#do keep in mind our diversity rules if you only plan on applying for one muse <3

[revolutionfm]

𝐀𝐍𝐎𝐍𝐘𝐌𝐎𝐔𝐒 𝐈𝐒 𝐖𝐎𝐍𝐃𝐄𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐆     ...   madelyn  cline  or  madelaine  petsch  besties?  🫵🏻   

oooh,  it'd  have  to  be  madelyn  for  me,  but  both  of  them  are  great  options  !

[kimyoonmiauthor]

Worldbuilding Astronomy crash course

There is a general rule about worldbuilding before we begin: The more you deviate from what people know, the more you are required to spend time explaining or showing the difference and then coming up with plausible handwavium for it.

For the diverse writers out there: No, that does not include you having to explain what an oni is. Or bend over backwards on explaining queer qualifying. These are things people can look up on the internet in a library or ask. 

But it does apply to things you “make up”.

The second rule I have to say is “If you’re going to change the rules, understand what the current rules are.” Which means if you plan to change the very nature of astrophysics well, you better know your astrophysics well or have access to someone who does. You don’t want any excuse for any reader to be pulled out of the story.

That said, I did take a 101 Astronomy class and took extra notes specifically for worldbuilding purposes. All of the itchy things that you wish you knew I have a sense of.

So following the rule about largest to smallest unit:

Universe- Changing the mechanics of the universe is usually not recommended because you need to know a ton of information in order to do this, but if you are going to do it, your best bets are: Physics, Astrophysics, string theory and quantum theory. Also Einstein and reading all of Stephen Hawkings works will help. lol I got a crash course about this when I was 7-9 because my father was reading Stephen Hawking’s book, so was trying to spend time getting us to understand various theories of the universe. (I likewise made a protag that was about my age when I was learning it, and people didn’t believe a child could understand it--but then I exist. I’m not a particular genius or anything, just was a kid who had a parent who was reading Stephen Hawking.)

BTW, our universe is expanding. There is no center. You are literally at the center of the universe. It’ll peter out into nothingness according to the last theories. (The other theories were, it expands, then collapses, ah, deja vu all over again, or that it is shrinking. The expanding until it collapses into nothing won. Kinda depressing.)

My Astronomy prof, in particular, was against this sort of tinkering and string theory in general. But if you understand theory of relativity so well you think you can talk about the flaws and how time machines can’t travel to the past, then go for it.

Galaxy

My Astronomy prof warned that other galaxies aren’t well known, so knowing how they act in terms of physics, etc isn’t something to tinker with much. We only know about the closest one in any sort of any kind of remote detail (though this is not much). Galaxies do collapse on each other and combine, though.

Solar System

The thing is that strictly speaking, much like Swiftly Tilting Planet (Madeline L’Engle), you don’t need a Solar System. BUT, per the above rule, if it’s not a Solar System, you’ll have to spend a fair amount of time on it.

Despite this, I would encourage you to look up warm moons like on Jupiter (Europa), and also wandering planets. There’s so many cool plot bunnies off of these two things. Yes, Moons like Endor.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogue_planet

The majority of planets are probably more like desert planets, though keep in mind not all deserts are warm. Mars is cold and a desert planet. (Also tundras are technically deserts)

Also, further away from the sun==Gas Giants like Jupiter. Closer to the sun, more likely you’re going to get fiery hellscapes like Venus/Mercury with less mass.

So, if you do go for an Earth-like planet you need to know 3 basic things to feed to the reader:

- The class of star the planet is orbiting.

O, B, A, F, G, K and M are the ones that your Astronomy prof asks you to memorize, but there are also L class stars.

https://www.astronomytrek.com/list-of-different-star-types/

https://www.atnf.csiro.au/outreach/education/senior/astrophysics/spectral_class.html

The sun for reference is growing in size and will wipe us out. The sun is a G2V.

L, for the Science Fiction fans would be fun to play with.

The majority of the Fantasy people are going to go for G.

There are solar systems (as Stephen Hawking pointed out) where there are 2 suns: 

https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/resources/97/orbiting-in-the-habitable-zone-of-two-suns/

But they are on a course to wipe one another out.

Our universe is weird and wonderful enough.

- The Goldilocks zone.

https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/resources/323/goldilocks-zone/

- The orbit of the planet.

The orbit of the planet is played with in Game of Thrones and the Pern series.

There are some minor rules about the orbit of planets, such that it is always an ellipse of some sort, but you can also look at how Uranus and Neptune switch and how the gravity of planets might affect each other. They also occasionally crash into each other: Earth itself likely crashed with another planet.

The class of planet is NOT the most important thing. The more important information you need is how much is the angle deviating from Earth’s angle. And keep in mind that the angle of the planet can change over time--as with Earth. This is because the angle of the planet will directly affect the climate system. The more severe the angle, the more severe the weather. (Uranus is on its side.)

The other 2 cool rules I learned is that if you planet has native life, the planet needs to have likely 

1: Crashed into another planet. 

2. Had a sun that blew up once or absorbed another sun.

This is because the more complex elements, like gold, etc that are needed to make life possible in the first place? You need a sun to blow up once to get there. We are literally made of star stuff and will return to being star stuff. This is what that means.

And if people were really good at mining burned out stars, then gold’s value would plummet drastically. (Does that mean you can make up metals, etc... maybe. But talking about how you have 2000 worth of gold bullion in space is nothing.)

Planet/Moon

So you’ve settled on a celestial body... what’s next? You’re down to the planet level. You need: 

Atmosphere make up. (To be clear our atmosphere is mostly Nitrogen.)

Ozone layer y/n? (Or somewhere in between...)

Water percentages?

Light cycle?

Angle of the planet/celestial body relative to Earth (if making Earth-like planet/Moon)

Indigenous fauna and flora y/n?

Here, I’d also build the wind/water currents. If the planet has a moon, then the moon will create the waves, etc. You need a round planet for that. Wind runs along the same currents as water. (The major ones). So theoretically, if you put a boat out on the Gulf stream, you should end up in Europe somewhere. So with a desert planet, you need to figure out the wind system. The Wind/water currents will help you figure out trade later.

Remember, the rule is, the more you deviate from an Earth-like planet, the more you have to explain the anomalies.

BUT I WANT A FLAT PLANET

My Astronomy professor was STRONGLY against this, even as a theoretical model, with a big frowny face, citing problems such as, and not limited to: 

- Currents would not work (this got to Tolkien, BTW, later. Tolkien was a keen Science lover, but he wrote several treaties on how he messed up by making Middle Earth flat and wished it was round and tried to *fix* it.), 

- Seasons would not occur at all. (Say goodbye to Europe or such climates.)

- The weather would be far more severe.

- There would be no biomes to work with.

- There is NO way you could get a plausible atmosphere with this model.

- The physics in forming a planet like this doesn’t work out.

If you’re picturing a White People Utopia--you’re *cough* flat out wrong. If you’re picturing anything like CS Lewis’s (who probably is the culprit that got Tolkien into the mess he did) Narnia, you’ll have to to a TON of handwavium to even get close to making it work. And you’ll have to know geography and physics from the *cough* ground up. (Also my geography prof who worked specifically with water systems pulled a face like he’d be out of work if that happened.)

My Geography Prof was like it’ll collapse very soon and won’t be able to support life.

Your planet is on the verge of dying without a water system. You’ll have to pull something out of your butt to get this to work. (Also, why Tolkien was crying near the end of his life trying to fix this and trying to include more plausibility into his worldbuilding.) Avoid the problems that plagued Tolkien?

Yeah, you have a round planet, you require PoCs, but not white people--but we’ll cover that in the biology part. You have a flat planet, you have to give up agriculture (and its dying fast because there is no way you can sail place to place--where is the wind system?)

So these should give you the basics.

BTW, if you would like to add things I missed by reblogging, go ahead, but be sure to have your sources lined up from CREDIBLE sources, say like NASA, Science Direct and reputable places with peer reviews and make sure you actually understand the studies being cited. Thanks. (I do fact check and I dislike having to correct people who don’t know their stuff because it’s messy.)

The next in the series, the Physical Geography and Map Making Crash course is here: https://www.kimyoonmiauthor.com/post/704668966231179264/worldbuilding-physical-geography-and-map-making

[zephyrbayhq]

Good afternoon, everyone, and happy almost Friday! We have a bittersweet announcement to share with you all and we'd like to share our plan of how we proceed from here.

We say goodbye to Tay, one of our long time admin and friends, as she starts a new journey in her life. We wish Tay nothing but the best and hope that she can focus on important real life things in the coming months!

This means that we are down an admin. Operations may seem slower than usual for a while until we find a new admin. Ideally, we would like to find two admins to help us balance the task load but we are seeking a minimum of one. If you are interested in becoming an admin for the group, read on. There are some criteria we will be outlining for our future prospective admin as well as an application for interested parties.

Admin criteria

Must have the time to dedicate to admin duties as well as IC interactions. We do not have a particular requirement as far as what times you need to be available, but it would be helpful to have someone from MST, PST, GMT or another timezone outside of EST and CST.

Ideally, we are looking for someone who enjoys and is proficient at making graphics and handling theme updates. This is also not a requirement but would definitely help us out the most in terms of re-delegating our current task load to new admin(s).

You must be communicative with both other admin and members. We take communication very seriously and want someone who can communicate their personal needs, ideas, feedback, etc. to us. This means we require that you have Discord for all admin communication purposes.

You should feel confident with the general operation of both tumblr and Discord as roleplaying platforms. You will be responsible for helping with promo posts, follows/unfollows, application acceptances, monitoring the main and responding to asks/IMs, etc.

Previous admin experience is not required.

You do not need to be a current member of our group, but you will need to apply and be accepted if you are accepted as an admin. We do not allow museless admin.

Our only real solid requirement for our prospective admin is that you are non-judgmental, open-minded, caring, and compassionate. The safety of our members and our group as a whole has been our top priority since day one. We are seeking kind, empathetic, fair people to join us. We try our best to strike a balance between being fair and setting appropriate guidelines and rules into place. Be open to feedback from members (including what might feel like criticism) and growing in your approach to admin work.

If you feel like this description fits you, please apply by copying and pasting the following application and submitting it to our main via ask or submit! Please keep in mind we will be following the same rules as with member applications – your identity must be verifiable somehow and we will be vetting each applicant rigorously. All fields are required unless noted as optional.

Personal Information

Name/Alias:

Age:

Pronouns:

Timezone:

What celebrity will you be applying for, if you are not currently part of the group?

Who will be your mascot, if different from your main muse?

Do you need any special accommodations from our other admin? (We value diversity as a group and as an admin team – if you have a disability or challenge of any kind that may affect admin tasks, please let us know so we can make sure we are accommodating! This question is optional)

Admin Information

What skills do you think you can bring to the table as an admin for Zephyr Bay? (You can include hard and soft skills here!)

Why do you want to be an admin for Zephyr Bay?

Do you have any previous admin experience? If so, please detail whatever you are comfortable sharing below.

What are your strengths as an admin and what are your areas for growth?

Any additional information you would like to share with us about being an admin? (optional)

Again, if you are not currently a member and are accepted as an admin, you will need to apply for your celebrity/ies as well. You do not need to do this prior to being accepted unless you are interested in joining the group otherwise.

If you have questions, comments or concerns, feel free to message us via ask or IM. You can also message us on Discord if you are a current member who needs clarification or has questions. Thank you!

ALL ADMIN APPLICATIONS MUST BE SUBMITTED BY SEPTEMBER 30 AT MIDNIGHT EST. There is a possibility we will accept an admin before this time, but this will be the current deadline unless otherwise noted at a later date.

[merrock]

I'M BACK! WITH AN IMPORTANT UPDATE!

Hello, Merrockites! Vacation has officially come to an end, and I am here to enjoy Creek Fest, game plan our Halloween season, and get back into my routine. But first I wanted to address some changes we are making, just to keep everyone on the same page, and also talk about some concerns and some goals we have in mind.

The first thing to note is that we are changing how we do activity checks around here. While we will still be operating on a ten day system, we will be shaking things up in two other ways. The first is introducing a warning system, as I made mention of recently. From now on, if your account has been inactive for five or more days, you will receive a warning. There's no repercussion for this, but it'll help us keep track of activity, and maybe serve as a reminder for you guys. The second, bigger, change is that we will no longer be doing checks on Sundays. In fact, we won't have a set day. We will do them at mod discretion -- this could be once a week, once every two weeks, twice in a week: there won't be a set schedule. But it leaves you guys to be responsible for contributing to dash regularly rather than around a scheduled check.

The second change isn't really a drastic rule change or anything of the sort, but we are going to ask that you only apply for a white character if over half of your current characters at any given time are played with face claims of color. This is to be sure that we are heading towards and easily able to maintain a ratio that would consist of at least half of our characters being any ethnicity other than white (when you look at it as 50/50 representation, with white being half and literally every other ethnicity only getting half, you realize we’re not asking too much -- there are so many amazing face claims of color out there). The face claim help page has been updated to reflect this and other recent changes.

