#and instead of giving myself a specific number of things to do i will simply do whatever the hell i want <3
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I'm bored and stuck waiting and happened to remember that on my old blog I had made this statement:
Since I have a minute, I figured I'd finally drop the list with some brief explanations:
1. By Way Of Sorrow - Coyote Grace version
This song and its lyrics, especially as sung by a queer/trans bluegrass band, could not be more Jew-ish in vibe. I am aware this is a cover, but I have only ever heard their version and that's the one that matters to me. I love love love this song, so much, and it perfectly captures how I feel about having been welcomed into the Jewish people after years of exclusion and othering from numerous other quarters. Am Yisrael has taken me in, treated me like family, connected me to the Divine, healed my wounds, and helped me feel as whole as one can in a broken and unredeemed world - while giving me the tools to join the work of tikkun olam myself.
2. The Farthest Field - The Lumber Jills version
This is the best version I could find; the original I was shown I can't find but will link if I do. This song was actually introduced to me by one of my orthodox rabbis, and I agree with him that it can be understood as a beautiful image of geulah.
3. Hallelujah - Coyote Grace & Girlyman
This one just makes me happy, and the words, message, and themes are very on-brand for Jewish vibes as well in my opinion.
4. Be Thou My Vision - old Irish Hymn (this version and this version are my favorites)
This one is very obviously a hymn and therefore decidedly Not Jewish. On the other hand, the words aren't so explicitly Christian that it rules out use by Jews (in my opinion) and especially if you translate the words into Hebrew, it sounds just like a traditional piyyut. (@springstarfangirl if you want to add your beautiful translation, please feel free!)
5. Down to the River to Pray - Alison Krauss
This is one where I do think the lyrics are a lot closer to being Christian specific, but it makes the list for a couple reasons: first, I've encountered it in Jewish-specific contexts without modification (one of our rabbis actually had us sing it like a regular song during zemirot), and second, there's a modified version by Nefesh Mountain that's quite enjoyable.
6. Whither Thou Goest - traditional
Yes, this one is a hymn too, but the words are directly quoting the Book of Ruth - her famous vows to Naomi, and to the Jewish people - and so it's already practically a Jewish song. It also has a special place of pride for me as a ger, and also because I used it as my wedding song in both the English (as heard in this version) and I also transliterated the Hebrew for our singer to do as well. It works nicely in both languages!
7. Roll the Ol' Chariot - David Coffin
This one I think is a little less direct, but I love it and included it for two reasons: first, it's a song of getting through it and surviving and thriving under tough circumstances, and second, you could very easily put liturgy to this melody instead.
8. For the Autumn Sky - traditional
Ignoring the last verse, this hymn could be very easily adapted into a beautiful Sukkot melody. For the last verse, I'd either simply leave it out, or one could write a Sukkot or Tu Bishvat themed verse to distinguish it. Incidentally, this was one of my favorite hymns growing up.
9. Sanctuary - Shaker melody
The video for this one is obviously mega-Christian, but it's on the list because we actually sing it all the time in shul and it has a special place in my memory from going to camp as a kid. Our shul is definitely not the only one who uses it in a Jewish context, either: this version by Cantor Julia Cadrain is really lovely.
10. Genesis 3:23 - The Mountain Goats
Where are my fellow Mountain Goats fans?? I know you're out there, lol. Look, I know that John Darnielle is coming at this from a Christian perspective, but two things: first of all, TMG has a number of Jewish fans I think at least in part because the lyrics speak deeply to the specific feelings around life (and other people) being horrible to you, surviving, and thriving even in the wake of deep trauma. Second of all, I think this one in particular brings up a number of interesting ideas about the meaning of home, of homecoming, of returning to a home that no longer really exists in the same way, and of exile and redemption. What would it look like to return to Gan Eden? Is this what geulah is supposed to look like, at least in some interpretations? What does it mean if not?
Anyway, this is it for now, but I may add to this list later, because there are definitely a few more! Please also feel free to add your own in the notes!
#queued post#jumblr#Jewish music#(kinda sorta)#honorary Jewish songs#Jewish Song of the Day#<<not really but for organizational purposes
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The thing about perfect pitch is that it's a combination of having an inherent knack for it, and having that skill honed with a musical education. Someone who could recognise a specific note by the ear but was never taught notes cannot do it, and someone who simply wasn't born with the potential for it can't learn it no matter how thorough of a musical education they have.
I think the same thing applies to what I've come to refer to as "a few raisins is five raisins" type of instruction-giving. The ability to instinctively assess how much information and detail somebody wants or needs when they're asking for instructions. People who cannot do this are enraged by the idea that someone thinks they can, btw. How dare somebody arbitrarily decide to withdraw information and take away someone's agency concerning choices that they don't want to make and whose outcome doesn't matter much.
I'd consider that I have a pretty good knack for it, myself. It's been honed by working both with people who refuse to give exact instructions, my own difficulties in asking for sufficiently exact instructions when I've needed them, and working with people with varying preferences towards instruction-exactness.
People who refuse to give clarifications to their instructions and guidelines in things that they are familiar with leave you no other choice than to demonstrate just how wrong their vague answers can be interprated before they're willing to clarify. If you ask someone "how long does this usually roughly take?" and they just go "I cannot answer that, it varies so much from person to person, every single individual case is different" on and on, refusing to give the roughest of rough estimates, all you can do is say "okay so it can take anything between 20 minutes and 20 years." And only then will they say "oh no, it's more like 3-6 years on average", which was the exact answer you wanted in the first place.
It's not really a comprehension thing, but a moral code to them. I don't believe in having ethical principles that serve no other role than inconvenience absolutely everyone including myself, so I have no qualms about giving simplified instructions. If someone who needs exact instructions is trying to follow a recipe that tells them to add "a few raisins" freezes at the vagueness and asks "how much is 'a few' raisins?" they want an exact number.
Someone who isn't comfortable trusting their own assessment of how much is 'a few' won't be helped by being told to follow their heart and make their own choices. They specifically want somebody to just give some sort of a guideline about this. And being the type that's more comfortable just eyeballing things, I can assess that in this context "a few" means roughly half of a small handful of raisins, and quickly estimate that one half of a small handful is roughly 4-6 individual raisins.
And instead of getting needlessly difficult about refusing to say it, I can just say "oh, that's about five raisins", and everyone can carry on with their day.
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𝐔𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐂𝐨𝐝𝐞 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐬 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐌𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐟𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧
What are code words?
According to Oxford Languages, code words are, "a word used for secrecy or convenience instead of the usual name for something." And the example sentence used beneath the definition is, "secret projects were identified by special code words." I briefly mentioned code words (also can be referred to as switch words) in a recent post where I discuss the importance of a manifestation foundation and how to create one.
How do code words work?
Code words are cues that mean something without explicitly giving details. One would automatically connect the code word to whatever definition that's been assigned to it. A code word can also be a phrase, or a trigger for those who know what the code word means. Sometimes hypnotherapists even use code words while hypnotizing their clients.
What are some examples of code words?
Look in the world around you, hospitals and law enforcement use code words. For example, in most hospitals they have code words like 'code blue' which could widely mean a patient requiring resuscitation or otherwise in need of immediate medical attention, most often as the result of a respiratory or cardiac arrest. On the flip side, law enforcement and even emergency dispatchers have codes as well, usually used in the form of a series of numbers that describe particular situations without needing to say anything but those specific order of numbers. Such as, in most American police code, a 10-00 code means that an officer is down or needs assistance. Do you notice how both codes are simple, short, but mean very specific things? The people that use these codes automatically know what these codes mean, subconsciously, without needing the wordy explanation on what they mean after they've studied, and associated those situations with this code. Codes make it easier to remember specific scenarios, the subconscious already knows what these codes mean. And in these professions, they are way more codes out there that we aren't even aware of, but they are.
How can I use code words to manifest?
Most people may already be using affirmations, askformations/afformations, mantras, and other manifestation techniques to manifest. However, there may be a possibility that someone wants to manifest a very specific, detailed scenario and do not wish to constantly have to remember and repeat those details over and over. So, why not use the examples of thoss mentioned above and create your own code words to manifest those very specific, detail-oriented scenarios?
Are code words more powerful than affirmations?
Code words are just as powerful as affirmations because they are all working to do the same thing! However, there is a belief that because code words are so short and can have many different ideas connected to that singular word or phrase, it can quickly bypass the resistance one may have about a certain topic or situation. Also, code words make it extremely easy to repeat a set of affirmations in a short amount of time. They are extremely powerful in their own way, but never sell affirmations short on how powerful they are as well. Both work amazingly!
Can you give an example on how to create code words and how I can use them in my manifestation journey?
I'll use myself as an example. Let's say that I want to manifest completely flawless, clear skin. Simple enough, yeah, but let's say that I want to get detailed on how I would like my skin to be. I could easily say an affirmation like 'I have my dream skin,' or something along those lines, but, I also want to get extremely detailed in what my dream skin would look like simply to appease myself. For example—
My skin is perfect. My skin is always flawless. I have no hyperpigmentation. My body is blemishfree. I have an even skintone all around. Every product I use on my skin makes it 1000x more vibrant and glowy.
That's a lot of affirmations to remember, right? Fortunately, we know about code words! So... How would I choose a code word? Simple, I've decided that I will use SKIN for my code word, and I will read my list of affirmations a few times, and my subconscious mind will automatically connect my affirmations to this single code word. Think of it like this— my code word is like a bucket and my affirmations/thoughts that I want to be true about this particular topic, will be what fills the bucket. When most people look at a bucket, they automatically think that it is to hold something within it. That's exactly what the subconscious will do when you give it that code word.
Can my code word be more than one word?
Absolutely! You can even make a phrase! Think of it as your own little secret.
Could I use code words for anything, and by anything I mean anything?
Uh, hell yeah. You can use code words for anything you could possibly ever think of, even for the void if that's what you're secretly wondering.
How would I use code words to manifest entering the void // waking up in the void, etc?
