dog teeth will be a cultural reset I fear

saying that cause I commented on your post with the line snippets earlier but I hadn't actually read them cause I was like oh no I can't do that rn. but I just read them I'm gonna kms

dog teeth is my little baby more than any other currently updating wip. it's everything to me. i need to bash it into the floor with a bat.

Why I Dislike Sonic Speed Simulator

I sometimes see people in the notes of Speed Sim refs saying that maybe they should start playing it/get back into it. I want to ask, for your sakes, that you do not. The only reason I still play it is for this blog. I would love to stop. I keep going so that no one else will have to play to unlock characters for references. I will also be adding a disclaimer to future Speed Sim posts. Maybe this is a bit excessive, but this game is starting to break me.

I understand that some people like the game, and you all control what games you choose to play. In my opinion however, playing Speed Sim is really, really not worth it.

If you want a specific explanation of the problems, you can read it below the cut

Problem 1: Gameplay

The gameplay of SSS is simple, to put it kindly. There are a few different aspects of the game, each of which has only the bare minimum amount to do.

You can run around the world. This lets you collect rings and experience. You can also destroy badniks, which exclusively consists of doing repeated homing attacks until you destroy them. They can technically hit you, but all that does is knock you back.

You can do time trials. Actually somewhat fun. Not much more to say about them.

You can enter races. PvP races which are fine. Fun at first, get boring when you have to grind for race tickets.

You can fight bosses. By "bosses" I of course mean "Eggman" and "Eggman but with more health." It is almost exactly the same fight. You run around breaking shield generators, dodging the same two attacks, and then deal a set amount of damage to him before the shield returns. Repeat. Your prize is spins on (one of) the gacha wheels.

You can complete quests. Actually decent! At least until you run out of quests. Good thing there are daily quests to keep you "entertained" with their repetitive tasks. Also, ignore the fact that the tasks for quests are just engaging with the rest of the mediocre game.

All of the above mechanics grow dull and grind-y very quickly. Soon, every part of the game becomes a chore. The game itself even seems to have realized this, and thus includes an auto-run feature, so you can collect rings and xp without needing to do anything!

I am generally of the opinion that it's a bad sign if a game is un-fun enough it needs to add in the ability to skip the gameplay, but that's just me (that's part of why I stopped playing Star Rail).

Problem 2: Skins

We all know the real reason people play SSS isn't the game itself: it's the cool outfits! 95% of which are only available during limited events and/or by spending actual money. You can also expect to do a lot of boring grinding if you don't spend money. Speaking of spending money...

Problem 3: Microtransactions

Time to talk about the true "heart" of the game: Robux. Now, I will give Speed Sim itself half a pass on this one, as from what I've seen, Roblox as a whole has what I would consider an unsavory emphasis on microtransactions, especially for a game with a playerbase of 50% children aged 12 or under, and another 15% between 13 and 16 (Statista: Roblox user distribution worldwide 2022, by age group). With that being said though, Sonic Speed Simulator doesn't seem to have any qualms about asking for money wherever they can.

I could make a whole other post about all the ways this game offers for you to spend money. You want more spins on the gacha wheels? Spend money! You want to get three gacha eggs for the price of one (certain vending machines only)? Spend money! You want to skip the animation you have to watch every time you buy an egg from said gacha machines? Spend money! You want to do less grinding for xp/race tickets/event objectives/candy/whatever? Money, money, money!!!

The game has a lot of the trademark warning signs for a cash grab gacha game:

Several different kinds of currency, most or all of which can be purchased with premium currency

Many different skins to unlock, using the assorted currencies mentioned above (including ones that are specifically only purchasable with premium currency)

Gacha wheels. Many, many gacha wheels. (Not counting the dozens of vending machines, I can think of at least four)

Grindy gameplay that can largely be skipped by spending money

Again, if a game is un-fun enough to have an option for players to spend real money to skip the gameplay, that's a bad sign.

Problem 4: Crunch

I haven't done much looking into it myself, but I've seen many people say that GameFam (the company that creates Speed Sim) treats its employees very poorly. The game advertises its weekly updates, which requires a lot of crunch in order to get content out quickly. This is obviously bad for the people involved, and also has negative effects on the game.

Many features are clearly rushed, and there's a general lack of polish. From glitching through the map, to races starting several seconds before or after the countdown ends, to untextured models, to many small bugs, it's clear that the developers are not given enough time to clean things up before they have to move on to the next week's content.

*

Thank you to anyone who actually read this far. This was a long post, but I wanted to be thorough in my explanation. This is probably the last dedicated post I will make about this, since this is really not what this account is for, but I still think it's an important one.

You are welcome to ask questions about any of this — preferably in the replies so as not to clutter the sonicreferencephotos feed — but otherwise the disclaimers are all I'll be saying on the topic for the foreseeable future. Take care of yourselves.

“Thirteen″ Tips for Writing About Synagogues / Jewish Writing Advice / Advice for Visiting Synagogues

So your story includes a Jew (or two) and you’ve a got a scene in a synagogue. Maybe there’s a bar mitzvah, maybe your gentile protagonist is visiting their partner’s synagogue. Maybe there’s a wedding or a community meeting being held there. For whatever reason, you want a scene in a shul. I’m here as your friendly (virtual) neighborhood Jewish professional to help you not sound like a gentile who thinks a synagogue is just a church with a Star of David instead of a cross. 

Quick note: The are lots of synagogues around the world, with different specific cultural, local, and denominational practices. The Jewish community is made up of roughly 14 million people worldwide with all sorts of backgrounds, practices, life circumstances, and beliefs. I’m just one American Jew, but I’ve had exposure to Jewishness in many forms after living in 3.5 states (at several different population densities/layouts), attending Jewish day school and youth groups, doing Jewish college stuff, and landing a job at a Jewish non-profit. I’m speaking specifically in an American or Americanish context, though some of this will apply elsewhere as well. I’m also writing from the view of Before Times when gatherings and food and human contact was okay.

Bear in mind as well, in this discussion, the sliding scale of traditional observance to secular/liberal observance in modern denominations: Ultraorthodox (strict tradition), Modern Orthodox (Jewish law matters but we live in a modern world), Conservative (no relation to conservative politics, brands itself middle ground Judaism), Reconstructionist (start with Jewish law and then drop/add bits to choose your own adventure), and Reform (true build your own adventure, start at basically zero and incorporate only as you actively choose).

Synagogue = shul = temple. Mikvah (ritual bath) is its own thing and usually not attached to the shul. Jewish cemeteries are also typically nowhere near the shul, because dead bodies are considered impure.   

A Bar/Bat/Bnai Mitzvah is the Jewish coming of age ceremony. Bar (“son”) for boys at 13+, Bat (“daughter”) at 12+, and Bnai (“children”) for multiples (i.e. twins/triplets/siblings) or non-binary kids (although the use of the phrase “Bnai Mitzvah” this way is pretty new). 12/13 is the minimum, 12-14 the norm but very Reform will sometimes allow 11 and anybody above 12/13 can have theirs. Probably a dedicated post for another time. Generally, however, the following will happen: the kid will lead some parts of services, read from and/or carry the Torah, and make a couple of speeches. 

Attire: think Sunday Best (in this case Saturday), not come as you are. Even at very liberal reconstructionist/reform synagogues you wouldn’t show up in jeans and a t-shirt or work overalls. Unless they are seriously disconnected from their culture, your Jewish character is not coming to Saturday morning services in sneakers and jeans (their gentile guest, however, might come too casual and that’d be awkward).  1a. The more traditional the denomination, the more modest the attire. Outside of orthodoxy woman may wear pants, but dresses/skirts are more common. Tights for anything above knee common for Conservative/Reform/Recon, common for even below knee for orthodox shuls. Men will typically be wearing suits or close to it, except in very Reform spaces.  1b. Really, think business casual or nice dinner is the level of dressiness here for regular services. Some minor holidays or smaller events more casual is fine. Social events and classes casual is fine too.  1c. Even in reform synagogues, modesty is a thing. Get to the knee or close to it. No shoulders (this an obsession in many Jewish religious spaces for whatever reason), midriffs, or excessive cleavage (as I imagine to be the norm in most houses of worship). 

Gendered clothing:  3a. Men and boys wear kippahs (alt kippot, yarmulkes) in synagogues, regardless of whether they’re Jewish or not out of respect to the space. Outside of Jewish spaces it’s saying “I’m a Jew” but inside of Jewish spaces it’s saying “I’m a Jew or a gentile dude who respects the Jewish space.”  Outside of very Reform shuls, it’s a major faux pass to be a dude not wearing one.  3b. There are little buckets of loaner kippahs if you don’t bring your own and commemorative kippahs are given away at events (bar mitzvah, weddings). Your Jewish dude character not bringing or grabbing one is basically shouting “I’m new here.”  3c. Women are permitted to wear kippahs, but the adoption of a the traditionally masculine accessory will likely be interpreted by other Jews as LGBTQ+ presentation, intense feminism, and/or intense but nontraditional devoutness. Nobody will clutch their pearls (outside of ultraorthodoxy) but your character is sending a message.  3d. Tefillin are leather boxes and wrappings with prayers inside them that some Jewish men wrap around their arms (no under bar mitzvah or gentiles). Like with the kippah, a woman doing this is sending a message of feminism and/or nontraditional religious fervor.  3e. Additionally, prayer shawls, known as tallit, are encouraged/lightly expected of Jewish males (over 13) but not as much as Kippahs are. It is more common to have a personal set of tallit than tefillin. Blue and white is traditional, but they come in all sorts of fun colors and patterns now. Mine is purple and pink. It is much more common for women to have tallit and carries much fewer implications about their relationship to Judaism than wearing a kippah does.  3f. Married woman usually cover their hair in synagogues. Orthodox women will have wigs or full hair covers, but most Jewish woman will put a token scarf or doily on their head in the synagogue that doesn’t actually cover their hair. The shul will also have a doily loaner bucket. 

Jewish services are long (like 3-4 hours on a Saturday morning), but most people don’t get there until about the 1-1.5 hour mark. Your disconnected Jewish character or their gentile partner might not know that though. 

Although an active and traditional synagogue will have brief prayers three times every day, Torah services thrice a week, holiday programming, and weekly Friday night and Saturday morning services, the latter is the thing your Jewish character is most likely attending on the reg. A typical Saturday morning service will start with Shacharit (morning prayers) at 8:30-9, your genre savvy not-rabbi not-Bnai mitzvah kid Jewish character will get there around 9:30-10:15. 10:15-10:30 is the Torah service, which is followed by additional prayers. Depending on the day of the Jewish year (holidays, first day of new month, special shabbats), they’ll be done by 12:30 or 1 p.m. Usually.  After that is the oneg, a communal meal. Onegs start with wine and challah, and commence with a full meal. No waiting 4-8 hours to have a covered-dish supper after services. The oneg, outside of very, very, very Reform spaces will be kosher meat or kosher dairy. 

To conduct certain prayers (including the mourner’s prayers and the Torah service) you need a Minyan, which at least 10 Jewish “adults” must be present, defined as post Bar/Bat/Bnai Mitzvah. In Conservative/Reform/Recon, men and women are counted equally. In Ultraorthodox women are not counted. In Modern Orthodox it depends on the congregation, and some congregations will hold women’s-only services as well with at least ten “adult” Jewish women present.

In Conservative and Orthodox shuls, very little English is used outside of speeches and sermons. Prayers are in Hebrew, which many Jews can read the script of but not understand. Transliterations are also a thing.  In Reform synagogues, there’s heavy reliance on the lingua franca (usually English in American congregations). Reconstructionist really varies, but is generally more Hebrew-based than Reform. 

We’re a very inquisitive people. If your character is new to the synagogue, there will be lots of questions at the post-services oneg (meal, typically brunch/lunch). Are you new in town? Have you been here before? Where did you come from? Are you related to my friend from there? How was parking? Do you know my cousin? Are you single? What is your mother’s name? What do you think of the oneg - was there enough cream cheese? What summer camp did you go to? Can you read Hebrew? Have you joined?  A disconnected Jew or gentile might find it overwhelming, but many connected Jews who are used to it would be like “home sweet chaos” because it’s OUR chaos. 

In Orthodox synagogues, men and women have separate seating sections. There may be a balcony or back section, or there may be a divider known as a mechitzah in the middle. Children under 12/13 are permitted on either side, but over 12/13 folks have to stay one section or the other. Yes, this is a problem/challenge for trans and nonbinary Jews.  Mechitzahs are not a thing outside of orthodoxy. Some older Conservative synagogues will have women’s sections, but no longer expect or enforce this arrangement.   

Money. Is. Not. Handled. On. Shabbat. Or. Holidays. Especially. Not. In. The. Synagogue. Seriously, nothing says “goy writing Jews” more than a collection plate in shul. No money plate, no checks being passed around, even over calls for money (as opposed to just talking about all the great stuff they do and upcoming projects) are tacky and forbidden on Shabbat. Synagogues rely on donations and dues, and will solicit from members, but don’t outright request money on holidays and Shabbat. 

Outside of Reform and very nontraditional Conservative spaces, no instruments on Shabbat or holidays. No clapping either. Same goes for phones, cameras, and other electronics outside of microphones (which aren’t permitted in Orthodox services either).  11a. In the now-times an increasing number of shuls have set up cameras ahead of time pre-programmed to record, so they don’t have to actively “make fire” which is “work” (this is the relevant commandment/mitzvah) on Shabbat, so services can be live-streamed. 11b. After someone has completed an honor (reading from the Torah, carrying the Torah, opening the ark, etc), the appropriate response is a handshake after and the words “Yasher Koach” (again, Before-Times).

Jewish services involve a lot of movement. Get up, sit down. Look behind you, look in front of you. Twist left, twist right. A disconnected Jew or gentile visitor would be best off just trying to follow along with what an exchange student we had once termed “Jewish choreography.” Some prayers are standing prayers (if able), some are sitting prayers. It’s just how it is, although a handful of prayers have variations on who stands. 

Tagging - Promote your content & Warn your reader

A guide on how to tag on the Archive of our own

Tagging on ao3 is heavenly compared to other fanfiction websites. Therefore it is important to utilize this amazing search engine to its full potential. If you work the tagging system well, readers can find specific content that you have created. The two main reasons to tag are to:

1. promote your work to as many potential readers as possible.

2. warn your reader from seeing specific content.

Rating: not unlike how a movie gets an appropriate age/content rating, fanfiction can be rated based on what age range it is appropriate for:

Not Rated: This fic could contain anything and the author chose not to specify an appropriate rating. This is The Wild West of rating. Steer clear from this if you want to specify that your fic is for all ages or adults only.

General Audiences: The content is suitable for everyone, this means no dark or adult or heavy themes.

Teen and up audiences: The content may be inappropriate for audiences under 13. Steer clear from topics strictly appropriate for adults.

Mature: The content in this fic is strictly for adults, containing adult themes such as sex and violence.

Explicit: This content is strictly for adults containing very graphic content such as porn and gore and violence.

Archive Warnings: These specify the main triggering content readers can easily filter out with one button. This is a crucial step in tagging, please make sure you appropriately warn for these main triggers.

Choose Not To Use Archive Warnings: the Wild West of warnings. This means that the fic can contain any and all of the warnings below. It does not specify or exclude or warn for anything.

Graphic Depictions Of Violence: this warns for graphic gore, blood, violence, murder etc.

Major Character Death: this warns for the death of any character who is not a background character.

No Archive Warnings Apply: there is no content to warn for.

Rape/Non-Con: this warns for any and all non-consensual sexual activity.

Underage: description or depiction of sexual activity by or with an underage character. This is not for kissing/dating, but sexual activity. Please specify also if the sexual activity is consensual by paying attention to the rape/non-con warning.

