#how to find your guide

[veryseriouspenguin]

Kidnap fam headcanon

Hc that Maglor is very good at telling horror stories. He's a minstrel, a performer, basically an actor. He used to scare his brothers to sleep back in Aman. 

Maedhros mentions this offhandedly to Elrond and Elros, and of course they start pestering Maglor for a scary story. Maglor indulges them. 

The thing is, horror stories that post-Sirion Maglor would come up with are slightly different from the ones he told in Aman. It's the kind of stories that would make Ungoliant shit herself. 

And considering Maglor’s acting abilities, the way he hisses like a wraith and laughs like a maniac, the way his creepy whispers echo down the halls of their half-empty fortress… When the night comes, the twins are suddenly feeling very uncomfortable. 

There are strange noises in the dark, the furniture creaking, the shadows moving… 

They end up hiding under Maedhros’s bed.

Maedhros, with his warrior instincts, notices them, of course, but suddenly remembers that, many hundred years ago in a land long gone, he used to have a sense of humor. 

So Maglor is woken in the middle of the night by the feeling of his brother standing right next to his bed. 

Maedhros, in a very uncharacteristic frightened voice: Kano, there’s… there’s a monster under my bed.

Maglor, half-asleep: Huh?

Maedhros: Two of them, actually.

*proceeds to laugh like a madman at his own joke while Maglor just sits there blinking sleepily like a very confused owl*

[ladsofsorrow24]

one of the most confusing yet funniest thing that happened in in medalist is actually hikaru's very one-sided beef with tsukasa lol

like damn she really just... hates him huh

but i can understand though, the thing about being kids is that, it takes time for them to understand that everyone have nuance and just because other people have different opinions and ways of doing things from you, doesn't mean they're terrible people...

it's just like rioh and yodaka's whole... thing.

that man literally sees rioh as his own nephew, yet this is the guy who got some of The Most terrible communication skill in the story, and every time he talk to rioh, he just end up hurting that kid... like the beef is so one-sided, i'm glad rioh is able to meet tsukasa and gradually get over his insecurities when it comes to comparing his own success to hikaru herself and yodaka jun lol

also, inori's got her own beef with yodaka too lmao i hope tsurumaikada will let these two confront each other again, maybe without tsukasa to protect her... maybe then we'll see a new side of them 🤔🤔🤔

[coquelicoq]

listened to my yunmeng shuangjie playlist for the first time in a couple years and some of these songs are apropos af. others, not so much, but i can at least make a guess as to what i was going for with most of them. in no particular order:

what human by the killers is doing on here i haven't the first idea except i assume it must be about one or the other of the golden core sacrifices. but which one, and how, i couldn't tell you.

all i really want by alanis is on here which is a) hilarious and b) soooo true bestie omg my mind.

the playlist also includes the way we were which i am 90% sure was 75% a joke, but the other 25% is that what's too painful to remember we simply choose to forget has wei wuxian written all over it.

i don't know what i thought i was doing putting psycho killer on here except that i don't have a wwx-only playlist so this was the next best thing i guess, or maybe you could make the argument that the 'when i have nothing to say my lips are sealed' verse is jiang cheng coded? it's both of them coded frankly. they're both disasters.

there are three guster songs which seems excessive given there are only 21 songs total, and probably there's no reason for me to have included amsterdam except i bet it's in my divorce playlist and maybe i was just adding all my favorite breakup songs? unclear. (but in support of this hypothesis i present exhibit a: don henley's the heart of the matter, of which i have performed many a dramatic rendition in the shower while angsting about various failed relationships.) demons however is extremely on the money and fa fa has a good level of thematic resonance i think.

i still think fix you is a freakishly good representation of wei wuxian's approach to the golden core transfer. definitely my favorite of the golden core subgenre. golden corecore if you will.

the next time fleetwood mac wants to perform go your own way in concert i think they could just play the clip of jiang cheng telling wei wuxian he can't protect him if he insists on protecting the wen. same effect and they can rest their voices for a minute. take a lil water break.

memories can't wait (apparently i was listening to a lot of guster AND a lot of talking heads) is i guess about jiang cheng haunted by the ghosts of shixiongs past but it seems a bit of a stretch now if i'm honest.

i actually love the background by 3eb as jiang cheng post wwx's death. i've always dug that song but never understood the lyrics but now i'm like. well clearly it is about this exact situation. try to keep up. motorcycle drive by (i was listening to a lot of guster, a lot of talking heads, and a lot of 3eb) is maybe less obvious but the vibes do check out. jiang cheng has never felt so alone and he's never felt so alive (derogatory??).