Easy. Write down some affirmations/ statements you wish to be true about the void, doesn't matter what it is, and then choose a code word to use. VOID is a good code word to start. Once you've gotten your preferred code word, all you'll need to do is repeat your code word whenever you think about anything involving the void. Or whenever you need to correct doubtful thoughts. You may also robotically affirm VOID if you so choose to. You can also use the code word for easy 10k repetition. There are many ways to use code words, feel free to experiment!
Can I use code words with psych-k?
I don't see why you wouldn't be able to, so, feel free to experiment!
Wait... this sounds a lot like the list method, are code words and the list method the same?
No, but they are definitely similar in their own way, and can even be combined if you wished to do so! Code words and list defer because lists would involve different things of different topics, whereas code words would involve affirmations dealing with a very specific topic of your choice.
How could I combine the list method with code words?
Create your code words, and then make a list of those code words, then you could affirm that every single one of your code words are true and always will be true. Think of it as drawing out a web of thoughts.
NOTES -> and there we have it folks, code words. I hope that ya can use this tool to your advantage, if you've got any questions, I recommend to always do research or if you'd like, feel free to send me questions! good luck, and have fun!
#manifest#manifestation#manifestation method#loa#loa assumptions#loa affirmations#loa advice#loassumption#loa blog#shiftblr#law of assumption#void method
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Human Illustrator Wally x Reader (part 7)
Phone anxiety 101
TW: Anxiety, Low Self-Esteem, Hallucinations
🐻 You are so nervous right now. Your hand shakes as you look down at your phone. You are trying to call Mr. Darling, wanting to try to ask him out to a coffee shop or something. Maybe the library? You know, a bit like how you first met up with him in private. As friends. Yes, FRIENDS. You definitely do not have a crush on him. After all, why would he like you that way, anyway?
🐻 But, what if you are bothering him? What if you are calling at a horrible, horrible time? You pace around your room, looking at your phone. You take a deep breath, dialing his number, then calling. It rings a few times, before Barnaby answers.
🐻 "Hello? (Y/N)?" You nervously smile, asking in a shakey voice "Hi, Barnaby! Is umm... Is Mr. Darling there?" There are a few seconds of silence, before Barnaby asks "Can I ask you a favor?" "Sure." "I was planning on bringing Wally to the library at around 12 pm. He loves the library. He's loved it even more ever since he met you there. Can you go there, too? Kinda like a little surprise!" You chuckle "Sure, why? Is something going on?" "He has been a bit down in the dumps since an... incident last night. I won't go into it. I just think that seeing you will cheer him up."
🐻 Needless to say, you are more than willing to help. He has been nothing but kind to you and the children you care for, so he deserves kindness back. You put on your best outfit, hoping that you look presentable. Then, once it is time, you head out to the library. You decide to sit by the back of the library, where the children's books are kept.
🐻 You hear Barnaby's voice alongside the door to the library opening. "Here we are, bud! You wanna look around for a bit on your own, or do you want me to come along?" "Come along." You tense up at the sound of Wally's voice, feeling your heartbeat pick up. You hate anxiety... You hide your head a bit further in the book you were pretending to read.
🐻 After a bit, you hear Barnaby point out where you are, chirping "Look, Wals! It's (Y/N)! Hey, (Y/N)!" You look up from your book, your eyes locking with Wally's.
🐻 His eyes widen, a look of... shock on his face? Not good shock, by the way. Bad shock. He doesn't run, however, instead quickly masking his expression with a smile. He fidgets with his fingers, chuckling "Good afternoon, (Y/N). I didn't expect to see you here..." You smile, despite your concern, saying "Hello! I am so happy to see you! I hope your day is going well." "It has been alright."
🐻 There is an unbearable silence in the air. Barnaby gives an awkward chuckle, stepping away as he says "I gotta... Go use the restroom... Stay here, guys! I'll be right back!" Then, he leaves. You and Wally simply stare at each other for a moment, before you ask "Is... Everything really alright?"
🐻 Wally hesitates for a moment, before shaking his head. "No. No, not really. I umm... I am not alright. I don't want to go into it. I feel like you will hate me if I do." You nod slowly "Well... just know that I could never hate you. You have done so much for the children at the daycare, as well as for myself, that I don't think I could ever truly hate you. The only real things I could think of that could do that are like... if you hurt or killed someone. Both things I know you would never do."
🐻 Wally tenses up, again, before nodding. "Okay... is it alright if I ask some questions? They umm... have to do with what is upsetting me. So umm... don't take them personally." "Sure. Shoot." He sits across from you at the table, clearing his throat. "Umm... how much do you know about me? More specifically, how much did you know about me before you met me?" You look at him, seeing the seriousness in his expression. You try to remember what you knew back then.
🐻 "Well, I only really knew that you illustrated a lot of the books the kids at Apple Castle Learning Center loved. Just a name. I only learned that you were popular when one of the kids mentioned that you were visiting the library for a book signing." He starts to relax a little, continuing "Then... After that?" "I only know what the kids and you have told me. I don't waste time looking up celebrities. I don't really care, unless they are spouting nonsense that could affect the lives of myself and the kids negatively." He relaxes even more.
🐻 "One last question... do you really care about me...?" You look him in the eyes, slightly surprised by the sudden change in direction. "Of course. I umm... I was actually planning on calling you this morning to invite you out somewhere. I got too nervous, though, and just came here. It says a lot that, despite only really meeting up with you for a few time, I actively want to spend time with you. You left a very amazing first impression."
🐻 He finally smiles, for real. It is an amazing sight, his smile. It still holds a bit of what seems to be sadness in there, but the happiness still shines through. You remember his completely happy smiles from when he visited the daycare. You want to see it again, to be the reason for his smile, too. However, just being able to cheer him up slightly is good enough, for now. He is clearly going through something at the moment. You ask in a soft voice "Are you feeling a bit better?" He nods, looking around the room.
🐻 "A lot better. It was just that I had a rough night, last night. I had a bit of anxiety that melted into this morning. It happens relatively often, but last night was particularly bad." He then rests his elbow on the table, placing his chin in the palm of his hand as he leans against it. "I kinda got worried about how... well, I'm famous. I'm famous, but want a normal life. When I first started illustrating books, I never expected to get this far. Then, after a while of being famous, you realize how people could just... just get to know you and be your friend, all to be famous, themselves. I had that happen, a few times."
🐻 You cringe at the thought. That sounds awful. You nod your head "I see. I don't blame you for being a bit suspicious of me." His eyes widen, again, his face growing a bit pale "No, no! It wasn't that! I umm- Well, it was in a way... it was just that I got a bit suspicious of everybody. Everybody, including you and Barnaby... the stupid voices in my head kinda just... took over." You sit still, listening to him. He seemingly stops, as if he let something slip past his lips.
🐻 You want to ask about what he told James, however, you aren't even sure if you were supposed to hear it. You don't know if mentioning it would increase his anxiety. So, you try to make your question seem as general as possible "Did you hear voices that said those sorts of things? Like, hallucinations, not thoughts. Or did you just mean thoughts when you said "voices in your head"? That is a common expression, after all." He sighs in disdain "Yeah, I did hallucinate. Like, I know that the voice isn't real, but just... it is kind of like it plants thoughts in my head, you know? Then, those thoughts, I know aren't true. Deep down I know they aren't, but my mind then thinks about them to the point of rationalizing them. You know?"
🐻 You chuckle "I think I get what you mean. Besides the hallucinations, sometimes, I get very bad anxiety. Not as bad as yours, I believe, but still kinda bad. Like this morning, when I had trouble calling you. I started thinking about the numerous ways I could end up bothering you by calling, and how mad you would be if I did. I knew, deep down, that you wouldn't be mad at me. You are too nice to feel that way. It still kept me from calling, because my mind made reasons for you to be angry if I called." He thinks for a moment, before nodding. "That is kind of the same. Yeah. Actually, it is pretty much why what the voices said still hung over me this morning. They weren't saying anything, this morning, but I kept anxiously obsessing over them. To be honest, I still am..."
🐻 You grin "That makes sense. It isn't easy to stop anxiously thinking about things, even when you know they aren't true, or have no reason to think about them. Just call me if you feel you need me for anything. Goodness knows I would have too much trouble calling you! Haha!" Wally chuckles halfheartedly at your words "Yeah. Thank you for talking with me. It has helped, a bit. I think I should go check on Barnaby. He hasn't come back for a bit. I hope you have a nice rest of your day." "You too, Wally."
🐻 Wally stands, leaving the area to go check on Barnaby. You panic, placing your head in your hands. Did you just call him Wally? He might think you're rude... No. No, don't think that way. He didn't seem to mind. He didn't even seem to notice it. You still need to go home and recover from everything that has happened, today. Nothing really bad occurred, it was just a bit unexpected to have Mr. Darling, a famous individual, load all of that onto you.
🐻 It was a bit... nice, actually. Not what he said, goodness no. You can't imagine what he must be going through. Nobody could, really, except for himself. It was just nice that he trusted you to do so. It was also nice in the fact that, despite being so popular, he acts human. You have heard stories of celebrities that, after getting big, completely change into something unrecognizable. Mr. Darling, however, is so human compared to them. He even seems to use his fame to help others, considering how excited he seemed to be visiting the daycare, as well as to simply sign a book for the children there.
🐻 You honestly cannot wait to meet him, again. Be it inside or outside the daycare. Preferably outside the daycare, however, so you can get to know what he is like in a less... Chaotic environment.
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I’m a bit tired of the criticism surrounding the Percy Jackson show. Not the fact that criticism exists, because I agree with a lot of what’s being said, but people acting like there’s an intellectual superiority linked to hating the show. This is long, so here’s a “keep reading” for you.
No one said it would be a perfect book to TV adaptation. Even Rick said they would change some stuff, because he was given a chance to go back and reevaluate the original story. Personally, I think Rick’s writing is better suited for books, and doesn’t translate well to a TV show format (referring specifically to his writing for the screenplays), and there’s some jarring pacing issues moving from scene to scene. Not to mention, of the whole series, The Lightning Thief is one of the weaker stories, simply because Rick wrote it early in his career, and he had the chance of slowly improving with each new release. And I agree that simply saying, “Well, Rick approves of this adaptation,” does not excuse it from having flaws.