I know that we are all friends here, it’s what makes this group so special to us. But we are also mods, and want to be taken seriously in that role, too, and recognize that it is our responsibility to do what’s right for the group, even when it’s a tough call sometimes. We have been feeling discouraged lately, and are hoping that changes like this will help everyone out, rather than tightening up activity rules or limiting the amount of roles picked up. We have a goal (a very tentative one!) in mind to open the group to outside applications towards the winter holidays or start of the new year, but that is going to depend on where we stand with diversity and how active dash is, as we want to invite people into a thriving, inclusive environment.

I should be around a good chunk of the week, as I said, working on Halloween ideas and getting our fall season all lined up. Once you have read this notice, please give it a like. xx

[creeroleplays]

- creeroleplays does a guide -

Black Hair: How to describe texture and style in roleplay

Introduction: I want to start by saying that black hair is one of the most- if not the most- diverse hair groups in the world. What is in this guide may not apply to everyone, but it may give you some insight on the culture surrounding our hair and how it applies to your character. I didn’t fully edit this, so you might see typos, inaccuracies, etc. I’ll update it the more I pick up on things. Enjoy!

history.

Black hairstyles have been passed from generation to generation for thousands of years. From Ancient Africa to Black America, styles such as locs, bantu knots, braids, afros and twists have adorned our heads as symbols of identity, culture, politics and status. They have inspired fashion, music, movements and art, and defined cultures as we know them today. 

During colonialism, black people were often forced to conform to European ideals of beauty- turning them to harmful chemicals and equipment to achieve what some would call “good hair”. During the civil rights movement (and even some time before with the Rastafarian movement), people were encouraged to turn away from damaging practices to embrace their natural textures, reestablishing their identities by shunning conformity and returning to their roots. In the years following, black hairstyles became symbols of pride and rebellion- as it was considered daring for black femmes in particular to wear big afros and long braids. 

Today, black hair care is a billion dollar industry- from oils to equipment, we invest quite a bit of money and time into our crowns. The reasons why may vary- some see their hair as a symbol of pride and identity, others simply dig the aesthetic. Whatever the reasons, black hair is always evolving while simultaneously serving as a reminder of where we come from.

types of styles.

There are hundreds  of styles that I could detail, but I’m going to stick to a few of the most popular ones. Many black hairstyles are often protective styles -styles used to protect our hair from natural detriments such as the sun, wind, rain, our own hands, etc-. Some even wear these styles beneath wigs for further protection and style options. Below, I will list a few that I know of personally with accompanying pictures.

cornrows

Cornrows were named because -well- they look like rows of corn. They are a protective style worn by braiding the hair in an underhand, upward motion. In Ancient Africa, they were considered a symbol of agriculture and order, while today they are used for a myriad of purposes whether protective or fashionable. The process of braiding can take anywhere from minutes to hours. When I was a little girl, it took approximately four hours to braid my full head of hair- for those with longer and more intricate styles, it can take even longer. These braids can be done in different angles and shapes. I personally liked to have my braids angled into stars.

locs

Dreadlocks, locs, goddess locs, faux locs, twists- there are so many different variations of this style it is mind boggling. The most basic one involves sectioning off the hair, twisting it and leaving it uncombed until it mats and turns itself into a loc. 

Beginning dreadlocks can be an arduous, costly and time consuming task, but most who get them claim that it’s the best decision they ever made. Some incorporate weave into their locs for longer styles while others go for a shorter approach (thank you Michael B. Jordan in Black Panther). My big mama (grandmother) had locs all my life and they grew until they reached her waist- they required a lot more care and attention than my own hair did, with weekly retwisting, washing, oiling, etc.

microbraids/box braids

The reason I put microbraids and box braids into the same category is that they’re basically the same thing. Small sections of your hair are braided until they cover the entire head. Microbraids are very, very skinny and mimic strands of hair, while box braids are thicker and more defined- earning it’s name from the box-like way the hair is parted into sections. If someone plans to get box braids, they can plan to spend anywhere from 3-10 hours getting their hair braided. When I got mine a few years ago, I showed up to the shop (hair salon) at 7am and didn’t leave until 6pm. I also chose to incorporate weave into my hair for a bulkier braid and more of a protective style.

afros

Afros are, for the most part, exactly how our hair grows out of our heads. Some of us (me) don’t have the ability to grow afros that go upward or have volume like traditional afros do. This particular style involves maintaining healthy hair, and often picking it out with a pick comb. Those with afros usually have kinky, high volume hair textures that enable them to unravel their natural curl pattern to form their fros. I am not one of those people. While I have thick hair, my curl pattern is not as kinky as others, thus is tends to lay flat. 

how to describe black hair

Black hair is incredibly diverse. It can be kinky or coily, loose or big, long or short. There is no set standard or expectation for our hair, it simply is, and every kind is beautiful. 

When describing texture it always helps to keep in mind that there have been very harmful stereotypes to avoid. Words like ‘nappy’’ are generally best kept far away in describing your black character’s hair. Instead, aim for descriptors that give light to the features. Fluffy, crimped, coily, poufy, spirally, etc. It can also helps to simply describe the style they are wearing, as cornrows and afros create their own visual presence in your head.

ex. 

“My hair, which someone had tied back into a puff in an effort to control it, broke the tie and clouded loose behind me.“  (The Inheritance Trilogy by N.K. Jemison

“I got the crown of his head at first, and marvelled as always at the feel of hair like my own — soft-curled, dense but yielding, thick enough to lose my fingers in. The first time I’d touched him I’d thought he was one of my people, because only Maroneh had such hair. (The Inheritance Trilogy by N.K. Jemison

That’s not to say that black people don’t have days when their hair is less than immaculate. For instance, my hair is currently piled on top of my head with curls popping out of my bun every which way. A good rule of thumb I have found when it comes to describing black hair is to avoid harmful stereotypes and to focus on shape, style and color.

ex.

“Dark spirals coiled around my face, the frayed ends frizzing from my night of tossing and turning. It would take some kind of miracle to free the knots that surely hid in the thick mass of curls and scalp.”

Black men and women often cut their hair short- sometimes in styles known as fades, where parts of the hairline fade to the skin to create a gradient effect. The hairline is always incredibly important, as a straight and well-angled hairline is often seen a sign of self care. Describing the hairline as sharp is always a good place to start off, though you could also go on to say that it is clean, precise, or smooth. 

ex.

“He was good looking- dark skin, full lips and a clean, fresh cut.”

tips.

Avoid harmful stereotypes. Black people do wash their hair- whether it’s in locks or not-. Our hair is not nappy and “othering” our textures or styles is never okay.

It’s okay for your character to wear wigs, weave, etc. Despite what some people might say, there’s nothing wrong with weave. Taking care of our hair every single day can be exhausting and sometimes you just wanna throw that shit in a wig and call it a day.

When in doubt, do some research. It’s easier to do research than it is to offend someone. If you don’t have a way of describing a particular style or texture, just refer to the resources you have on hand. Or ask a black person that you’re friends with. More than likely, we’re not going to be upset at you wanting to accurately and respectfully portray us.

While there are many differences between our textures and different textures from various ethnic groups, we also have a lot of similarities. Don’t think you have to go above and beyond to get an accurate description of our hair, sometimes less is more.

Shrinkage is a thing. Because of how tightly curled our hair is, sometimes our hair can see shorter than it actually is when you stretch the curl out.

Have fun. Seriously, black hair is so incredibly expansive and beautiful, portraying it in anyway can be very exciting. Enjoy the experience.

This wasn’t exactly what I had in mind and I may make this into a series, but if you have any questions, feel free to message me! I’m always happy to clarify whatever I can! 

[lizzybeth1986]

This won't make you feel better, but this anon might have an explanation for the problems in Pixelberry's stories: essentially, I think it's because media and fandom culture in general has been hijacked by people with much older value systems, value systems where "whether behavior hurts people or not" was at best a secondary concern. The way Olivia is coddled, for example, does resemble how children used to be expected to be grateful to abusive parents for at least being given food and shelter.

Thank you for the ask anon.

Initially, when you'd sent the first ask, I'd had a different answer planned. Because sure, those kind of mindsets could very possibly factor in on how they treat a certain character type or trope...but it never actually happened with any sort of consistency. There were these invisible unspoken rules that certain characters would get away with breaking, and other characters would be punished for. So if there is no consistency in this treatment, how could I believe that it comes from a value/belief system that the writer holds, and nothing else comes into play?

Which brings me to the second thought you had. It's possible, yes, that the demographic they're hoping to cater to the most are the ones who may benefit the most from seeing white (and perhaps straight) characters thrive above others. The ones who will benefit from black and brown characters being placed on a heirarchy of worth - the most exoticized being the most "worthy" of "good treatment". But PB does benefit from a show of appreciating and celebrating diversity, and they do know it - as you can tell from the posts they were putting out during Black History Month last year:

(Thank you @nikkisha16 for helping me source these!)

This is a "nice gesture"....if we ignore the fact that only three out of the handful of default black characters featured at all. And if we ignore the fact that Griffin from this tiny list was hardly given an opportunity to use his skills in the biggest "disaster relief" diamond scene in the series, just to make more space for the white guy. Or that Luke's "alternative romance" arc was given more attention than the one where the MC chose him - to the point where we didn't get to see his mother (more attention to the alternative arc is often a surefire sign that the team is focusing on another LI and presuming said character as single by default, which is why you'll see more effort in the playthroughs where they're single). If the demographic you aim to please are the ones who may not notice or care about what actually happens to such characters in their respective stories...why this posturing? Why this pretence that you care?

It's not that PB is evilly rubbing their hands and contemplating on which character of colour to screw over today. It's very rarely as cut-and-dried as that. Very often it is just as possible that they don't know, or notice how some of these subconscious beliefs translate into their art. Ignorance of how damaging certain tropes can be for certain communities, and an unknowing favouritism towards certain characters based on their skin tone just as plausible causes for the mess we see in most stories of PB now. And a certain dismissiveness, would account for why it keeps happening despite people pointing out these problems. (I mean, this is the company that issued an apology on Twitter for Drake Walker calling a pink cake girly. And I don't recall them making apologies for anything else thus far)

It takes awareness to understand the cultural weight of some of these tropes and archetypes, and certain kinds of treatment in some cases. It also takes awareness to figure out ways to empower these characters within their stories and arcs! And I do believe for that kind of awareness to emerge in the storyboards and the office meetings...there (possibly? Idk what the PB office is like) would need to be more voices from varying communities in the rooms. For instance, look at this incredible interview by Chelsa Lauderdale on the experience of writing Griffin's character in The Elementalists:

Griffin is the rich, fullfilling character that he is because the writer brought her own experiences and worldview to that character. And you can see glimpses of that promise in so many different black and brown characters when they're given even half a chance. Kiara's ambition and logical bent of mind. Hana's loyalty and struggle to discover who she really is. Sloane's courage in taking on the world while battling an anxiety disorder. Teja's love for her craft and desire to excel in her field. Jax's protectiveness towards the underprivileged. Lily Spencer's humour and playfulness and recognition of those who have less privilege. William's (RoE) recognition of his work-home imbalance and his commitment to change that for this woman he loves. James Ashton's creativity and insecurities. Victoria's wisdom and her experience in the film industry. Aurora's desire to make a name that's her own, so that no one will ever view her as benefiting from her aunt's high position again. But unfortunately, we're often only allowed glimpses for a lot of these characters, rather than whole stories that use these traits as a foundation. Having writers from diverse backgrounds and with diverse experiences - not just a handful but many - with voices that will be embraced and respected, would go a long, long way in both pointing out these blind spots and in enriching the writing and stories themselves. Only a handful of writers cannot be burdened with the task of "educating" an entire company, but a vast team of diverse writers would mean there is an environment where they can more openly question and maybe shoot down more tone-deaf narrative choices.

@massivelysilentchaos made an amazing post about this sometime last year IIRC. A lot may have changed since this post, but there's plenty in it that still applies. More now than ever, I tend to go back to this one paragraph in her post (but please, please read the full thing):

I think a lot of PB’s problems with regard to representation in their writing could be helped by having more diversity on their writing staff. That’s not to say they don’t already have a fairly diverse staff (at least it looks that way from their blog) but some of their narrative choices are tone deaf in a way that tells me they could benefit from more black and brown perspectives on more of their stories. Specifically I’m thinking of the choices to have a book set in Trump country where an eventual protagonist pulls a gun on a potentially black MC or the recent decision to include the detail that Syphax, a black man who spent 8+ years at Lena’s scholae where MC was presumably taught to read and write, can’t read. Both of which were entirely unnecessary to the overall story they’re trying to tell and left a bad taste in mine and many other black fans’ mouths.