Additional Tags: this is the place where you as a writer can get creative in their tagging. This is where you can start promoting your work, this is how your reader will find your content. For the sake of ease, we have broken additional tags into categories. Additional Tags: Additional tags have several different layers. You will want to use more general tags so your readers can find you in the engine based on their mood/needs. Once that has been established you should branch out and add specific tags to appeal to your reader while they are scrolling.

General Genre: Figure out what common genre your fic is. Think about the broad search term your reader will be looking for depending on their mood. Examples: Romance/Love, Crack fic/Humor, Angst/Sad fic, Fluff, Smut, etc.

Themes: Think of broad themes common in fic that will help the reader search for their favourite themes. Examples: Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Domestic Bliss, Alternative Universe - Modern Setting, Slow Build/Slow Burn, Plot What Plot/Porn without Plot, Omegaverse, Sick!fic, etc.

Potential Triggers: Think of what the potential triggers are in your story? A trigger is anything that could potentially be distressing to read. Triggering content should include anything that is traumatic, scary, violent, criminal, or illegal. It should include any illnesses and disorders. Any phobias and discriminatory behaviour (transphobia, homophobia, racism, sexism) should also be tagged. It is important to specify which trigger the reader can encounter, not just 'trauma' or 'blood', but specify what kind of trauma or violence.

Story Keywords + Tropes: This is to summarize your story in a few keywords, this will draw in a reader. Bed Sharing, Pregnancy, Hospitalization, Internalized Homophobia, First Kiss, Genderbend, Family Feels, True Love, Recreational Drug Use, First Meetings, Dorks in Love, Misunderstandings, Drunkness, Medieval AU (tag any specific AU you are writing in)

Character Specific: Your reader might want to know what happens to which character in your fic. The character might be taking on a role in a dynamic or doing something specific in your fic that your reader should know about. You can tag this to warn or to lure people in. Examples using Brian: sad!Brian, bottom!Brian, tattoo artist!Brian, sick!Brian, pregnant!Brian, Alpha!Brian etc.

Smut Tagging: Smut tags are different from other fics. It isn’t enough to tag a smut fic with ‘smut’ or BDSM. The way to attract readers is to be specific of what they can encounter in your fic. First and foremost be upfront about the main pairing. Then consider being specific about who takes on which role if relevant as top or bottom, dominant or submissive, etc. Then specify what sexual acts/activity will be part of the story. If relevant, confirm the status of the relationship, established, first meeting, friends to lovers, hookup, etc.

Don’t be afraid to get specific: John Deserves Better Friends, or, Everyone Gets A Hug, or, Freddie Is Shy, or, This Band Is A Family.

Further advice:

Here is a link to common additional tags: x in case you need tagging inspiration

If you don't know how to tag your fic, try to search for fics similar to your own. See how they tagged their fic and how hard it was for you to find it.

When tagging think: how would I search for a story like the one I just wrote? how can I easily reach readers interested in this content?

If a trigger warning contains a spoiler for the story, specify in the beginning notes that there is a potential trigger warning that spoils the story, and that the reader can see the warning in the endnote if they think they might need it. This way a reader can choose if they want to read without a spoiler, or if they want to check if the content won't trigger them.

Finally, don’t use too many tags. Keep it concise and to the point. Many readers get turned off my huge blocks of tags. The number of tags should reflect the length of the fic.

Happy writing everyone!💕💡

My Take on Snail Mail Etiquette

As anyone who follows this blog has picked up on, I am a very uninvolved blogger who infrequently makes large aesthetic queues and posts their own mail art before logging off and reappearing whenever I have more mail to post. I am going to borrow from the blogging style of my other blog and go ahead and write a bit of a thought piece. The inspiration from this is the most recent in a string of unfortunate experiences while penpaling but it’s not a unique situation or the only one I’m pulling from.

Penpaling Etiquette Penpaling is an extremely old practice and as such there is a certain decorum I believe many people associate with it. Of course, as it’s a practice that’s endured despite changes in technology that means it’s also a practice that’s adapted. Our use of Tumblr to find penpals is a great example of positive adaptations to an antiquated art. Where change can exist simultaneously with stagnation in any practice that naturally creates divisions among the practitioners. I, for one, consider myself to be part of what I consider the Old School way of penpaling and my thoughts on etiquette will be reflective to that style of penships. Though I think much of the etiquette I believe in is universal to all types of penpalers. 

Seeking Out Penships Penpaling is undeniably an intimate thing by the nature of it being centered around building a relationship with another person. Even with all the art on our envelopes, on our letters, or even sent with our letters; at the end of day we’re seeking out a connection with the person we’re writing to.  Keeping that in mind, there is a right way to seek out penships and there is a wrong way. For me, the right way is to approach the person you’re seeking to write the way you’d look to make a friend back in grade school: introduce yourself, include a little info about yourself, and politely ask if the person is accepting new penpals. I always feel that can be done in any order, but for me a red flag has always been people who without divulging anything about them or inquiring anything about me ask to be my penpal. Or worse yet, tell me they want to be my penpal. I read a certain entitlement into people who do not ask.  I’ll admit sometimes I’m imperfect in my responses to people looking, I’ll forget to give them my spiel because I’ve assumed they’ve read it somewhere and that’s why they’ve contacted me. People are imperfect and as the person seeking out new penpals or accepting new penpals it’s important to give as much grace as possible. So long as people are communicating with sincere interest little flaws in forgetting usual etiquette can and should be forgiven. Age Appropriate Penships In any practice that is welcoming to all ages it’s important to set up and maintain appropriate age boundaries. This is simple in penpaling, do not write to anyone under the age of 18 if you are a legal adult. If you are a minor, do not seek out or accept penpals over the age of 18. Minor to legal adult correspondence has an extreme imbalance in the power dynamic. Often adults who will seek out minors to write to are doing so because they’re seeking to manipulate the minor. Minors who are accepting of adult penpals are unwittingly engaging in penships that can have undue influence on them .  Even within the 18+ sticking to themselves age rule there can be age gaps between penpals that aren’t in the best interest of the younger party. An 18 year old writing to a 40 year old could be subjected to the same predatory penship as a 13 year old trying to write a 20 year old. There’s also a non-predatory reason why age gaps for adult penships don’t work. Quite simply, a 20 year old and a 25 year old are often at drastically different points in their life and that can make it hard to find common ground.  With the 17 and below age rule, again it’s imperfect and there can still be inappropriate age gaps. A 12 year old and a 17 year old shouldn’t be writing to one another for the same reasons that them hanging out in person or even dating would be problematic.  A good rule of thumb for minors: Keep it within a 2 year age gap.  A good rule of thumb for adults 18-22: Keep it within a 3 year age gap. A good rule of thumb for adults 23-30: Keep it within a 5 year age gap.  For adults these are what I’ve discovered to be “easy” to connect over age gaps, but obviously it’s up to the individual’s discretion as to what is a compatible.  Disclosing Mental Health I mention this only because I’ve come across it, so what’s the “right move” in disclosing mental health struggles you may have?  If it’s something that changes the way you socialize or requires you take extra precautions in who you socialize with/how you socialize (i.e. needing to share triggers) then it’s certainly worth including in your bio when reaching out to penpals.  Otherwise, just be wary of oversharing. If you have something you’d like to be upfront with because you feel it’s a deeply ingrained part of what makes you “you” it’s definitely fine to share that! Just remember that while the goal of penships is relationship building, from the start people are still strangers. Sharing the traumatic depths of your struggles extremely early in a penship can be overwhelming for your penpal. It also can cross into territory of unintentional emotional manipulation and cause a penpal who otherwise finds themselves incompatible to feel compelled to keep writing you because they fear for your well-being.  Remember, mental health is personal! That’s doesn’t mean you can’t talk about it (I talk to plenty of penpals about mental health!) but just remember it’s not something strangers have earned the right to know about you!  Respecting Boundaries When establishing a penship it’s important to create and respect boundaries. Some such boundaries that people have revolve around who they are comfortable writing too. Personally, I do not write to men.It’s a preference built off bad experiences with a few people who aren’t reflective of the whole--- but to look out for me I choose not write men. Should you seek out a penship and learn you fall into some demographic the person chooses not to write to, simply accept that respectfully and move on. In my situation, I have had people argue with me about my choice not to write them because they’re men. This will not endear the person to you and cause them to change their mind. People have reasons for restricting who them write to.  Aside from who people are willing to write to, another common boundary is in regards to communication outside of letters. Personally, as someone who belongs to the Old School style of penpaling I do not want to receive messages on social media outside of initial agreements to write one another. For me and others like me, much of the allure of penpaling comes from distance from my “real life”. Communicating solely through letters gives me material for my letters (I am a diary-style writer) and frankly gives me the space to connect with person’s true personality versus being biased by a social media presence. Be clear with the people you’re seeking a penship with whether or not you’re open to developing a friendship over social media as well or if you prefer not to.  Again, personally I prefer only receiving initial informational exchanges, updates on addresses, check-ins if it’s been a while since one of us has sent mail, or an occasional birthday/holiday message. For extremely longtime penpals I make exceptions.  Social media is another boundary. Unless someone invites you to add them on social media, please do not do this. Yes, you have the name of the person off their address and can technically “easily” discover their social media but that person is trusting in you to respect their privacy. If you want to share your social media that’s wonderful! Just recognize that your penpal may not want to and will not want their privacy invaded.  Patience Above all in penpaling you need to be patient.Postal services aren’t perfect whether it’s sending mail on the national or international level. Generally they’re reliable and predictable, but sometimes things go awry. Personally, nothing bothers me more than someone who sends daily or near daily messages inquiring after the arrival of their letter. While it generally can take 3-5 days for mail to travel in the US (where I am) this isn’t exact.  If you’re concerned your penpal hasn’t gotten your mail, it’s appropriate to ask them if it’s arrived and if it has not then ask that they update you when it has (assuming you’re concerned it’s lost). Do not message daily or multiple times in a week. If your penpal doesn’t get back to you within 2 weeks of your initial message, it’s fair game to message them once more in order to determine the likelihood the mail has been lost. Often people forget to update one another in the Old School community of penpals--- just by nature of being a little bit of penpaling Luddites. Another reason patience is absolutely necessary in this practice has to do with the rate of letter writing. Penpaling can be a time intensive process that take creative and emotional currency to partake in. As a result, many people do not write a response immediately upon receiving mail. Life and stress often get in the way of penaling. Or even when we have ample time, for those of us who are diary-style writers sometimes we feel there’s not enough going on with us to warrant writing a letter. If you feel you really cannot wait indefinitely for mail then that’s something that needs to be disclosed when you begin penships. There are people who can commit to consistent writing schedules and those that cannot.  Ultimately with penpaling, just remember that there’s another person who is sending and receiving mail. It’s not you and a robot. It’s living, breathing person who should be treated with the respect that they deserve.

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The pull is deep under your skin's surface area to stop your face from looking drew. The cuts are made along your hairline so the marks won't be visible. A facelift is plastic surgery that improves the reduced fifty percent of your face to make your face appearance fresher and younger. All surgery can lug a risk of problems, although we will certainly make certain that you remain in health prior to you are permitted to undergo the treatment. During your first examination, your doctor will go over with you the possible risks as well as the treatment itself, to make sure that you recognize exactly what to expect via the whole process.

You may require better surgical treatment or other therapies to keep the results of the facelift or necklift. Similar to all operations, there are dangers involved in having a facelift or necklift. Although the dangers are not likely, it is essential to consider them up against the prospective benefit of the surgical treatment. Talk about each of them with your cosmetic surgeon to make sure you comprehend the prospective problems and also consequences. A facelift is a procedure to tighten and also raise the loosened skin of your face listed below the eyes. ( Anything above the eyes is a browlift.) A necklift tightens and raises the skin of the neck. It is entirely normal to experience some bruising as well as swelling of the face and neck, but rest assured that both of these symptoms will certainly subside extremely rapidly, equally as lengthy as aftercare suggestions from your doctor is complied with.

As another option, you may desire to get a sitter or baby-sitter to help you with your youngsters momentarily as you recover. Unfortunately, it is not feasible to avoid scarring where the specialist has made lacerations.

https://bakeryperson6.wordpress.com/2020/11/05/cryo-consoles/ Are using vaginal tightening cream On Their Faces as Opposed To Botox.

After a procedure such a facelift, it is easy to understand to be tired as well as lack your typical energy. Asking good friends or household to mind your child or family pets can, for that reason, aid raise a few of the stress involved with this!

If keyhole surgery is the right choice for you, your surgeon will make a number of really small incisions right into the skin on your face. A Conventional Face Lift will certainly involve your specialist making a medical laceration along your hairline, down past the front of your ears and also right into the hairline behind the ears. Because of the careful positioning of the laceration, your scarring will be concealed within the hair and natural creases of the face and also it will certainly discolor swiftly till it is barely noticeable. As soon as the incision has been made the cosmetic surgeon will certainly very carefully divide the skin from the underlying tissue, before repositioning excess fat and tightening up facial muscle mass. The skin will after that be raised and sewn right into location along the initial incision and also any type of excess skin eliminated. There are three main kinds of Facelift surgery; Traditional, Minimal-Access Cranial Suspension as well as Keyhole Surgical Procedure. Your cosmetic surgeon will certainly suggest you on which method is most suitable as well as which will certainly generate the most effective outcomes - details of each treatment can be found listed below.

They will after that clarify the types of face lift procedures that appropriate and also encourage you on any type of various other procedures such as a brow lift, cheek implants, chin implants or liposuction surgery that will certainly assist you attain your purposes. At The London Center, several plastic as well as reconstructive specialists provide face lift surgical treatment.

Preferably, individuals wanting facelift surgical procedure need to have some flexibility left in their skin, also if it is drooping, and a good bone framework can also assist. Most of individuals are aged between 40 as well as 60, though there are lots of older, much healthier individuals that go through facelifts. A conversation with your consultant will permit you to establish whether this type of surgical procedure is ideal for you. Our faces are our most primary attribute and so play a big component in just how confident we really feel in our appearance.

Her glowy skin, cheekbones and also taut jawline were ample to make me call her skin doctor and publication in. The brilliant thing about these brand-new treatments is that you still look specifically like you-- simply fresher, smoother and also extra airbrushed. This surgical treatment includes raising drooping jowls and also the neck with the excess skin being gotten rid of. At your first conference with your expert, they will examine your face and also neck in detail as well as ask you about your assumptions.

removing Skin identifies Yourself.

However, as we mature our skin starts to droop and also one area where this is most remarkable gets on our faces and necks. A facelift assists to attain a smoother and firmer look by tightening up any loose skin. Most of the times, people are pleased with the outcomes of their facelift operation. Nevertheless it's really crucial that you have reasonable expectations of the end result as well as your specialist will describe which functions which can be improved and by just how much, and also those which can not.

Why Do results depend On how Many therapies I Have?

Generally, you do not require a GP referral to see a plastic surgeon for a first examination. Nevertheless, if you determine you want to proceed with the procedure, your specialist will require more detailed information on your case history. In this situation, they might call your General Practitioner for this information, with your authorization. We have actually compiled a few of the most common facelift Frequently asked questions about the procedure below. It serves to read them with as there may be some concerns that you had actually not considered. On the various other hand, if you still have even more concerns don't worry! Your BAAPS/BAPRAS doctor will enjoy to answer them throughout your examination.

select From 13 locations supplying vaginal tightening In Uk.

Can you freeze your fat off at home?

CoolSculpting is known for “freezing” fat cells, but there's much more to the process. During your treatment, your provider uses a small applicator that also sucks out some of the frozen fat cells. However, applying ice at home only freezes your skin and doesn't get rid of any fat cells.

Sleeping and resting with your head propped up with cushions for the first 10 to 2 week can additionally help to reduce any swelling. If you were put to rest with a basic anaesthetic, you will gradually get up complying with surgical procedure under close guidance. You will certainly have dressings around your face as well as you might additionally have water drainage tubes in place. The registered nurses will certainly frequently eliminate any type of drain tubes before you go residence. If local anaesthetic was utilized, you might really feel a change in experience in the treated location of the face. Your doctor or the nurses in the healing area will provide you medicines which you can take if necessary. As part of your facelift aftercare, your doctor will certainly additionally arrange a follow-up appointment with you.

