress and anxiety in the user, and OP should recognize that simply does not go away that quickly.

The user then says again what got them into gore, leading into this comment from OP

"the R18 thing was unrelated, and yes I will actually apologize for that. I am sorry for getting you caught up in that situation. However the issue isn’t only that, You do realize that what you say with “no child warning” is directly pointing out my issue, you are a kid sharing this with other minors, this is no better than the vorekado situation. You’re coming into adult spaces as a kid and sharing this among other kids "

First, thank you for the apology. I hope that you see why that is an issue.

However, I must address this point.

"you are a kid sharing this with other minors"

Right now, you are advocating for the self-censorship of someone because a minor might see it. Let's ignore the age of the poster. Should someone be barred from writing gore, drawing R-18+ images, etc because a kid might see it? The answer to that is no.

It is not up to a content creator, author, artist, etc. To not do something because the wrong person might see it. It is up to either the individual user or their guardian to control what content they come across.

If this sounds familiar OP, it is why the point of you simply blocking the content and moving on is mentioned over and over. Because it is not up to them to police themselves because another person finds themselves unable to control their feed.

The content creator IS responsible for making sure the appropriate tags, labels, etc. are on the work so that a person can filter it out. Which, this user has done so.

I do not know of the "vorekado" situation to comment on it.

One last point before we continue is that Tumblr isn't an "adult space." The minimum age to have a Tumblr is 13. Hardly an adult by that point. If you;re trying to argue that gore itself should be R-18, then you're fighting an uphill battle to convince anyone.

After this comment, the user says the matter should've been private, and says that OP vagued their posts, causing them anxiety. This leads to these two comments.

"Not what I meant, im saying that you’re still exposing this in a group of minors; which you yourself are."

"Okay youre friend really doesn’t matter here since all they can do is insult me, the problem isnt tags or trigger warnings. Its the fact you’re doing it in the first place. Youre still a kid coming into these adult spaces. Gore is a fetish. "

Before we continue, personally, I am 20. Not a minor.

First, explain to me why a minor writing gore is a problem. Other than "It's gross."

Again, Tumblr is not an adult space.

And finally, something being a fetish isn't an indication of how "adult" something is. Newsflash from someone who's been on the internet a long time.

Everything can be a fetish to someone.

The user isn't joining a gore fetish space, they joined a writing space for Danganronpa Another fancreations. Not everything is going to be light and fluffy, especially regarding the subject matter.

The user then says they've never seen anyone fetishizing their work. OP also says that their posts are not fetish works. I would also like to add, I haven't seen it either, and don't believe this is a space where that occurs often. This leads to this comment.

"I can’t help you with this. Genuinely you are clueless. You really are; extreme gore can be a fetish, and youre putting yourself into the “disgusting” gore community yourself. Danganronpa doesn’t have shit like this. This is just literal snuff for the sake of it. "

"Danganronpa doesn't have shit like this. This is just literal snuff for the sake of it."

That's not a problem at all. You don't need a reason to write or draw anything specifically. Most of their writings are labelled as writing practices.

TLDR: This post shouldn't have been made. It should have been a private message at that. Many of OP's points are personal opinions and don't hold up to scrutiny. OP, the person who wrote this post has politely asked you to either edit it or take it down. I would recommend you do so.”

Due to both the original post, and Octo’s reblog, taken down, I cannot share what I said in my 40 comments. That may seem like harassment, but this was a post vaguing me and causing a mental health strain I hadn’t had since either May or June of 2020.

However, most of my comments were along the lines of me explaining why I wrote it, and why it should be handled privately.

When the fetish of g0re was brought up, I was confused but still panicked. I had never heard of such a fetish before. I didn't know that it was a fetish .

The “v0rekado” thing is likely in reference to mikadosannouji/ressysauce, someone who had recently been revealed as a bad person at the time. And not because of the fetish-y art, but because they had doxxed someone and celebrated someone’s potential s**cide. If I remember correctly, ressysauce created v0re art on their old tumblr account.

Comparing something where the user posting likely knew it was a fetish, to something where the user posting didn’t know is a fetish, feels off.

After Octo’s response, the original post was taken down, the OP messaged me and apologized. At first, I felt the apology wasn’t genuine, and asked them if it was. We got into an argument about it, and I blocked them.

Eventually, I decided to accept their apology anyway, and unblocked them.

We thought this would be all, but then a proship based account caused Nana’s friend to have a panic attack. They then contacted Nana through asks, alerting him of his friend’s breakdown and saying they were concerned.

Nana states he already knew, but unblocks the account, and talks with them. Nana eventually gets overwhelmed and can’t handle any more of the conversation. So, he blocked the account once more.

The reason Nana’s friend had the breakdown was due to one of the things they said being screenshotted and put in the proship accounts introduction post. It has now been removed, thankfully.

(This is an important part of the discourse, and I am not trying to stir something up again, please understand that.)

Nana removed all his posts related to the proship account discourse, hoping that would calm it down. It seemed so, even though the account mentioned Nana a few times after.

Eventually, that account got downed, and the four of us let out a sigh of relief. It seemed to finally be over.

Then, a new account came into the mix, barely a day old when they started the accusations.

The accusations? Nana was a proshipper himself. The base of these were that Nana used to like Sanniuri, at a time it was widely shipped in the fandom. Nana stopped shipping it after realizing its toxicity. Another was shipping LeoSaya, or having an inkling of an interest in the ship NaeJunko, or doing an animatic for a ship between two underage characters.

In fact, a large number of tumblr users also use ao3. It’s a platform for fanfictions and sometimes original works. It’s a platform for writing.

There was also the argument that because he uses ao3, he’s a proshipper. Which is stupid, honestly. Would you argue that BiggestGuadiestPatronuses is a proshipper? They use ao3.

Using the same logic as done with the ao3 thing, it would be that everyone on tumblr is a proshipper, because tumblr has proship content on there! Or youtube, or instagram, or wattpad… Literally being on any website similar to the ones listed, would say you’re a proshipper.

So, that's why the logic here is dumb.

Next, an edit Nana did of Junkan was mentioned. The ship is known as unhealthy, but the ask explained it as an AU. Nana did it, and knows the ship is unhealthy. He did it because it was requested, and it could quite possibly be an AU where it’s healthy. Some could argue that doesn’t make the ship okay, but that would be something to bring up to the requester. A request being done doesn’t condone attacking.

LeoSaya is a ship I’ve seen many people like in my time in the fandom. Often, it’s people against proshipping. You argue that, because they tried to kill each other in canon, it’s toxic. So, by definition, every killer x victim ship is toxic? Except the few with confirmed feelings?

It’s a killing game. Stress is high and they want to go home. Of course they’re gonna try the only way out.

Due to the whole memory wipe thing, they don’t remember each other. But they have known each other for years, yes? And I do believe they would have gotten along beforehand.

NaeJunko was explained by a meme. I haven’t seen it myself, but it went along the lines of “loser boyfriend”.

The old Sanniuri reblogs and shit, were when he didn’t know the ship was toxic. You may bring up the tags on some of his fics, how there’s sanniuri tagged. I noticed it, too, and brought it up to him. He explained it with;

(And before someone comes after me about the “horny” comment; it was a joke based off of IRLkado’s reaction to finding out more about Utsuro.)

But Nana let me know. He doesn’t ship AIkado x Nikei, because we know how toxic that shit is. But about IRLkado, we often only know he’s some sort of computer nerd and he wants to bring Utsuro back.

The shipping Kotoko x Monaca thing is… Well, the person with the accusations calls the ship “pedophillic”. Which is confusing.

Pedophillia is defined by www.sciencedirect.com as “A persistent interest in prepubescent children as evidenced by an adult’s sexual fantasies, urges, and goal-directed sexual behavior.” I wish to know what part of this definition suits the ship.

The original accuser brings up something else, stating Nana as lying about being a minor. Sure, this could be seen as acceptable, as there are people out there who lie about that. However, when there’s many people who have stated Nana as a minor.

When there’s someone who has posted about meeting Nana in person, and has attested to Nana being a minor before- it brings your claims into question.

Nana and I have met before. We share a birthday, and I am only 8 hours older. And some of my followers can attest to me being a high schooler- it was on my now deleted intro post. Octo can also attest to it- having helped me before with high school math.

Another thing mentioned was the fact that I supposedly write untagged gore. At the time of the first post connected to my friends and I, this would have been true. For the simple reason of; I didn't know about tumblr tag filtering. I thought that putting a cw/tw above the cut would’ve been enough, as I believed that somebody would at least read those before clicking “Continue reading.”

When this was brought up by the first post that vagued me, I went back and added a gore tag to all of my fics containing it for filtering. And, I even attempted to remember to put a tw gore tag on each one.

However, this was brought up again, with the same reason- it being untagged. So, I was upset. I went back and added cw gore tags to all of the posts containing it. I was upset, because I had already tagged it with the gore tag, and thought it would be enough. Then, I posted this rant;

“What more do you guys need me to ADD to TW my gore writing properly. I often put TW for gore in the tags. (Of sorts, it'll say what happens in it) most of them have gore in the fuck title. And I do my best to add a #tw gore tag on every single one.

WHAT MORE DO YOU FUCKING WANT FROM ME.

I can add. "cw gore" tag, too! Have you ever fucking heard of filtering!

This is a Danganronpa fan game, dammit! There will ALWAYS be fics of stuff you don't like.

I put trigger warnings of the fuck content. It's on YOU if you still read it. I'm not going to stop writing something I find interesting in a way, because THE WRONG PEOPLE MIGHT STUMBLE UPON IT.

ARTISTS DO THE SAME. THEY DON'T CHANGE THEIR ART BECAUSE THE WRONG PERSON MIGHT SEE IT.

IF THERE WAS A GODDAMN WAY TO PRIVATE A TUMBLR ACCOUNT, I FUCKING WOULD! BUT I CAN'T FIND A GODDAMN WAY, SO DON'T READ IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT!

I'M NOT GOING TO BE RESPECTFUL ABOUT THIS ANYMORE. EVERY TIME SOMEONE HAS BEEN DIRECTLY REFERRING TO ME ON THIS HELLSITE, I TRY MY BEST TO BE RESPECTFUL UNLESS THEY'RE A GODDAMN HARASSER!

JUST FUCK OFF! IM FUCKING MAD, AND I AM NOT GOING TO LET YOU STAND BY AND SPREAD FUCKING LIES.

YOURE A FUCKING COWARD FOR COMMUNICATIH THROUGH ANONS. HOW ABOUT YOU COMMUNICATE PROPERLY, FOR ONCE?”

I admit, I should’ve been kinder during this rant. But, this had been going on for months at this point. Sure, an immature reaction- but one you should expect from some minor who’s been under extreme stress for months.

When seeing this rant, Octo and Nana immediately began telling me to take it down. I was still upset, and didn’t want to. Saying we were being sitting ducks, and that we needed to fight back or we’d seem to be accepting the allegations as true.

Eventually, I calmed down. I didn’t want to take the post down, so I went to my closest friend- who shall remain unnamed- and they advised me to copy + paste the rant into a google doc and then delete the tumblr post, so I’d still have the words in that as my way of outing my anger.

So I deleted it.

During this time, I messaged the creator of the original post- the one that vague me. We’ll call them M for the rest of this.

I was distressed and unsure of how to handle this, so I went to M and explained everything. They didn’t really care for my panicking, but were at the very least understanding. They gave a tiny bit of advice, and let me talk. That helped a lot. So, I must thank M.

I had blocked one of the people spreading the proship accusations way before the drama, for reasons I can’t quite remember, but unblocked them to send an ask in a way to explain things. It reads;

“Hi there. You must dislike me, seeing as i think people have submitted to you about me supposedly not tagging certain fics of mine. Please, make sure no one harasses the focus of this ask. And, before anything, please read this;

I do tag my gore fics. I've tagged them with gore, tw gore, and cw gore tags. All three of the tags. I think I might have forgotten to put those tags on my splatoon fics, which I will do right after submitting this ask. There is also a TW above the cut for almost all of my stories, unless there doesnt seem to be something that needs to be tagged. I will tag stuff if asked to.

Now, onto the reason i am sending this; Nana, catgirl-izuru, whatever he is known by to you, has been accused of being a proshipper. i'm sure you've seen this.

In the past, Nana has reblogged art for Sanniuri, a popular toxic ship in the community. He didn't realize it was unhealthy at the time. "But on his ao3 fic!! he has a tag for it!!" you might say, which I can explain;

It's IRLkado and nikei. IRLkado, we dont have any information about, other than he's a bit weird about Utsuro. Nana has a version of IRLkado in his head, one that's *much* better than AIkado.

Another reason for them supposedly being a proshipper is... reblogging art of Leosaya. A semi-popular ship in DR fandom. I saw quite a few people shipping it when I first joined. It's said to be toxic because Leon killed Sayaka/Sayaka tried to kill Leon.

Where to start on that... Most of the ships that I've seen in the DR fandom are killer x victim. A lot of those aren't called toxic, or proship. I've seen people ship Hifumi x Celeste, and Kazuichi x Sonia, and not get attacked. So, why is Nana getting attacked for shipping Leon and Sayaka?

Is it because people are siding with the adult proshipper who harassed Nana for about 2 weeks? The proshipper who claimed to want to protect minors, but at the same time harassed one when xe blocked their side acc?

next; "he makes edits for problematic ships!! like junkan!" Talking with him, you could understand; Those were requests for an AU. they were moodboards for something that happened in the AU.

I, and others, have talked to Nana, about why it could be seen as problematic to make an AU in order to ship something problematic. About why it's dangerous.

And, about Naejunko, I believe that is also some kind of AU, or there's an idea that they're enemies in canon, while shown to somehow care about each other. If this isn't a good thing, I will talk to Nana.

next; Ao3.

Ao3 is a fanfic site, and Nana was called problematic for using it? And good amount of tumblr users have it, including Gaud. Even if we hate the content on there, we can't control it. Any other fanfiction site will have it. Wattpad, fanfiction.net, you name it. So this claim makes no sense.

Finally, if you're wondering why I'm so defensive of Nana; He and I have met IRL. He is clearly a minor.

If you would like to talk, I'll leave my dms open. But be respectful- else it will end with more conflict than it began with.

Thank you,

Mika

P.S. One last thing, to those reading this,don't poke fun at his religion. While you may see it as something different than he does, doesn't mean you can call it things like a c*lt or others, like he has seen people do before.”

This never got answered, and I got blocked. I found out later that, apparently, it seemed as though I was accusing them of being a proshipper- due to the last bit. It was not an attempt to call them a proshipper, but rather remind them and/or their followers to be a decent person.

This was also written before the thing with the proship account was completely resolved, so I still mentioned it and talked shit about the account owner. I don't do it anymore, as it has been resolved and such a thing could lead to another drama.

After Octo told the accuser off, the situation seemed to finally be over. We were still suspicious, of course, but finally thought we could relax.

Then, a new anon went to Nana, and told him to off himself. And I don’t care if you don't like someone, that is never an okay thing to do. Even if they’re a confirmed terrible person. You’re a piece of shit if you do this.

Nana didn’t know what it was about, so he mentioned the proship account.

Someone told the proship account about this- which would mean that one of the proship account’s followers is likely stalking nana’s page.

To avoid another drama, Octo talked with the proship account. Both sides were explained, and the proship account agreed not to bother us anymore, and to remove the screenshot from their intro post. For this, I must thank them.

Now, we have a new anon. Saying Nana must be proship because he reblogged something that originally came from a proshipper?

Nana can’t be expected to check the profile of everyone he reblogs from. He simply agreed with a few of the things in the post, hence the reblogging.

The whole antiship - proship thing is exhausting. Nana nor I try to identify as either. Antiship is often associated with harassment. Proship is… Well, that.

However, during this whole thing, people claiming to be proship have harassed Nana. Going against their thing or whatever that only antishippers harass.

Please, just leave us alone and make up your mind on if you want to be like what you hate or not.

And let us have our fun. Nobody but my friends and I were named, as to prevent any attacks towards them. But just let us be us.

Now, if I may, I’m going to either go to sleep or work on my essay on Rei Mekaru.

(Final note to the person accusing Nana of being proship; Surely if you were hunting for evidence on his page for that long, you would’ve found his preferred pronouns? Honestly, it slightly seems you were using his unwanted pronouns to be mean, until you got called out for it.)

