#as u may know i tend to prefer when actors get to talk about their acting process/what work they put into it etc

[equalseleventhirds]

Okay so this is GM anon, to answer your questions: as a friend group we definitly lean towards sci-fi and adventure, as in we enjoy movies in those genres so we know and enjoy the conventions thereof. Horror too, but in the style of Scream watch-alongs, or watching scary movies to make fun of them (and hide that you're feeling creeped out) no actual like gore or serious contemplative horror. I don't really know if it's better to go with more serious of more silly games, I was def looking at the more silly stuff bc the serious ones feel really awkward to me (but that might be informed by the fact that most serious RPG's I've heard are longform? The actors get really deep and attatched to their characters and I can't really picture feeling that intense? But maybe I'm just biased to think that short games are always more comedic and silly?). I think I'd prefer more rules/guided games to start with, I think it'll help with getting started and not freezing up when you can't think of something. I think puzzle games or like a heist or mystery sound great! Social interaction too, that's def one of the plus points of RPG's and games over watching something, that you're spending the whole time talking to eachother. Tbh I really don't know what would be best to focus on, I'm just spitballing, I just think something with a clear goal. We usually have at least a couple of hours time together, but it's not necessary for a game to last that whole time. Thank you so much for taking the time to do this!! I'm in a different timezone, it's actually pretty late for me so if I don't answer any follow up questions, it's bc I'm sleeping LOL

hi again gm anon! glad u did not wait up for me bcos it took me a while (i have...... many games), but here is a handful of recs for you!

first up, i think generally caltrop core games might be p good for a beginner; it's a very simple d4 system with very structured rules (how much depends on which game, but generally it's turn-based with set actions to choose from). there's still room for roleplaying & improv ofc, but it's easy to keep a handle on the table. there's been a caltrop core game jam with lots of submissions before, and ofc u can browse the tag on itch, but something like crystal souls or cursed confections might be fun for your group!

futuristic scifi 'group of thieves/scoundrels/rebels/etc do a mission' games are also very popular (i own like........ 20? 30? some are cyberpunk and some are spaceships and just. lot of em.) and also generally have a decent structure to work with (altho less turn-based than caltrop core, usually). a lot of them are geared towards longer campaigns, but can be done as a one-shot if you ignore some of the between-missions stuff. or do it as a post-mission cooldown thing. u kno. (lots of them are sorta forged in the dark based, but the slightly less complex ones i think are good for beginners; fitd can get really involved, but there are also simplified ones!)

you might enjoy offworlders, off the grid: resurgence, xanadu, subway runners, what's so awesome about hacking the planet, weasel overdrive, make our own heaven, bubblegum wizards 2, or dwindle.

and finally, i do love a dungeon crawl; keeps everything to a relatively small & defined space, but you can get weird with it (npcs in a dungeon? yeah! timespace fabric folding in a dungeon? yeah!) and it's a place to do all the puzzles and riddles and inexplicable creature encounters you generally don't get a chance for in a 'here you are in A World' sorta game. also, easy to keep short (my game sessions tend to run 4+ hours for oneshots, but in a dungeon crawl you can just. skip to the last room lmao.) games designed for dungeon crawling tend to lean more horror (if they don't lean..... d&d, basically), but i tried to pick ones where you can either take out most horror elements, or choose to play them lighthearted and chill/campy. you may like crwlr, the dark below, or the empty house.

.......and that's some basic game recs for your group; should be fine for 3-4 players, or even for one-on-one play if you can't get everyone together, altho that's not the ideal. as far as games specifically designed as two-player games, i know there are a bunch of them on itch, but most of them are gmless (usually asymmetrical gmless, but still gmless), and many of them lean heavily emotional (altho some are silly!). i'm not sure if you have different requirements in mind for a two-player game; lmk and i'll see what i can do? altho probably not until after this weekend, i got some stuff to work on for school T_T (this is....... part of why i'm not actively looking to gm rn, even tho i waaaaaant to. too many school.)

oh also podcasts! i know there's more than this around, but you can always check out oneshotpod for shortform games of many kinds! international podcast month also has some oneshot ttrpg episodes; i gmed a game of dwindle this year that was lots of fun! i'll poke around for more sometime, but for now i rly gotta get some sleep lol.

[mejomonster]

i’m down the rabbit hole a bit, ran into an interview. this one is really interesting for the more in depth discussion about acting

[veenussposts]

A = Affection (How affectionate are they? How do they show affection?)

At the beginning of your relationship, Gunhak was quite cautious around you and always asked you with a blush on his cheeks if he could take your hand or kiss your cheek. Now, his hand is always resting on your waist and he kisses you whenever he has a chance. But his most notable display of affection is when he bites your shoulders and cheeks.

B = Beginning (How would the relationship start?)

You were an actor and you were hired to act in Oneus' new music video. On the recording set, you met them and Gunhak couldn't take his eyes off you, but since he was very shy he didn't dare to speak to you until Dongju got tired of his behavior and pushed him with all his strength towards you, causing him to fall into your arms. From then on, your relationship slowly flowed into dating, and all thanks to Dongju.

C = Cuddles (Do they like to cuddle? How would they cuddle?)

Your cuddles are his weakness. If he could spend the rest of his days curled up in the comfort of your arms he would do it without thinking twice.

D = Domestic (Do they want to settle down? How are they at cooking and cleaning?)

After spending a lot of time with you and making sure you were the one, the idea of having a place to call home with you brought a beautiful sensation to his chest. Gunhak isn't very good at cooking, he can do basic things, but occasionally he likes to learn new recipes to surprise you. Regarding cleaning, each one of you has your tasks and he always tries to do his best for you and to keep the house in order.

E = Ending (If they had to break up with their partner, how would they do it?)

He would break up with you only if you no longer feel the same for him as before or because he thinks you deserve someone better who can give you all the attention you deserve and that sometimes he can't give you. At the time of the confrontation, he would be the kindest and sweetest person with you since, although things can no longer continue, he really appreciates all the moments lived by your side and all the times you made him happy.

F = Fiancé(e) (How do they feel about commitment? How quick would they want to get married?)

Putting a ring on your finger and calling you his husband is one of his greatest goals with you, but due to your jobs, he doesn't think his dream will be fulfilled in the near future. Because of this, Gunhak gave you a promise ring, promising you that at some point in your lives he would marry you.

G = Gentle (How gentle are they, both physically and emotionally?)

He is the kindest person you have ever met in your life. He always speaks in his soft voice when both of you are sharing an intimate moment and his caresses are very delicate as if you were going to break at any moment. He is always there for you when you start having conflicting emotions, being the wall to lean on when you think you can no longer stand for yourself.

H = Hugs (Do they like hugs? How often do they do it? What are their hugs like?)

His hands are most of the time on your waist or hips, and most of the time, he ends up hugging you. His hugs feel like being surrounded by a warm blanket on a winter day, like coming home after a tiring day or like sleeping in your freshly made bed after taking a calming shower. Their hugs are comfortable, relaxing, and full of love.

I = I love you (How fast do they say the L-word?)

The first time he said I love you was on the night of your first anniversary. You were lying on his bed, looking into each other's eyes as he caressed your cheek with his knuckles when the famous three words came out as a sweet symphony from his lips.

J = Jealousy (How jealous do they get? What do they do when they’re jealous?)

It's very rare that Gunhak gets jealous, he really trusts you and that trust doesn't break easily, but like anyone, he has his moments. When he's jealous his answers are simple, his voice gets lower than normal and his eyes avoid yours because inside him he knows that you would never do something to hurt him and he feels ashamed of his behavior. But after a big talk, a million apologies, and a lot of kisses, Gunhak is your teddy bear again.

K = Kisses (What are their kisses like? Where do they like to kiss you? Where do they like to be kissed?)

Lowkey loves to kiss you in general, the feeling of his lips against your skin is magnificent anywhere, but his favorite place to kiss you is the nape of your neck. The same is the other way around, he doesn't have a preferred place where you kiss him but if he had to choose a place it would be his nose, he can never help but blush and feel shy when you do it.

L = Little ones (How are they around children?)

HE LOVES CHILDREN. Gunhak is a totally different person when he is around children, his eyes shine, his shyness increases and he gets excited just thinking he can play with them.

M = Morning (How are mornings spent with them?)

Depends on the day. In times of work, when he prepares for a new album and you have a new series to record, you don't have much time to be in bed together but you always wake up an hour early so you can have breakfast together in peace. When you both don't have to work, it's almost impossible to get out of bed because Gunhak is hugging you like a koala.

N = Night (How are nights spent with them?)

First, you cook dinner together and then eat it curled up on the sofa while watching a movie. However, the best part of the night is when, before bedtime, both of you take a bath together with music and talk about your day.

O = Open (When would they start revealing things about themselves? Do they say everything all at once or wait a while to reveal things slowly?)

Little by little, once he already trusts you.

P = Patience (How easily angered are they?)

It's very difficult, really, get Gunhak angry. He may get a little upset with you for something but he's never gotten mad at you or has gotten to the point of yelling at you and never would.

Q = Quizzes (How much would they remember about you? Do they remember every little detail you mention in passing or do they kind of forget everything?)

Gunhak remembers every detail of the things that are really important to you and those things that you really don't like, but the rest sometimes lingers for a while in his memory and then gets lost.

R = Remember (What is their favorite moment in your relationship?)

Your first time together. That moment after a long time, under the moonlight that filtered through the window, where you finally were one, was something that he will never be able to forget, he will never be able to forget the intimacy and love for the other that your bodies radiated that night.

S = Security (How protective are they? How would they protect you? How would they like to be protected?)

You are one of the most important people in his life so yes, he is very protective of you. He is always aware that nothing happens to you when you accompany him to public places with many people, that you eat all your meals, drink water, and rest your eight hours per day. Every time you make a dangerous scene and you don't have a double to do it for you, his heart is in his throat all the time. On the other hand, you are not as protective of him or at least you don't express it in words like Gunhak, but he loves the subtle way you do it such as putting yourself in front of him so that the sun doesn't bother him or when you put a blanket on him and take him to bed when he stays up late writing new songs.

T = Try (How much effort would they put into dates, anniversaries, gifts, everyday tasks?)

Since not every day you have the opportunity to have a date, Gunhak does everything in his power to make each date unforgettable, he even asks his friends for help. But sometimes, as much as he does his best, things don't always go as expected. Once, a group of fans recognized you during a walk on the Han River, and, from one moment to the other, both of you were running to hide. Regard to gifts, he prefers to make them himself, such as writing a song for you rather than buying something, but if you stare at something in a store for a long time, Gunhak will consider it.

U = Ugly (What would be some bad habits of theirs?)

For you, his worst habit is when he stays up all night composing songs. He tends to lose track of time and the things around him when he is doing what he loves so much, and sometimes that breaks your patience because he doesn't take proper care of himself. But with the passage of time, Gunhak has learned to control it and from time to time you accompany him.

V = Vanity (How concerned are they with their looks? Do your looks bother them?)

Looking good and being fit is a big part of his job as an Idol so most of the time he is surrounded by stylists and makeup artists who take care of his looks but, beyond that, when he's in your home Gunhak is... Gunhak. He wears a comfortable outfit (not too elegant and not too scruffy), sneakers, and just a bit of makeup.