This tightens up the underlying muscle layer in addition to the skin, offering an increase in tone that is longer long lasting. As UK market leaders in plastic surgery, we provide advice you can trust, therapy based on your individual needs, and assistance throughout your journey with us. When Mens facelift treatment consider us, the very initial point they discover is our faces. So, if we're miserable with the means our faces look, this can have a massive influence on our self-esteem. As we age we lose muscular tissue tone, which can cause the skin in our face as well as neck to sag. A facelift is a surgery whereby the skin is tightened to develop a stronger, smoother appearance. A facelift is an operation to remove excess face skin and any type of unwanted fatty down payments.

In a similar way, Botox as well as fillers are to be prevented too for the very same reason.

The first reported HIFU facelift treatment for visual use was in 2008.

20% of the outcome can be seen right away after the therapy, nevertheless the full result of the face lift HIFU treatment are shown 3-- 6 months later on.

The HIFU facelift procedure entails very concentrated ultrasound waves pass through deep right into the skin as well as boost collagen and elastin manufacturing.

Most of our customers only require 1 therapy as we use the most up to date type of HIFU innovation by 3D Lipo.

This results from the lack of details regarding their results on the fetus.

Nevertheless this may be based on the level of skin laxity, the organic feedback to ultrasound power and also the person's collagen-building procedure, some clients may gain from added treatments.

call us.

If the issue is serious, i.e. an extremely severe turkey neck, full correction may not be possible. A facelift operation can reverse years of aging by smoothing out excess skin of the neck, under the chin, along the jawline as well as across the cheek. Fat is eliminated from listed below the jawline and under the chin where it is undesirable but maintained and rearranged from the jowl to the cheek to restore volume where it has been shed.

all Set To schedule a Treatment?

This prevails around the cured area for the initial number of weeks after a facelift surgical treatment. Normally, this will certainly be at its worst 3 to 4 days after the procedure, and also will certainly after that gradually start to resolve.

Can you poop out of your mouth?

It's possible to poop out of your mouth It's called fecal vomiting, and aside from being utterly disgusting and terrifying, it's an indicator of a major health problem. Though if you're vomiting your own poop, you probably know you have a major health problem.

For lots of people, combining a Face Raise with Neck Raise Surgery makes certain that the total look is rejuvenated and patients who undergo this combination of treatments have reported looking one decade more youthful. Face Lift surgical treatment, additionally referred to as Rhytidectomy, is one of one of the most generally asked for treatments by both men and women who intend to look as young as they feel. It is performed to get rid of or lower the skin that has shed its natural flexibility - generally around the eyes, mouth as well as jaw line - smooth the skin, minimize lines and also wrinkles as well as revitalize a tired-looking look. All independent facilities as well as healthcare facilities that supply cosmetic surgery in England have to be signed up with the CQC. The CQC publishes assessment records and efficiency rankings to aid people choose care.

Which is better for double chin Kybella or CoolSculpting?

Kybella and CoolSculpting each have their own set of benefits and drawbacks. Kybella can treat small areas of fat, does not require a capital investment, and can be done in a small exam room. CoolSculpting, by contrast, can debulk bigger necks, treat lateral areas, and involves less downtime than Kybella.

Clifton Park Healthcare facility is devoted to giving superb plastic surgery results for all of our people. to better improve your results you facelift may be combined with a neck lift, blepharoplasty, rhinoplasty, and/or face implants such as chin implants. -- for people that have severe facial sagging, as well as cheek and also neck aging. Cuts are made under your Superficial Musculoaponeurotic System layer that manages your facial expression and also this muscular tissue layer is raised together with the fat and skin.

Throughout this visit, your cosmetic surgeon will certainly examine your wounds to see exactly how they are healing, remove any kind of non-dissolvable stitches, and get rid of or change any type of dressings if necessary. Your Medbelle BAAPS/BAPRAS doctor might be able to give you better facelift preparation pointers along with more specific details on your surgical procedure, on the day of your appointment. Ensure you follow their directions to achieve the best results from surgical treatment.

At what temperature do fat cells die?

The optimum temperature for fat cell death is actually just above freezing at 39 to 41 degrees Fahrenheit. The threshold for damage to your skin and other tissues is a much lower temperature that CoolSculpting machines will never reach.

It leaves just faintly visible penalty lines so that others will certainly not know the factor that you 'look so well'. As we mature the skin on our face and also neck begins to sag from a loss of muscular tissue tone. A facelift is a procedure to tighten the skin on the face, creating a firmer as well as smoother appearance. A superb split second radiance and also a more defined jawline, lifted eyebrow and also cheekbones. Yet because this is working from within the full-lifting and skin tightening impact shows up after regarding 4 weeks. Great deals of individuals claim they do not need to top up their Botox as frequently when having this treatment, and also some people stop totally. There's no demand to." Interestingly, because having a mix of these brand-new therapies, she has actually stopped having Botox as she feels she doesn't require it.

Safeguarding Child Rights in the Digital Landscape*

The Pandemic and Social Distancing: Dawn of Online Education in India

When the pandemic set in, everything came to a standstill. For the first few days, people couldn’t even imagine the magnitude of change it would bring with itself. The brunt of this disruption disguised as a virus was borne by everyone. From a minuscule migrant labourer to corporate giants, no one was spared from having their work and life come to an unsolicited halt. Nevertheless, the pandemic changed a lot of things about the way humans work and contributed significantly to the list of things that have become the ‘new normal’. A prominent change however has been- the shift of education from conventional classroom teaching to internet-driven and technology-driven online teaching.

In the wake of the pandemic, when conventional teaching in the physical realm became impossible, there was a total paradigm shift towards online teaching. From kindergarten to higher education, every level of knowledge dissemination started taking place virtually. Due to the pandemic, the mode of virtual teaching became a very lucrative option for both- the teachers and the learners alike. Not only did it overcome the barrier of geography and help in stopping the community spread of the virus, but it also acted as a tool for enhancing learning and fostering growth among students.

This can be demonstrated by recent research, which showed that on average, students retain 25-60% more material when learning online, as compared to only 8-10% in a classroom[1]. This is mostly due to the students being able to learn faster online, than in a physical classroom. Not only that, but e-learning also requires 40-60% less time to learn, as compared to things taught in a traditional classroom setting because the students can learn at their own pace, go back and re-read or skip through concepts as they choose.[2] Moreover, complementary to these findings, another such survey demonstrated that when shifting from classroom learning to online platforms, academicians tend to make distinctions between the relative importance of content, pedagogy, methodology, and contexts, even though the curricula being taught is the same[3]. This being an easy source of learning, attracts a lot of learners and in turn, increases the time more children spend on the internet.

Online Teaching: A Giant Leap Forward?

Due to this increase in online teaching, children have wider and unchecked access to the internet, via phones, tablets, desktops, etc. They are left to explore the worldwide web unsupervised and have access to all sorts of information available- good and bad alike. The web can easily be used by a child to access an animated video, but with the same ease he can access non-age-appropriate content. As of today, around three million mobile internet users in urban India are aged below 18[4]. With this data only rising on an everyday basis, there is a pressing need to address the issue of digital literacy and online sexual grooming. To avoid the exploitation of children at the hands of cyberbullies, sexual predators, blackmailers, etc. More awareness about online sexual grooming, wherein a child knows how to respond upon being pressurised to do something sexual by a person online, should be imparted. Such encounters do not only destroy a child’s dignity and self-esteem but leave a child traumatised for years. Such trauma, in turn, naturally gives rise to issues like depression, anxiety, Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and may eventually lead to suicide.

In April 2020, the UN released a statement which addressed the issue that comes with this, it stated that ‘owing to the unprecedented lockdown and closing down of schools, millions of children are at increased risk of harm as their lives move increasingly online.’[5] It also warned about the increased risk that children face by spending more time in the digital space, as it makes them more susceptible to online sexual exploitation, at the hands of pedophiles and predators looking to exploit the COVID-19 pandemic. A lack of face-to-face contact with peers may lead to heightened risk-taking, while increased and unstructured time online may expose children to harmful things like cyberstalking, cyberbullying, etc.[6]

The Pandora Box: World Wide Web and Juvenile Minds

Before we talk about the safeguards present to protect children from harm online, we first need to understand who a child is. According to various laws[7], a child is any person under 18 years of age. Generally, a child becomes a major on attaining the age of 18, with the age of majority being different for different countries. However, in India, in case a minor has been assigned a guardian by the court, his age of majority becomes 21 years.[8] With the rapid growth in the usage of the internet, the High Court of Kerala acknowledged the prominence and the dependence that modern-day people have on the internet and thereby declared access to the internet as an integral part of Article 21[9]. The first step in the path of making cyberspace more secure would be acknowledging the fact that if put to good use, the internet can do wonders; But just like any other double-edged sword, it has its ill effects too. We may consider instant delivery of food, streaming movies, and paying bills at the tap of one button as boons and tool of easement, but these benefits are accompanied by grave ill effects that may even cost the life of the child who’s being subjected to things like cyberstalking, cyberbullying, etc. Giving a child unrestricted access to the internet is nothing short of opening the pandora’s box.

Upon encountering adult world problems on the internet, a child might get scarred for life. The occurrence of fiascos like the ‘Bois locker room’[10] incident, wherein chats of a group of teenage boys were leaked, in which they were found to be passing lewd comments about their female counterparts, and even going to the extent of giving them rape threats; is important to point towards the fact that in the current time of rapid digitalisation, lack of digital literacy leaves scope for children to get caught up in the dangers of cyber-stalking, cyber-bullying, online fraud, etc. Apart from this, types of abuse of sexual nature against children online can broadly be categorized into three heads that are: solicitation, providing access to sexually explicit content by minors, and exploitation of children for child pornography.[11]  Solicitation of a child would essentially refer to another person trying to allure the child into engaging in sexual acts on an online forum. With a rise in cases of online grooming, wherein pedophiles assume various identities and engage with children in order to pressurise them into doing something sexual; a child becomes more vulnerable to acts of solicitation and exploitation.

The Legislative Framework: How Sacrosanct?

The laws existing as of now, fail to actively address the topic of the safety of children on the internet, in particular. This can be owing to the lack of awareness among social institutions like schools, parents, and even law and policymakers. There is widespread consumption of child online pornography, abuse, and exploitation, but no grievance redressal mechanism for the same. Owing to the ubiquity of the internet, weak domestic laws further make the child vulnerable at the hands of perpetrators who hide behind foreign domains. However, it’s not that child rights are completely ignored. Various existing legislation and provisions form a broad and vague outline of all that a child should be safeguarded against. The most basic issue topic of ensuring rights of children is given in the Constitution itself.

The Constitution of India guarantees Fundamental Rights to all children in the country and empowers the State to make special provisions for children.[12] To ensure that these do materialise, the constitution further uses the Directive Principles of State Policy to guide the State in forming policies that safeguard children from abuse and ensures that children are given opportunities that foster their growth.

To further propagate the ideas about child rights enshrined in the constitution, The National Policy for Children, 1974 recognised and gave importance to implement child-centric policies in prominent national plans. Further, when the National Charter for Children was adopted in 2003, it worked as a complementary aide to the previous legislation and underlined the intent to enable provisions to ensure a happy and healthy childhood. In continuance, to these pre-existing mandates, The National Policy for Children (NPC), 2013[13], was established in 2007, as an auxiliary to the Commission for Protection of Child Rights Act, 2005, for the periodic review of laws, policies, and programs to ensure that they are in sync with the rights guaranteed[14]. With regard to a child’s education, in particular, the NPC recognises and reaffirms that the state shall undertake measures to:

Ensure physical safety of the child and provide a safe and secure learning environment.”[15].

Ensure that all processes of teaching and learning are child friendly.[16]

Provision for the access to Internet Communication Technology tools for equitable, inclusive, and affordable education for all children especially in remote, tribal and hard to reach areas[17]

Promote safe and enjoyable engagement of children’s experiences with new technology in accordance with their age and level of maturity, even as there is respect for their own culture and roots.[18]

These provisions point towards creating and enabling a safe environment for a child as he takes up learning in the digital space. Not only is this about safeguarding him from wrongs, but also about providing equal opportunities to all children for fostering their growth.

Apart from these policies, the government even framed laws to shelter children from harm. The Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 is one such act. It was promulgated for safeguarding children from being subjected to acts that are sexual in nature, like pornography, assault, etc; and provides for rigorous punishment to prevent the same. Along the lines of this, Section 67BofThe Information Technology Act, 2000addresses the issue of child pornography as well. It has provisions to punish acts for publishing or transmission of material depicting children in explicitly obscene sexual acts, etc., in the electronic form. Even though two separate legislations are addressing the same broader issue, the intricacy of it is not addressed properly by either of the two. The consensus on the mere definition of being found in possession of ‘child pornography’ is lacking. Section 67B, of the IT Act, states that whoever ‘collects, seeks, browses, downloads’ child pornography is an offender, whereas the POCSO Act, 2012 provides for only those who store such material for commercial usage. Both the legislations fail to address the issue of taking into consideration if the pornographic material such found in possession is for inadvertently viewing it and actively downloading it, or just an accidental mistake. Whether the act is done accidentally or knowingly is left at the court’s discretion. However, all this just points towards the issue that there is an urgent need to come up with revised, and more specific legislation that covers such loopholes.

Apart from these domestic laws, on an international front, the government of India has also ratified a lot of international treaties and conventions such as the United Nations (UN) Convention on the Rights of the Child, Convention on The Rights Of The Child, and its two Optional Protocols, etc.

Making sense of the Mayhem and What Lies Ahead?

The internet is so vast and so open, that staying protected at any point is a massive challenge, even for adults. Owing to the lack of a feature to distinguish between good and objectionable content, it can sort of feel like being in the mayhem. Regardless, online teaching does provide a lot of benefits to its learners; however, when comparing the pros and cons of this, the cons outweigh the pros. To ease out the ill- effects it has, policymakers, as well as the legislative, should actively work towards framing new laws, and covering the loopholes of the existing laws to make its implementation more effective, instead of being merely ornamental.

On an individual level, citizens should take up educating each other about the ill-effects of improper usage of the internet.  Civil societies, schools, NGOs, and the government could start by promoting digital literacy and online sexual grooming. Engaging in both child- grooming as well as adult-to-child parent/teacher grooming to teach and advise children to not indulge in sexual behaviour that they wouldn’t do in real life, like the exchange of unsolicited intimate pictures, sexting with strangers, etc. Further, there should be strict child lock settings on websites that have explicit or obscene content, in order to make it inaccessible for children. A model of this can be seen in schools in the United States where site blockers exist on school computers to limit the student’s browsing experience to academic sources only. Such strict measures ensure that the content is very child friendly. Further, it even improves focus and concentration on the topic being looked up, by blocking out distractions. Exposing children to the web very early on and unsupervised should be discouraged and positive internet usage habits should be taught and promoted.

*This article was published on the online blog run by the Center for Child Rights, National University of Study and Research in Law, Ranchi.