#discourse #i just want this to be done and over #its 4:13 AM and I began this essay around 11:15 PM last night.#y'all are goddamn lucky I dont have school tomorrow

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faterpresources · 4 years ago

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Anonymous:

Do you have any advice on how to start an rp blog? I feel like there's so much to do and so many specific things, it looks intimidating, but I really want to get into it (and your blog seems like a safe space to ask as a baby in the matter)

Hi! Thanks you for asking and for trusting. I do admit that rping on tumblr can look daunting and there is a series of things that are considered “etiquette” that might not be obvious for newcomers. And the only way to learn is to ask, right? As I’m not sure if you would like something more specific or a step-by-step, I’m going to go through the whole process.

note: this is a repost from an ask in a more reblog-friendly format

1. Setting up the blog

You might want to make a new e-mail account for each blog you want. I recommend making a gmail/google account, so you may be able to use other services and associate them with your blog. I’ll go into more details in a minute.

Some people would rather have a personal blog and then making the RP blog as a side-blog. Or a “hub” blog and many side-blogs so they have everything centralized. The downside is that you can’t follow people with side-blogs, only the main – and some rpers are a little suspicious of personal blogs, so if you intend to go this route it might be a good idea to state somewhere in your blog that you have a RP blog.

Tip : It isn’t said too often, but I recommend saving your blog’s e-mail and password somewhere, maybe a flashdrive or even google drive. This way, if something happens you will be able to retrieve your account.

When picking the URL, for a very long time tumblr had problems tagging URLs with a hyphen ( - ). I’m not sure if it has been fixed or if there are still some issues, so I recommend only using letters and maybe numbers. Other than that, pick anything that sounds nice to you!

Themes are nice, but not entirely necessary. Not everybody has photoshop skills and all that. Some people do have commissioned themes, but if you want to try your hand at it my first stop is usually @theme-hunter or @sheathemes . They reblog many themes from many creators, so there are always many options that might suit your needs. Some creators offer very newcomer-friendly themes that you can configure a lot of things without much hassle but some might require basic HTML knowledge – a few creators have guides on how to properly set up their themes and are willing to and answer questions, so don’t be afraid to contact them! You can also send me an ask, I’m not a specialist but I can certainly help walk you through the basics.

Tip: @glenthemes have very good themes and a basic installation guide here.

When fiddling with the options, try to pick colors that have nice contrast and are easy to read. If you are bad at picking colors or have problems in finding the code for them, I recommend trying this link. There is also this one that auto-generate palettes.

Tip : If you mess with your theme, remember there is the Theme Recovery.

Tip: If you use Chrome or Firefox you can set up different profiles and associate each with a different blog, so you don’t need to log out from any of your accounts.

There are two pages that I recommend having: one is an about your muse. If they are an OC, it is always a good idea to have at least some information out there to make things easier. If they are from a canon source, not everybody is familiar with the material so it might be a good idea to state. For example, if you are going to roleplay as Altria/Arturia, it is a good idea to have a “RP blog for Saber (Altria Pendragon) from FGO/FSN “ somewhere visible. The other page that is a good idea having is a rules/guidelines page. This one can be a little intimidating, but it is usually a way to communicate important things. For example: are you comfortable writing violence? Do you have any personal triggers? There is something you absolutely won’t write? There are things you may figure out along the way and it is absolutely ok to fine-tune this session every now and then. Some people also credit source for their icons and graphics in general in their rule/guideline page.

If you are using the tumblr default themes, when you create a new page you can turn on the option to show a link to the page. If you are using a custom theme, most of the time you will have to link it manually.

Oh, and if you are planning to do a multimuse, it might be a good idea to list which muses you have. The same goes for a hub blog; list the muses and link to the pages.

Icons aren’t necessary but are considered commonplace. You can find some icons I’ve done here but there are plenty of other sources. If you want to do your own icons, keep in mind to don’t make them too big, as a courtesy to your mutuals.

Tip: Anything larger than 300 pixels will be stretched to fit the post. As of today ( 4/29/2021 ) the posts are currently 540 pixels wide. This can be useful as making banners for your blog.

Tumblr allow users to “pin” posts. This mean that they will always visible if you access your blog, even on dash/mobile. You can use this to set up a post with basic links for mobile users or something else. For example, if you are out on vacations and won’t be able to do replies, you can pin a hiatus notice and then remove the pin once you are back.

2. Introducing yourself

Time to officially join the fun! (insert a “Hi, Zuko here” joke) Don’t worry if you don’t have a fancy promo graphic or anything, most people make their initial introduction with a simple post.

(as you can see, I’m not very good at saying ‘hi’)

Try to introduce yourself in a few lines, but make sure to state which muse you RP as. Some people also like adding their pen name/alias and establishing a brand. Follow as many people as you want that reblogged or liked your post, and tumblr is going to start recommending other blogs that are related to the tags you use normally or have any relation to the people you follow. You can put as many tags as you want, but tumblr will disregard more than 6 tags in their system. Try tags like “<fandom> rp” and “<fandom> roleplay” along with the media, such as “movie” “video game”, “anime” and so on.

It might also be a good idea to follow a few RP memes blogs. They often have options to break the ice, like one-liners that your mutual can send you.

Tip: Don’t forget to turn on the asks and the anon

3. Practical advice

Alright, now that you have a few mutuals, it is time to get to some general tips:

Tumblr can be a little “iffy”, and a great quality of life extension for RPers and navigation in general is installing the New Xkit extension. They offer a number of options to enhance your tumblr experience, but the ones I consider essential are the “editable reblogs”, “quick tags” and “blacklist”. Get it for Chrome or Firefox.

As a rule of thumb I recommend writing your RPs using Google Docs before posting or replying. By doing this you can do some spell check and if your browser crashes for any reason you can easily recover your work. You can also use Word, Open Office, or any text editor you feel like.

Because I’m a bit of a perfectionist, I also have Grammarly ( Chrome / Firefox ) installed for an extra layer of spell/grammar check. There is a subscription option, but the free one works perfectly fine.

To make things easier to locate, always tag the URL of your RP partner when doing a reply. There are other useful things you can tag, such as open starters, memes, and such.

Risking being obvious here, but when you are not interacting as your character it might be a good idea to tag as “ooc” or “out of character”.

Some people like making google docs with basic info and other useful stuff for easier access on mobile. It is a recent trend, it might be easier to edit as opposed to going through tumblr page editor and dealing with the HTML. You can find some templates here and here.

Tumblr’s activity can be unreliable, so don’t be afraid of contacting your partner to see if they have gotten your reply after a few weeks. However, some people also enjoy using the RP Thread Tracker in order to be on top of things. It might be a good idea to check it out.

Because of Tumblr shadowbanning and shenanigans, it isn’t unusual for people to have NSFW sideblogs (sometimes referred as ‘sin blogs’). If you want to write smut, it might be a good idea to consider making one.

Some people don’t like replying to asks, as Tumblr won’t let you remove the initial ask. It has become common to see people making new posts to reply to asks. This is a simple example:

As you can see, I used the mention to have the RP partner notified then I copied and pasted their question on my post and used the quote to indicate it. You can also have fancy graphics, like a line to separate the contents, just do whatever you feel like with the formatting or keep it simple.

To make sure your partner got the answer, I recommend copying the link to the post and pasting on the ask and then replying it privately. An example sent to my rp blog:

4. Basic Etiquette

Ok, this is a little subjective most of the time but here are a few things that are considered universal courtesy.

Never reblog someone else’s headcanons. If you enjoy it, maybe it should politely contact the author and ask if it is ok to write something based on their original idea but you should never downright copy or lift something from another creator. It is considered rude, or even theft in some cases.

Don’t reblog threads you are not involved with. It is ok to leave a like, but never reblog. This is because Tumblr can mess up the notifications and disrupt the flow of the RP.

Don’t copy other people’s graphics. It is very rude and sometimes they commission (aka: paid) for it.

Trim your posts. What does that mean? Every time you reblog with a reply, the post tends to get longer and longer, and it can cluster your and your mutuals’ dashes. This is why the New X-Kit’s “editable reblogs” is an almost must-have tool. If for some reason you can’t install X-Kit (if you are on mobile for example), then remove the previous post or ask your partner to trim for you.

Never take control of your RP partner’s muse. This is called “godmodding” and it is heavily frowned upon. It is ok to control your muse and the possible NPCs that you inserted, but never seize someone else’s character. Likewise, it can also be very upsetting if you use what people call “meta-gaming”, applying knowledge that your muse shouldn’t know about the other. For example, let’s say your RP partner’s muse is a vampire, but they have never disclosed that information to your muse, who also doesn’t have an excuse to know that (for example, being a vampire hunter) so it can be quite jarring sometimes. When in doubt, contact your partner.

This should go without saying, but RPing sexual themes with users under the age of 18 are illegal. It doesn’t matter if the age of consent in your location is lower, once you join Tumblr you are abiding by their user guidelines and the law of the state they are located in. If you are an adult, don’t engage minors with these topics, maybe a fade to black would be a better option. If you are a minor, don’t insist or you might cause a lot of legal problems for others.

Try to tag anything triggering. Violence, gore, NSFW. Both Tumblr and the New Xkit have options to block keywords.

When picking PSDs or graphics for your blog, you should avoid templates that change the color of the skin of POCs muses and try to pick the right race/ethnicity of the muse you are going to RP as. I won’t go through a lot of details, as it is a rather lengthy subject in an already lengthy conversation but keep this in the back of your mind.

Some RPers don’t like when you reblog memes from them without sending anything. Try to always reblog from a source or to interact with the person you are reblogging from, it can be rather disheartening to be seen as a meme source rather than a RP blog. This isn’t a rule and some people don’t mind, but it is always a good idea to try to do this.

This might be more of a pet peeve of mine than proper etiquette, but it is ok to use small font. What is not ok is use small font + underscript. Some people have disabilities that might make it harder for them to read it, so it might be a good idea to refrain from using it. Maybe if you feel like doing something fancier every now and then, but I wouldn’t recommend making this a habit.

Mun and Muse are different entities. Remember that it isn’t because a muse does something (especially a villain one) that the mun condones something. Never assume anything about the mun, when in doubt talk to them.

Be mindful of your partners and treat them the way you would like to be treated.

As a rule of thumb, always talk to your RP partner. It is only fun as long both of you are enjoying it.

5. Closing Words

This got longer than I expected.

Despite all of that, don’t be too worried about not being very good at first. I assure you that you will get better with time, so don’t be afraid of experimenting as long you feel comfortable. And don’t be afraid of saying “no” if something bothers you.

My inbox is always open to questions and ideas, so feel free to contact me anytime!

I would also ask my followers: there is advice I missed/overlooked? Anything you would like someone have told you when you first started? Add your thoughts so I can update this.

Happy RPing!

#roleplay advice #roleplay help #rph #rp reference #rp resources

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x-gotham-rogues · 5 years ago

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If Jonathan was to join the Batfamily, how would that work out?

Suddenly, I can’t stop thinking about this idea.

Also, a few thousand words of this post got deleted when I tried to save but my computer froze and decided to say goodbye to all that work. Hours upon hours, wasted. I feel like shit. Just a teensy bit.

Here’s to always writing on Google Docs before copy and pasting on tumblr from now on.

This stuff happens around Year One, so the Batfam is currently only Bruce, Dick and Alfred

Let’s just assume Jonathan gets kidnapped/forcibly adopted into the family by Bruce right before he got to kill anyone because I cannot recall whatever detailed prequel I had written for this idea

All I do remember is that there was some sort of emotional blackmail going on that kept Jonathan from running away and trying to kill someone again

Month by month, Bruce and Dick try to 1) chip at Jonathan’s walls, 2) make sure Jonathan doesn’t find out about them being Batman and Robin, and 3) make Jonathan healthy again because the man looks like he is going to crumble the second he gets poked

Because of the whole ‘forcing Jonathan to stay at Wayne Manor’, Jonathan’s obsession with fear never really gets developed all that much

Don’t get me wrong, it’s still there, he’s just not a crazy mad scientist anymore

BOOKS, however

Everyone, Jonathan Crane’s got a new drug, and it ain’t fear toxin

Wayne Manor’s library is far larger than Keeny Manor’s library

There are so many more subjects, so many more stories, so much more stuff Keeny Manor didn’t have because of the heavy superstition like Edgar Allan Poe, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Oscar Wilde, Shakespeare, etc.

Jon is 1001% addicted

At times, Alfred would have to act like an annoyed parent because Jonathan is just so reluctant to stop reading

Like, where was all this absolute gold when he was a kid!?

Meals are very awkward because Jonathan doesn’t understand people at all, Dick’s still kind of doubtful of Jonathan, and Bruce is also just a tad bit paranoid

But also, whenever Jonathan eats Alfred’s cooking, his eyes light up because as a kid and teen he was fed slop from his great granny, and even as an adult he was rather poor and hardly ate because of his obsession with fear-based revenge, so he appreciates any bit of good food he gets

One morning when he explains to Dick that he’s never eaten bacon before, Dick laughs, takes a look at Jonathan’s face, realises he was being serious and practically drags Jonathan around the whole day eating junk food

Bruce was a bit disappointed at Dick but lets Jonathan finish his ice cream cone

At some point, Bruce decides that if wants to unlock Jonathan’s backstory, he’s going to have to do more research

With Bruce spending more time down at the Batcave doing research and Jonathan still holing up in the library, Dick’s bored as all Hell

That’s... not a good thing

He tries to rope Jonathan into some chaos, but Jonathan’s never been the type to cause mischief

Plus he’s too busy reading

Dick sees that he’s definitely not going to get anywhere trying to get this fully grown adult who might possibly be even older than Bruce to break some shit with him

So he sits down and plays a popular indie game his friends have been recommending to him; a certain game called ‘Five Nights at Freddy’s’

(Yes, I am aware this doesn’t fit into the timeline, let a person have some fun)

Bruce couldn’t hear him down in the Batcave, but Jonathan hears Dick’s scream loud and clear

He runs to wherever Dick was playing the game and sees Dick just staring at the screen

Jonathan raises an eyebrow and asks what happened

“The... the power went out... I was so-! 5AM. IT WAS 5AM WHEN THE POWER WENT OUT. THERE WAS PROBABLY LIKE A MINUTE LEFT. I WAS SO CLOSE! ARGGGHHH!”

Gone was the shocked face, replaced with one of unadulterated rage

“Why is Night 4 so hard?! Can’t you have waited one minute Freddy? ONE!?”

Should he... leave? Was Richard talking to him?? What was he supposed to do???

Eventually, Alfred finds Jonathan awkwardly doing nothing and tells him he could go back to the library, but the game was a horror game and he thinks Jonathan may have an interest in it

Jonathan, worried for the sanity of the boy in front of him, agrees to watch him play

Dick tries to rage quit multiple times, but then Jonathan would try his hand at the game and Dick keeps telling him he’s doing something wrong and takes back the controller

In an unexpected turn of events, Jonathan gets super invested in the plot

Soon enough, both Dick and Jonathan are heatedly discussing FNAF’s possible canon, and Dick mentions that there’s more games

Upon this revelation, Jonathan half demands half pleads to play the others and so they do

Sister Location did have some triggers, but Dick helped Jon get through them

Bruce came up from the Batcave to find Dick and Jonathan shouting about someone named ‘Afton’

When Bruce asked about it, he fully expected it to be either one of Dick’s friends or maybe Jonathan’s old coworkers, boy was he wrong

He’s glad the two are getting along (easier to get Jonathan to open up), but now he has to deal with two horror nerds

Yes, Jonathan has converted Dick into a horror junkie

Yes, Dick has converted Jonathan into a game theorist

(I kind of want to give them a YouTube channel but that might be stretching it a bit)

Eventually, Jonathan tells them his entire tragic backstory, including details they didn’t already know, like great granny Keeny’s abuse other than starvation

When Dick privately asks Bruce why he decided to do this in the first place, Bruce confesses that during the first fight between Scarecrow and Batman + Robin, he felt like he and Jonathan were far too similar for his own liking and that seeing someone so similar to him nearly kill drives him just a bit crazy, so he needed to prove to himself that even if he goes down the wrong path he could reform

Jonathan hears this

He’s really mad at first, but just decides he doesn’t have the energy for it (honestly, mood, but relatable) and lets it go

Then simultaneously realises that these two people are Batman and Robin

And smacks himself mentally because just look at their body sizes, their entire dynamic, of-fucking-course they’re Batman and Robin

He doesn’t confront them for a while

But when he does and they ask him how he knows, he says, “You’re just really loud.”

Bruce gets worried about Jon lashing out and Dick is upset because he considers Jon a friend (aww)

But Jonathan just brushes it off like it’s nothing and explains that he’s glad they stopped him early into his criminal career, otherwise he might’ve gone down a road he couldn’t come back from

And that he was glad he got to stay with them and be considered their friend

Bruce gives this tiny smile, Alfred pats Jon on the back and Dick straight-up tackles him into a bone-crushing hug

So Jonathan is now officially in the Batfamily

Dick convinces Bruce to give Jon a costume and teach him to fight

So Gotham gets a new vigilante named Crow

Though his targets always seem to be those who harm children or those who use their money for corrupt purposes

Ending on a happy note! I don’t know what this is, to be honest, but if you did make it to the end, I hope you liked it!