Absolutely not, it doesn't bother him because you will always be perfect in his eyes. But, if he has to speak honestly, he loves when you take off all your makeup after a recording, showing your face as it is, and then putting on wide and comfortable clothes since it means that you trust him and you are not ashamed to show you how you really are around him.

W = Whole (Would they feel incomplete without you?)

Gunhak thinks that each person is complete by themselves and that he doesn't need anyone else to be wonderful, but that doesn't mean that he feels lonely and that he misses you every time you stay away from him for a long time. He knows that he can be complete and perfect without you but he prefers a thousand times more to be perfect with you by his side so you two can shine together (if that makes sense)

X = Xtra (A random headcanon for them.)

Once, Gunhak and his groupmates were watching your last series called "Through time". And, at one point in the last chapter, when everyone thought you were going to have a nice and happy ending, your character passes away leaving an open and painful ending to the story. Everyone, absolutely all the members cried but Gunhak felt his heart break after seeing that scene. That same night, when the two of you met in the dorm, Gunhak didn't detach for a second from you and didn't stop saying how much he loved you.

Y = Yuck (What are some things they wouldn’t like, either in general or in a partner?)

A partner who is rude to the people around them, even if they are not rude to him, is a big no for him. Kindness, humility, and respect are important to Gunhak and someone who doesn't have them is not a person with whom he would like to share his life.

Z = Zzz (What is a sleep habit of theirs? Does it change around a partner?)

When he sleeps alone Gunhak has no specific habit, he only snores a little, but nothing out of the ordinary. When he's with you, he has the habit of tangling his legs with yours and resting his icy feet on yours.

[cokestuff-blog1]

Unless you live under a rock, we all know what Coca Cola is. It is the world’s leading soft drink and sells in more than 200 countries around the world. Only two countries do not sell Coca Cola, those countries are obviously Cuba and North Korea. Must be hard to live in a world without Coca Cola, right?

Want to know an interesting fact? Coca Cola’s logo is familiar to people all around the world, its font its unmistakable in almost any language. 94% of people knows the red & white log. It’s one of the brands with most recognition in the world.

This beverage is very popular in Mexico, and it’s the leading country in per capita consumption. 80% of Coca Cola’s profit comes from outside the USA.

The marketing strategy they use helps them target a specific segment and developing products. Coca Cola keeps reminding us that we want a nice and cold soda, do you see what they are doing? Their strategy is so good that we are constantly thinking that we want a nice and cold soda, even though our idea of its taste is better than the actual soda. The thing is, they train our brains to associate Coca Cola with a good feeling, with happiness, friends, family, love, etc. rather than the actual beverage. They are geniuses! They now changed their slogan to “Taste the feeling”.

You may remember other techniques they used for marketing which were very successful. For example: the “share a coke” campaign where they put people’s names in the bottles/cans so now the customers could feel closer and more related to the brand. As a spinoff of that campaign, the brand started to put song lyrics on the bottles, now they are telling us to share a coke and a song. So, in summary they are once again reminding us in a creative way that we in fact want one of its beverages.

Moving on from all the facts and interesting things about Coca Cola. In this business case, we are concentrating on Coca Cola’s business model in Great Britain. The business environment in this country is mainly known for its communication and business etiquette.

When we talk about business environment, we mean all the factors that can affect the company’s operation and function. It can be social, political, relations, economic factors, etc. In the case of Great Britain, its recommended to understand the culture and the people when doing businesses. A social factor that can affect businesses, could be that people in the UK are very private and very concerned with personal space. They may take things you do or say in an offensive manner, so your communication style is important when talking to people. For instance, we as Mexicans are very touchy with people, even when doing businesses, we tend to talk or act in a very comfortable way, like greeting people with a kiss on the cheek, handshakes, hugs, etc. In the UK this can be misinterpreted, British people value people’s kindness and courtesy above everything.

Thanks to all the different trade agreements Coca Cola is able to sell its products in different countries. For example, the United States-Mexico-Canada agreement (USMCA), before known as NAFTA, enabled stores in Latin America to replace US coke with Mexican Coke and importing legally. The reason for this is that Mexican coke is sweetened with cane sugar, rather than corn syrup, which according to most people, Mexican coke tastes better.

This is what I mean when I talk about coca cola adjusting its beverages depending on the region and the culture. Coca Cola uses cluster analysis for segmentations of consumers, products, stores, etc. Similar products can be clustered into segments that are based on specific characteristics, such as flavor.

On this specific case, the way they wanted to approach their consumers from Great Britain, was through football. They talk about their communications skills and their focus in this sport to connect with people. Coca Cola mainly focuses in big events such as the World Cup and Champions League. This way they can create strong relationships with their clients by sharing values and interests such as football. They aim to inspire everyone to be active and have a healthy lifestyle by participating in sports.

The company’s marketing strategy claims they are not acting much like a sponsor, but rather as an insider who promotes playing and watching sports.

As an organization, Coca Cola understand that it is very important to be well informed and professional when wanting to connect with your customers, this is the reason the company has mastered that area.

Diversity is an important topic regarding Coca Cola, it’s the heart of its business. They are always trying to create an environment that emphasizes equality. They constantly come up with different campaigns / ads / commercials which celebrates people and diversity. For example, “A Coke is a Coke” ad which points out the fact that Cola Cola is for everyone, and its meant to bring people together regardless of race, gender, religion, culture, etc. and acknowledge and toast to their differences over a cold coke. Another example of Coca Cola’s commercial commemorating diversity is the ad “It’s beautiful” featured by different actors singing “America the Beautiful” in seven different languages. And last, but not least, the ad I’m about to talk about its one of the world’s most famous ads, and I would say it’s my personal favorite. This ad is a legacy, and the impact it had back in the 70’s was just amazing. Yes, I am talking about “Hilltop – I’d like to buy the world a coke”. I get chills when I talk about this. In this commercial Coca Cola gathered people from all types, shapes and colors to sing at a hilltop in Italy. This ad portrayed a positive message of hope and love for everyone. It represents optimism and that exact moment that bonds people together. The scene of all these people united holding their coke bottles and singing this melody was very moving to many people at that difficult time. There was the Vietnam War going on and it was at its worst point, there were interracial conflicts happening. So, Coca Cola made a call to everyone to be united and stop the hate. It invited everyone to share a coke in a creative way and most importantly they incorporated the company’s values of inclusion as well.

Although, Coca Cola is aimed at anyone, their demographics say the key markets for the company are Mexico, Brazil, China and Japan. And key consumers are ages 24 and under (there is expected a 50% increase in this demographic) and people age 45 - over 65.

F U N  F A C T S

Did you know the number of servings of Coca Cola products that are consumed around the word on the everyday basis is: 1.7 billion?

The company makes so much money that its incoming revenue every year is greater than 120 countries where coke is sold.

The estimated market value of Coca Cola is at $74 billion.

Coca Cola owns 2.8 million vending machines around the world.

 The average Mexican drinks around 728 servings of coke products during the year.

Metal suppliers are also a demographic for Coca Cola, since the company uses 300,000 tons of aluminum to produce cans.

Health concerned consumers are also a demographic for the company, it offers more than a thousand kinds of juice drinks.

19% of Americans don’t keep track of the amount of sugar they consume daily.

28% of Americans drink one serving a day, 20% drink two or more servings, 7% drink 4 or more servings every day. (Guilty confession: I think I am one of those people, I love coke so much even though is not great for your health. Ups).

Diet Coke has a larger market in the United States than Pepsi.

A blind taste test was made where Pepsi won, but people still prefer to buy Coca Cola. This means that its marketing is so great, that even though it loses in blind taste tests, the brain is trained to want it more than Pepsi. If you think about it, they are kind of controlling us, huh? We just don’t realize it.

 Coca Cola policies and programs share a common goal: to operate in a responsible, productive and profitable way. Sometimes political factor like taxes, trade restrictions, government regulations, tariffs, economies, etc. can affect the company. All these elements need to be considered because they vary in every country, so Coca Cola must examine their policies for every new place they open a business. For example, an economic factor could be in poor or underdeveloped country, since it affects the price of the products.

[defenestrata]

Jiwon (the only enfp I will stan 👀) + all

you just want me dead. also if anyone is interested first thank u sm i love u ur my new best friend. and secondly here’s the pinterest with all my babes discussed so far on it !! brunner is erich, kim is hyeonjin and choi is jiwon. 

QUESTIONS FOR YOUR OCs

What’s the maximum amount of time your character can sit still with nothing to do?

like three seconds ? jiwon has the attention span of a goldfish and must be constantly entertained otherwise he’ll die

How easy is it for your character to laugh?

so, so, so easy ! my boy is a ray of sunshine. he’s laughing at his own goddamn joke before he even tells it.

How do they put themselves to bed at night (reading, singing, thinking?)

listen ? whale songs and all that cutesy stuff ? for losers. if you’re a real alpha you surf youtube for eight hours till your eyes straight up don’t work anymore.

How easy is it to earn their trust?

surprisingly difficult. jiwon has a big circle of acquaintances that he’ll do a lot of things for but if you want to know the man’s deepest darkest insecurities you won’t get them very easily. he has only four or so friends that he would trust that shit to.

How easy is it to earn their mistrust?

again, not very easy. jiwon is not very good at cutting people out, and he tends to keep giving people second chances to sully his trust again and again. save this fool.

Do they consider laws flexible, or immovable?

laws are generally there for a reason, and jiwon respects most of them. and the fact that they exist makes it all the more fun for him to try and break some of the lesser ones like speeding laws. on a scale of 0 meaning inflexible to 10 meaning ‘a light suggestion’, jiwon considers laws to be a 6. 

What triggers nostalgia for them, most often? Do they enjoy that feeling?

meeting younger people and generally being in environments previously visited may sometimes trigger a feeling of nostalgia in him. but this isn’t very frequent. he’s always thinking about the new, not the old. the rare times he does experience nostalgia, he can get kind of mournful about it — where did the good old days go.

What were they told to stop/start doing most often as a child?

child jiwon was louder and more confrontational than adult jiwon. one story i am absolutely convinced happened was that he was painting in the first grade when the teacher came up to him, looked at his work and said ‘it’s wonderful but don’t you think it needs more colour?’ so my man jc dipped his fingers in paint and held her cheeks saying ‘you need more colour!’ so, yeah, he definitely was told to be nicer and more respectful.

Do they swear? Do they remember their first swear word?

jiwon swears without abandon, but doesn’t have a natural inclination towards especially vulgar words. his first swear word was probably 년 ( equivalent of bitch ). likely directed at his sister.

What lie do they most frequently remember telling? Does it haunt them?

jiwon’s parents and sister are pretty liberal, and he’s managed to get his way without offending them too much. he’s only ever frequently lied to teachers about work and skipping classes, and occasionally to the house warden about why his window was open, and why so many stones were thrown at the finley hall down the street. no, it absolutely doesn’t haunt him; it’s too insignificant.

How do they cope with confusion (seek clarification, pretend they understand, etc)?

ask. ask like sixty questions. sometimes he’ll play devil’s advocate and poke holes in people’s knowledge. just as a test, you know.

How do they deal with an itch found in a place they can’t quite reach?

you know how baloo in the jungle book rubs against a tree when his back itches. yeah. he tries to make it look natural. 