That being said, I still very much enjoy the show. Walker, Leah, and Aryan are carrying the story fairly well. I like their dynamic, and it gives a new perspective on Percy being an unreliable narrator, seeing as PJO is written in first person, but the show is portrayed in third person. Also, for people saying, “$15 million per episode, but where did it go?” The salaries for the cast and crew, the props, cameras, costumes, makeup, royalties for using certain songs, and some decent CGI, among other things. It adds up more than you think.
Now, if you don’t like the show, that’s fine. If you want to voice your criticisms, that’s fine. But please don’t act like your opinion is the only one that matters, and that anyone who actually enjoys the show is dumb or blind to the problems. People can enjoy things just…because. For me, there are MANY things I like which have TONS of evident problems, but those problems aren’t enough for me to give it up.
Also, “show don’t tell” is a good philosophy to have when telling a story, but we need to remember that this first season has to do a LOT of heavy lifting exposition wise. It has to cover a number of Greek mythology stories and character backstories, and weave them into the plot, in a relatively short amount of time. Yes, we have the benefit of eight episodes, but even then, there’s not enough time to dive deep into ALL of the intricacies of mythology and backstories. I think the episodes could stand to be a bit longer, and I think some scenes need have more breathing room so that the audience has more time to process what’s happening. As for why Percy seems to know everything, it’s stated multiple times outright that Sally told him the Greek mythology stories. They are ingrained in his brain, and Percy is very smart and quick.
Finally, there are a NUMBER of shows that had a pretty disappointing first season, but went on to improve with each new season. We should treat these criticisms as suggestions for improvement, instead of completely writing off the show. It’s not perfect, and that’s to be expected, but it’s still so early. We need to give shows time to grow and improve.
Anyway, if you’ve read all this and still hate the show, that’s fine. No one is stopping you. I fully respect that opinion, and I’m not here to change that. I just think there are more constructive ways of handling things like this than going on TikTok and being like, “Hot take, but the Percy Jackson show is actually garbage.” It’s about open conversation and constructive criticism and the hope that things will improve with time.
P.S. The irony of me writing this whole post portraying myself as intellectually superior is not lost on me. Everybody is entitled to their own opinions, I just hope we can be more productive when sharing them. That’s all.
P.P.S. If you really don’t like the show, and you think it’s objectively terrible, then don’t watch it. No one is forcing you to keep up with it each week.
#my post#pjo#percy jackson#percabeth#annabeth chase#grover underwood#rick riordan#percy jackon and the olympians#the lightning thief#walker scobell#leah sava jeffries#Aryan simhadri#pjo tv show
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Strange way of drawing the Dragon Curve
Alright, so real quick I just want to share potentially the most arcane method of drawing the Dragon Curve I've ever seen, derived and designed by yours truly! As far as I know, this is a novel solution. I know the sequence it generates is known, but I'm not sure if anyone else has used this method before. Its quite elegant if I may say so myself.
So for those that aren't aware in programming the "<<" and ">>" operators are sometimes known as "bit shifts." Basically what this is doing is starting at some number, adding a power of two, then getting a specific 1 or 0 in the binary representation of that number iteratively, until its searched enough bits to know they aren't going to change anymore.
It has to do with this sequence right here. I've mentioned before, my personal favorite way of generating the dragon curve is to start with the sequence 0, reverse it, add one, roll over once you reach 4, and tack that on to the original sequence. So
0
0 1
0 1 2 1
0 1 2 1 2 3 2 1
0 1 2 1 2 3 2 1 2 3 0 3 2 3 2 1
Well what ends up happening is each time you add one, its like adding one to the reversed part of the newly added sequence. So we can track where all these 1's come from based on when they're added.
For example, the 1 we added in the "01" step turns into
0 1
0 1 1 0
0 1 1 0 0 1 1 0
Note from here on out its palindromic, so reversing it no longer has any effect. What we end up with is a repeating pattern of two 1's, then two 0's, starting with half that many 0's.
When going from
0 1
0 1 2 1
We're adding 1's to the entire second half, so in this step the 1's propagate to
0 0 1 1
0 0 1 1 1 1 0 0
0 0 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 1 0 0
And again, this is now palindromic. Four 1's, four 0's led by half that many. One of the things I've learned about the dragon curve is just how intrinsically linked it is to binary (and this makes sense when you think of the folding paper method of generating it. Here's an excel spreadsheet demonstrating this in action
Now here's the fun part. My research was to parallelize this algorithm. One approach is to say "Okay, how can we calculate each term in this sequence without looking at the previous ones." And the answer is to exploit these very predictable patterns. And how do we predict these patterns? Simple, we simply count in binary
The right most column is useless, but starting at the next one to the left, we see a familiar pattern, almost. Say we want to know what the 5th number in the dragon curve sequence is (0 indexed).
To make the sequence only lead with one 0 instead of two, we need to offset by 1, then all we have to do is increase the number by (n + 1) = 5 and take its 2nd least significant bit (1 indexed because english).
The 2nd bit of ( 1 + 5 = 6 ) is a 1.
For the next iteration we're looking at the 3rd least significant bit. Here we need to offset by 2, and then we increase the number by 5 again and the 3rd significant bit is the one we take.
The 3rd bit of (2 + 5 = 7) is another 1
After that we're looking at the 4th least significant bit. We need to offset by 4, then increase the number by 5, and the 4th significant bit will give us our number.
The 4th bit of (4 + 5 = 9) is going to be another 1, bringing our total to 3.
Here's a visual representation
This is where the "1 << i" comes in, because that's the same as saying 2^i, which is how we get those offsets of 1, 2, 4, then 8, 16, 32...
the "n" in "n + (1 << i)" comes from us offsetting to get the nth term in each sequence
Finally the " >> (i + 1) " and "% 2" are to fetch the (i + 1)th bit from the number.
After that the increasing size of the leading zero's outpaces our constant offset of the number 5, so we are only going to get 0's from here on out, and we can actually stop, hence the usage of bit length to terminate the loop early.
And if we look at the the 5th element of the sequence (0 indexed)
0 1 2 1 2 3
Funnily enough, in python this brings an actual speed increase (or at least, distributes the cost over the drawing) because of how slow reading and writing to memory is, compared to how math and bit-wise operations are implemented in low level C behind the scenes. Additionally, since there is no reliance on previous work this task can be multi-threaded, or even GPU accelerated if need be.
Finally, if you've made it this far, here are a few images of some close ups of dragon curves from my GPU implemented (unrelated to this one entirely) just so that there's something pretty. Enjoy <3
#Dragon curve#fractal#programming#progblr#codeblr#python#fractals#math#computer science#algorithms#binary
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Frustrations
Following other developers, learners and makers are great. It facilitates learning and gives inspiration
But one thing that is often missing from people telling about how it is going, is the failures, frustrations and problems any developer will run into.
For this reason, two of my favorite maker youtube channels are Extractions&Ire (Chemistry) and Code Bullet (machine learning). Because these madlads are brave enough to not just show their process and result, but also their failures, mistakes and errors. And how they overcome them. Not always by learning (Sometimes making a dumb mistake is not really something you can learn from...)
It's good, because it's real.
Code tutorials and guides can give the impression that the normal process of development is "Open IDE, code, fix tiny typo error, compile, success". They don't do it out of malice, but out of a want to be concise. Which is fair.
So I also want to share when things do not go so well.
I have programmed Atmel's AVR Chips for quite a while now. But I have done it mostly in microchip studio(former Atmel studio) and a bit in the arduino IDE.
A job I am currently applying for, uses visual studio code. Which is fair enough.
So to prepare for this specific job, and to acquire this quite good-to-have skill, I want to set that up for myself
First things first, since I have not done this before, I cannot know if my code would have a weird error so I want to know everything else is working first.
So I write a tiny program which simply have the microcontroller increase a number every 2 seconds and write it to my PC over UART. Takes 2 minutes....
I grab one of my Arduino Nano boards and a USB cable for it. And then... I cannot flash it... Its communication protocol have troubles.
I have seen this before.
It is to do with the cables not being correct. If they are USB 2.0, very little magnetic noise can cause trouble. (And you cannot tell if a cable runs USB 2.0 or 3.0 by looking at it... because the universal serial bus is not universal... Insert grump rant here)
I then spend an hour finding and trying different USB A to USB B-mini cables. Give up, notes down to buy (and MARK) some USB 3.0 versions for the future.
I then grab a Arduino Uni instead, as they use USB B, which is much more resistant to noise... And then spend half an hour trying to find a the cable, as I do not have a lot of them, since... nearly nothing uses them. Finally find it, and yes, the program can now be flashed.
So I packed all the cables I tested back in their places, after marking them so I will(hoefully) not have to do this again.
Had to take several breaks feeling depressed and grumpy, and all in all, this adventure took 4-5 hours. And now I can START on this...
And this is how work sometimes is. And that is ok. It is still... VERY frustrating ...
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Dear Sephiroth: (a letter to a fictional character, because why not) #118
I went to bed at roughly midnight last night!! Which is roughly an hour past 11pm, which is what's supposed to be my bedtime! But my alarm is set for 8am! Which means I should have gotten around 8 hours of sleep! 8 hours is sufficient!
…Unfortunately, I woke at around 7:30am of my own volition, and then I was not able to go back to sleep. But that's okay; I slept more than I have on recent nights, so I feel better than I did yesterday, for sure!