#Jonathan Crane #Scarecrow #The Scarecrow #well not anymore #he's Crow now #Bruce Wayne #Batman #Dick Grayson #Robin #Alfred Pennyworth #Batfamily #what if headcanons #what if #imagine #AU #dc #Crow AU #batfam Jon

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mr-entj · 5 years ago

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Career 102: Getting a job you have no experience in

Combined with the following asks:

Hey Mr ENTJ. Do you have advice on how to move from academia into industry for someone who has only research experience? Only a CV and not a resume? Thank you!

How do you spin skills from one industry to be applicable to another? I'm a theater and English major (yes, I know) and it's been difficult finding work lately, because I am stuck living in a state where there are little jobs for that. I've worked on films, weddings, as a curator guide at a museum, and have my AA. I've had good interview after good interview, and have been outright told at three different places that I was a perfect fit. And then they went with someone else. Any advice?

Hi Mr. ENTJ I love your blog, is a great source of information for me so thanks for that! I have a question if you don’t mind. What kind of advice would you give to a graduate student who has not worked on their field during college and now is looking for a job? I’m a Business major but I’m currently working as a language teacher at a private institute (it started as a part-time job) My salary’s really good, however I’d like to start working in business but I have no experience on that :( thnks!

Hi there! I've read some of your advice to other askers and find what you say very perceptive and realistic. I'd like to ask your opinion. I have Bachelors and Masters degrees in the life sciences. I worked in academia for 2 years but my field lacked funding so I left. I have no commercial experience.I have problems getting a job because of this and most companies' resistance to hiring nonpractical grads. I want to go into consulting which is more flexible with degrees. What would you advise?

Hi mr entj! This may be a bit of a stupid question but what should I do if I can't find the job in a field(actually sub-field of a field) that I'm aiming for? I'm looking to be a concept artist but I can't seem to find any such jobs that don't require atleast a year of experience and since I'm a fresher I don't have that. In my country, there is also not a tradition of getting small student jobs so I don't have that experience either. Help me with some tips please.

Related answers:

Resume and Cover Letter Guide

Job Hunting 101

Top 3 job hunting mistakes college students make

Tips on transitioning from school to the workplace

Job interview tips

To break into a field that you have no experience in, translate the experiences in your current career into the “language” of your target career. The ultimate goal is this: make it as easy as possible for the hiring manager (and recruiter) to understand your background. People are lazy, they aren’t going to waste their time performing mental gymnastics to figure out how your obscure experience applies to their available job-- if they can’t figure it out-- your resume goes into the rejection pile. Make it easy for them.

To do that, see below.

Step 1: Collect multiple job descriptions of similar roles

The goal is to source as many overlapping skills as possible for the same role so that you can update your resume to reflect them. To illustrate this, let’s say you’re currently a school teacher but your goal is to become a Communications Manager for a tech company. What kind of skills are tech companies looking for in Communications Managers? A simple search on LinkedIn for “communications manager” yields 42,000 results:

You don’t need to read all 42,000 job descriptions, but pick 4-5 that interest you from top companies (i.e. Lyft, Twitter, Facebook, Google) of similar nature. Top companies are leaders of the pack; their job descriptions are reliably the ones that other lower tier companies will copy.

Step 2: Identify key themes

All job descriptions that aren’t scams will have sections called “roles/responsibilities” and “minimum qualifications” with detailed bullet points describing what they’re looking for in the ideal candidate. As an example, I’ll use the Lyft “Internal Communications Manager” job description above and a “Communications Manager” job from Twitter to identify the key themes.

Lyft - Internal Communications Manager

Responsibilities

Work closely with and influence key company leadership to develop and disseminate their important messages to team members, including aligning the team on our strategy, goals, and priorities (Key theme: Communication)

Own strategy and results for keeping all relevant team members informed on important org news and updates in a timely and engaging manner. (Key theme: Stakeholder management)

Provide strategic, direct hands-on support to key senior leaders (Key theme: Project management)

Proactively identify new opportunities and develop new programs to continually up level our internal communications program (Key theme: Analysis)

Successfully collaborate with cross-functional partners to execute on a comprehensive plan for seamless communications. (Key theme: Collaboration)

Maintain the Lyft voice across all communications, written and verbal, and across company leadership (Key theme: Branding)

Keep Lyft fun! (Key theme: Culture fit)

Twitter - Communications Manager

Roles And Responsibilities

Coordinate with various Twitter teams on product launches, announcements, issues and other news (Key theme: Project management)

Craft communications materials with a high degree of consistency, conviction, and strong tone of voice (e.g. messaging docs, communications plans, blog posts, statements, Tweets) (Key theme: Communication)

Drive proactive, creative storytelling around our products and the people who build them across a range of media, both traditional and non-traditional (press, podcasts, speaking engagements, video, etc.) (Key theme: Communication)

Help the team establish and maintain relationships with reporters nationally and globally. (Key theme: Stakeholder management)

Manage a high-volume of incoming queries from media covering product matters, and be able to consult and drive towards decision-making on press response during high-pressure scenarios (Key theme: Project management)

Serve as a company spokesperson in the U.S. and in other markets. (Key theme: Branding)

Draft, manage through reviews, and upload blog posts and Tweets for announcements and updates (Key theme: Communication)

Track press coverage for key announcements; identify and correct inaccuracies in stories (Key theme: Analysis)

Support team to drive proactive stories in global, local and industry-focused publications (Key theme: Project management)

You’ll notice that the same key themes will emerge for similar roles. Extract these key themes and copy and paste them into your resume. Move to step 3.

Step 3: Translate your experience and achievements to map to these key themes

From the Lyft and Twitter Communications Manager job descriptions above, we have the following 7 key themes:

Communication: Writing, editing, speaking, etc.

Stakeholder management: How to be organized and manage large groups of people of different levels and backgrounds

Project management: How to be organized and adaptable to support senior leaders with whatever they need done

Analysis: How to be a critical thinker who can spot better ways to do things (AKA performance/process improvement)

Collaboration: How to achieve success with people from different backgrounds

Branding: How to write in the company’s voice or a voice not your own

Culture fit: You need to jive with the company’s organizational culture

As a school teacher, you may not have the exact experience required but you’ve definitely done work that maps to these key themes. Use the verbiage from the job descriptions to write new bullet points for your resume:

(Key theme: Communication): Crafted and distributed weekly internal communications to 500+ students on academic updates, key event announcements, and other news in collaboration with administrative staff

(Key theme: Communication): Managed a high volume of inquiries from parents and administrative staff on the academic performance of 30+ students, provided updates and resolved concerns resulting in strong performance ratings

(Key themes: Stakeholder management + project management): Collaborated closely with senior leadership and a team of parents, educators, and volunteers to fund, launch, and manage the school’s $400,000 music program resulting in new extracurricular opportunities for 40+ students

(Key theme: Analysis): Led strategic initiative to improve academic curriculum and identified new teaching methodologies for 20 ESL (English Second Language) students resulting in an 15% increase in annual graduation rates

It won’t be a perfect fit, you will still get a lot of rejections, but your profile and background are much easier to understand to someone hiring for a communication manager role than it was before. Use your new resume as a script for the job interview to explain your experience as it relates to the role they’re hiring for.

Key Takeaways

Brand yourself for the role you want, not the role you have. Your resume and LinkedIn should contain a description of the role you’re aiming for and what skills/experience you bring to the table. If you’re currently a school teacher who wants to become a Communications Manager, then brand yourself as a “Communications leader with expertise in education, project management, and collaboration with people of various backgrounds.” This also makes it easier for recruiters to find you online because if they’re hiring for a Communications Manager, they will not be searching for a school teacher, they’ll be searching for key words related to that specific role.

Apply everywhere. You’re going to get rejected, a lot, it’s part of the process and you’re an underdog so don’t take it personally. Job hunting is a numbers game, always cast a wide net.

Progress is better than perfection. If your goal is to become a Communications Manager for the United States White House but you’re currently a school teacher, then the odds are you won’t immediately get hired by the White House. The goal here is to first break into the industry and work your way up. Accept the role that you want in a company that may not be your first choice because progress is better than perfection. Once you accumulate achievements in this role, other more reputable companies will be willing to take a chance on you.

Networking is everything. This is why human connections are the most powerful-- resumes can score interviews, but relationships build careers because hiring is about trust. If people don’t know you and your experience doesn’t inspire a ton of confidence or trust, they won’t extend an offer and commit to a legally binding employment agreement. To build that trust, use university career offices, professional networking events, internet job sites, forums, and other venues to engage and meet people. Socialization leads to trust which leads to opportunities.

#college #university #graduation #job hunting #job #work #resume #career #careers #changing jobs #academia #changing careers #faq

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spnfanficpond · 5 years ago

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May 2020 Pond LiveChat Recap - User Friendly Tumblr Pt 2

@fictionalabyss (Mel) and @girl-with-a-fandom-fettish (Kay) yet again did a great job teaching us the magical ways of Tumblr! Thank you, girls, for helping out and sharing your wisdom!!

This was a continuation of last month’s chat, which you can read all about HERE. We also talked a little bit about this back in July 2019, and you can read all about that chat HERE. A rundown of this month’s chat is below the cut!

Keep Reading function via the app

We started off talking about the Keep Reading function, and how it works, and doesn’t work on the app. Back in July 2019, if you were using the app, you could add the text [ [ MORE ] ] (without the spaces) to a line, and it would create a Keep Reading cut in your post for you. We’ve heard recently that it wasn’t working, so we did some testing. This is what happened:

As viewed via the app on the blog:

As viewed via the app when looking at the desktop:

As viewed via desktop on the blog:

Long story short, It only works if you view the post on desktop. Mel noted that if she went onto desktop and edited the post from there, then the cut would work everywhere, but that defeats the purpose of posting using the app.

TD;DR - [ [ MORE ] ] no longer works effectively.

Keeping your formatting when copying from Google Docs into Tumblr

@flamencodiva (Vanessa) told us all about a workaround that she learned from @winchest09. Anyone who was tried to copy and paste from Google Docs to Tumblr knows that you lose all of your formatting, including any italics. @mrswhozeewhatsis has not had a problem copying and pasting from Microsoft Word (as part of the Office 365 Suite) into Tumblr, but Kay has, so she needs to use this workaround. Basically, the trick is to post to AO3, first, and the copy and paste from there. Here’s the step-by-step per Vanessa:

1) make a new chapter on AO3, 2) set it to rich text, 3) paste your fick, 4) got to tumblr and click on pencil to add text, 5) change setting to html, 6) go back to ao3 click on html, 7) copy and paste the html format of your fic and paste it to tumblr, 8) change the setting back to rich text and your format is the way you want it from google docs.

Submitting your fics to the Pond to be posted on the blog

Via the app:

Submitting via the app is a pain, but it is possible.

[Side note: Posts submitted to the Pond via the app can not be edited by the admin. We don’t edit your posts often, but occasionally we will add or change tags, or try to make your post look more appealing. If you submit via the app, we can’t do that.]

Kay was gracious enough to go through thr process and make screenshots for us, explaining what was happening along the way.

First, click on the envelope at the top of the screen:

Nect, click “Submit Your Fics”:

Then you’ll see this screen:

The various options for the type of submission show up at the bottom just like when you compose a post in the app for your own blog. I would add that my “asks” seem to get eaten more often when my phone auto-corrects something. So, one post I did not use auto-correct (and that took way too many tries, honestly) and one post did use auto-correct (and I surprisingly had success).

All the tags available are already applied when submitting through the app (at least on my phone) so you would have to delete those that don’t apply, which is opposite of how you do it when submitting on desktop.

To do this, tap on the #tags (you can see them starting to list in the middle of all the white or you can tap the # in the bottom right corner) and you will get this big list of all the tags available when submitting.

Tap on the one that does NOT apply, and you will get this tiny little x.

Tap the x to remove that tag. Repeat for all the tags that do not apply. If you do not tap the x, it will go back to the darker blue color of a tag that will be applied to your submission.

Caution: if you remove a tag you wanted by accident, you will have to type it back in. My experience with this was my app generating popular tags related to what I was typing first, not tags that were previously there, so please read carefully to get the correct tags.

To change the type of post to link instead of text: click on the link icon along the bottom (there's the Aa for a text post, links, GIF, a camera, etc). However, I copy/pasted a link into the body on a Aa post and it still seemed to work.

A long time ago, THIS ANSWER was posted on the Pond blog about making your submitted post “prettier” and more attractive to readers. This was made based on using desktop (not the app), and just copying and pasting from one tab to another, like this:

On desktop, in Chrome, this works very well, for most people, most of the time. (Mel had some issues doing it for a couple of days, and then it magically started working for no apparent reason.) The gif will transfer over, along with the gif credit, too. This way, the submission to the Pond looks exactly like your original post, and will thus attract more readers.

In the app, though, the copy function doesn’t like to go through an image, and it seemed to be hit-or-miss if a gif copied and pasted would load properly. Basically, it’s a LOT of work to submit via the app, and it is not recommended. You can, but it’s a lot of work.

Why should I make my submissions “pretty” when just posting a link works just fine?

When you are submitting your story to the Pond to be posted on the blog, you’re doing it to attract readers who might otherwise not see your story. You want to sell your story on our blog the same way you sell it on your own blog. That means including all of the elements of a header that are suggested IN THIS POST (Suggested Format for Fics). If you don’t add this information, you could end up with a post that looks like this on the blog:

Readers might not even clock that as a story to be read! Some readers won’t even look at a story that doesn’t list a word count, warnings, or if there’s a pairing. Simply copying and pasting your header into the submission box gives potential readers everything they need to know. Also, here is a good list we came up with a while back of Warning Tags for Fics.

I worked really hard to craft this “secret” (but possibly triggering) ending so I don’t want to spoil it in the warnings; any suggestions?

In your header, let your readers know that there is possibly triggering material in the story, direct them to your tags at the bottom of the post, and then use the “#tw:” format to list the spoilery triggers in your story. This way, people who have few or no triggers can read without being spoiled, and those with triggers they need to avoid can make sure they’re reading safely.

I’m bad at writing summaries. Do I really need one?

Yes. And don’t wimp out and say, “I’m bad at summaries.” That will turn readers off. Think of a summary like a movie trailer. Would you go see a movie is the trailer was just a guy saying, “It’s a good movie, I swear, but I suck at making trailers, so just go see it, yeah?” If a reader is at all unsure about reading your story, your summary can make their decision. Your summary doesn’t need to spoil the story, but just give the reader some idea of what they’re getting into. Set the table, as it were, before the meal. Is it canon-compliant, or an AU? When is it set? Who’s involved in the story? Bring your readers to the ball park before you start the game.

Should I use a specific tag for my writing? Why or why not?

After some discussion, we determined that you should if you don’t have a masterlist set up, yet, or if you don’t keep your masterlist updated. As long as you have a masterlist and keep it up-to-date, then the extra tag isn’t necessary.

That’s it for this month! Don’t forget to submit your stories and your Angel Fish nominations! Want to know what’s happening in the Pond? Check the Pond Calendar to see what’s coming up! And, as always, if you have questions or suggestions, let us know! You can send us an ask, or send a private message to @manawhaat (Mana) or @mrswhozeewhatsis (Michelle) anytime!

#chat recap #spnfanficpond #spnfanficpond livechat #michelle answers #chat room #let's chat #THE CHAT ROOM #pond chat

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darkvolley · 6 years ago

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I have finally finished transcribing the XemSai werewolf fic I wrote from when I was 12. It’s not actually finished but I don't plan on doin that. I’m kinda only posting it as a shitpost anyway. So don’t try to critique it. It’s very out of character to the point Xemnas is basically a hyper empathic twink, and I’m not exaggerating that. It’s also not formatted cuz I wanted to keep that genuine historical 12 year old from 2012’s fanfic in a school notebook feel. The only things changed are spelling errors, grammar mistakes, and missing words. Otherwise it’s all directly transported right out of 2012. And trust me, this thing hurts me or than it hurts you. (Thoughts didn't stay in italics during the copy paste from Google Docs and I don't wanna fix it, let alone ever look at this thing again.)