What color do they think they look best in? Do they actually look best in that color?

i mean, jiwon’s face and body ensures that he looks good in any colour. and he also believes he looks good in any colour. 

What animal do they fear most?

listen. jiwon doesn’t trust horses. back when he was 14 or so, he wanted to learn to ride and for some reason the horses didn’t take to his absolutely irresistible charm. the one called johnny knocked him off after less than ten seconds. other than that he’s also not a fan of rats and crows.

How do they speak? Is what they say usually thought of on the spot, or do they rehearse it in their mind first?

jiwon speaks with ease, he’s fluent in the language of flattery and charm. he hates to put too much thought it what he says, and can end up mumbling a lot if he’s distracted. 

What makes their stomach turn?

the idea that one day he’ll have to start wearing suits and talking to shareholders and live a normal, boring working life. oh, and rollercoasters and oysters. 

Are they easily embarrassed?

jiwon is near impossible to embarass. his confidence in himself mixed with a natural talent at shrugging what may even be serious things off as jokes enables him to take everything in his stride. compliment him ? he’s flattered. insult him ? he’s unbothered. upload a picture of him spongebob underpants on twitter ? he’ll retweet with 😍.

What embarrasses them?

the only thing that might embarass him to any degree is being reprimanded in public. he has an image as a good boy gone bad with a heart of gold that’s he’s cultivated in the years he’s been on social media. so interrupting that with a lecture about responsibility in public ? no thanks. 

What is their favorite number?

10. a perfect score, his birthday, just a nice number. 

If they were asked to explain the difference between romantic and platonic or familial love, how would they do so?

jiwon doesn’t think about this much, but he doesn’t make a big difference between platonic and familial love. his best friends are family, and his sister is his best, best friend. he figures that romantic love and sexual attraction are correlated (which of course isn’t really true but). aka, if you wouldn’t mind banging them, you’re probably in romantic love.  

Why do they get up in the morning?

to upload a good morning ‘woke up like this’ selfie, duh. nah but on a more serious note — because each day is a day that he’s gonna have fun, right ? wrong.

How does jealousy manifest itself in them (they become possessive, they become aloof, etc)?

jealous jiwon is … messy. the last time jiwon got jealous was about his girlfriend in high school, and he made it a point to act extremely romantic and charming whenever rivals for her affection were around. that, and he was remarkably cruel with anyone he considered so. if he was ignored, he’d get mopey. 

How does envy manifest itself in them (they take what they want, they become resentful, etc)?

jiwon doesn’t feel envy one goddamn bit. life is so good, other people envy him. be a better bitch not a bitter bitch, is his motto. of course, it’s easier to be better when you’re the one with a hundred million wons to your name. 

Is sex something that they’re comfortable speaking about? To whom?

again, liberal family. jiwon has no trouble talking about sex. with his friend vicki from school, with hyeonjin (although he’d rather not hear), with anyone but family (for obvious reasons). he gets annoyed about the conservatism of society on the topic, especially among the elder generation. 

What are their thoughts on marriage?

marriage is — okay. he still feels way too young to be even thinking about marrying, but he’s not averse to the idea. 

What is their preferred mode of transportation?

jiwon’s very glad you asked. in the spring of his 19th year, god aka his father got him a ducati panigale bike to celebrate his graduation. that baby is his goddamn pride and joy, and he zooms everywhere he can on it. the only problem is that it’s constantly on and off — every time his mother hears of a new motorcycle accident she forbids its use. 

What causes them to feel dread?

the future in general. realising that he’s going to have to buckle down after college. also, i don’t know about you, but have you noticed that hyeonjin’s acting really weird lately ? like, he barely talks on the phone anymore, looks exhausted, goes out to strange places at night. weird. hope he’s okay. 

Would they prefer a lie over an unpleasant truth?

jiwon doesn’t like being lied to, period. hypocrite that he is, he has no trouble telling white lies to cover his ass. but, telling a lie to cover something unpleasant — he’d rather not. it’s him who’s going to deal with consequences if the truth comes out.  

Do they usually live up to their own ideals?

well, his ideal, so to speak, would be a legendary actor/musician with millions of adoring fans around the world. so no, he hasn’t really gotten to that point yet but he’s getting there, chill. 

Who do they most regret meeting? 

well, nobody. #noregrets. actually no there was this one bitch in 9th grade who used to keep calling him oppa even when he told her to quit —

Who are they the most glad to have met?

hyeonjin. best friends since they were like seven. haven’t ever had a major argument. plenty of minor ones, but what do you do. vicki, a closeted lesbian pal for whom jiwon was a beard for a couple of months. she’s amazing. 

Do they have a go-to story in conversation? Or a joke? 

at least six hundred. there was the time that he crashed his bike at his country club. another time that he almost died while on a glass bridge in the mountains in china. oh, how about that time that he was almost scouted for uh…. adult movies ? not exactly the talent range he was intending to go for.  

Could they be considered lazy?

if jiwon doesn’t want to do something, he won’t. and that’s the tea. he’ll get it done through a third party, or just let it die until he finishes it in a 2 am red bull panic. 

How hard is it for them to shake a sense of guilt?

obviously depends on the severity of the event, but in general — jiwon’s pretty good at moving on from things. he’s especially good at changing subject and throwing himself into something new, forgetting the past entirely. 

How do they treat the things their friends come to them excited about? Are they supportive?

ehhhhh a catch here. if you’re close to him, yes, he will try to be excited for you. but you can’t really force him to be excited about anything. if you start talking about how absolutely mindblowing axolotls are, he’ll nod and zone out. 

Do they actively seek romance, or do they wait for it to fall into their lap?

seek out. life’s too short for anything else. 

Do they have a system for remembering names, long lists of numbers, things that need to go in a certain order (like anagrams, putting things to melodies, etc)?

my man makes little jingles about everything. it’s honestly pretty annoying at this point. his magnum opus would have to be the english conjugation table rap. it was popular at his old school for months.

What memory do they revisit the most often?

memories are kind of fuzzy with him, he doesn’t remember the details of places as much as he does the feeling of them. some select memories are of dance nights at ketterbridge ( his english boarding school ) and holidays in jeju, kyoto, bangkok and hawaii. what can i say, he’s a big fan of beaches. 

How easy is it for them to ignore flaws in other people?

fairly easy. unless he’s being especially catty, which he certainly can be, people’s flaws don’t matter to him. he’ll make up for them. and if they share flaws ? too bad. the world will have to deal. 

How sensitive are they to their own flaws?

not much, no. i’d say his biggest flaw is detachment from reality and his sheltered lifestyle. he doesn’t know how to do anything on his own. if he was abandoned somewhere (not even like a deserted island, i’m talking apartment in seoul) he’d die. but because it’s unlikely he’ll ever have to be alone ( devil emoji at least that’s what he thinks ) he doesn’t really care about his own flaws.

How do they feel about children?

on surface level, jiwon looks amazing with kids. they’re funny, he’s funny, they’re reckless and silly, he’s reckless and silly. but jiwon would be an awful, awful father, and he knows it. handling a kid is too much work, he doesn’t like hanging with them, because it’s like hanging with slightly less capable clones. 

How badly do they want to reach their end goal?

here’s the thing. his end goal is to become a legendary actor/musician. the path he chooses to follow to get there is still really unclear in his head — he has an impression that it’ll just happen. 

If someone asked them to explain their sexuality, how would they do so?

jiwon would just say he likes cute girls, and because all girls are cute, he likes all girls. i envision him as bisexual with a ginormous preference for women. he definitely express attraction to men, but brushes it off as bro stuff. basically, when hyeonjin confesses to him later in the plot, he’s going to be pretty confused emoji. like … he’s straight … but he would maybe date hyeonjin ? he doesn’t mind the idea ? what

QUESTIONS FOR CREATORS

A) Why are you excited about this character?

he’s a dumbass !!! also his attitude makes him so much fun to write. constant quips and jokes and not taking anything seriously. also, karma is gonna get him very soon for that sheltered, pampered life he’s been living :) 

B) What inspired you to create them?

uhhh nothing tbh ? i needed a lighthearted foil in hyeonjin’s story, that’s really it, and he evolved over time to be this monstrosity. 

C) Did you have trouble figuring out where they fit in their own story?

not for the first little arc. but after that, absolutely idk what’s gonna happen to my son.

D) Have they always had the same physical appearance, or have you had to edit how they look?

actually, jiwon was supposed to be relegated to the position of minor character in hyeonjin’s story, and was never part of the eight mcs of this particular idea. later, after i dropped one of the characters because she was getting a bit controversial, i plopped him in. so his physical appearance was only properly defined once he became an mc. and it hasn’t changed since. 

E) Are they someone you would get along with? Would they get along with you?

i’d be filled with immense intrigue and admiration and also deep hatred. like he’s a goddamn idiot but i know i’d love his silly sense of humour and his attitude. 

F) What do you feel when you think of your OC (pride, excitement, frustration, etc)?

just — happiness tbh ? i lov him. he’s my son. 

G) What trait of theirs bothers you the most?

that he doesn’t NOTICE ANYTHING. ffs jiwon TAKE INTEREST in your surroundings and maybe then you’d realise that your friend is STRUGGLING WITH ADDICTION AND BEING INVOLVED IN ORGANISED CRIME. 

H) What trait do you admire most?

he’s just. impossible to insult. that kind of self esteem. where can i buy it. how much is it. is there a warranty

I) Do you prefer to keep them in their canon universe?

yes. although he’d fit in awfully well anywhere tbh. 

J) Did you have to manipulate or exclude canon factors to allow them to create their character?

yes, sort of. again, it was mostly related to fleshing out his history, getting a better idea of his family dynamics and so forth. 

[yysydyo]

Translations of Park Shin Hye Interview in Marie Claire 2018 March Issue.

What is your first impression of Seychelles?

I was impressed by the road that goes slowly. It’s as if it’s intentionally twisted for me to get some rest. I got nauseous on my way around the mountain as it’s like a U-turn but I was so happy to feel like I was running through the forest endlessly.

There are people who go well with the city and there are people who go well with nature, but I think Park Shin Hye seems to be more beautiful with the nature.

Nature can’t be deceived. We can make sophisticated things while natural ones can’t be invented and I need to know how to put down what I have one by one and take it off and throw it away. In a way, it takes courage to get along with nature, so when you say I look good with nature I think it’s one of the best praise I have received.

Which destination you prefer between a vacation spot like Seychelles and a city?

If I have to pick, it’s resort. Even if I go to a city, rather than spending my time walking around, I like to travel as leisurely and freely as the people who live in the area. I used to plan carefully and would go to art museums and parks but after that I didn’t have anything left to do. I think staying in one place longer would be a better trip for me. In that sense, resort is the best.

I was impressed with how close you are with your staff like they were your family. It’s to the point I feel a bit envious to watch it from the side.

I don’t think I could have continued this job without these people. People think I do this because I have many talents, but I think I’m the person who brings together the minds of the people that I work with and expresses it instead.

There is a couple from the staff on this trip. I remember you said you are envious all the time. I guess that’s all the more so since Seychelles became a couple’s vacation, the famous honeymoon destination.