I made myself some tea. This morning, it was apricot-vanilla flavored black tea! I wonder if you would have liked this one; I'm more than a little sad about the fact that I'll likely never find out, ahahaha…
…But… well. There's not a damn thing I can do about that, other than take pictures and send them along, hoping that they'll reach you somehow… Here:
I had intended to go today to the post office to send the completed amethyst tree sphere to the other side of the planet, but as it turns out, shipping things that far is very expensive, goodness me! So I'm going to have to make more spheres and sell them first, so that I can save up! It shouldn't be too hard, except for the fact that I'm FAR more inclined to simply give them away. I'm no salesperson, and it feels nicer to just be able to hand someone some unexpectedly beautiful thing anyhow; you wouldn't BELIEVE how some people's faces light right up when hand them one of my weird little woven tree crafts! It's seriously the best thing, ahahaha~! 🥰
So, instead of going to the post office, J and I went on a pizza date. We went to our favorite spot! I got a tomato slice, a shrimp scampi slice, and a chicken and mushroom marsala slice, and these were ABSOLUTELY DELECTABLE, oh my goodness! J got a tomato slice and a slice of spinach pie. I took pictures:
Also, J specifically asked me to take a picture of his spinach pie slice from his perspective, just in case you might like it. Here:
…I am not the only one here who likes you and hopes to see you be safe and happy in the end. Even J would like to share a little bit of joy with you. There are lots of people who want to share a little bit of joy with you. You're not alone. Sephiroth, I promise you that you're not alone, no matter what your brain tries to tell you when it's being mean to you.
Speaking of sharing joy with you, I also went on a walk today, and I tried to make it a point to take some nice pictures for you. I hope you'll like them:
I also found a tiny salamander friend on my adventures! I found it trapped inside an abandoned cooler in the woods:
I really have no idea what a cooler is doing in the woods. But it looks REALLY REALLY OLD, good grief! It is NOT a good place for a salamander to live!
The little thing seemed to want to get under my sleeve for some reason, ahahaha~! But as adorable as it was, sadly, I had to disappoint the poor thing; I put it on the ground, underneath some fallen leaves. It'll be happier and safer there, for sure!
As I walked around, there was a pretty big hawk flitting from tree to tree. I followed it around for as long as I could, on a whim. But I wasn't able to get any pictures of it for you; its plumage made it blend too well with the surrounding trees. But, I've been seeing an unusually large number of birds-of-prey and crows ever since the eclipse; I wonder if it threw them all off somehow. In any case, hopefully I'll get you a nice picture of a hawk or something soon!
Anyway, as I imagine you can tell by looking, I ended up getting into weird positions on the ground to get some of these pictures, and I ended up with a deer tick on me as a result. I feel really silly about it; it wasn't the best idea for me to get careless like that, because ticks are a real problem in my world. Ticks are very tiny arachnids that burrow their heads into an animal's skin in order to feed on their blood. This wouldn't be a problem if ticks didn't carry all sorts of nasty diseases, but they do in my part of the world, and one of the scariest ones is Lyme Disease.
Lyme Disease is spread by a kind of bacteria that the ticks catch from feeding on small rodents. Left unchecked, these bacteria like to eat things such as nerves, joints, and myocardial tissue. Deer ticks are the only carrier of Lyme Disease where I live, so I guess I'm gonna hafta keep an eye on the bite and make sure it doesn't develop the bullseye rash that's characteristic of infection. I also put the tick in a little disposable plastic sandwich bag just in case I develop weird symptoms; it'll be good to have on hand just in case I need to get it tested for diseases.
It's all right though; the tick was on me for less than 24 hours, and it came out of my skin really easily - didn't even hurt! And I washed the bite as soon as the tick was removed. It didn't get an opportunity to feed on me yet, because it was removed too quickly. Chances of infection are very low, if not practically nonexistent. And even if I did get infected, we've got fancy medicines to clear it right up, no problem; everything will be okay! Don't worry your pretty little head about me, alright? I'll be fine! 😁💖
Oh! I also cooked some ground pork and beef, in preparation for making a recipe that some awesome person on the internet sent to me… gosh… a while ago now. I've been meaning to cook it up for a number of weeks, because it sounds ABSOLUTELY FREAKING DELECTABLE, but lately, I've been either too busy, too exhausted, or some weird combination of both. But I have all the ingredients on hand; it's just a matter of putting them together! I'm looking forward to it!! I can't wait to show it to you, because the person who shared it with me cares about you, too!
Anyhoot, it's getting late, and it's probably about time I went to bed. I've got a lot to do tomorrow, goodness me; therapy, and hangouts with my best friend B, and maybe cooking the thing if I still have energy leftover (I hope!). We'll see what happens!
Hey Sephiroth! Please remember to rest and to take delight in wholesome things and to treat yourself nice, okay? I dunno exactly what you're trying to do over at the Edge of Creation, but if you're gonna make it through all this okay in the end, you're gonna hafta make kind and loving choices, and to be able to do that reliably, you're gonna need all your strength. As far as I know, I can't zoop over there and give you a nutritious, wholesome meal and a nice cup of tea, because I am just a derpy autistic nerd who is totally devoid of reality-bending powers (much to my chagrin). So you gotta do it for yourself instead, okay? Promise me that you will, won't you?
And if you're having trouble, just pretend you're me for long enough to treat yourself in the same way that I would treat you. Or you can just make pretend like your self-destructive tendencies are dragons that need to be slain. That's how I've been dealing with mine, anyway, and it's objectively true that you're FAR better at slaying dragons than I could ever hope to be - I mean, c'mon, have you taken a look at me? I'm basically just a weird squiggly noodle. You can do better than I can at most anything - I promise.
I'll write again tomorrow. I love you. Stay safe out there.
Your friend,
Lumine
#sephiroth#ThankYouFFVIIDevs#ThankYouFF7Devs#ThankYouSephiroth#final fantasy vii#final fantasy 7#ff7#ffvii#final fantasy vii crisis core#final fantasy 7 crisis core#final fantasy crisis core#ffvii crisis core#ff7 crisis core#crisis core#ff7r#final fantasy vii remake#final fantasy 7 remake#ffvii remake#ff7 remake#final fantasy vii rebirth#final fantasy 7 rebirth#ffvii rebirth#ff7 rebirth#final fantasy 7 ever crisis#ffvii ever crisis#ff7 ever crisis#ffvii first soldier#nature wanderings#awesome pizza#wholesome
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The Pleasure of Your Company
HI!!!! I absolutely love your work on AO3, especially your works in the Merlin fandom. I was wondering, would you write one specifically about Leon? All the ones I've read which go into his internal pain and the suffering he deals with trying to look after everyone just keep him in Camelot. There's none about him wanting to leave to ease his suffering or to escape from this 'cage' that might have been created for him by his family and friends because he feels he has to stay, or any debate with himself which reasons why he hasn't left Camelot. Basically, the 'vibe' I get from him is that he feels stuck in his position and can't change at all because of the crippling fear of rejection. Especially since it seems like he's the 'odd number' friend, the 'disposable' one, which seems to be the case with 'mother hens' because who cares for them when they're feeling down? He just doesn't seem happy to me. Anyway, you don't have to write this, it was just an idea I had. I'd write one myself but, life, you know? Hope your day goes great! IntenseDreamer1 :)
Read on Ao3
Warnings: none
Pairings: leon/morgana (what's their ship name???)
Word Count: 2988
When the feared sorceress Morgana's wickedness is revealed to have been exacerbated by a poisonous mind charm at the hands of her sister, Morgause, Camelot becomes the unwitting host to the last of the High Priestesses of the Old Religion. She is not to be trusted out and about the citadel, and so must be placed under constant watch. Who better to assign, then, than Camelot's First Knight himself?
Leon has missed the Lady Morgana, he can admit, and as the years belie the changes they both have undergone, they find themselves hovering much closer to friends than to hostage and guard. And in truth, there might be more to both of them than they initially cared to admit.
"You're punishing yourself."
Leon pauses, halfway through filling Morgana's cup with tea. "I beg your pardon, My Lady?"
Morgana gives him a look that says she's not about to have this argument again, but she nods for him to continue pouring. She waits until the cup is full and he's set down the teapot to speak again. "You're punishing yourself."
"I would hardly count tea with you as a punishment," he remarks as he retakes his seat, pouring his own cup. "Sugar or honey?"
"Honey." She holds out the cup to allow him to add the honey. "And you know very well what I'm referring to."
"I assure you," he says with a softness that most might deem unfit for the company to whom he speaks, "that I am far from averse to spending time with you, My Lady, despite your current situation."
"What an artful word for imprisonment," Morgana remarks wryly as she stirs her tea, "it's a wonder Arthur's so bad at diplomacy if it's truly you who taught him."
"I wouldn't dream of remarking on that."
"Come, you're in neither polite nor company, you can speak your mind." When he allows himself a smile yet shakes his head all the same, she rolls her eyes. "I can't imagine Camelot's first knight volunteering for guard duty."
"It is far from simply 'guard duty,' My Lady—"
"Oh, of course. Not every guard is qualified to stand vigil over the wicked sorceress who almost brought Camelot to ruin."
It's his turn to give her a slightly chiding look. "I would hardly use the word 'wicked' to describe you."
"Perhaps you would prefer 'evil?' It is far more straightforward. Or 'scheming,' that's a good one." Her brow quirks. "Perhaps even 'wretched?'"
"'Wicked' and 'evil' are cut from the same cloth," he says instead, "and do not fully describe how you were affected by Morgause's own desire for revenge against Camelot. 'Scheming,' perhaps, but then any tactician could be described as such."
He sets his cup down and slides the platter of fresh rolls towards her.
"And the only 'wretched' thing about you is the suffering you have had to endure."
Her hand trembles slightly but she hides it well, setting her cup down and reaching for a roll with such a sigh. "It's a wonder you aren't a poet instead of a knight."
"I'm afraid the King's idea of poetry isn't quite what I have in mind for myself, no." He reaches for a roll too, tearing off a small piece as she takes a bite. "Good?"
She hums. He smiles and tastes it too; the baker has done an excellent job with this batch, indeed. Warm and sweet, paired perfectly with the suggested tea. He will have to stop by and pass on their compliments. They sit there for a moment, simply enjoying it, before Morgana's foot nudges his leg.
"You're avoiding the subject."
"On the contrary, I believe I have made it quite clear that I enjoy spending time with you."
"Not that."
He shifts to ease a cramp in his arm. "Why else would you believe me to be punishing myself?"