To add to this - I can speak, as a South Asian woman who was excited everytime a South Asian character appeared in a series - of Teja Desai getting one solitary scene to address her parents' initial doubts about her becoming a filmmaker, and one solitary scene about being a "woman in a boys club" as a director - which the writers never bothered to connect to her current work ethic - and being presented her as overworked, pressurized, frazzled by the punishing amount of work she was taking on - only for RCD's narrative to turn around and compare her to Marcus von Groot, the mediocre white male whose lack of control over his crew came from his own incompetence and delusions of grandeur (btw, in subsequent books he was written as this adorable funnyman the MC could bond and hang out with). I can talk of Jackie Varma, who was placed in a position where players could pick and choose between her and Bryce (with Bryce having more free scenes), before the narrative wrote her out for a large chunk of the story. Even in Book 2, scenes we get with her explore OUR backgrounds more than hers. Given that getting into medicine or engineering is such a huge deal in our communities, I can just imagine the ways in which that would tie up with Jackie's work ethic. And I know that many desi voices in that room would maybe make those connections and understand how to tie that into these stories.

I'd like to close this post with a quote from Chelsa that I showed you all earlier in this post: "Stories can perpetuate stereotypes or change narratives. That's really up to the people who write them". And perhaps, the people who hire the writers as well.

[kimikotsuki]

Fandom discourse and culture has changed a lot over the years and I always try to err on the side of caution whenever possible.

The reasons writers create and share their work are varied and diverse: maybe they're trying to improve their writing and welcome advice, sometimes it's all about the ~ S Q U E E ~ because you loved the show/character and wants them in more situations, sometimes the reason is the ~ R A G E ~ about the direction canon took and you plan to murder it and use it's blood to re-write the story; this is more an illustrative than exhaustive list and sometimes there'll even be multiple reasons at once of course.

And sometimes, those reasons do not match or go well with any type of criticism, even well intentioned, constructive ones.

I saw an post on Tumblr that ilustrated very well another reason why one shouldn't simply assume that con-crit is welcome: if you go watch an amateur performance (in the most literal sense of the word of non-remunarated, regardless of quality of performance), one won't immediately presume afterwards to go to the artist and start critiquing it.

At the same time, I wholeheartedly think that one of the most wonderful, unique possibilities of fandom is the capacity for collaborative work between the authors of a story that is being posted as it's written and it's readers, culminating in an end product with quality that ends up being more refined than otherwise it would've been.

That type of interaction is even sometimes one of the main reasons people write fics, to not only create something, but also to share the act of that creation.

That works almost like making all the readers of a fic into beta-readers and can be a wonderful thing, but the post argued that the work done by betas is analogous to editing in published works, and that such a relationship is based on built trust, so while yeah, that dynamic between writer and all their readers could work, assuming and simply barging in is generally more harmful than productive.

When I adopted that new reasoning, I debated whether or not I should then mark all my bookmarks on AO3 as Private and make them inaccessible to anyone else, but in the end opted not to, mainly because even though I mainly write them for my future self, I also feel other readers can benefit a lot from knowing how the experience of someone who liked a work enough to rec it went, specially if while reading that fic they stumbled upon things they didn't like.

If there's one thing I learned from over 15 years of reading fics is that my tastes change over the years, and sometimes it's not even about the quality of the writing itself or even the progression of how polemic subjects are treated at any given time, but rather the moment that I am in changes how I receive the same work, such that tagging a certain work as one worth reading again later with no contextual information on the vibe I was riding when I did that will inevitably lead to a disappointment that is frankly an overreaction on my part.

That happened somewhat recently with a Frostiron fic I read a long time ago, in a moment where I was squeeing like crazy over the pairing (and it was a work of squee, so we matched really well) and it got on my list, but years later, when I was feeling nostalgic over the pairing and went to read my list of besties, the expectation I had was so great that the dichotomy between my experience back then and the one in the re-read were terribly big, even though it was a well written fic, squee and all, and the only real difference was that *I* wasn't squeeing over the pairing anymore.

And at the same time, I found that, in a way, this managing of expectations I do primarily for myself when I create a rec with the bad points of a fic that I loved can also be helpful for others, because even if it doesn't fit 100% since we're different people, I always thought the best recs I've always found were the ones that stated what were the cons of any given story, because those cons might not be something that bothered me like it bothered them or it even might end up being somewhat bothersome to me, but the pros outweigh them and, because I went in expecting to find those things, there's no disappointment in it, so they end up bothering me a lot less then it could've.

The other reason I eventually settled on not making my bookmarks private was actually because of those authors that seek improvement and welcome constructive criticism from all the readers who are invested in their story and value their thoughts and experiences while reading their work, because while yes, better to err on the side of caution and not go offering advice and opinions were those are not wanted, if we let that completely rule everything we do in fandom there will be a lot of loss in regards of this constructive, dynamic and interactive aspect so characteristic and wonderful to this type of media.

I know authors can have access to the bookmarks made of their fics, but unlike comments, it's not quite a space exclusively dedicated to them or even for interactions between reader/author.

In a lot of aspects, I'd even go as far as saying it's a space primarily for readers: it's not something that will culminate in a email sent to the author's mailbox, it serves mostly for filtering and ordering purposes (like when you're looking for fics to read and apply a filter to show only fics with a certain number of bookmarks or to order the fics shown from the greater to the least number of bookmarks) and also so readers can, reading these bookmarks, have a better idea on what's to expect from a work from different readers with different personalities and world views and ways to pereceive what was written.

And since it's a space the author *can* have access to *if* they want, it's possible for them to look at that place to see that con-crit while, at the same time, not being a place where that con-crit will get shoved in their faces if they *don't want it* and as such it seemed to me to be an overall respectfull and good compromise between those two points that seemed very important to me, and one of the only way I've found of making it known if that type of interaction is welcome, I'd be happy to head over to their comments and talk there.

If I'm marking it as a rec and commenting, I'm doing it because I think that fic absolutely is one of the best stories that I had the pleasure to read; however, the number of characters allowed in a bookmark rec are limited, so if I end up putting into it anything besides an incoherent keyboard smash, those things are going to be whatever points I feel are very important to keep in mind whenever starting to read it so that reading experience is the most enjoyable possible both for my future self who's going to look at that besties list and decide on what to read again as well as first time readers who might have seen the rec and will go in knowing somethings that, by their nature, don't tend to be things we tag for; they will have mostly what amounts to con-crit, so if you welcome this type of interaction or if the rec I made is bothering you in anyway, I urge you to get in contact with me through the fic mail I linked in my AO3 profile.

This post is getting linked there because the profile section doesn't allow enough characters for everything that I had to say about the subject.

As soon as I see the email, I'll either be happy to either tag the bookmark as Private so it won't be visible to anyone but myself if it bothered you or head over to your comments section so we can talk better about the points I raised if this type of interaction is something you welcome.

[ernestoweisburg2]

Step by step instructions to Pick the Best Fish Food for Koi and Other Lake Fish

"An individual can endure fine and dandy living on a careful nutritional plan of burgers and inexpensive food." On the off chance that you accept this assertion to be valid and furthermore end up possessing a lawn Koi lake, odds are you likewise accept there is little contrast between accessible fish foods available. "A modest Koi food is precisely the same food as the costly brand with an alternate name." This also is another remark regularly expressed by Koi managers who pick the eating regimen for their fish dependent on cost. And keeping in mind that it is positively reasonable that a lake proprietor would need to set aside cash, not all fish foods are the equivalent. The following are a portion of the key factors each Koi guardian ought to consider while picking a fish food for Koi and other lake fish.

Healthful Examination

You could never go into an eatery and eat whatever the server puts on your plate in the event that you didn't initially have the foggiest idea what it was. This equivalent rationale ought to be applied while choosing an eating routine for your Koi or other lake fish. Diverse Koi food assortments are formed for use during various kinds of the year. The entire season food assortments, for instance, contain insignificant protein content and intended for quick assimilation. Development foods, then again, contain high measures of protein and are ideal for summer taking care of.

Taking care of a high development fish food throughout the colder time of year can bring about genuine medical problems. As the water temperature drops, the Koi digestion eases back down. Development foods can't be effortlessly processed and can in a real sense start to spoil inside the Koi fish, bringing about sickness and conceivable demise. Catfish food is intended for transient taking care of food fish as it were. These foods were not intended for long haul taking care of, nor do they meet the exceptional dietary necessities of Japanese Koi.

Fixings

Many rebate fish slims down available contain fillers, for example, corn, which are not exceptionally edible for Koi and other lake fish. This outcomes in more fish squander being delivered, which can cause more work for your lake channel and result in reduced water quality. At whatever point conceivable, it is ideal to evade fish foods containing fillers and other bad quality fixings. Numerous top notch Koi food assortments available contain fixings intended to copy the characteristic eating routine of Koi, which are really fancy carp, in nature.

Since many top level Koi fish food contributions accompany a powerful sticker price, numerous lake proprietors normally combine various foods as one to help give a solid Koi diet while restricting the effect on their primary concern. This procedure is amazingly mainstream for Koi attendants with a ton of fish to take care of, particularly those with bigger Koi with similarly enormous hungers. For blended lakes, those including both Koi and goldfish, this taking care of strategy can likewise give a huge investment funds over taking care of an exceptional quality food only.

Newness

To boost economies of scale, most modest foods are processed in mass amounts. These foods frequently sit in a distribution center for as long as three years before they are at last offered to a retail client. As Koi food ages, the wholesome substance can crumble quickly. This is particularly significant for lower quality foods, some of which have negligible dietary benefit regardless. The timeframe of realistic usability of Koi food fluctuates relying upon the sort of bundling utilized, yet as a rule it is prescribed to utilize all food inside a long time from the first factory date.

While picking a modest food alternative is unquestionably reasonable given the condition of our economy, it is important that not all Koi consumes less calories are made equivalent. A modest Koi food is anything but an exceptional Koi food without the extravagant bundling. This reality can be effortlessly demonstrated by looking at the fixings and wholesome substance of spending foods with name brands offered at a marginally more exorbitant cost. click for more info Ernesto Weisburg

Koi Keeping Objectives

Numerous lake proprietors are totally content with a straightforward water garden loaded with a couple of goldfish and modest Koi, maybe bought at a nearby pet store. Such specialists by and large consideration minimal about Koi assortments and have no interest in becoming the following excellent victor. For lake proprietors who just wish to put in a couple of hours seven days seeing some beautiful fish swimming in their modest lawn lakes in the wake of a monotonous day at work, a modest Koi food might be the most ideal alternative.

"Trash in. Trash out." This maxim assists with clarifying why numerous more elite class Koi attendants overwhelmingly pick premium Koi food choices for their valuable fish. Title quality Koi fish can be esteemed at a few thousand dollars. For those keen on focusing on these living gems, simply the best will do. Quality foods can assist with making lively tones, ideal development, all while fortifying the Koi safe framework. Choosing which classification of specialist you fall into can assist you with choosing which heading to take with regards to choosing the correct eating regimen for your Koi.

[momentous000]

Americanized: A struggle with identity and culture

This is a reflective essay I wrote for my first semester college english class. It was the first college essay I was assigned to write  and I found it intimidating, realizing that my writing skills will finally be put to the test. I wanted to share my story because I know that I am not alone in struggling with these experiences. I am still struggling with balancing two cultures and learning to make peace with feelings of frustration and shame. 

As first-generation immigrants, my parents are unfamiliar with the American education system, specifically, college in its entirety. While my parents have been supportive of my education, they do not have the knowledge or time to guide me along the process. As a result, I was forced to become independent within my academic journey. In becoming self-reliant and navigating through The Academy on my own, I struggled to balance my cultural and academic identity.

Growing up, my parents instilled in me the importance of education as a foundation for success. The guidance they provided was limited to: “Be a good student,” which meant, “earn good grades.” To please my parents, I finished my homework, studied dutifully, and earned fridge-worthy grades throughout my academic career. They congratulated me on every report card, with the same phrase: “Good job, anak, keep doing well,” my father would always write on every report card. With every A I brought home, they sounded like a broken record, it started to feel like they were mocking me. Their response was so superficial, so focused on the letter grade. I graduated high school with a 4.2 GPA, decorated with cords. According to my parents’ definition, this proved I am a good student. They were proud of me.

Nevertheless, I know a good student is not defined by the grades they earn. I consider myself a good student because I value and apply the knowledge I learn beyond the classroom setting. But, the more I learned, the more I withdrew myself from my family to focus on my studies. In prioritizing my academics, I struggled to balance my Filipino identity. The more serious I was about perfecting my academic skills, the more I held my parents accountable for the same standards they placed on me. While dealing with my perfectionism and familial expectations, I feel compelled to further conform to the academic standards of the Model Minority Myth. A model minority is a racial group whose members are perceived to have a higher level of success compared to others. The media often portrays Asians as a poster child for this myth, using seemingly positive stereotypes, such as “all Asians are good at math.” Not only does this have detrimental effects on diverse Asian ethnicities, but also race-relations in general.

As a result, the Model Minority Myth and my parents’ expectations forced me to bolster my sense of agency. Both conditioned me to attach my self-worth to my academic accomplishments. As a second-generation college student, would I become another prized possession, a trophy, for my family? My older sister, fortunately, went through the college experience before me, attending Northern Virginia Community College (NVCC) and successfully transferring, and graduating from the University of Virginia (UVA). Despite our similar paths, the future of my education solely rests in my hands. I must have exigence because if I do not, how will I repay my parents for their sacrifices, if not for an educated daughter destined to pursue a better life than theirs?