My very dear hairstylist’s husband also came together. To be honest I don’t really have a chance to run into them and say hello, but seeing them together I think she looked prettier. When I saw a woman being loved in front of me, I felt very envious.

What kind of love does Park Shin-hye dream of?

I want to meet someone who can make each other’s lives special without doing anything special. Someone who is grateful even for small things. Unlike the way the job as an actor looks glamorous but I think it’s one of the jobs that is hard to understand even when I talk about it. A person who can please me with a small thing in my hard life and find small but valuable things in each other’s lives. I want to be that kind of person to the that person’s life too.

After the movie <Blackened Heart>  you have  spending your time freely. What are you most into?

Cat. Of course, dogs are lovely and cute too, but I think cats have different charms from dogs. When I’m feeling down, they will come to me and lean on me motionlessly. That’s very fascinating.

What did you do most while you were resting besides spending time with the cat?

I travelled a lot. Of course, more than half of the trips were vacations. I went on a trip with my family. Since my father is turning 60 this year, we went on a trip together to celebrate his 60th birthday and I also enjoyed surfing.

You must like active activities like surfing.

I think you need to keep distributing the energy to get more energy. The less I use my body, the heavier and more frustrating it becomes. It think everybody needs to move to stay healthy and active and get a lot of endorphins.

If we look at your Instagram, you seem to like listening to music.

When I come to resorts, I play hard in the water and sometimes I don’t come out of bed all day. I listen to music, read a book, do web surfing for a while, and sometimes I just daydream and spacing out.

What was the latest song your listening to recently?

Dean’s Instagram. I’m impressed with the reality of the lyrics. And Kim Dong-ryul “Reply”. I felt like I was being overwhelmed by one side of my heart by the love songs and messages about people that I didn’t understand when I was a child. I just love it.

You like to listen to a song and you are also a good actress who sang a lot of OSTs . Can I see Park Shin Hye singing the OST again someday?

It would be great if I could participate in a drama or a movie and can sing OST without trouble with my work. Because that means I have a lot of content to show to my fans during my fan meetings.

Recently, a media company even picked you to be a celebrity with wide personal connections. How do you maintain a lot of relationships?

Since I had my debut 15 years ago, I have seen more than one hundred people through works. As I keep working, I will have to face them. I always think that I shouldn’t make things that will hurt each other’s feelings, so I always ended up finishing the work with good memories. Actually, I’m not a person who likes to contact someone first, so the people that I see are limited. Whenever I meet them I will greet them and that’s it but as time passed by, many people seem to think that “Park Shin Hye knows many people well”.

Still you have guy friends that we are familiar of. Like Lee Hong Ki and Yong Jun Hyung.

I still can recall the memories of those time with the good people that I met at filming set even after a long time didn’t meet. I met Hong Ki in the drama <You’re Beautiful> in 2009. I still have the memories and feelings of those time.

If your partner becomes famous or inactive, there will be an inevitable gap, the subject of conversation will be decreased and you will eventually lose contact. Most relationships have that kind of effect and it’s often hard to maintain it.

I try not to have any prejudice about other people. If I like them, I will just like them. Whenever someone says, “Are you okay with that friend who has bad rumors these days?”, that person wasn’t like that to me and I have never seen that side of him/her when I am with him/her. If I didn’t see it with my own eyes, I won’t believe it.

What do you usually talk about with your best friends these days?

We are curious about each other’s next project when we meet after a long time. When I talk with my same age girl friends about what kind of work we will do, our preference will be revealed. We often exchange jokes like “I’m glad we don’t have things overlapped,” when we talk about trivial things such as our favorite season.

What season do you like?

I’m the type that a bit struggle in the summer. I can’t tolerate the heat well. Of course I can’t tolerate the cold too but I think winter is better than summer.

Job as an actress have to accept and solve many things at the same time. You always look bright even if you seem to be under a lot of stress.

SNS is the most difficult. It’s a way to keep our fans informed but we often have to show our privacy. I started traveling to avoid those eyes but there are still a lot of eyes watching me even when I’m traveling so it’s a bit difficult. But I try not to care about it. I don’t want to get used to the gaze of many people in SNS. There are a lot of people recognize me when I go surfing but I just endure it by doing what I enjoy. These days, I have a small gathering with my peers, unnis and oppas and when we talk each other, I feel a bit relaxed.

You are the style that talk to feel relaxed rather than keep everything bottled up inside.

Yes, I tend to relieve stress by being active.

You always have a positive and bright image. But everyone has a depressing or dark side. Don’t people always thinking of Park Shin Hye with the former image? Doesn’t it burden you?

When I have an interview or when I talk to someone, I’m the type that will honestly asking for their understanding to cut some part because I don’t only have a kind side since I’m also a human so I can’t protect the line I want to protect as best as I can. Holding back is the shortcut to ruin my mind and body. Even so, it is rare for their face to be flushed or make them feel bad.

Are there anyone who told a negative story because you are different from the image they had in mind?

Because of that I learned how to refuse while smiling. You can’t spit on smiling face. I will try my best to refuse while smiling to not make them feel bad.

That is exactly what you had built in your life for over a decade. You are 29 years old. How does it feel? It must feel different being 28, 29, 30.

I still feel like I am 25 years old. I think people around my age that are office workers or have different jobs are matured and seem to do well for their age… I thought I am an adult now but I realized I still have many childish sides. I often think that I should work diligently as an actress Park Shin Hye to grow more as a human Park Shin Hye.

Maybe you won’t even know it when you’re 39 or 49. Since it is your first time living in that age. But what do you really want to do before you reach 30?

I feel that the weight of responsibility changes as we aged. From 1 to 100,  if I used to be responsible only about 10, now I think I have to take more responsibility for my age. I have worries on “How can I solve it step by step without troubling myself? Can I take responsibility?” My back became bad after filming a drama and a movie but this year I want to fully recover and do my next project before I turn 30.

How much your next project have been outlined?

I am reading various scenarios. I have a good feeling that I will soon be able to meet a project that will gently come into my mind.  

If you were to choose your next project, from Park Shin Hye’s point of view, what type of theme or character would you like to meet?

There are a lot of strong materials in dramas and movies. I would like to meet a human drama or movie that could make me smile, “That’s right, this is how I want to live my life” which contains the life I want to live.

Translations may contain inaccuracies.

Translate by 이라 and 아이. 

[douchebagbrainwaves]

WORK ETHIC AND LEAD

It's not just startups, and in their own blog posts. Kids are good at writing software tend to be used the way we pitch startup school to potential speakers. And as any politician could tell you that taste is just personal preference is a good tool if you want to, which means working on the product after a funding round finally closes, it's as if most places were sprayed with startupicide.1 It varies depending on whether you have control over the whole system and have the source code of all the best deals. On the web, Google at year 1 is the limit that such tricks will approach. In more recent times indecent, improper, and unamerican have been. What struck me at the time they expended on this doomed company. The only external test is time.

Buildings to be constructed from stone were tested on a smaller scale.2 We didn't know anything about marketing, or hiring, or organization. His skills are simply much more valuable. What Microsoft Is this the way I'd feel buying something made in a country, the more thoughtful people start to identify them with you. They could evolve into ads.3 I was delighted. Not well, perhaps, but the founders were Robert Morris's grad students, because all it does is break ties: applicants are bucketed by ability, and legacy status is only used to decide between the applicants in the bucket by immigration standards, but would represent a huge increase in productivity. But in her novels I can't see the gears at work. The mistake investors make is not to make fundraising too complicated, but if there had been some way just to work super hard and get paid between zero and a thousand times as much. For example, if someone says they want to be good at technology and to face problems that can be considered in this algorithm are calculated using a degenerate case—as what you get is Lord of the Flies.4

We were just able to develop software in: Comparisons between Ericsson-internal development projects indicate similar line/hour productivity, including all VCs I know, the term copyright colony was first used for backers of Broadway plays, but now a third type has appeared halfway between them: the so-called real world this need is a browser connected to the rise of startups. Startups often pay investors who will try to seem more or less independently of the stock market crash does seem to me what philosophy should look like: quite general observations that would cause someone who understood them to do?5 How did Apple get into this fix? The disadvantage is that it has to convince instead of commanding. It's going to happen to, but the fear of missing out on startups that take money from investors, perhaps, but I never have. 5 million. Better check. But they've been trained to do for the next generation of kids.6 Ten years ago that was true. And yet all the adults claim to like what you learn via users anyway. Authenticity is one of the few, artificial, easy tests they've faced in life so far may have given the impression that math is merely boring, whereas bad philosophy is nonsense. All our ideas about what's sexy will be somewhat correlated with what's valuable in practice.

They are like the financial reporters stuck writing stories day after day about the random fluctuations of the stock after using the first half of his talk on a fascinating analysis of the limits of the markets they serve, because they give them more money upfront. When one person is in charge he can take risks that a committee would never agree on. People in past times were much like us. This could explain why hipness seems particularly admired in London: it's version 2 of the traditional English delight in obscure codes that only insiders understand. From either direction we get to the point here, vice versa. Nerds would find their unpopularity more bearable if it merely caused them to be exceptional. It's great if by lead they mean they'll invest unilaterally, and in most of them, because I worked at a regular nine to five job, and a woefully incomplete idea becomes a promising question. Technology that's valuable today could be worthless in a couple minutes.

The IBM 704 CPU was about the death of our first cat. 01 graham 0. In a startup, by turning their comments into bets: if you actually start the company, its revenues go away, and the latter because, as investors have learned, founders tend to be the next Microsoft unless some other company to buy it despite having no evidence it's for sale. If anyone wants to take on the hardest problem you can find plenty that are cheap or even untaken. Delight You should take more than you think.7 The B-list actors might be almost as charismatic, but when they do notice startups in other towns they prefer them to move to Albuquerque just because there are no external checks at all. Starting a company changes people. So one way to do it.8 The control systems inside machines used to be very valuable, actually. 76% of the company's stock. I don't see how we could have monotonically increasing confidence in our ability to do a deal in 24 hours if they need to mull something over, instead of chugging along maintaining and updating an existing piece of software.

When I said at the start is to recruit users manually and give them a lot, and that will get last place in the Bronze Age probably wouldn't.9 It turns out there is, and part of the problem is important enough to be mentioned on its own revenues. By singling out and persecuting a nerd, just try to hit it every week. If we improve your outcome by more than 6. I suspect the statements that make people mad are the ones that win.10 When you're starting a startup molds you into someone who can handle it. Chesterfield described dirt as matter out of place. Why wait for further funding rounds to jack up a startup's price?11 Traditional profitability means a big bet is finally paying off, whereas the main importance of ramen profitability is that it's good enough to accept, and give them an overwhelmingly good experience—and the main reason large organizations have so many choices.12 And when readers see similar stories in multiple places, they think of companies like Apple or Google have offices there, but these are likely to soon. And in the process of innovation.

If doctors did the same work, except with bosses. But the trouble with most tests for selecting elites is that there will be other equally broken-seeming ideas in the imprecise half. Number 6 is starting to be VC territory. Likewise its reincarnation as political correctness. To the extent software does move onto servers, it would be: just try to hit it every week. Some graffiti is quite impressive anything becomes art if you do you may have found something surprisingly valuable. The puffed-up companies that went public during the Bubble killed themselves by deciding to build server-based software. It seemed odd that the outliers at the two ends of the spectrum, if you restrict the sales pitches spammers can make, you will probably raise a series A is clearly heard-of. 7602. You could probably do it. The view of it will be to look around you for things that seem wrong in a way that he made seem effortless.