A lone blue beast raced through the forest, crunching leaves and twigs it stepped on as it tried to escape. Suddenly the blue beast was surrounded by five others. They inched closer to it with every passing moment, deep growling emitting from the blue one. With a loud roar the supposed leader, a black and white beast, lunged forward and slashed its claws in an 'x’ on the blue's face. All at once three of the others charged at the defenseless beast. The red one chomped down furiously on the petrified blue's left hind leg. The only female bit hard upon its ear, causing the blue to yelp. A more younger, dark blonde one dug his claws into its backside, the beast finally collapsing. The youngest, still a pup, watched from the sidelines as the leader pawed at the fallen beast. The four trotted away, then the female turned, growling when she noticed the blue's nose twitch. The beast's eyes opened and it lifted his head. It barked at the female, which she responded with a low growl. “I'm sorry.” The barks spoke. “It's too late for apologies, you betrayed us and we did what we had to do to protect the pack.” The female growled. “You go against one of us and you go against all us. You should know that more than any of us, Saix.” The leader barked as he and his followers ran off back to the pack and left the blue all alone to die.

“Xemnas! Hurry up!” Vexen yelled. Six boys were running home after school so they could get their work done and hang out together at the park. The only problem… “Xemnas. Do we need to carry you?” Marluxia asked. Xemnas can't run. “No Marly, I can keep running.” Why does my house have to be on the other side of the forest? He was lying on the ground, a leaf stuck in his hair, breathing heavily and trying to regain himself. Zexion crouched down to face Xemnas. “You need to get in shape, Superior.” Zexion taunted, adding his 'go-by name’ that most of them called him. “Oh shut up Zexion. Just leave me here for a little while, I'll catch up later. He requested. They all respected his request and left to their own homes. After several minutes, Xemnas sat up and removed the leaves from his hair. He became silent for a moment, listening to the sounds of nature. He heard the birds chirping, squirrels climbing up trees, leaves falling off their branches, and a quiet whimpering noise from far away. Whimpering? Xemnas stood up and tried to listen carefully to where the noise was coming from. He tried to follow the noise until it became so loud, no one could miss it. He reached towards a bush, the sound of growling startled him and he flinched, taking his hand back. He grabbed part of the bush again and parted the branches to reveal a big, blue, bloody dog. Xemnas gasped and backed up at the sight of the large odd colored canine. The beast had long blue fur that looked like hair a human girl would have. A large bloody wound on its face that resembled an 'x’ was the most prominent feature on the beast. More injuries such as a small portion of his right ear was missing. It was also odd that it had floppy ears with piercings rather than pointed, like Xemnas always saw on wild dogs in the area. Its left hind-leg had a large bite wound that looked like it wouldn't stop bleeding for a long time. Claw marks on his right side stained the fur on it's back with blood. The dog was growling furiously at Xemnas in fear of being hurt anymore than it already had been. “It's okay big fella, I won't hurt you.” Xemnas spoke softly and reached his hand out. The blue canine didn't stop growling but seemed to only be trying to scare Xemnas rather than warn him of getting bitten. Xemnas ignored the attempt at scaring him and took a risk, he gently placed his hand on the beast's head. He waited a moment so that the blue could get used to his hand and accept it. The blue's growling became quieter, knowing that for now he would not be harmed, but still keeping his guard up just incase. Xemnas patted his hand on the blue's head and the growling seemed to abruptly stop all together. “You poor thing you. Who could have done such a terrible thing to a guy like you? You're so cute and fluffy I can't think of any reason someone might want to hurt you. And look at this blood, you must be in severe pain.” The blue whimpered slightly and nudged into Xemnas's touch. He moved his hands to scratch behind its ears. The beast's tail wagged at the fluffy feeling and barked happily. Xemnas jumped slightly at the loud noise the blue made and giggled, lifting its head up. “You need a name big guy.” Xemnas thought aloud. He studied the blue fur a moment, several names ran through his head like X, that's probably not even a name, Fluffy, too girly and over used, Woolfie, he wasn't even sure if the beast was a wolf, and Buddy, too common just like fluffy. Then it hit him. “I'll call you Blu!” He cheered. 'Blu’ turned his head to the side and did a quick little bark as if he was testing out his new name. “So you like the name?” Xemnas asked, getting a tail wag and hand nudge in response. “Glad you like it Blu. I'm-” “Xemnas!” He heard Marluxia calling his name. “Superior, where are you?” Xaldin shouted. “Sorry Blu, I-I gotta go.” Xemnas said. Blu whimpered and let his ears droop. Xemnas got up to leave but Blu pawed at his leg. “I'll come back tomorrow to see you, I promise. Blu.” Xemnas looked down at Blu and patted him on the head. “Superior, is that you?” Luxord asked. Xemnas ran over to his friends and they all walked away from the area. Xemnas turned back to see Blu laying behind the bush, his wounds still bleeding slightly. “Superior, why are you covered in blood?” Lexaeus asked. “Hmm, what? I'm not- oh, this is- uh- it's… not blood. It's, uh red ink. I-I dropped my pen and when I tried to pick it back up, it broke and red ink got everywhere. Why did you think it was blood?” Xemnas lied, that last sentence to be as a distraction. “Yeah Lex, why did you think you think it looked like blood?” Marluxia repeated Xemnas's question. While everyone was pestering Lex, Xemnas took a quick look at himself. His black jacket had blood at the bottom and on the sleeves. His pants also had blood and it even on his hands. “Poor Blu.” Xemnas whispered. Zexion, who had a great sense of smell, abruptly stopped his own Lex pestering and sniffed the air. “It is blood!” He shouted. Everyone stopped where they were, leaving Marluxia, Luxord, and Lexaeus in a rather odd position, and stared at Xemnas. He turned to face the others’ rather terrifying stares. “Superior, what is it that you're not telling us?” Vexen asked. And with that, Xemnas ran all the way to his house with his cat and grandfather waiting. “Why is he acting so weird?” Xaldin asked.

Ch.2

Before the bell rang Xemnas checked his backpack for the bazillionth time today just to make sure all his supplies were there. He took a couple medical supplies from his grandfather's office to bring to Blu so he can try and he him. Zipping up his bag, the bell rang and everyone left the room to get home. Walking out of the classroom he went right past all his friends and headed straight for the woods to go see Blu. “Hey, Superior! Where ya going?” Luxord called out. “Woods. That's where. Don't wait up, don't follow me. I got some private stuff I need to do.” Xemnas yelled at them in a hurry, too busy to turn around. He walked out of the school zone and entered the woods. Xemnas couldn't quite remember where he was when he found Blu, only that the bush was next to the biggest tree in the woods. Unfortunately, it always felt like the tree was in a different place every time you visit. Xemnas wandered around for quite awhile. He started getting more concerned for Blu and searched every nook and cranny in the woods. “Blu, Blu where are you? Bark if you can hear me!” Xemnas called out, but received no reply. I hope you're okay, Blu. He walked into a rather bright part of the woods where the sky had shown through all day and night. Xemnas looked high into the sky and saw the top of a large tree. He headed towards the tree in a desperate attempt to help Blu. Eventually he stopped and could see the tree a far ways away. “Blu! Are you there Blu?” He yelled. A bush to his right rustled and startled Xemnas. “Blu, is that you?” He asked. “Superior, who's Blu?” Emerging from the bush was Xemnas's closest friend, Xaldin. “Xaldin? Wha-what are you doing here?” Xemnas asked. “Well we all got worried about you so I agreed to follow you and see what you were up to.” Xaldin explained. “You really shouldn't get involved, Xaldin. I'm not even sure of what I'm doing is okay.” Xemnas warned. “What are you doing? Does this have anything to do with what or who Blu is?” Xaldin questioned. “Listen, it's nothing against you or the others but, I just don't want you guys getting involved. I really think it's for the best if you just go home and leave me to my own business.” Xemnas told him, which obviously upset Xaldin. “What could be so private that you can't let us know, not even me, and I've known you longer than all of the others!” At this point, the two friends were getting furious at each other. “If you wanna know so bad then I'll tell you! I saw a wild dog yesterday that was hurt really bad and so today I brought some medical supplies to help him and I didn't want you guys to find out because I knew you would want me to stay away from Blu because he could be dangerous and I don't care about that, I just want to help him because there's something special about Blu, I just know it. I even felt this weird connection with him, like we needed each other somehow!” Xemnas finished his long explanation and breathed heavily from the loud, fast yelling at his friend. Xaldin just stood there for a moment, certainly confused from the speed his friend was talking inm “You… found a wild dog, and it was hurt?” Xemnas, finally collecting his breath, stood upright and cleared his mind. “Yes Xaldin, I found a wild dog and he's hurt. Are you going to tell me to leave it alone and let nature take its course or not tell a soul and help?” Xemnas desperately awaited a response, hoping that his friend wouldn't tell an adult. “Superior,” Xaldin started, “if you really believe you can help the animal, then be my guest. As long as I get to help.” Xemnas ran up to Xaldin and gave him a big hug. “Thank you Xaldin!” He simply patted Xemnas on the back and smiled. “So where is this 'Blu’ at, Superior?” Xaldin asked. “I found him in a bush near The Tree That Never Was.” Xemnas answered, pointing towards the giant oak tree. “Then let's go get him.” Xaldin replied. They both walked for a few minutes towards the tree, which got bigger the closer they got to it. The reason it was named The Tree That Never Was is because long ago the townspeople chopped down the only oak tree in the forest and over night three appeared the way it is, a forty foot tree just popped up overnight. They reached the tree and stopped for a moment. “So where's Blu?” Xaldin asked. “Somewhere around here. Blu shouldn't be that difficult to find. He is blue after all.” At the sound of Blu's name being said so by Xemnas, a low bark was heard nearby. Xemnas ran from the tree and towards the bark. He called Blu's name again and another bark was heard. Xaldin walked near a bush and a loud roar erupted from behind the bush. The roar scared Xaldin to the ground. From behind the bush a big blue dog limped out, its fangs barred and it growled deeply. Blood covered most of the face and back and it couldn't even place its leg on the ground. Xemnas ran in front of Xaldin and guarded him. “Blu calm down, he's my friend, he won't hurt you. I came back just like I promised and I can help you too.” Blu stopped growling and his tail was wagging like a puppy's. “See Xaldin, he's only scared. He's just trying to protect himself.” “Then why isn't he growling at you?” Xaldin asked. “He trusts me and knows I want to help him.” Xemnas replied. He walked over to the dog and scratched behind his ears. “What happened to him?” Xaldin asked. “I'm not really sure, but maybe he was attacked by people, or other wild dogs.” Xemnas answered. He took off his backpack and opened it up to reveal all the medical supplies. “Where did you get that stuff?” Xaldin asked. “I got them from my grandfather's office. He locked himself in his lab again today so I took them for Blu.” Xemnas pulled out some peroxide and poured some on Blu's face wound who flinched and whimpered. “So what are you gonna do with Blu, take him home with you or something?” Xaldin inquired. “You and questions, I swear. But that is something to consider. Maybe I should take him home with me.” Xemnas bandaged up Blu's head and moved to the side to treat the wound on his right. “That's a crazy idea! What if he freaks out and kills your cats or bites your grandfather, or your dad, maybe even your brother if he comes to visit! What if he bites YOU!?” Xaldin freaked out, the worst case scenarios running through his mind. Xemnas, who was unfazed by Xaldin's concern continued to treat Blu by moving onto heal his damaged leg. “Xaldin calm down, Blu isn't a threat to Terra, Vanitas, Grandfather, Dad, Ansem, or me. Blu is too nice. You like cats, right Blu?” Surprisingly, Blu let out a deep bark in response. Unfortunately, they couldn't tell if Blu was agreeing or disagreeing with what Xemnas said. “I still don't completely trust Blu. What are you gonna tell your grandfather, how are you even going to get him to your place if he can barely walk? And you do realize tomorrow's Saturday so you won't be able to see him.” Xaldin informed the other teen. “I know that if Grandfather finds him I'll be in big trouble, but I think I have an idea for a way to get him to my house today without making him walk.” Xemnas moved on to fix Blu’s ear though he couldn't do much since part of it was ripped off. “What are you planning Superior?” Xaldin asked. “Well, you remember that red wagon I had that we would ride down the street in, right?” Xaldin nodded and Xemnas continued. “I'm gonna go home and get the wagon while you stay here and watch Blu.” “What! I don't trust that beast! What if it attacks me, what if he runs away, what if-” “Fine, you go to my house and get the wagon while I stay here and watch Blu. He actually trusts me, unlike you trusting him ya big sissy.” “...I'll watch Blu.” “That's what I thought.” Xemnas walked out of the woods and back to his house. He went in and placed his backpack in his room. He searched in the garage for the wagon and when he couldn't find it, he headed straight to his grandfather's lab. Xemnas knocked on the door which opened by itself. He stepped in and looked around. His cats were in the lab and meowed at each other. The brown cat, Terra, walked towards the back of the room and pawed at a red shelf on the floor. Looking at it, Xemnas realized it was the wagon and his grandfather borrowed it to put some jars full of samples on. Xemnas walked over to the wagon and patted Terra on the head then removed the jars from the wagon. He wheeled it out of the house and down the street to the woods. He felt his phone vibrate in his pocket and checked it to see that he had a text message from Xaldin. Where are you? At the end of the street I have the wagon. Hurry, I'm kinda scared with this dog next to me watching me text. Hi Blu! jffhgddsl What? I think Blu said hi. He put his phone away and pulled the wagon deeper into the woods until he saw Xaldin and Blu. “There you are. So let's get him on the wagon.” Xaldin said. “Can you get up yourself Blu, or do you need our help?” Xemnas asked. Blu tried to limp his way over to the wagon and he tried to place his front paws up on the wagon but he couldn't jump all the way up. Xaldin pushed Blu up and Xemnas pulled him forward so he was secure in the middle. “Xaldin, you pull the wagon.” Xemnas demanded. “What? Why me?” Xaldin questioned. “Look at you, then look at me, which one of us do you think can pull the wagon better?” Xemnas sarcastically asked. “I'll pull the wagon.” Caldin replied. That's also what I thought. Xemnas and Xaldin walked through the woods with Blu on the wagon. Xaldin pulled the wagon out of the woods and they ended up on dirt road. The two boys walked on to Xemnas's house. Once they reached the driveway Xaldin's phone beeped and checked it. “Sorry Superior, my mom wants me home now.” Xaldin said. “Aw man. I guess I'll see you Monday then.” Xemnas said, sounding disappointed. “I'll see ya later, and you too ya big blue puffball.” Xaldin scratched the top of Blu's head, waved by to Xemnas, and left for his house. I hope he doesn't tell anyone. “Alright Blu, let's get you inside.” Xemnas pulled the wagon in the house which took longer than it would have if Xaldin were pulling it. He closed the door behind him and assumed his grandfather wasn't home from the research facility yet so he left the door unlocked. Xemnas helped Blu down from the wagon and let him lay on the couch. He heard meowing in his grandfather's lab. Xemnas glanced at the clock, four thirty-six, way past the cat's lunch time. “Alright Blu, you stay here while I feed the cats. I'll be right back.” Xemnas told the dog, scratching behind his ear. He went into the pantry and got two bowls full of cat food. He headed to the lab and placed down the two bowls. Terra and Vanitas ran toward the bowls and chowed down. Xemnas watched his cats eat for a moment before getting up and leaving to check on Blu. He left the lab and entered the living room. Something felt odd in the room which made Xemnas feel uneasy. “Blu, are you okay?” He asked. At the sound of the name, a man on the couch where Blu was turned around. He had long blue hair and yellow eyes. His ears were pierced and the tips were pointed like an elf. His face was slightly bandaged and some blood was shown in his face. He was dressed in a long black coat that zipped down to his waist. “Hello Xemnas.” He said. “Who are you?” Xemnas asked, rather nervous. “It's me, Blu.”

