#but still not usually enough unless im doing Additional Activity

[hellenhighwater]

okay, settle an argument for me. I'm being told it's weird to listen to an audiobook while simultaneously reading a different book. Do you do this? Like, audiobook in your headphones, unrelated book being read at the same time, not just alternating which you're working on by listening to a chapter, then reading a different chapter.

[puphoods]

im interestedin your zombie and superpower worlds..

SMILES SO BIG this took me ages omfg sorry

im gonna do it in order zombies -> zombie superpowers -> superpowers okay. i realised u maybe just meant the one thats both im not sure? but i already typed most of this up so too bad

first up egressregress babeyyyy we all know... i think its set in like. the 2000s/early 2010s... there was a poorly handled viral outbreak that caused zombies to happen etc. its pretty much your typical "society is broken down the government fell everythings a free for all" situation. theres pockets of civilization but much, much more small and scattered, there are areas with few or no people, there are areas that are controlled by certain groups or factions, etc. there is some form of self appointed government out there but they ghave no far reaching control.

the characters the story centers around are mostly isolated- they live close by but still a distance away from a well known main road that leads to an area controlled by the "government" and other safe zones and so is often traveled. cooper, dahlia, and elliot are somewhat a group, but they fucking hate each other so bad and they all suck.

the zombies themselves are pretty generic. disease spread via bite it over the course of days to maybe two weeks at most with no intervention degrades the body and eats away at the brain. theyre slow moving, generally die partway into the disease progression, and move out of instinct. theres not much of a focus on the zombies themselves in the story, but they do play a part in the mindset and morality of cooper

THA SECOND ONE my furry zombie superpowers world. smiles. so this is like my newest ocs so i genuinely dont have much but its one that i really really enjoy bc its very self indulgent lol. its... i want to say kind of futuristic? but its a different world as well so. like its not Futuristic but its set in a world w technology + stuff slightly more advanced than ours. its like Furry World. u get it

theres a very small subset of people who have or develop powers. it is there is a genetic factor to it but i dont really have that thought out yet... typically they develop around puberty but can and do develop at any time in someones life

the story starts at the onset of a zombie outbreak- there are very, very few cases, but it is widespread, and extremely dangerous. id say its been like a few months since the first case... the main characters are a part of a team sent out to investigate and study the disease in an attempt to figure out how it spreads and try to find a cure, or at least prevent it from spreading further. the main character, leah, is a "scientist" on this team- shes the one leading the research for her group. leah has powers that appear very similar to the physical symptoms of the disease. shes trying her hardest to keep it under wraps while they investigate, and desperately hoping that there is no link between her and the outbreak

leahs powers are... bio-manipulation? essentially. she cannot alter the mind but can do a lot of crazy shit to the body

the virus ive actually thought about this one pretty in depth okay hold on. its spread through body fluids primarily and is asymptomatic + will remain such unless its exposed to someone with a symptomatic infection (generally via bite but can also be spread through body fluids). if youre bitten by someone with a symptomatic case and you dont have the virus youll just die no zombie mess it iwll kill u... the progression of the disease once "activated" (idk) is slow it generally takes minimum a week before it reaches its final stage but usually takes closer to 2, with 4 weeks being the longest it can take. it causes rapid physical growth + mutations, mostly additional body parts, and causes a huge increase in metabolic processes and how much fuel the body needs that eating enough food is almost impossible, and it starts eating at the body and brain pretty quickly. eventually the person dies but the body is still driven on by the disease until it eats itself alive, and is unable to function anymore. common mutations are just growth of the body and replication of body parts, especially teeth, fingers, and stomachs, but it also commonly duplicates limbs eyes other organs etc. (SECRAT ACTUAL PLOT POINT SPOILER) in the circumstance the body mutates in a way that lets it take in larger amounts of food (more stomachs mouths teeth) and has access to enough food, for example a group of people dedicated to feeding it, it can, theoretically, grow forever. eventually the mutations will be so severe it will be unrecognizable as having been a person and can no longer move. itd be pretty much impossible to keep one fed for more than a year or so unless you were feeding it like. a ridiculous amount of meat.

last storuy ok the superpowers one. i dont have much additional to say wrt the powers than i did in the other post but i can tell u about the people... i actually have a fair few characters for this one but the story centers on adrienne. adrienne is a teenage girl with kinetic manipulation powers, she can store and use kinetic energy which generally comes out as some find of explosive force or something like that. i really am not happy with her story because shes a very old character now so i need to rework it a lot. some other characters:

kasey- a young woman with healing powers who was working as an EMT when her powers developed. she resents her powers and has the same mentor as adrienne, theyre narrative foils, etc.

sonar- adrienne and kaseys mentor. hes ex superhero + regrets his time as a hero, and is trying to get the girls on track. he doesnt want anything to do with the whole hero and villain sort of scene anymore but feels obligated to keep the others safe

longshot- ^sonars ex husband lol. hes a hero turned villain, in part because of their falling out, but bc of a lot of other things too. he has really good eyesight and shoots people. with guns

roulette, copycat, 2 more unnamed characters- a small villain group that are involved in the plot and that adrienne gets involved with while shes trying to do...whatever i decide she ends up doing in her new story. they arent anything serious and mostly just rob banks and shit

[arundolyn]

do you mind if i ask how you rip guilty gear animations? ive been wanting to get into ripping however there are very limited resources and few accounts are active that still rip. advice is very appreciated, thank you:)

just realized how stupid long this got right before posting so . cut

the way i do it for strive is, via unverum just for ease of use bc you can flip mod on/off at will before opening the game, get the mods that change the background of ajatar hunting ground to black/green/blue (i think it's by ultima?) and use the color of your choice (usually i use blue because black can screw with the outlines and green can cause weird lighting issues. blue can as well but it seems the least invasive of all of them to me, you can only really notice on stuff like zato bc eddie comes out sorta bluish bc he's translucent. there may be mods to help with that kind of thing but i havent looked)

pick whatever characters you want and go to training mode (unless you need something specific, like win/lose poses, of course. if it has to be during a fight you can just go to local vs with a controller and make the other character your keyboard so you dont actually have to fight) and record with OBS. pick whatever settings you think look best graphically both in strive and on OBS, idk if i can advise with those choices too well bc my hardware is beefy enough to handle max settings for stuff, ymmv

after recording, go to photoshop (doesnt matter what version, mine is ancient and ill gotten gains ive had for years. find your means. use something similar. idk) just drag the video in (no need to import it any special way) and literally just. go frame by frame copying the stuff from the animation you want into a new file and after you have all the frames go and erase it by hand. i usually use the magic eraser thing on around 50 tolerance (may need to be adjusted at times) and with anti aliasing (just cause i like the outlines not to be smooth, that also can make the "sprites" transparent and have an ugly white outline around it in gifs, do whatever you think looks good) and contiguous unchecked (contiguous just so that you dont have to go around clicking every blue/green/black spot individually, as that takes much longer. sometimes this cant be avoided, like if your character has colors too close to the background or an effect you want to keep is too close to the background color youre erasing)

additional mods i use at times are ones that turn certain characters im not focusing on invisible (like chipp or i-no, cant remember who made that one) just so i dont have to worry about cropping around another character if they do an idle animation or something, and theres one that disables lighting effects (like gio's glowies when she has full meter, or certain moves like baiken's dust or tsurane sanzu watashi) so that the gifs look nicer devoid of the like... engine based context. of that makes sense

as for XRD, i used to use a cheat table camera mod for rev that was kinda adapted from the one for sign, but since the rollback update it looks like its broken and i dont think anyone has cared much to fix it, but also havent had the time to mess around with it myself. the sign one might still work? theres a reddit thread with it out there somewhere still i think. be warned re: sign tho bc the models are kinda janky and lower quality, which probably isnt noticeable to most people but its definitely glaring to me when i moved from sign to rev. they did some major improvements on like everyone in rev

last but not least, a word of caution regarding certain things. i'd warn against trying to do any overdrives or anything that has a superflash (when the camera focuses on the character using a move, usually, like jack-o's forever elysion driver) or the strive pre move cutscene things (like baiken's tsurane sanzu watashi) as well as intro/outro cutscenes, since making them transparent not only will be a pain in the ass but probably would look weird due to the camera movement + lack of background. same goes for stuff like bursts or walk/run cycles where the character moves significantly and the camera angle might change, since not only will it be a bitch to line up correctly so it loops properly, but if the character's location or the camera angle changes it might end up looking off because the model is being viewed from a slightly different angle. not sure how obvious that would be to someone who didnt Do it but ive learned that through trial and error. might also just be perfectionism on my part. id usually get around this on xrd with the cheat table bc you could lock the model in place (but it would still move technically, which was nice if you didnt want effects like the little dust clouds when you dash getting in the way) but ive never seen anything similar for strive. from what i know it should be possible for sure, just slightly tricky to some extent and i dont really know how one would go about doing that or have the time to learn. the console for UE is locked in strive and idk if theres a way to unlock it, but that would potentially be a way to freeze models in place quick and dirty if necessary. there ARE a few camera mods out there for strive, but any model freezing aspects are just like.. full game pause, not frozen in place.

hope this is comprehensive enough to help somewhat. have a slayer

[celticcrossanon]

I’m so sorry for the rant. I just needed to clear my head and got compelled to do it in your inbox. 🙇🏾‍♀️

Not a question just some thoughts. Sorry I’m spamming you so much. I just read your latest reading about the wanna be“tour” and all I can do is SMH. I think to some extent we saw this coming but they are dialing it up and expanding. Conscious humans would’ve called it quits by now. The Remembrance Day pap walk, Going to elementary schools, “donations”, writing letters like they are world leaders, etc. On one hand I can’t see this becoming much of a “thing”. I don’t think MM and Jarry will go on doing this for long unless they can get some Hollywood to pay attention and acknowledge them. I think another reason with the more public European Royals work so well in their media is because their countries are relatively small, like California and Texas are on the large side in comparison, am I right? So much can happen on one side of the country that I only hear of thanks to friends back in California. I can’t see these two visiting any farm in Montana as “royals” if ever. They got a Clinton and Perhaps more big names and “engagement” is to come (oh god 🤦🏾‍♀️) I’m sure they and the sugars are just loving it but it all looks, sounds and feels so incrediblly STUPID & ABSOLUTELY VAPID AND INSULTING. etc etc. I cannot stand entitled people and the fact that these two cut off, trashed, and demand from their own families for a fleeting moment in the spotlight is unfathomable. That’s a testimony to how strong narcissistic delusions can be. It must be the best high I could ever ask for. 🖤Im new to “Royal Watching” if you can call what I do ‘that’, so I don’t really care about all the other indiscretions. I don’t trust the media and I think it’s just the BRF turn in the hot sun to catch hell. See Andrew, see the Clintons and all the others. Whatever drama is going on with Charles, see the rest of big business. I’m a narcissistic abuse survivor and I still study on the disorder. Now here I am watching these two who make my skin craw, this train needs to SPEED UP . I think I’m just looking for a bit of JUSTICE in the world right now. Between this administration, COVID, my job and all my other drama (I’m sure we all have some, if not BLESS YOU and pass it on 🥺) I’m flabbergasted and a little sick in my stomach at watching yet another set of people be able to walk through life seemingly so unbothered. It’s like the world is closing in and I’m suffocating. 🖤Like, your telling me that just because he was born a Prince and she married him and found a way to have children they get to get away with all of this?. The entitlement, the lies, the forced Wokery, using heavy and important subjects like mental health and racism for a PR boost all just to get a⭐️ on the Hollywood walk of Fame? For a couple of royals they sure know how to dump cold water on ya, they are the epitome of LIFE ISNT FAIR. And I’m sure that all depends on perspective, for example; their sugars who must be going diabetic RN. THEY think they have suffered as well. Look at the Cambridge’s who have not put a foot out of place yet have to deal with these tantrums from all over their family. All families have drama and I can see how the Harkles and the rest could be a payback of the Firm and family as a whole. The Queen covered so much and never really saw that Henry and Andrew and god knows who else were set straight. Look what having so much privilege can do. But is there a limit, anywhere?🖤

🖤Anyways, another thought I had was, this could be the end for any thought of reunion. This Narcissist has worked her magic and this clueless tone deaf fool has really gone and done it. I was driving and I thought of Prince William and the entire remaining Windsors & Mountbatten Windsor’s and the whole Aristocracy cutting the Harkles off entirely because the BRF called a wrap (or had to) and the UK became a Republic after Her Majesty. MM get the privlage in her narcissistic head that she’s the last ever to become a Duchess, Cathrine wouldn’t become the Princess of Wales and it all came down in part because of her and Henry’s actions. Yes Andrew and whoever else aren’t helping but these two made it exceptionally difficult. I think they would take pride in that especially publicly but only when they are praised for it. I think the Cambridge’s would have an easier time with moving on with their family, free to live as they please with no pressure to serve the public. Cathrine can be “lazy”, sleep in, & raise her kids and Wills is free to🖕 the paps who would surely still follow them. A La “where are they now”. The two that would have it the worse are the Harkles as they last bit of what they had to separate them from the rest of Hollywood is gone, no more Royal sheen but they don’t have much now. It would be stupid to use the titles after an abolished monarchy but they’d do it and expose themselves further.🖤 If you made it this far, one last thing. I got cut off while driving. That’s not unusual in this Miami traffic and usually i ignore it but with my mental state I couldn’t help but to compare. it was a packed road and I just really wanted to know where the heck the fire was. Why did this person need to rush so much on a busy road that no one else mattered even though we all have somewhere to go? That’s how I feel about the Harkles. What’s the point, where are they going? They went to New England for Christ sake to play faux royalty, in more trashy outfits might I add. 🤦🏾‍♀️

I guess I do have a question, DOES THE WORLD REALLY BELONG TO THOSE WHO JUST Get UP AND TAKE IT?

Thanks for humoring me and providing this space. ✌🏾

Note: My apologies for this very long post, everyone. I can't put a page break in and the writer needs to let it all out. I am sure a lot of you will be feeling somewhat similar to them.

Reply under the cut, so this is not any longer

Hi april14vc,

You are welcome to rant here.

It sounds like you have a lot going on at the moment and it is all becoming a bit much to handle, as there is no relief anywhere. Is there something fun and relaxing that you can do for you sometime today, just to have a break from it all? I feel like you need to tune out for a bit and do something that is just for you.

I am so sorry that you suffered from narcissistic abuse, and so glad that you survived this. I think the Harkle shenanigans must hurt you in a more personal way than those of us who have never suffered under a narcissist. It is very hard to watch the Harkles seemingly get away with all their entitled abuse without any form of justice coming for them.

I think the Harkles are suffering. They usually are unable to get any sort of attention from the media unless they pay for it, and even then they don't trend - it is a 'blink and you miss it' situation. Look at what happened with Meghan's 40 for 40 program - it was dead in the water before the day was over, and she spent a fortune on PR for that. Compare that to the natural (not paid for) hype that surrounds anything that the BRF does, especially the Cambridges or HMTQ. That hype and attention is what Meghan wants, and she is not getting it.

What the Harkles are getting, and what they hate, is mockery. Look at the response to their Times 100 cover. Look at the comments on this pseudo-royal tour. They are a walking joke, and no narcissist would like that. They tried to cull all negative press while they were members of the BRF, were unsuccessful in stemming all of it, and now have no clout at all to stop any negative media attention. The Harkles may live in a delusion of success, but to the vast majority of people they are no more than very risible z-list celebrities.