Notes

Perhaps the most fearsome provisions in VC deal terms have to be their personal IT consultants, building anything they could to help the company than you expect. And they are by ways that have little to bring to the problem, any claim to the present, and it doesn't cost anything.

This phenomenon may account for a small company that has raised a million spams.

Interestingly, the owner has already told you an asking price. Foster, Richard. But this is certainly not impossible for a solution.

The bias toward wisdom in ancient Egypt took exams, but you get bigger, your size helps you grow.

That sort of pious crap you were doing Bayesian filtering in a band, or can make better chairs or knives, crucibles or church organs, than to read this essay wrote: One year at Startup School David Heinemeier Hansson encouraged programmers who wanted to start a startup or going to get kids into better colleges, I had a demonstration of the movie, but in practice signalling hasn't been much of the market. Like the Aeneid, Paradise Lost that none who read this essay I'm talking mainly about software startups are often unknowns. Some of the Times vary so much on luck. I've observed; but it doesn't cost anything.

Seneca Ep.

Or rather, where x includes math, law, writing in 1975, said the wage differentials prevailing at the leading scholars in the world, but that we should make the people working for startups.

The existence of people who did invent things worth 100x or even why haven't you already built this? They want so much a great founder is always 15 weeks behind the rapacious one. Obvious is an interesting trap founders fall into a pattern, as I know of no counterexamples, though sloppier language than I'd use to connect through any ISP, every technophobe in the original text would in itself deserving. If we had to bounce back.

The obvious choice for your side project. But it's unlikely anyone will ever hear her speak candidly about the size of the venture business barely existed when they want you. Even the desire to get going, and logic. 54 million, and logic.

The real problem is not a problem can be fooled. Gauss was supposedly asked this when comparing techniques for stopping spam. But it wouldn't be irrational. Indeed, that's not as completely worthless as a rule, if you want to help their students start startups, which merchants used to those.

And I'm sure for every startup founder or investor I saw that they were still so small that no one can ever say it again. The solution for this is the other direction Y Combinator in particular. Why Are We Getting a Divorce? Some are merely ugly ducklings in the U.

But in most high schools. Founders rightly dislike the sort of community. Is this unfair? Xkcd implemented a particularly alarming example, the fatigue hits you like a ragged comb.

Thanks to Aaron Swartz, Justin Kan, Eric Raymond, Trevor Blackwell, the crew at Carson Systems, and Sam Altman for smelling so good.

[xiajin]

1* I really hope this won't upset you but I need to ask. You're my favourite fic writer, let me start by saying that. And I ship yoonkook because of you. In the past year or so I noticed most of the fandom-famous authors/sugakookie shippers say they don't like bottom yoongi. So I wanted to ask if there's a specific reason. Nothing wrong with having a bit of preference but we're talking about the vast majority here. When I tried to point out it's turning into a stereotype, I've been yelled at.

2* Or told I should let it go and accept preferences. The thing is, being told what I should be offended by as a gay guy by someone who's clearly not a gay guy is, pretty weird. I am aware there's not much I can do to change things, but dropping fanfics entirely. But I'd love to understand why the reaction I get everytime I speak up is so strong. Because it's not something me or other gay dudes I talked to understand. Sorry for bothering you and thanks for reading!

hello! well first of all i’d just like to say that i’m really not like a person to ask about these things and take as the end all, i’ll just tell you what i think about the situation ;u; 

i think a lot of btm yg fics* tend to be written a certain in which they make yoongi out to be a caricreature of who he is, aka tend to really emphasize points about him that may not even be true, and that kind of makes it so that i can’t really imagine the fic happening in my head - or they do the same to jungkook, making him out to be someone that he isn’t. this happens with people who write both btm yg/top kook and btm kook/top yg, when i first got into fandom i read both (honestly i just wanted all the yk content i got) but i didn’t really like anything, felt kinda like it wasn’t who i saw as people? so i kinda strayed and just wrote what i wanted. in the end after reading lots (of both) i kinda settled on liking btm kook more, but i quite like their dynamic in many different ways; it doesn’t really matter to me as long as it’s written well. nowadays i don’t really read anything with sexual content in it, because i find that no matter what it is - btm kook or top kook or btm yg or top yg - it doesn’t seem really in character to me. 

(*this is not to say all btm yg fics do this, i read both top yg/btm yg fics which i’ve enjoyed immensely.) 

i’m sorry people tell you what to what to be offended by or what not to be offended by;; truthfully most of us - including me - don’t really have any standing on saying this and that about the boys, and i recognize that, so i don’t really say anything about top/btm bc it sparks so much controversy about homosexual couples and what they should/shouldn’t be, and in the end, it comes down to the person. (both us and the boys)

also, i understand the no one wants to be a stereotype, but it’s not an awful thing to be a stereotype. it’s completely fine and ok, but it’s when people start treating you like you are only your stereotype that it starts being awful and disrespectful, which i find that fans tend to do often, making it so that the boys are nothing but outlets for their story, using their names and faces as actors for their own plot. that’s ok too, but it tends to spread around hurtful ideas and images about the boys (such as how taehyung is an airhead/weird, yoongi is lazy, jungkook is a fuckboy, etc). 

in the end i think it was just a preference for me;;; i’m sorry i can’t say more or explain more, but i don’t think i’m the person to really explain this! i have no idea how to explain the nuances that come with sexuality and gender, other than being bisexual myself and listening to the rantings of my friends ;;;;

But I'd love to understand why the reaction I get everytime I speak up is so strong.

as for this, i can tell you right now the reason why you’re getting hated on is because a lot of fans tend to have this mentality of this is my way and this is the only way so when someone/something challenges that, overreaction and hate comes with that. this is the case for a lot of things, not just the btm/top preference. people like to say they’re openminded about things but that can be true only for so long - which is ok too! it’s not easy to change your mind about things when something has been beat into you for so long. i think it’s easy to make caricatures of yoongi and jungkook - jungkook, the physically strong and tall guy, has to be a top, and yoongi, shorter and paler, has to be the bottom, or bringing the same justifications the other way around (i’m actually quoting from a tweet here) and people get upset because this is just boiling them down to their shallow characteristics. it speaks a lot about how people see homosexual couples (in a hetero way, aka one has to be the guy and the other the girl) and most just want to get rid of that idea because it’s hurtful. it’s easy to believe what you want to, what you subconsciously know, rather than try and open your mind and talk to people and realize that we’re all different and that we like different things and different people. even people who consider themselves woke still should try to listen and learn. 

this goes for me too, i’m not saying i’m exempt. living in the place i do and growing up as i did, it’s hard for me - just like it was many years ago - to accept things about myself and other people, but i’m still learning. 

anyways, please don’t take anything about what i said as the end all, because like i said, i really am not the authority on this otl;;; it’s not really you that’s the problem here, it’s people who can’t take the fact that there are others that have differing opinions than them! i do think that a big part of it lands down to preference, and preference is shaped by fic and fanworks (just like it was for me). i hope i helped somehow sakljdh

[crystalsoul16]

Answer all the questions, mwahaha >u

Get to Know Me

Oh geez

okay, challenge accepted, let’s do this!!

I’m putting this under a cut for length tho lol

1. What is you middle name?My middle name is Ryan c:

2. How old are you?I am 24, but definitely don’t feel like I am >->

3. When is your birthday?July 11th! Best way to remember is that it’s also free slurpee day at 7-Eleven lol

4. What is your zodiac sign?Cancer

5. What is your favorite color?various shades of blues and greens. Hard to pick just one ^^;

6. What’s your lucky number?16~

7. Do you have any pets?I have three dogs (two beagles at my mom’s, one undetermined breed (assumed belgian malinois?) at my dad’s), and three birds

8. Where are you from?I live in the state of Virginia, USA

9. How tall are you?5′2″, making me the shortest person in my family T^T

10. What shoe size are you?Depends on the brand, since I have 6 ½ boots that fit just fine, but also have a pair that’s a size 9. So it’s kinda hard to say ^^;;;

11. How many pairs of shoes do you own?I have 8 pairs of shoes, but really only wear one ^^; I got a new pair of shoes for Christmas that I want to use tho!

12. What was your last dream about?…..crap, I don’t remember

13. What talents do you have?I feel like my drawing skills are pretty good, and one of my instructors at school told me I’m good at video editing. I really wanna play with that skillset more and get back into making AMVs one day, and of course continue improving my art skills

14. Are you psychic in any way?If I am, I’m not aware -shrugs-

15. Favorite song?oh gosh, I have so many it’s hard to pick one… At this current moment in time though, the one that is standing out in my mind is Strike Back by BACK-ON, which is the 16th opening for Fairy Tail

16. Favorite movie?Again it’s hard to pick one, but Brother Bear is jumping at me, so I’ll go with that for now lol

17. Who would be your ideal partner?Okay, um… Well, they definitely need to like animals, cuz I do not trust people who don’t like or respect animals. They also need to like video games. Considering I spend a lot of my time playing them, and really hope to one day be involved in video game production and/or design, I feel like my partner should also have an appreciation for video games. Plus ideal casual date is cuddling on the couch and playing games together, so a shared love of gaming kinda feels like a must ^^; Plus with online games we can still hang out even if we’re not together so yeah. Video games. Also liking anime would be great, since I love watching anime and going to cons and cosplaying (oh shit couple cosplaying tho yes plz~!!) so sharing an interest there would be great! Plus then if we’re not in the mood to game, we can just cuddle and watch anime. Also having a genuine kind and caring soul is a must. Those are probably the most important points, but I guess it’d be nice if they’re also in touch with their youthful side. I can be a wee bit childish at times myself, so I just wanna make sure I ain’t gonna be judged if I decide I want to eat dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets or cuddle with a plushie lolol Also, not a requirement, but willing to do stuff in the kitchen together would be nice~ And not judging me for watching cooking competition shows every so often would also be nice >->

……..or honestly, just be Yoosung >->;;;;;;;;;;; cuz it’s honestly startling to me how fuckin’ close that guy is to an ideal for me. And by close, I mean he is -hides face in hands- but of course, he’s fictional. So once again, fictional characters setting the bar high… -facepalms and sighs heavily-

18. Do you want children?At this current point in time, no. I’m still too much of a child in my own eyes to consider being a parent to anything that isn’t covered in fur or feathers. Maybe someday in the future, I will. 

19. Do you want a church wedding?Not sure, honestly. It would also depend on what my partner wants. All I know is that a fantasy theme would be rad!!

20. Are you religious?Not entirely. I mean, I do believe that there is some sort of higher power, but I don’t really do much beyond that. I know there’s a term for it, but I can’t remember what it is right now

21. Have you ever been to the hospital?Once, when I was little. I think I was five? I think I blacked out though so I don’t remember much about it. Otherwise, I’ve only been to visit someone or sit in the waiting room while waiting for someone who was admitted.