Ch.3

“Y-you're not Blu. You can't be, Blu's a dog not a human.” Xemnas stuttered. “Well, actually, Xemnas, I'm not really a dog. I'm more of a wolf dog, half wolf half dog.” The man stated. “I don't know what you're babbling about but I'm calling the police.” Xemnas went to the kitchen and reached for the phone but the man jumped over the couch, ran into Xemnas, and landed on top of him. “Please don't Xemnas. I know it's hard to believe, but you gotta trust me.” Xemnas glanced behind him and saw a rather peculiar seeming object. It was blue and curled up slightly. Looking closer, Xemnas noted that it looked furry. The man caught onto Xemnas looking. He looked behind himself to see what caught his attention. “Oh this? It's my tail. Now you believe me, right?” “What are you?” Xemnas asked. “I already told you, I'm a wolf dog.” “You can't be, you're a human… with a tail. There's no way you can be Blu, let alone any animal in general.” “I know it's hard to believe, but some animals are capable of transformation. Not just into humans, but anything, and for some they aren't very good at transforming so they retain so they retain a trait from their real form. In my case, my tail.” “Why should I trust you?” “I know your name is Xemnas.” The man said. “That's not enough, you could have seen my name anywhere.” Xemnas responded. “...You told me I was cute and fluffy yesterday.” He replied. Xemnas blushed slightly, sure he remembers saying that to Blu, but he never thought he would understand what Xemnas said. “I… I still don't know if I can trust you.” The man sighed disappointingly. He reached up and moved his bangs behind his ears. At a closer look Xemnas could see that the top part of his right ear was missing and the edge was slightly jagged. “...Blu…?” The man reached down and enveloped Xemnas in a big hug. “Oh Xemnas! I knew you'd know it was me!” “Okay, yeah that's good. Now can you let me get off the kitchen floor please.” Blu stood up and helped Xemnas to his feet. “I still don't understand though. Why… how… what are… Why don't you just explain all this to me. Who are you really Blu?” They sat down on the couch and Blu thought of where he should begin. “You see, the world is full of more wonders then the normal human truly sees. What most people see as a… wolf, for example, is actually a wolf but with great abilities. Like many animals, a wolf can transform into anything they please. Wolves who are still learning or just not that good often have trouble transforming into non-living things. They also retain something from their true form, like I said earlier for me it’s my tail. It's a little different for me though. As a wolf dog I only have limited transforming abilities. I'm lucky though 'cause its very rare. Anyone you see could really be an animal. I want to thank you though. You just happened to come along after I started to give up. Because you helped me I regain enough strength to use this form to talk to you. When you left that first day I was afraid you would never come back. You wouldn't believe how happy I was to see you again. I'm so grateful.” Blu hugged Xemnas tightly and placed his head between his neck and shoulder. Xemnas flinched and blushed slightly but placed one hand on Blu's back and the other on the back of his head. “How did you get hurt Blu?” “...I-I'm not ready to talk about it.” It was silent for a moment as Xemnas thought. This is crazy. There's no way this can be true, but yet here he is in front of me as a human. Should I tell Xaldin or the others? What if Grandfather ask about him? I need to stop worrying about this and wonder what I'm gonna do about Blu. Something alerted them and Xemnas reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out his phone. Blu looked over and saw Xemnas read a text message. Xemnas looked over the text that Xaldin sent him. Hey just got home. How's it going with that dog? Xal, we need to talk. Only seconds after sending his reply Xemnas and Blu heard the front door opening. “Quick Blu, hide!” Xemnas pushed Blu off the couch and shoved him in his room. “But Xe-” Xemnas shut the door behind Blu and rushed back into the living room. His heart was racing as the door flew open and he saw his grandfather. “Oh, there you are Xemnas. What did I tell you about leaving the front door unlocked?” His grandfather said. “It must be locked because if Father or Brother decide to come home they won't be able to because they don't deserve it.” Xemnas said. “Atta boy.” His grandfather patted his shoulder and headed to his lab. “Did you feed Terra and Vanitas?” “Yes I did.” “Why is your wagon in the living room and not in my lab?” Dammit, I forgot about the wagon! “Me and Xaldin needed it to… uh… move a… a rock!” A rock!? How stupid am I!? His grandfather just stared at him confused. “You had to move… a rock?” He asked Xemnas. His phone suddenly rang in his pocket and he fumbled to get it. “Yeah and looky here, it's Xaldin. I should take this.” He ran into his room and locked the door behind him. When he answered his phone he noticed a blue tail poking out from under his bed. Hiding under the bed wasn't really necessary. “Hey Xal.” He said. “Hey, what did you wanna talk about?” “Well… Blu isn't any normal dog.” Xemnas saw Blu peak his head out at the sound of his name, who had already turned back into a dog. “What do you mean?” Xaldin asked. “Do you think your mom will let you come over?” “Probably…” “Then get over here now.” Before he got a response Xemnas closed his phone and put it back in his pocket. Blu crawled out from under the bed and limped over to Xemnas. He placed his hand under Blu's chin and bent down to his level. “Your leg still hurt?” He asked. Blu nodded in response but perked his ears up when he heard a knock at the bedroom door. Blu went under the bed again and Xemnas turned and opened the door, but only slightly in case Blu was visible. His grandfather was at the door. “Oh, hey, Gramps.” Xemnas greeted him nervously. “Xemnas, can I keep the babies in your room? Some of the chemicals in there I need to open and I don't want the little darlings getting ahold of them.” He asked his grandson. Why do you always call the cats your babies or darlings? “Uh… that might not be a good idea.” Xemnas replied. “Good idea? Why thanks, I'll go get them!” He said. “Wait! I didn't…” Why does he do that every time I refuse something? He came back with both Terra amd Vanitas and placed them in Xemnas's room. When the door closed Blu came out and encountered the cats. All three barked and meowed at each other and Xemnas assumed they were all talking. He walked over to his window and looked for Xaldin. Where are you? He turned back around and when he came face to face with human Blu he jumped and screamed. “Stop doing that Blu!” He yelled. “I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you.” Blu pouted and he tucked his tail down. Oh great, here comes the guilt. “No, I'm sorry. Just let me know when you're gonna do that.” Xemnas patted Blu's head and lightly giggled at how funny Blu looked with the bandages wrapped on his head and face. “The felines say the old man is crazy.” Blu stated and the cats meowed in agreement. Xemnas giggled again. “He is a little cooky, but I think that every scientist is a little psycho, even Vexen is going crazy and he wants to be a scientist.” Xemnas heard a knock on his window and looked past the blinds to see Xaldin. “Okay Blu, stay here, watch Terra and Van, and I'll go get Xaldin.” Man, he gets here fast. He left his room and got the front door to let Xaldin in. “Alright, will you tell me now?” Xaldin asked. “Why don't I just show you.” Xemnas pulled Xaldin into his room and luckily Blu was still a human. “Who the hell is that?” Xaldin asked. “Don't you remember me? It's Blu.” Blu said. “Okay, I know this is hard to believe but-” Xaldin raised his hand in front of Xemnas's face. “I'm going home.” “No wait! It's true really!” Xemnas yelled, stopping him from leaving. “Oh, I believe you. I just don't want anything to do with this.” Xaldin pushed his younger friend aside and left the room. Running in front of him in the hall, Xemnas blocked his oath with his arms. “Please Xaldin, you're my closest friend. I've known you longer than any of the others. I think you're the only one who can help.” Xemnas pleaded. Xaldin was irritated by now at his friend. “Help with what? When his wounds heal just put him back into the wild. It's that simple!” Blu limped into the hall and used the wall as support, the cats peeking from behind the door. “I can't go back. My pack won't accept me.” Xaldin turned to face him. “What do you mean?” “They thought I was a traitor so they chased me out.” Blu tried to place his foot firmly on the ground and yelped. He almost fell to the ground but Xaldin grabbed his arm and caught Blu before he fell. Blu looked up at Xaldin with yellow piercing eyes. Xaldin felt a light tug at his heart and quickly looked away from the puppy dog eyes. What is it about animals that make me want to care about everything? “I'll stay…” Blu jumped up and snuggled his arm, and Xemnas ran over to hug him. “Thank you so much Xal!” What have I gotten myself into?

Ch. 4

Xaldin and Xemnas sat on the couch in the living room watching wolf Blu play with the cats. “So, what do we do with him?” Xaldin asked. “...Well he definitely needs to stay while his wounds heal… and I guess if I word it right I can convince Gramps to let me keep him.” “But he's part wolf. It's possible that he could snap at anything. And what if he bites someone, he could be put down!” Xaldin worried. “Blu seems too sweet to bite someone. I'll just keep him on a tight leash so he doesn't misbehave.” Xemnas reassured him. “You know, a leash might not be a bad idea.” “I'm not putting him on an actual leash, Xal.” “Fine then, but don't come crying to me when he bites someone's finger off.” Xaldin simply got a glare from Xemnas. He turned his attention back to Blu. “Blu, you hungry?” Xemnas asked. Lu barked back and wagged his tail joyfully. “Oh great Superior, what are you gonna feed him?” Xaldin asked sarcastically. “I could always feed you to him.” “Touche, Superior, touche.” Blu limped to the kitchen and sat down to observe everything. Xemnas and Xaldin followed behind him. Xemnas looked around at all their food, looking in the fridge he asked, “Should we feed him human food or animal food?” He looked back at Xaldin to see he was awkwardly staring towards Blu. “What are you staring a-Aahh!” He turned around mid sentence to be surprised by human Blu. “What did I say about doing that?!” Xemnas's voice got very high pitched and Xaldin snickered at him. “Oh… I'm sorry Xemnas.” Blu tucked his tail down. “No, I'm sorry. Just… please, give a warning.” Blu nodded and Vanitas jumped on the counter. He pawed at Blu to get his attention and when he turned around Vanitas seemed to be telling him something. “Vanitas said the old man keeps a stash of sweets in his lab.” Xemnas and Xaldin momentarily glanced at each other. “Blu, he's got a lot of chocolate in that stash of his. I don't think that'd be healthy, ya know the whole 'dogs with chocolate has a heart attack’ thing?” Xemnas told him. Blu didn't understand the issue so Xaldin had to tell him the story about Marluxia's neighbor's dog that died because the man's daughter gave it chocolate. Of course that made Blu terrified of all human food, so Xemnas ended up feeding wolf Blu some meat from the freezer. “I still can't believe any of this.” Xemnas said as they watched Blu eat. “Yeah, well I've seen crazier things.” Xaldin told him. “What are you talking about?” Xemnas asked. “Let's just say that there are weirder things in that forest than shape shifting wolves.” He said to his younger friend. It was some sort of silent moment between all of them as Xemnas wondered what that could possibly mean. Blu finished eating only seconds after, it was obviously a while since his last meal. It was now getting dark and maybe around seven or so. “What are you gonna do with him when you're at school?” Xaldin asked.

And that’s it! To elaborate on a bit Vanitas was hoping Saix would eat some chocolate and die. Zexion was secretly a wolf. And I have no idea what the thing Xaldin mentions at the end was supposed to be about. Oh and Terra and Vanitas could shape shift too. And Axel set up Saix so he wouldn’t get found out. That’s all I remember that wasn’t brought up in what was already written.

#kingdom hearts #xemsai #sorry to ruin your tag with this!#fanfic #I regret this so much #it was to make yall suffer but im the one suffering #I hope I repress this

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itsjanetimbengan · 7 years ago

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JAPAN 2018: Kobe-Nara-Kyoto-Osaka Travel Guide (6-DAY ITINERARY + BUDGET)

Japan is without a doubt an enchanting country to explore. From its historical temples giving you the cultural, old, and authentic vibe to its modern architectures and vibrant modern city life. Not to mention the vast blush-colored trees everywhere during spring (cherry blossoms!!!) and the ever helpful Japanese people.

HOW TO GET A JAPAN VISA?

Step 1: Determine which type of Japan Visa you are applying for.

There are various types of Japan Visa that you can apply for depending on your purpose: a visa for business, a visa for tourist, a visa for medical purposes, etc.

For this post, we’ll be discussing how to get a Japan Visa for travel purposes (for single entry, and if you’re visiting with or without a guarantor/sponsor).

Step 2: Prepare the documents/requirements needed. Below is the list of the documents you need to prepare in getting your Japan Visa.

Philippine Passport. Must have at least 6 months validity and with at least 2 blank pages. Note that broken passports are not accepted.

A duly accomplished Japan visa application form. Download the form HERE. Print the form in A4 size of bond paper. Fill in the form completely and write N/A for items that are not applicable (Do not leave anything blank and make sure that there are no erasures!) Note: You’re not required to book your flight or hotel yet. You can do that once you Japan Visa is approved.

ID Picture. Prepare a 4.5 cm x 4.5 cm photo with white background (you can just tell to the photo studio that you’re getting a photo for Japan Visa). This must be pasted on the form with your name and birthdate written on the back of the photo.

Birth Certificate from PSA (Philippine Statistics Authority). Must be issued within the past one year from PSA Main Office or Serbilis Outlet Center (Nationwide).

Marriage Certificate from PSA. If you are married, then you need to submit a marriage certificate from PSA Main Office/Serbilis Outlet Center (Nationwide) issued within 1 year.

Daily Schedule in Japan. A simple or overview of your itinerary in Japan. It doesn’t need to be thoroughly detailed.

Additional requirements if you’re applying WITHOUT GUARANTOR:

If you’ll be shouldering all of your travel expenses in Japan, you must prove that you are capable of doing it. You must present the following

Proof of Income.

For employed persons

Latest Income Tax Return (ITR Form 2316). Submit a clear photocopy in A4 paper.

Certificate of Employment (with compensation). Note: If you do NOT have an ITR, write a simple letter explaining why you’re unable to submit it (examples: you’re newly employed, etc.)

For self-employed / business persons

If you’re a freelancer, provide latest ITR (Form 2316/ 1700/ 1701/ 1702) original and photocopy in A4 paper.

If you own a business, submit your Business Registration issued by DTI / SEC and the company ITR.

If you do NOT have an ITR, write a simple letter explaining why you’re unable to submit it

Bank Certificate. Must be an original copy from your bank which must be issued within the past 3 months. How much? There’s no specified amount required by the Japanese Embassy but to be sure, just peg your money at P10,000 per day. So if you’re planning to stay in Japan for 5 days, make sure to have a t least P50,000 in your bank.

Additional requirements if you’re applying WITH GUARANTOR:

If someone will sponsor your trip, you will need to provide the following additional documents (this applies if the guarantor lives in the Philippines – could be your dad, mom, brother, sister, company, etc.):

Guarantee Letter. Download the template HERE. A letter explaining your relationship with the guarantor and include their contact details (e.g. address, contact number). Must be printed in an A4 size of bond paper.

Proof of Relationship with the Guarantor. If your sponsor is family member or a relative, you can sumbit PSA birth certificate or marriage certificate.

Bank Certificate (original) of the Guarantor.

Photocopy of the Income Tax Return (ITR Form 2316) of the Guarantor.

Step 3: Submit your Japan Visa requirements to accredited travel agency for Japan Visa Processing

There’s a list of travel agency where you can pass your requirements since Japan Embassy DOES NOT accept direct applications unless it’s a special case. See list of accredited travel agency HERE.

Once you’ve decided, submit your complete Japan Visa requirements to your chosen travel agency. Service fee will be collected by the travel agency processes ranging from PHP 900 – PHP 1,600. The fee is NON-REFUNDABLE regardless of the granting/withdrawal/denial of your Japan visa application.

We processed our Japan Visa through H.I.S. (PHILIPPINES) Travel Corp located in BGC.

Step 4: Wait for your Japan Visa

Visa processing normally takes 3-5 business working days, but sometimes up to 7 days. Depending on your travel agency, they will send you a message whether your passport is ready for pick up or they will be needing additional requirements. Note that a white sticker at the back of your passport indicates that your Japan visa is approved. A red sticker means your Japan visa was denied.

HOW LONG IS THE VALIDITY OF THE VISA?

Single entry visas are usually valid for a stay no longer than 15 days, and the visa is valid for 90 days (3 months) upon issue.

HOW TO GET TO OSAKA?

Best gateway to Osaka is the Kansai International Airport (KIX) which a lot of airlines fly from Manila. If you don’t book during promo fare or seat sale, cheapest flight from Manila going to Osaka is around P10,000 roundtrip via Cebu Pacific. I suggest you look into different airlines like Jetstar which sometimes a lot cheaper than CebPac. You can score a roundtrip ticket for as low as P7,000, which definitely a steal for a non-promo price!

TIP: If you’re from the North, you might wanna check flights coming from Clark.

WIFI IN OSAKA

We booked an unlimited 4G Portable Wi-Fi Rental for 6 days thru kkday (a site like Klook). It will help you stay connected to the internet while you’re in Japan aka will be your best friend so you can use Google Maps. Rate is P265 per day which is pretty cheap yet giving you a reliable connection and a battery that is enough to last for a day.

Upon arrival at the airport, we picked up the device at their booth, easy and fast, which includes a case, USB cord, transformer (charger) and an instruction booklet.

BOOK HERE

GETTING AROUND OSAKA

Best way to get around Osaka is by train and subway. However, their train system is complicated and a bit confusing. You really need to plan ahead which station are you alighting to and which number of train heads to that station. There’s a chance that you might be boarding the wrong train (e.g., express trains don’t stop at some stations, regular trains will stop at every station which will take you longer time to arrive at your destination).