"You're isolating yourself from the other knights. From Arthur, from Merlin." Morgana runs her finger over the edge of her teacup. "You know this post demands several hours—more, in your case, since there are so few guards willing to relieve you from your shifts. You know these chambers are on the other side of the castle from everyone else—especially Arthur and Merlin. And you know that none of them will ask you how your days have been when you have spent them all in here with me."
She leaves the cup aside and leans onto her elbows, interlacing her fingers.
"You of all people know how important morale is for a warrior, so tell me: if purposefully distancing yourself from your brothers in arms isn't punishing yourself, what else would you be doing?"
Leon's hand does not shake as he puts down his cup, nor does he break eye contact as he turns to face her properly. He mirrors her position and tilts his head. "Have you grown bored, My Lady?"
Her brow furrows. "What are you talking about?"
He indicates the positions they've taken. "Have we something to negotiate? Or is this a debate?"
Morgana seems to realize the somewhat confrontational way she's positioned herself in the conversation and lets her hands slide back along the table, reaching for her teacup with an almost petulant air. "All I'm saying is that I'm the one who's supposed to be undergoing the process of atonement and redemption. I see no reason for you to be acting as though you're doing the same."
He allows himself to relax as well, picking up the discarded roll. "I don't know how many times I can assure you that I enjoy my time spent with you."
"That's not the punishment I'm referring to," she says, her voice a slight bit harsher, "and you know it. At this point, you're not even being subtle."
Leon debates holding out a moment longer before he accepts defeat, taking another sip of his tea. "You are right, of course, My Lady. I suppose I am…well, I don't know if I am punishing myself as much as indulging a bad habit."
Morgana doesn't gloat, simply taps her fingers on the table. "And what bad habit would this be?"
"Feeding an unfair suspicion."
She groans. "If you're just going to be vague, I'm going to start throwing those rolls at you until you give me a plain answer."
Speaking of which, he tears off another small piece and eats it. "I don't wish to burden you with the insecurities of a foolish old knight."
"I am confined to one set of rooms with the same foolish old knight for company," she says without missing a beat, "please, burden me and alleviate me of my boredom or else I'll start trying to take over the kingdom again."
He allows himself a chuckle as she smiles behind the rim of her teacup. But, as before, she is correct, and so he spares another moment to gather his thoughts before he speaks once more.
"I'm sure it did not escape your notice—has not, I should say—that I am…unique amongst the King's trusted knights. I am the longest serving, I served his father before him for many, many years, and I am…well, I am perhaps what most would consider the typical knight."
Morgana hums, cradling the warm mug to her chest.
"As such, I have…taken a position of seniority amongst the King's knights, both as his first knight and in the Knights of the Round Table, by virtue of my experience, or age, or the relationship I have with the King." He hesitates a moment before adding: "I do not think it to be an overstatement to say I am often the voice of reason when conflicts arise, friendly or fearful."
He's rewarded with a small snort and a nod, but she gestures for him to keep going. When he hesitates again, she speaks. "I have no other confidant that I would spill your secrets to. Do not feel the need to watch your words so closely."
"Thank you, My Lady."
Still, it takes him a moment of wrestling with himself to figure out just what it is he wants to put words to. After all, words have within themselves a power. If he speaks it, it becomes real, and despite all his accolades, he is not sure he has the courage to confront the reality of the amorphous shapes in his mind and heart. Morgana allows him his silence, only prompting for another cup of tea when hers runs dry.
"I care for my brothers deeply," he says as he pours, "I would die for them as I know they would die for me. It is no burden to care for them when they fall or are otherwise uncertain. I would gladly go without sleep if it meant they would be able to rest comfortably."
The next words stick to the inside of his throat and so he swallows them and tries again.
"I am grateful to be the one they turn to, the one they can rely on. It is a position that I regard with great honor and privilege and I would do anything in my power to maintain such a level of trust."
Yet again, they hook barbs into the side of his throat and he drinks and eats to unstick them.
"I have noticed that sometimes my efforts to join in their fun are regarded as…unsuccessful." He glances toward the window, through which the faint sounds from the training fields can be heard. "I believe Gwaine has referred to me as 'the end of the night' in the past. I didn't—I do not think I always used to be."
His next words feel almost treasonous to speak, and so he hesitates once more.
"Sometimes I think about leaving Camelot," he confesses, "if I am truly so changed from the man I once thought I was."
"If I may be so selfish as to ask you not to," comes Morgana's voice, "who else would guard me as politely and indulgently as you?"
"And once you are no longer in a position to need guarding?" He looks at her. "When you have atoned and redeemed, and the kingdom has welcomed you back with open arms—which they will, My Lady, upon my honor, they will—then what am I to do? Will Camelot find another responsibility that they deem only I capable of shouldering?"
"I could always pretend to be power hungry again," she offers, and they both laugh for they know she wouldn't. He shakes his head ruefully.
"I suppose I am as I said: a foolish old knight who has grown weary of being so old and foolish."
Morgana is quiet for a moment before she puts down her cup and calls for his attention. He gives it. "You are not foolish, Leon. It's because you aren't foolish that you feel this way. The suspicion, the one you referred to indulging, it's that no one would bother to come and look for you or care for you if you weren't there, right?"
"You are perceptive as always, My Lady," he says quietly, despite the slight ache in his chest at how effectively her words have pierced him.
"Are you seriously considering leaving Camelot?"
"No, I fear I am too much a coward. I enjoy the life I have here, truly, I do, and I care for the people here, the family I have made for myself. I could no more leave it than I could no longer wield a sword to defend them." After a moment, he glances at her, a smile tugging at the corner of his lips. "And should you ever decide to turn your appetites to power."
She laughs, looking for a moment the young lady Camelot lost so long ago, before she reaches across the small distance between them to take his hand. He allows it, bringing hers up to press a courtly kiss to its back.
"Don't leave me with these fools," she stage-whispers with mock and earnest conviction alike.
"I won't, My Lady."
A knock interrupts them, Leon standing and opening the door to see another guard. "The King has asked for you."
He nods, turning to retrieve his sword from its place near his chair and bowing his head to Morgana. "I will see you later."
Had he noticed the thoughtful look on her face as he left, he may have been more prepared for the crowd inside her chambers when he arrives for his shift the next day. As it stands, he can only look on in silent bewilderment as Morgana opens the door to reveal Arthur, Merlin, Gwen, and the rest of the knights already inside, chatting and laughing as though this were the tavern.
"My Lady," he greets, more out of instinct than anything, "I…"
"Oi, there he is!" Gwaine beams at him from his seat on the floor, waving him inside. "Get over here and settle an argument, would you?"
"What argument would this be?"
Elyan rolls his eyes. "Gwaine's trying to convince us that it's a noble tradition to eat entirely apples for one of the festival meals, which I think is complete and utter—"
"Look, just because you don't like apples doesn't mean that it—"
"You know we've been to the feasts here, right?"
"Those are for everyone! Not just the nobles!"
"He's right," Arthur adds—since when is Arthur on Gwaine's side about anything?— "it was a massive fight to change it with my father."
"This has been going on for quite a while," Gwen informs him and Merlin hums, "they think you'll be the tie-breaker."
Leon simply nods, still attempting to wrap his head around why, exactly, all of them are here. Gwaine notices his silence and throws his arms up.
"Well? Back us up here, Leon!"
Leon glances around at the sea of expectant faces, before he sighs. "You're mistaken, Gwaine, there was never a feast consisting only of apples."
"Hah!" Elyan smacks Gwaine's shoulder. "I knew it, you—"
"It was pumpkins."
Gwaine throws his head back and laughs as Elyan splutters in disbelief. Leon simply smiles.
"The squash were suited for little other than decorations to the peasant folk, and so the crown decided to host a feast where the castle's kitchens would do the cooking and everyone would partake. Then, of course, there was the pulp-throwing contest, during which people would take the leftover seeds and pulp and throw them at each other."
"I can never tell," Lancelot mutters to Merlin, "when he's joking."
"None of us can, it's a skill."
"Come sit," Arthur says, waving him over to the last empty chair, "stop standing by the door like that."
He comes obediently, sitting and letting both Gwen and Merlin shove all sorts of food and drink toward him. Pear juice…roasted duck…the bread rolls that the baker makes twice a week…hold on a moment.
"What," Percival laughs when he looks up in surprise, "did you think we didn't know your favorites?"
"I—well—"
"You're the only one so far who's weasled their way out of letting Arthur spoil you with what you like," Merlin says as Arthur tries to shush him, "so we decided to surprise you instead."
"To Leon," Gwaine announces, standing and holding up a goblet, "without whom we would be so much worse off than we are!"
The rest of them toast and drink, and Arthur leans over to grab his shoulder.
"Enjoy yourself, old friend," he says quietly as the rest of them return to their merriment, "you're very bad at it."
"Yes," Leon says weakly, "I suppose I am."
"Indulge," comes Morgana's voice as Arthur gets pulled into another argument, and he turns to see her holding out one of the rolls, "it's the least you can do after I've been besieged by fools."
His eyes widen as he takes in the true meaning of her words, taking the roll with no small amount of wonder. "Thank you, My Lady."
"Well, I figured it's the least I could do, after all you've done for me."
"That and I'm pretty sure her crush hasn't faded," Gwen chimes in and several things happen at once.
One, Morgana whips around and hisses Gwen!
Two, her cheeks turn a pale pink.
Three, Leon feels his own do the same.
Gwen looks unapologetic, shrugging as Morgana glares at her. "If I had to listen to it for years, I'd imagine it's lingered."
Morgana's features twist and contort. "Why would you say that? I do not!"
"Yes, you do," Arthur calls helpfully and she throws a roll at him, one he can't even be bothered to catch for laughing.
"Why did I agree not to kill you again?"
Leon just manages to wrap his head around what's just occurred in time to catch her hand with his own. Morgana quiets, staring at him with an apprehension that does not become her, one because he has always known her to support herself, first and foremost, and two, because, well, it's quite unwarranted.