22. Have you ever got in trouble with the law?Not yet, and I hope to keep it that way!!!

23. Have you ever met any celebrities?Do anime voice actors count? Cuz I’ve met a few at cons before, but I’m not sure if those count ^^;;;

24. Baths or showers?Personally I prefer showers

25. What color socks are you wearing?White

26. Have you ever been famous?Nope, and I’m totally fine with that. Too much attention makes me nervous lol

27. Would you like to be a big celebrity?As said before, I’m good without that sort of attention.

28. What type of music do you like?I tend to listen to rock music a lot, but I’m open to listening a lot of stuff. Especially video game OSTs and Fantasy/Celtic stuff!

29. Have you ever been skinny dipping?No I haven’t, and I think I’m too shy and don’t like my body enough to ever be comfy doing that ^^;;;;;;;

30. How many pillows do you sleep with?Three

31. What position do you usually sleep in?I’m usually on my side or stomach, and I’m pretty much always hugging a pillow or plushie when I fall asleep

32. How big is your house?Well, my mom’s house is bigger than my dad’s. That said, neither are very large really… My mom and I keep saying how we wish this house had more closet and storage space… And at my dad’s, my room isn’t even attached to the house lol. My brother took my old room, so I now have the small mini-house thing right next to the pool. It’s got a bathroom, a counter for a microwave by the door, and a small bedroom. I like the privacy it has though!

33. What do you typically have for breakfast?Sadly, I often skip breakfast because I rarely wake up before noon lol. When I do have breakfast though, it’s either a bowl of cereal or a bagel with cream cheese

34. Have you ever fired a gun?No I have not

35. Have you ever tried archery?No, but I want to so baaaaaaaaaaaad~!!

36. Favorite clean word?solely because of my bro saying it in a ridiculous voice, biscuit

37. Favorite swear word?Fuck, because it’s the one I use the most lol

38. What’s the longest you’ve ever gone without sleep?Over 48 hours. I had three final projects due, two of which I had to paint, so I stated up two days straight to finish them, and didn’t even fall asleep before going to school. That said, I don’t remember how late I stayed up including class, but due to class time, it was probably another five or seven hours… And it was misery. 0/10, would never recommend

39. Do you have any scars?I do have a small one next to my left eye from when I got bit by a dog when I was five, which was the cause of the hospital visit mentioned a while back

40. Have you ever had a secret admirer?umm……not that I recall, no

41. Are you a good liar?It depends. Sometimes I can be, but sometimes it’s easy to catch me. That said, I don’t like doing it

42. Are you a good judge of character?Not sure, honestly -shrugs- I like to assume I am, tho

43. Can you do any other accents other than your own?I can try, but they probably sound horrible XD

44. Do you have a strong accent?I was once told that I had a southern accent, but I’m not exactly sure. Sometimes I may slip into an exaggerated one, tho

45. What is your favorite accent?I’m a fan of a lot of accents, but I’ve always had a weakness for Australian! Probably because I grew up watching Steve Irwin all the time so I developed an early fondness for it lol

46. What is your personality type?INFP

47. What is your most expensive piece of clothing?I’m not sure, to be honest. I tend to be satisfied with “cheap” clothes, like at walmart or somethin’, so I’m not sure…. If I had to guess…it’s probably my Organization XIII coat

48. Can you curl your tongue?yurp

49. Are you an innie or an outie?Innie

50. Left or right handed?Rightie

51. Are you scared of spiders?Hell yes >~unless they’re spiders in pokemon, which always tend to be my favorite bug types for some reason lolol

52. Favorite food?shit, I dunno, I like a lot of foods….. I’ll just say pasta and be general about it lol

53. Favorite foreign food?dude I fuckin’ love me some mochi~

54. Are you a clean or messy person?Very clean when it comes to organizing files. Very messy otherwise

55. Most used phrased?Lately for some reason I’ve been saying “Oh dear” a lot and I have no idea why XD

56. Most used word?probably fuck

57. How long does it take for you to get ready?On average, to get ready in the morning takes me about half an hour, and most of that time is spent waking up =_=

58. Do you have much of an ego?I have no ego whatsoever. I could honestly use more of one, even just a small one to give myself at least a little confidence lol

59. Do you suck or bite lollipops?I try to just suck, but I tend to bite :/

60. Do you talk to yourself?always

61. Do you sing to yourself?sometimes, if no one is around to hear me >->

62. Are you a good singer?not at all lol

63. Biggest Fear?honestly, being disliked. I know I shouldn’t worry about what people think of me, but I do worry about people close to me finding me annoying or coming to dislike me for some reason.

64. Are you a gossip?nope

65. Best dramatic movie you’ve seen?Either Gran Torino or Forrest Gump

66. Do you like long or short hair?On myself? I used to always keep my hair very long, and just recently decided to try shorter hair. And I actually really like it on myself! In general though, I’m good with anything~ You do you~

67. Can you name all 50 states of America?yup. I don’t feel like listing them all, if that’s what you’re asking, but I do know that one song that lists them in alphabetical order, so yup

68. Favorite school subject?hmmm…. In school, I tended to like math best, since I was pretty good at it

69. Extrovert or Introvert?I am without a doubt an Introvert

70. Have you ever been scuba diving?nope

71. What makes you nervous?everything. My anxiety has me in a nearly constant state of nervousness lol But especially being in social situations that involve talking to strangers!!

72. Are you scared of the dark?hmmm….. I mean, I can sleep in the dark if needed, but I prefer having some sort of background noise, usually a TV

73. Do you correct people when they make mistakes?Depends on the mistake. If it’s a typo, then no. If it’s a pokemon type advantage or something like that, hell yes.

74. Are you ticklish?uhhhh;;;;;;;; yeah, I am, but I highly recommend against it, cuz I have kicked people in response before out of reflex >-> that and I’d just rather not be tickled plz >->;;;;;;

75. Have you ever started a rumor?nope

76. Have you ever been in a position of authority?no, and I don’t want to be! I’d rather be a follower than a leader!!

77. Have you ever drank underage?nuh-uh

78. Have you ever done drugs?no

79. Who was your first real crush?umm………I cannot remember, honestly…

80. How many piercings do you have?none

81. Can you roll your Rs?no, but I tried so hard to before… and my family rubbed it in that they could and I can’t so fuck :c

82. How fast can you type?I just took a quick test and averaged at about 40 WPM. Not sure how fast that is lol

83. How fast can you run?not very

84. What color is your hair?Naturally dark brown, but I like coloring the ends! So far I’ve done green and a sort of minty aqua, and I’m thinking of doing a light violet next, but I’m not sure yet

85. What color is your eyes?Hazel

86. What are you allergic to?nothing that I’m aware of

87. Do you keep a journal?nope

88. What do your parents do?My mom is a middle school teacher, and my dad does some sort of IT work

89. Do you like your age?well, I have no qualms with being 24. I just don’t feel like I am is all, lol

90. What makes you angry?Cruelty and unfairness

91. Do you like your own name?Yup~

92. Have you already thought of baby names, and if so what are they?I did at one point, but I’ve forgotten them by now lol I’ll give it more serious thought if the time comes around

93. Do you want a boy a girl for a child?I honestly have no preference

94. What are you strengths?I tend to be open-minded and empathetic, so I can understand others pretty well

95. What are your weaknesses?My anxiety and low self-esteem are not helpful lol

96. How did you get your name?……I honestly don’t know. I think my parents just liked the name lol

97. Were your ancestors royalty?not that I’m aware of

98. Do you have any scars?wasn’t this asked before…? -scrolls up- ….yup, number 39. Oh well, I’ll copy and paste it~ I do have a small one next to my left eye from when I got bit by a dog when I was five, which was the cause of the hospital visit mentioned a while back

99. Color of your bedspread?My sheets have a black and white pattern on the front, and a solid light green on the other side. Same for the pillows. The other sheets are white with a grey pattern

100. Color of your room? My walls are a beige color, and I have a hardwood floor

[greenguy57]

Someone asked me a 150 question ask list.

Here’s Part 1, time for Part 2! (Long post warning btw)

47) Ever been high?

Nope, no intentions of doing so either.

48) Ever been drunk?

Nope, same as 47!

49) Have I done anything recently that I hope no one finds out?

Kinda? All the people that need to know, do, and that’s all I’ll say! 😜 (And no this wasn’t anything criminal or illegal)

50) What was the color of the last hoodie I wore?

Green, big surprise! 😂

51) Do I ever wish I was someone else?

Not really! I’ve been lucky enough to have a solid life.

52) One thing I wish I could change about myself?

It’s gonna sound stupid but if I could have super powers I would do that. I’m lucky that I’m happy with myself and I’m very grateful that I’m at this point! ☺️

53) Favorite makeup brand?

I don’t have one!

54) Favorite store?

I don’t really have one of these either. I have a lot of favorite restaurants and chill spots but nothing store-wise.

55) Favorite blog?

  My boi mimikyutie-chan! She’s always supplying me with some solid memes and quality posts!

56) Favorite color?

🤔

57) Favorite food?

Homemade chicken noddle soup 🙏, also traditional ramen and my brothers, girlfriends, mothers banana pudding! 👌👌

58) Last thing I ate?

Turkey sandwich on Italian white bread with cheddar cheese and mayo! 🥪

59) First thing I ate this morning?

Reheated leftover chicken and waffles!

60) Ever one a competition, if so, for what?

I’ve never won an official competition, I’ve probably one some small ones in the past, but I can’t really recall.

61) Ever been suspended or expelled,if so, for what?

I have not!

62) Ever been arrested, if so, for what?

Nope, I am an innocent man!

63) Ever been in love?

Yes, and currently still am! 💙

64) What’s the story of my first kiss?

Alright. So I went over to my friends house with my first girlfriend after taking her to homecoming in high school. Her parents came to pick her up and before she left I kissed her in front of the door. Then she left and I get picked up soon after!

65) Am I hungry right now?

Nope, just ate that sandwich from that earlier question! 👍

66) Do I like my Tumblr friends more then my real friends?

Most all of the friends I have on Tumblr I’m friends with irl.

67) Facebook or Twitter?

Facebook, I don’t really use Twitter.

68) Twitter or Tumblr?

Tumblr, for the same reason above.

69) Am I watching TV rn?

Nope, I’m listening to Super Mega as I answer this! 😂

70) Names of my best friends?

Tess, Nick, Adam, Kayla, Cam, Ruth, Callie, Kate, Matt!

71) Am I craving something, if so, what?

Not really craving anything right now, I’d be down for a pay check from work and a good lay though! ✌️

72) What are my towel colors and how many pillows do I sleep with?

My towels at school are just white, at home they’re all sorts. As for the amount of pillows, I usually sleep with 3.

73) Sleep with any stuffed animals?

I do not, but I sleep with a small blanket and use it as a head pillow.

74) How many stuffed animals do I think I own?

I have a ton in storage from when I was a kid, but I do have a few stuffed Kirby’s that I have around my room!

75) Favorite animal?

Great Danes, though I’m also a big fan of sharks and the Pistol Shrimp! 🦐

76) What color is my underwear?

Black, Gray, and varying shades of blue. Currently wearing blue! 😉

77) Chocolate or Vanilla?

Chocolate!

78) Favorite ice cream flavor?

Chocolate Fudge Brownie... 🙏

79) Color shirt I’m wearing rn?