doesn't remind me is mostly a list of very specific and random nouns that are not at all relevant here but the chorus is doing something for me. however i don't think it is quite an accurate representation of wei wuxian's character OR of what he believes his character to be. so this one could probably go. the way we were did it better 🙄

over my head (cable car) and your winter are just quintessential sibling angst to me, and not just to me but also to 1) the fray (the singer has said that over my head is about a fight he had with his brother) and 2) whoever decided to play your winter right after kat and bianca's fight in 10 things i hate about you. see, i have backup.

ordinary by train is like. somewhat related?? but i can't figure out whose perspective it's from. not a great fit all told but the bridge is 🥺 (i want that for them!!) and i am perhaps biased by the huge soft spot i will always have for the spider-man 2 soundtrack.

absolutely zero by jason mraz is clearly guanyin temple BUT jiang cheng thinks it's about jiang cheng and wei wuxian thinks it's about wei wuxian. lol!!!! clowns. are they wrong though

i put nickelback on here. can't say i'm surprised given how much fun i had with how you remind me as a teen but also, like with absolutely zero, i think maybe they both think this song is about them and that's what makes it so crunchy. they don't have all the facts!! i'm insane about them.

and so it goes as a yunmeng bro song came directly from the genius brain of @winepresswrath and i haven't been able to listen to that song since without thinking of jiang cheng. and i would choose to be with you, that's if the choice were mine to make...but you can make decisions too, and you can have this heart to break? SHUT UPPPPPP

and of course i had to end it with neil diamond's version of he ain't heavy...he's my brother. classic. can't imagine any more fitting sendoff. wei wuxian is singing it through gritted teeth willing it to be true. jiang cheng is occasionally doodling the lyrics in his diary and then burning the diary to ashes and then throwing the ashes in the lake. the load doesn't weigh him down. at ALL. he ain't heavy. like dude...thats his brother...

[avocado62524]

Portrait of Madame X (but now Himeko Murata)

[deoidesign]

Can you make a tutorial on how you world build and make ocs? I can't seem to make any people in my brain, but then when I try to come up with environments jobs, beliefs and little details to slowly come up with someone, I think: well I don't really know how people have influenced the world- it's a weird loop

To be honest, I don't think I can! Writing is an extremely personal process. The way I write is directly related to how I process things, what I find important in stories, years of my own analysis of my and other's writing, etc... The way you write will be unique to you, as well. But I can explain how I personally think of it.

The short answer:

Write. Write anything and everything, it's a tool to explore your ideas. Analyze your own writing, and write more. Then, as you discover which ideas you want to develop, write more to explore them more. You won't know what you want otherwise!

The long answer:

I think this kind of loop is common. It's easy to feel like everything needs to be done "at once," because our job as writers is to make elements logically fit with each other for our readers. But as you've discovered, developing multiple elements simultaneously isn't really possible, or at least is extremely difficult.

Personally, when I think of writing, I break it into three major elements; characters, world, and plot. As much as possible every scene explores one or more of these, and as much as possible these three things tie back into what I personally consider most important: theme.

Everything I do is in service of the themes I want to present. Without them my events feel aimless. It can take a while to discover them, but they're the core of my work. You will have to discover what you feel is the core of yours. Analyzing other media helps with this too.

Concepts in your brain exist in a state of infinite potential. But when you start writing you have to start making choices, which removes potential as you move forward... But you have to move forward anyways. If there's ideas you want to explore later, you can always explore them later.

What this ends up meaning, to answer your question, is that I don't think of my characters as "people in my brain" or my worlds as something people have influenced... Not at their core, at least. They are tools that I use to represent specific ideas. Obviously they're also my blorbos, but mostly they're serving a specific narrative purpose.

So above all else... Write. Write, and discover what you're writing about, and then start over and write with that in mind. Keep doing this. But you have to write!

[anannua]

when i look up 'heart burn relief', it means i already HAVE heart burn, I am not trying to prevent it, I am trying to RELIEVE it 😭😫❤️‍🩹

[rigelmejo]

Something that always annoys me is the idea only 1 language learning method works. Which is not true. While it may be possible that, for a particular individual, only a few out of many study methods may work well enough for That Individual to make progress and stay motivated... that doesn't mean all the other study methods won't work for anyone else out there, or that those few methods will work for every other given person.