[1] https://theprint.in/india/education/students-retain-more-in-online-classrooms-shows-data/412669/

[2] https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/351137

[3] https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/DistanceLearningStudy

[4] https://www.themobileindian.com/news/21-percent-kids-in-india-hooked-on-to-mobile-internet-study-6430

[5] https://www.unicef.org/press-releases/children-increased-risk-harm-online-during-global-covid-19-pandemic

[6] https://www.outlookindia.com/newsscroll/online-predators-put-millions-of-children-at-risk-during-covid19-pandemic-lockdown/1802784

[7] The Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection Of Children) Act, 2015; Indian Contract Act, 1872; Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (2012);

[8] Indian Majority Act, 1875

[9] Faheema Shirin R.K. v State of Kerala & Ors WP(C). No.19716 OF 2019(L)

[10] https://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Delhi/bois-locker-room-a-reflectionof-an-existing-mindset/article31638044.ece

[11] https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/law/elj/jilt/2009_1/mathew/mathew.pdf

[12]  The Constitution of India, 1950, Art. 15(3)

[13] https://wcd.nic.in/sites/default/files/npcenglish08072013_0.pdf

[14] https://www.loc.gov/law/help/child-protection-law/india.php

[15] National Policy for Children (NPC), 2013, Section 4.6 (viii)

[16] National Policy for Children (NPC), 2013, Section 4.6 (ix)

[17] National Policy for Children (NPC), 2013, Section 4.6 (xi)

[18] National Policy for Children (NPC), 2013, Section 4.6 (xii)

Tips to Slow Down Aging

The aging is a process of becoming older, which is genetically determined and environmentally modulated. It is a natural process. Everyone must undergo the process at his or her own time and pace. It denotes time-bound deterioration of physiological functions necessary for survival and fertility.

According to World Health Organization, ageing is a course of biological reality, which starts at conception and ends with death.

The scientists have categorized how human beings age into four different classes called "ageotypes".

Metabolic ageotype - The people, belonging to this class, might be at a higher risk for diabetes as they grow older.

Immune ageotype - The people, belonging to it, generate higher levels of inflammation and are more prone to immune -related diseases as they age.

Hepatic ageotyle - The people, belonging to it, are more prone to liver disease as they age.

Nephrotic ageotype - The people, belonging to it, are more prone to kidney diseases as they age.

We all want to stay young for as long as possible, both for our health and our appearance. The researchers have found that genetics account for only about 20% of how people age, while environmental and lifestyle factors play a much larger role.

Tips to slow down aging -

Below are enumerated some of the important tips to slow down the process of aging -

Manage the stress level -

Each chromosome has two protective caps at the two ends known as telomeres. As telomeres become shorter, their structural integrity weakens, causing cells to age faster and die younger. Chronic stress leads to shorter telomeres. That is why it is important to manage your stress levels.

Meditate daily -

It has been found by the researchers that those who meditated experienced genetic changes following mindfulness practice that were not seen in the non-meditating group after other relaxation activities. So the regular practice of mindfulness meditation slows down the aging process in the practitioners.

Do calorie restriction -

Calorie restriction means reducing average daily caloric intake below what is habitual, without malnutrition or deprivation of essential nutrients. It is a consistent pattern of reducing average daily caloric intake. It has been found in many studies that calorie restriction is associated with living longer.

Exercise regularly -

Experts recommend 30 to 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous walking on most days but benefits start with even less activity. Active people can live about five years longer on average than inactive people. A schedule of regular exercise, incorporating aerobic activity and strength training, reduces genomic instability. It also reduces telomere attrition. The association between physical exercise and telomere length could also be due to lower oxidative stress and inflammation.

The regular exercise certainly cannot reverse the aging process, but it does attenuate many of its deleterious systemic and cellular effects.

Take nutritional food -

As people age, they generally need fewer calories. However, their nutrient needs are just as high as or higher than when they were younger. That's why, it is extremely important to eat nutrient-rich, whole foods. For healthy aging, we should choose a variety of colors in fruits and vegetables, and vary protein sources by choosing meats, fish, whole nuts, nut butters, and beans.

Eat healthy fats -

We should try to avoid saturated and trans fats as much as we can. Saturated fats are usually fats that come from animals. Trans fats are processed fats in stick margarine and vegetable shortening. We may find them in some store-bought baked goods and fried foods at some fast-food restaurants.

Good unsaturated fats include monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats, which lower disease risk. Foods high in good fats include vegetable oils (such as olive, canola, sunflower, soy, and corn), nuts, seeds, and fish. So the consumption of good fats and avoidance of bad fats are necessary for healthy aging.

Saturated fats, while not as harmful as trans fats, negatively impact health. Thus they should be consumed in moderation. Foods containing large amounts of saturated fat include red meat, butter, cheese, and ice cream. Some plant-based fats like coconut oil and palm oil are also rich in saturated fat.

Stimulate your brain -

As we get older, our mental health is a major part of being able to live independently. Any activity that challenges our mind and requires us to learn new information or skills is considered an exercise.

It has been found that reading books, studying foreign languages, and playing games that involve mental activity stimulate the brain. By making your brain actively work you can slow down the aging process in the brain.

Have an adequate sleep daily -

Older adults need about the same amount of sleep as all adults, i.e. 7 to 9 hours each night. This is necessary for healthy aging.

It is a common misconception that our sleep declines with age. In fact, research demonstrates that our sleep needs remain constant throughout adulthood. So, what's keeping seniors awake? The changes in the patterns of our sleep, called sleep architecture, occur as we age and this may contribute to sleep problems.

Other factors affecting sleep are the circadian rhythms that coordinate the timing of our bodily functions, including sleep. For example, older people tend to become sleepier in the early evening and wake earlier in the morning compared to younger adults. This pattern is called advanced sleep phase syndrome.

The sleep rhythm is shifted forward so that 7 to 8 hours of sleep are still obtained but the individuals will wake up extremely early because they have gone to sleep quite early.

Go to bed early -

There is an old adage - An hour before midnight is worth three afterwards. That's why sleep experts advise to go to sleep early.

According to the study of the body-clock, there are set times when our body clock dictates the various processes to take place in hair and skin. The experts believe that from 8 PM to 11 PM is the time for hydration and stimulation, while 11 PM to 3 PM is the time for nutrition and regeneration, and 3 AM to 5 AM is the time for resting.

The bottom line -

The global population is aging fast, thus driving up age-related disease morbidity. Young people are the most attractive targets for strategies for slowing down aging. However, there is skepticism about whether aging processes can be detected in young adults, who do not yet have chronic diseases. But experts indicate that aging processes can be quantified in people still young enough for prevention of age-related disease, opening a new door for anti-aging strategies.

Reference -

Stanford Medicine. "'Ageotypes' provide window into how individuals age." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 13 January 2020.

Prompt List!

As promised, here is a prompt list for requests! Please keep in mind, your request does not have to come from this list. It’s simply to help if you’d like to request something but don’t have any ideas in mind. 

When you request, please send your request to my ask box and include the following information: 

- The section/prompt you’d like to request. For example, Dialogue 22.  - Which character you’d like me to write the request for. Currently I’m comfortable with John Krasinski, Jim Halpert, Jack Ryan, and could probably do Jack Silva if you’d like.  - Fluff, angst, flangst, etc. I’m willing to give smut a try, but be aware, it’s not my strong suit.  - Any other details you would like me to include! If there’s something I’m not comfortable writing, I’ll message you and we will try to work it out! 

Please be aware: 

- You may request from any completed fic on my masterlist.  - I’m open to writing smut requests, but smut in general in not my strong suit.  - Everything will default to a reader pairing.  - I will cross-off any prompts that are requested, and will link the fic when completed.  - I don’t set out writing anything with a certain length in mind. Generally, I shoot for at least 500 words. You may get a drabble, you may get a one-shot. I’ll do my best to fill every request!

I think that gets all of the boring stuff out of the way; on to the fun stuff! Prompts below the cut! If you have any questions, feel free to ask :)

Tags for possible interest/signal boos: @professorkrasinski @booklover1814 @krasinskigirl @goldenolaf25 

Dialogue Prompts:

“Are you telling me you knew this whole time?”

“Obviously I’ve been gone for way too long. You managed to kill the houseplants.”

“Are you even a doctor?” “Of sorts.”

“Why do you have scars there?”

“I didn’t expect you to be here tonight.” “Clearly.”

“You look good together. Odd. But good.”

“Don’t you know who I am?” “Yup. I just don’t care.”

“I have neither the time nor the crayons to explain this to you.��

“What are you so afraid of?” “You.”

“The goal is to laugh forever with someone I can take serious.”

“I’m sorry that someone made you think it’s hard to love you.”

“At one point in time … we could have been happy.”

“Go for it. Whether it ends good or bad, it was an experience.”

“I didn’t want to fall in love. Not at all. But at some point, you smiled, and oh, shit. I blew it.”

“He does realize what he lost. And that’s why he can’t speak to you now.”

“I’m not choosing you because our being together makes sound, solid sense. I choose you because you make me forget there’s a choice.”

“You can’t keep kissing strangers and pretending it’s him.”

“Are you sober?” “I’m moderately functional.” “I’ll take that as a no.”

“Your hair is really soft after you wash it.”

“I love you from the bottom of my heart, but I don’t trust your cooking. Stay out of my kitchen.”

“I want to ask you what I mean to you, but I’m afraid to know the answer.”

“Well, somebody’s got to do it, and I really want it to be me.”

“I don’t give a damn.” “You give so many damns, they’re visible from space.”

“I didn’t say ‘I love you’ to hear it back, I said it to make sure you knew.”

“Shrouded in mystery and ready to die — just how I like my men.”

Situational/AU/Trope Prompts: 

When boys let you read your head on their shoulder. 

Pairing on a hammock together. Person B is asleep on Person A’s chest. Person A with one foot on the floor so they can rock the hammock in hopes of keeping Person B asleep. 

You have a recurring dream of someone you’ve never met before. One day, you literally bump into that person on the sidewalk. 

I’m really scared of storms … can we possibly cuddle?

I always leave notes at your desk/door for you to find. 

Person A is sick, Person B takes care of them. 

Person A shows up with bruises, Person B demands to know where they came from. 

Midnight baking. 

Wearing his clothes. 

Person A washing Person B’s hair. 

Accidentally falling asleep together. 

Slow dancing. 

Height difference. 

Age difference/age gap. 

You’re cutting my hair and I’m trying not to focus on your hands in my hair and your breath on my neck.”

Person A tries to secretly kiss Person B’s cheek while they’re asleep but Person B shifts and Person A accidentally kisses their mouth and pulls back flustered and looks down at a wide-eyed Person B who pulls them back for a real kiss. 

Person A is hospitalized; Person B falls asleep in their hospital room. 

You’re my neighbor and it just snowed approximately two feet in six hours. I catch you building a snowman in your backyard and decide to start a snowball fight. 

Someone walks by your table and drops a folded napkin in front of you, trying to be discreet. It is a note saying, “Get out now. While you still can.”

Forced to share a bed; they build a wall of pillows between them but wake up tangled in each other anyway. 

Two insomniacs keeping each other company. 

Childhood sweethearts meet again; one of them has drastically changed in some way. 

You’re about to be really embarrassed in front of your ex, until that cute guy who’s been eyeing you from across the room comes to your rescue. 

Two people meet and connect deeply … but one or both of them is already in a serious, committed relationship. 

Becoming first time parents. 

Song/Lyrics Prompts: 

Floorplan - Sara Bareilles

I Found - Amber Run

You Shouldn’t Kiss Me Like This - Toby Keith

I Could Use A Love Song - Maren Morris

Crush - Mandy Moore

Sparks - Coldplay

Battle - Colbie Caillat

Waiting for Superman - Daughtry

Feels Like Home - Chantal Kreviasuk

The Kiss - Karmina

Kiss Me Slowly - Parachute

Secret Garden - Bruce Springsteen

Pistol - Dustin Kensrue

Someone Like You - Safetysuit

Anywhere Place - Katie Costello

Lover - Taylor Swift

The Best of Me - The Starting Line

(Kissed You) Good Night - Gloriana

What If I Never Get Over You - Lady Antebellum

More of You - Chris Stapleton

Real - Plumb

Something Crazy - Franky Perez

Blue Ain’t Your Color - Keith Urban

Hey Jealousy - Gin Blossoms

Crazy for This Girl - Evan and Jaron

Picture/GIF Prompts:

1. 

2. 

3. 

4. 

5. 

6. 

7. 

8. 

9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

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25.

Shining Live Fanzine: Concept Pitch

I believe @utapri-idol-hell has already mentioned this upcoming project on her blog so, without further delay, this is the completed concept pitch for an SL-themed Utapri fanzine!

(Note: there is also a link to this post on twitter! If you have a twitter account, please consider retweeting the post from this account so that non-tumblr users can also see this!)

I would like to first put emphasis on the fact that this is a concept pitch. That means this is a presentation of the initial idea to anyone who might be interested in this project. At this point in time, most of the rules and concepts are still malleable - they can be changed and shaped according to feedback from this post.

If you are interested in this project (as either a contributor or as someone who would want to acquire a copy of the zine) please consider filling out this feedback form. Any responses will be useful to determine how the zine moves forward, but the feedback is particularly important in regards to the “Application Methods” section of this post (see below).

There are, however, three rules which are already “set” and would not be changed. They are as follows:

This zine would feature work from both artists and writers.

Due to Broccoli’s history with ordering “cease and desist”s against utapri doujin artists, this would be a non-profit zine. Thus, digital copies would be completely free.

The concept for this zine is based on the intention of it being a fun project that would appeal to the majority of the fanbase. Therefore, some rules are set in place to avoid content that might spark conflict and/or be geared towards a specific audience.

Below the cut, this post is split into three sections: Concept, Rules, and Application Methods. Each section is clearly noted with a header. “Concept” covers the general theme, content, and layout; “Rules” covers additional restrictions and/or allowances for the zine content; and “Application Methods” covers various possible ways a writer or artist could possibly apply to do a page for the zine. That last section is particularly important, because at the moment the application method for the zine has yet to be decided and the final decision will depend feedback.

There’s quite a bit of information below, so for anyone who is dyslexic or has any other reading difficulties, the most important information is in bold.

The ask box is also open for anyone who has any additional questions, or would like further expansion on something mentioned in the following text.

Please also consider reblogging this post so more people can see it!

The initial concept for this zine, was that it would (hopefully) be the first in a series of SL-themed zines that followed the chronological release pattern of the in-game events and gachas.

This seemed to be a good way to establish a kind of content equilibrium, so that no specific character/event/gacha appeared too often or too little. The pages would be themed after the events/gachas and each one would have a specific amount of pages allotted to it. Since KLab has only screwed the rotation once thus far, it seems like an easier method of creating balance.

Originally, it was going to be an annual digital zine with a high page count. However, since people have expressed their interest in physical copies of a zine, the concept was revised into something that would also translate well into physical format.

The following are the revised restrictions/guidelines for the current concept of the zine:

The total page count would be 44 pages. This includes the front/back cover, index and closing pages.

The content would cover from the release of the game (Aug/Sept 2017) up through January 2018. This covers 8 gacha and 10 events, not including the SL UR set which would also be featured.

Each event and gacha would be allotted two A4 pages of content - one for art and one for a piece of flash fiction. The cover and its related story would have double that amount: front/back cover + a two page short story.

The zine would have the potential to run in both physical and digital formats. Digital zines would be completely free (hence, non-profit project) however they will still require the purchaser to put in an order/request for the file. There will be no public download link posted.

All contributors are entitled to a digital copy without placing a request. Free physical copies may be a possibility, but that depends on a number of factors (namely the amount of contributors, zine orders, and if a print run is made at all) so I can’t promise anything at this point.

Print runs would be made if there is enough demand for physical copies, and there would only be one run per zine. This is reduce the risk of Broccoli viewing the zine production as a competitive merchandise and thereby becoming offended by the project.

(The following rules were put in place regarding the intentions and concept for the zine. Since this is a concept pitch, each rule is followed by an explanation of why it exists. If you believe any rule is unnecessary, or flawed, please note that in the feedback form! Passive-aggressively ranting about it on twitter doesn’t help!)

The UR Rule

The featured UR pair (for gachas) or the featured UR/SR pair (for events) MUST be the focus of the piece. Other characters can be mentioned and/or appear, but the piece has to be clearly centered on the two featured characters for that set/event. This is to help ensure the balance of content set by following the release patterns.

This goes without saying, but the pieces must also be themed after the event/gacha for which they are the pages for. A simple mention, hint, or acknowledgement toward the set/event isn't strong enough to be considered a theme.