"As I said," he murmurs, low enough for the two of them, "I have always enjoyed my time with you."
The flush on both of their cheeks grows stronger as he slowly raises her hand to his lips once more, chastely brushing a kiss to her knuckles. A small smile finds itself on her face and he smooths his gloved thumb over her fingers.
"Boo," Gwaine hollers, "kiss her properly!"
It takes him not even a second to grab another roll and throw it at Gwaine.
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Fot the character asks, what do we know about Shion Enraku-Houlen (real legal name at this point, presumably)?
Ah it's been a while since the last one! Admittedly I've been avoiding doing one about Shion myself, since they're honestly a very straightforward character with not much to them.
Even so, there's certainly not nothing to talk about. So, here we go:
An Individual Born from the Aggregate — Shion
Name
First thing I can say, is that their name definitely isn't "Shion Enraku-Houlen" haha, it's simply Shion (シオン). This name is taken from the name of their parent-flower, the Harujion (ハルジオン).
Specifically, it's taken from the jion (ジオン) part. Though since the original word is a combination of haru (ハル) and shion (シオン), the rendaku (連濁) phenomenon which alters the voicing of shi to ji is not observed/reversed, hence Shion.
Origin: Last-minute Addition
Indeed one would quickly notice that Shion, unlike many other Len'en characters, seems rather thematically shallow, at least in terms of inspirations and references.
This is because Shion was never planned to be a major character in the first place, but is instead the logical conclusion of the presence of the Harujion in the story.
It's long been known that Fumikado was meant to be the original stage 6 boss of RMI, but was bumped down to stage 5 to make room for Shion.
While that was all we knew for the longest time, Kanae (JynX's Vtuber persona) revealed new information about the creation of Shion when asked about the creation process of Len'en characters. (Go give it a read, it's fascinating even ignoring the new Shion info.)
Kanae explains that the idea of a being born out of the Harujion had always been a character in his plans for RMI, though he never thought much about them other than being suited for stage 4 or 5.
However, as he actually worked on RMI and fleshed out the story, this "Harujion-spawn" got pushed all the way up to stage 6, and that's when the Shion we know and love started getting developed, as what Kanae describes as an "afterthought character".
Of course, that's not to say that they're a throwaway character that serves no importance to the story. JynX is nothing if not meticulous with the characters, and they earnt a spot alongside two of the protagonists of the series after all.
Rather, I think this story just goes so show that characters who were not originally meant to be that central to the story may still suddenly shoot up to prominence when the situation calls for it.
In any case, because of Shion being an "afterthought character", they're not really based on anything from real-life history or mythology, but is rather by-and-large a JynX-original creation. So, in the following parts, we can examine what this is about!
Shion, the Chimera Soul
The most important thing to note with Shion is their existence as a Chimera Soul, a conglomerate of souls that happened to fused together. This combined with the participation of the Harujion in their creation created this rather unique being.
Chimera Souls
First thing to note, is that Shion is in fact not the only chimera soul in Len'en! When the torrent of souls flooded in during RMI, many of them fused and combined to create tiny chimera souls.
This created these little guys:
They're simply called "ghosts" most of the time, cause fusion or not, that is fundamentally what they are. Souls that remain in the world of the living, hence, ghosts.
The Harujion's Participation
Shion is so unique compared to the little fellas because they're composed of many more souls, and that is thanks to the Harujion's participation in their creation.
Being a youkai flower that feeds on the life force around it grow, it also drew in the souls gathered by Fumikado and co. This allowed for a much higher number of souls to fuse together, thus creating a much more powerful being.
Shion's "Miracle of Flesh"
The Harujion's participation also caused a second anomaly, what I like to call the "miracle of flesh". Chimera souls are, by nature of their composite souls, dead, devoid of live.
Yet, thanks to the Harujion's ability to revive the dead, when Shion was created, half of these souls "came back to life" and formed a physical body, while the other half became the body's "spirit".
Good and Evil, Thrown Out of Balance
When this process was taking place, the good souls formed the body, while the bad souls formed the spirit. This should've lead to a balance, a "good" physical body containing and "evil" soul.
However, due to "the nature of the Mugenri Barrier", a majority of the souls could not firmly judge themselves to be "good". The "evil" souls of the spirit overwhelmed the "good" souls of the body, causing them to leak out into the open.
These are the purple, ghostly appendages that we see all over Shion, the torrent of evil souls that their body could not contain, overflowing into the outside world.
Below: Shion's BPoHC portrait as a playable character.
These souls take on different shapes from appearance to appearance, and all represent the myriad of souls that Shion is made up of, from animal to plant to insect to human.
Examples include the cat ear, bunch of grapes, red spider lily and butterfly wings in their original RMI appearance, and the dog ear and dragonfly wings in their BPoHC playable character appearance.
Soul-related Abilities
Shion has a number of soul-related abilities, unsurprising considering their origin, and chief among these is the ability to "absorb one's spirit and self", self here referring to the sense of self, the ego.
This of course refers to how they literally absorb and eat other souls as a form of sustenance. Additionally, they have the ability to see the colour and smell the scent of others souls, which they use to learn about a person's nature.
Shion's Ethical Dilemma
Shion is another one of those characters that are outwardly cheerful and carefree, yet upon closer inspection quite complex.
They are keenly aware of the fact that they are a composite of many souls, and firmly believes that what their souls say accurately reflects the world.
Due to the Mugenri Barrier making the souls unable to judge themselves as "good", and due to many of their voices claiming that the word is filled with malice, Shion came to firmly believe that both the word and they themself are fundamentally evil.
Because of this, and as demonstrated by their actions, it's fairly clear that Shion's moral compass points towards a rather wicked direction. Yet even so, Shion tries to do good, at least, their idea of good.
I always liked how this is demonstrated in their fight against the ??? Team in BPoHC, where the following exchange is had:
Hamee "If I erase you, I think Tsubakura-sama would be at least a little bit sad~."
Shion "That's… a really twisted way of expressing love, isn't it."
Hamee "Are you interested?"
Shion "Shion-chan's quite fond of that way of thinking. Very well, let's fight."
Hamee "That's our Shion-chan~! ♪ A cluster of malice! ♪"
Shion "I'm not fond of the way you phrased that though…"
Hamee "It's fine. Us malicious ones have to get along. ♪"
Shion "Shion-chan might be a cluster of malice, but I'm no villain!"
It's a pretty interesting glimpse into their psyche, they relish in what is conventionally considered malicious, since malice is what they are. Yet they are unwilling to actually partake in it, to associate with people who are actively vile, like Hamee.
Admittedly, I have no clear way to reconcile this with Shion showing absolutely no remorse in eating people's souls. So I just have to concede that Shion still has a fundamentally different moral code compared to the average person.
Ending
And that's all I have! Admittedly not as much as one might've hoped, and I didn't touch on every single little thing that there is to examine, like their spell cards.
Often feel like many of us can benefit from taking a step and re-examining Shion's character and their unique existence, as well as what this means to them personally. Hopefully this was a good attempt at that.
Welp, that's the end of the end. Now that I've done this, I'll probably do one for the Harujion itself sometime in the future, so look forward to that~! As usual, I hope you enjoyed~! :)
#len'en#len'en project#len'en lore#shion#I know I mentioned at the beginning that I avoided this in fear of there being not much to talk about#but this ended up being more interesting than I gave it credit#I hope you all feel the same way too~
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MAG 126 Relisten
Activity on my first listen: putting up a new fence.
How this statement giver tosses around name after name and I don't know who they are?? Who is Rosa, who is George? Who is Desmond? (Apparently someone with some defects most likely to their face?) This is so small town behavior, talking about people without explanation because they think “oh, everybody knows blabla”.
"I know, it was an amateur class, and he was under no obligation to do exactly the work as instructed, but Ray was very clear with the rest of us that we were doing things in a specific order for a reason, and it was just a bit frustrating to see him nodding along to that awful man flagrantly disregarding what we were meant to be doing."
If art school has taught me one thing, it's that teachers will praise works which will make you only scratch your head in confusion XD I like the concept, that the Spiral is affiliated with art. In the end anyone can interpret it differently and that's why these discrepancies in perception happen. Also, I think a lot of artistic people have been a bit of outcasts for our "weirdness". Me and my friends certainly all are.
"At least, not until I went to my salsa class the following Thursday, and instead found myself walking into a room set up for sculpture. I was obviously taken aback at what had to be a really significant scheduling issue, but having a quick check of the timetable of classes, it looked very much like sculpting had always been on a Thursday"
Oh yeah, this. This is the worst... I hate this...
"He said the key was that faces were twisted. All faces were twisted on the inside, and all you had to do was reach into the deepest part of yourself and put that twisted on the outside of the clay, and as soon as you can scream you’ll have your own face staring back at you."
Yep, sounds about right. I went through five years of teachers giving instructions not unlike these. Not all of them were like this of course, there was a pattern to which field of art was more down-to-earth and which felt like nonsense and bullshitting around. Funnily enough, the workshops of these art classes were set structurally exactly like this in my school. Down-to-earth classes in the basement and ground floor and then it got weirder the higher up you moved.
"he said, glancing over nervously to Gabriel, who gave him… big thumbs up. Like it was all some joke they were playing. It didn’t feel like a joke, let me tell you."
This statement is so uncomfortable...
"Finally the lines seemed to resolve into a clear shape: A door. 'Perfect!' Gabriel told me. 'It looks just like him!'I asked him if it was supposed to be a face and he told me yes. It was a good friend of his. I asked him who and he said they didn’t have a name. I told him everyone has a name, and he said his friend wasn’t like us, that having a name would only confuse them."
The Distortion...
Aside from the horrible gaslighting this episode is an excellent example for cosmic horror. All the impossibilities of things happening, rooms being not the same, shapes shifting, people not being people anymore.
"I could feel his spiraling fingerprints start to turn. Round and around."
Reminds me of Annihilation. They were snaking there.
JON: "A Great Twisting, that Gertrude stopped at the cost of a single life. (hm) I thought moving away from my humanity would have made that seem more acceptable. That sort of sacrifice… But it just makes me sad."