The Harkles also have serious money troubles. They may be ignoring them, but those debts will have to be paid, one way or another.

What we are seeing now is the slow slide of the Harkles into obscurity, and their desperate attempts to reverse the process, which never work. They are no more popular and wanted now than they were at the time of Megxit, and in fact their popularity has declined since those days. They may look like they are winning, but it is all an illusion, caused by the amounts of money they are prepared to pay to give the illusion of wealth and star-quality celebrity. The paid for events happen, and then nothing. The paid for PR happens, and then nothing. Their slide downwards continues, and nothing that they do is reversing it.

Yes, at the moment they are on a high and beaming put of every report on their activities. Wait a week and then see where they are. This is like the Oprah interview all over again.

My next reading is going to be on the consequences of this pseudo-royal tour for the Harkles, so maybe there will be some justice for you there.

Edited to add: As for taking down the monarchy, I can't see that happening. For starters, the British government would have to put the matter to the people for a vote, and even if they are insane enough to do that, I can't see the British public voting to remove a beloved Queen because of the antics of two people who are despised that that country. The logistics of replacing the monarchy are also staggering - you have to rework the entire government of not just Great Britain, but of all the commonwealth realms who have HMTQ as Head of State, and that is not an easy task or a light undertaking. In addition, those Commonwealth Realms can keep HM as their head of state even if she is ejected by the British people (which would never happen, but I am stretching the bounds of probability here). After HMTQ comes Charles, who will have a short reign simply because of his age and health, and then William will be king, and he is also loved by the British public. I just can not see all that thrown away for the Harkles, who are rightly hated by the British public.

[sanstropfremir]

So I got my wisdom teeth removed which means I’ve been sitting in bed binging kpop content as one does when they have a mouth full of gauze and I may or may not have listened to Gambler by Monsta X for like the past two hours on loop so I’m curious what your opinions on it were. I think I saw somewhere that you had plans to put out a post on it but I’m assuming you got busy with other stuff unless I missed it then it that case ignore me.

I’m very glad that I.M continues to be horny on main. For the longest time, I thought his line was “Hard as F” instead of “Hot as F” and I did not question it. Monsta X are really the only group that are allowed to have absolutely random and incomprehensible English lyrics (and also maybe Lucas). Like “I’m a handsome sum of money”, “my suit is black, my suit is fresh”, “Zero, Zero Lucky Bang”. I don’t know what that means but they say it so well that I don’t care. The intro to the song was interesting with the monotonous singing and I was a bit worried until that electric guitar started and IM and Kihyun’s parts and then I was absolutely sold. That bridge with the “she’s gone” part and the final chorus absolutely kills me like this song just continuously gets better and better and builds and builds and it’s so satisfying. It’s 4 minutes long and it feels it but in the best way? Like it toys the line between being too long but having enough interesting, different things in there. I’m of the opinion that this is Monsta X at their finest. Like they are such a consistent group and they know exactly what is expected of them and they delivery every time.

i hope you are recovering from your wisdom teeth surgery!! i got mine out when i was 17 and it was awful. i couldn't eat real food for two weeks and now i can't drink protein shakes without getting war flashbacks

you are correct i am going to talk about gambler! however i did kind of re-jig what i wanted to talk about about it, which is a very weird sentence to type out and read back in my head. i originally wanted to talk about the steadicam work in the music show stages, because it was one of the first comebacks that i've seen that in this year, but then over the last month or so there's been a whole bunch of steadicam stuff so i was compiling it all to make into one bigger post talking about several different songs/groups. but then also someone sent me an ask about want and then i got a bit off the rails because you know me and taemin, so this actually gives me a chance to talk about some of the other stuff in the gambler mv that i found interesting!

i do agree (and i've said this before) that mx is one of the most consistent groups active right now. they've established a really strong group brand that's been relatively consistent across their korean promotions and it's a look that really works for them as an "older" idol group (they're not old, it's just that they're not 22). although their mvs have usually been very sharp and well styled, i think these last three (korean) comebacks (fantasia, love killa, gambler) have had the strongest aesthetic and thematic unity, in addition to branching out a bit more from the general visual structure of a kpop mv. a thing that happens sometimes with kpop mvs is that the performers don't look like they belong in the sets; this happens most frequently with white/black voidspaces, but it also happens when, for example, they're out dancing in an empty dilapidated warehouse wearing pristine tailored suits. but the fantasia mv is practically draconian in it's commitment to colour palette and ornament, so by sheer visual force everything is integrated. love killa has a very cinematic and referential style without being overly obnoxious about those references. and gambler follows along the same vein as love killa but goes that extra bit further. i would not be surprised to find out that these are all directed by the same person.

to answer the question that you were not really asking, a fair amount of lyrics are referential to james bond. so the "my suit is black, my suit is fresh" -> famous for the traditional black suit/white shirt combo. "zero zero lucky bang" -> zero (0) zero (0) lucky (number 7) bang (the famous shot from the gunbarrel intro). "i got a vesper martini" -> a type of martini that the bond girl from casino royale is named after (vesper lynd), also martini (shaken, not stirred). it's obviously not a 1:1 because the mv takes more from bank heist tropes than strict spy tropes, but there's enough crossover that the comparison still works! another good example of using an existing property for spice rather than as the sole theme.

gambler, like fantasia, has a very strict colour palette, and does a really great job of integrating costume into enviroment. it's not perfect, since i think in the cinematic language that they're trying to establish the leather looks are a bit kpop, but i don't really have a real complaint about them because if mx can do anything, they can pull off leather. but in every other look, they look like they belong in those environments. it helps that a lot of it was filmed on location in (i think?) a hotel, so there was an oppotunity to match the style of the suits to the architecture and decoration of the preexisting rooms, as well as doing additional set dressing.

it's kind of interesting looking back at their mvs, prior to 2020 they were very focused on the performance/dance element of the mvs, which tracks because their performance and presence is one of their stronger traits. but the last three comebacks, which have been post pandemic and post wonho, have spent more time on creating a different viewing experience with the mvs, and then leaving their music show stages + other performances to pull out the big guns (shownu's arms).

[mindsoulchaos]

Mystic Messenger Original Character: Im Sulyeon

Disclaimer: The content of the background part (and even the Tattoo/Scars’ part to some extent) includes graphic description of violence that may be triggering and emotionally-taxing to read! Discretion is advised for the faint-hearted, especially underage readers.

  "It’s not my style to have long emotional conversations in which I suddenly start talking about my true feelings."

“Wealthiness, Celebrity, Recognizance, World peace… I can’t brag about having any grand goals like those. People forget too often that just existing and living a simple life is cool too. Oh, guess I’ll just live in my own way.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Chinese Name: Lin Shuì-Lián

Korean Name: Im Sulyeon [Birth Name: Lin, adopted by her uncle and aunt]

Nicknames: Shuì (by Yun Hee), Lili (by Runo), Suly (by Yoosung)

Chat username: Sulyeon (at least it’s clear hahaha)

Etymology: Her name means “Water Lily”, both in Chinese and Korean.

Age: 20-21

Birthdate: March 30th

Sex: Female

Gender: Non-binary

Pronouns: She/Her (but she doesn't care when people address her with masculine pronouns and doesn't even bother to correct them since in her own words, it would be "such a pain")

Blood type: AB-

Ethnicity: Chinese

Nationality: Chinese

Sexual Orientation: Pan-demisexual

Current status: Dating

Moral Alignment: True Neutral

Religion: Atheist

Political Party: She usually prefers to stay out of politics, but she still quietly supports most social causes, so Liberal (I guess?)

Theme Song: “Call of Silence” (Sawano Hiroyuki & Gemie)

Occupation: Park Ranger

Hobbies/Pastimes: Sulyeon enjoys hiking, trekking, mountaineering, climbing, surfing, jogging in the park/woods every morning (or when she needs to let off some steam) and generally any physical activity she can do individually near nature, which explains why she's very fit. Sometimes she gets away from civilization to meditate quietly on her own, since she feels a strong sense of harmony between her and nature/animals, wild animals included. She has a natural affinity for the wilderness and loves nothing more than enjoying the pleasurable sensations and the feeling of peacefulness that nature gives her. She also enjoys working out in fitness and weight room, or watching wrestling matches on TV since it’s cathartic for her. The rest of the time, she is using her cell phone with airpods in her ears, just strolling around or chilling out at home with Yoosung.

Talents/Skills/Powers: Looking cool without even trying. On a more serious note though, due to her build and active lifestyle, she's very strong physically and quite nimble too, though she's not a martial artist that can perform fancy movie-like moves. She just can throw some powerful punches and knows some basic self-taught self-defense movements, that's it. She's far from being a crazy combat beast like Yomi and Runo, but she's at least strong enough to hold her own in a fist fight/street brawl, provided her opponent isn't an expert, over armed and she isn't fighting against too many people at once. She can also walk or run long distances without getting easily tired.

In addition, Sulyeon is resourceful, quick on her feet, observative (often noticing things others don’t), analytical and good at improvising when she wants to be, that is. She has always been good at calming and taming animals, is fairly knowledgeable in biology, has a good sense of direction and knows how to perform first aid techniques, skills which are very useful for her to carry out her duties as a Park Ranger. Besides, she is quick on the draw and makes scathing comebacks like no others that can give even Dr. House a run for his money.

Physical Characteristics

Height: 5′8.6" (174 cm)

Weight: 133 lbs (60 kg)

Posture: Laid-back and withdrawn, yet imposing and firm at the same time. Looking blankly to what is in front of her without actually looking, and without bothering to pay much attention to the people around her, unless there's something peculiar about them.

Build: Tall. Slender. Lithe. Athletic. Relatively muscular, but not top-heavy. She has a calm, strong, reassuring presence. Let's just say that she's not the kind person you would want to pick on. Additionally, she has curves that are hidden when she dresses in a "masculine" way, and an ample bust (E-cup, bigger than Yomi's and still growing) that is often concealed by the minimizer sport bras she wears. Due to her build frame, some modeling agencies try to hire her, but she rejects their offers every time.

Skin: A natural medium tone (=tan skin tone with warm olive undertones). Sulyeon does some skincare but hardly ever puts on makeup. It's not that she doesn't like it; she just isn't cut out for it.

Hair: Pastel, mint-green colored hair (yes, her hair is naturally green), with long messy/wavy side swept bangs covering the left part of her face, including her eye. Despite being rather light, her hair is a shade slightly darker than Yun Hee’s. Relatively straight and seemingly short (chin-length bob), but there are actually two long locks of hair often bound in white bandage-like fabric, each ending in a golden ring, on each side in her back.

Ears: Narrow ears, pierced. On her right ear, she alternates between wearing a hanafuda card-shaped earring and a golden, silver or dark grey-ish chinese dragon-shaped ear climber earring.

Eyes: Coolish, intimidating, small and slightly slanted amber eyes. For some strange reason, her eyes commonly appear to glare, without her meaning to. There are markings underneath each of them.

Nose: Medium-sized, celestial nose, without any bumps.

Mouth: Downward turned lips. Her mouth is nearly always neutral, and she likes to keep it as such. Even on the rare occasion that she does smile; her smile is usually so small that you don’t get a glimpse of her teeth. She wears a fake ring piercing on the bottom lip every now and then.

Face shape: Diamond, with sharp facial features.

Expressions: Typically aloof, placid, and jaded. Blank. Hard to read, or impress. Hands in her pockets when she isn't holding her phone. Occasional, small smirk when talking to Yun Hee. She smiles a little more since she’s dating Yoosung.

Tattoos/Scars?: She has large, heavy burn scars on her back that come from her nightmarish stay at the juvenile detention center. She has got no tattoo, but she's semi-seriously considering getting one that could conceal the said scars someday. What’s more, she has a scar on each of her ears also dating from when she was at the juvie. The reason why she has them is that she tried several times, unsuccessfully, to cut her ears off so as not to hear the atrocious cries of pain and begs from fellow children who were being punished. However, they are only visible if you position very close to her... That, assuming that she lets you approach her in the first place. She has a fake piercing on her belly button but isn’t always wearing it.

Left/Right-handed?: Left.

Voice: Deep and low, almost monotone. She rarely raises her voice and only does so when excited, for instance, when Yun Hee visits her. Becomes raspy whenever she’s annoyed or angry.

Distinguishing features: Her androgynous appearance; she has this prince-like air about her that causes many people to think she's a man. Her bangs add some mystery, is she trying to hide something with them? Her teeth are remarkably sharp too.

Who does s/he take after; mother or father?: The day when she will talk openly about her biological parents is the same day pigs will be able to fly. As far as she is concerned, they don't exist, and never had. Especially her "father". As for her adoptive parents, well, she doesn't have much in common with them. But she has always been composed like her dad, contrasting with the more outgoing behavior of her mom and younger sister.

Fashion style: She wears feminine, gender neutral or masculine clothing, depending on the day. When dressed as a "woman", she commonly wears dark and revealing clothing, every so often with a touch of goth flair (including accessories like chains, necklaces, bracelets etc.) or Chinese influence/patterns on them. Whereas, when dressed as a "man", she's generally wearing smart casual clothing. Dressing in a masculine way helps her to calm her nerves. Back at high school, she wore the boys’ uniform instead of the girls' (in a pretty loose way).

She feels like a clown when she's wearing overly fancy clothes and thus avoids them, preferring her usual clothing over them.

How does s/he dress or what do they typically wear?:

As a woman: Lowcut shirt, tank top, crop top, slim jeans, hot shorts, or miniskirt. Leather jackets are her guilty pleasure. She is especially fond of heeled boots (that make her appear even taller) and Doc Martens. Favors black and red.

As a man: Blue jeans or dark slacks, long sleeved or sleeveless dress shirts, pullover sweaters, jackets or long trench coat, and dress shoes, tennis, or thick boots. From time of time, when she feels like it, she also adds a cap.

For her morning jog, she wears tracksuits or a top hoodie and leggings, as well as sneakers.

Health: Physically fit; active. However, her mental health is not at the best to say the least. Nonetheless, she's quite skilled at hiding it, even from her adoptive younger sister, who is nevertheless the person closest to her. Namely: there's still nights where she just can't sleep because she had bad nightmares of her past. She also has PTSD-induced hyperacusis and phonophobia. In other words, she can't deal with loud, piercing noises at all, which is another sequel of her stay at the juvie. As such, listening to hard metal is basically torture to her eardrums, which is why her playlist is essentially composed of soft, peaceful songs. Furthermore, she is a light sleeper and cannot sleep properly without earplugs; otherwise she will start having auditory hallucination of children screaming, the exact same screams who had traumatized her in the past. Whenever Yun Hee or her aunt question her about this issue, Sulyeon just brushes them off and claims she has especially sensitive ears. Last but not least, her asocial behavior, as well as her emotional detachment could be indicators of a schizoid personality disorder.

Personality: Sulyeon is a person of few words. She presents herself as tough, nonchalant, brooding, and cynical. She’s not good with words and can sound insulting without even realizing it. Not giving a single care about what people think of her, she goes at her own pace. Besides, she's rather indifferent and most likely won't react if you try to tease her. So far, the only person who has been successful in getting her embarrassed with teasing is Yun Hee, and it remains a pretty rare occurrence. On top of that, she is distant and it's very rare that she initiates interaction with others, except in cases of extreme necessity. Indeed, as a result of her tragic past, she has great difficulty opening up, connecting to and relating to others people, and isn't particularly interested in doing so either. She normally doesn’t stick her nose in others’ business. She doesn’t rely on anyone and makes it a point of honor to stay as independent as possible, even when she clearly needs help. She struggles with showing affection to others, as well. 