KANSAI THRU PASS

Since we will be riding train all the time, we purchased a 3-day Kansai Thru Pass, a ticket which enables you to ride on subways, private railways and buses throughout the Kansai district, at the airport (you can also book ahead through Klook) which costs ¥5,500 or around P2,500. This pass will makes it easier to travel around Kansai Region (Kobe, Nara, Kyoto, Osaka, etc.) and will save you from the troublesome task of checking the complicated rate table to buy tickets and you won’t need to buy another ticket every time you make connections.

There are other pass you can buy like JR West Kansai Pass, JR Rail Pass which can get you around Osaka and if you’re traveling to Tokyo also, and ICOCA Card.

GOOGLE MAPS

Yup, go do yourself a favor and download this app! Consider this your travel buddy!

PLACES TO VISIT IN KANSAI REGION

KOBE

Kobe, the capital of Hyogo Perfecture, has a nostalgic-feel ambiance of neighborhood because of its western-style residences, cafes, restaurants, and boutiques which makes you want to walk more around the city. However, since we have a limited time, we only had the chance to explore Kitano-chō.

Kitano- chō

A small district in Kobe notable for its western-style architectures. You will also see one of the Top 3 Starbucks Cafés in Japan.

Read my complete blog post HERE!

NARA

Nara, the ancient capital of Japan, is known for historical temples and a home to hundreds of deer that can freely roam around. During sakura season, the blush-colored trees match the greens and browns perfectly.

Kohfuku-ji Temple

Known as the five-storied pagoda, Kohfuku-ji is a Buddhist temple and a UNESCO World Heritage Site and considered as a landmark and a symbol of Nara.

Admission Fee: Free (Outer Area) / 700 yen (National Treasure Museum)/ 300 yen (Eastern Golden Hall) /800 yen (combination)

Open daily from 9 am to 5 pm

Gangoji Temple

The first Buddhist temple built in Japan sometime in the 6th century and one of the Seven Great Temples in Nara.

Admission Fee: 500 yen (Adults)

Open daily from 9 am to 5 pm (last entry must be made by 4:30 pm)

Nara Park

A home to hundreds of freely roaming deers. You can buy deer crackers in stores around the park for 150 yen to feed these docile deers and to get them closer so you can take pictures.

Admission Fee: Free

Open 24 hours daily

Kasuga-Taisha Shrine

Nara’s most celebrated Shrine and established in dedication to a deity responsible for the protection of the city. This shrine was established in the 8th century by the Fujiwara family.

Admission Fee: Outer Area: Free / Inner Area: 500 yen

Open daily from 6 am to 5 pm

Read my complete Nara trip HERE!

KYOTO

Kyoto is the city that has the cultural, old, authentic Japan vibes with its ancient Japanese temples and houses, stunning Japanese women wearing traditional kimono around the streets, and rich Japanese street food.

Fushimi Inari-Taisha Shrine

Fushimi Inari-Taisha Shrine, an important Shinto shrine in southern Kyoto, is known for its mesmerizing thousands of unending pathway of torii gates up to the mountain. It was first built as early as the 8th century by the Hata family to worship the gods of rice and sake. Along the pathway through the gates, you will also see plenty of stone foxes, usually come in pairs, which is considered to be the messenger of Inari – the god of rice and business. Prepare for a 2-3 hours hike up to the top of the mountain (tip: wear your most comfy shoes).

Admission Fee: Free

Open 24 hours daily

Arashiyama Bamboo Forest

The famous bamboo forest in Kyoto! The entire path is 500 meters long and you can walk through it in 15 minutes, depending on your pace and on how long you take your Instagram pictures. It can get crowded especially at noon but, there were secluded areas where you can take your photos.

Admission Fee: Free

Open 24 hours daily

Nakanoshima Park

A park along Katsura River and Togetsu-kyo Bridge, also called the “Moon Crossing Bridge” and the most iconic landmark in Arashiyama district. Best place to stay for cherry blossoms viewing!

Admission Fee: Free

Open 24 hours daily

Kyoto is not as small as Nara where attractions need only a small amount of walking. There’s a lot more to see in Kyoto and definitely one day isn’t enough to explore the city. I suggest you allocate at least 2 days if you want to visit everything in Kyoto.

Read my complete Kyoto trip HERE!

OSAKA

Osaka is lively with its modern and stunning architectures, vibrant and buzzing nightlife, and diverse and delectable food.

Osaka Castle Park

A popular tourist spot and a striking historical landmark in the middle of a modern urban m cityscape. The main tower is 55m high and has a museum and an observationg deck at the top where one can enjoy the panoramic view of the city.

Admission Fee (Park): Free(Osaka Castle Fee – 600 yen)

Open 24 hours daily

Tempozan Village

A modern neighborhood in Osaka and has a number of attractions – Aquarium Kaiyukan, Tempozan Ferris Wheel, Santa Maria cruise and Tempozan Marketplace.

Admission Fee: Free

Open 24 hours daily

Dotonbori

Known as the “Kitchen of Japan”, Dotonbori is definitely a food haven. Walking along Dotonbori, a lot of food stalls, restaurants, cafes, and shops can be found with both local and tourists bustling around. It is full of lights, noise, and energy. You will also see the famous Glico running man, one of the most iconic landmark of Osaka, being brightly lit over the Dotonbori Canal. You can also find Don Quijote here where you can buy your pasalubong from chocolates, to noodles, clothes, accessories and more.

Admission Fee: Free

Open 24 hours daily (depends on store hours)

Cup Noodles Museum

Cup Noodles Museum gives us an overview of the history of instant noodles and allows us to make our DIY cup noodles.

Admission Fee: Free (DIY Cup Nood;es – 300 yen)

Open daily (except Tuesday) from 9:30 am to 4:00 pm

Ikeda Castle Ruins Park

A well-manicured park with the reconstructed “ruined” castle, winding gravel paths, a large koi pond, and some benches you can sit into.

Admission Fee: Free

Open 24 hours daily

Shinshibaishi

The largest, oldest and busiest shopping district in Osaka. Surrounding by flashing neon lights and billboards, there are a lot of shops you can find in the 600 metres long street lined with boutiques, cafes, restaurants, food fast outlets, popular fashion stores, from both local and well-known international brands.

Read my complete Osaka trip HERE!

ITINERARY

DAY 1– Arrival in Japan and Exploring Kobe

DAY 2– Temple visit and Deer feeding in Nara

Day 3 – Torii Gates, Bamboo Groves, and Cherry Blossoms in Kyoto

Day 4 – Discovering Osaka

Day 5 – Cup Noodles Making

Day 6– Last Day and Departure from Osaka

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howtoformatdialogue267 · 5 years ago

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Our White Paper Writers Will Help You Boost Your Business Marketing Efforts

Our White Paper Writers Will Help You Boost Your Business Marketing Efforts Target viewers for a given gig comes from the shopper, and that’s something you’ll wish to get from them via a questionnaire. Style clever, conversational tone is the default today, however keep in mind your objective as a copywriter isn’t to develop your own distinctive type that you pressure on your purchasers. So I’m attempting to provide a information that may help everybody else. The one which opens by default every time I switch on my computer. Thanks for the ton of advice and the numerous useful links. Your goal is to take their tone and language and phrasing and make it one of the best version of itself. It ought to sound like them… whereas sounding a lot better than what they'd truly say. I really appreciate all the time, effort and most importantly the willingness to share all this superb info. It can positively be a grind, but I don’t suppose it’s possible to grow a successful business inside a 12 months with out some degree of significant grind. Someone can learn your post, recognize your expertise, and hire you to write down copy for them. Guessing whether or not search engine optimization or LinkedIn would be the better channel for copywriters in 10 years is a bit like guessing whether or not Bitcoin or Ethereum may have a higher market cap in the same time period. The past and current each level to SEO having more staying power, but the future is more likely to be so risky, choosing a winner is pure hypothesis at this point. In different phrases, LinkedIn’s business model is far more conducive to long term organic reach. Well, I suspect that identical to most ad writing tends to be accomplished by PPC specialists, the kind of people who handle to make Google Ads or Facebook Ads work for them have a tendency to easily turn out to be PPC specialists. To sum it up, if you're a prime 5% expertise with no fear of rejection and a protracted historical past of high-quantity writing, this technique may simply be excellent for you. For everyone else, I’d suggest starting with a different strategy and ready till your second, third, or fourth 12 months as a copywriter to do that strategy out. But the reality is that folks prepared to work that tough and take that degree of initiative don’t really need to be guided. They are going to brute pressure their approach to success one way or another. The preliminary british term concerning a type of government-issued doc has proliferated, taking a considerably new that means in enterprise. Planned, wrote, and edited operational and tutorial manuals, in addition to upkeep and take a look at procedures, for paper- and net-based publications. Go to harvard and switch left-these have been the usual instructions to the white home in. Include paper construction and/or outline, add grading scale or rubrics, insert useful links or resources, indicate tutorial degree and/or degree of english (esl/enl) needed, share your private needs. Aaron’s prolific guest posting took him to 6 figures in his first yr as a freelance copywriter and had him up to $20k per month once we did the interview beneath throughout his 2nd 12 months. In this interview, he breaks down what led to his success and how his guest posts on the very best profile sites resulted in essentially the most monetary profit . There was once a time when people were experiencing this same degree of success on Facebook. Then in a single day, Facebook utterly gutted natural attain, and abruptly, all that work buying followers was basically rendered worthless. This may happen at any time on LinkedIn, and certainly, LinkedIn has already scaled again natural attain a bit from when those two posts of mine went mini-viral. It puts your work in entrance of proficient editors who will usually give you feedback and assist you to suck at writing lots much less. With sufficient posts over time, nonetheless, the trickle of benefit from each publish turns into a stream of leads and alternatives. Your submit can carry out very well and trigger the publication to hire you to put in writing extra for them. Someone can learn your publish, respect your writing type, and ask you to ghostwrite for them on a excessive-stage publication. The TLDR right here is that LinkedIn is a compelling option for brand spanking new and skilled copywriters alike. That all modified last yr when LinkedIn revamped its algorithm and suddenly, organic engagement was alive and well. I seen the identical forms of posts attracting tons of engagement, so I decided to see if I may play the sport and make some content material go viral.

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porcelaindagger · 8 years ago

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since this won’t show in the tags from the actual blog

After speaking with some people privately, I had been under the impression that I had been doing a good enough job keeping my head down, minding my own business, and not making a fuss, but it’s evident that this is not the case. I have been back in the community for about a year now as Elle, and since then I have made every effort to use this new alias as an opportunity to turn over a new leaf, make a new start, and be an unobtrusive and altogether quiet presence in the community. I came back simply to write – not to make a fuss or make waves, and I was open and honest about my identity and my past mistakes with those who came to me to ask, and have a small group of people who know that I am Beth, who have known for quite some time now. It was not my intention to “fool” anyone by returning under a different alias, but to exercise the change that I’d implemented in my own life and to show both myself and those who I’d so horribly hurt in the past that I have changed, and that it is possible for people to change for the better. I think the fact that I’ve flown under the radar until now is decent proof that I am not the person I was a year ago; a year ago, I would have gone absolutely nuts in the face of the PSA that’s floating around, and I would have lashed out with irreparable damage – we all saw it happen last time, and it’s because of that that I was so determined not to do it this time. I understand completely why people would not want to be close to me given what I’ve done in the past; I lied, I talked about people behind their back, I pretended to be someone else to hide from what I’d done, I spread slanderous lies about someone who had been nothing but a dear friend to me, and I kept that same friend’s group from receiving the love and praise it deserved simply because I was bitter, paranoid, and malicious in my mindset. I was in a horrid place and going through a downward spiral in which I could not recover from – and though I knew I could not recover, I lashed out and pulled people down with me simply because it was the only option my toxic mindset gave me. I wrecked people who I’d considered family, who’d followed me through hell, high water, and two roleplay groups which ended with my complete meltdown. It was all building up from mistakes I’d made, even before that – in 2013, I copied things from a drabble someone had written; in 2015, I encouraged a friend to write a PSA about another friend simply because I felt that they were drifting from me, and I was so selfish and paranoid that I just couldn’t handle it. I was immature, and felt as if I didn’t have to own up to my mistakes, but as I see the error of hiding from this all and hoping that it’ll just blow over, I think that it’s time for me to put it out there. I was Wesley, I was Beth, and this blog was supposed to be Elle – the new leaf. Elle would never start a positivity blog, only to filter the messages; Elle would never send nasty messages; Elle would never vague blog; Elle would never strongarm someone out of playing the same character; and Elle would certainly never steal, though Beth once thought she could get away with it, and owned up to it.

In my personal life, the last semester has been an absolute trainwreck, and this blog, in my own corner with a small collective of people who I’d told, and in the roleplay groups that I’d chosen to join, was an oasis, and I am incredibly proud of the progress and of the changes that I’ve made in my life, as reflected by my unobtrusive and quiet presence in the RPC. I’ve done my best to be nothing but positive – and those who I’ve found myself close to can attest to that. I never thought of this attempt at a positive new start as an attempt to “trick” anyone with friendship and kindness, and I am so sorry that it’s come across as that, or as anything even remotely underhanded. I hoped that by being Elle and by starting over I could somewhat start to make right the wrong I’d done when I was Beth, and by being kind to those I’d wronged in any way I could, I thought that I was. I never intended for any of this to become a question of lies, victim shaming, or anything of the sort – I was just trying to keep my head down, and mind my own business. I’d even become close friends with one of the people I’d wronged in the past, proving to them that I’d changed before they even knew who I was, and I spoke to another, leaving things on what I assumed was a peaceful note. Perhaps it was a mistake to apply for a character that I’d played so often while I was using my old alias – but I never thought that it would start the wildfire that it did, since I’d been nothing but supportive in doing it. If anyone would like to message me privately, and not anonymously, to discuss the things that I have done, I would be more than willing to do so openly and frankly at my new url, which was created not to hide but to post fandom content rather than rp content without clogging up anyone’s dash.

I do, however, wish to address the claims of plagiarism that have been floating around, as this may be the only chance I have to do so. I understand that everyone’s concerns have merit; I have been a horribly sketchy person in the past, but the claims that are going around now are ones I hold issue with, and I’d like to address them here. Firstly, I’ll start with the claim that I plagiarized an OC from the group I used to run, Fidite Nemini. The character in question is named Holly – I don’t even remember the OC’s last name. A wonderful OC, written by a wonderful person; perhaps the best OC I ever had the pleasure of writing with. But the fact that I also have two characters named Holly is now being called plagiarism, and with this I take issue. First, I have Holly Blanchard, named as such for Holly Golightly. I’ll link her biography HERE. Second is a character in another roleplay that I ran named Holly Gilmore, who was named as such for the plant reference, and because I was going through a heavy Gilmore Girls phase at the time of writing her. Her bio is HERE. I cannot link you to the bio of the OC simply because I deleted the Fidite Nemini main and have no way of finding it. I don’t know where it is, I don’t know what her last name is; the only similarities between these characters is the fact that they’re named Holly and that they’re generally nice, sweet people. I can see how, upon first glance, having a character named Holly might raise some eyebrows, but upon actually reading the bios, it is quite clear that there is no other overlap.

I was also accused of stealing things from the person who played Bellatrix in my group – I cannot link anything here since the Fidite Nemini main has been deleted, but I used, in applying for a Marauders group recently, the bio that I, as an admin, had written as a jumping off point for an application. I’d gone through the old player’s blog to find the biography that I’d written since the main was deleted and I hadn’t saved anything for my own use, and I understand how that must have looked, but had I not deleted everything I could when I left Tumblr the first time. I’d be happy to dig through my google docs and link the application that I’d written up in this post, but I regrettably cannot access the Fidite Nemini bio anymore, or I would. The person who played Bellatrix at Fidite Nemini is, without question, one of the greatest writers I’ve ever had the pleasure of collaborating with, and I must say that it would be very obvious had I stolen from them, as their writing truly stands alone.

I would now like to address the claims that I stole a fair bit of characterization from the user who wrote the PSA about me. I’ll start by saying that yes, I did pin a few of their pins on Pinterest (but I went to a lot of Pinterest boards to create my own), and we have reblogged some of the same things – were I to remain a large presence in the RPC, I would make a point not to reblog musing from anywhere but inspo blogs to avoid this. But I must raise some issue with the claim that I stole a headcanon about sunflowers, a headcanon about running/athleticism, and a FC. I use flower symbolism in a fair number of my applications and characters, and this particular headcanon was written when I read the ProFlowers description of what sunflowers meant (in fact, at the time I was buying flowers for my grandmother, whose birthday I had forgotten, and thought sunflowers might be nice according to the description). I’ll link the headcanon HEREas it includes a link to the article. The running/athleticism headcanon is twofold – the graphic linked HERE is from a quiz which many people in the tag were using, and was therefore not my own doing. But I had put some stock in the character’s athleticism, since it’s both canon that she’d have to be athletic, and because the character is suffering, in the plot, from severe PTSD. It is often recommended to sufferers of PTSD, like myself, and like my combat veteran father, to put much of their anxiety into athleticism, as linked in the headcanon HERE. I put a lot of myself into my characters, and I thought that, as I am dealing with my own battle with PTSD, it would be appropriate to make a point of expanding upon it in the development of a character who very clearly has it. This is not copied and pasted from any blog, nor was it written in an attempt to mimic anyone else’s portrayal. And to insinuate that I am stealing simply because there is overlap in the usage of two face claims is also up for question – I will admit that I did take an interest in Lindsey Morgan as the character because the author of the PSA used her, and I commend you for your excellent FC choice. But the second mentioned, Deborah Ann Woll, is merely a coincidence, and I must take issue with the idea that face claims are exclusive.