For this reason, I adopted the habits that eventually isolated me from my family, such that of Rodriguez in Scholarship boy: “with ever-increasing intensity, I devoted myself to my studies. I became bookish, puzzling to all my family. My ambition set me apart.” Like Rodriguez, when I was in high school, I would come home every day armed with knowledge I was eager to share with my parents. My eyes lit up, almost alarmingly, chattering on about Crime and Punishment. Yet, as I was rapt in my speech, my mother’s eyes glazed over. She curtly commented on how all the books we were reading were too old, too Eurocentric:

“Fyodor… ano? Russian, talaga? Why do they make you read those books?”

“It’s a classical novel, mom. It brilliantly explores morality and religion—”

“He murdered someone? Wow! Don’t start thinking like him!” “The author didn’t commit a murder. Raskolnikov is a complex character that—” “Why all the books you talk about are old? No modern or Asian?”

“Well, Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad—”

“Do you have to write an essay on it?”

“Yes.”

I started to feel contempt against my parents’ way of life. Their philosophy was “not only different but starkly opposed to that of the classroom,” as stated by Rodriguez.

While I am adopting the identity of a scholar, according to my parents, I am becoming Americanized. In his song Kuya Derrick, Nak, a Filipino-American rapper, shares his similar struggles with maintaining his identity: “Our parents wanted us to grow up in America without becoming American.” My parents assumed American education was stripping me of my native culture because they claim The Academy has a standard, monolithic, mindset. Despite explaining The Academy’s emphasis on not only diversity in ethnicity, but as well as in thought, I do agree with them: I am struggling to be proud of, to retain, my Filipino identity while simultaneously becoming a member of The Academy.

In our image exercise in class, I chose the image with a group of people surrounded by thought bubbles and collaboration. I interpreted the frenzy of intellect as an example of scholars sharing their insights in The Academy. As an introvert, I see myself as the first person from the right, the one listening and contemplating the ideas they learned. While I do not see my introversion as a problem, my analytical thinking exacerbates my shyness and self-criticism. These issues not only hinder my contributions, but growth in The Academy. Currently, I am weighed down by the “Panic Monster.” To guarantee my successful transfer to UVA, he is always awake in my mind, pressuring me to confine myself in the yellow walls of my aunt’s attic, suffocating me with the constant transfer of knowledge. The only way to shut him up is to obey his orders: study and the “Panic Monster” takes a nap. To make the most of my college experience and to better engage in The Academy’s frenzy of knowledge, I plan to become more confident in my skills and embrace a hint of extraversion.

Now that I am paying for my education, I feel a profound sense of determination to take advantage of my resources. I do not want to be a passive student, just dutifully doing their work and waiting for two years to go by. I will participate in class discussions, connect with my professors, and take honors courses to grow further as a scholar. I will exhaust this campus of its resources by taking advantage of the tutoring centers, getting free merchandise from Student Life, and joining campus clubs such as the Honors Club and the Pride Alliance. To refrain from wasting the precious days of my “Life Calendar,” as Urban explains, I will further challenge my shyness by becoming involved outside of NVCC’s campus. I will explore Annandale, instead of constantly being cooped up in my aunt’s attic, and meet new people from various backgrounds in one of the most diverse colleges in America.

My parents, like most immigrants, wanted me to succeed and pursue the opportunities they missed. They were living their American Dream vicariously through me. I should be grateful for their sacrifices. While they do not have the same intellectual curiosity as I do, I take for “granted their enormous native intelligence,” as Rodriguez confessed. While I have an English accent in Tagalog, my parents can fluently write and speak in our native tongue. While I am forgetting the language, they manage to speak both English, Tagalog, and even a regional dialect, though they have an accent. While I can quote classical literature, they can cook a variety of traditional Filipino cuisine that I enjoyed eating growing up and still do today. While I held contempt for them, imagine how heartbroken they felt when they witnessed their child becoming increasingly disconnected and foreign from their family. I want to learn more about my roots, I want to study my history.

I strive to express gratitude towards my parents’ strength in moving us here after political persecution and extrajudicial killings of human rights advocates in the Philippines forced us to flee and seek refuge in America. I strive to reclaim my Filipino identity and culture by being less judgmental, and truly understanding my parents’ way of life, our culture’s way of life. I must not let the rules of The Academy and my Eurocentric education consume my identity. I aim to learn how to cook traditional meals, learn our rich native history, and respond to my parents in Tagalog.

footnotes:

A reference to the first Academy, founded by Plato. It is also used to describe the overall intellectual work and environment of colleges or universities.

anak means child in Tagalog, the main language of the Philippines.

“What”

“Really”

“Older brother”

The name Tim Urban coined for upcoming deadlines during his TEDTalk on procrastination.

[sunnykeysmash]

The Structure of S14: a theory on how the season’s arc is structured, and on the ending

Here we go, finally, the post that drove me to make tumblr in the first place.

This is a direct follow-up to the other two posts I just did, so if you haven’t done so already, you need to read all the info/proof I have provided in them, in order to understand why I say what I’m gonna say.

You can do so right here.

As I said, every single episode in S14 serves a specific purpose in the arc/structure we’re witnessing, and none of them are fillers, NONE of them.

First, this is how I think the rest of the season is gonna go, based on the proof.

Assuming all the proof is correct, Charlie now knows that Mac Knows about Dennis' attraction to him/guys. So, cue the episode where we see his point of view, we get to see how he perceives them, which informs our experience on the next episode. The Gang Solves Global Warming. 

Following Escapes’ symbolism, after Mops, during Global Warming, he’s gonna pass the Key to Frank, aka he’s gonna tell him about what he knows, possibly in frustration post some event in Global Warming, because he’s been forced to witness their oblivious mutual pining without any new development.

In comes “A Woman’s Right To Chop”, a Dennis and Frank pair up episode. Pretty weird, those happen VERY rarely. But there’s a reason for why it happens now. So, Frank confronts Dennis in Chop about what he knows. Dennis denies it, and wants to prove to Frank that he's wrong. This becomes his new character motivation that will drive him all the way until the finale. What I think he’ll do to desperately try to prove to Frank that he’s wrong is, just like in TGGR with Dee’s planned role as diversion, Dennis bangs a chick. It just so happens that Jackie Denardo starts in S14, and we don’t yet know in which episode, so I can’t confidently say whether she’ll star in Chop or Jumper (we can’t fully determine when he will bang her, but I’m confident he’ll bang HER, or come close to), either way, that’s the reason she stars in S14. She represents the culmination of Dennis’ forced attraction to girls that actually never occurs. Getting over her means embracing his true feelings.

So, he bangs her. Just like Frank and Charlie post sleeping with the girls, Dennis feels that “it doesn't quite feel right”, and he misses Mac, but he doesn't pay it any mind yet. Continuing with this, it is unclear whether Mac will learn about it in Jumper or Big Mo, all we know is that Mac doesn’t seem angry in the Big Mo clips, so my guess is the latter, as the build up would come to a halt as Mac finally confronts Dennis about his feelings and he, in order to deny, reveals he banged her and staged the Big Mo thing so that Mac will get off of him for good. This argument would then drive Mac to decide to actually give Big Mo a chance, which is when Dennis’ jealousy would truly make him snap out of the denial.

This can technically also be supported by the dialogue in TGGR, which goes as follows:

“I know that what you had with [x] (Dennis) was special, and I know that I (Big Mo) can never replace him, but that’s dead and buried now, and you gotta move on. And I know that it’s crazy because we just met, but I feel like if you just give us a chance, we could tell a lovestory for the ages.”

So this brings us to the key question. How does it end? The synopsis for Jumper was kind enough to give us a crucial hint, which, when paired with the “Jump” symbolism (”Why do blind people hate skydiving?”), and the theme of CHANGE that I discussed, can pretty much give us a fairly accurate guess in my opinion.

“Could he? Would he? Should we?” Let’s dissect this.

- Could he? Could dennis have what it takes to get over his facade of heterosexuality and admit his love and need for mac (and men) to himself? To even accept and realize what he feels? Possibly. He's afraid of change, but he's also tired, and sleeping with Jackie would prompt him to realize that something is very wrong.

 - Would he? Is he willing do it? to let down his defenses and do it in the open? Say it to him? He's not known for saying things openly, except in desperate times. See Tends Bar. He can't let himself lose Mac.

 - Should we? Should we get together? The very existence of this question implies that the answer of the previous ones are affirmative. So, could he? Yes. Would he? Yes. Should we? For Dennis, yes. He has admitted it to Mac at this point, he feels vulnerable but ready, and hopes that Mac agrees. Mac knows better now, he knows Dennis is desperate, and he's not sure if Dennis just wants to keep his position of power. He needs proof. Commitment. He knows Dennis has never been one for committing, but Mac can't hand him his heart if he's unsure whether it'll get shattered. He needs to know that it'll be safe. Mac is romantic, Mac commits. He needs to know Dennis can do it too. He sees this as just another plan he'd make to keep him, for now. What happens next can be two different things. Either the ONE YEAR is what we have to wait to know what Mac answers. Or it’s what he asks of him as proof of commitment. Wait one year. “If you feel the same way by then, I'll know you meant it, and I'll be ready to give us a try.” Mac loves Dennis, but he also knows him, and he knows himself, that he could never handle his heart being played with. And that he doesn't want to ruin what they have by jumping into things. You see, Dennis is the man that needs to jump, in this arc. He’s the leading man. Mac doesn't have to. Mac is his parachute. And after what just happened, he needs to be able to trust Dennis, just as Dennis needed in Chokes.

So, TGGR has two endings, as I previously discussed. A good one, and a bad one. Supposedly, this is to keep the ending unclear, but knowing what we know, the story we are following is the Charlie and Frank one. Which tells me that, ultimately, it all ends in a YES. They do end up together, even if we get a dubious cliffhanger, on the other side of it is a YES.

That said, since we can safely assume that Big Mo will parallel Jumper, we can also assume that it really doesn’t matter whether the Jumper jumps or not, and actually, the mere application of this algorithm TO the Jumper further confirms my claims, let me explain why. Let me apply it.

First of all, let’s make an assumption that I think we can all agree on. Whenever the gang intervenes, they make things worse. 

Now:

- Could he? die/jump? He could jump, he probably wouldn't die thought. The McPoyle guy didn't. 

- Would he? jump? ...How would the gang know or be able to guess the answer to this question, without interacting with the jumper?

- Should we? Intervene? If they answer yes, he'll jump. If they answer no, he might not. But here’s the catch.

The "should we" question is a question asked to TWO people, hence the "we", so it has two answers. Depending on the person.

And it ultimately doesn't matter which one the jumper will reflect. It’ll probably be a red herring anyway. They likely won’t intervene at all, thus the jumper won’t jump. 

"should we (intervene/get together)? yes" Dennis jumps. It reflects his answer. "should we (intervene/get together)? no(t yet)" Mac doesn't jump. It reflects his.

Obviously we can’t 100% assume that Mac will say no (but he needs to, in order to justify the one year thing), however the theme of change might hit him as well. We know he’s impulsive, the doesn’t think things through. Him waiting would be his change. Not only that, but Dennis getting a no(t yet) would be the most appropriate ending for his arc of taking Mac for granted, AND it would reverse their dynamic, possibly. Plus, karma, which usually gets implemented in stories/arcs, especially so in a series as self aware as IASIP.

Having said ALL of this, I can finally get to the structure itself.

As I said, every episode has a role, and so far that has been the case. So I’m gonna try to compile them, as I think fits, one by one.