In spite of her no-nonsense disposition, she does have a (dark) sense of humor that often manifests itself in the form of deadpan, dry wit. Notably, she specializes in sarcastic and ironic remarks. Being blunt and not easily intimidated, Sulyeon rarely minces her words and doesn't hide her dislike for something or someone. If asked to, she's not afraid to deliver the painful truth and tell people what she thinks of them in a straightforward way, but interestingly doesn't try to defend herself when criticized either. Maybe it’s because she considers it pointless and a waste of time, or more probably because she’s used to being called every name under the sun and it doesn’t affect her anymore -at least outwardly-. 

Her stoicism and self-control sharply contrast Yoosung's cheerfulness and sensitivity. However, Sulyeon generally doesn’t mind Yoosung's bubbly nature, even accidentally implying she finds him cute. She tries to be patient and understanding with him but can still get uncomfortable when he gets emotional, because of her hang-up around emotional intimacy. Note that one thing that can temporarily get her out of her apathy is whenever Yun Hee's happiness is at stake, in which case Sulyeon will become unnaturally steady and determined, not hesitating to take drastic measures to ensure her younger sister’s well-being. She admires the latter's compassionate nature, but also finds her way too selfless for her own good and look out for anyone who attempts to take advantage of her kindness. Also, her romance with Yoosung brings out her more passionate side which she thought she had definitely lost in years.

Thanks to Yoosung's influence, as well as Yun Hee’s unconditional support, she’s gradually becoming more vocal about her opinions and above all less apathetic, learning to live her life to the fullest and in peace with herself instead of living her life aimlessly.

All in all, according to both Yun Hee and Yoosung, Sulyeon is a tranquil, reliable, down-to-heart and loyal person who has been unlucky enough to be born into unfortunate circumstances and has been through a lot. She is ultimately good-natured, but doesn't take credit for her kindness, instead doing small, kind gestures anonymously and being satisfied with the mere thought that she has made someone's day brighter.

Background: Sulyeon thinks she would be lying if she said she had never been happy. The first part of her childhood was indeed filled with plenty of bliss, love and fun. At first, she grew up in a particularly warm and close-knit household. Her parents were always kind, caring and understanding, never getting upset even when she misbehaved or got not-so-great grades. Not only would they pick her up from school, take her to the local park, play lots of games with her and help her with her homework, but they would smile no matter what, and hug her at every chance they got. Of course, she loved her parents back. In fact, she loved them so much that when she was in school, she used to brag to her friends about having "the best parents in the world."

Moreover, from her early childhood she got acquainted quite well with her cousin Yun Hee (the daughter of her maternal uncle). The two little kids got along quite well (although Sulyeon thought Yun Hee was a bit of a softie), chatting away and playing board or outdoor games together. Sulyeon saw her from time to time although it was mostly Yun Hee who visited her in China during the holidays and not the other way around. All was well in the best of all possible worlds, until one day Sulyeon overheard a phone conversation between her mother and father that made her doubt the authenticity of their parental love.

She thought about it a lot for several weeks, until she finally shared shyly her fears with them at dinner time. However, against all odds, her "parents" reacted very badly, and bluntly revealed to her that she was the child resulting from the rape of her mother by her previous boss, an influential businessman with backers in the government who had pressured them not to press charges. Because of the trauma, her mother denied pregnancy until the time of childbirth. At first, feeling bad for the baby, she decided not to give her up for adoption and instead raise her.

Her parents claimed that they started to hate her as soon as she started to grow up and look more and more like her biological father. However, they bottle up their resentment and forced themselves to act as perfect parents so as not to lose face, until they inevitably broke down. Sulyeon then realized that she was only a disgrace, a parasitic burden in their eyes and her innocence was shattered forever.

From that day on, her father began to abuse her emotionally and verbally on a daily basis, calling her “demon child”, constantly screaming at her and poisoning her heart with self-hate and anxiety. He even physically abused her sometimes as well, whipping her until she couldn’t feel the whiplashes anymore, while her mother just stood by and did nothing to stop him, neglecting her and treating her with coldness and contempt. Her days were punctuated by abuse, and violence had become her everyday life. Sulyeon was distraught and tried everything to regain their favor; in vain. Although she felt lonely and miserable, she didn’t blame her parents for their cruelty, reasoning that her mother felt as miserable as her and she and her father projected the hatred they felt towards her mother's rapist onto her.

One day, they decided to get rid of her for good by sending her to a dubious private juvenile detention center far away from civilization: Shizen Residential School. It was undoubtedly there that Sulyeon lived the worst years of her life. She and the other children there were systematically abused, overworked, humiliated, starved and enslaved by sadistic and tyrannical staff members, to the point that the children called the center a "concentration camp". It was strictly forbidden for children to take a break from work and every pretext was used to mistreat them. Every act perceived as "mischief", "an act of rebellion" was put down in the worst possible way. The punishments were both physical, such as being beaten up black and blue to within an inch of their life, and psychological, such as being locked up in a 10-foot room (3 square meters) for several months. Worse, sometimes children even succumbed to their injuries, and the others children had no choice but to bury them. The staff members turned the children against each other, in a “divide and conquer” strategy. On top of that, children weren't allowed to smile or laugh, which is probably the reason why Sulyeon became emotionally repressed and numb over time. Since Shizen was located in the middle of nowhere and the staff constantly monitored all the comings and goings, even patrolling around the school (including at night); escaping was very complicated, if not outright impossible.

Despite this atmosphere of terror, she still managed to form a strong fraternity with some of the children and work out an escape plan with them. After the said plan failed, she was forced to watch her friends suffer the greatest horrors imaginable before suffering inhuman punishment herself in order to "atone/be forgiven for her faults", which traumatized her forever. Her friends' screams of pain, their pleas for forgiveness and their cries for help scarred her, causing her to develop a severe phobia of loud noises. Nevertheless, thanks to an unexpected opportunity, she managed to leave this hell.

After being urgently hospitalized, Sulyeon kneeled before her parents and begged them to take her in and give her their love again, even if it was a fake love. She just wanted to reunite with her loving family, more than anything in the world. She swore to them that she would become anything they needed, which is how desperate she was. Alas, they completely rejected her and brutally told her that she was trouble and that they never wanted to see her face again. Their callous words, added to all the abominable things that happened to her, completely devastated her, and locked her in a state of deep mental shock, similar to a vegetative state. She had become unable to speak and interact with her surroundings, being in her own little world in which she hallucinated her parents by her side who were being affectionate again and even chatted with them happily. She seemed to have lost contact with reality. In view of her severe mental condition, the psychiatrists saw fit to treat her with ECT therapy for a year.

Fortunately, a thoughtful nurse took care to search in Sulyeon's file if she had any relatives in other countries and contacted her uncle and aunt to inform them of their niece's serious condition. When they arrived, they were shocked by the deplorable state of their niece, which prompted them to adopt her and bring her to live in South Korea with them. Her parents didn't even object, showing how little they cared about her and only wanted to get rid of her. They had even had another child in the meantime, which made Sulyeon realize that she had been completely replaced. Their despicable attitude angered Sulyeon's usually so upbeat aunt, who harshly condemned and criticized the horrific way they treated their child, even adding that they were an insult to all the parents world-wide. While hearing her aunt standing up for her, Sulyeon couldn't help but burst into tears for the first time in years, as it was the first time someone truly cared about her.

Following that, Sulyeon saw Yun Hee for the first time in years but was so traumatized that she was reluctant to connect with others and stayed stiff and aloof, locking herself in her room most of the time. Sulyeon felt awkward in her new home because it had been a long time since she saw her uncle and aunt, and they had become like strangers to her. Besides, she had long forgotten what it was like to live a loving and functional family. She was very intimidated, uncomfortable and even suspicious when her adoptive family showed her so much kindness without asking anything from her in return. She didn't feel like a broken person like her deserved to live in such a warm, welcoming house. At the same time, she paradoxically resented the fact that Yun Hee had parents who were so doting and benevolent while her own parents were willing to push her into the lion's den. Most of all, Sulyeon thought of Yun Hee as a nuisance and found her dense, simple-minded and her attempts to befriend her annoyed her terribly: she didn't want anything to do with her.

At this point, although she wasn’t suicidal, she didn't care at all about what could happen to her. Insulted, used, abused... This mattered little to her. It was what Sulyeon expected from her new family.

However, Yun Hee persisted in bonding with her; offering to go out for a walk together, to eat together, or just to just chat about anything and everything. When Sulyeon had night terrors, she always pretended she didn't feel like sleeping, but Yun Hee could see right through her and would assure her that she would never be alone again while hugging her. Soon, the kindness of her foster little sister grown on her and she began to cherish and hold her in high esteem, without showing it, which did not prevent Yun Hee from realizing that Sulyeon had finally grabbed the hand that she held out to her.

In addition, she also comes to see her uncle and aunt as her true and only parents, and not adoptive parents. Yet Sulyeon was still a lone wolf who did not seek to mingle with the other teenagers, but her new parents didn't pressure her, knowing full well that she came from a broken house and that she needed time to gradually learn to trust others again. They tried their best to help her to overcome her trauma. Unfortunately, it was too late, her trauma being far too ingrained in her mind for her to accept their help and fully open her heart to them.

Through a defense mechanism, Sulyeon suppressed her memories and convinced herself that her parents had died in an unfortunate car accident when she was very young and she had never been brought to the juvenile detention center.

Sulyeon knew early on what she wanted to do with her life. She wishes for peace and quiet. She appreciates being close of nature more than social interactions, as the first appease her whereas the latter stress her. Therefore, becoming a park ranger seemed only natural to her.

As soon as she turned 18 years old, Sulyeon decided to leave the family home because due to her own experience, she believed that the happiness she felt when she lived with her adoptive parents was bound to turn into misery at some point or another. Even though she was saddened by her sister's departure, Yun Hee insisted on continuing to visit Sulyeon regularly.

Sulyeon half-heartedly leads her adult life, merely observing the world rather than being a part of it. She is an observer, not an actor in her life.

Nonetheless, her quiet life was completely turned upside down the day when she was doing her usual morning jog; she received a message from Unknown who, not without insistence, managed to have her come to the apartment by casting doubt on her sister's safety. He made her believe that Yun Hee was in danger, knowing that it was the only thing that could works on the cautious Sulyeon. After being involved with the RFA, her hitherto rational and moderate lifestyle turned into an intense roller coaster, like she never expected to live.

Trivia:

- She is biologically female but identifies as non-binary. She came out shortly after high school.

- During her high school years, she was in the basketball club and was even one of the star players, but she never tried to connect with her teammates. In fact, the latter were even quite intimidated by her.

- Sulyeon is not good at remembering names, especially those of new people. If you're some stranger she ran into/briefly talked to some days ago, don't expect her to remember you immediately. It will take her like 5 minutes to remember you.

- Because of the deep helplessness and despair she felt when she was younger; Sulyeon is particularly sensitive to child abuse and regularly makes donations to associations that help children in need. She is sensitive to animal abuse as well. These are part of the few things which can make her loose her cool.

- Sulyeon feels comfortable around animals and even prefers staying around them rather than staying around fellow humans because animals are commonly loyal to a fault, easy to manage and love you for yourself as long as you take good care of them. On the contrary, humans have complex feelings and passions that (to her mind) can lead them to betray anyone if they have something to gain from it.

- Sulyeon doesn't have many friends, if any. Just acquaintances, like her co-workers, the grocer in her neighborhood, or anyone/whoever she must see on a regular basis, out of necessity. Even though she loves and respects her adoptive parents, she always made sure to keep a certain distance between her and them. The only people she's actually close to and likes being around are Yun Hee, and later on Yoosung.

- When she's at the beach, she wears a wetsuit (or a sporty one-piece swimsuit specially designed for surfing), as she dislikes wearing ordinary swimwear and bikinis.

- Sulyeon owns an electric motorcycle that her adoptive parents offered her on her 18th birthday, but she still has a car license as she needs to drive cars for her job.

- When speaking Korean, Sulyeon is practically accentless.

- Her passport is still from China, using the name Lin Shuì-Lián.

- She never told anyone about her past because she forced herself to suppress her memories after going through an ECT therapy, in a desperate effort never to have to relive her horrible memories again. Living as if all the traumatic events she suffered never happened is her (unhealthy) way to cope with her trauma. Yun Hee and Yoosung are the only ones who know small details of her past as she began, after much hesitation, to open up to them a bit, not because they had pressured her into telling them, but simply because she has realized that talking about it to people she trusts make her feel a little better. She is also trying to muster up the courage to consult a therapist.

- Sulyeon lives by the motto "Live and Let Live", and as such rarely criticizes other people's lifestyles, unless said people piss her off.

As you might have guessed, I ship Sulyeon with Yoosung!

Author’s Note: Hahahaa, I feel awkward since it's the first true content I posted here in almost four years... I would have loved to post an image of Sulyeon, but unfortunately, I can't draw for shit and as useful as they are, Picrew customization games don't offer enough options to portray her accurately, so yeah... By the way, English is not my first language, so feel free to tell me if you notice any spelling mistakes. And of course, feel free to tell me your opinion on Sulyeon or ask me questions about her! Hope I didn't make her come off as too emo. ;_;

Moreover, I want to clarify that this character, as well as all my other OCs, are not OCs that I created especially for Mystic Messenger (although I have altered some elements of their background so that they can fit better into the MM universe). They come from a verse that I created myself (and that I will present someday if I can find the courage...).

Also, although I only have 6 main OCs that I use in the Mystic Messenger verse, I also have several important secondary characters who have an important role in the history of said OCs, so I may make an info sheet on them after posting the info sheets of all my main OCs.

At last, I want to thank @marshmallowprotection for allowing me use her character info sheet as a model. Please know you are an angel!

[moons-and-stars-and-shit]

heyy could i pls still get a star match up if u still do them? Im aries sun, aquarius moon and capricorn rising. my mbti personaly type is intp (if that matters) my general aesthetic would be basic with nerdy elements and i would self-ship myself with Hirugami, Oikawa and maybe Atsumu

𝕊𝕥𝕒𝕣 𝕄𝕒𝕥𝕔𝕙𝕦𝕡 𝕎𝕚𝕥𝕙 ℍ𝕚𝕣𝕦𝕘𝕒𝕞𝕚

𝑃𝑙𝑎𝑛𝑒𝑡𝑠 🪐

Aries is ruled by the Planet Mars (Passion) and Aquarius is ruled by the Planets Saturn (Karma) and Uranus (Rebellion).

Aquarius gets its great, progressive vision from Uranus, and its social conscience and philanthropy from Saturn.

Mars, then, can make a great addition to the mix — it brings passionate, direct action to all these lofty thoughts and ideals.

𝐸𝑙𝑒𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑠 🔥💧🍃🌬

Aries is a Fire Sign and Aquarius is an Air Sign.

Air fuels Fire and helps it spread; similarly, Aquarius can help Aries think up new schemes and then realize them.

Aquarius stimulates Aries intellectually, something that most of the other Signs fail to do.

Both Signs have wide-ranging interests, so mentally active Aquarius is sure to provide physically active Aries with plenty of fodder for new adventures and crusades.

𝑇𝑟𝑢𝑠𝑡 🤞

Trust is an important issue for Aries and Aquarius can understand that.

This doesn’t mean they will be faithful to their Aries partner forever, but they would think it is fair to keep an open relationship and tell them about their indiscretions.