Non-Shining Live Characters Are Allowed

Although the zine will be SL themed, all other characters that are part of the Utapri franchise can be featured within artwork and fiction pieces submitted to the zine. Since they’re official characters, I see no reason to purposely block them out.

The UR rule still applies, however, so these characters cannot become the focus of the pieces.

Keep it PG 13/15

This is partly in place to acknowledge the younger fans of the franchise (as well as those who aren't big fans of higher rated content) and partly because there is no fail-safe way to verify someone's age over the internet.

There are a lot of minors who consume and produce adult content for this fandom, and while their choices are theirs to make (I'm not the fandom police, it's none of my business), I don't want this project to be held responsible for distributing inappropriate content to minors in case issues do arise.

It's also worth noting that this rule does not only apply to sexual content (because some people think R18 only means sex). A piece depicting other mature themes - such as serious cannibalism, gore, or class A drug use - would not be acceptable.

No Romantic Ships

I feel like this is going to be the least popular rule, so the explanation for this is twice as long. Hear me out for a minute, and, if by the end you still think it’s unnecessary, by all means put that on the response form!

There are two main reasons for this rule.

Firstly, although shipping as a concept is extremely popular within fandom, individual ships still only cater to very specific audiences within the fanbase. No matter which way you twist it, no matter the popularity of any given ship, no single ship is universal. Some fans don't even connect to the idea of shipping in the first place.

Under most circumstances, that's completely fine, but within the context of a fanzine that's intended to appeal to as much of the fanbase as possible, allowing ships starts to seem very juxtaposed to that goal.

Case and point: if I have to include an extra contents page that lists all of the ships mentioned inside the zine so people can pick and/or avoid certain ones, that, to me, completely negates the idea of having a zine that most people can just pick up and read without issue.

Secondly, as I'm sure most people already know, ships are a primary source of conflict and motivator for harassment within fandom.

In terms of problems arising from including ships in a fanzine, I'm mainly worried about contributing artists/writers as well as the other admins getting harassed for content they did or didn't include within the zine. As someone who has not only seen utapri fan blogs run offline because of ship-based anon hate, but has also seen people ridiculed and kicked out of groups for not liking a popular ship, I would rather not risk exposing contributors and admins to that kind of toxic behavior.

When thinking about potential application methods for zine contributors, I realized that the traditional method - where people send in entries and these entries are reviewed/accepted/denied by an admin panel - may not be the best suited for a project that a) is supposed to be fun, not stressful and b) is looking for as many applicants as possible to hopefully be a success.

After brainstorming several alternative ways that applications could be handled, I decided the best possible way to choose one, would be to ask people who are interested in contributing to the zine how they would prefer to apply. After collecting the feedback, the most popular application method would be the one used for this zine.

The following are three different possible application methods. Each has a description of how it would work followed by a list of pros and cons for that method.

Method 1: First Come, First Serve

This method is very well-known, and very straightforward. Essentially, the list of available pages is posted at a specified time and date, and contributors would simply message the zine admins to claim whichever pages they want to contribute for. The first person to claim that particular page is the person who that page is allocated to.

Method 2: Random Chance

There are two variations of this method.

Application for Specific Pages: using this method, applicants would apply for specific pages at any point during the application period. Then, once the period has ended, the contributing artist/writer would be drawn at random for each page.

General Application: using this method, applicants would apply to the zine in general during the application period then, once the period has ended, the contributing writers/artists for all the pages would be drawn from the same pool. Applicants would be allowed to veto certain characters/sets/events and trade among each other if desired.

Method 3: Traditional Application

This is the method that’s most often used to manage and select applications for a zine.

An applicant would send in an entry form during the application period that contains, among other possible things, which pages they would like to apply for and an example of their work. At the end of the period, all entry forms are reviewed by the admins and the contributors for each page are decided by majority/unanimous vote. 

And that’s everything! Please consider filling out the feedback form if you have the time!

OC MASTERPOST

Alright, putting this together you really notice how old most of these characters are, theres a lot of cliched and coincidental stuff in there that i & others came up with when i was 15-21. Finn got the whole brunt of my edgy scene teen angst phase... but then again Asher is brand new and not looking any better so there’s that. Sorry children, i love the drama. Also all of them being queer men is absolutely just teenage me living out my queer male identity through them before i even knew it hasghj.

NAME/NICKNAME: Finnegan Bastien Jeong-Bak / Finn, Junebug (by his fans) (his terrible mish mash of a name is product of his parents forcefully pushing their heritage away to make it easier for Finn to fit in, once they reached his sister they were more relaxed about the problem)

AGE/BIRTHDAY: 27 years / 17.04.

NATIONALITY/ETHNICITY: French Canadian / Asian (South Korean)

BASED ON: /

GENDER/SEXUALITY: Cis male / bisexual (probably pan if he’d be more informed)

FAMILY: FATHER | Jin Hee Jeong | 48 years | janitor | very difficult relationship, for most of his life he considered his father to be a good dad till the drinking started and then the abuse, hes still not quite ready to let his relationship with his father go, so he keeps in contact, which often led to fights with Shawn, as well as the fact that Finn still has not outed himself in front of his father out of fear of rejection

MOTHER | Yeon Soo Bak | 47 years | owns a café | similarly rocky, they are now at a good point but he knows his mother struggles with his identity and life choices, so much she tried to manipulate a lot of things in the past but learned to leave that be, he is grateful towards her for leaving his father when she did. he bought her a café cause he loves her so much

SISTER | Sun Marise Haywood, née Jeong-Bak | 24 years | stay at home mom | he was always close to his sister, she just assimilated into his friend group in high school, and still is an important part of his life, or is again, they had a phase of not talking after some jealousy issues regarding his relationship with Shawn and her friendship with him, Sun is very protective over her brother and his mental instability and does her best to keep him healthy. That includes a very strict anti-Shawn stance, regarding the pain he has caused her brother in the past. Sun is happily married and has a daughter, a fact that somewhat relieves Finn, at least someone in the family that fulfills their mother’s wishes.

NIECE | Molly Florence Haywood | 4 months | A literal baby. Finn famously is not very keen on children, especially babies and goes out of their way. His niece however managed to steal his heart, plus he can just give her back to her mother when she becomes troublesome, the ideal arrangement. He likes to spoil her.. not that she would care at this point.

HALFBROTHER | Bryant Cole Reno | 7 years | student | His father’s illegitimate child with an American prostitute. Classy. But not Bryant’s fault. Finn learned of his existence when he was 3 and has since then sort of taken part in raising him, not that he would ever consider that to be true. He is very sensible to his brothers living conditions considering the bad stuff he himself experienced growing up, and does his best to ensure him to grow up happy and healthy, which includes denying him contact with their father (despite not pulling the same measures for himself). Bryant is a smart kid, overachieving, Finn already feels like he is dancing circles around him, and truly does not know where the kid gets it from.

FRIENDS: Noteworthy are on the Canadian side: His childhood/youth best friend Kitty (deceased), almost equally important Logan & Colin (all three of them share a brain cell), his ex-girlfriend of 5 years Emily (rocky long distance friendship atm), ex-affair & close friend Raphael (his voice of reason). On the American side: Close friends Randy (trashfire bff) & Jade (cinnamon bun), his ex-boyfriend of ~4 years Shawn (heartbreak!!).

S.O.: No one atm cause he is, even after 2 years apart, still very much desperately hung up on Shawn and not getting over that breakup anytime soon. Learning that Shawn is in a new relationship has thoroughly pulled the rug out from under him and left him questioning why Shawn managed to move on so much quicker (and if the other guy is more attractive than him). He also struggles very much with the fact that Shawn has made extremely positive progress in the two years without him (unable to see that the same is applicable to himself too).

I guess that still deserves an entry here:

Shawn Alexander | 28 years | currently Barkeeper & Musician | Shawn comes from a rich family and therefore has the polar opposite starting conditions to Finn, but nonetheless experienced many shared interests, but also miseries, from abusive fathers to drug use. With two general distinctions: While Finn’s mother acted after discovering the abuse, Shawn’s mother stayed complicit. While Shawn escaped into his heroin addiction, Finn developed an strict anti-drug stance after Kitty’s death. They were a volatile mixture, the good times were extraordinarily good, the bad ones catastrophic, with Finn quickly acting out when cornered and Shawn reacting aggressively, their fights were often ruthless. Finn has considered many times since they broke up that maybe people who love each other, even this strongly, are not necessarily automatically meant to be together. That does naturally not have any impact on his feelings or his lacking ability to act reasonable when it comes to emotions.

OCCUPATION: Professional Tennis Player (out of spite)

CHARACTER: self-confident | loving (to ppl close to him), mostly distant or rude to ppl he does not know | does not hide his moodiness or discontent just to be polite | charming | energetic | passionate | ambitious | helpful & loyal towards his loved ones | savior/helper syndrome | self-sacrificing | engaging | resourceful | proud | vain | irritable | competitive | playful | needy | keeps problems to himself | mayor problem with authority figures | moody | hyperactive | has NO patience for stuff that does not interest him/seem unimportant to him | messy | unforgiving | stubborn | struggles with feelings of guilt towards many things | has bipolar disorder and changes between episodes of excessive confidence, an appetite for risk, high motivation and sex drive, and episodes of apathy and depression with reoccurring suicidal ideations, but he has in later years learned to manage these mood swings better with a mixture of medication and rigid routines

ABILITIES: highly athletic, good cook, excellent singer & musician, good technical understanding (esp. towards cars), fluent in french (native) & english, minor knowledge of korean

INTERESTS: cooking, music, sports, cars, video games, podcasts about movies, games, techincal innovations and whatever obscure topic interests him at the moment (podcasts, games and other media is stuff that he only recently discovered for himself, since his job does not allow for a lot of time with his friends, so that’s his compensation)

APPEARANCE: 6′3″ tall and muscular (but too lean for his liking, he cannot built up mass for the love of it), dark brown eyes and nearly black hair, currently a little over chin long but worn in a bun or ponytail (he feels like short hair makes him look like a child, but he’s also just too busy/lazy to get haircuts every couple of weeks), a prominent scar runs through his left eyebrow, he has multiple tattoos, a flower pattern on the inside of his right arm, a skeleton with a laurel wreath on the inside of his left arm, a geometric pattern just above his ankle on the inside of his right leg, more geometric patterns on his shoulder blades and a moth in the middle just below his neck

PLOTPOINTS: born in Montreal to south korean parents | best friends with Kitty (Catherine) | best friends with Logan & Colin | struggles in school because of growing up with multiple languages, hyperactivity and later problems with authority figures | free time either spent on the streets with his friends or with his father at his job as a mechanic | relationship with Emily age 13 | growing behavioral issues at first misunderstood as ‘only’ adhd | starting music (drumming, later other instruments) & sport (tennis) to make him tired | dedication to sport & music as compensation for bad schoolwork, to show he’s at least good at something | father loses job, becomes driving instructor | move to poorer area of town | added stress in family setting | with 15 diagnosis BPD after behavioral issues became increasingly dangerous | Finn becomes aware of his father’s drinking problem, often being the one to take care of him during and after these times | with 16 affair with 25 yo Raphael (in hindsight Finn finds this somewhat alarming) | more time spent away from the family, more time on the streets with minor criminal activities & drug use (in varying degrees, Kitty taking heroin being the strongest) | school work evens out through good grades in subjects he was interested in vs bad grades in everything else | with 18 family vacation in New York, Finn meets Shawn, they have an ons | break-up with Emily, after she finds out about his affair & one-night-stands | after Finn & the others were away for another vacation they come back to find out that Kitty has used the opportunity to kill herself with a planned overdose, Finn never reads the good-bye letter, he spends the next months in a state of emotional crisis and gives up on finishing school, when he can get out of bed he spends his time with sports as an distraction | Jin-hee’s alcoholism & job clash as he and a student get in an accident with alcohol in Jin-hee’s system, he loses his job and the trial, now having to pay heavy compensation for the damages, pushing the family further into poverty | Finn and his father start to fight more and more, with Jin-hee’s condition worsening and Finn provoking him, either actively, or by choosing not to carry his weight in the family and generally being an undesirable son, resulting in Jin-hee venting his anger by hitting his son | with Finn turning 21 his mother definitively discovers what had been going on, she leaves Jin-hee in an ugly divorce, takes her kids & moves to New York | despite everything Finn keeps contact with his father and has somehow managed to mostly forgive him | Finn & Shawn meet again & quickly end up in a relationship | when Finn learns about Shawn’s heroin addiction he wants to end things, but decides to give him a chance | what follows is 4-5 years up and down with two break-ups, one after a series of misunderstandings and meddling from Yeon that end up with Finn cheating, another one after a burned Shawn learns, after giving it another chance, about things that Finn has hidden from him, such as Jin-hee’s illegitimate child that Finn himself has only recently met, and a row of events unfold that lead to Shawn attempting but failing suicide | when he learns about it Finn declares Shawn as dead in his eyes and tells him he never wants to see him again | another emotional crisis for Finn and again he throws himself into sports to drown out the bad thoughts and make himself too tired to think, only this time he meets the right people and with the right support ends up gliding into the professional sports world | he spends the next two years building up his carrer like a madman and thoroughly enjoys being occupied at all times, as well as for the first time in his life having a stable and strict rhythm to his days, a healthy sleep cycle & positive reaffirmation that help with his mental stability.. oh, and he’s pining for Shawn of course

BONUS INFO: I created him when i was a wee teen but wrote him in different RPGs almost till today, so there were a lot of different versions and revisions. Originally he was a caucasian redhead, it was only years later that i put it together that much of his family dynamics and some of his character would very much fit a minority/immigrant narrative. He was always french-canadian, but in the beginning he moved to England instead of New York (fun fact: it was Canterbury, which is why i later used the city for Teddy instead). Really sad to have lost Shawn’s accent, but honestly it makes much more sense for the city to be so much closer to home. If i would call any of my OCs my main OC it would definitely be Finn, he is my obsession, there’s next to no days where i don’t imagine him in some sort of scenario, AU or canon. I am however hesitant to use him for anything, since part of his story, meaning Shawn’s character, belongs to my friend Mel, who i’ve lost contact with. When i was last writing him in a RPG i used korean actor Kim Bum for his faceclaim, and i still like to reference his pictures, look him up and you’ll see what i mean with Finn looking younger with shorter hair.

NAME/NICKNAME: Wendell Theodore Parker / Teddy

AGE/BIRTHDAY: 19 years / 23.09.

NATIONALITY/ETHNICITY: British / Caucasian (or whatever the god side counts as)

BASED ON: originally comes from a Percy Jackson RPG

GENDER/SEXUALITY: Cis Male / gay

FAMILY: FATHER | Julien Samuel Parker | 45 years | cardiologist

MOTHER | Demeter | goddess of harvest, agriculture & fertility of the earth

STEPMOTHER | Katherine Marie Parker | 44 years | lector

HALF-BROTHER | Bradley Howard Parker | 24 years | author (alias J. B. Baxter)

HALF-SISTER | Amanda Carrie Parker | 20 years | student of cultural sciences

+ a shitton of half-siblings on Demeter’s side

FRIENDS: Rufus Whitmore | 19 years | Son of Apollo | Actually Zeke’s best friend and No. 1 in the ‘kick Zeke in the ass to make him stand by his feelings club’ which is why Teddy is phenomally thankful for the support. Maybe due to his dad Rufus generally has a very healing, hardworking and good-natured personality, though combined with a bit of a superiority complex.

Caspar Renier | 19 years | Son of Dyonisus | With Dyonisus practically being the party god and all Caspar is very much the agent of chaos in Teddy’s life. He lives for experiencing new and exciting things and likes to incite the same in others. While Teddy loves all things safe, Caspar brings the risk, but somehow the two manage not to annoy each other, but to balance things out. Caspar is Teddy’s best friend since the early days of the academy and reason for many good things that Teddy would have otherwise been too timid about.