I present to you, “The Structure”:

TGGR: Establishing the arc. The meta episode to set the ground rules, to give us the map of what's gonna happen, so that no one is surprised. It tells the audience to pay attention to what they’re about to experience, and not take details for granted. Thundergun: Establishing the conflict. A look at Den's past attractions and his reaction to them in the present. It tells us where he is currently. It tells us the inherent conflict of his real feelings that he has always had vs his resistance to change (symbolized by thundergun itself changing, skillfully enough). Dee Day: Transitional. It solidifies the conflict regarding the relationship itself, not just Dennis’ personal one. It tries to unite the past with the future, but fails because the needs of the arc haven’t been met yet. So it sets up Chokes. Chokes: The first turning point. Mac and Dennis are able to work out their core hang-ups, and realize they are still perfect for each other. First part of the relationship conflict resolution. First acceptance of change: Mac learns to make his own decisions and not follow what Dennis wants. Texts: The second turning point. Mac and Dennis work out their communication problems. Also advancement of the situation of Dennis’ conflict. Mac and Charlie become aware of Den's feelings. This is the second part of the relationship conflict resolution, not yet the ending of it as Dennis’ conflict hasn’t been resolved, thus the relationship conflict can’t yet either. Mops: The aftermath. Now that Charlie is involved, we take a look at his point of view of Mac and Dennis, now that he knows. The conflict between Charlie and Mac+Dennis will likely be established here, as it will start to give the character his motivation for what’s to come all the way to the finale. Either that or it’s breathing room, but I stand by my case that no episode is a filler in this season. Global Warming: Advancement of the conflict of the dynamic between Charlie and Mac+Dennis, and advancement of Dennis’ personal conflict. Charlie, now knowing, is fed up at things not going forward for Mac+Dennis, he was happy at Mac figuring it out, hoping it would lead them to speed things up and stop bothering him with their complex rituals, but they haven’t. He’s annoyed with Mac and Dennis about this whole thing. This is the character motivation that drives him to tell Frank what he knows, possibly in frustration after something that happens in GW. Remember how in The Gang Escapes, Charlie passes the key to Frank, and it’s him who opens the lock. Chop: Confronting the issue, running away from it. This is the start of Dennis’ spiraling because of his conflict, that will lead him to the events of the finale. Frank is paired with Dennis, something truly rare. It's on purpose. He confronts Dennis about his feelings. Dennis denies. Gains a new motivation going forward and into the finale: proving that his denial is actually accurate. Jumper: With his new motivation setting in motion the events that will lead to the finale, he bangs a chick. Trying to prove it further, he thinks of a plan to get Mac off of him for good, thinking that's why people keep believing that he’s gay. Big Mo: Obviously, the finale. The final turning point. Acceptance of change. Resolution of Dennis’ personal conflict. End of the conflict of the dynamic between Charlie and Mac+Dennis, as all the other conflicts have been resolved, so he too is content.

As change is finally accepted, we reach a Point B in the finale, different from the Point A at which we started. Change is effective on Dennis, which now accepts himself fully, and feels ready. Change is effective on Mac, which makes him make his own decisions no matter what Dennis wants, and thus doesn’t jump into the relationship yet.

One year from the finale, season 15. We have a new beginning. It’s unclear whether the year of waiting is supposed to be for the audience or in-universe, so it’s unclear whether in s15 we’ll deal with a reversed dynamic of Dennis yearning and Mac refusing, or if the year passes off screen as we wait, which would imply the promise that S15 starts with canon MacDennis.

Either way, this is my dissection of the season so far, and obviously I might be very wrong, and if I am please don’t kill me, but this is how I think things are going, and how I think things will go.

Feel free to ask me about anything that is unclear, as english isn’t my first language so I might’ve explained something a little roughly. I do look forward to knowing the fandom’s reception to my thoughts, if anyone is brave enough to read all the way through here. And hey, if you did, thank you so so much! I hope you enjoyed it.

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Hostinger Review for WordPress: Is It a Good Option for You?

: https://lephuocloc.com/three-for-one-hosting-review/

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Cost is consistently a factor with respect to picking web encouraging. Regardless, you may be lured to disregard a vulnerable rundown of abilities in order to obtain something inside your spending plan – so doing some investigation up to this time is major. Our Hostinger overview will explore this spending plan growing decision, and offer the information you'll need to choose an informed decision.

In somewhat more than 10 years, Hostinger has created from a little web host to one used by in excess of 29 million people, which is required partly to its WordPress express plans. On top of that, Hostinger uninhibitedly shows its server status, and its uptimes are dependably solid.

Would it be prudent for you to have your #WordPress site at @Hostinger? 🖥️ A hands-on #review ⭐

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It's no huge astonishment this is a connecting with option in contrast to such countless new site owners.

In this Hostinger overview, we'll look at key segments, for instance, features and execution, to help you with picking whether this host justifies your time and money. We should start!

Hostinger overview for WordPress: Features

The Hostinger point of arrival.

In the first place, we ought to research a part of the plans Hostinger offers. You'll find a full extent of choices here, including shared, cloud, virtual private server (VPS), and gave plans.

In like manner, you can choose a WordPress-express plan, and get additional assistance options and a solitary tick foundation. These plans are insignificant exertion, shared encouraging – perfect for a combination of site types. You in like manner have a choice between single, premium, and field-tried systems, in spite of the way that the technique is proposed in the event that you're using WooCommerce.

On the off chance that you're contemplating a typical plan to kick your site off, Hostinger has you made sure about. A segment of its features include:

throughout each and every day WordPress support

A solitary tick WordPress foundation

A free space name

Improved security features, for instance, step by step fortifications and a free SSL verification

Essentially limitless information move limit

As ought to be self-evident, Hostinger's shared WordPress plans go with a solid course of action of features. For most first-time site owners, you'll have all that you need. Additionally, the aggregate of this is offered at a moderate worth, which we'll get to in a second. In the first place, in any case, we should look at the assistance you'll get.

Reinforce decisions

For certain customers, one of the most critical encouraging features after expense is support. While you're setting up your site using shared WordPress encouraging, will without a doubt have a couple of requests. While the web is stacked up with piles of obliging hints and instructional posts, a quick line to answer your specific solicitations is reliably a guide.

Luckily Hostinger's assistance bunch is open throughout the day, consistently. You can either call them or send them a message:

The Hostinger reinforce contact page.

To see how Hostinger would respond, we sent our own special general solicitation. We got a response in scarcely four minutes, which is satisfactory anyway not mind boggling:

The Hostinger live assistance visit window.

For the most part, the assistance specialist we tended to was all around arranged and steady. The discussion included supportive and significant information, similarly as screen catches for clarification. For any of your general asks, Hostinger is definitely not hard to contact, and its response times are reasonable.

Execution

To the avoidance of everything else, the sign of a quality web have is the way well its servers perform. Taking everything into account, having a speedy site is essential for giving a positive customer experience (UX) to your visitors, and keeping your bounce rate low. Fortunately, Hostinger offers the going with introduction express features:

Solid State Drive (SSD) hardware

99.9% uptime guarantee

Astoundingly developed store executive

Incredibly better, not under any condition like various other encouraging providers, Hostinger offers open information on the show of its servers. This consolidates uptime data all through the past 24 hours, similarly with respect to as far back as week and month:

The Hostinger server screen page.

Server uptime depicts the proportion of time a server is totally utilitarian and on the web. At the point when everything is said in done, you should be as close to 100% as could be normal in light of the current situation, as even .1% individual time suggests ~45 minutes of excursion consistently. Above, you can see that Hostinger's uptime can be fairly wobbly, which is one of the tradeoffs you'll make at its humble expenses.

For this circumstance – with the numbers being as low as 99.3% once in a while – you can experience even 10 minutes of individual time each day. Only awful.

Page speed tests with Pingdom

Clearly, it's in like manner helpful to get a genuine translation of execution. For that, we can use Pingdom to test page speeds and Load Impact to separate stacking times under pressure.

Regardless, we should do some page speed tests. Pingdom is an effective and celebrated instrument for this, and a key test is free. To complete our test, we set up a clear site on Hostinger's servers, stacked with the default subject, a sprinkling of modules covering diverse fundamental features, and the WordPress Theme Unit Test Data. We by then info our site's URL into Pingdom and ran the test from a couple of exceptional territories.

Overall, these results are truly worthy. It's seen as a best practice to keep your page stacking times under two seconds. Anything over that can contrarily influence your weave rate (what number of visitors leave in the wake of study only one page).

Considering these results, we can see that Hostinger's servers are performing wonderfully on either side of the United States, and remarkably well in London. Moreover, both of various zones we attempted are inside satisfactory cutoff focuses. From this data, we can assume that Hostinger is likely going to give utilitarian speed in the vast majority of the English-talking world.

Page speed tests with Load Impact

Next, we ought to see how our site handles traffic. For this, we will require a substitute instrument – Load Impact. This lets you reenact different virtual visitors to your site, and is a phenomenal technique to check whether your site can hold up under pressure.

We ran our test site through Load Impact's mechanical assembly to see how it would perform:

The Load Impact test results.

From this test, we can see that stacking times were ordinarily solid. The response time (the blue line) got to some degree lopsided as the requesting rate extended (the purple line), anyway Load Impact didn't find any show issues.

For certain goals, Hostinger's shared servers will work okay. In any case, in case you are meaning to keep up a high-traffic site – or see unexpected changes when your site is live – it may be perfect to consider a refreshed course of action.

Hostinger's assessing

Finally, we go to the evaluating portion of our Hostinger review. For a few, this will be one of the most critical factors while considering a web have. Taking everything into account, astounding encouraging won't help you especially in case it breaks your spending plan.

Considering that, Hostinger has some amazingly low assessing plans for the organizations it offers. For example, a singular site starts at just $0.80 consistently with restricted time evaluating (which just applies to your first charging cycle):

The esteeming for Hostinger's shared encouraging plans.

On the off chance that you're willing to dole out fairly more ($2.15 consistently), you'll similarly get a free space name to oblige your encouraging. Additionally, more elevated level plans offer free fortifications and enable you to gather unfathomable destinations for you.

With everything considered, Hostinger is a completely moderate other option. This is especially apparent when you consider its server speeds. For amateurs, this is a phenomenal spot to start, and you can by and large look at updating your game plan as your site creates.

As a rule upsides and drawbacks

To wrap up our Hostinger overview, we should quickly summarize its points of interest and detriments. Taking everything into account, it's basic to consider the whole picture before concentrating on a web have.

Experts

Free region name and a solitary tick WordPress foundation

Moderate shared encouraging plans

Incredible execution results for the US and the UK explicitly

Openly demonstrated server status

Cons

Moderate response times for help

Humble execution results for regions outside of the US and UK

Uptime is to some degree dangerous

End

As a rule, Hostinger is a strong choice for both experienced WordPress architects and learners. It offers fast speeds and learned customer administration. In any case, while its introduction is solid all in all, you may experience execution blips in some cases on overpowering traffic regions.

Would it be a smart thought for you to have your #WordPress site at @Hostinger? 🖥️ A hands-on #review ⭐

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In the event that you're up 'til now unsure and are planning to consider two or three distinct decisions, consider examining a part of our past encouraging reviews:

: https://lephuocloc.com/three-for-one-hosting-review/

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A Lot to Process

I haven’t been making games lately, but that doesn’t mean I’ve not been writing. I took off at the beginning of the year to work on my prose fiction, finished drafting a novel provisionally titled These Subtle Games back in March, and finished revising it and began querying it last month. It’s a contemporary occult fantasy set in Boston, following a nonbinary game developer investigating the untimely and mysterious demise of her mentor, only to find herself drawn into a morass of conspiratorial cabals, mystical mobsters, and misogynist massholes - not to mention a sprawling hidden ARG that may or may not contain the secrets of New England cunning magic.

It’s basically autobiography.

In the meantime, I’ve begun writing a new novel, an industrial fantasy set in a world of sprawling empires both challenged and propped up by powerful mercantile houses and an aggressively expansionist church ruled by wizards. I found that the process I stumbled through in developing and writing These Subtle Games - a process that, despite the differences in media, grew out of my experience creating games - worked really well for me, so I’ve been following a more refined version for the new novel with similarly positive results. Furthermore, I’ve already begun applying it to a potential sequel to TSG. With Novelember coming up, I figured I’d share a little of that process with you.

The goals of my writing process are twofold: 

To apply some level of organization to my work, lest it follow in the footsteps of my first novel, which was basically “write until you’re done writing, and now you’ve got 141,000 words of experimental weirdness.”

To allow a lot of flexibility, preventing said organization from stifling my creativity. 

Details below the cut.

PRE-PRODUCTION, aka Background, Research, and Planning

I spend a lot of time with the concept for a novel (or a conversation in a game) before I begin writing anything that’ll make it into even the rough draft. Note that I didn’t use the “before I put pen to paper” metaphor here, because I do a lot of writing at this stage. Much of this is simple note-taking, whether on research or on ideas. I do a fair amount of this in an actual notebook, often because I’m off somewhere away from my computer.

Because this phase generally overlaps with the late phases of a previous project, and when I’m actually at my computer I’m generally working on the older piece. I was in this phase for Hidden Sanctum while recording VO for Seeker, Slayer, Survivor, for example, and for These Subtle Games while wrapping up my work on the Deadfire expansions.

I like to overlap projects like this for a few reasons:

It allows me to move smoothly from active work on one project to the next.

It engages a different part of my mind than drafting prose, keeping me fresh.

Because I spend a lot of time exploring an idea, it helps me determine whether or not I think the idea’s strong enough to sustain me through a project.

Things I do while planning:

Read extensively. I read work in the same vein or genre as the work I’m intending to write. In preparation for Deadfire, for example, I read The Gentleman Bastards books by Scott Lynch, Uprooted by Naomi Novik, and Kings of the Wyld by Nicholas Eames. Prior to starting work on These Subtle Games I read  Procession of the Dead by Darren Shan, War in Heaven by Charles Williams, Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami, Our Lady of Darkness by Fritz Lieber, Conversion by Katherine Howe, the Atlanta Burns books by Chuck Wendig,  A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness, and Himself by Jess Kidd, among others. Before beginning the current novel, I read Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo, The Incorruptibles by John Horner Jacobs, Prince of Thieves by Chuck Hogan, and Perdido Street Station by China Miéville, among other works. These are books I read specifically because I planned to do work in similar spaces. I approach these books analytically to get a sense of what’s been done before, as well as what might and might not work from a structural or stylistic standpoint. What I want to do and what I want to avoid.  Nor do I limit myself to books. As part of my pre-production for my current project I watched Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, Les Miserable, L’Empereur de Paris, The Age of Innocence, and Carnival Row, as well as replaying parts of the Dishonored games. I also made myself a music playlist, the heart of which is Postmodern Jukebox’s cover of “Welcome to the Black Parade.”