In the PSA, it linked things from my old Alice blog that I’d recycled because I am who you all now know I am – were I trying to hide, I wouldn’t have done that. I’d have never been so obvious. I was too optimistic, I suppose, in that I’d kept my head down enough to play this character again, and I truly am so sorry for making you all uncomfortable, and for making you all feel as if I was trying to be devious by going under another alias. All I was doing was trying to mind my own business – and that is what I’m doing now, by turning my writing blog into a simple fandom blog. I’m even further in my corner now, and though I have no intention of leaving my corner, I thought it appropriate to leave this here as both an admittance of everything I’ve done, and a defense of the new character that I’ve built for myself. I understand that the PSA was made to warn people about someone horrible – but I’m not that person anymore. I have nothing but remorse for what I’ve done to those I’ve hurt, and I will never stop regretting the friendships that I destroyed. I considered so many of you my family, and I hurt you. It’s irreparable, and I will never ever stop trying to be a better person because of it. All I wanted was to turn over a new leaf, and to have fun writing with those I could reconnect with, and I apologize from the bottom of my heart for drudging up old hurts. I never want to hurt any of you again, and I never plan to. If anyone wishes to come talk to me about this, so I can explain and own up further, or if you would like a direct apology, I’m now at arhwen. I hope you’re all well, and finish out 2017 well, too.

#rpt #rpc #rph #rp #roleplay

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misakiito-ffxiv-blog · 8 years ago

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Stealing from @steelmagpie because it looks fun. :3

Roleplay Style: OOC Checklist

Bold what mostly applies.

Italicize what may sometimes apply or might consider, etc.

Main Character: Misaki Ito

Alternate Characters: Evelynne Reid (currently inactive)

Roleplay level: Casual / Medium / Hardcore / Storyteller

Anyone who knows me even a little bit knows that I LOVE ROLEPLAY. I love most forms of roleplay, and will do it at any given opportunity, with most anyone! That being said, I do prefer doing it for long periods with people I know well and am really comfortable with, and while I will happily participate in event RP, it’s not usually my favorite, so that’s the only reason I didn’t bold hardcore!

Roleplay Mediums: In-game text-based / Forum play-by-post / Tumblr starters / Google Docs / Skype text-based / Discord text-based

My preferred method of roleplay is in-game. Past experiences have made me hesitant in divulging my Discord/Skype/etc, and I’m not a big fan of posting publicly on Tumblr my emotes and such! I will do RP in private Tumblr chats if asked, and I do occasionally Discord RP with my partner if we’re both just real busy and can’t hop in game but still have that RP itch!

Roleplay Genre: Action and Adventure / Romance / Horror / Comedy / Criminal / Tavern / Performance

Give me all of it.

There aren’t really a whole lot of RP genres I don’t like or won’t participate in. I definitely enjoy exploring each and every aspect of RP in different storylines -- or the same storyline!

Want to adventure? Yes. Let’s do it. Let’s explore and find new things and sleep in tents and see the world. Someone wants to attack my character? Neat, Misaki is pretty good at hitting back when she’s forced to, or physically defending her friends if ever it’s called for!

I am a SUCKER for romance RP. It is my absolute favorite, but it’s something I like to keep light! (Light as in: no tragic endings, no love triangles, no planned or unplanned cheating, no one hung up on an ex or past love, etc.) I find that takes away from the enjoyment of it for me, and that that’s one thing that should really just stay out of my storylines. I like happy, healthy relationships with no interpersonal strife. I also will only partner up with one person for romance RP, meaning that while we may have alts, if we’re going to romantically partner those alts then they’ll be together! Super fortunate to have found a great partner for this who is super good with it.

Horror? Definitely. Lemme in on those dark storylines. While I don’t think the bulk of storylines should be dark and gloomy, I definitely think some scary, spooky, and grim stories can be a blast.

Funny, light-hearted RP is always a good time. I’m into it.

Criminal depends, as none of my characters really tend to be criminals! Still, they have befriended criminals in the past and gotten tangled up in those storylines, which has been interesting and enjoyable to see for the most part.

Tavern, sure. Night out with friends, or if no one is online, then I have no issue with tavern RP, as long as it’s not every. single. day.

It’s funny that I’ve never done performance RP considering nearly all of my characters are musically inclined or skilled dancers. Definitely something I would like to try someday!

Erotic Roleplay: Yes / No / Fade-to-black

ERP is something I only do with my dedicated RP partner. Not big on one night stands or flings. That being said, it is something I enjoy and prefer to do. If ever I’ve had a partner uncomfortable with it, though, or if a scene needs to be wrapped up quickly and it’s heading into ERP territory, fading to black is something I’m willing to do!

RP Event-style: Free-based casual / DM style / Educational and Public Speaking / RP-PvP / RP-PvE / Not interested in events

I haven’t done any event-style RP in a while, but that’s not to say I don’t enjoy it! While I find that I prefer free-style RP with smaller groups, event style RP definitely has its place and its benefits in furthering storylines.

One-on-one RP: Preferred / Not so much my thing / No preference

3+ person RP: Preferred / Not so much my thing / No preference / It’s pretty cool

Since joining @wanderersxiv, I’ve re-discovered a love I have for busy RP with multiple people interacting at once, and re-discovered that I tend to be good at managing that with my character! Group RP can be a whole hell of a lot of fun with the right people, and I seem to have found a good group for it!

Regardless, I find that my best RP is done one-on-one with characters who mesh really well with mine. It’s the easiest for me to write this way, and it just seems like the best way to get to know a character and their writer and see what they’re like. The scenes can be more personal, and that’s something I appreciate in RP.

COPY AND PASTE ON YOUR OWN BLOG AND ANSWER WITH YOUR OWN RESPONSES. PLEASE FEEL FREE TO ADD TO THIS!

#about #fun things!#rp preferences

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itslikethatfrenchthing · 6 years ago

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037: CONTENT CREATION HACKS: HOW TO CREATE A 3-MONTH CONTENT CALENDAR

Today’s talking point:

You must be creating consistent content on a weekly basis. How can you be pushing out planned content while continuing to grow your business?

Today I'm going to show you a simple system to make this entire content planning and content creation process so much easier. You're going to learn how to create a three month content calendar and fill it up with topic ideas all at once and in advance. And by doing so, you're going to take away the guesswork, overwhelm, and the last minute content creation stress that goes hand in hand with unplanned content.

CONSISTENCY IS KEY (TO GROWING A LOYAL TRIBE)

A few years back, my own business took a significant turn for the better. When I stopped only creating content in the empty cracks of time I had left at the end of the day, and began creating consistent weekly content, my community grew quickly.

My email list grew quickly and in turn, I saw a significant increase in my overall revenue. So I'm telling you right now there is a direct correlation between the quality of your content, the growth of your email list and your bank account.

Now, creating consistent content on a weekly basis is not always easy and it takes time. So the question is how do you make sure this weekly content actually gets done?

You've got to come up with the topics your audience will like. There's likely research involved, and you've got to make time to sit down and actually create the content. Sometimes life happens and your content (or sometimes your business) takes a back seat. That’s normal, but you have to get back on track. So how do you make that happen? You plan for it and that is exactly what we're going to do in this post.

So to be specific, you're going to walk away with three things today:

A foolproof plan to create consistent content that's going to leave you feeling confident, excited, and inspired.

My top five favourite ways to choose the topics that your ideal customer will want to eat up immediately.

I've created a place for you to keep it all organised in a three month content calendar template. All you have to do is follow the prompts, fill in the blanks and you're good to go.

HOW TO CREATE CONSISTENT CONTENT

First, we're going to talk about content calendars.

Your ultimate goal from this is to create a simple three month content calendar filled up with great topics. Now, in order to do that, let's reverse engineer that just a bit and talk about how you're going to create space in your busy schedule for your content calendar planning session.

Content Calendars

Right now, get out your day planner or digital calendar and find a two hour block of time in the next five days where you can do your planning session, and break up the time if necessary.

Here is what you're actually going to do with those two hours that you've planned.

Open up the three month content calendar template I've created for you (click the image above to access it).

Add in the dates you'll be publishing your weekly blog or podcast or video show content.

There's a date column in the spreadsheet, so you just need to add in your specific dates and I'm talking about the date the actual content will go live. We're working on a three month plan, so that's roughly 12 dates you'll be adding to your calendar.

Start choosing content topics and adding them to your content calendar.

For the next few days, grab a pad of paper or a Google doc and anytime you come up with a content idea, put it down.

Generating Topics

Now I'm going to give you my five favourite ways to come up with topic ideas to fill up your three month content calendar. For these tips, I don't want you going down any entrepreneurial rabbit holes. You go down, down, down, and you never come up for air and then you realise you've wasted loads of time. Grab a timer, stay focused and stop once the time is over.

#1 | Brain Dump

Set a timer for 10 minutes and brain dump topic ideas onto a physical piece of paper or a Google doc. When you sit down to do this, I want you to picture your ideal customer. Think about which topics excite them or sparks interest.

What do they want or need that you can provide for them?

Where are they right now in the journey as it relates to what you offer in terms of your content?

How can you help them move along in the direction they would want to go?

What content will help them right now? (A lot of this will come from market research).

This is a free flowing, rapid writing exercise. You’re putting words or phrases or questions down that they might be asking. Just let it flow. No editing. Don't worry if it's a good idea or a bad idea, no judgment. This is the beauty of brain dumping. We're not looking for any kind of perfection here.

This exercise is a really good way to begin your content calendar time, because it gets those creative juices flowing and we'll genuinely get rid of any writer's block you may have been experiencing.

#2 | Survey

Set a timer for 20 minutes and survey your audience by asking them what they want to learn about.

I want you to use something like a Google form and create two to five short questions that will help you to uncover topic ideas from your audience. I like to include at least a few open ended questions when possible, so I can use my audiences’ exact words in my copy or in my weekly content titles.

When you create a survey, you can also use it on social media and email your list.

If you don't yet have a big enough audience that is going to get enough responses from a survey, then I want to encourage you to go to someone else's blog or Facebook page or Instagram page that is in the same field as you, that actually has a large audience. See what's resonating with their audience by looking in the comments of the social media platforms or looking in the comments of their specific blog posts to find inspiration.

#3 | Schedule by Seasons

Set a timer for 15 minutes. Take a look at your calendar and the seasons where specific holidays fall or the types of activities that take place during a certain time of the year.

Now when you do that, you're choosing themes for your content. So for example, you may be in the physical fitness world and you may theme December as a prelaunch to the new year and then theme January as “New Year New You.” Looking at the calendar allows you to identify themes and then you can have images and captions that fit that theme every single month.

Setting themes really helps you to narrow down and decide on topics that would entice your audience. If you need some inspiration, Google holidays in the US or holidays in the UK, wherever your ideal audience lives.

If you're going to promote something soon, the theme is the topics that would align well with whatever it is you're going to promote and sell. It's a little bit more of a sophisticated way to do it and it really works.

#4 | Look Back

Set a timer for 30 minutes and look back at what you've created in the past that is really resonating with your audience.

What was shared in the most popular social media posts that you've done?

Choose a topic or two that you can expand on or shed a new light on with that topic or dive deeper into it or put a different spin on it.

Go back to all of the content you've already created and find out what resonated the most, what was the most popular, what got the likes or the most comments and repurpose the content.

#5 | Google

Set a timer for 30 minutes and hit up Google for help. So last but not least, I'm going to tell you how to perform a very simple search in Google that will likely provide you with plenty of a topic inspiration.

Open up Google and type in some thing that your ideal customer would naturally search for if they were looking for the result, then take a look at the top search results that come up. What article titles do you see that you could write something similar but unique? For example, this is what would come up about learning Spanish:

How can I learn Spanish fast for free?

How can I learn Spanish on my own?

What is the easiest way to learn Spanish?

What is the best online Spanish program?

Can you see how you can come up with topic ideas? Just turn those searches into your topic and even content titles. This one is such an easy one and I highly recommend you just take it for a spin.

RECAP

Here are my five favourite ways to come up with topic ideas to fill your three month content calendar.

Do a good old fashioned a brain dump. It's my favourite way to get started with a content planning session.

Survey your ideal customer or search your competitors comments.

Create themes. Then, come up with your own topics.

Expand or give new life and light your own past content.

Let the Google's help you. That one is going to be kind of fun because it will flood you with new ideas.

Now remember, some of coming up with good ideas is like throwing spaghetti against the wall and just seeing if it will stick. So don't be afraid to try new things and take risks. You want to be thoughtful during the process, but don't be so rigid that you feel stuck with making it perfect. You'll get better at this as you go along.

Resources Mentioned In This Episode:

Want access to a library full of online marketing resources plus weekly bitesized breakthroughs to help you boss your online presence? Find it here.

What did you think of the show? Leave a review on iTunes and become the Breakthrough Blogger of the Week!

Subscribe to the show and get notified when a new episode goes live.

Come join my free FB group.

Apply to work with me 1:1 as a private client here.

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#Blog

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titheguerrero · 6 years ago

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The Mysteries Surrounding Rhodes Pharmaceuticals, the Sackler Family's Second Opioid Company

Mysteries still abound in the not so wonderful world of health care dysfunction, so, quick, the game's afoot... Today's mysteries involve beneficial ownership. Beneficial ownership questions are important to anti-corruption campaigners. Beneficial ownership simply refers to "anyone who enjoys the benefits of ownership of a security or property, without being on the record as being the owner." (per Wikipedia). Concealing who really owns a company enables concealing sources of funds (as in money laundering), market power (when the owner also owns competitors), and sources of political influence, and enables those benefiting from the actions of the company to escape responsibility for their consequences. A few months ago, a big question about the beneficial ownership of a local (to me) company suggested important local and national health care implications, and yet the case has remained anechoic. The case has some mysterious aspects. The Mystery of the Ownership of Rhodes Technologies and Hence Rhodes Pharmaceuticals Solved In September, the UK based Financial Times reported,

The billionaire Sackler family, which has been blamed for fuelling the US opioid addiction epidemic, owns a second drugmaker that churns out millions of addictive painkiller pills every year, the Financial Times can reveal. The Sacklers are best known as the owners of Purdue Pharma, the privately held drugmaker that makes the now infamous opioid painkiller OxyContin, which has been described as 'heroin in a pill'. However, an FT analysis of company registration documents has established that the family also owns Rhodes Pharma, a little-known Rhode Island-based drugmaker that is among the largest producers of off-patent generic opioids in the US.

Furthermore,

Rhodes Pharmaceuticals was set up in 2007, four months after Purdue pleaded guilty to federal criminal charges that it had mis-marketed OxyContin over the previous decade. The little-known company now makes several opioid-based products containing highly-addictive drugs such as oxycodone, morphine and hydrocodone, according to a US Food and Drug Administration database. Many of its drugs are made in factories owned by Purdue.

The Mystery of the Mysteriousness of the Rhodes Companies and Facility The FT report was noted by our local on-line news site, GoLocalProv, which tried to find out more about the company. It reported,

And tucked away in Coventry, Rhode Island, along a country road, is Rhodes Technology — surrounded by massive security. The company’s website has been under -reconstruction for the past few years -- all an effort to keep a low profile. A 2005 version of the Rhodes Technologies’ website GoLocal uncovered said, 'We have very broad capabilities in developing sophisticated chemicals and offer confidential production of high purity APIs and finished dosage forms of innovative pharmaceuticals, as well as marketing and sales services. A multi-million dollar investment in a new cGMP facility completed in 2002 added controlled substances to our manufacturing capabilities. Rhodes is a diversified, dependable firm well positioned for partnerships.' The marketing arm of the Rhodes Technologies is Rhodes Pharmaceuticals and it self-describes itself as 'a privately held company headquartered in picturesque Rhode Island....developing and distributing quality pharmaceutical products since 2008.' Emails and requests for an interview were not responded to by Rhodes Pharmaceuticals.