Riley O’Donovan | 20 years | Son of Ares | Basically Teddy’s arch nemesis since the early academy days. For some reason he has decided that Teddy was just the right person to push around and pick on, supported by his twin and another half-brother. Teddy, being the pacifist that he is, and generally trying to avoid confrontation, did his best to stay out of their ways, telling himself that fighting back would only make them fight harder. Teddy was with them when the academy was attacked and Riley’s brothers died. Together they fought and survived. At their next meeting they quietly recognized that the experience had connected them and to let bygones be bygones. They are developing an akward friendship with lots of guilt and grief, that’s mostly consistent of helping each other out and, weirdly enough, unquestionable trust through shared trauma.

S.O.: Zeke... i don’t remember his surname, since Teddy is a RPG character he is obviously another person’s character, i’ll try to think back on more info. As a Hermes son he is the charming wayfarer type person, with a guitar on his back and a taste for freedom, i believe he was a year older than Teddy. The relationship is rocky at best and Teddy feels unloved most of the time but his intense feelings for Zeke make him want to hold on and hope for the better just for a little while longer.

OCCUPATION: Student

CHARACTER: honest | childlike | naive, gullible & foolish | clumsy | ambitious | enthusiastic | family oriented | safety & harmony loving | loyal | nervous & talkative when unsure in social/new situations | sulky & stubborn when unhappy | imaginative | resourceful | huge need for affection & validation | unknowingly competent in dangerous situations | meek | kind | helpful | justice loving | superstitious | clingy | hyperactive | chaotic | defensive | diplomatic | jealous | emotional | caring | empathic | curious | fair | friendly | happy-go-lucky | generous | sociable | lively | manipulative | self-indulgent | open | pushy | romantic | tolerant | impatient, but unpunctual | fear of loss | playful | wavering | brave when it counts | pacifistic

ABILITIES: [supernatural] control over plants and weather in the immediate vicinity, too much use of his abilities quickly causes hunger, headaches, nausea & exhaustion | an integral instinct about the beginning and natural end of lives, when he concentrates he can tell a person’s age, or if they are close to the end of their lives in case of a natural death. he chooses not to use this ability | his control of plants is quite trained, changes in the weather are mostly out of his control & follow violent mood swings. They show themselves as changes in temperature in his immediate vicinity

[other] low abilities in sword fighting (he shows little motivation because of his pacifistic nature, but has good instinct when it is necessary), slightly better at archery & hand to hand combat, good at riding & general animal handling

INTERESTS: monsters, he has an affinity for anything monstrous and creepy, in fiction & reality, as a unusual choice for Demeter children he wants to work with monsters in some capacity in the future | animals | plants

APPEARANCE: unkempt wavy to curly blonde hair in various states of darker blonde to bleached to grown out color, darker blue/green eyes, 5′10″, cycles through being slightly underweight & healthier depending on his mental state, his clothing style has no apparent rhyme or reason and consists of anything he likes, mostly color- & youthful, wears a leather necklace with a coin pendant at all times. he chooses to be mostly clean shaven, but has a surprisingly strong beard growth

PLOTPOINTS: born, officially, as the 3rd child of the parker family based in Canterbury, happily growing up in a loving upper to middle class family | only trouble so far is the inability to sit still and concentrate on school classes | with 14 he learns of his true nature and the world of gods & demigods | spirals into thoughts of being an outcast and disruptive in his family, considering his father’s infidelity and his ‘mother’s’ will to live with her husband’s illegitimate child | decides to run away after witnessing a fight between his parents while on vacation in America | gets picked up by Zeke, another runaway child, and as it happens another demigod | after sharing their stories Zeke reunites Wendell with his family against his will, Teddy initially resents him for it | the family reconciles, Wendell’s ‘mother’ confirms how much she sees him as her own son | Teddy starts to visit Gaia Academy during his regular school holidays, where demigods get educated and trained according to their special circumstances eg. myths, monster attacks & magical abilities | his brother begins to write about a fictional character based on Teddy’s life and has success with a series of children’s books | reconciliation & later close friendship with Zeke | big homesickness | a bad first romantic/sexual experience, the adjustment to the world of myths & the stress of constant change between regular school & academy life leads to an overwhelming sense of loss of control, which results in an eating disorder that he learns to control via therapy and his family’s support | dreams of becoming a monster herdsman despite his lack in battle prowess due to his strict pacifistic beliefs | is bullied by 3 Ares sons during most of his time at Gaia | gets in the awkward situation of falling in love with his close friend and self-proclaimed heterosexual Zeke, feels the situation is too hopeless and the friendship too precious to do anything about it | pines for years | drunkenly kisses Zeke after receiving a thoughtful birthday gift (aforementioned necklace) | panics about said kiss after Zeke steers clear of him for the rest of the week | turns out Zeke just had a whole week of gay panic™ and needed some time to come to terms with maybe possibly being in love with a guy despite not usually being attracted to men | Zeke confesses & agrees to a relationship | the thing is messy, with lots of sneaking around and no pda, even in private, allowed as Zeke struggles with a religious upbringing and acceptance of his new identity | as a whole Teddy deals poorly with this behavior but endures for the chance of being with his hopeless yearlong never gonna happen crush | meanwhile the world of the demigods is in chaos with wars between different pro- and anti-god-fractions | when an anti-god-organization attacks the academy, Teddy is forced to fight and kill to survive next to his longtime bullies | he & his loved ones survive but afterwards he is not only traumatized by his own actions and the things he has seen, but also the fact that he of all people survived while better fighters died | while the academy reorganizes itself he spends time at home and struggles with the discrepancy between his vs his family’s experiences and not being able to share what happened with a medical professional to work through his trauma | disillusioned he decides it is time for him to mature, when the academy reopens at a new location he dedicates himself to more battle training and after reconciling with the one surviving bully through their shared experience even asks the ares son for personal training

BONUS INFO: Oh, Teddy boy! He also went through several RPGs and rewrites. The first one was a pretty basic Percy Jackson RPG, with Camp Halfblood and all. In that version Teddy was a child of Hebe, and chose to leave his home in one of the many Springfields in America for the safety of his family, since monster attacks suddenly started happening. On his way to the Camp he met Zeke, they had a little road trip and fought their way to their destination. It was a lovely story of hurt/comfort with Teddy being helplessly lost and scared and Zeke taking care of him. An unlikely team that strangely worked out. The whole runaway thing in his current story might not make a lot of sense, but it was our way of incorporating the original runaway/road trip story that was near and dear to our hearts. I’m not sure why i ended up making him a brit when we switched forums, maybe because i missed British Shawn and had to make up for it. The new RPG obviously had a lot of changes on the Percy Jackson Story, it was just inspired by the idea of demigod children but that was about it. Again, since Zeke is not my character i am hesitant to work with this, also i would like to make the setting more original, though i guess there’s only so much you can do with demigods, maybe creating an entirely new pantheon idk. That’s the problem with RPG characters i suppose, they are rarely uninfluenced from other people’s creations, and often based on preexisting works, but i refuse to give up on him. When i first created him i had Boyd Holbrook in mind. (Which is very fun considering his look in Logan, i imagine later Teddy to look like that and what a big fucking ooc contrast that would be to him rn.) Here is an avatar that captures the Teddy feel during the original road trip very well, bonus the matching Zeke ava (obviously portrayed by Jackson Rathbone), bonus bonus a Rufus ava, ft. Aaron Taylor-Johnson:

NAME/NICKNAME: Avery Sanders / Ace of Spades (a sort of artist’s name), Ace

AGE/BIRTHDAY: 22 years / 15.05.

NATIONALITY/ETHNICITY: American / Caucasian? (or whatever, the god thing, plus he does not know his dad)

BASED ON: said Percy Jackson inspired RPG

GENDER/SEXUALITY: Cis male / asexual (/ poly/panromantic?? he does not know either or really care honestly it’s all just whatever)

FAMILY: FATHER | Michael Hide | deceased

MOTHER | Nyx | goddess of the night, daughter of chaos

HALFBROTHER/LEGAL GUARDIAN | Dale Sanders | 42 years | ?? occupation: lying bastard weasel?? | Their relationship sure is something. In short Ace IDOLIZES his brother big time, though he would never say those words out loud but it is very fucking clear to everyone. He is like a miniature Dale, or trying to be, or trying to surpass him. This makes the last developments in Ace’s story very very complicated. He’s still kinda brainwashed enough that he’s still holding on to the hope that he’s just not informed enough to understand his brother’s motives.

FRIENDS: Benedict Bovine | 21 years | Son of Morpheus | Ben & Ace were roommates in the academy, and no friends for a long time. The Morpheus son was just too much for him, too happy, too optimistic, too intrusive, too annoying. But that’s probably exactly the personality you have to have to stick with Ace and not give up on actually truly befriending him. Somewhere along the way they ended up being best friends which Ace is secretly desperately clinging to because not too many people bother with trying to get close to him even with him being actively unapproachable. Ben has gained a special status in his life and therefore special treatment, namely experiencing Ace’s more positive characteristics and rare insights behind the mask.

Elisabeth Fendi | 22 years | Daughter of Nike | As a Nike daughter she likes challenges, and befriending or even dating Ace certainly is just that. But she had positive reinforcement by looking at Ben’s & Ace’s relationship and knew the goal was achievable. Long story short Ace lost a bet and had to go out with her, and actually kinda enjoyed her ambitious, competitive nature. She whittled him down to becoming friends at least. They certainly do not treat each other overly tender, but that suits both of their nature’s just fine. Elisabeth just kinda started hanging around Ace & Ben and the three are now sticking together.

S.O.: Well not sure actually, there was one version of the Story where Ace dated a girl named Liz, and Elisabeth certainly has some of her characteristics. But it definitely occurred to me that Ace himself has no desire to actually pursue a romantic or sexual relationship of any kind, but has no problem having sex if it just happens to happen. In another version of the story Ben, Ellie & Ace end up having a threesome under somewhat dramatic circumstances and i’ve been playing with the idea of both Ben & Ellie looking to enter a polyamorous relationship with Ace and him just kinda going along with it cause it’s whatever to him and he loves and trusts them and likes being close to them so it’s not a huge difference to him anyways.. which would just be Ace clumsily trying to show his genuine feelings for once and learning how to express affection, both physically & romantically and probably failing a lot. I think i’m sticking with it but i’m not sure about the circumstances yet.

OCCUPATION: Student

CHARACTER: callous | unimpressed & unfazed | has built up a pretty impenetrable unapproachable wall & layers of alter-egos before anyone can end up actually getting to know HIM | lone wolf | slightly misanthropic traits | paranoid & suspicious | fake superiority complex, talks himself into feeling superior to cover up insecurities | cool | hardy | streetwise | casual, mostly outwards to reaffirm his cool, relaxed persona | stoic pokerface | disrespectful unless respect is earned (mostly through undeniable talent in skills he considers worthy) | rebellious, tactless, provoking | trouble with authority figures | might not show his emotions but has no trouble speaking his mind even in unhelpful ways | critical, towards himself and others, actively looks for flaws | show-off | willing to learn & commit himself to bettering his abilities at all times | proud (of his abilities and his reputation) | long-sighted, analytical & strategic thinking | intuitive | resourceful | has talent to lead but decides not to, does not want responsibility over the actions of others | keeps his word always, to a fault, even when joking | persistent | humorous, ironic & sarcastic | underneath his fake persona actually awfully sincere, it just takes time to get there | pathologically loyal | protective, self-sacrificing & caring towards close friends | despite everything and unbeknownst to himself actually undeniably morally good & heroic

ABILITIES: [supernatural] control over shadows | sensing nightmares | Ace is rather trained in hiding in or concealing his movements with shadows, depending on the time of day and the contrast in shadows he can completely hide his presence, the later it gets in the day the easier it is. The control over seeing other people’s fears and nightmares on the other hand is completely out of his hand, it usually happens against his will and leaves him with an aftertaste of said fear that he then carries around for a couple of days.

[other] excellent speed & sword fighting | years of hellish training with his brother have left Ace with an uncanny reaction speed and instinct towards incoming danger, his battle prowess has led to many monster encounters that at this point are neither hard nor surprising.. and honestly kinda fun | musical talent | Ace has lost his heart to electronical music and uses much of his free time to create his own tracks under the pseudonym Ace of Spades. They are mostly rap & electronic mash ups and remixes of popular songs with his personal spin added to them | composure | at any given time Ace has trained himself to stay calm and not show his feelings, so much that at this point he can hardly stop it, which leads to many frustrated people in his life who constantly have to guess what he’s feeling or if he’s even feeling anything at all. It has also made him a practically unbeatable poker player

INTERESTS: music | big city life | close quarter combat | technical gadgets esp. for creating music  | challenges | irony | birds | movies & games & writing reviews | dumb irony, he lives for it, he has picked the elective prophecy class that is meant for the demigod children that actually have some sort of fortune telling ability, just because he thinks it is funny to sit between these actually clairvoyant people as a clearly non-gifted person trying to read something in tea leaves or whatever that has no reason to be true, he goes very long ways for stupid jokes & stories that might end up amusing just himself

APPEARANCE: light blonde hair cut into a buzz cut for convenience, almond shaped light blue/grey eyes, with his 5′8″ a little under average height with a broad build, average weight, his athleticism is countered by bad eating habits and most of his hobbies consisting of siting around for an extended amount of time, almost perpetually wearing a pair of ray-ban sunglasses (he’s light sensitive and likes to hide his eye-movements, but also just thinks it’s cool, as an added bonus it seems to provoke people), his clothing is mostly athletic and casual but he also enjoys throwing people off with unusual pieces, often seen with baseball-caps front or backwards facing, generally not a lot of effort put into his appearance aside from maybe considering what would make the look ironic, also owed to lack of money, lots of his clothes are worn out hand me downs from his brother peppered with the weird shit you can get at thrift stores

PLOTPOINTS: Since his father died while his mother was pregnant she had to improvise and ended up leaving the baby at one of her other son’s doorsteps | Dale, probably rather incompetently, improvised and with lots of peculiar quirks, raises the kid in a tiny, rundown Chicago apartment supporting both of them with occasional part-time jobs | With his knowledge of the world of the gods Dale decides to prepare his half-brother early | Once he learns that that is not normal Ace spends some time worrying about his brothers sanity, regarding the unusual habit of teaching a kid sword fighting and testing his abilities with surprise attacks, but enjoys himself too much to question it (he never thinks about that the constant vigilance and dedicated training might be considered somewhat abusive living conditions for a child - might not have been healthy but it DID make him stronger and that was surely a good thing Dale had in mind, very normal, totally okay.. he is incapable of seeing, or wanting to admit to his brother’s flaws) | They live off fast-food or anything they can get their hands on, with occasional unpaid electricity bills or similar poor conditions, but with a strong sense of solidarity | School was not his favorite thing, he had to get out of his - in his eyes - fun unusual living conditions to sit still and be well behaved and listen to weird stiff adults, and the children made fun of his ragged clothing and general otherness | Spends his free time exploring Chicago, roaming the streets, getting into minor trouble here and there, or with his brother, fighting or watching him make music or play around with electronics, or watching movies, playing games | As is tradition, learns he is a demigod with 14 which honestly does not really come as a huge surprise to him, at least his brother did not turn out to be some weird doomsday nutjob and had a reason for all the sword fighting | Gets kinda excited in hopes of getting along better with other demigods than he did with the other human students.. turns out him being a demigod was not the problem in the first place. Does at least find some like-minded people in his half-siblings. | At home he starts part-time jobs to support his brother, starts making music himself, has several blogs with movie and game reviews, and of course the usual duels between him and Dale, which he never once wins | After graduating regular school with 19 he is not very motivated to continue his training at the academy, but is basically tricked into finishing it anyways, by his brother suggesting he would win this one since he himself has never graduated Gaia. At last, something to be better at than his brother! | When the academy is attacked by an anti-god-organization Ace fights easily and competently.. till he is faced with fighting the one person he has never beaten, his brother. He fights him anyways, conflicted by the feeling of betrayal and sheer disbelief that this could actually be happening. Naturally he loses and ends up skewered through his torso by his brothers sword. When he is unconscious he gets saved and healed by Apollo children, and the fight is over when he wakes up again. He first of all tries to find out if his brother was maybe captured or killed, but finds no trace of him. | When he returns home while the academy reorganizes he finds the apartment empty, half hoping for his brother to come home so he can confront him, his top priority being to learn why his brother has been acting that way because he still refuses to believe that he actually tried to kill him, and rather wants to think that Dale must have had SOME kind of reason that would make all of this okay. | Dale never returns. Ace bitterly sells all of Dale’s belongings to pay for the bills of the apartment that he is suddenly sitting on all by himself, which makes his home very sad and very empty | Ellie and Ben visit him, well aware that Ace’s entire worldview has been shattered and not trusting him not to do something reckless [enter possible threesome here?] | Ace starts to obsessively try to find out about Dales whereabouts and the group he was working with, both Ellie and Ben being annoyed and worried about him doing this on his own refusing any help or interference | Ace manages to find what he believes to be a temporary hideout for the organisation and some documents that he hopes to find further clues in | When the Academy re-opens Ellie & Ben convince him to go back there, with Ace secretly just hoping to hear more about the official measures of the demigod world that have been put in place to find and stop the organization | He shares the found information with what is basically the equivalent of the police in the demigod world, and exclaims to be eager and capable to join any deployment, but is of course refused | Instead he silently plans to take off on his own again, hoping to find his brother for answers or revenge, depending on the outcome

Okay, but here’s the FUN part of the whole story, something that Ace is not even aware of anymore: When he is 18 he finds out about his brothers activity in the anti-god organization (their name is rubicon by the way) and is as always immediately willing to copy his brother and join them, regardless of their shady morals. Thing is, they have a selection process where they have an oracle check potential candidates, turns out the oracle decides that Ace’s heart is just too good and pure in the end to make him an effective member. They alter his memories, fill them with a normal summer of an 18 year old Ace, and send him back home none the wiser that he would have absolutely done the exact same things he found so impossible for his brother to be doing that it ruined his entire conception of the world. Fun. I hope he does not find out.