Research broadly. I’m less of the school that one should write what they know than that they should know what they write. I generally write fantastic works, but without an understanding of matters related to the fantasy, the product feels hollow. This can include research into the history of sail and piracy, for example, or military technology, or fashion. For These Subtle Games I read numerous books on New England folklore and cunning folk, as well as on witch trials, both in Salem and globally. I read a lot about Harvard’s study of psychedelics, including Michael Pollan’s How to Change Your Mind. I also did a tremendous amount of deeply unpleasant research into online harassment. At this point in the process, I try to prioritize the forest for the trees (hence “broadly” above). I don’t need to know every maritime term to plot content set on a sailing vessel, I just need to know the broad strokes of how ships work, how the crew lives, and how that might impact someone living on the sea. My current project required a fair amount of exploration of subjects as diverse as industrial era mill towns, the history of the American and French revolutions, and dinosaurs. While doing this research, I keep an eye out for things I find interesting that can inform my plot. I’d never heard of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, for example, but reading about it inspired a plot point in the current project. That said, I don’t feel like I need to be an expert at this stage on anything I hope to write about. I’m almost certainly going to discard ideas and discover new ones as I go along, and I’ll have to dig deep into things like boot styles and fishing vessels (to pick two subjects from yesterday’s writing) as I go.

Figure out what I want to say. Here I work to nail down the broadest themes I want to explore in a work. These usually arise from a combination of my research and reflecting on the things I find interesting about whatever I’m making the subject of my project. Initially These Subtle Games was titled The Quiet Game (a title already claimed by a murder mystery set in Massachusetts) because of its interest in secrets (as reflected in the secret societies of Boston, the NDAs of the games industry, and the arcana of ARGs like the Jejune Institute). The new novel examines colonialism, capitalism, and power, as well as what actions are justified when resisting an overwhelming force. The three DLC for Deadfire interrogate the relationships between the gods of Eora and their followers, the Watcher included. Defining this helps guide all of the work to come, providing a benchmark by which to judge the effectiveness of an idea, plot point, or piece of writing.

Build out the world. These Subtle Games is set in modern Boston and Deadfire in Eora, both worlds that were well-defined long before I began creating fiction set in them. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t spend time fleshing out the corners of those worlds I intended to work within. TSG required that I determine the form of a fictionalized Boston games industry, as well as the shape of the secret cultures that inform the action of the novel. For Deadfire, each piece of content, each world map event, and each DLC island is a little world of its own, with its own story that feeds back into the larger ideas of the game. (Of course, I wasn’t working in a vacuum, nor alone.)  The current project, set in a new fantasy world, required the creation of a rough geography and history, populated with peoples, nations, and faiths. I designed these not merely to have verisimilitude, but to feed into the goals of the work. In the case of the new project, that meant huge colonial powers jockeying for the dwindling unclaimed territories and their resources, vast trade companies conspiring to wrest power from the entrenched nobility, a clergy focused on enforcing the rule of the gods over every nation of the world, and several species of magically-crafted servitors provided curtailed rights when they’re afforded any freedom at all. Here, again, I prefer to take a diffuse approach. I can get by with the broad strokes, and leaving things undefined offers me more room to maneuver as I write. I personally also find it useful to gather art references at this stage. I have a folder of illustrations that suggest the mood and style of the world of the new project, for example. For These Subtle Games, I commissioned an illustration of my protagonist from the fantastic Katorius (below).

Sketch out the major characters. Generally by this point I’ve got ideas for at least a few of the characters, but before I start writing I want to have a strong sense of who each of those characters is. I generally write a few pages about the major players, their background, their attitudes, their role in the plot. This is worldbuilding, albeit with a narrowed focus, so the rules above apply: I try to keep things vague and flexible. I knew at this stage, for example, that These Subtle Games protagonist Laurie’s best work friend Meri grew up in California, and that if she lost her job, she might move back. That she was a surfer and played ska were details that came out in the writing. She also grew from being only moral support to providing occasional practical aid to Laurie, as well as coming to rely on Laurie in turn. Similarly, in the current project, the six characters the novel focuses on, something of a band of scoundrels, shifted over the course of development from their sketches. The relationship between two characters who are fugitives from the imperial government, for example, changed dramatically. Whereas they had been initially written as an inseparable pair, I found it much more interesting if they were on the outs after years of traveling and working together, adding (another) fracture in the crew’s interpersonal dynamics. I’ve talked before about how Vatnir went from being a charming con-artist to a grumpy reluctant messiah after I saw concept art for him. Similarly, I knew from my first moments with Serafen that he possesses no qualms about employing violence in the course of his work; the delineations, though, that he creates for himself regarding when violence is appropriate was something developed over the course of writing him.

Identify big tentpole moments. Here’s the first bit of actual plot work. At this point I’ve likely got ideas of notes I absolutely want to hit. I knew, for example, that I wanted Laurie, the protagonist of These Subtle Games, to discover an object late in the novel that redefines her relationship to her uncle and her understanding of his role in the mystery she’s unraveling. Inspired by the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, I knew I wanted the crew in the new project to be party to the inadvertent destruction of a textile mill, one made all the worse for its owners having locked the workers within. In both cases, these moments speak directly to the ideas I’m exploring in the work. Once I’ve identified a few of my tentpoles, I order them in a way that makes dramatic sense to me, and that gives me not an outline, exactly, but guideposts for the narrative. As mentioned so many times above, the goal is to provide myself guidance, not to hem myself in or nail down every plot point.

Once I’m relatively comfortable with my sense of where I’m taking a work, I begin writing what I call my “plot doc.”

PRE-ALPHA, aka The Plot Doc

I don’t generally outline my work. I go from the extremely rough tentpole step mentioned above into a kind of extremely rough draft I call my plot doc. These provide the skeleton and heart of the novel onto which I can layer the muscle and flesh of actual writing. The plot doc is pretty long - the one for These Subtle Games was 49,000 words, about half the length of the finished novel. The plot doc for the current project weighs in at 31,000 words. 

Almost none of these words will end up in the actual book as-is. 

I care very little about the state of the writing at this step. Here I’m exploring the plot and the characters, drafting out how they go from tentpole to tentpole, figuring out what in the narrative works and hopefully identifying what doesn’t. I find where I’ve failed to establish needed details in my worldbuilding and further define my characters.

This step actually developed directly from my work in narrative design. Generally I (like many of the narrative designers I know) stub out a branching conversation before writing it, creating a kind of detailed outline (where everything is written with the same lack of polish as the LRs pictured in my post about interjections). This lets us establish the flow of the conversation, plot its structure without having to worry too much about details of style, and hopefully locate any holes or major bugs prior to fleshing out the file. Generally the text in stubs would be difficult to mistake for shippable writing. 

I personally find stubbing out conversations useful because I think differently during the mechanical work of structuring files than I do during the artistic work of crafting dialog and prose. I’ve found a similar division of labor incredibly useful when crafting plot. It relieves a lot of the pressure of writing, too. I don’t have to worry about both building a functional plot and writing enticing prose. Because I’m going to be the only person ever reading the plot doc.

(Unless, of course, I do something ridiculous like share pieces of it on my tumblr.)

Here’s an excerpt from the plot doc for These Subtle Games, which I’ll contrast with later versions below:

A car awaits her in Gloucester, and it brings her to Matthias’s house. It’s a sizable home, stone, and old, somewhat decrepit, even. Ivy climbs the turrets, and the copper roof has gone to streaked verdigris. He stands in the open door as she approaches, and she hugs him, grateful for the familiar, and he returns the gesture stiffly, patting her lightly on the back. He’s tall and rail thin, built much as she is, with a well-kept beard and receding hair. He feels old-fashioned to her, in a dressing gown and pajamas with warm, soft house shoes.

Hello, niece, he says.

Hello, uncle.

He offers her food, which she declines, and takes her to her room, just off the main room.

Ouch. It’s little more than stream of consciousness, just me getting the ideas out onto the page. Or 200 pages, in the case of this project.

ALPHA, aka The Rough Draft

Once I’ve completed the plot doc, I begin actually writing. I do this in a new file, referring to the plot doc for guidance as I go along. Often I do this a little inconsistently, letting myself write until I hit a lull before returning to the plot doc. That way the plot doc serves not merely a guiding role, but a motivating function.

The rough draft is the first actual composition I’m doing on the work, and much of it actually ends up in the finished version. I take significantly more time on each scene, on each sentence, trying to craft prose that breathes and dialog that feels real.

I also tend to be a bit loose and experimental at this stage. I play around, writing things that I find interesting to read. If I find myself weighing style against readability, I generally err on the side of style. I can clean shit up later.

Here’s the scene from before, taken from the rough draft:

The car Matthias hired lets Laurie off at the gate, which creaks opens on hydraulic pistons as she leaves her tip.

The driver nods towards the tree-lined darkness. “Hop back in, and I’ll run you up. Real door to door service. If you’d like.”

Having relaxed at an exponential rate with each mile she put between herself and the city, Laurie shakes her head with a faint smile. “I could use the walk.”

“You don’t think you’re fat, do you?” His gaze flits the length of her from knees to shoulders, efficiently dispelling the enchantment worked by the commuter rail ride through the dense New England night.

“What? No.”

“Because you’re a beanpole. Almost too skinny, if you ask me.”

She hadn’t. “That’s not what I meant. Just, I want to clear my head, thanks.”

He leaves her to it, and she walks up the curling drive towards the old stone Victorian. The curtained windows glow faintly from within, and warm lamps jut from the quoins. Sprawling ivy climbs the turrets, and rooftop copper has long given way to white-streaked verdigris. Matthias’s is a stately home, but aging, much like the man himself. He meets her at the door in a dressing gown over fine silk pajamas and plush slippers. Her uncle stands as long and lanky as Laurie, with high cheekbones, a higher forehead, and a well-trimmed beard.

She greets him with a hug. She keeps it gentler than she might like, given his age. He’s never appeared frail, exactly, but his features profess a wary delicateness, as if he’d been crafted of pudding cloth and porcelain.

“Niece,” he says quietly, squeezing her shoulder.

“Uncle,” she answers. It’s an old ritual, and with it Laurie’s remaining fear falls away, abandoning her to her exhaustion.

He admits her to the house, the pair padding silently across polished marble past floor-to-ceiling mirrors. Matthias’s home gives the impression of being larger on the inside than the out, a space out of time, populated by statues of stone and painted ceramic. A grand piano dominates one corner, the instrument on which Esme had performed several family recitals during Thanksgiving gatherings past. At thirteen, Laurie’d lugged her hollow-bodied electric through two airports and two more trains to her uncle’s house. After Esme played, Laurie’d produced the guitar and performed a show of her own, all barre and power chords joined to lyrics roundly condemning the evils of industrial capitalism and hypocrisy of American evangelism in terms both suggestive and explicit. The gathered family had clapped politely enough, but she later overheard her father’s sister thank him for leaving the amplifier back in Carrboro.

Esme had told Laurie she’d loved it.

“Are you hungry?” Uncle Matthias asks her as they pass the sliding double doors to the dining room and the kitchen beyond.

She shakes her head. “I’m very full of food, but thank you.”

The scene’s significantly longer now, and I’ve further defined the driver, detailed the house, and defined aspects of Laurie’s relationship to it and her family. And hey, now it’s got quotation marks! 

Once I finish the rough draft, I celebrate a bit. Hey, I wrote a fucking novel! 

But I don’t share. I know I’m not happy with the work yet. I’m sure it’s riddled with grammatical errors. It’s probably got some questionable shifts in verb tense. It likely sports an inconsistency or six. I know I can do better, so I set out to do so.

BETA, aka The First and Second Revision

Here’s where the hard work of revision begins. I read the book, taking notes on things I’d like to change, then go through carefully, making both the changes I’d noted and performing close editing. I try to polish overwritten lines and clarify confusing sentences. I look for inconsistencies, especially when moving scenes around. 

Were this a conversation in a game, this would be the point I marked it for review by a lead or solicit feedback from QA and my fellow designers. Having done a revision or two on a book, I’m feeling pretty confident in what I’ve made, so I give it to any beta readers I’ve enlisted, that they might remind me that I do, in fact, have a long-ass way to go before it’s good. 

GOLD, aka The “Finished” Product

Once I’ve got feedback from my readers (and have perhaps let the book sit for a bit to work on pre-production for an upcoming project - or just played a shit-ton of Final Fantasy XIV...), I return to the novel or conversation to polish it further. 