GoLocalProv article included a blurry picture of a large factory building apparently copied from an old website. I could find no pictures or descriptions of the Rhodes facility on the web other than the picture below from Google Satellite:

The satellite picture does suggest that the Rhodes facility is apparently massive. However, I could find nothing, at least via web searching, to otherwise describe it. Despite its size, I could find no coverage of the company, the facility, the buidling of the facility (which likely was quite a project), or anything else relevant in local media, or on the web. The reasons to keep the ownership of this company mysterious are not hard to fathom. But the reasons for the company itself to maintain such a "low profile," and for its facilities to be so well hidden, and to have such "massive security" (not otherwise described by GoLocalProv), are ongoing mysteries. The Mystery of the Sackler Family's Opioid Market Power Partly Solved It appears that the Sackler's previously secret ownership of Rhodes enabled them to conceal their market power. Per the FT,

Purdue Pharma has always insisted that its drug OxyContin cannot be considered a prime culprit in the crisis because it accounts for only 1.7 per cent of overall opioid prescriptions in the US. However, Rhodes and Purdue combined accounted for 14.4m opioid prescriptions in 2016, according to figures seen by the FT, giving them a total share of 6 per cent of the US opioid market. That puts the combined Rhodes-Purdue in seventh place among opioid makers by market share, behind Teva, the generic drugmaking giant, and well ahead of other pharma groups that have been named in lawsuits, such as Johnson & Johnson and Endo. 'This further debunks the Sackler family’s whole claim that they are not responsible for the crisis,' said Andrew Kolodny, a professor at Brandeis University who is one of the foremost experts on the US addiction epidemic. He added: 'They have always said, ‘Why is everyone picking on us, we’re only 2 per cent of prescriptions?' A spokesperson for the family declined to comment.

A second GoLocalProv article also revealed that

The billionaire family whose company is being sued by states and cities across the country for their role in creating the opioid crisis is now launching a new recently patented antidote for the drug known as ‘heroine in a pill.’ Both oxycodone and the new drug will be produced side-by-side at the Rhodes Technologies plant -- an affiliate company of Purdue Pharma -- in Coventry, Rhode Island.

To corroborate that,

The U.S. Patent and Trademakr [sic] Office information shows the Rhodes Technologies’ plant in Coventry, RI is assigned the patent for the new drug. Rhodes Technologies is the subsidiary of Purdue Pharma owned by the Sackler family. Calls and emails to Rhodes Technologies and its affiliated marketing company Rhodes Pharma have not been responded to.

Note that the "new drug" that is considered an "antidote" to oxycodone is simply a minor modification of an old drug, buprenorphine, already used to treat opioid addiction. Per Stat News,

The patent concerns a new formulation of buprenorphine, one of the medications shown to help people with opioid addiction. It is already approved by the Food and Drug Administration in tablet and film form, but the patent describes a wafer that could dissolve even faster than existing forms when put under the tongue. The patent says that the faster the treatment dissolves, the less risk there is for diversion.

So now we know more about the power of the Sackler family in the opioid market. The Mystery of Accountability for Deceptive Marketing of Opioids Partly Solved Purdue Pharma has a long and sorry history of deceptive marketing of its narcotics, and has been accused of being a major driver of the ongoing opioid (narcotic) epidemic. The case has recently been very well covered in the media. (Our latest discussion is here, our discussion of Purdue Pharma's first legal troubles, which were fairly anechoic at the time, is here, and all our Purdue Pharma related posts are here.) It appears that the Sackler's concealed ownership of Rhodes Technologies/ Pharma also put them in a position to generate more financial conflicts of interest among physicians which could be used to enable more deceptive marketing. A search of the ProPublica "Dollars for Docs" data base revealed that Rhodes paid $1.43M to physicians from August, 2013, to December, 2016. They paid the most, $121K, to a single physician in Saint Charles, MO. Admittedly, their contribution to physicians' conflicts of interest was modest compared to that of the Sackler's better known Purdue Pharma, $27.9M over the same time period, but it should not be overlooked. So we now know a bit more about the extent Sackler family owned opioid manufacturers enlisted physicians to market their products, at times deceptively. The Mystery of the Sackler Family's Political Influence This is admittedly speculation, but it is possible that Rhodes Technologies/ Pharma was also used as a vehicle for political influence to affect policy making relevant to the Sackler's interests. Purdue Pharma certainly has a track record of such influence. For example, we noted here that Purdue Pharma donated money to the Washington Legal Foundation in support of its efforts to weaken enforcement of laws that could have penalized the company's misbehavior. In particular, the Washington Legal Foundation challenged the responsible corporate officer doctrine that allowed legal action against corporate executives for company wrong-doing that occurred on their watches. Perhaps corporate leaders were worried that its executives could again face penalties, given the Purdue Pharma executives had previously pled guilty to misbranding Oxycontin (look here). Purdue Pharma had also worked with the Washington Legal Foundation to push against guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control that would have potentially reduced opioid prescribing. Furthermore, we noted here that Rudolf Giuliani, now President Donald Trump's lawyer, and previously and probably currently highly influential in the Trump regime, formerly represented Purdue Pharma and had helped mitigate the company's punishment for past mischief, an interesting example of the revolving door from the pharmaceutical industry to government. So I think it is reasonable to say that whether Sackler-owned Rhodes Technologies/ Pharma was also used as a tool to conceal political influence remains a mystery. Summary So we now know that the Sackler Family, owner of Purdue Pharma, also owns a generic pharmaceutical company that manufacturers an important portion of the narcotics sold in the US. Thus the share of the opioid market held by the Sackler family is likely four times larger than was previously apparent . The Sackler's generic drug company is now known to have paid physicians a small but important amount to assist in its marketing of opioids. It is also possible that the generic company also has been used to increase the family's influence over politics and policy that increased opioid sales and hence its responsibility for the opioid epidemic. Thus, it is likely that the Sackler family's responsibility for the ongoing opioid epidemic is larger than was previously appreciated. Why the Sackler's may have concealed their ownership of the company seems obvious. Why the company and its physical plant were so secretive is not so clear. It is unknown whether the family owns similar companies that have not been discovered. It is unknown whether big pharmaceutical and other big health care corporations similarly have concealed beneficial ownership of other companies that could be used to conceal all manners of mischief. Anti-corruption campaigner have pushed to reveal the beneficial ownership of all corporate entities. (Look here for the relevant report from Transparency International.) They have made little headway, so far. The case of the mysteries surrounding Rhodes Technologies/ Pharma should be another impetus to support this campaign. True health care reform requires all sorts of transparency, now particularly including transparency about corporate beneficial ownership. Article source:Health Care Renewal

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succeedly · 7 years ago

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Google Classroom Top New Features to Learn with Alice Keeler

Alice Keeler on episode 217 [A special encore episode] of the 10-Minute Teacher Podcast

From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis

Follow @coolcatteacher on Twitter

Today Alice Keeler @alicekeeler shares the must-try new features of Google Classroom. She also teaches us how we can learn Google Classroom features and hacks even when we don’t have students. A must listen for people using Chromebooks or Google Classroom. This was originally aired over the summer but mentions many features that many people haven’t tried yet. If you’re into Google, take a look at the 100+ Google Resources for Classrooms.

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Listen to the show on iTunes or Stitcher

Stream by clicking here.

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Enhanced Transcript

Transcript for this episode

[Recording starts 0:00:00]

The Ten-minute Teacher podcast with Vicki Davis. Every weekday you’ll learn powerful practical ways to be a more remarkable teacher today.

VICKI: Today, we’re talking with my favorite Google Classroom guru, Alice Keeler. @alicekeeler

And, Alice, you know, there’s some features or some awesome things in Google Classroom http://ift.tt/1zvDpJP that teachers really kind of need to get familiar with over the summer. But how do we start? I mean, how do we know what to look for? Because there’s so much in Google Classroom?

ALICE: There is so much in Google Classroom, and at the same time there is so little in Google Classroom; which is really the genius of Google Classroom is that it’s so simple. So the first thing to look for is three dots. And that’s really true in any practice. I mean, you get excited when you see a tiny triangle or three dots, because that’s going to tell you there’s more features or more things to look at. So when you create an assignment in Google Classroom, one of the things you’ll notice is up in the upper hand corner of that assignment are three dots. Now, this is a nerdy brag. When you click on those three dots, the bottom option on there is to copy link. And that was my idea. And so, of course, I think it’s a really good idea to help explore Google Classroom because it allows you to connect outside of Google Classroom a little bit more easily. If you’re not strictly using Google Classroom, that’s how you can combine, say, Schoology and Google Classroom is by copying the link from the assignment and pasting that link into, say, Schoology or whatever other platform you’re using.

[00:02:00]

Or, when you want to send out an email or invite others to look at it, that copy link is really perfect. And it also loops students right back into like, hey, let’s come back and look at this assignment again.

One of the things that we noticed is that students perceive a lot of their work as busy work. Well, it’s not busy work, but why do they think it is? Because we do the assignment, we get points, and then we move on to something else. And, really, with the logistics of paper, that’s how we had to do it. So when you look at Google Classroom like, how can I keep coming back? How can we make this a cycle of learning, that students feel like they have an opportunity to make a mistake, get some feedback, and come back and work on it some more? Because students really do want to learn. So a great way to do that is to copy the link to an assignment that students have worked on and later ask students to go back and revisit it, now that feedback has been posted. So look for those three dots in Google Classroom as places where you can get more options.

VICKI: Awesome.

ALICE: The other thing is in Google Classroom, in the bottom left-hand corner is a little question mark. And when you click on that question mark, it says some awesome things. It says, what’s new? That’s the very first thing. So if you want to know new things to explore, Google makes it really easy for you to find some new features and things for your trial. But I have to warn you; a lot of things are kind of hidden and they don’t announce them, and they’re just kind of sneaking a few features here and there. And all the features are always teacher-requested.

VICKI: Shameless plug here. Tell us where we find out your Google Classroom resources. Because I’m telling everybody they’re awesome, so it’s not a shameless plug; it’s really worth it.

ALICE: Thank you. Appreciate that. Well, first, obviously, I have books. So if you go on to Amazon and look up either Google Classroom or Alice Keeler, I have 50 Things You Can Do with Google Classroom and 50 Things to Go Further with Google Classroom. But if you just go to my website, alicekeeler.com, right up at the top, I have a link that will filter for my Google Classroom posts. Or you can go http://ift.tt/1WdEMJh.

VICKI: Cool. Okay, what other features do we need to try out or learn this summer?

ALICE: I’ll tell you; my new favorite thing, really, is the return count in Google Classroom.

[00:04:00]

Now, it’s been a feature on the app for a little while, but they finally brought it to the desktop version or the Chrome version. And so what you see is it says done and not done when students have or haven’t completed work. But now when you return work, it now shows you the number that you have returned, the number that is done, and the number that’s not done. And why that’s particularly awesome is I don’t use Google Classroom to save trees. I didn’t get into teaching for trees; I got into it for kids. And so what makes learning better is feedback and interacting with students. And the faster I can interact with students, the more motivated they are, the more they care about my class. So when I return work, I know that I’ve looked at it, or I’ve at least seen who’s done something, whether or not I’ve graded it or not.

If students look at it after that point, then it’s marked as done, and it counts on the done count. So I know that those two students, if the number was two for done, need to have that worked looked at. And it’s not mixed in with students I’ve already looked at. That was always a little bit of a frustration; I look at a list of student work, and then I have to try and figure out later, well, who’s done it since I looked at it? So if I return first, I can click on that too and it shows me only those two students who have done it since I last looked at it. And that helps me to respond to students faster. And that makes learning better.

VICKI: Oh, and it just makes life easier, doesn’t it?

ALICE: It so does. So when today they ask me, why are you returning this? Because I’m telling you; I have seen it, I looked at it, I care about it, I’m not ignoring it.

VICKI: Awesome. And then you can have that back in fourth. Because, honestly, I mean, when teachers grade a first draft, I kind of wonder, well, what’s the point? Because the real learning goes on between draft one and draft seven or eight or nine, you know.

ALICE: So true. Hands down; my favorite feature of Google Classroom is private comments. And I notice a lot of teachers aren’t aware that that’s there.

[00:06:00]

So the way to find it is to click on the assignment title of any assignment, and on the left hand side you’ll see a roster of students, and click on any student’s name, and you’ll see on the right hand side is a place to do private comments. But, Vicki, it’s not a comment; it’s a conversation. And that’s where learning really happens, is when students interact with you. And let’s look at the research. Really, one of the most important and valuable things in the classroom is a highly qualified teacher. And so when you are interacting with students, that is going to be some of those things that really impact learning the most, because, again, it’s a conversation not just a comment that I’m writing on the side of a kid’s paper. And that allows students to say, I don’t understand this, or can you explain this further, or for you to give some really detailed information that students can then build on.

VICKI: I did not know that feature was there. So do we have any other features that you think they should try this summer?

ALICE: Well, there’s a new feature that I just discovered. And, again, I’ve mentioned there’s like some little hidden things. So when I go into the question mark and it says what’s new, this is not on the list. In the class comments; so when I post an assignment, what’s really cool is that we’re able to be a community of learners. The burden of feedback is not always on me. When a kid asks a question, he can ask the class. So there’s that class comment on every assignment where students can write a comment or a question or something like that. Now, when you hover over another student’s comment, a little reply swoopy shows up. And when you click on the reply swoopy – I don’t know if that’s a technical word; so it’s called a plus mention. And you can do plus mentions in comments in Google Docs and things you’ve been able to do that. And it’s lesser known maybe in Google Classroom. But it puts plus, and then that person’s email address for you so that the reply is directed towards that specific person who posted the question. Now, it’s always been an awesome feature, but my problem always has been, I don’t have everyone’s email address memorized. So how do I do a plus mention when I don’t know their email?

[00:08:00]

So this has now solved that problem for me so nicely, is when I see a comment, or when a peer sees a peer’s comment and they hover over the comment in the class comments, the reply swoopy will automatically add the plus mention. So another great way for us to continue interacting.

VICKI: So as we finish up; you know, one of the challenges that teachers have is they want to play with these features over the summer, but they don’t have a class to play with. Do you have a solution for that?

ALICE: That one is a toughie. But, you know, we all have a hobby or something we’re interested in, and a new feature in Google Classroom is now people can create a classroom with Gmail and people can join classroom with Gmail. Now, that means it’s @gmail.com. Even though our school accounts are Gmail accounts, they’re not @gmail.com accounts. So go to gmail.com and log in and then go to classroom.google.com; and if teachers would create a Google Classroom through their Gmail account, they can actually invite peers and friends, just people on Facebook that they know, to say, I’m doing a little training, just trying some stuff out over the summer, who wants to join in. And so now all their friends can try it out with them in a safe environment, because they’re not damaging kids trying to figure something out. I’m just joking; of course, you wouldn’t be damaging kids by trying something out. Try something out. But you’re not doing grades and some new things on that. So using the Gmail account is a really nice way over the summer for teachers to try out some new assignment types with people they know and love.

VICKI: So we’ve gotten lots of wonderful ideas of things to try. We’ve got a new resource for you. I’ll put her books in the show notes. Follow Alice Keeler. I learn from her. She’s kind of my Google Classroom go-to person. So we’ve given you lots of ideas for the summer. So get out there, try some new things, and be remarkable.

ALICE: Absolutely.

VICKI: On June 16th, we’ll finish up season one of the Ten-minute Teacher. So to celebrate, we’ve partnered with one of my favorite robots for teaching coding – Dash and Dot from Wonder Workshop.

[00:10:00]

Go to http://ift.tt/2rZ88GW and enter to win your very own Wonder Pack from Wonder Workshop. And to learn more about how you can use Dash and Dot to teach programing to kids, aged, kindergarten and up.

Thank you for listening to the Ten-minute Teacher Podcast. You can download the show notes and see the archive at http://ift.tt/2quX4Nu. Never stop learning.

[End of Audio 0:10:32]

Bio as submitted

Alice Keeler taught high school math for 14 years and now teaches teachers in the credential program at California State University Fresno. Alice is a Google Certified Innovator and co-author of the books “50 Things You Can Do With Google Classroom,” “50 Things to Go Further with Google Classroom: A Student-Centered Approach,” “Teaching Math with Google Apps,” “Ditch That Homework,” and “Google Apps for Littles.” Alice has a popular EdTech blog http://alicekeeler.com and her Google Classroom posts can be found at http://ift.tt/1WdEMJh

Blog: http://alicekeeler.com/

Twitter:@alicekeeler

Disclosure of Material Connection: I mention an affiliate in the podcast episode. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.” This company has no impact on the editorial content of the show.

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