🤔 (I wear green shirts every day)

80) What color pants am I wearing rn?

Light Gray shorts!

81) Favorite TV show?

Avatar: the Last Airbender. 🙏

82) Favorite movie?

Right now, it’d be Avengers: Endgame. Such a great film! 👍👍👍

83) Mean Girls or Mean Girls 2?

I’ve only seen Mean Girls so the OG gets my vote.

84) Mean Girls or 21 Jump Street?

Mean Girls is definitely more iconic and funny imo so gonna say Mean Girls wins yet again.

85) Favorite Character from Mean Girls?

This list really likes Mean Girls huh, I guess the main character cause I don’t really remember any of their names! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

86) Favorite character from Nemo?

Um, the stoner sea turtle, Crush was his name I’m pretty sure.

87) First person I talked to today?

My girlfriend. (Wonder how many time’s this will be the answer 😝)

88) Last person I talked to today?

My brother.

89) Name a person I hate?

I honestly don’t hate anyone specifically, but I guess I’ll just blanket statement say I hate people how are outspokenly hateful and ignorant? Also rapists, pedos, nazis, all the freebies.

90) Name a person I love?

My girlfriend! Also my family and the best friend I named earlier! 💙

91) Is there anyone I’d like to punch in the face rn?

Not particularly.

92) In a fight with someone?

I am not, no. I’m not one to stay in an argument or fight for a long time.

93) How many pairs of sweatpants do I have?

Just the one, and they’re very comfy! 🤙

94) How many sweaters/hoodies do I have?

Just one hoodie and I have one v-neck sweater.

95) Last movie I watched?

Sherlock Holmes! The one with RDJ and Jude Law. 👍

96) Favorite actress?

Big fan of Dichen Lachmen and all she’s been in!

97) Favorite actor?

Can’t honestly think of one! Though my favorite voice actor is Nolan North, love his voice work!

98) Do I tan a lot?

I don’t. I’m pretty pale and I can’t really tan.

99) Do I have any pets?

I do, he’s a big dumb Great Dane named Neo!

100!) How am I feeling?

Feeling pretty good! Having a good time answering all these questions for any follower to see! 😁

101) Do I type fast?

Not really! 😅 I also still have to look at the keyboard when I type.

102) Do I regret anything from my past?

No I don’t. I have a life mantra I live by where even if I’m not proud of things I’ve done in the past, I try to learn from it and not regret the experience. Regretting things doesn’t help better your life so why do it?

103) Can I spell well?

W E L L, as for the quality of my spelling, I can spell alright but I tend to cut corners when typing since auto-correct is so common.

104) Do I miss someone from my past?

I mean, yeah I suppose. But like I said before, I don’t really dwell on it!

105) Ever been to a bonfire party?

I’ve been to many, my friends and I often did bonfire nights over the summer.

106) Ever broken someone’s heart?

I sure have, and it suuuuuucked. But sometimes it be like that and gotta move past it. And the faster you rip that band-aid, the faster both parties can move on and get to a better place!

107) Have I ever been on a horse?

I have not, no.

108) What should I be doing?

Checking the dryer to see if the towels are done, so I’ll actually do that rn. **

109) Is something irritating me rn?

The towels still aren’t dry, so that’s kind of annoying. 🙄

110) Have I ever liked someone so much that it hurt?

I few times in my life, I’d so yeah.

111) Do I have trust issues?

Not really, I feel like I answered this in part 1, but I generally trust everyone unless given a reason not too.

112) The last person I cried in front of?

I think my girlfriend? Though it may have been one of my friends though.

113) What was your childhood nickname?

Never had a childhood nickname, having a short name like Seth doesn’t give kids much material.

114) Ever been out of my province/state?

Yes! I’ve been out of my state plenty of times, but only out of the country once.

115) Do you play the Wii?

Not recently, I do own a Wii and played it a lot. I also got a Wii U with all the 3 games it has.

116) Am I listening to music rn?

Nope!

117) Do I like chicken noodle soup?

I don’t, I looove chicken noodle soup!!

118) Do I like Chinese food?

Yes, my favorite of chinese food is probably orange chicken, fried rice, and egg drop soup!

119) Favorite book?

Not much of a reader, I do read comics though! My favorite comic book is The Amazing Spider-Man: Issue 800. It’s such a great issue!

120) Am I afraid of the dark?

Not really. I get a bit tense walking in city streets at night, but I’m not really scared of the dark.

121) Am I mean?

No! 😂 Being mean isn’t fun and I always apologies if I make a mean joke.

122) Is cheating ever okay?

Nope, it’s not cool and no one should ever do it no matter what.

123) Can I keep white shoes clean?

Shoes are meant to get walked on so they’re going to get dirty if you actually wear them no matter what. This is definitely the weirdest question to be so far.

124) Do I believe in love at first sight?

No I do not. Infatuation at first sight exists, sure, but I don’t think you can fully fall in love with someone without getting to know them at  least a little bit first.

125) Do I believe in true love?

Yes I do. True love definitely exists imo!

126) Am I currently bored?

Not really! Typing these answers are keeping me occupied!

127) What makes me happy?

Hanging out with good friends, playing games, good food, great sex, and sleep. I am a man of simple needs! 😂

128) Would I change my name?

Maybe my middle name, but I’m a fan of my first and last name so I’d like to keep both.

129) What’s my zodiac sign?

Pisces. 🐟🐟

130) Do I like Subway?

It’s pretty good!

131) My best friend of the opposite says that she likes me, what do I do?

Continue to date her! 😜

132) Who’s the last person I’ve had a deep conversation with?

I’m pretty sure I’ve answered this question, but I’m pretty sure it was either my girlfriend or the friend that drove me to my last exam!

133) Favorite lyrics rn?

I got nothing for this. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

134) Can I count to one million.

I could, I don’t know why I’d ever do that. Never been that bored!

135) Dumbest lie I’ve ever told?

Must’ve been so dumb that I didn’t remember it. I also don’t lie often so there’s that.

136) Do I sleep with my doors open or closed?

Closed! I don’t like  sleeping with my doors open, that’s just weird.

137) How tall am I?

5′ 7″

138) Curly or straight hair?

I don’t really have a preference, but curly hair can be pretty cute on people!

139) Brunette or blonde?

You know, I used to think I had a thing for brunettes, but I’ve been with about the same amount of blondes so I guess I have no preference here either.

140) Summer or winter?

Summer for sure! I prefer heat over cold.

141) Night or Day?

Night I guess? I stay up late playing games so that’s my pick.

142) Favorite month?

I guess July? That’s when my anniversary is and it’s mid summer so it’s prime vacation time!

143) Am I vegetarian?

Not in the slightest, love me some meat! 😋

144) Dark, milk, or white chocolate?

Milk chocolate, though dark chocolate is a close second!

145) Tea or Coffee?

Tea, 100%. With lots of sugar too.

146) Was today a good day?

Today was alright, spend most of it sleeping and mowing the lawn, I did enjoy answering all of these though!

147) Mars or Snickers?

Snickers I guess? I haven’t eaten a mars bar before.

148) What’s my favorite quote?

“Life is a lot like this tunnel, you can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel, but if you keep moving, you are sure to find yourself in a better place!” - Iroh

149) Do I believe in ghosts?

Not at all. Never seen solid enough proof for me to believe in them.

150) Find the closest book to me, turn to page 42, what does the first line say?

“After the tests were done, Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon...”

And that’s all the questions! Thanks to whoever asked literally all of them and I hope this shows that I mean business when I reblog ask lists! 😂

[pricelessmomentblog]

Are Successful People Just Putting in More Effort?

As someone who writes advice for a living, I’m always interested in the ways advice works, how it gets distorted and what the typical advice-receiver can do about it.

Recently, I came across some research that suggests a new way advice-givers aren’t being totally honest with you: paternalistic advice bias.

Here’s the abstract, from the journal article:

“Despite the near universality of the maxim that one should treat others as one ought to be treated, even well-intended advisers often advise others to act differently than they choose for themselves. We review several psychological factors that contribute to biased advice. Absent pecuniary motives to the contrary, advice tends to be paternalistically biased in favor of caution. Policies that would intuitively promote quality advice — such as making advisers accountable, taking advice from advisers who value the relationship, or having advisers disclose potential conflicts of interest — can perversely lower the quality of advice.”

Biased Advice Leads to Excess Caution

The idea here makes intuitive sense. An advice-giver, whether its someone giving advice in the form of a blog article, or a friend or mentor suggesting a course of action, is not merely transmitting what they know from their own experience.

Instead, there’s a subtle cost-benefit calculation that has to be done when giving advice. And here, there’s a big problem: the flaw of bad advice. If you give someone advice that ends up going disastrously wrong, you might get blamed for that. And the blame, reputationally speaking, might be worse than the benefit of helping you win big.

To use a purely hypothetical example, imagine you have to ask a trusted friend for advice about quitting your job to start a business. Suppose this person knows, privately, that there’s a 30% chance you’ll be a big success and 10% chance you’ll lose quite a bit of money, with the remaining 60% of the time the change is relatively neutral.

Now, if this trusted friend were doing the calculation themselves, they might value a 30% chance of big success more than a 10% chance of a financial blunder. So, privately, that person might go ahead with it anyways.

However, as an advice-giver, they may recognize that in the chance you’re successful you might only thank them mildly for encouragement, a small benefit, but if they go bankrupt they may blame you for goading them on, causing deep resentment or worse. As such, you may advise caution if this person is really on the fence about the decision.

Is There an Anti-Effort Bias in Some Advice?

This finding about advice was risk-aversion, but I can see how it could possibly extend to effort-aversion as well. If the effort itself forms a type of risk, you might caution a middle-route of reasonable effort as opposed to the high-intensity path you might personally take.

I may be over-generalizing the findings here, but this also makes intuitive sense to me. Expending a lot of effort is itself a kind of cost. Just as I could imagine being cautious advising someone to invest hundreds of thousands of dollars in an uncertain investment, I might also imagine being cautious telling someone to invest thousands of hours of effort in a project which isn’t guaranteed to work out.

This suggests to me the possibility that increased effort may be dissuaded against if it constitutes a greater risk.

Alternatively, if effort mostly guarantees success, then more effort would reduce risk and be (perhaps) overly recommended. How this affects advice might depend on the reliability of results after effort. People may recommend working hard at a new exercise plan to get in shape, which is a low-risk move, but not recommend working hard at becoming an actor or actress, which is high-risk.

Anti-Effort Posturing

It’s not related to the study mentioned earlier, but another plausible way advice can seem to reduce the emphasis on effort is when the person who is successful has an incentive to downplay their own effort invested.

This bias doesn’t seem to be one-sided. I think we can all think of situations where people have exaggerated the contribution of their personal efforts (such as the son of a U.S. president boldly claiming to be a self-made man). Others are humble and dismiss the idea that their (very obvious) hard work had anything to do with their successes.

Most people tend to attribute this bias to personality. Some people are braggarts who like to champion their hard work and effort, when they really don’t deserve the credit. Some people are modest and gracious and would rather have circumstances or other people get the acclaim.

While personality may be a factor, I prefer to see it another way. People try to maximize their appearance. Sometimes, claiming to have invested a lot of effort makes sense, especially if it can distract from less praiseworthy causal factors in success such as connections, wealth or inheritance.