BONUS INFO: I cannot begin to describe how funny it is to read Ace’s character sheet. Sounds conceited maybe, but every time i reread it, which is maybe once every couple of years, i make myself cry from amusement. It’s so stupid. It is completely written in his voice and it is fucking hysterical, he is such an idiot wow. His vita starts with a rewrite of Will Smith’s Prince of Belair rap, and that’s just the beginning. I wish i could show you but it’s in German so that’s probably useless for most of you. But please know that i really fucking love it and am amazed that i wrote that at some point. I always had trouble figuring out how i want him to look. I believe i used Garrett Hedlund as a faceclaim on the RPG site, but it was not 100% fitting. Dacre Montgomery’s portrayal of Billy in Stranger Things has some Ace vibes, but also not entirely. Imagine their lovechild i guess. I also never planned on him being asexual, the connection to his name was not planned at all, it just hit me a couple of months ago out of nowhere and i immediately knew it was true. Of course he is asexual!! Also i have not yet decided whether his brother is an absolute cold bastard, or if Ace’s instincts about him having reasons are right. Regardless, Dale’s treatment of Ace is not okay from the very beginning. That’s where this whole story started, cause i found it so interesting for the idealized bigger brother that just seems to be cool and fun to actually be somewhat or very much abusive, e.g. Dave & Bro Strider in Homestuck who were very much the stepping stone here. I really liked Bro when i first read it as a baby teen, and then later saw the discourse over him being abusive, and only then did i realize shit you’re right in actual real life that stuff would be ptsd inducing wow, in that very moment i myself was Ace and had my weird idealized image shattered, so i wanted to make a character that could show how easily it is to overlook this stuff sometimes. Also totally just forgot for a while how sad a lot of his character is, ppl did not like him even before he made himself hard to be liked so he’s very distrusting and negative towards people for a long time.😥 Better make up a weird persona for people to dislike at least they’re not disliking my actual self cause they never actually get to see it. WHELP most of my other characters are either fun or tragic depending on the situation, Ace is just both simultaneously at all times

NAME: Asher ? [he is still unfinished since i never used him for anything so don’t mind the questionmarks]

AGE/BIRTHDAY: 21 years / 06.07.

NATIONALITY/ETHNICITY: American / Caucasian

BASED ON: /

GENDER/SEXUALITY: Cis male / gay

FAMILY: FATHER | ? ? | 42 years | multibillionaire business man / sociopath criminal | their relationship can very much be described as a hostage situation, there is nothing pleasant here, his father obsesses over his legacy and the idea of what he wants Asher to be and Asher resents him with a burning passion

MOTHER | ? ? | 41 years | unfortunate trophy wife | there is not much of an actual relationship here, since he started art school they have pretty much not talked a single word, he resents her for being distant and quiet and complicit in his father’s behavior

SISTER | Claire ? | 22 years | various creative part time jobs | the one that luckily got away!! Claire dodged a major bullet and got out of there as soon as she could, living her dream as a independent artist in various fields from writing plays to performance art, Asher adores her & would never tell her about the truth of his situation since she got out of there unscathed, they call each other regularly, but don’t see each other as much as they would like to, she is a big reason for his own interest in art

SISTER | Stella ? | 5 years | Kindergartener | Stella is loud and quick and knows no boundaries, a happy energetic little girl. Asher probably spoils her. 

BROTHER | Leo ? | 5 years | Kindergartener | Stella’s twin brother but the polar opposite. Timid, soft-spoken and kindhearted. Asher probably spoils him too. Asher is also fiercely overprotective in regards to his brother, cause he knows how his father likes to treat his sons. Luckily he also knows that his father would takes his sweet time before revealing his true self, but he dreads the possibility of his father involving his brother earlier nonetheless.

FRIENDS: May ? | 21 years | photography student | awfully loyal, May comes from a rich family herself and can therefore understand or excuse a lot of Asher’s less pleasant traits, she is too stubborn to let him push her away and is glad he has mostly given up towards her, now she just has to get him to treat others the same way. knows he has troubles with his father, but does not know the specifics since Asher would rather take that info to his grave to protect her. is worried, always, since Adam disappeared, but has no other solution but soft encouragement for Asher to move on

S.O.: Devin ? | 20 years | animation student | Half Mexican/Half Afro-American. Anxiety kid, moves to his father’s new family & his sister because they live closer to his future art school, falls in love with the wrong white boy. Big nerd, big introvert, all about anime & games, spends more time on the internet than anywhere else (sound familiar anybody?🙈). Romanticizes the wrong behaviors. Draws, a lot, any given time, super talented, Asher envies him. Big cuddly, kind, somewhat shy and self-conscious, cannot say no or be mean most of the time. Just 100% good soul. Shows Asher the wonderful world of fiction and other entertainment cause that guy apparently grew up in a cave. Asher is 100% hurt and Devin is 100% comfort, Asher feels bad about that. Devin is impressively patient and supportive and the sole reason Asher can breathe again. Sometimes. Asher does not know what he could possibly be bringing to the table but Devin seems content, Asher does not understand why.

OCCUPATION: Student of Photography/Economics Night school

CHARACTER: i feel like Asher needs two separate character descriptions since he’s living in extreme circumstances that have greatly changed his characteristics over the course of a year or two, but i’m sticking with Asher today, just know that he used to be happy, carefree, outgoing, a huge charmer, even a flirt, remnants of some of these more positive traits can still be found if you catch him in the right moment.. and then there’s the things he mostly pretends to be that don’t really belong there either, but i guess that shows how others perceive him

mean | snobbish | intelligent | dedicated | disciplined | hard working | gloomy | moody | prone to breakdowns & panic attacks | snippy | judgmental | cocky | angry | volatile | creative | a good eye for aesthetics | charming if needed | standoffish | pushes people away by being deliberately cruel | generous | righteous | pacifist | caring | puts other’s safety before his own to extreme measures, self-sacrificing | puts others first in general | detail oriented | meticulous | fussy | spoiled | controlled when he has to be | overtly loving & affectionate when possible | excitable | goes to extremes in anything | quick & easy liar | hedonist | tense | intense | stands up for others in threatening or unjust situations | thoughtful | pathologically vigilant, paranoid & distrustful | enduring | ambitious | careful | cynical | unboastful | on a dnd alignment scale i would actually put him on either lawful or chaotic good, he wants to do the morally right thing in all situations | guilt riddled & self-punishing | loyal | devoted | confident

ABILITIES: His father’s irrevocable antiquated notion of how a person of his status has to be educated resulted in a flashflood of tutors from the moment Asher was capable of learning things, involving classical music, several languages, riding, sailing, debating and the more exceptional choices of self-defense through various ways including knife and gun handling, owed to his father’s choice of a rather dangerous lifestyle. The only ability that grew out of his own interests is anything regarding photography. He also has the uncanny ability to switch personas in an instant, he can go from cold asshole to so charming that it puts others at ease, to collected proud superior son in a second, depending on what is needed, these different modes are crucial for his survival.

INTERESTS: Art | Music | Culture | Traveling | Minor Drug-use | a budding interest in manga, anime and video games of all things, thanks to Devin

APPEARANCE: Groomed snobby rich boy that looks down on you. Black hair, pale blue eyes, 6′0″ tall, lean. Judging by his clothes alone obviously wealthy. Mostly somewhat sophisticated with lots of dress shirts and classy cuts. A serious young man! Contrasted by more relaxed clothing choices in his personal space. Mostly black & darker colors. Tattoo of a dead raven on the inside of his right underarm, he hides it in front of his father who hates it. Unquestionably a pretty boy™ but Asher has grown to detest his looks, avoiding mirrors or photographs. He looks too much like his father. Has dimples if he smiles brightly but nobody gets to see them anymore.

PLOTPOINTS: The most entertaining way to start the story is probably through Devin’s POV, and then explaining Asher’s behavior with his life story. Very quickly: Devin, moving to his father to visit the art school in an nearby town, is searching for a new therapist he had been visiting for social anxiety, through a work connection his father organizes an appointment with an prestigious therapist before the schoolyear starts. He gets curious about this well dressed tense looking guy he sometimes meets in the waiting room, and starts to hope to see him more often, but never manages to work up the courage to say anything, till one day the guy storms in mid breakdown to interrupt Devin’s session and demands that the therapist had to see him immediately. Devin uses the opportunity to get his attention for once and earn some bonus points, graciously offering him his session. He even gets a thanks later when they meet at the pharmacy, so he’s happy, and hopelessly crushing on this dude. With help of his sister he figures out that the guy is actually local celebrity, billionaire son Asher, that just happens to visit the very same art school Devin will be visiting soon. So Devin very much looks forward to that and spends lots of time daydreaming about getting together with Asher, who actually kinda seems pleasantly surprised to see him again in the school setting. Asher is distant, but friendly at first, and thanks to Asher’s  friend May who is welcoming and inviting in Asher’s stead, Devin somehow luckily gets roped up into the group that sometimes hangs out with Asher, with him graciously paying for any expenses. Devin manages to overlook Asher’s more unpleasant sides, willfully focusing on the good stuff instead, not wanting to give up on his little fantasy just yet, with Asher warning that he would and should come to hate him eventually. What follows is a wild up and down of Asher either being sweet or an complete asshole and Devin being thoroughly confused yet intrigued, the guy is obviously troubled, often leaving class early in a panic or not showing up at all and generally looking like a nervous mess on some days, which just makes Devin want to get behind the reason for everything. On one of the sweeter nights he manages to get a kiss out of Asher, only for him to show his cruelest behavior yet the following days, either ignoring him completely or reacting aggressively.  [Cue Asher’s Story:]

Born in a cozy coast town to a filthy rich family. | Firstborn son therefore in his old-fashioned madman of a father’s brain his legitimate heir, instead of his two years older daughter (lucky her tho) | Father puts every breath of his being into grooming Asher to be his successor, which includes high pressure, expectations and next to no free time from an early age. No failure allowed. Knowing nothing but this high pressure environment Asher just complies and honestly somewhat enjoys putting maximum effort into things to please his father and his own ego. | Somewhat sheltered upbringing due to wealth & little free-time | Easy time in private elementary school where a lot of pre-existing effort lets him relax a little more. He makes a row of superficial friends, but still spends most of his time studying, only socializing when socially expected. | Still very success-oriented in high school, but learns to relax a little more around newly made friends of less stressful backgrounds. | Gradually without really realizing when it began ends up in a relationship with lower upper class boy Adam, they later discuss and decide they started dating somewhere around age 15. | The relationship is accepted and free-time allowed as long as Asher continues to perform exceptionally well in everything. | Both boys share their love for art, while Asher starts getting interested in photography, Adam focuses on painting, both inspired by and potentially aiming to later visit the prestigious art school in their hometown | The twins are born! Asher is instantly smitten with the little creatures and proceeds to be a loving brother | Asher’s father starts to take him to business meetings and other professional settings as insight into his later life as his father’s successor. | Asher, most likely not unaffected by his wealth & prominence of his family, has some successful exhibitions of his photographs and gains a small amount of recognition in the art world. He decides to pursue the profession full-time in the future, not entirely revealing the decision to his father just yet, who lets him play around with his hobby as long as he brings home achievements in that area as well | goes into prolonged discussions with his father regarding his wish to study photography, who eventually caves under the condition of Asher simultaneously visiting business classes on weekends or in the evening | Both Asher and Adam get admitted to the art school (it needs a fancy name i just dont have one yet) and study there after their graduation from high school | The meetings Asher’s father brings him to start to kinda rub Asher the wrong way, as some criminal elements get revealed, his father’s comment being that it was time for him to learn about these essential things as well. Asher is morally appalled, but has not even begun to realize the extent of his father’s criminal activities, to which he begins to introduce him more and more in the following years. | Asher eventually fully understands that his father is head of a self-built mafia-like organization that seems to reach most of America in some way, and that that is the true succession his father is grooming him for. While Asher might be able to agree with some of these duties, he soon realizes that most of what his father is expecting him to do from now on are things Asher is not willing to do under any circumstances, like brutally punishing people for offenses against the family in varying ways, that Ashers father insists on carrying out personally to further his ruthless reputation and control over his underlings, partners or rivals. | For the first time in his life he fails to meet his father’s expectations and actively goes against orders which results in his father pressuring him in any way he can. When Adam suddenly disappears without a trace when Asher is 18 he immediately has the uneasy feeling that his father was involved, he did not however anticipate his father actually truly murdering his son’s boyfriend to set an example of what happens when Asher disobeys. | Asher has a complete breakdown, spends some time at a mental health facility, and comes to the decision to tell everything to the police, only to have them call his father and have him pick him up. Further tries to tell any authority about what happened end in similar ways, his father seemingly having control over everything or always being one step ahead. Eventually he threatens Asher that if he continues, he would have him convicted of Adam’s murder, having plenty of psychiatrists to falsely attest to his guilt. Asher refrains from trying to out his father, half because he was scared of the consequences, half because if he truly would go to prison - which at this point did not eve sound bad to him - his father would most likely just shift his attention to his younger brother instead, which ends up as the main intervention to Asher being able to escape the situation in any way. | From now on Asher spends his time terrified and traumatized, trying his best to please his father in ways that do not include physically harming other people. At the same time he starts violently pushing every friend or acquaintance away, to make sure his father would not find another person to use as motivator and punishment. May being the only remnant of his former friend group that refuses to leave his side despite him lashing out against her here and there in hopes for her to finally get it and leave him alone. | A year later there’s this black guy about his age that apparently has the same therapist and ends up in the same class at school and is genuinely nice to him without asking for something in return which hasn’t happened in a while and feels so nice he forgets himself and gets carried away, being nice right back, and unfortunately can’t help himself having lapses in his self-control towards this guy over and over again, cause he’s just so kind and warm and welcoming, and it feels so so nice, but instantly regretting it as Devin gets clingier and bolder, but still not being able to stop entirely, till he stupidly kisses him one night and immediately has nightmares of his father murdering Devin, which allows him to draw the line and finally be as repulsive towards the guy as he should have been from the beginning. I have various potential scenarios in mind for the following  but they mostly go like this: Devin, trying to figure out why Asher is like THAT, learns about his long-time boyfriend disappearing last year and never being found, with the police claiming there were signs of him just running away to a bigger city, but Asher and Adam’s family believing that something must have happened to him. He deduces that Asher has developed a massive fear of abandonment (which in a way is true but way understated) which is why he keeps pushing him away when he gets too close. When he confronts Asher he just gets furious at the mention of Adam and eventually gets so worked up that he starts talking about Devin not understanding ANYTHING and that he has no idea in what kind of situation he could end up in when he sticks too close and that he should just fuck off, but Devin naturally just picks up on the weird shit and Asher sounding increasingly scared, so he keeps poking at the topic till Asher finally breaks down and tells him that his father is basically a sociopathic criminal mass-murderer and being Asher’s friend let alone boyfriend paints a big fucking target, and then he just ends up having to explain the entire situation in hope that Devin learns and just stays quiet but most of all stays the fuck away. Long story short: he doesn’t. He vows not to leave Asher alone with this any longer, and now that he knows that Asher actually likes him there’s no way he would stay away anyways. Asher still very much tries to convince the other one to leave him be, but to no avail. The rest is them finding an arrangement that works out with lots of secrecy and sneaking around and pretending to not even know each other (more or less successful), Asher panicking a lot, and dealing with a shitton of guilt, but kinda learning to live again and not just function miserably, and them trying to find a solution to Asher’s problem that does not involve people potentially dying, and Asher just dreading the next time his father calls him in and what he might expect him to do then. I have more plot points planned out but i’m just gonna keep them for myself for now. 😋