Queue another discussion on Jon and Gertrude’s relationship to “humanity”. (Also, did he already hunt down a live statement here and is sort of talking about this as well?)
JON: "I remembered Gertrude’s notebook. We found it alongside the plastic explosives, but it rather got lost amongst the business of… (sigh) saving the world at the cost of two lives.
It – it’s borderline incomprehensible. Not because of any code, or cipher; there’s every chance I could read those. Just simply because most of it is numbers or fragments of sentences that would no doubt mean something to her, but, well, not to me.
I’ve been staring at it for hours, in the hopes something from it would just – come to me. And it worked well enough to point me towards this statement, which is… useful background, and perhaps gives some insight into how Gertrude formulated her counter-rituals, but – not much more."
Oh yeah, so the notebook does come up again! (I couldn't remember back in MAG 113.)
JON: "I’ve been trying to check on Melanie’s condition. She refuses to see me – understandably, I,I suppose, and Basira has been looking after her. (sigh) It hurts, of course. But… (sigh) I really hope getting that bullet out of her helps. At least stops it from getting any worse. I can’t have been too late again."
T_T Okay, so as a HSP this is just torture. First we get this asshole character which I hated and I couldn't even get into the podcast because of it. Then sweetheart Martin hits and Jon shows more and more that he has a bigger range of feelings than just stone-cold skepticism. Especially when the realisation of Not!Sasha catches up to him. Then we get this character, who we slowly learned to like, get tossed around like a ball in a middle school gym class, we get to see him open up to others, we see that he is liked and loved by others and then THIS for an ENTIRE SEASON! (It’s not like it’s sooo much better in S5...)
And even though nobody except for Melanie blames Jon for Tim and Daisy's death, he blames himself and we get to feel that because we mostly see his perspective of course. Jon thought his childhood bully dying is his fault, Sasha dying is his fault. Tim blames him for getting stuck in the Archives and other events (I got eaten by worms because of you - MAG 65), Melanie also started to blame him in S3 (Because it is your fault that I'm here. Fix it or get out of my way - MAG 102). His thinking pattern is centered around guilt.
JON: "I suppose I should be worried, but I have so much to keep watch over."
I think this is exactly what makes TMA so good. There's too much to keep watch over, so it manages to surprise you. I've seen stories of a lesser scale fail to surprise because it was easy to keep track of all the elements.
JON: "She didn’t go to Sannikov Land in the end. I don’t know, however, whether that was because she decided not to… or because shortly after this statement was given, they found the body of one Mary Randall in her basement, and she has spent the last nine years in Eastwood Park prison, where she remains to this day."
Oh fuck, I missed these research bits that made the statement even worse.
It took me incredibly long to get that Martin is talking to the tape recorders like a pet xD (Also... Web!Martin?)
MARTIN: "It’s because he’s back, isn’t it. He’s back, so now you’re going to be – around, again. Listening in. (amused *hm*) You missed him, didn’t you? (same little laugh) Yeah. Yeah, me too."
༼☯﹏☯༽
PETER: "You talked to him?"
MARTIN: "I – I tried not to; I-I-I didn’t mean to –"
PETER: (I’m not mad I’m just disappointed) "You talked to him. And that’s understandable, Martin, of course it is; please don’t think I’m upset; it’s just – not ideal."
Martin arguing that their meeting was an accident actually sounds kinda fearful. For a short moment this paints a very horrific dynamic between these two, until is shifts into this best buddy-manipulation.
MARTIN: (indignant) "A-a simple ‘hello’ isn’t going to make any difference to –"
PETER: "We’ve been over this."
God, he wants to...
MARTIN: ""But if I could just explain –"
PETER: "And how do you think Jon’s going to react to that explanation, hm? You think he’ll accept it calmly? Come through with a well-considered, rational response?"
MARTIN: "That’s not fair."
PETER: "Or would he assume he knows better than you and do something rash?"
Actually, that's kind of what Jon ends up doing though? Accepting it and trusting Martin, that he know's what he's doing. But Jon is also impulsive and it's easier to talk Martin into this not provoking impulsive, possibly self-destructive behavior, so Martin let's go of his connection to Jon.
PETER: "Martin. This isn’t how any of us wanted it to go. But here we are, and if we don’t pull this off, it’s over for everyone. Jon included."
Oh yes, building suspense!
PETER: "Because behind all his bluster, Elias is just like all the rest. He’s so preoccupied playing the game, he doesn’t pay attention to the big picture. He managed to convince himself that he could get his ritual off first, which would have made all of this a bit – moot, but that’s not really an option anymore."
Again, I totally didn't have Elias still planing his ritual in the picture when I was listening the first time.
PETER: "I’m just saying that we’d all be better off if your Archivist actually knew how to archive."
MARTIN: (enough) "Peter."
Lol, it needed to be said?
MARTIN: "When all this is over, I’m telling him everything, with or without your permission."
PETER: "Martin, when it’s over, you won’t want to."
Yes, more build-up! (Also, Martin nooooooo!!!)
[MARTIN LETS OUT A CONTEMPLATIVE NOISE.]
PETER: "But he will be safe. They all will."
And more about Martin's motivation. I didn't listen to any of the trailer the first round because I was listening on YT, so this was vital information for me.
PETER: "Never had much of a gift for administration myself – too many variables. Now, this box on the left, that’s the library stuff, yes?"
MARTIN: "Wh– n,no! That’s the – Those are the dates! I – (clicking) Look, are you sure you don’t want me to teach you; i-it’s a very simple program –"
PETER: "No, no. Can’t stand computers. Besides, that’s why I have an assistant, isn’t it?"
Ok boomer xD
@a-mag-a-day
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storieswritteninthesand
Fwiw, you’ve mentioned those calming mental effects a couple times now, and they sound a lot like the impact anxiety meds had for me - releasing some of the anxiety mental load to make life more approachable. (Sorry if we’re still pretending that part of the diagnosis doesn’t exist!)
Well, not so much pretending it doesn’t exist, although I know I push back on it pretty hard. Part of it is that I still have no documentation regarding it -- last I heard the doctor who was meant to do the writeup said “I’ll have it for you this evening” and then nothing. I replied to her a few days later stating I’d still very much like it and nothing since, either. I’m trying to determine now if I should bother emailing again, if I should get insurance involved, or if I should just let it go. For what it’s worth, the psychiatrist gave me an anxiety screening that I actually scored quite low on, but of course he didn’t spend three hours in a room with me.
So a few more thoughts behind the cut...
I did spend a lot of time thinking about it after I realized the Adderall was calming me, because there is a shift in mood and an accompanying physical reaction. I think...the problem may be that we use the word anxiety in two different ways in terms of actual mental health (instead of like, “I’m passingly anxious about this date” or whatnot).
There’s Generalized Anxiety Disorder, which is very specific and has a list of DSM criteria that you have to fit. Every time I go back to that criteria, I go “No, this isn’t me.” I simply don’t have enough symptoms. That’s me saying it myself, but I feel pretty confident about it, and the change when the medication kicks in doesn’t cause the kind of shift you’d see if those symptoms were alleviated.
While ADHD medication can affect anxiety, I think it’s also important to note that I’m taking a stimulant, and anti-anxiety/depressant medications are not generally stimulants but SSRI/SNRIs and benzodiazepines. From my reading, granting I’m not a doctor, what I’m getting with the medication is dopamine, not serotonin. Dopamine and serotonin are both neurotransmitters but they’re transmitting different things, and if my dopamine balancing is what’s making me feel calmer, then it’s likely that Anxiety in the clinical sense is not what I was dealing with.
But there’s a second usage of the word anxiety, a more casual one, that seems to encompass a lot of shit we really don’t have a good name for. Our vocabulary when it comes to negative emotion is limited, at least in English, and I suspect we don’t seek the nuanced language to discuss it because it’s scary and upsetting. So “anxiety” is possibly getting applied to a lot of stuff that I am in fact feeling but that I didn’t identify as anxiety, that is clinically not identified as GAD, and I was objecting because I hadn’t encountered that form of definition for it before.
It’s unclear how I signaled anxiety to the evaluator, or what the word encompasses in my case. Could be stress from carrying an extra cognitive load, depression linked to exhaustion, lower-case-a anxiety because I couldn’t put my thoughts in order and so they felt overwhelming. Maybe even just worry I couldn’t get everything done because time blindness meant I could never tell if I had enough time to accomplish all my tasks. Being able to order my thoughts and execute tasks with more ease would indeed alleviate all of that.
And also, you know...this sounds terrible to say but they gave me an IQ test and while they didn’t give me a number they did tell me I scored extremely high. That doesn’t signify much in the real world, but outlier scores like mine can mean we don’t react in expected ways to testing. It’s possible I just fucked the evaluation because I’m a weirdo. It’s one likely reason, my psychiatrist said, that I wasn’t diagnosed before now: my high cognitive scores were pulling my extremely low executive function scores up into normal range.
So...I still push back on the idea of a GAD diagnosis, but I’m willing to entertain the idea that whatever is going on in my brain is something that people might realistically refer to as anxiety. And in that sense the Adderall is helping, so I suppose overall it’s a net positive :D
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you create so much art so quickly how are you so fast
Alright gonna answer this honestly instead of just 'uhh i guess xD' lol
1. Work Ethic
(not sure if Ethic is the correct word) I think I have a short attention span, and also work better/faster in shorter bursts when I feel that itch to draw a lot. I try to work with this by setting a limit of the number of slots I think I can handle during this 'hardworking' phase and just going all out.
Also trying to be as disciplined as possible by working only on comms when I open them. This means during this whole time whenever I'm free, I only work on the comms. I only game once I head to bed. I don't have much social interaction or outings during this time.
I emphasize that not EVERYONE must work this way and it will not be healthy if you do this for the long term. I myself have overextended and burnt out (when I disappeared for that 1 year+ 😬)
In fact, many work better by taking short breaks or working on personal stuff in between, and still get things done. For me, I've always preferred to suffer through getting all the work done first and enjoying my break after lol. Just make sure your clients know your working style beforehand in your terms, let them know you might need breaks or just give them a rough schedule.