Unfortunately, Aries is ruled by Mars and needs to be the only one in the world that their partner ever lays eyes on.

This could turn them into an angry, possessive person who obsesses about the movements of their partner.

When we are discussing matters of trust between them that don’t include other people, it is safe to say that they don’t have a problem.

They both simply don’t understand why they would lie when there are so many interesting truths to discover.

They need to be free to speak their mind and accept that they will never avoid conflict, but that it can be used in a constructive way to better understand each other and strengthen their relationship.

𝐶𝑜𝑚𝑚𝑢𝑛𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 🤝

Their conversations can be so exciting that many people would like to jump in.

Aries is often kind of serious and asks for their boundaries to be respected. Aquarius partner will recognize this, laugh and shake their entire world.

It is unimaginable to Aries, always moving straight, for someone to have such an open mind, going back and front, having new revelations every day and never losing energy for new, different topics.

Aries could find an idol in their Aquarius partner and full-heartedly enter any dialogue because they are excited about what they might discover and how their perspective would change.

On the other hand, Aquarius enjoys this role in their partner’s life due to their ego issues with the Sun positioned at this sign.

They will share their thoughts with their partner, trying to be as interesting as possible.

Aquarius is motivated by their Aries partner and enjoys making tiny jokes at their expense.

It is important for Aries not to take things personally when it comes to Aquarius humor and they might have a lot of fun together.

Because of their strong natures, filled with energy, they could fight most of the time.

In most cases, Aquarius will not stand for ridiculous conflicts and will build a brick wall somewhere between them if needed.

Still, they usually tear it down at the end of the day, for they cherish each other the way they are after all.

𝐸𝑚𝑜𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠 😠😔😊

In order for Aquarius to awaken their emotional nature, it usually takes a partner with enough flexibility and patience to get there.

We wouldn’t exactly say that Aries is patient, so you can imagine the problem that could appear.

From the perspective of an Aries, their partner is cold, distant and has no intention of opening their heart for them.

Aquarius sees things differently and tries to stay rational at all times.

When Aries starts asking for the show of emotion, the true problem surfaces, for Aquarius might have shown how they feel the entire time, but no one would guess what they were showing.

𝑉𝑎𝑙𝑢𝑒𝑠 🤲

Although they can share a great conversation, their values go their separate ways as soon as they touch the subject of freedom.

They both value freedom by first impulse. But in time, Aries realizes that they don’t really value freedom that much when they see it at work.

In fact, they would often change everything in their lives only to take away the freedom from their Aquarius partner.

This is not a conscious need, but Aries can be like a spoiled child wanting things (and people) all for themselves.

So with Aquarius changing direction as the wind and never changing their nature, Aries can find themselves truly unhappy for they want someone to share everything with, not only what the wind carries in.

𝑆ℎ𝑎𝑟𝑒𝑑 𝐴𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑣𝑖𝑡𝑦𝑠 💪

Unless Aquarius suggests something truly unacceptable to their Aries partner, they will have an abundance of possibilities when it comes to their shared activities.

With so much energy, their only mistake would be to stay at home and not share a chance to get all that energy out of their systems.

𝑆𝑢𝑚𝑚𝑎𝑟𝑦 💕

This is a couple that lacks tenderness.

They are not two brutes who let their relationship fade as soon as their passion does, but the distant examining look of Aquarius can take out the emotion out of it.

Aries partner needs to be relaxed by their significant other, so they can melt down and show their true, warm emotional nature. In this relationship, they would have a distant partner that basically supports their primal, instinctive nature.

Although it is nice to think that the point of each relationship is for partners to accept each other as they are, in this case that would take away every chance for an Aries to grow through togetherness and learn about their emotional nature.

This is something they will never be satisfied with.

Still, every relationship with Aquarius can surprise us as much as any individual Aquarius could.

With them as a partner, there is always room for an enlightening scenario that leaves all things to free will.

In case they decide to share their lives together, they should have a screaming room they could individually visit once in a while.

This would probably do the trick.

And about that lack of emotion, they could just put in a lot of physical tenderness to begin with and let things go from there.

[baraste-legacy]

I was tagged by @palepinkycat, so, this is not my fault, oh no it isn’t 😅. As a while ago I did something similar about my Republic main Reid Baraste, it’s time to do the same for his surprisingly both mirror and polar opposite Imperial.

Also, “concise” what’s that 😛

GENERAL

Name: Samronarth (not a Zabraki name but a self-given, Rhyl-rooted one).

Alias(es): The Immortal Samronarth, Samro, Sam, "that nutty Zabrak", "that brute", "that cretin".

Gender: Male

Age: Born 11 BTC. 26-27 years old (our roleplaying disregards Ziost's fall and KotFE).

Place of birth: Sarflay IV, a gas giant. He was born on a Tibanna gas mining station floating on its upper layers.

Spoken languages: Still fluent in Rhyl, his day to day language during his childhood in a colony planet of Twi'lek slaves, carrying an old-fashioned, almost musical accent. He knows enough Huttesse to go by out of many of his fellow slaves having been adquired from Hutt slaver businesses' stocks.

Samronarth learned Basic as part of his childhood's instruction and perfected it once discovered a Force user, during his education as a Sith. He speaks it with a strong Imperial accent, and is perfectly able to juggle with both the snobbish style of high-ranking Imperials and the crudeness of the IM's foot soldiers.

He was taught the rudiments of the Sith Pureblood's language to be able to function before his instructors and in Sith society, and to handle certain aspects of Dark Side theory and practice. Beyond that, he developed an interest in learning old Kittât script and runework, ancient Sith poetry and prose, for the not quite vain purpose of incorporating them in a fullbody tattoo design that would finally materialize just a few years ago.

Samronarth understands droidspeak out of his familiarity with combat and training droids.

He is learning Iridonian Zabraki at the moment, something he hadn't cared about during most of his life.

Sexual orientation: bisexual.

Occupation: his last official role was External Security Lead at House Theral (previously House Korênt'h). Headhunted by Lord Ghendh Kôrent'h after a few years playing young brilliant problemsolver in the front lines, he found himself leading the House's commandos in raids against several Sith sorcerers' fortresses for Dark esoterica loot. Once the Lord fell to his former Apprentice, his role became more conventional, leading the House's forces both locally and on loan to the Imperial military machine.

APPEARANCE

Eye colour: Darkish amber.

Hair colour: No hair.

Height: 1.82 m.

Scars and burns: none visible unless examined very closely. His resistance to damage and ability to recover is formidable.

Overweight/Underweight: As is the case with most members of the Zabrak species, Samronarth has a fast metabolism and follows a fundamentally carnivore, very low carbohydrate diet. Combined with his training and exercise regime and the additional demands of his Force usage on his body, that translates into an athletic, muscular, slightly upper body-bulky build, fairly devoid of superfluous fat.

FAVOURITE

Colour: He likes to wear black with red and silvery metal accents. Other than that, it isn't something he has stopped to deeply think about.

Music genre: He doesn't listen to music actively, but he's been into both the usual hardcore dance genres when the occasion granted it and, funnily enough, their Twi'lek-specific variants (oftentimes playing with traditional Rhylothian songs and dances).

Movie genre: Not terribly interested in any, save for B-grade Holonovel action stuff or the usual moonbuster media event.

TV show: When able to indulge in regular shows, it's mostly about documentaries about nature, ancestral cultures and religions.

Drink: Despite the Zabrak species' infamous tolerance to alcohol and other psychoactives, he isn't into drinking, to the point of still being susceptible to tipsiness if engaging in it. He can be social about it, though, specially with his trooper charges. Samronarth is known to accept their offers to partake in the most horrid beer they can secretly get their hands on, which he knows, which they know that he knows.

Book: Samronarth isn't into reading fiction. He's more into instructional military and medical stuff. The exception is ancient Sith texts, which straddle the fields and genres.

HAVE THEY

Passed university: His education was the usual cut-down curriculum for the slaveborn Sith cannon fodder (most of them wouldn't last long enough to be worth the effort). His academy years lasted longer than usual, as he was an useful tool to test the rich highborn against, which granted him the privilege of being sent to Korriban to majorly play training dummy.

Had sex: Yes, with a certain periodicity at times, mostly as a way to relieve his frustrations, which is certainly a frowned upon attitude.

Had sex in public: Yes, although not on purpose. A few times, to let out steam, he sought pleasure in certain scenes, such as the quasi-illegal concerts so many young slaveborn Sith —fresh from the academies, their first kills, and their first humiliations in the iron grip of their Masters— would try in their first stopovers on Kaas. Privacy around such locales was neither assured nor specially mattering in the heat of the moment.

Gotten pregnant: …Uh, no.

Kissed a boy: Yes.

Kissed a girl: Yes.

Gotten tattoos: Yes. His first one, on his face, was out of his Master telling him to "go get something properly terrifying" upon starting to serve him. He had some ideas already, out of watching both a couple of Iridonian and Mandalorian Zabrak instructors at the academies and the typical tattooed Sith, and wanting to incorporate in his own the markings of the Samron Tuk'ata that almost ate him alive as a kid.

A few years ago he managed to get a reputed ink artist to do the rest of his body, rimming the flowing masses of ink by thin single lines of golden Kittât script depicting both power affirmations and ancient erotic poetry.

Had a broken heart: Not yet, although he's readying himself for the possibility given the path he has chosen recently.

Been in love: Twice.

Stayed up for longer then 24 hours: In the line of duty, yes, of course, and in other instances, but he's not a nocturnal animal, really.

A cuddler: At times.

A kisser: Yes. He loves it.

ARE THEY

Scared easily: Absolutely not.

A virgin: No.

Jealous easily: No, so far, although it could be argued that he hasn't been tested yet.

Trustworthy: Yes, to his detriment. He's a sociable person, and rather impatient with the usual Sith paranoid guardedness and general backstabbing: It’s a game he’s beyond fed up with. Once burned, he's not forgiving, though.

Dominant/Submissive: He doesn't care for that as long as everybody is having fun. That said, there's a certain streak of submissiveness in him, which could somehow have to do with him being not only a Juggernaut-Class "meatshield" but one of the rare full Tutaminis Force users in the Empire, too, able to physically take a lot and so being comfortable with that kind of pressure.

In love: Yes, madly.

Single: Yes.

RANDOM QUESTIONS

Have they harmed themselves: No.

Thought of suicide: No.

Attempted suicide: No.

Wanted to kill someone: Absolutely yes. Samronarth has a nemesis, and he recently learned he could have been sired by him. He’s on a quest to kill him.

Rode a horse: No. Curiously, he's had several big animals in the House he served in, but he didn't ride them save for the occasional playfulness. He has ridden the usual animals in places where speeders are impractical or unavailable, though.

Have / had job: Not currently. He submitted his resignation to his Darth Lord and the Lord accepted it by stripping him of his Lordship and throwing him through his office's reinforced transparisteel window.

Have any fears: He never had them until he fell utterly in love with a young, unknowingly Force-sensitive Chiss woman, the victim of an old school Darth's machinations. He fears failing her, and ultimately being rejected by her, because the whole point of what he feels and what he's doing for her is to set her free, even from himself if so she chooses.

FAMILY

Sibling(s): None he's aware of.

Parents: He lost his parents when he was approximately two years old, and he knows almost nothing about them. They were engineers in a Tibanna gas mining platform, seemingly subject to some kind of slavery-like situation. The platform suffered an accident and they and the rest of the workers managed to put him and the other kids living in the platform inside a few lifeboats before the platform sank.

Children: None (he's had a contraceptive implant since he was inducted into a Sith academy, which he would need to willfully override if he wanted to have children in the usual ways).

Pets: Samronarth had a whole zoo tucked in a corner of the House he served, starting with the previous Lord's pair of Tuk'ata, the thing quickly escalating to include Akk Dogs, Nexu, and a few Kaasi jungle visitors. He even befriended a (relatively) midget Gundark. Sadly, out of an incident, he was punished by being ordered to kill them all.

Tagging: I know I am no fun, but I really don’t know many people, although I admire so many. So, scattergunning without a license… @snarkspawn, @spacelingart, @karanan, @ky-rar, @asceticcyan​, @semper-draca, @angryducktimemachine, @aimartal, @mossygator, @antaressw, @carasilvaart, @the-archnerd, @ezroad, @namirkontyr, @wewillnotbow, @mattbarley, @moonlitalien​, @chocolatepyrusart​, @spindlewit​… and just anyone who likes the idea? (My apologies if any of the ones I’ve tagged has participated already)

[jvlicns]

julian amante , twenty - three , cis male , THE TOWER .

amusing , candid , resourceful , petty , cataclysmic , arrogant.

first of all HELLO !! im z. 25 / she+her / pst. im thrilled to be here and honestly a little shocked ?? my app was a rushed MESS but im so happy the admins understood my nonsense !! 

this is going to be a lil long so pls bear w me. im going to break it down into sections and eventually make an entire bio , but this will do in the mean time !

connections are here , & my discord is zvvf#1885 ! 

* tw for mention of drugs & alcohol

. . .

TAROT ━

the tower represents chaos , destruction , & upheaval. this change is usually sudden & unexpected -- & not always good. the tower itself is a symbol of ambition , but in this card we see it built on faulty premises & false beliefs , all of which are no longer useful.

the ruin of the tower is inevitable -- necessary for growth & groundbreaking renewal. it’s time to break out of the old ways.

AESTHETICS ━

cracked asphalt , bloody knuckles , tangerine sunsets. the smell of freshly cut grass . still , slow mornings. a neat row of fire ants , climbing up your bedroom wall. broken stained glass , an overgrown field. tears of laughter , the only you’ll ever shed. 

money in a yellow envelope , guilt in your eyes , pressed flowers , a string quartet , corruption , loss of morals , student debt , a yellow light , darkness , hellfire.

THOUGHTS ━

" you’ve got your orders & that’s enough. you don’t know who’s telling you to throw your classmates off the scent , but you’re getting paid to do it. maybe your moral compass would stop you if you didn’t struggle so much in the financial department , but hey. you’re doing what you have to do to survive. if only you didn’t have to go against your better judgment for it. "

GENERAL ━

assigned to REYNOLDS house 

fourth year -- senior .

currently working at the corner store as a cashier .

scholarship student -- 2.3 average gpa .

athlete , st. cade’s lacrosse team .