At this point I’m looking to flesh out details, to make sure each sentence serves a purpose. To chop off unnecessary phrases and to make sure each interaction is bringing out the characters’ personalities. 

Here’s the fourth (and currently final) revision of the scene from above:

Matthias’s hired car deposits Laurie at his gate, a break in the thick stone wall that separates the street from her uncle’s plot of dense, quiet woods. Hickories and pines obscure the sky, swaying gently on a salted breeze off of the Atlantic. As Laurie tips the driver, a pair of heavy, wrought iron hinges creak open with the low hiss of hydraulic pistons.

The man nods towards the tree-lined darkness, his gray hair half-circumscribing his bald pate. “Hop back in, and I’ll run you up. Real door to door service. If you’d like.”

Having relaxed exponentially with each mile she put between herself and the city—a charm cast by the long commuter rail ride through the dense New England night—Laurie shakes her head. “I could use the walk.”

“You don’t think you’re fat, do you?” His gaze flits the length of her, from knees to shoulders, efficiently dispelling the enchantment.

“What? No.”

“Because you’re a beanpole. Almost too skinny, if you ask me.”

“I didn’t.” Her fingernails bite her palms.

“Sure, suit yourself.” His window whispers back into place.

He pulls away, and she waits for his taillights to withdraw around the bend before walking the curled drive towards the old stone Victorian. The curtained windows glow faintly from within, and warm lamps jut from the quoins. Sprawling ivy climbs the turret, and rooftop copper has long given way to white-streaked verdigris. Matthias’s is a stately home but aging, not unlike the man himself. He meets her at the door in a dressing gown over fine silk pajamas and plush slippers. As long and lanky as his niece, Laurie’s uncle’s features add high cheekbones to a higher forehead and a well-trimmed beard.

She greets him with a gentle hug—gentler than she’d prefer, what with his age. He’s never struck her as frail, exactly, but his features profess a wary delicateness, as if he’d been crafted of pudding cloth and porcelain.

“Niece,” he says quietly, squeezing her shoulder.

“Uncle,” she answers. It’s an old ritual, and with it Laurie’s lingering fear falls away, abandoning her to her exhaustion. Her trapezius slackens beneath her uncle’s hand, her scapulae sinking as her frustration flows down her arms and through her twitching fingers. They flick the remnants away.

The pair pad silently across polished marble tiles past floor-to-ceiling mirrors. Matthias’s home gives the impression of being larger on the inside than the out, a space out of time, populated by statues of horses, deer, and dryads in stone and painted ceramic. A grand piano dominates one corner, an instrument on which Esme had performed a series of recitals following Thanksgiving dinners past. At thirteen, Laurie’d lugged her hollow-bodied electric through two airports and two more trains to her uncle’s house. After Esme played, Laurie’d produced the guitar and performed a show of her own, joining steely barre and power chords to lyrics condemning the evils of industrial capitalism and hypocrisy of American evangelism—in terms both suggestive and explicit. The family had clapped politely enough, but later she overheard her father’s sister thank him for leaving the amplifier back in Carrboro.

Esme, of course, had told Laurie she’d loved it. “Maybe my favorite song ever,” she’d said, the liar.

“Are you hungry?” Uncle Matthias asks her as they pass the sliding double doors to the dining room and the kitchen beyond.

Having stopped into a pizza joint on her way to North Station and walked out with a distended Styrofoam clamshell heavy with waffle fries drenched in cheese studded with olives, tomatoes, and jalapenos, she shakes her head. “I’m very full of food, but thank you.”

It’s not hugely different from the rough draft, but there’s a lot more detail, and the weaker phrases have been excised. Matthias no longer “admits her to the house,” for example, because it’s implied that she’s come in by the action. The details at the end about the waffle fries fill an inconsistency in the rough draft: originally Laurie’d eaten nothing that day, so why was she full here? (Deeply interesting, I know.) 

Laurie’s decision to snap back at the driver about his unasked for critique of her appearance was a result of beta reader feedback. The additional details about the decor in Matthias’s house subtly ties him to the locations of secret societies Laurie visits later in the book, details I’d not developed until the prior draft. The use of anatomical language to describe Laurie’s body reflects the character’s distance from it. She views it as something of an animate corpse she happens to inhabit rather than a core aspect of her self. Finally, Esme’s response is presented in dialog now, injecting her character into the scene and allowing the prose narration to reflect Laurie’s personality.

Nothing’s really done though. There are more hands for it to go through. Just as a game conversation undergoes changes suggested by QA, shifts in the recording booth, and may end up trimmed or entirely cut due to schedule and budget constraints or even to fix a nasty bug, a novel goes through several hands between the point where the author’s ready to query it and a publisher’s willing to put it on a shelf. But eventually you have to make the decision to be done with a piece, to mark it complete in JIRA and push it down the pipeline. 

Then you get to move on to whatever’s next. 

Cheers, <#

[bloodline-rpg]

BLOODLINE NEW ACTIVITY GUIDELINES

We are nearing our first month of activity here at Bloodline and we are absolutely THRILLED with how things have gone. The admin team is so excited by all of your enthusiasm, by the involvement of you all in the game and how quickly everyone got on board with the sheer chaos we love to perpetuate here. So before we begin this announcement, thank you. From both of us. This is exactly what we wanted out of Bloodline and exactly what we meant when we said we wanted to get back to some of the fun, plotting, and chaos of old school RP mixed with the literacy and diversity of new wave RP. 

With all of that in mind, we wanted to extend some new activity guidelines. When we started the group, we were not sure what active RP looked like to all the players out there, given that neither of us had been participants or admins of a group RP in quite some time. Now that we’ve seen what activity at bloodline looks like and what everyone’s capabilities are, we want to try to keep it. The purpose of these guidelines will be to keep the RP moving at the pace that we’ve already established and help new players determine whether or not our activity style and dash is for them. 

Gif and Dash Chat: Our RP uses both thread/para style AND gif and dash chat style. We ask that all players and applicants keep that in mind, and understand it. We believe firmly that as much plot, character development, and interesting action can come out of simple dialogue and improvisational dash chats than can come out of threads. And we encourage our players to use dash chat to explore character voice and organic interaction they may not have engaged with in the past. As of these new activity guidelines, we will no longer allow players to not participate in dash and gif chatting. This may seem harsh, but the reason is that most of our plot moves quickly and in real time. We have a lot of characters now and a lot of players. While we love thread writing (and there is a rule about that coming below this one) we also feel that willingness to let go, be on the dash actively, and roll with what might happen is a crucial part of our group dynamic and the interaction of all the species, politics, and characters in our game. As such, all characters must post at least one gif or dash chat starter per week. This is character specific, not player specific. If a player players 4 characters, they must ALL post a gif or dash chat starter at some point during the week. This is to help open your character up to interaction with everyone in the game. From there, each character must engage in substantial interaction with the replies following, putting in a good faith effort to engage, not drop/lose their thread, and reply in a timely manner. All characters/players must also respond to gif or dash chats posted by other players. We will not monitor this with a specific number given that everyone has different work/life balances and schedules. However, if we begin to notice a character or player is either never replying to gif or dash chat starters, or that they’re only replying to certain other characters, we will issue an activity warning. 

Threads and writing: We try not to put any strict rules on thread writing, as we know that longer stuff can take time. We encourage all players to write at least one prose style thread/para per week. Threads are a great place to explore character emotion, internal monologue, the lore of the game, and other important elements. It also gives other players a chance to get into your characters head, as many of the players in our group are active readers of the dash and the story. All players must make a good faith effort to interact with other players through threads and writing. If we find a player is only ever engaging in thread writing with one or two characters, we may issue an activity warning. 

Plotting: As an admin team, the plot of this game is super important to us. We love how fast paced the dash is, how interactive everyone is, and how willing to get into the messy stuff our players are. With that in mind, we expect all players to plot amongst themselves. We’ll make big plot drops and help push along plots that involve everyone, absolutely. But please be aware that you do not need to wait for us. Make conflict, talk to one another OOC, and plot to your hearts content. We’re also happy to help you if you think your plot could involve the greater part of the RP or needs other characters to work. You can always come to us with ideas. Similarly, if a big plot is happening on the dash, don’t hesitate to get involved and get messy. We drop drama so that everyone can interact with it. There’s no right or wrong answer to your character’s response. More often than not, we don’t have a specific route we need the plot to go in. We’ve weighed the possible out comes and are excited to see what you guys do with it. 

Character limit: We do not, as you all know, have a character limit. We want players to get involved and write as many characters as they want to. However, We’ll be putting a rule in place that in order to apply for additional characters, you must contact an admin regarding activity. The admins will discuss with you any concerns they might have regarding activity, especially if the character you intend to play is connected in a big way to the plot or a larger plot drop. This is simply to make sure that players understand the undertaking involved with certain characters who might require faster response time, more dash engagement, and the ability to instigate and respond to conflict. We know that each player has different rhythms and schedules so we want to be sure that the admin team and players are on the same page about what is expected form a character and their activity. We will never tell a player that can not apply for additional characters, as long as they are meeting activity requirements, however we may limit which characters you apply for if necessary for the overall plot. That said, we know Bloodline loves messy plot and conflict. If you have bitten off more than you can chew and want to relinquish your character, let us know. If you want to consider killing that character off, let us know. We’ll work with you and would never hold it against you as a player if a particular character’s involvement isn’t working for you. Additionally, if you wish to pick up an OC simply for one plot or conflict, as a secondary character with plans to write them out later, let us know! We’ll see how we can accommodate that. 

Thank you new and old players for taking the time to read this very long post. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask them. We’re always around and happy to explain and answer. If you’ve applied and wish to withdraw your application given our new guidelines, we totally understand. Send us a message. Otherwise, we’re excited, as always, to keep things chaotic with all of you. 

[ninjamagines]

Trauma: Understanding Resilience and the Mind-Body Connection from an Eastern vs Western Medicine Perspective

Looking for a massage that goes deeper than deep tissue? While massage is often about finding that sweet relief from the daily wear and tear we put on our bodies, sometimes it has a deeper purpose. When working in the context of trauma and its connection to our mind, body and spirit, there is a wealth of wisdom that can be applied to aid in understanding where trauma comes from and how our bodies keep the score of the trauma we experience in our lifetime. Our trauma trained Massage Therapists here at Peace of Mind Sacred Wellness can help you to uncover emotional holding and tension patterns and reclaim your resilience while gently meeting you where you are: with non-judgement and un-opposing of opinions, world beliefs, religion, race or sexual identity.

   Everything Changes

That’s the universal nature of outer reality and inner experience. Therefore, there’s no end to disturbed equilibria as long as you live. But to help you survive, your brain keeps trying to stop the river: struggling to hold dynamic systems in place, to find fixed patterns in the variable world, and construct permanent plans for changing conditions. Consequently, your brain is forever chasing after the moment that has just passed, trying to understand and control it.

  Eastern Perspective on Trauma 

In Buddhist tradition, how successfully we manage our trauma is determined by our movement on the path to enlightenment. The goal is to maintain the awareness and presence to life’s challenging circumstances, and to prevent falling into the abyss of a fixed negative life orientation, which then becomes the focus of identification as “self.” For example, if one asks the question, “Who are you?” the answer might be: “I am a rape victim”; “I am a tsunami victim”; “I am a cancer patient”; “I am a refugee.” In these identifications, the person has lost the multi-dimensional reality of their humanity, and has attached themselves to the toxic or negative situation in which they find themselves – even though it is only one aspect of the whole individual and to provide a path out of – or at least toward reducing – suffering.

   To understand trauma and suffering, we need to understand how the brain works. The brain continues to produce simulations even when they have nothing to do with staying alive. Simulations make you suffer. The simulator pulls you out of the present moment. Clips in the simulator contain lots of beliefs, mini movies that keep us stuck. We all suffer sometimes and some people suffer a lot. Compassion is the natural response to suffering, including your own self compassion. Because self-compassion is more emotional than self-esteem, it is a powerful tool to reduce the impact of difficult conditions. It builds resilience.

   “The root of compassion is compassion for oneself.” -Pema Chodron

   Western Perspective on Trauma

 In Western traditions, through an Integrative approach, we heal trauma in part through Mind/ Body medicine and the understanding of resilience. Resilience allows some people to be knocked down by life and come back at least as strong as before. Rather than letting difficulties overcome them and drain their resolve, they find a way to rise from the ashes. 

  Psychologists have identified some of the factors that make a person resilient, such as:

a positive attitude 

the ability to regulate emotions

the ability to view it as a form of helpful feedback 

  Trauma occurs when our biological systems are pushed past a threshold of tolerance and remain stuck in the survival strategies such as flight, fight or freeze. How is it that one person’s trauma can be overcome while another seemingly less traumatic experience is their demise? 

  These very questions led researchers, scientists, physicians and psychologists to the “understanding of resiliency.” Resiliency is defined by our ability to adjust to a changing environment. Our parents helped form our “core map”. That core map stays the same BUT we don’t live in the core map, our territory continues to change.