2. Art Style
Over the years my style has changed quite a bit. When I first started out I would do very detailed, painterly rendering with minimal lineart, or cleaning/redrawing the lineart.
Now I've settled on what I call a 'sketch-loose' style. It works with my working style above. it emulates a little pencil/traditional feeling which I like (so instead of drawing new lineart, I clean up the existing sketch to retain that roughness) , I get to be more loose with my brush strokes (for my impatience), and I think the overall end result still looks fine!
So yea consider having an art style specifically for comms if you want complete as many as possible. It can also be simply offering more options like 'sketch only' or 'flat colors only'.
And of course the more you practice/draw with the same style, the quicker you'll get at it! And the result will only keep improving over time.
Thank you for reading, hope this helps anyone!
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Marinated Doodles: Eastern Mind AU edition
Say hello to draft number one; part one of me cleaning up my drafts.
Turns out this was more messy that I thought it was; It was originally mixed in with OC stuff! Though I'm going to fully make this one just the fanart related ones instead.
... Guys. Have I ever told y'all that I have an Eastern Mind swap AU
A swap AU where the Kings takes Rin and his reincarnations' place. Meaning that Rin and his reincarnations would be the Kings of Tongnou, while Tougyou and the rest would be the player and the reincarnations. Specifically, the main five (Rin, Byou, Tou, Sha, Kai) would be THE kings, and the other four (Jin, Retsu, Zen, Gyou) would be the assistants of the four. Also their "end suffix -gyou" are given to the main five - mostly because I see it as a way to define the kings position. Which means:
The Kings are Rin-gyou, Sha-gyou, Byou-gyou, "Tou"-gyou, and Kai-gyou
The Player/Playable characters are To, King, Sui, Moku, and Ka.
In this occasion I will refer Swap! Tougyou as simply "To" (not Tou), to avoid confusion. Anyways, the plot would be roughly the same; To lost his soul and travelled to Tongnou to retrieve it back, and that he would need to die 4 times. What would be different though, is that the puzzles and missions of To's reincarnation would have been more deeper, as well as the delivery and reactions of the main five towards the player.
... Honestly I wasn't sure if this is essentially a personality swap in disguise, but I guess the more I looked back at it, it seems like it LMAO. Or y'know this AU could also be my past self yearning for more in depth interactions between the characters that could have happened in the canon game....
Anyways, here was the first draft (drawn on a very awful brown paper that was used a backing for paper exam pads... hopefully that sounds real; I have no clue what the English term for it lol).
I later cleaned it up and redrew it in a bigger piece of paper, heck I even scanned it so it would look bright!
I didn't take Sha-gyou's page, iirc, it's because I couldn't figure out if I want to put their mouth on the waist or not... welp. I struggled here because I don't want to make the designs of both sides looking like 50/50. Maybe that's why I kinda stopped after a while (also because I have assignments too duh, I'm still senior high at that time!)
[Edit]: I do however have this instead:
That aside, I unfortunately didn't have a full cleaned up designs for To and his reincarnations, so y'all will have this mess instead.
(ignore the Ka-gyou dragon, ignore the Gyou-za joke... and the funny ass scenario on Ka-gyou and Sui-gyou's spice tolerance level; heck I should draw that later maybe)
In terms of their appearance, I made Swap! Rin and his reincarnations have more complex designs, parallel to the canon Kings. This goes the opposite with Swap! Tougyou and the rest, with them having simpler designs. (To would just look like canon Rin, the only difference would be having a moustache hELP LMAO).
I also like to think that, perhaps Moku and Ka would be less humanoid compared to King and Sui. Think of it as a parallel to how 4 of the 8 canon reincarnations (not including Rin) are more creature than humanoid.
Anyways, bonus doodles of Kai-gyou and Sha-gyou.... Because I love those two too much at that time:
And that's all of this AU. I feel like I made more of them but I couldn't find them anywhere perhaps some is in digital; I'll give an update if there is lol).
...There's a slim chance that I might revisit the whole thing again, because the designs felt messy. Who knows? It'll happen whenever I convinced myself to get interested in it again.
#ygiromadethis#artists on tumblr#ygirorambles#traditional art#eastern mind#osamu sato#eastern mind swap au#these are so old help#doodles
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My 3D plan for now
I feel like its a crime but I’m currently not really counting calories at the moment because I want to slowly and gradually get back in the process, I want to be smart and not go too quick and extremely unhealthy. I want my weight to drop but not all my health.
I also don’t want the food my mom got me before my relapse to be thrown away, when I had friends coming over I could easily pass them the snacks but now I’m lonely af 💀. I never want again to throw my moms money away like that (I used to throw away some food when I couldn’t give it)
Now I’m simply gonna restrict myself so I can slowly eat the “bad” stuff (higher calories, sweets, etc) and gently tell my mom to not buy it anymore and say I want to eat more healthily (which is true). And I’ll prepare soon a list of safe food and low cal things I want to get at the groceries instead
Then I start to control more the numbers by counting calories and having specific restrictions, doing some fasts and planning the metabolism days, look for the vitamins to take. I’m also starting back yoga by now I’m happy
#⭐️ving bunnie#an0r3c1a#an@rexi@#i want to ⭐️ve#i wish i was weightless#4n0r3xia#an@#anadiet#4norexi4#ana bllog#body ch3ck#tw ana diary#tw ana trigger#tw disordered eating#tw ed diet#an@ tips#ed behaviour tw#ed disorder#i need to lose so much weight#th!n$po#th!nsp0#th1gh g@p#tw restrictive ed#disordered eating thoughts
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COMMISSIONS 2024
Hello, everyone! It’s time to discuss a topic that I’ve put off longer than I probably should have: Story Commissions for 2024.
Let me start off by saying this flat-out: 2023 was an unmitigated disaster when it came to commissions. My plan to try and take care of crowd control backfired on a most spectacular level. And this was after me trying other experimental tactics to manage time, crowd control, and money alike, none of which really worked. As a result, my INITIAL plan for 2024 was to return to basics: to go back to the way I always did things, and just stick by that.
In some ways, that is exactly what I’m going to do. In others, not so much. So, HERE IS HOW COMMISSIONS WILL BE HANDLED FOR 2024.
I will be opening publicly in February of 2024. There will be commissions in January, BUT, for reasons I won’t go into here, I am contacting the commissioners for January privately. The specific current plan is to open publicly on February 16th, which is a Friday. If I need to open late, for any reason, the late opening will be February 19th; if I am able to open earlier, and I feel up to doing so, the early opening will be February 14th. All other dates for openings will be announced as they come.
I will LIKELY be open nine months out of the year: January (privately), February, April, May, July, August, September, October, and November. I am taking March off specifically because I’m going to be out of state for a week or so that month (unless something changes), and even if that trip gets canceled, I’ll also be having rehearsals for a play, very likely, in the time after I’d be scheduled to return. So by giving myself the extra month off, I’ll be able to ensure I complete commissions despite these hiccups, theoretically speaking. June and December I planned to take off anyway.
THIS IS IMPORTANT: I am - rather begrudgingly, I must confess - going to be raising my prices for commissions. I will also be lessening the number of commissions I take on. Specifically, I will be charging $15 per thousand words, and I will only have five slots available. As far as crowd control goes, I will deal with that on a case by case basis: if reservations for a month fill out, then I may not open publicly that month, but I will not open for multiple months at a time. I will go into why I am doing all this later in the journal, so just bear that in mind for the moment.
There will be special discounts offered in February, April, July, and November. These discounts won’t have any particular THEME, it’s just going to be a collection of characters/franchises that you can earn money off of. With the exception of July, the discounts for the other three months will all be handled the same way: if you request a piece with a character on the list, you will be charged $10 per thousand words instead of $15, basically getting five dollars off every thousand words and being charged what WAS my standard fee.
TIED TO THE PREVIOUS POINT, there will be a standing discount - which means it applies to EVERY month I’m open, not just those four - where if you request a story with one of my OCs as the main focal character, you will, again, be charged $10 per thousand words instead of $15 per thousand.
My extra fee will change slightly too: if I go 3000 words over the established minimum length, then I will start the charging at $5 instead of $10. This fee will still increase by five every thousand. So if the story is, for example, 3000 words to begin with: at $15 per thousand, this would cost $45. If I write 6000 words for that story, then the final price will be $50: forty-five plus a five-dollar extra fee. You can do the math from there.
Now that I’ve detailed all of that…let’s address the question no doubt on a lot of your minds: why have I raised the price and why have I shortened the number of stories? Well…the answer is simply one word: “necessity.” I realized, as a result of the fiasco that was 2023, and the problems with 2022 before it, that my work output has slowed down a LOT over the years, for MANY reasons. I physically cannot write the GIGANTIC stories lots of people commission from me quite as quickly as I used to. So, I’m lessening the number of stories, so that I have a better chance of finishing everything on schedule.
However, if I’m going to lessen the number of stories, I then absolutely MUST raise the price: bills need to be paid, various other expenses need to be dealt with. I need to make the same amount per round as before, if not more so, and I need to do it more consistently. SO, I basically have no other recourse. It’s either only do work half the year with lots of stories but only about half the amount of money I’d make, or I do less stories, more frequently, but have to charge more as a consequence. I understand that, for lots of people, these conditions will prove troublesome. I did not blindly stagger into this decision: I consulted several friends and frequent commissioners to see what they thought, and all of them - even if they did admit it might be more difficult for a few of them - agreed this was the best choice to make.
I will be updating my Commission Info Post (and reblogging it) in the near future according to these new plans. Again, January commissions will be dealt with privately, and I plan to open publicly on February 16th. If anything else changes, I will let everybody know.
Thank you all for your patience, and your continued support. I hope this next year will be more fruitful and more fun than the last one. :-)
#commission info#update#status report#commissions#fanfics#kink fics#other fics#story comms#my writing#commissions 2024
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