Obviously if you've been studying a while, then you already figured out what kinds of things work for you and don't. If you're a beginner, just wading into studying?

I would suggest you simply look for study methods that: 1. Teach you new things regularly, 2. Review and practice things you've learned, 3. Include studying things you need for your particular goals (for example if your goal is to read X book then the study materials at some point should involve reading practice and some words the book contains, if your goal is to talk about Y then the study materials should include some information about pronunciation and words you'll need to be able to say).

As you can imagine, a TON of study materials will meet these requirements. And you can study a given skill in a LOT of ways.

(Reading is my focus lol so just for reading, a beginner might: do vocabulary study with lists or conversations with native speakers or watching shows and looking words up or listening to dialogues with a transcript like in a textbook or graded readers or a picture book with word labels in the target language or a video game with labelled objects in target language, all of those things as long as your vocabulary is improving or reading practice is happening would help you make progress). So to improve reading skill as a beginner: you could study with a textbook, a podcast with transcript, a classroom or tutor with words written down in target language (like TPRS), a video game, a TV show and a translate app on your phone, a friend you talk with (who either writes words down or you look up words you hear with a translate app), a friend you text with, srs flashcards like anki (provided there's text) etc. As long as there's new words, and/or you're practicing reading, the study method may work. If it works will come down to if you can stay motivated doing it regularly, and make sure you regularly learn some new things and review/practice things you've already studied.

So consider those things when you see people selling a study method as a product (especially when it's costing you money). Consider if it teaches you NEW things, and are those new things related to your goals, and how MUCH new stuff will it teach you before you finish it? Consider if it provides review or practice, or if you can use it's materials to review on your own making up your own method, or if you'll need to do separate review/practice.

So examples:

LingQ. Can it teach you many new words? Yes, thousands, since you can import any texts you want when you get done with their provided material (I have no idea how much their beginner material covers though in terms of words... I would hope 1000-3000 words but that can be researched). Is your goal reading? It's suited to reading, so you will practice and review often with it. Cost? I think it was $12 a month when I last had it, and the price may have increased. Is it worth it? Depends on a learner's needs. I found it was wasting my money, so I chose to use free tools like Pleco and Readibu apps - since those apps are suited for Chinese learners and have better translations, Pleco has better paid graded reader material if I was going to spend money, and both Pleco and Readibu let me import texts so I can learn thousands of new words just like LingQ but free. Now that I'm not a beginner, I often use Microsoft Edge to read chinese... since I can still click-translate words easily (all my web browsers have that tool free), and Edge's TTS voice is helpful for pronunciation and sounds quite good. I read webnovels online so Edge works well. But it's translations aren't as good as Pleco or Readibu, so if I still needed translations more I would use them. So... is LingQ a good study method? Its certainly a study method marketed to buy. Well... the method is suited to improving reading skill, at least. It costs money, which is a negative, but it does offer a lot. However: everything it does regarding reading can be done free with other apps or sites or web browsers on their own. So if paying money motivates you to read... sure. LingQ does have a few word tracking features a learner may find worth the money, keeping in mind the actual read-to-learn method can be done free without lingq. (Also... while LingQ is a valid option for improving reading, if the learners goal is speaking then it would be important to think of what study activities the learner will do OUTSIDE of LingQ to improve speaking... because I've seen how LingQ is marketed as "how to learn a language" but it's only focused on some skills. It has vocabulary and grammar in some sense, since you'll read a lot and encounter new words and structures. But it doesnt have speaking or writing practice at least last time I was on it. Those activities would need to be worked on, on your own).

You can do that kind of cost/benefit contemplating with any study method material you see being sold. Amother example: there's a beginner Mandarin course called Mandarin Blueprint. It teaches like 800 words. Thats all. It may be worthwhile for a beginner... who still needs to learn 800 common words. But if you already know a few hundred words, the benefit of the course is less, you'll need to find a new material to teach you more new stuff soon. And the price was like a few hundred for the course... which for me personally was too much to spend, when I had already learned 800 hanzi from a book that cost me 12 dollars and 2000 words from a free user made memrise deck. The course claimed to get a person speaking, competent, but anyone not a beginner would say speaking basically with 800 words is nowhere near the level of working in Chinese or just doing a lot of daily life stuff, or reading/listening to media. (Although for the motivated beginner if you're learning 800 words on your own like I was, its definitely close to the point of jumping to learn more words and start reading kids and teenager books, and watching easier shows if you're willing to look new words up). So to me... Mandarin Blueprint felt like overselling some basic beginner materials. (Again when I know several other things that teach beginner stuff either more in depth so HSK test prep classes, and college courses, or that teach beginner stuff to the same depth as Mandarin Blueprint but free).