BACKGROUND ━

grew up in a small town in arizona , in one of those unfinished suburbs that ran out of funding halfway through a government project to “ upgrade ” that was met with widespread disapproval. it’s all empty pools & dirt lawns , a patchwork neighborhood of old houses mixed in with the new. 

former golden boy who peaked in high school : star athlete , prom king , voted best smile. eternally toeing the line between CHAMPION  & DIRTBAG.

well - liked , but known for being something of a hell - raiser. out every night , hungover every morning. it was less obvious back then -- he could easily brush it off as simple youthful rebellion , rather than a real personality defect.

his first taste of alcohol was in seventh grade. a summer night , with the sun retiring for the day but leaving her kiss on the still - warm pavement. his world -- previously filled with sunday school , tense family dinners , & 24 hour marathons of professional passive aggression , was forever changed. finally , the boredom slipped away. & not just that ! this was actually FUN. 

but for someone with zero impulse control . . . a door opened , & he never managed to close it.

from a young age , his parents were always involved in the church. they attended every sunday , no excuses. 

this lapsed as the years passed & the amante family found it more & more unpleasant to be in the same room together , but his parent’s beliefs never wavered. religion was used as a weapon in their home -- to shame & guilt. they claimed love , preached tolerance. what they practiced , however , was the opposite. as he grew older , julian managed to weasel his way out of most of their theological outings. he gained some freedom , in addition to the ire of his family. their disappointment in him grew from a tiny acorn to a mighty oak.

his parents had their own issues , long before julian came along. a marriage between two irreconcilable people. the love they should have shared mutated into something twisted , something that they could give only to their son. it was enough for them to feed him , clothe him , & put a roof over his head. anything else was simply asking too much. 

despite coming from a low - income family , things have never been particularly DIFFICULT for him. sure , they struggled. he’s lost count of the times the power got shut off , or the water. but julian was the type of kid who could charm teachers into bumping his grade up to a 71% , despite the dozens of half - finished assignments & failed tests. he didn’t really have to try -- they just wanted to help him. ( pity , perhaps ? he turns a blind eye )

he coasted through school. one of those natural athletes that coaches & admin treat like celebrities , focusing all their attention on a teenager they have high hopes for. higher hopes than he had for himself , in fact. 

julian never had dreams , not a plan for his future. all that stubborn arrogance fooled them : he’s spent the better part of the past seven years stalling. cutting corners & taking shortcuts , desperately avoiding reality.

he never expected to even leave his hometown , let along attend a prestigious college on a full ride lacrosse scholarship. somehow , he played enough games & passed enough classes to qualify for an opportunity that would pluck him from his sad , tragic storyline & deposit him on a shiny path to success. a fresh start. 

he didn’t want to go. fought endlessly about it with his parents , his friends , himself. his place wasn’t at some hoity - toity school , surrounded by do - gooders & the conscientious. julian may have a knack for delusion , for spinning a story that suits him in whatever moment is passing. but he’s smart enough knows what his future holds : drinking himself to an early death in the very house he was born in. you can’t fight fate -- but you can surely postpone it.

in the end , it’s the boredom that convinces him. he’s said & done just about everything he can here , exhausted all the options he cares to consider. made plenty of enemies , as well as friends. built & burnt bridges. 

the expectation of his teachers , his parents , were choking him. it’s foolish to think that this might be the way out – he’ll never change. but why not have some fun , while he’s still here ?

st.cade’s was a treasure trove for julian , filled with endless opportunities to amuse himself. despite his placement in reynold’s house & the mandatory church shit ( a part of his scholarship’s stipulations ) , it hasn’t been bad. another social scene for him to invade , conquests to be had , fights to provoke. the first few years were amazing : an intoxicated blur of his own little slice of this world. 

he lives in the moment , greedily gathering every experience he can. nodding off in class , smoking behind the greenhouse , collecting all the free alcohol he manages to sniff out.

he’s learned this : a loud laugh & bravado can get you far. but now , his actions have finally caught up with him. the school is threatening to terminate his scholarship , to pack up his bags & send him on the first train home. & while he has no idea what to do , he knows he can’t go back. god , no. 

even without what’s keeping him – the enticing mystery of helena’s disappearance , his friends , his freedom. he just can’t stand to go in reverse ; it would mean facing the consequences of every mistake he’s ever made ( & there are quite a few ! ) 

he’s a shark – he has to keep moving. 

that first letter came soon after the school - wide assembly. small , neat type. direct. there was no mincing words , the sender made it perfectly clear : this is his only option. if he wants to maintain this lifestyle , this is the way. so he burns the letters , following their instructions. almost relieved to be given direction. it’s a respite in the current disarray – something he used to enjoy , but now just feels exhausting. he’s the band , humming away as the titanic sinks. not my business , he thinks. but he’ll drown all the same.

PERSONALITY ━

he’s an asshole but a F U N asshole -- that makes it palatable , right ?? 

not a dumbass , but the lack of impulse control + arrogance could have fooled me ! his intelligence is only hinted at , invisible unless you’re looking : reciting keats from memory , listing off all 79 of jupiter’s moons. remnants of past & fleeting obsessions.

 has to actively undermine his own common sense -- for the laughs , of course !

selfish ; his needs & wants come before anyone else’s. a childish habit , yes , but one he’s been unable to break. ( not that he’s tried )

vacillates between aloof & dramatic. you can count on him to stir some shit up -- he adores chaos & just can’t keep his mouth shut. petty , to a fault.

he’s hot - shit & he knows it ; well aware of his pretty face & statuesque build. julian’s never been afraid of using it to his advantage , or even just reminding anyone around him of just how cute he is. ( listen up 5′s , a 10 is speaking ! )

 has a strong aversion to authority. “ don’t tell me what to do ! ” . . . * quietly takes your advice when you’re not looking * . . .

the good parts of him are buried deep. his loyalty , his gentleness. a warm heart that can easily empathize , but chooses not to. julians pursuit of superficial gratification blinds him , warping his reflection like a funhouse mirror.

aggressive & unrelenting. this could be channeled into something of a work ethic , if he cared enough. instead , he uses it to get what he wants. whatever that might be.

curious as a cat with nine lives , he won’t hesitate to ask the question everyone’s thinking. that bluntness is almost appealing , as long as it’s not directed at you. this makes him somewhat of a good listener , even if he’s only paying attention to satisfy his own nosiness. 

he’ll literally fight for the ones he loves. there aren’t many of them , but the sentiment stands. years of sports have taught him the value of teamwork , & he has yet to shake it. once you endear yourself to him , there’s no going back.

despite everything , julian manages to be a charismatic little firebrand. he’ll guarantee a good time , he just won’t help clean up the mess.

FUN FACTS ━

can fit his entire fist in his mouth

has The Loudest Sneeze Of All Time

once bit into an apple n saw a WORM inside so now he hates apples w a passion

right handed , but taught himself to be ambidextrous during the summer between fifth & sixth grade

promptly forgot he was ambidextrous & never uses his left hand

has surprisingly neat handwriting

can fall asleep ANYWHERE

likes country music ( will never admit it , tho )

his mother used to read him poetry , so he’s lowkey Very Into It

can’t carry a tune for shit , & his impressions are a w f u l. his british accent is just a cheap dick van dyke imitation , & his australian accent is what the british one SHOULD be

[verdandir]

LFRP/Contacts: Verdandir Sadi

[Balmung]

The basics –––

AGE: Adult (IE: She’s not telling... but Dravanians age reeeaally slow)

RACE: Au Ra (Dravanian)

GENDER: Female

SEXUALITY: Demi-Bisexual (leans/prefers male)

MARITAL STATUS: Single

Physical appearance –––

HAIR: Silver-white

EYES: Silver with white limbal ring

HEIGHT: 4′7″

BUILD: Very slender, with petite and dainty features.

DISTINGUISHING MARKS: Pure white scales. Long white naturally sharp nails, hard enough to gouge through wood without breaking. Small fangs (similar to miqo’te) in her upper canines. Her tail is extremely long, almost again the length of her body. (If her Aether-Sealing necklace is damaged/removed her Dravanian nature can start to bleed through such as an extra pair of horns and her eyes changing to dragon-eyes. These are normally not seen otherwise.)

COMMON ACCESSORIES: Aether-Sealing necklaces(to help conceal herself slightly better, she has 2 in case one is damaged), her Fairy familiar Ephirim (slightly larger than a typical Eos, less feminine and more androgynous, short haired, grumpy and distrustful of others), she is usually being followed/pestered/sat-on by random local small animal(s)

Personal –––

PROFESSION: Traveling Healer

HOBBIES: Studying other cultures, languages, medicine, brewing tonics and tea. Learning chess (her Fairy Ephirim still beats her). Learning penmanship/reading/writing. Traveling. Learning the flute. Singing.

LANGUAGES: Dravanian, Common, Doman, Nymian, she picks them up very quickly. (Written language however...)

RESIDENCE: None. She travels and holds no permanent home, settling down for a fortnight or a moon before moving on unless the clinic or infirmary that she has found work with needs her a little longer.

BIRTHPLACE: Churning Mists, Dravania

FEARS: Harming others, others discovering her as a Dravanian and harming/killing her, night terrors from the Dragonsong War

Relationships –––

SPOUSE: None

CHILDREN: None

PARENTS: Vidofnir

SIBLINGS: Lots

OTHER RELATIVES: Extensive…

Traits –––

extroverted / introverted / in between

disorganized / organized / in between

close minded / open-minded / in between

calm / anxious / in between

disagreeable / agreeable / in between

cautious / reckless / in between

patient / impatient / in between

outspoken / reserved / in between

leader / follower / in between

(strongly)empathetic / unemphatic / in between

optimistic / pessimistic / in between

traditional / modern / in between

hard-working / lazy / in between

cultured / un-cultured / in between

loyal / disloyal / unknown / in between

faithful / unfaithful / unknown / in between

Additional information –––

SMOKING HABIT : never

DRUGS: never

ALCOHOL: sometimes

Possible hooks –––

Healer-for-Hire: Verdandir works as a traveling healer and her deep resources of aether and natural ability make her an easy pickup for most clinics in need of a willing hand and easy study, she has a very soothing aura which is very useful in clinics/infirmaries and around creatures

True Pacifist/No War Loyalities: She is a complete and total pacifist, though she will aid anyone who is injured in any way… ANYONE. This includes Garleans, pirates and underworld types. She simply wants to help people. That said, she will not actively assist in harming anyone/thing and will heal/help anyone she encounters. (Say if a group she is with attacks another, she WILL heal the other side if left unattended... Sure tie them up, but she will heal them all the same.)

Adventurer Willing to Learn: Ver is desperate to learn as much as she can about the City-States, Landlords, and the greater world at large, and can come off as both naive and ‘out of place’, which she tries to pass off as because she is from a ‘reclusive tribe’, she will be eager to join adventures to find hidden lore and assist in bridge building/knowledge gathering as a healer (though she has an aversion/fear/dislike towards Allagan technology for obvious reasons…)

Traveling Healer: Need a healer going from one place to another? Odds are, Ver will be moving on from her duties and would be an easy traveling companion… provided you can put up with the local wildlife that will want to make friends with her. (She has that ‘calming aura that critters like’ thing going… people too… but critters really like it.)

Otherwise I’m open to ideas. Strictly speaking, Ver is HIDING the fact that she is Dravanian. And I am not looking to center her RPs around it... though it can be fun for this fact to be discovered and any resulting drama/angst/etc that happens be rolled with. Those who might be able to sense Dragons (Dragoons, other Dravanian, those who drink dragon-blood etc...) would need to discuss with me about the situation before just leaping into assumptions. :) (Yes, she’s a dragon, no you don’t need to RP with me if that bothers you, I’m very careful to balance my characters properly but I respect everyone’s opinions and playstyles.)

What I’m looking for –––

Long Term Plots and/or Short Scenes: I’d prefer a long running story, but finding out if characters/players fit first is important.

Pre-existing Relationships: I am more than happy to skip the awkward ‘how do we do this?’ phase and I loooove to brainstorm and throw ideas back and forth once I get to know people (though I will always be anxious about initial contact, sorry, however once we get to chatting head-canon chatter is just some of my favorite things to talk about).

Discord RP and In-Game RP: I am open to either of these. I like both, though Discord is slightly easier. I would prefer not to RP over tumblr.

OOCly I am –––

I work a full time tech job

Have health issues so sometimes that + job = exhaustion and very low energy to deal with game and RP

I have RPed and Table Top Game’d for 16+ years, but I still have a massive amount of anxiety and fear going into it these days ( sorry! D: )

I am both very shy and have extreme anxiety, I am not avoiding you or dropping an RP... I may just be afraid to bother you! Poke me!

I have a Rules page that covers some other details

Contact –––

Tumblr: Inbox me here so we can get to know each other (IMs might not be answered immediately as my anxiety gets jumpy)

Discord: Inbox me on tumblr or in-game so we can get to know each other first

Balmung: Find me in-game Verdandir Sadi (I may be working or not around if I am afk, but I will try to see your message. I tend to be online a lot given my tech job/wfh status, if I don’t reply immediately I will TRY to get back to you.)

[almondmelkk]

How to ACTUALLY meal prep

Breaking down meal prepping 

So I see a lot of people share meal prep ideas and showing put this much brown rice, this much meat/protein source and this much veggies. But everyone’s dietary needs are different so one persons meal prepping won’t be suitable for everyone. Some people may need less calories or more protein for instance. So here’s how you can make sure your more closely getting the meal prepping you want and need.

So first things first, your going to have to do some math 🙀 (I know sorry). You’ll need to calculate your caloric needs*and then from there you can calculate your macronutrient needs. (Macronutrients “macros” are carbs, fats and protein. They provide the body it’s energy through calories.)

I know this can seem like a ton of info (because it is) but once you do all your calculations and try it a few times it becomes a lot easier and you won’t really have to think about it!

How crazy you wanna get with your meal prepping is up to you! If you wanna prep every meal and get everything perfect to the gram that’s awesome and I respect your discipline! As for me, I just like to loosely follow my macro needs and only meal prep once a day (typically lunch for me since I like packing a lunch for work). For my other meals I’m generally conscious of the approximate calories and macros but I don’t calculate them.

I’m going to try to share as much information with you as I can, but this can get VERY complex since we are talking about calculating macronutrients. Like I said everyone is different so things vary person to person due to activity level, weight, gender, height etc. Also, the more specific your goals are the more specific/tricky your meal prepping will need to be. What I mean by that is, if your goal is to gain 5lbs of muscle it may be difficult for you to judge how much you should skew your protein needs. In those cases it would be beneficial to see a dietitian who can help closely guide you. Thats not always feasible though, so I provided general recommendations of macro nutrients designed for different levels of activities and goals. 

One thing I HIGHLY RECOMMEND is a scale!! This is huge because when you look at nutrition values in food they usually have cup amounts and then gram or ounce amounts in parenthesis next to it. So when you measure something with cups the amount can vary so much! When you scoop up one cup, sometimes the food might be more or less compact causing a significantly different measurement. However, if you weigh the food you’ll always get the exact amount needed that way the nutrition info will be correct. 

Alright lets get into it! You’ll need to calculate your general calorie and macronutrient needs. 

Start with calculating your calorie needs (This will help you determine how many calories you want to eat and put into your meal preps). 

Once you have your calorie needs click here for recommended macronutrient amounts. (This is will help you determine how much grains/veggies, proteins, fats etc. to put in your meal preps

Now you may still need a little more help picking what percentages/amount of each macro you want. This is super tough to try and give advice for over a blog post but again ill do my best! 🤗

If your a sedentary individual trying to lose weight WITHOUT an exercise regime, then you may want to pick a fairly balanced amount of macronutrients such as 60% carbs, 20% protein & 25% fat. 

If your trying to lose weight WITH an exercise regime,  increasing your protein would be a good idea because a decrease in calories could cause muscle atrophy (reduction) because not enough protein would be present to sustain muscle. So a good idea might be to decrease carbs a bit to 55%, increase protein to 25% & 25% fat. 

If your trying to maintain your weight than you can focus more on just picking % that fit you (This can go for anybody/activity level too). Pick what makes the most sense to you and how you like to eat. I enjoy carbs so I would pick a higher carb percentage, I weight lift so higher protein percentage and than lower fat percentage. If you feel like carbs don’t agree with you then lower to 45% and increase proteins and fat. 

If your an average gym goer, a balanced amount of macronutrients will be appropriate as well. Perhaps, 50-55% carbs, moderate protein for muscle growth 20-25%, and moderate fat 25%. 