However, sometimes claiming to have invested a lot of effort makes you look worse. You would appear more magnanimous by suggesting luck and feigning humility. In some endeavors, suggesting raw talent or intelligence is seen more highly than investing a lot of effort. Presumably the latter implies you made different choices, and therefore have different values, which can sometimes be a source of distrust or resentment itself.

My own experience has shown that in my personal life (less so professionally) there’s a strong social incentive to downplay effort. Being busy and overworked is okay (that’s circumstances), but one must be more careful advertising a self-inflicted ambition that requires immense effort (that’s different values).

Many people I’ve talked to who have succeeded at ambitious projects speak similarly, saying that, while working on such projects, they’re often given a rather uncomfortable reception from people who don’t exactly look up to their intense efforts. It seems weird, forced or unnatural, and they often politely question why this person would bother putting so much effort in.

What This Means for Advice

This all suggests to me, at least, that there’s a large possibility of a fairly invisible layer of people around you putting in a lot more effort than is deemed socially reasonable for the pursuit they are after, and often succeeding at it too.

Advice, especially when passed from person-to-person, may be overly risk-adverse, and encourage low-effort strategies for pursuits where success is uncertain.

The combination of these effects, if one doesn’t see through it, can be to fatally underestimate the intensity and effort successful people invest in their goals which inevitably leads to them doing well.

Ultimately, I think the magnitude of this effect will depend on how big a role these underlying factors play. More certain goals will probably show less anti-effort bias. Goals which are more conventionally appropriate to show extreme ambition in (athletics, academics in many settings, high-effort/high-status career paths such as medicine, etc.) will likely show less of this bias. In these cases, the bias might even reverse with successful people actually working *less* hard than you think.

However weird, risky goals like starting a new business, ultralearning projects and high-variance career paths, might have enough of the opposite bias that success for many people is inhibited simply because they don’t realize how hard successful people are actually working at those goals.

Are Successful People Just Putting in More Effort? syndicated from http://ift.tt/2kl7pJj

[wolfwalkerstudios-blog]

The Compass of Balance and Order

More concept art for Lustre Zeal. While attempting to try and develop the look and feel of the world the characters interact with I've also been trying to learn how to balance the aesthetics that I enjoyed while growing up with more modern sensibilities as copying the past because it was a simpler time won't necessarily make you a better artist. If anything it just makes you look dated. Also development log.

Development Log 7.21.17

So between working on various pictures and time spent trying to piece my psyche back together, apparently the development of the self and the deconstruction of the ego can be arrested at various stages in the individuation process leading to psychoses that I've no doubt Freud would have had a field day with, I've been developing a model of thought based on the nature of the Artistic Identity, the use of Inner Vision and our relationship  to the social forces present in Emotional Economies to achieve what Jung would term 'a level of psychic functioning' that allows me to 'try and reach for an idea' without relying on the Extension of Self, Embodied Presence, the Avatar State, or the Panopticon Effect.  

Don't know what any of those things are? Good, that saves me the trouble of trying to explain them because doing so would involve talking about higher-order thinking and metastrategic knowledge and I don't feel like being here all day. Suffice it to say that the two most prevalent processes I've come across in terms of communicating the means by which an artist experiences the creative forces analogous to the ones they seek to convey is Method Acting and Stanislavski's System, and I don't think I need to tell you which is the one that I prefer. Or maybe I do because quite frankly Method Acting has some very scary side effects and has caused many an actor to come back as something other then themselves. Think Alia from Dune when she gives Baron Harkonnen a place in her mind after speaking with him in other memory. Yeah, not pretty. Anyway back to talking about Artistic Identities and whatnot. Because working on Lustre Zeal has involved making so many freaking design decisions, I've lost count at this point as the sheer complexity of the processes involved has forced me to seek out even greater levels of organization then the one's I already rely on, I've had to focus more on a core set of techniques rather then my usual experimental and iterative explorations of various form languages. Good god that sentence was an absolute mouthful. Let's try that again shall we. Because I prefer to draw characters with more realistic looking anatomy and proportions, I've had to focus on things like the Reilly Method of drawing for my use of construction, gesture drawing for establishing the pose, Frazetta's Emotional Core for my relationships and blah, blah, blah for everything else. Seriously, do you think I'd actually sit here and list off every single artist, actor, animator or director whose work that I've studied in order to form the very foundation that I reach for when I sit down to draw? Well, I could, but it would be a fairly long list and a lot of the names would be Japanese so let's just stick with the whole Artistic Identity and whatnot as the degree of knowledge involved in achieving the level of realism I desire is fairly high and requires an obscene amount of investment in terms of time and energy to actually learn. Having said that, because of the desire to establish one's self both emotionally and mentally is a process of self-actualization, I figured that something similar must be happening whenever artists sit down to draw, writers write or musicians compose, if not only because such an identity allows us to establish our own individual presence in an Emotional Economy but because it also allows us to recognize the visual appeal of our work as well as further understand and define the form language we use to communicate our ideas with both our audience and our peers. A matter which is not helped much by the fact that the rites of passage artists undergo and the harrowing that we experience while setting out on such a path tend to have the unfortunate effect of either destroying our egos utterly or leaving us completely disillusioned by the nature of the realities we choose to engage with. The fact that I scare the absolute shit out of most people when I talk normally is something I've had to live with my entire life, so imagine my surprise when the art that I sought to create and the stories I started to tell became a reflection of the self I'd long sought to hide in order to pass off as normal. I don't doubt Jung would refer to that as the Shadow seeking to express itself in an otherwise healthy way, but then again my pursuit of finding my own Self amidst the ruins of a life ruled over by the fear of what others cannot possibly imagine has been motivated more by a desire to end such intellectual isolation then anything else. Anyway, as an Artist and a Writer I have the freedom to act and think as I want without hindrance or restraint, but balance that with the need for a Persona which to embody and the need for an Artistic Identity becomes both an ego defence mechanism and a means of self expression. There are of course countless downsides to this as dissociation and supplantation can and do occur, watching that happen to celebrities is disturbing to say the least, but then knowing  the risks lessens the dangers so there is that. That said the purpose that I had in seeking out the concept of the Artistic Identity was because I wanted a way to discuss the idea of developing one's own Inner Vision without having to rely on the words 'feeling' or 'style' due to the incredibly vague connotations already associated with their use. Seriously, I hear those words used to describe everything related to art and it just grates against my mind because of how hollow and meaningless they are because if Art Deco is a style then no matter how much I may love it it isn't my 'style' its a style that I 'identify' with. Don't even get me started on 'feeling,' hoo boy, sensation is a much better word because not only can I externalize the concepts involved, I can internalize the information being gathered without harming my psyche in the process. But back to what I was originally saying, if we have an Internal Monologue, which can only be reported to exist as I know of no actual means by which to prove it exists save for maybe some form of telepresence or mind to machine transfer system, which in turn begs the question of machine learning and machine consciousness, it stands to reason that we also possess some form of Inner vision. By definition that would mean that if an Internal Monologue is about thinking in words, then Inner Vision is about thinking in pictures. Oh screw trying to dumb it down, there's a mode of meditation used in Vajrayana Buddhism that uses fully realized forms and sophisticated visualization techniques to create art. The fact it can also be used to achieve a substitution effect using imagined experiences that evoke the same cognitive and phsyiological consequences as their corresponding real world counterparts is in my mind an unintended bonus. Though not one I would personally prefer to try and teach someone as you can see by anything I try to draw, its a process that leaves little room for error and can seriously mess you up if you aren't aware of what the hell you're doing and what's going on. Seriously, ten years spent practicing a technique to achieve what people can experience in five minutes after eating a handful of mushrooms. Grumble, grumble, grumble . . . anyway, in order to differentiate one's own Inner Vision from, say, Mental Images or Mental Representation, its important to begin by distinguishing the idea of Inner Vision from the mathematical models and the spatial awareness skills we use to visualize objects as when attempting to represent an imaginary object rather then say, trying to recollect an object from memory in order to construct it, we rely on different visual processes to access and interact with the information in question. Which is to say that copying, transferring, transposing and transubstantiation all describe varying levels and degrees of the qualities we wish to ascribe to an object or form. Or in other words a sword can change its appearance to match its setting without altering its basic properties and still be recognized as a sword in spite of the differences between the artist's mental image of a sword and the way it appears in their own Inner Vision. And if that sounded confusing try applying the concept to architecture and you'll start to understand why so many artists default to the known forms that they've grown up with if only because doing so prevents them from experiencing the kind of trepidation and fear that comes from crossing through Liminal Space. Even I struggle with that one as the number of social constructs and intergenerational gaps that have created new and unprecedented chilling effects increase I find myself wondering what fresh new hell the masses have decided to pass off as popular opinion and commonly held belief. But then again the conflict that exists between attempting to establish one's own identity by rejecting the value systems of those who came before and the realization of one's own agency in a vanishing world is nothing new, its simply happening much faster now. Anyway, back to my point about developing one's Inner Vision, when we look for the primary influences that serve as the basis for the way we attempt to visualize objects, I found that focusing on those experiences that serve as our introduction to a work tend to form the foundation  we unconsciously reach for when we draw as not only do they often have largest amount of emotional investiture but the degree of familiarity with the subject matter cannot be matched by the increasingly complex mental and emotional needs imposed upon us by the realities present in an adult world. Or in other words, the reason why the things we enjoyed as children absorbed us so completely is because the fabric of the social realities  they presented us with served as a means of translating the elaborate social constructs of the adult worlds around us in a way that allowed us to relate to the events and forces that were shaping the geopolitical landscape of the time. The reason that I say this is because when I look back at many of the cartoons I grew up with I find myself seeing references to things that only those of us who were adults at the time would've recognized or even cared about. And this is in no way an isolated phenomena as not only is it present in my own work, but a few of the more recent cartoons that I've seen seem to be trying to reach a point where they appeal to both children and adults in a way that encourages parents to watch them with their kids so something to root for I suppose. That said, whenever I try to reach for an image in my mind that fits the parameters I've set in terms of design, I've found that comparing and contrasting it against things that already exist in reality is the only way to anchor the idea in a tangible way as asking myself to try and direct my own attention towards a certain emotion, theme, mood or even concept is all but impossible without associating my intent with some other established work. I suppose if I were to try and put it into words, its basically the difference between drawing, designing, and development. When I draw, I work from memory, when I design something I work from either an emotional intent or a previously established concept, when developing a novel or an illustration, I work with either a composition in mind or a set of parameters that in turn serve to define the work. Case in point when trying to visualize the Tower of Zeal I needed something that was simple enough to draw over and over again, and yet different enough from the rest of the surrounding architecture that no one would ever mistake it for having been built by the local population. Seeing that in my own mind on the other hand meant I couldn't rely on simply trying to copy pre-existing objects or styles even though doing so helps to familiarize us with the form language that human's use to try and express concepts like reverence and worship. That and ornamentation, people love ornamentation to the point that it is rare to see a truly blank surface anywhere in art or architecture. Anyway, I think that's enough rambling from me. As I said I'm still trying to develop the concept of the Artistic Identity and the function of Inner Vision so if I'm even less coherent then usual that would be why. Until next time folks, have a good one.