Some study materials aren't going to act like they teach everything. I've seen chinese courses just for learning to speak tones better and general pronunciation - probably worthwhile if your goal is to improve speaking and a teacher could help improve the issues your having. But a learner needs to be aware for that course that they'll need to study vocabulary on their own, its JUST a pronunciation improvement course.

[megaerakles]

When the fic that’s lived in your head for like three years is So Cool but the second you sit down to write any of it you’re like This Is Literally The Stupidest Scene You Have Ever Written 😔😔😔

[sp-growingpains]

I got a little more done today!! I'm so excited for more of Joel! Been thinking about him!

I take such a long time building new OCs. Building his playlist definitely helps. How do you guys usually go about making characters?

[tamaharu]

thinking about sctir daemon au bc i am a twisted person who has something wrong with him.

[itspileofgoodthings]

.

[nonairy]

How to savescum animal breeding in Fields of Mistria

1. Just before you end the day, feed the heart treats to the animals you want to breed 2. Make a save at the diary (Save 1) 3. Sleep, then make another save at the diary (Save 2) 4. Load Save 2 and sleep repeatedly until the baby is born. 4a. If they are the color/tier you want, load Save 2. The color/tier is locked in at this point, so you can continue playing normally and/or repeat from step 1 with different animals. 4b. If they are NOT the color/tier you want, delete Save 2. Load Save 1 and repeat steps 3-4.

Keep in mind regular breeding rules still apply, so the colors/tiers that are available are based on the parents' tiers.

[rxttenfish]

..... actually back to thinking about how much of a theme it is with miravi, of treating the self as an animal. as in, to focus on animal needs and wants, just realizing you are another living thing and that you want warmth, and comfort, and ease, and a lack of pain, and good food, and care. that you aren't beyond that, can't push yourself into a shape beyond that, and even moreso to look at it neutrally, as a fact, to approach it without judgement or baggage and to lay down inside it. to be the self more wholly in that way — aaravi being loud and coarse and not good with social situations, and to not look at those as failings, but to own them, to be them, to find people and places where those can be held easily and readily, not to be forced into another shape, another thing she's not. that none of these make her bad or awful or not worth considering, that people are just like that sometimes, and they're just as loved as people who aren't. that miranda has limits to her body, things she cannot do, things that she cannot force herself to do, that would hurt her, and it's better to treat them as just a fact of who she is, a fact that needs to be met and accomodated, to not have to shun it away and into a shape she isn't. that she has merfolk needs and merfolk impulses and a merfolk body and merfolk ways and none of those are lesser or worse, only different, only animal in another way. that things aren't sorted into good or bad things, good or bad traits, that they can and should love the bad things about each other and the good things aren't golden and perfect and inherently not going to cause trouble, aren't as much a part of them as the bad parts, and that there's only what each of those things mean in how they appear, how they exist in dialogue with everything else around them.

[wr-n]

GOD i love dustard,,,,, GOD,,,,, yeah,,, yeag,,,,

they're just,,, SO GOOD i cant even,,,,

[maburito]

Holy shit IT WORKED!!

I've been completely lost I didn't thought it would work i was just desesperate aeoirgjoiejgrji

[ladykissingfish]

Sasori: Deidara, can you show me how to do something? Deidara: What? Sasori: Can you show me how to use clay to sculpt a little bird? Of course I won't be able to make it explode like yours do, but -- Deidara, tripping over his feet to get to Sasori: Holy shit holy shit holy shit you want to learn MY art?! Sasori: I never said that. I simply wish to know how to make a small bird out of clay. That's all. Deidara: But why? Sasori: I've been feeling stressed out lately, and my puppet-making has done little to assuage this. So I'm hoping that by doing something out of the ordinary for me, I will be able to -- Deidara: *throws his arms around Sasori and kisses him* Don't be shy, Danna, hm! Just admit you finally realized my art is superior! Oh, we're gonna have so much fun! I can teach you birds and butterflies and cats and dogs and -- *Deidara runs into his room to get clay, still talking, and now mentioning that he should bring everyone in the Akatsuki to see how the "battle of the artists" has ended* Sasori: Sasori: I'm pretty sure HE'S the biggest reason behind my stress.