If your an endurance athlete (runner, marathons, triathletes), your going to be eating a lot of calories in general but you’ll definitely want to pick a higher carb percentage such as 60-65%, low-moderate protein 15-20% & low fat 20%. 

If your a power/strength athlete (powerlifter), moderate-high carbohydrates 50-65%, increase your protein to compensate for muscle growth so high protein 25-35%, and low fat 20% as its not considered beneficial for power athletes (or endurance athletes). 

*All of your daily % can fluctuate within a desired range (probably about 5-10%) as well. Like everything Ive said, this is all general recommendations and how strict you want to be is up to you*

A few more things that may apply to you!

If your:

Trying to maintain your weight- This is a little easier since all you have to do is eat the exact same amount of calories as you calculated. Also, maintaining weight doesn’t have to mean that your not trying to change your body at all. For instance, Im fine with my weight but I’m trying to gain muscle and lose some fat. Im doing this by maintaining my calories, slightly increasing my protein intake and increasing my strength training.

Trying to lose weight- Reduce daily calories by 500-1000 calories, this will give you a weekly weight loss of 1-2 lbs (.45-.9kg). Decreasing calories by more than a 1000 and loosing more than 2lbs/week is not recommended unless advised/surpervised by a physician. If your trying to lose weight, using your gram per kg of body weight recommendation won’t work because it doesn’t take into account that your trying to decrease calories. Therefor, you will need to use your daily calorie % values to calculate how much carbs to eat. Ex. You burn 2000 calories daily, your trying to lose weight so you reduce your calories to 1800 calories. So to meet daily carb recommendations (45-65%) for instance, 1800 x .45(45%)=810 cal, 1800 x .65(65%)=1170cal if you want to take it a step further and figure out how many grams that is you can divide the calories by the calories in macronutrients. Carbohydrates have 4 cal per gram therefor, 810/4=203 g and 1170/4=293 g. Therefor you can strive to eat 203-293 g of carbohydrates. 

Trying to gain weight- Is just the opposite of trying to lose weight. Your going to increase your calories, and probably your workouts because odds are your trying to gain muscle and not fat. 2300-3600 calories above weekly needs (or 300-500cal more each day) is required to gain 1/2-1lb. Again though, if your not working out enough for your body to NEED these extra calories to repair and build muscle all you will be doing is gaining fatty weight. The increased calories should correspond to the increased demand that your workout out puts on your body. Also, it is recommended that the additional calories are in the form of carbohydrates. Otherwise the body will use your protein sources as the fuel it needs therefor taking away from the protein needed to build muscle. 

So FINALLY making this all translate into actual food! With all these recommendations we can look at a few examples:

Cooked brown rice (200g)- 222 calories, 2g of fat, 45g carbs, and 5g protein

Grilled chicken breast (3oz)- 120 cal, 2g fat, 0g carbs, and 25g protein

Steamed mixed veggies (8oz)- 90 calories, 2g fat, 15g carbs, and 4g protein

TOTAL- 432 calories, 6g fat (13%), 60g carbs (56%), & 34g protein (31%) 

Based off of these percentages (not calories, as they are quite low) this meal prep might be great for a power athlete because of the high protein and low fat values (a little more fat might be good too so maybe cook the chicken breast in a little olive oil or add a little oil/butter to your rice to increase the fat). Also, you can consume more fats in your other meals to get your recommended values. 

Also with this info you can use it to calculate how many more calories, grams of carbs, fats and protein you’ll need for the rest of the day. 

Lets look at another example for a vegan perhaps. 

Cooked brown rice (200g)- 222 cal, 2g of fat, 45g carbs, and 5g protein

Chickpeas (3oz)- 276 cal, 5g fat, 45g carbs, and 14g protein

Steamed broccoli (4oz)- 39 cal, 0g fat, 8g carbs, and 3g protein. 

TOTAL- 537 calories, 7g fat (12%), 98g carbs (73%), 22g protein (16%). 

Based off of these percentages this would probably be better for an endurance athlete, because of the high carb %.  Again though this is just one meal of the day though, so you can eat more fat and protein in your other meals of the day and completely change your daily % making this meal appropriate for anyone!

 So basically what your doing is just trying to get the nutrition facts to add up to your daily needs instead of other peoples needs. The purpose of this post is just to show you how to measure your food so that your not just guessing how much food to put in without knowing how thats going to affect you. Like I said I know this is a lot but I highly recommend doing this at least a few times so you can see what a meal prep designed for you looks like. After that you won’t have to get so crazy and you can start to loosely follow these guidelines because you’ll know what to look for. 

Comment below if you have any questions or need help!!

*I posted this a while ago and a lot of people were saying it doesn’t work but I promise it does if you do the math correctly! Incorrectly adding or subtracting was the main reason why people got crazy numbers. Also, the taller you are or the more you weigh the more calories your body burns daily.

Source: Fink, Heather Hedrick., and Alan E. Mikesky. Practical Applications in Sports Nutrition. Jones & Bartlett Learning, 2018.

[philcphobic]

[ ONE / THREE ] hello ! it’s KRIS with my first of three muses, and she is known as ANGEL, an assassin for the most iconic gang, DRAGON EYES ! she is a FORMER MEMBER OF RED LIONS and lasted almost two years, before taking her leave about a two months ago because a dragon eyes member ( shout out to @bladehoney ) convinced her to ... so ... there’s that. if you’d like to plot, smash that heart & i’ll come to you as soon as i can either through tumblr im’s or through discord !

[ TRIGGER WARNING ; DEATH, PARENTAL LOSS, BULLYING, VIOLENCE, RUNNING AWAY, UNDERAGE DRINKING, DRUGS, MANIPULATION, MURDER ! ]

LIFE BEFORE GANG ACTIVITY !

born as kim jangmi on november 05, 1997 and she was born to two loving parents and the youngest of five children in total !

( DEATH, PARENTAL LOSS ) paradise doesn’t last forever, and she and her siblings lost their parents when she was 7 years old. she doesn’t know much about her parents, as she lost them to what police would call ‘ an unfortunate accident that should’ve never happened ’, but she knows that her father was a big time attorney & businessman.

he’s known to never have lost a case up until his death. let’s just say some people higher up on the ladder were NOT fond of him and wanted him GONE.

after their death, all five kids were sent to an orphanage. one by one, she would watch as her siblings were either all adopted or headed to live with a foster parent, and wondered if they were all ever going to see each other again. reassurance can only go a long way.

eventually it was just her and her oldest sister, and they were considered a package deal, which is why no one wanted to adopt them; everyone that came around always wanted one & one only.

they soon entered the foster care system but it turned out to be a lot more hellish than they’d presume. the first family was extremely promising, and could’ve been their best bet to a normal life again if jangmi just wasn’t so disobedient.

jangmi was confused and scared, and wanted to go home to what she was used to. she wanted her parents and these people were not them.

it was an endless cycle of going back and forth between new homes for a couple of years, and by the time jangmi was twelve, she and her older sister were finally separated, everyone believing they would be better apart like their brothers were.

all she had of her family now were unspoken goodbyes and one last family photo, taken on christmas day, a month before everything shattered.

luckily, a family chose to adopt her. they had other foster kids, troublemakers like her, and they wanted to test if adopting one would change them for the better before adopting the rest.

this … did not sit well with these other kids.

( BULLYING, VIOLENCE ) these older kids did not like her. they had a lot of reasons, but usually pinning it on her beauty at a young age. jangmi was used to rough housing with her own siblings before separation, but the way they ‘ played ’ with her was nothing like that.

she always had cuts and bruises, and told her ‘ parents ’, she was just really clumsy when they asked. her foster ‘ siblings ’ frequently told her that she wasn’t pretty, forcing her to look in the mirror with all of her injuries and tell her this is what she truly looks like.

( RUNNING AWAY ) there is only so much a young girl can actually take. she thinks it’s easier to run far away, where no one else could hurt her or make her cry. she takes whatever can fit into her backpack, and runs as far as she can physically handle.

an old couple end up finding her passed out on a bench in the park late in the night and take her home. they end up becoming her new parental figures, and they take care of her ( and hide her as she pleaded them to, ) as she is still considered a missing child.

the woman is an ex-professor and the man is war veteran, so she believed she had all she needs in order to live what’s considered a ‘ normal ’ life. she plays with the other kids in her neighbourhood leisurely, but is homeschooled for the fear of being found out, despite already having another identity as ANGEL. she’s taught everything she needs to know from them; everything from english & japanese to self-defence & how to use a gun.

life is perfect with them, and they’re the kindest, most understanding people she’s ever met. they give her a lot of freedom to be her own person, and they usually don’t discipline her, partially because they feel bad about her messy childhood and also because they thought she’d rebel if she was contained in a certain box …

despite their efforts, she turned out to become a rebel anyway.

( UNDERAGE DRINKING, DRUGS ) with so much freedom and little to no discipline, it was easy to push her boundaries away from her. they didn’t know about her getting involved with alcohol and drugs underage, her equally troublesome friends, nor did they know about her first boyfriend three years her senior, at the age of sixteen. they just believed she liked the freedom, and since she was obedient when around them, they didn’t feel the need to be suspicious.

( MANIPULATION, RUNNING AWAY ) it’s good up until she turns eighteen, when she’s about to attend university and meets … [redacted], and they hit it off quickly ! they convince her that she doesn’t need her parents anymore, and manipulating her into thinking she’s a burden for being so troublesome, and should leave them alone. this marks the second time she runs away from home, but this time hurts more than the first.

she left nothing but a letter and a necklace they gave her for her fourteenth birthday, and hasn’t seen them since. in her letter she apologizes for taking a gun from her father, and hopes they don’t try to find her.

[redacted is somehow connected to the gang red lions. she doesn’t understand why someone with so much money would be involved with a gang, but she doesn’t question them ... mostly for safety, in case this person was dangerous, but she’s always been curious.

( VIOLENCE, MURDER ) it takes a year for her to stop being naive with this person, who has isolated her for her ‘ safety ’ while being her biggest threat as they stay under the same roof. she realizes this one night when she looks in the mirror and sees a reflection of the same girl she was when she was thirteen, living with a bunch of foster kids who hated her. a fight ensues, and it’s clear who wins.

meticulous as ever, she erases her presence in their life to avoid trouble with the law, but realizes she’s alone again for the fourth time in her life.

LIFE WITH GANG ACTIVITY !

she slides her way into RED LIONS just days before her nineteenth birthday, already having connections on the inside. it’s the second ‘ unfortunate accident ’ in her life, but this time she’s involved and it’s anything but an accident.

she doesn’t know whether they genuinely thought she’d be a good addition to their growing empire or if they pitied her circumstance ( since she didn’t tell them the blood is on her hands ), but she finally found a stable family.

she is the story of [drake vc] started from the bottom now we here, as she went from having nothing for to her name to rising in the ranks as she proved her worth time and time again. she somehow rose high enough to be one of the trusted assassins in red lions, and was also taking money from outside sources ( coughs aka sugar daddies / mommies ) when she was really in need.

targets are mostly the wealthy, as it’s easier to maintain secrecy when they have reputations to live up to. she usually takes her sweet time with targets, ( no longer than a month ) just to know their schedules and … them as a person. sometimes there are hit & run opportunities but she doesn’t like doing spontaneous jobs like that too often … they get messy.

so she’s there for nearly two years, but during then she befriended sienna and she somehow managed to convince angel to leave red lions and join DRAGON EYES …

or is there more to the story? yes, but it’s not important tbh since it’s minor.

she left red lions at the beginning of september 2018, and joined dragon eyes at the beginning of october 2018. no one outside of dragon eyes knew this until recently … for obvious reasons. hopefully there’s no hard feelings because she still loves the members of red lions !! ( most of them, maybe? hopefully? )

still an assassin, that hasn’t changed ! — not sure what happened to their old assassin, but that’s not her problem — she’s still the same girl, who has tattoos for both gangs despite being only in one. she has been mostly independent in red lions ( except for those times she needed a warm body if ya’ get what i mean, ) and that hasn’t and won’t change. her allegiance is with one gang, but she usually works by herself unless specifically requested to do something other than kill.

red lipstick, pistols & pretty chrome daggers are part of her aesthetic.

ANGEL AS A PERSON !

she wasn’t always a strong person, but she’s stronger than she’d ever thought she’d be. there were nights when she didn’t think she’d see the sun the next day, so she’s proud of her growth. she’s not too in-touch with her negative emotions, so pride is what she feels.

this girl is always looking for improvement, and is constantly challenging her skills, her strength, her mind, & her perseverance when she has the chance. if you look at her desk, there are files of herself with records of her improvements. she’s extremely organized and careful, which helps for her job too.

she is a university student during the day, just to keep as a front if she’s to be acquainted with targets. she majors in criminology, ironically enough. she minors in chemistry, which is also useful if ya’ get what i mean.

she has a lot of money now, mostly because she has a bunch of unknown sugar daddies / mommies funding her every need. if you need anything just hit her up and she’ll get it … with a small price. it’s two way street, but she is more lenient.

she’s a social person, but she’s not extroverted … does that make sense? she doesn’t go out of her way to go out ( unless it’s a target ) and likes staying home a lot. she likes staying with her persian cat, sumi, and her cute lil rosy boa, nagini.

skills include self-defense, knowledge of & experience with most weaponry, lying, forgery, stealing, disguises … uh … driving? maybe one or two more but … whatever. she’ll do whatever the gang needs her to do, no doubt !

( DRINKING, DRUGS ) she drinks every week, but usually tones it down when she’s got a job. luckily, she doesn’t really do as many drugs anymore, but she smokes marijuana occasionally ( when someone offers it to her ) and smokes cigarettes when she’s really stressed, but also once biweekly if anything.

this girl is pretty much a clean slate. ever since she met [redacted], any life with the elderly couple is erased, and her life in and out of foster homes is so far gone that no one knows about it. her name was kim jangmi back then; NO ONE knows she’s kim jangmi unless she’s told them, or made the connection by themselves on their own time. as far as anyone is concerned, kim jangmi died as a missing child back in early 2010. she’s secretive about her past; don’t try digging into it unless you plan on digging your grave too !

she has a lot of repressed emotions, sadness being the biggest one, and isn’t the type to get angry very often, if at all. annoyed is the most she’d get, but she wouldn’t raise her voice. to be honest, she’s decent as long as people are as well? again, it’s a two way street. give respect & you get respect !

uh … these repressed emotions will eventually spill over : ) one day !

ummmm that’s it for now folks !!!!! pls plOT with Me !!!!!

[concepts-influencer-marketing]

The Concept : Influencer Marketing

Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing refers to a form of marketing where marketers and brands invest in selected influencers, utilizing their social media outreach and micro-celebrity status of these opinion leaders to promote their services, products and branded content to both the influencers’ own followers and to the brands’ target consumer.

Who are Social Media Influencers?  

“Social media users who have established credibility in a particular category” that “have the power to affect consumer purchasing decisions with their authority as opinion leaders”.

Social media influencers are considered as credible experts in their chosen niche(s).

As per past studies Social Media Influencers are often referred to as a type of celebrity or micro-celebrity as they are similar in their role of endorsers of a product or service in marketing campaign.

Difference between Social Media Influencers from a traditional celebrity- reach, engagement, perception, para social interaction with consumers, content creation, delivery and the type of expertise.

The rise of Influencer marketing

Google search trend shows a comparable rise in influencer marketing at the same time as print advertising has been falling. Searches for "influencer marketing" drew ahead of those for "print advertising" in mid-2017 and have remained that way ever since.