   The response to trauma in the body comes from the mind. It is the meaning we give an event, not the event itself that creates a response. We will call it a “Memory.”

    The Mind Body Connection -Our Brains Territory MAP 

  The Memory filters through the Brain to create our:

Beliefs

Values

Attitudes

Language

Decisions

Experiences

Physiology 

We then assign Meaning through: 

Language

Physiology 

State/Emotions 

  The meaning we assign may be conscious or unconscious. It is best to understand it on a conscious level using words to translate the event/experience. The person with the most flexibility has the most catalyst for change. This then creates a Behavior Response through the experience of the event itself, the observation of that experience and then how we imagine that experience. We assign a tiny map in the brain that is now part of the larger territory map. All day we are creating tiny maps that contribute to our larger map. 

  Resilience directly relates to the breadth of our map. 

  The larger vocabulary and meaning we can assign to an experience will allow for more diversity, contributing to a larger territory to respond to. The client may change their territory, change their map or they may need to leave the map. Sometimes in leaving the map they can gain an understanding of their territory and their stressor.

   The question becomes, can you adjust the meaning of your trauma/suffering? 

  “How am I processing the territory map?” The How is the meaning you give it. What did you say to yourself? Can you now make choices closer to your core values? Your mind-body map is helpful in understanding how patterns of tension form in your body’s tissue. 

  You can assist yourself and begin to work with your trauma by:

Effect change by noticing the meaning that you assigned to the event. 

Become aware of the language you use to describe the event. 

You are an empowered partner in your own healing journey. 

  The Story Under Tension Patterns

Tension patterns are often what motivate you to get a massage. They are bands of tightness. The Physical pattern where we continually or repeatedly hold tension in the body. At Peace of Mind Massage and Sacred Wellness we have Trauma Trained Massage Therapists that are aware that muscular and whole-body responses to an overwhelming event can remain stuck in a stress response or pattern of tensions in your body.

  Occurrence of patterns:

once = the event 

twice = noteworthy 

three times = pattern

   Patterns create the problem. The Problem may present to you as sleeplessness, nausea, tension, pain etc. 

  Working with your Emotional Release

 Our practitioners are trained to support you in your own feeling and can assist you to back to health by acknowledging, accepting and supporting you just as you are.  If you have the intention of working with your feelings during a massage session we will respond to your breath and movement and will assist you in releasing holding patterns. A large percentage of holding patterns in the body are because of emotional repression, emotional denial and emotional avoidance. So, when releasing a holding pattern we are also touching and supporting your emotional body.

  Why Emotional Release Happens

Underneath most of our myofascial holding patterns is repressed emotional trauma. Now we have an understanding that our emotional trauma is held in the soft tissues of the body. The concept of tissue memory is fundamental to our understanding of the connection between bodywork and emotional trauma release. Cellular structure and the electrical energy body have the ability to retain memories. 

   How Emotional Release Manifests

Releasing emotions in sessions is supported by encountering areas of the body that are tight, where energy is blocked and fluid flow is restricted. 

  Basic rules to work with your emotions as they emerge so as to not create or reinforce a holding pattern. 

  Avoid: 

Self Judgement – The most damaging to your self compassion. 

Withdrawal – Can leave you feeling abandoned or isolated. 

Avoidance – Pushes them deeper into the tissue and reinforces a pattern of tension. 

  Acknowledge: 

Accept emotional expression – It is okay to have tears. 

Integrate the experience: • Be present with your emotions as they arise • You do not need to do anything • Feelings are not harmful • Keep breathing • Feelings are not problems to be solved 

Support for your Multidimensional Body 

Wear protecting and supporting crystals and stones: 

Amethyst is the stone of higher consciousness. If you are looking for connection, protection and more spiritual awareness. ◊ Smokey quartz is a powerful protective stone that clears and cleanses negative energy. ◊ Black obsidian is a very powerful protective stone. It repels negativity and disperses unloving thoughts. 

Use Imagery: Imagery stimulates the right hemisphere of your brain. For example, you might imagine myself deeply rooted as a tree, Your attitudes and emotions are blowing through your leaves and branches but your tree remains rooted and standing. 

  Practice Meditation 

Be present with a mind that is quiet and malleable: ·Achieving such a state of mind requires that we first develop the ability to regulate our body and speech so as to cause no conflict. To quiet the mind practice awareness of the whole body. Try to experience your breath as a single sensation sensing the body as a whole. Whole body awareness supports the singleness of mind. 

  Be Present In Awareness Itself

Your awareness should be distinct from the potential intensity of the emotion. Remember that the emotions are contained within awareness itself. Simply notice that awareness, and find the place within it that it is safe to explore your thoughts and emotions. Resting in awareness brings a beautiful sense of inner clarity and peace. As we individuals grow in our resilience, we become better at being present, aware, and conscious. If we can learn to live with an open heart, we will be able to remain strong in challenging conditions. 

   When we become aware that we are closing down, it is an opportunity to lift ourselves up. Herein lies the chance to reverse an old pattern that keeps us stuck in our trauma story, therefore stuck in a holding pattern within the body. 

  “We all start at different levels of unconsciousness, but wherever we are, we can always improve with practice” -Pema Chodron

  Give us a call at 303-881-5533 to speak with our receptionists and find the trauma informed massage therapist who is right for you. Visit us 7 days a week, Saturday and Sundays 9-6pm and Monday through Friday 9-8pm at 1249 S. Pearl Street, Denver, CO 80210.

  Add to Calendar:

The post Trauma: Understanding Resilience and the Mind-Body Connection from an Eastern vs Western Medicine Perspective appeared first on Peace of Mind Sacred Wellness.

via Peace of Mind Sacred Wellness

[the-colony-roleplay]

OCS, SKELETONS & AN ALL NEW NWRF EXTRAVAGANZA

Okay guys! We come to you with another really exciting announcement! 

As you probably know, Lottie and I are always working hard behind the scenes coming up with ideas for future plots, and potential changes/expansions that will help ensure the longevity of the Colony’s life. And we have lots in store for you guys, things that we hope to release or expand over the next year, but our current project and focus, especially since we’re not able to get into the next Games Live Play until Game season is back upon us in the verse, is to do with helping to foster an actively played, NWRF presence at the Colony. 

After some discussion about the current environment of the game, and the kinds of things that might help to make it continue to prosper as well as it has been these past couple years, we’d like to help strengthen the active conflict dynamic within the RP. As of now, the verse has plenty to work with, which has helped us immensely in the last three years, since the drop of the NWRF plot. However, we’ve been thinking that since we’re all one big happy family just trying to play a cool game, what kinds of tools can we introduce to help make the game even better and more accessible for everyone? So....

Introducing ‘Plot Device’ Skeleton bios! 

Starting now, we’re going to start working on and rolling out skeleton bios specifically designed for characters that will help move the plot forward, and open doors for new and exciting tension and content! For the time being, since this is essentially an NWRF themed promotional festival (lol, the irony is obscene), all of these skeletons will be NWRF, with potential for other roles and bio types in the future. 

These skeletons, however, will come with their own parameters for activity and play, which will hopefully help make filling these roles more feasible, and make the gameplay more exciting and fun for the whole group! The parameters will be as follows: 

Skeletons (or ‘skeles’ as I’ve taken to calling them) will be designed in such a way that they can be temporary, if need be.  That is to say, if we’re in need of someone on a temporary basis to help make a certain plot more interesting or dynamic, these characters can be played on a temporary basis. Of course, hanging onto them is always encouraged too! If you fall in love, who are we to take them away from you! :) 

Picking up a skeleton will not count towards your character count. 

Muns will not be specifically required to write paras on skeletons, UNLESS it’s for a big/action heavy plot, etc.  Essentially, we will always encourage paras, especially since half of y’alls chats are basically long enough to be paras—but with these skeles, you will not be expected to para in the same way you are with regular bios. The exception to this will be applied when you’re participating in a plot where the content sort of demands para format anyway. 

Skeleton bios will have an extended activity limit of TEN days.  We know that NWRF type characters can be a heavier load sometimes, in terms of muse, and the weightiness of threads. But these skeletons are designed more to be sort of part-time characters, whose appearances on the dash will really help shake things up, but don’t necessarily have to be as present. That being said, goodness gracious, if you can be as active on them as your other characters please do so. We are not suggesting you can’t dedicate as much time to these guys. Just that they are designed to be more flexible, so more people feel they have the time to pick them up, which will help add cool versatility to the active player plotting opportunities. 

Similarly, Skeles will not be expected to have as many on going interactions at one given time.  So, yes, we still want people to RP with a variety of characters and members, and try to experience plotting and threading with everyone eventually. But you will not be under the same expectations to have that many threads going at one given time, or to reply to as many starters, etc. We still hope for diversity, but as ‘plot-device’ characters, our goal for them is to add range to the dash that will be beneficial to the plot and for people’s muse, while not bogging down our muns or be quite as large of a commitment.  (We may set a minimum number of 3, but these rules will be solidified in the future). 

Skeles will only have suggested FCs (some requirements accordingly, like POC, etc) age ranges, +/- traits, and general summaries.  Like most skeletons, these will be character guides that we would like the muns to get creative with and flesh out in their own way. We will provide character labels, (rather than full names), job titles, a small summary of the character, and some general aesthetic/moods. From there, you will be free to do the rest. This also means that the application will be different for these bios, and that will be released at a later date. 

Skeletons that are dropped will be handled on a case by case basis much like any other bio. They’ll either be closed and written out of the story, reopened to be played again in the future, or potentially reopened as a full bio, if the mun decides to release it as such. 

Skeleton bios will only be available to current members.  This is strictly because if you are going to be a member of this RP, you should start with a fully committed character, with regular activity requirements and participation. We want new members to get the most out of their time here and to really be a part of this community, and these particular skeletons are fashioned in such a way that the requirements wouldn’t be beneficial to you as a new member. However, if you are a new member and you’re interested in NWRF roles, keep in mind there will always be the full NWRF bios, as found on on our open masterlist, as well as the possibility of writing OCs! And finally, if you’ve absolutely fallen in love with a skeleton, and want to apply for it as a full character with normal activity requirements, that’s certainly something that could be discussed, and we encourage you to come to us about that if you’d like! 

NWRF OOC Blog

One of the challenging things about playing NWRF characters is their connection to the main plot, which is largely executed and controlled by the admins, so communication is essential, and across so many players in so many different timezones, it can sometimes be confusing. So, starting this week, we’re going to be introducing a secondary OOC, that will be specifically reserved for plotting and sharing information between NWRF reps, guards, lab techs, etc etc etc, with regards to the goings on in the Colony. It will be where you can easily plot and drop notes and ideas, so you all have one place to communicate together where timezones won’t be an issue, and things won’t get too cluttered like they might in a group chat. 

The separation of this is only to be able to retain a bit of fun and mystery when it comes to Lottie and I not wanting to spoil event ideas and plot drops for everyone, but needing to loop in some of the NWRF for their own character dev or what have you, etc. This OOC, however, will never be for socializing, because we have no intention of splitting up the family in anyway.  It’ll exclusively be for plotting and the sharing of NWRF related info, etc. We’re hoping this method will help facilitate an easier and more cohesive system to playing an NWRF character. 

 Opening NWRF OCs

We’ve been on OC ban for some time now, and we had planned to do another stint of opening them up for a limited time. We have decided, however, to simply fully open NWRF OCs. (Not to worry, there will be more opportunities to apply for non-NWRF OCs in the future, but if anyone is interested in that, come chat with us about it off anon!) For now, however, since our current goal is to focus on getting more NWRF up and running in the game play, and we didn’t necessarily want to go on an NWRF exclusive ban, we figured this was a great alternative! 

The NWRF Incentive! (Better than it sounds!!) 

So, in the interest of boosting our NWRF presence here at Col22, we’re sort of rolling out a Bay-Day-Sale type promotion (haha). So, for a limited time only, anyone who applies for a FULL NWRF OPEN BIO (as in not a skeleton) will get to enjoy an extended activity limit of 9 DAYS for the first 3 MONTHS after their application. This is purely promotional, and will not be offered forever, but for the time being, it’s a little extra incentive for you guys to get your bums in gear! We also figured since the Skeleton bios will have a more lax activity limit, we may as well boost our full NWRF bios as well! The more the merrier, right!?

In Closing...

Obviously, the roll out of the skeletons themselves will take some time, and will be gradual. Lottie is about to go on a hiatus for about a week, and obviously I’m working stupid film hours, but hopefully we’ll get some posted for you next weekend! We just really wanted to give everyone the news now, so people can start thinking about it. 

If you have any ideas of things you’d like to see as skeletons, definitely let us know, and feel free to pitch us your ideas! And as always, if you have any questions at all or things you want clarified about this, don’t be afraid to hit us up here on the main blog! Please refer to the Ask Box so we can reply publicly and benefit everyone! 

Okay, that’s all for now folks! So much love to you all from the both of us,  and so very proud!!!

xoxo

Col!Mods

[nicolaisenholloway2]

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