 As per the influencer marketing hub's benchmark reports (2019; 2020) states that google searches for "Influencer Marketing" have grown up to 1500%.

Large companies have doubled the number of influencer-based campaigns, with 300% more micro-influencers since 2016.

The Influencer Marketing industry has a growth of $3.2B from 2019, and the entry of 60 more Influencer Marketing agencies took place within a year.

The average earned media value per $1 spent has increased to $5.78

1.       Nano-influencers ( up to 10,000 followers)

•       At the beginnings of their influencer careers, understanding the industry and to establish their personal brands - fewer than.

•       Followers- mostly friends, acquaintances, and others who live close by.

•        Personal accessibility and high perceived authenticity,

•       They often generate the highest engagement rates of all influencer categories.

•       Prospects for brand partners- more open to unpaid partnerships and free product samples in return for networking opportunities and increased exposure on social media.

•       Most proactive influencers, in that they approach brands to inquire about partnerships rather than being approached themselves.

2.       Micro-influencers (10,000 and 100,000 followers)

•       Successful enough to make a career out of being an influencer

•       Smaller than macro-influencers in both scale and scope.

•       Audience- more localized to their geographic base, and most of their income comes from affiliate-link programs or occasional partnerships with brands (e.g., Nordstrom, the Amazon Influencer Program, Daniel wellington, mama earth etc).

•       Often partner with multiple and diverse industries.

•       Micro-influencers usually depend upon social media videos (e.g., Instagram stories), which help them connect with their followers and heighten their perceived accessibility and authenticity.

•       Many followers find micro-influencers’ recommendations more genuine than those made by larger celebrities, whom they may view as more prone to “sell out.”

•       For this reason, marketing managers are increasingly working with micro-influencers, who harness greater authenticity and trust and often are more connected to the needs and interests of their followers (Wissman, 2018).

3.       Macro-influencers (100,000 and 1 million followers)

•       Yet to gain celebrity status but nevertheless are extremely successful.

•       Good engagement rates and can harness their large followings for substantial brand exposure.

•       Macro-influencers can earn mostly through selective brand partnerships and appearances.

•        These influencers are dominant within their subject domains (e.g., travel, food, music), and their audiences often aspire to be like them.

4.       Mega-influencers (1 million or more followers)

•       Who have created a celebrity status from an established expertise.

•       But unlike celebrity influencers, mega-influencers, are people who lacked celebrity status prior to their becoming social media mavens.

•       While they may be “internet famous,” they are typically relative unknowns outside their sets of followers.

•       In contrast with celebrity influencers, mega-influencers often align their brands more closely with paid partnerships

5.       Celebrity influencers (over 1 million followers )

•       Enjoys public recognition outside of social media and is leveraged by brands for their large follower base

•       Have been popular prior to the evolution of social media, though they now use their social media presences to support their careers and propagate brand partnerships.

•       These influencers often have and major endorsement deals with well-known brands.

•       Celebrity influencers frequently work with brands associated with their prior work (e.g., music or film), and this cultural capital lets them command significantly higher price tags than other, noncelebrity influencers. Though they tend to form weak brand connections, celebrity influencers can carry high levels of perceived expertise, which is another factor behind their high pay.

•       Relatively low engagement rates

How to Select SMI for your campaign

·         There are generally three approaches to engage in influencer marketing :

1.       Organic – You search for and build relationships with influencers yourself. You then carry out your influencer campaigns in-house.

2.       Platforms – You still run your influencer campaigns internally, but you use specialist tools to find suitable influencers and possibly other stages of the influencer marketing process.

3.       Agencies - You pay a specialist marketing agency to create and operate your influencer campaign for you, including influencer selection.

Organic  

The organic approach is manually by :

§  Search Instagram by hashtags

§  Search by location for local businesses

§  Subscribe to niche influencers.

§  Study your competitors’ advertising.

Platforms

Many business owners or marketing firms have sought to leverage the effectiveness of IM by purchasing platform access, licenses, and/or support for a variety of uses like:

•       influencer discovery- Location (where they are based), Interests, Keywords, Brands worked with and Engagement rate

•       campaign management

•       Reporting

•       Influencer payments

•       Contracting

•       Rating/ review

•       Trackable links

•       Fake follower detection

Agencies

An influencer marketing agency is an organization that works with brands and influencers to run influencer marketing campaigns, predominantly via social media. 

•       Influencer marketing agencies strategize, execute, and manage influencer marketing campaigns for their clients.

•       These can take various forms, including:

•       Product placements 

•       Building social followers 

•       Contests or giveaways 

•       Theme or hashtag campaigns 

•       Creative campaigns 

Why influencer marketing?

•       Strategic placement of products/ services

•       Ready made trust and loyalty to leverage the brand credibility

•       Use of tags and hashtags- increased search results, reach and engagement

•       Increase a brand’s social reach as they appear as mediators that engage communications with consumers.

•       The brand’s content gets shared, liked and discussed in real- time.

•       Social media influencers also strategically boost their contents for going viral that can increase a brand’s customer base.

•       Cost effective

•       Additionally, social media influencers help to maintain a brand’s reputation as with their active communication; they can turn negative perceptions into a positive one

•       Improves a brands search engine optimization – back link of endorsement thus better performance in organic search

•       Enables the brands to have better position in an industry- increased trust and loyalty.

The verification: Identifying the fake SMIs

Everyone wants to enjoy the benefits. But some do not want to put in the work to build an organic following.

•       Fake influencers are people who do not grow their follower on their own but rather buy them by using various apps, fake accounts and bots.

Thus, No real influence and No real results!

•       According to Unilever’s chief marketing officer estimates show that almost “15% of Twitter’s users' may be fake while up to 60m Facebook accounts could be automated, or bots.

The key for improvement :

•       removing misleading engagement;

•        more awareness to brands and consumers

•       improving transparency on platforms to measure the impact

How to identify them?

#1: Look for Unusually Low Engagement Rates

•       Thousands of followers but barely any likes.

•       So anything between 1% and 3% would be considered average engagement, and anything below 1% is very low.

#2: Analyse the Quality of Interactions

•       Likes and comments can also be bought on the posts, in addition to buying followers

•       Manually going through their post interactions- A lot of spammy and irrelevant comments

•       They could say stuff like “awesome,” “great shot,” “lovely pic,” etc. Or they could simply leave emoji comments that would be applicable to most pictures.

•       But every public Instagram account is susceptible to receiving such comments.

•       So unless there’s an unusually high number of these spam comments, don’t be too alarmed

#3: Examine Their Follower Profiles

•       Analyse the profiles of people who leave generic comments.

A fake account will

•       Typically leave the bio blank or

•       Include only a few details.

•       Not have many posts, and sometimes they will have no posts at all.

•       Some fake accounts may not even have a profile picture.

•       And in most cases, they won’t have a lot of followers.

#4: Analyse Their Follower Growth Rate

•       Usually have a sudden spike in followers at some point of time.

•       The growth rate will then remain stagnant afterwards since they’re not gaining any new followers organically.

•       Tools at a nominal fees may be used for this analysis

#5: Analyse Their Audience Quality

•       You could also skip the rest of the tactics and go straight to this one.

•       You will need to use a tool to run an audience quality check for potential influencers which are built specifically to analyse the percentage of real followers on Instagram accounts. E.g. Heepsy, Hypeauditor, MightyScout, Modash

•       The final calculation is based on the overall quality of the audience, engagement rate, number of followers, and other important metrics.

•        The results are generated based on their computer vision machine-learning algorithm

Type of collaborations and sponsorships

Sponsored Social Media Content

•       Most common type of influencer collaboration.

•       An influencer creates and posts content to promote your brand on their social media accounts.

Gifting/ PR

•       Gift your product samples to the influencer. You can encourage them to use your products and create content around them for your brand.

•       Works for books, clothing, makeup brands, and many others.

•       If you are simply gifting your product to influencers (and not paying them), they’re not obligated to promote you.

Sponsored Blog Posts

•       A dedicated post that revolves around your brand’s products or services.

•       The content focuses on your brand and may also include an exclusive discount code for purchases or a custom giveaway.

•       You can also ask the blogger to mention your brand in a roundup post of products or services.

•       In this case, the blog post will include a number of businesses including yours.

Guest Blogging

•       You need to identify a set of influencers in your niche who own blogs or websites that have a high Domain Authority.

•       If they accept guest blogging, pitch them some ideas for guest post topics that they may be interested in.

•       Create some well-written, informative posts that they can publish on their blogs.

•       Also, include a link back to your website that doesn’t look spammy or overtly promotional.

•       This can not only expose your brand to the influencer’s audience but also drive traffic to your site.

Takeovers

•       Influencer takes over your brand’s account and posts content on your behalf.

•       Takeovers are both interesting and beneficial to the brand since influencer content is more effective than your brand-created content.

Brand Ambassador Programs

•       Brand ambassadors use the brand’s products on an ongoing basis and continually promote them online.

•       As a brand ambassador, the influencer shares posts about their day-to-day experiences of using the brand’s products.

Shoutouts

•       A shoutout happens when you pay a user to promote your brand or product on social media.

•       They can be with or without a visual like video, images, or GIFs and can be used for any call to action (typically more sales, more followers for your brand, or more traffic to your website).

•       Paid shoutouts are a classic influencer marketing tactic.

Giveaways

•       When a brand provides the influencer something of value that the influencer can then offer to their followers through a giveaway or contest. The result is usually increased brand awareness and leads.

•       They’re short-term, usually generate lots of interest, and provide value to both you as a brand and the influencer.

Affiliate Marketing

•       An influencer promotes a brand’s product and gets a commission based on sales through the influencer’s platform.

•       This is a bit skewed in favor of brands since the influencer only gets paid for actual sales.

•       Brands like using influencers for affiliate marketing because having pay tied to production like this tends to make influencers more effusive about your product.

How much are the influencers paid?

There     are a number of factors that can impact how much an influencer charges for     their services and its rare to find an influencer who charges a flat rate.     Influencer marketing is a legitimate business and influencers set their     rates based on what brands will pay.

Things you can count on to have     an impact:

·         The influencers reach and engagement-the influencer might quote a rate based on their category.

·         The channel they use- social media platform(s) utilised- different type of content and audience.

·         Industry – Sprecialization, popular niche or niche with fewer options of SMIs.

·         How many posts you want and if they include images, videos and audio.

·         How much efforts and resources to be utilized by the influencer.

·         Influencer demand – seasonal or campaign based.

·         Usage rights – Influencers charge higher for the content which is to be reused.

·         Exclusiivity – Clause with influencer for not promoting competitors for certain period of time.

·         Agency fees (if the influencer is with an influencer marketing agency)

The KPIs to measure an IM campaign

1- Define the reach of your influencer campaign

•       Followers – how many on different platforms, match

•       Impressions

•       Engagement rate

•       Traffic- generated , tracking links

This information is accessible from your influencer’s various accounts via the built-in tools offered by most networks. You can also use specific tools that provide detailed statistical tracking of the activity on social networks.

2- Measure the engagement of your influencer campaign

•       Clicks- measure the levels of interest shown by your target

•       Likes- generates attention around your brand

•       Reactions- even more engaging than

•       Shares and retweets- creates a buzz, intention to spread WOM

•       Comments- reflects interest of audience to engage in conversation

•       Mentions- indicates discussion around your content, increases visibility

•       All these indicators enable you to calculate the Earned Media Value(EMV).  

3- Track the results of your influencer campaign

Across all networks: promotional code with each of     your influencers

On Facebook and Twitter: tracked links in posts to     track the origins of your traffic.

On Instagram: cannot contain links, look at     the popularity of your hashtags, visits to your websites or sales outlets     compared to your campaign target, and positive feedback from followers.

However, Instagram     stories can now include tracked links (Bitly or UTM)     that direct users to your website, blog or domain name,

On YouTube: tracked links, Google     Analytics is easily integrated into YouTube as both tools belong to the     same environment.

Objectives of influencer marketing

•       According to a survey of marketers by Mediakix, Influencer Marketing is effective by 80% of the marketers, and 65% of the influencer marketing budgets are expected to increase by 2019. The prime objectives of influencer marketing are to increasing brand awareness, reaching new audiences, and generating sales/conversions, respectively. And the trend continues….

If your goal is brand awareness…. Sheer numbers or a specific niche?

If your goal is conversions…..numbers or engagement ?

[geometragic]

How I Run My Blog

TAGGED BY: The awesome @fallasea​ and @unladylikc​ ! Thanks a bunch for tagging me ! ^^

TAGGING: @extravachance @votalia @crimsonroyalty @barmxcidal​ @dracdad @yamatablooded @shapetrickster @evergardcn @anikiofthesea @sengokuspirits and anyone else who’d like to do this meme ! ^^

SPEED:  I tend to reply pretty slowly most of the time, because I want to write quality replies for my partners. And because school and the lab and my personal life all keep me pretty busy and stressed. XD Normally, I tend to reply after 1-3 months, but recently, I’ve been good about replying within a week or two. ^^

REPLIES:  Hmm...as far as word count goes, I tend to aim to write about the same number of words as my partner has written. Sometimes I go over that word limit by a lot, but you’ll never see me drop under it. I have a personal thing about matching my partner’s length, but I don’t really care so much whether my partner matches mine, especially if I’ve written way too much. XD As far as the writing process goes...I write up a rough draft for a reply first, and then after a break of at least a few hours, I edit the rough draft, finish it, and queue it. In addition, I usually reply to things in the order in which I receive them.

STARTERS: I used to do starter calls twice a year (once over winter break and once over summer break), but now I’m too lazy to even do that much. XD If you want me to write you a starter, the best way is to come into my inbox / Tumblr IM, preferably with an idea. We can discuss ideas, and then when we reach an agreement about what the starter should be about, I can go ahead and write it. When I write starters, they tend to be 1-2 paragraphs in length, although with certain starters and certain muses I’ve been able to write 3-4 paragraphs just to start off with.

As far as other people’s starters go...I’m fine with pretty much anything, whether it’s plotted or unplotted, including random starters and one-liners. ^^ I suppose that the one type of starter that I dislike, though, is a pre-established relationship starter. Given Katsuie’s personality, he’s not the sort of person who makes friends / has an ex / flirts with other people / etc. I also dislike pre-established relationship starters because there’s not a specific memory for my muse to think back upon while he’s interacting with another person’s muse. There’s just this vagueness of ‘and then we were friends / lovers / rivals / enemies / etc.’ Also, I know that a lot of people dislike first-interaction starters because sometimes they get stale and boring, but I’ve found that you can have a lot of really unique first interactions from them, too. ^^

By the way, you’ll know when I’ve seen your starter when I’ve given your starter a like. ^^

INBOX: I try to send both IC and OOC memes as much as I can. I don’t tend to post memes myself that often, though. I simply don’t trust myself to get replies to memes out in a timely manner, unless it’s for a short meme. XD Right now, the inbox is open to everyone —– anons, non-mutuals, and mutuals. ^^

SELECTIVITY:  For right now, as it states in my rules, my blog is selective and semi-private. Semi-private means that I’ll thread with anyone, but I’ll give preference to interacting with my mutuals. 

...I say that, but in all honesty, I’ve gotten a lot more picky when it comes to finding rp partners over the past several months. XD I probably should describe my blog as ‘highly selective’, but that phrase is associated with a lot of negative things, so I’ve avoided using it for now. ^^; I’m also considering becoming private, since 99% of the people whom I write with right now are private, so there’s pretty much no point in being semi-private. I’ll think about both of those things more before I actually make changes to my rules, though.

When it comes to looking for new rp partners, there are a few things that I do. First of all, the blog needs to have a rules page and an about page. I don’t feel comfortable following someone who doesn’t have at least a rules page, because I don’t want to be blamed for breaking a rule that I never knew about. Second of all, the blog layout needs to be readable. If the blog has a rules page and about page but I can’t read them, or the scroll bar for their blog is broken, then I won’t be able to read their pages / threads. Third, I look to see if they have an ic interaction of decent length (150+ words) on the first page of their blog. This tells me whether they’re active and whether they can write multi-para-length or novella-length threads, which are my preferred types of threads. It also tells me whether they only write with a ship partner and / or significant other, or whether they’re open to writing with other people who aren’t ship partners and / or significant others. Looking through someone’s posts also tells me whether they tend to involve themselves in drama / reblog callout posts / vagueblog about other people / etc.

Since my own muse comes from an unknown fandom, I’m pretty open in regards to which fandoms I’ll roleplay with. Even if I’ve never heard of the series that your character is from, there’s still a chance that I’ll follow your blog, if there’s something in your muse’s background and / or personality that gives me at least a vague idea for how your muse could interact with Katsuie ! ^^ In regards of what style of writing I like to see...I can’t take purple prose or constant one-liners seriously. XD So when I look for new partners, I tend to look for ones who write in a more straightforward way. Also, I look for partners who tend to write multi-para to novella length threads, since those are the type of threads that I’m most interested in writing. ^^

If someone’s blog is inactive for a month or I feel like our muses don’t click, I tend to unfollow and / or soft-block. By the way, if you feel like our muses don’t click or that we, as muns, don’t click, then feel free to unfollow or soft-block me as well ! I’ll get the message. ^^

WISHLIST: You can find the wishlist tag here ! As for specific things that I’m thinking of at the moment:

More male friends ! I don’t know if it’s because of my preference for female muses or what, but strangely enough most of Katsuie’s interactions over the past year or two have been with female muses. It’d be nice to see him form some friendships with male muses, too ! Seriously, I can only think of one or two male muses whom he’s friends with right now. XD But honestly, Katsuie could use more friends in general, too. Whether they’re male or female or a supernatural being who has no use for the concept of ‘gender’. XD

I honestly feel kind of pathetic for admitting this next one, but...I’d like more romantic ships for Katsuie, as well. Seriously, I realized the other day that the last time that I even discussed a romantic ship with someone involving Katsuie and their muse was about a year ago. XD Now, given how Katsuie is, I understand that it’s not at all easy to ship with him. On the one hand, he’s pretty standoffish and cold to most people when it comes to romance, since he practically considers himself married to Oichi. XD On the other hand, when he does fall for someone else...once he reaches that stage of infatuation, that’s when the yandere side of him comes out and makes the relationship a mess. XD Still, though...I’d like to explore more ships with him, if it’s possible. ^^

HONEST NOTE:  Finding rp partners on this blog can be really tough sometimes, so I’m truly thankful to all of you who have followed this blog and have had your muse(s) interact with Katsuie in some way ! ^^

[phantompsychic]

HOW I RUN MY BLOG

Speed.

Slowwwwwwww. I wanna be faster, and that is a goal of mine, but short and sweet, I am slow/on the lower side of activity. I do warn as such on my rules. It doesn’t mean I’m ignoring replies; I’m just slow.

Replies.

No need to match my length, and I don’t like being held to match someone else’s. Quality over quantity. Excluding stuff like y’know when I only get a sentence reply. I just need enough ‘events’ happening in a reply for me to work with for mine, y’know?

In addition, I don’t prioritize any replies. I reply by order of inspiration typically. I am, ofc, just slow with replies unless I’m hit with a LOT of inspiration.

Also, I will never pester people for replies ever. It can be months and I won’t say anything. Feel free ofc to drop the thread or whatever any time, but I will never ask about replies. In exchange, I ask you do not nag me about replies. I haven’t forgotten you (unless I make a post saying I forgot), I’m just slow.

Starters.

I need to plot my threads. To this end I have a permanent starter call linked on my main blog as a permalink and in my rules. I just keep a permanent one to avoid spamming the dash with multiple starter calls. It’s also more centralized that way. I have no problem with people who do do multiple starter calls tho.

If you like the starter call, I’ll IM you ooc or send you an ask ooc, as, y’know, I gotta plot. If I don’t plot, then I am unsure of what the mun is ok with in terms of stuff like what direction to take the story y’know? The only time I will not IM people who liked the starter call is if I cannot find or think of any meaningful plot to be had between our muses (because I can’t just wing threads). It’s nothing against the mun or the muse, ever.

So, because of that, I end up getting too nervous to IM somebody who liked the starter call just to tell them no. If someone has a better way of handling this sorta thing then I’m all ears ‘cause I know this method is not perfect at all and I am not satisfied with how it is currently.

This is also why I very rarely post opens. I need to plot but does the mun who’s responding to the open know what all I have in mind? Ofc not. So for now I keep everything I wanna do to my wishlist.

The only time I ever do any sort of ‘random’ starters is when I reblog those sentence starters and the like. Usually tho, the asks I get for those become simple drabbles unless otherwise stated in my tags. Even then, even if I do say in tags like ‘these can become threads if you want’, I still will want to plot with you if you show interest in making it a thread. Otherwise, if I do not say that in tags, please ask permission before turning it into a thread.

Inbox. 

I like sending in things to other people and will do it when I can, but I often send them on anonymous. Only time I won’t is usually if the muse is involved in the ask.

I won’t ever send random IC asks tho because I always worry that I’m ‘forcing’ my muse onto yours for an interaction--even if the mun says in their rules they don’t care. It just makes me uncomfortable. In addition, I tend to get uncomfortable when I get random IC asks because I get the feeling of being put on the spot and I get stuck how to respond. Like I said, I suck at winging replies, and that goes for random IC asks too. The only exception to this is if I’ve plotted enough for you/know enough about your character that I feel confident enough to answer it. So, if I don’t respond to yours, that’s why.

Selectivity.

I am semi-selective, so like, I’ll follow people, but I won’t follow back everyone, but I don’t see myself as too picky? I follow people based on if I want to follow the stuff you post about your muse, not as an indication that I wish to rp with you. I follow plenty of people I can’t see Will interacting with, but because I just enjoy their work on my dash.

As for the other side of the equation, I just realized I never mentioned this in my rules page so...

Is there such a thing as semi-mutual? Like, after a few months, I definitely learned I feel most comfortable interacting with people who are mutuals with me, simply because I tend to be more familiar with their characters, but that doesn’t mean I won’t rp with people who don’t follow me/I don’t follow. I would just need to read a lot/talk a lot with the mun and sort out if we can have any meaningful threads with our muses y’know?

Wishlist.

I keep a wishlist on my main blog here. However, in hindsight, I worry if this is difficult for people on mobile to see. If it is, then mobile users pls lemme know and I’ll try to set up some kind of alternative.

Anyways, I am always updating it with more stuff (I just updated it before I posted this lol) since, instead of opens, this is how I show or convey things I have for ideas for threads I wanna do.

Honest Note.

If there is anything else you all wanna know about how I run things on my blog, please feel free to ask. I was writing this earlier today before Tumblr nommed it and I forgot a lot more stuff I was planning to say soooo

[drferox]

20 Questions with Dr Ferox #23

Whelp, time for another blast of 20 questions and comments from the inbox. If you were brave enough to use your username I’ve tried to tag you (Thanks Tumblr) but if you were on anon, you’ll have to look yourself.

Would you folks be interested in me answering these sort of short questions in a video instead? Let me know in the replies. Now here we go!

Anonymous said: do u play mobile games on your phone, like animal crossing pocket camp? :O

No, should I? I haven't heard much about it.

@trisaratops45 said: Dr. Ferox, First off I just started following your blog and love it! I'm stuck using mobile so I can't see your faq information. I was just wondering if the clinic you work at sees any exotic or pocket pets? Of so what is your favorite to see and treat? Thank you!

Welcome! We don't see a huge amount of exotics at my clinic, we're not well set up for them, but ferrets are probably my favorites.

Anonymous said: do you follow any medblr blogs? and if you do, are you ever like 'thank goodness i don't have to deal with that' or 'man i wish it was that easy'? question tax: what is your favorite depiction of dragons from fantasy media

I actually had to go check which blogs I was following. No active medblr blogs in the list anyway. I often see real clients, in the flesh, and think 'Im glad i don't have to deal with that', especially when they describe to me their own gross medical problems as though I want to know exactly what's coming out of their orifices. All dragons are good dragons. I don't think i could pick a favorite.

@the-noble-banana said: What style of nail clippers are best for trimming a cat's claws?

Whatever you're comfortable with. I like these ones

Anonymous said: Do dogs get acne? Is that a thing? Just curious! Question tax: if you could shoot something out of your finger, what would it be?

They can get comedones with certain hormonal conditions (black heads) and can get pimple-like lesions with skin infections. I would shoot icy cold water out of my fingers. Great for hot days, and for stupid faces.

Anonymous said: Do you typically bandage and cover amputations? At the vet I worked at (I was only kennel so everything I saw was in passing) every animal who had limb amputation left after a day or two with the incision fully bandaged. My dog had her hind leg amputated and the vet (different one) had her in and out in under three hours and sent her home unbandage. Just out of curiosity is it case by case that you decide to bandage? Gave my mom a little heart attack seeing her all bloody and swollen

We might but a light dressing over them, but in an amputation of anything more than a toe there's often not much to bandage. Limb amputations are typically very high up the limb in dogs and cats and it's hard to bandage something in that position. Also, sometimes dogs eat the dressing.

@crimsonrose95 said: I'm not vet med, but I am into chemistry and physical sciences and the ask talking about chemistry being inconsistent is so weird a thought to me. Biology is way less consistent than chemistry like chemistry is mostly math with elements and compounds while biology is mostly names. It's just really interesting how most people start to think a science they don't like and have trouble in is just the science being completely inconsistent to them. Me included.

I get what you mean. Chemistry has a fairly distinct set of rules, even if they're rules you've not encountered outide of chemistry before. I was never a fan of physics, but it is consistent. Biology likes to bend rules. Life finds a way.

Anonymous said: Why does my cat yell when I try to use the bathroom alone? Question tax: what's your favorite thing about Australia?

Possibly he thinks you need moral support? Or that there's demons in there. My favorite thing about Australia is our universal healthcare system and gun control.

@foxtrottarts said: How common is dewclaw removal in dogs, and what are the benefits/downsides?

Hind dewclaw removal is relatively common at the time of deseing, if they're the sort that flop all over the place and lack a boney attachment. Front dewclaws are usually left, unless removed for a medical reason. I've written about it before here. https://drferox.tumblr.com/search/dewclaw

Anonymous said: Can a dog still have the MDR1 gene if they have never reacted to those drugs in the past (lets says a dog that has regular flea prevention of selemectin)

If the dog has only had a popular flea product containing selamectin but has never had ivermectin, yes they could still have it. MDR1 dogs typically don't react to that product, nor do they react to the annual heartworm injection.

Anonymous said: Hello, I had a question as google only takes me but so far, and the results were iffy at best since it's difficult to locate a vet or someone in a position who would know the answer. How much of a danger is animal or human saliva to pet birds? Some people say kissing the bird, or having another pet such as a dog lick/groom them is an issue, but I'm just lost on if any is true, and would love to find the answer. Thanks a ton in advance since it's all pretty confusing.

It is a potential issue. Carnivore saliva contains many bacterial species that can be devastating to birds or other mammals even through relatively small abrasions. Carnivores should not be permitted to interact with prey species and birds. Cats are especially risky because they're so pointy and because they effectively coat themselves in saliva when grooming. You can find some more information here.

Anonymous said: Hi Dr. Ferox, we recently had to put our cat down due to health issues. We're pretty sure he had FIP as the last week of his life he had every symptom but one. A website we saw said the virus can live in the environment for weeks afterwards and I was wondering if you knew any sort of approximate time. We aren't ready for another cat yet but occasionally foster a kitten and don't want to bring one into the house and have it get sick

I typically reccomnd 4 months, and replacing bedding, litter trays and food dishes. While you are probably fine with 3 months, given the incurable and devestating nature of FIP (Feline Infection Peritonitis) I prefer to err on the side of caution.

@kumoi-no-hikari said: I got a couple rats a few months ago and the lady I bought them from mentioned that most vets don't know much about rats and will probably do more harm than good unless the situation is extreme. Is that true? They haven't had any issues, but I'm worried about traumatizing them or wasting money if they ever have a problem.

Some vets will certainly be better equiped or more interested in treating rats than others, but you'll only know if you call around and ask them. If they're not keen on seeing rats, they might know somebody who is. I think saying 'most vets don't know X' is unfair when you look at the diversity of vets in the world. Call around, plan for the worst ahead of time.

Anonymous said: Do you know how taxidermy works? I plan this route for my cat when she's passes, do I have to contact them before the body stiffens or position her first?

No idea. But I would contact them well in advance incase they have waiting lists or something. But I would think very carefully about whether taxidermy of a pet is something you definitely want.

Anonymous said: Hey there! What’s your favorite brand of stethoscope?

The Littman is what I use and have been very happy with my Classic II.

Anonymous said:Our poodle mix loved grabbing a mouthful of food then running to the living room to eat it - not necessarily to be near us, he just would eat over carpet. Sometimes we'd rearrange the living room so it wasn't a direct shot from the dining room and he'd still run around the furniture to eat there. He also once pooped one piece on each stair when we were gone all day for some unfathomable reason.

There is so much that could be going on there, but since you didn't seem to ask a question I'm not sure what you'd like me to say.

Anonymous said: On the topic if dog eating things they shouldn't. A shitzu swallowed the end of a large chew bone whole and when she puked It up it was about the size of my fist.

Little dogs often seem to overestimate what they can safely eat. Westies seem to be the worst for this though, and are a common breed to see for stuff getting stuck in their oesophagus.

Anonymous said: About people thinking vets are scammers, my family was so bad with this when I was a child. I remember I had a sick kitten, I was around 8, it had some lung issues and I begged and cried to vet it and my dad said "pray really really really hard to God every hour, and maybe he'll bring a miracle!" and the cat died the next day :( I get so LIVID when people refuse taking their pets to vets for stuff that cannot wait. Makes me wanna slap those people senseless!

Your Dad sounds like a lazy asshole and a cheapskate. Even if god existed, I'm pretty sure he wouldn't appreciate being dialed up for a miracle like a pizza delivery.

Anonymous said: i just wanted to tell you that i recently adopted an older orange tabby cat (dsh) and he is large. like not just fat (which we are working on), but unusually tall and long. like. maine coon size. he has so far used his size to swipe bacon off a kitchen counter and remain an effective roadblock. he's very calm and sweet, i love my big fat baby.

Congratulations on your new addition! I'm sure your big orange boy loves you back too.

@mise-en--place said: Thought you might appreciate this. We got records on a cat today and on a previous visit they stated; "BCS 5/9. Cat appears to be about 7lbs through the gloves and towel." We got a good laugh, cat was actually quite calm for her visit.

I received a history for my old cat Dippa who had once very badly bitten this other vet that only said "Appears healthy in cage. Vaccinated in cage. Dr Ferox is welcome to come and perform a dental on her own cat any time she likes." I took that to mean "I'm not touching this hellbeast. You deal with her."