BONUS INFO: First i gotta say Asher is very much a character i created to cope with stuff when i was feeling really fucking low last fall. I made a character that’s hanging on by a thread, because i was, so i could at least use these feelings for more lifelike daydreams and give them more of a purpose and direction. The initial idea that sparked the storyline was a person falling in love with a clearly unwise choice, which ended up being Devin crushing on the dude having a mental breakdown at the therapist’s office (genius boy). Somewhere along the line the main character shifted to Asher because of the aforementioned reasons. Devin’s POV is probably really more entertaining though, since he gets to unfold all the mysteries that Asher is keeping from him. Inspirations? Uhm, i guess Life is Strange (a mixture of Nathan & the Prof, and the art school setting), the general John Wick world and Veronica’s family in Riverdale, god also laurel’s family in htgawm

Who Wants to Meet My OCs? (Part 3a – Glitches Originals)

Look at me, following my plan and actually having the next part of this series posted on a Sunday! Whoot!

As I have mentioned before, I've wanted to do this series since November, so I'm excited I'm able to actually follow through with it finally. If you're just getting into this series, the long-and-short of it is that I want to introduce you fine people with all of my main OCs. They will each get their own Sunday bio post to introduce them individually, but in the meantime, I wanted to give insight on how I came up with them.

In Part 1, I had given a broad overview of the whole Meet My OCs series, as well as some generic IRL background to the inspiration and creation of my two main worlds:

Gyateara

Glitches

In Part 2, I talked specifically about the IRL inspiration for my main Gyateara OCs:

Amara Yori 

Natalie [Last Name TBD] 

Connor [Last Name TBD] 

Jolene Crisslebalm

Now, in this third part for the series, it's time to talk about my IRL inspiration and creation for my Glitches OCs. This list of characters is MUCH longer than what I have for Gyateara, so this may take a bit. In fact, there were so many characters - this post was 9 pages in Word - I had to split up this part into two more parts. So this first part (3a) focuses mostly on the Original Characters that are characters from the role play game X-Future. The next part (3b) - which will be published in a few minutes - will focus on the characters that started off as X-Men canonical characters, and how I reworked them into originals.

If any of this sounds interesting to you, feel free to keep reading below the break. If you'd rather just skip on ahead to the character bios themselves, my first one should be up next Sunday.

First, I should probably explain how characters are supposed to be formed in the game that birthed Glitches. As I mentioned in Part 1, Glitches started its life as an X-Men role play on a message board/internet forum in a Play-By-Post style. The role play game is called X-Future, and I loved the story we were telling so much that I wanted to re-tell it to the world. However, the more I build Glitches, and the more I try to make the story an original work, the more I realize that only a small portion of the characters and overall role played plot can truly transition over.

Regardless, the way characters are created for X-Future is as follows:

My husband has a lineage chart set up on the forum. There are two lists of available X-Men comic book canonical characters: list of usually male and usually female characters. I say “usually” because there are characters like Mystique, who is usually recognized as a female character, but is technically gender fluid, and has had long canonical runs as a male character.

The players get to choose ONE of the listed characters; therefore choosing either their character's father or mother. This allows the players to have a connection to at least one canonical character of their choice, and/or the potential for a power set they'd like to have for their character.

Hubby then rolls on the other chart to determine the other parent. Therefore, if a player chooses a female character for their parent, Hubby rolls on the male list to find the OC's father. There is also a “Sinister Shenanigans” option where the X-Men character Mr. Sinister created you as a clone of two mutants, in which case your “parents” could be both male or both female as well as the standard “a male and a female.” There is also a chance – again using Mystique as an example – for your character to have “same-sex” parents biologically, since Mystique could also be someone's “father.”

Once parentage is figured out – and Hubby posts the second biological parent on the boards – he then rolls on another chart to determine the character's power set. He does this because it keeps the players on their toes, evolution is weird, and real life is random, so why can't games be? Options he uses for a character's powers include:  --> Character inherits powers from both parents in equal amounts  --> Character inherits powers from both parents, but favors the father's powers with only hints of the mother's powers  --> Character inherits powers from both parents, but favors the mother's powers with only hints of the father's powers   --> Character inherits a variant of both parents' powers  --> Character's powers are a mesh of both parents' powers (for instance, a fire manipulator and a rock manipulator could produce a lava manipulator)   --> Character inherits father's powers  --> Character inherits mother's powers  --> Character inherits a variant of father's powers  --> Character inherits a variant of mother's powers  --> Character inherits neither parents' powers, and instead forms their own powers (I think that's all of the options he uses...)

Once Hubby figures out the mutation the character has, he posts it on the boards. After that, the player then gets (mostly) free rein to create their character. Some other restrictions include the starting age of the character being high-school-age unless special permission was given, the backstory of the character must not counter other character's backstories or the already established history of our Marvel continuity, the character has to be an Xavier Institute student or Brotherhood of Mutants member, and Hubby needs to double check character profiles for any potential issues before they can be posted. (It's rare that Hubby doesn't approve of the profile)

So, those are the basic 5-easy-steps to creating an X-Future character, which comes into play with 2 of the characters I'll introduce today. Speaking of, let’s get to them, huh?

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Chayse LeBeau [Last Name to be Changed]

Ironically, I'm going to start off with a character that isn't mine. Chayse is my husband's character, but he gave me full permission to use him in Glitches. Mostly because he trusts my treatment of his character – most of my Miraculous Ladybug readers will tell you I'm very good at keeping characters True-to-Canon – and because Hubby knows that I'll probably talk about nearly every single one of Chayse's lines and actions with him, just to make sure I'm keeping him in character.

Chayse, being my husband's character, was the first character ever made for X-Future. Hubby's favorite X-Men of all time is Remy “Gambit” LeBeau, so naturally Hubby chose him as Chayse's father. When Hubby rolled onto Kitty “Shadowcat” Pryde as Chayse's mother, we had to do some quick continuity work to figure out HOW that relationship happened. We are HARD CORE Gambit/Rogue shippers. They are by FAR our OTP (with Shadowcat/Colossus as a close second). If Gambit was with anyone other than Rogue, we needed a reason for Rogue to not be in the picture; not a possibility at all. Hubby created an event called The Reaping where Professor Charles Xavier, Jean Grey, Magneto, Mastermind, and Rogue all die in battle. There may have been some other casualties, but those are the main ones I remember...

Anyway, once we realized Rogue had to be dead for Gambit to be with anyone else significantly enough to have a kid with them, we then went back to “X-Men: Evolution”; the show that inspired Hubby to create X-Future. In the TV series, Kitty and Rogue were besties, and so Hubby and I decided that Kitty and Gambit were comforting each other in their grief over losing Rogue. That grew into a tight friendship, and eventually a romance blossomed. The two got married, and Chayse was born.

Chayse is basically my husband without the anxiety and terrible knees. If Hubby could be as athletic and outgoing as he wished he could be, he'd be Chayse.

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Amelia “Lia” Mordeaux [Last Name Still Workshopping]

Lia was my first-ever character for X-Future. Since Rogue is clearly my favorite X-Men – I mean... check the handle and icon – I really wanted to chose her as my character's parent. However, after Hubby and I jointly determined that Rogue had been dead for nearly two decades, I struggled to figure out who else to choose. So many different power sets and great characters. However, in the end I ended up going with Amara “Magma” Aquilla. I am a bit of a fire freak – something that will come up later – so the idea of my character being able to manipulate magma seemed fun to try. In truth, though, the deciding factor – aside from how adorable Magma was in “X-Men: Evolution” - is the fact that her name is Amara.... like my Gyateara character; my oldest OC.

Rolling on the chart, Hubby landed on Jamie “Multiple Man” Madrox. Based on the personality we saw in “X-Men: Evolution,” and ignoring that poor Jamie was only about 12 or 13 when depicted on the show, I lamented at how “lame” Lia's father was going to be. In the end, I did sprinkle in a touch of the badassness Jamie showcases in the comics, as well as whenever he's shown – usually as a villain *sigh* - in the cartoons. However, he's still LARGELY a nerd still for X-Future, and became a bit of a neurotic helicopter parent.

Lia ended up with her mother's powers exactly. The only difference is that instead of just a magma form, Lia encases herself within obsidian skin. I even designed her to look like Amara did in Evolution, with the straight brown hair and Brazilian skin. (It was easier for Evolution to just have Amara be Brazilian than trying to explain the existence of Neo Roma within the Brazilian rain forest so she could remain White with blonde hair and blue eyes) Lia being basically a carbon-copy of her mother – something I headcanon as Jamie's duplication DNA accidentally turning Amara's egg into a clone of her – meant my next struggle was trying to figure out why Lia was at the Xavier Institute. I didn't want her to have been raised there, but why couldn't Amara just train her daughter on how to control identical powers?

In the end, I decided that Amara has to go. Hubby and I came up with a mission where Amara went MIA. She is perceived dead, but isn't confirmed dead, along with Storm, who went missing on a similar mission a few years prior. Without his wife to help train their daughter, and having NO CLUE how to handle a 14yo blowing up his yard with geysers, Jamie sent Lia to the Institute, and promptly signed up as a faculty member so he could still be close to and keep an eye on his daughter: the last family he has left, and a reminder of his wife.

For Glitches, I did end up shifting Lia's race to Hawaiian (Polynesian? Should I specify?). Having her be part Native Hawaiian just felt more fitting with the lava-focused powers. Yes, there are volcanoes in Brazil, there is also one in Washington state. Still, you wouldn't necessarily equate Washington state with lava as much as you would equate lava with Hawaii.

Lia was SUPPOSED to be my naive rebel; a 14yo who was getting her first taste of freedom at the Institute. She was going to wear less-conservative outfits, be flirty, and maybe break a few rules: curfew, being in the guys' wing of the dorms, skipping a class or two, etc. She even started off like that... for about a game session or two. She instantly fell into her main personality though: reserved, shy, maternal, and unsure of herself. While I do love this character and who she is, she also wasn't who I initially wanted to play. Enter: Willow.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Willow Driver

Originally, we had about a dozen players, which was fantastic. However, Hubby still wanted to “fill out” the school. He wanted a few NPC students the players could interact with when the other players weren't available. He had a small list of NPCs, some of which will make their way to Glitches as background characters. On this list was Willow. Hubby actually created her, designed her, and was all set to role play as her. Then we got to talking about how I loved Lia, but was a bit disappointed that she didn't turn out the character I was aiming for. Hubby knew that Willow was indeed much more like who I wanted to play, so he passed her over to me.

Soon enough, Willow went from an NPC I ran to my secondary character. Since she was the character I wanted to play the whole time, she quickly surpassed poor Lia as my preferred character. In fact, a lot of my “companion stories” that I have written for X-Future center around Willow. Specifically, Willow and my friend Ronoxym's character Devon. They have a.... complicated relationship. Willow is just a much more fun character to write. She's playful, manipulative, unsure, confident, loyal... she's just a walking ball of contradictions as she's trying to figure herself out.

If Chayse is who Hubby wishes he could be, then Willow is me with virtually no inhibitions. She's my playfulness, my confidence, my lust, my impulsiveness, my spontaneity, and the athletic prowess I wish I had.

In contrast, Lia is basically everything keeping me from being Willow: my caution, my fear of disappointing my parents (both the one who passed and the one who raised me), my maternal instincts, my reservations, my critical thinking, my constant knowledge of potential consequences, and my insecurity that I'm ever going to be the best version of myself.

There's one more side of me though. That's where Trish comes in.

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Patricia “Trish” Morrison

Trish did NOT turn out remotely close to who she was in my head. Heck, she even refused to be properly formed while I still was picturing her in her first incarnation. Trish truly did create herself.

Remember my friend Ronoxym's character Devon I mentioned a few paragraphs up? Well, he's the son of two Brotherhood of Mutants characters. In other words, he's the son of villains. He was orphaned as an infant, and when he was a teen at the Xavier Institute he ran into his father Pyro. The man suspected that Devon could be his long-lost son, and hinted that if Devon joined the Brotherhood then Pyro could help Devon figure out who he was. Devon eventually took the bait, and left to join the Brotherhood and discover who his parents were.

At the time, The Brotherhood was just made up of the Marvel canon characters; no one there for Ron to role play against aside from NPCs. I decided to create Trish so he would have a player character to role play off of. Originally, Trish was supposed to be a potential love interest for him.

Trish.... was not a fan. I actually had mental images of Trish gagging at the thought of her destined romance with Devon. Even when I tried picturing her flirting with Devon for the sole purpose of getting close enough to stab him or slit his throat: a sort of Black Widow character. She still gagged and REFUSED to let me have her show Devon anything other than disdain. He became her number 1 rival; her arch nemesis. She was actually in love with Pyro, and hated that Pyro's attention was now torn between her and his long-lost son. Her goal in life, aside from making Pyro fall in love with her; age be damned, was to murder Devon.

She then became more psychotic the more I wrote her. She has the power to create fire, and is completely fireproof herself. She loved playing with her fire, and became a pyrophile; getting highly aroused around flame. She had the stereotypical serial killer childhood of fulfilling her early bloodlust by torturing and killing animals. When she got caught by her twin sister, and her parents threatened to call the Mutant Police to collect her, Trish burnt everyone alive in their family home. She then lived on the streets, killing anyone who got in her way of survival. Eventually, she got taken in by The Brotherhood and Pyro, where her murderous tendencies were aimed at anti-mutant groups like The Purifiers.

If each of my main X-Future/Glitches characters (jointly named simply My Girls) is a part of my personality, then Trish is my anger, my love of fire, my dark desire to be an arson (ya know, if it didn't cause terrible destruction and harm), my ability to hold grudges, and my aggression. I wanted her to be fairly on-par with Azula from “Avatar: The Last Airbender,” but with her manic end-game personality making more of an appearance. I wanted her to be like Minatsuki Takami from “Deadman Wonderland”, or Tanya Degurechaff from “The Saga of Tanya the Evil.” In other words: tiny and unassuming, but terrifying and intimidating if her true self is ever seen.

I don't know if I never played her correctly, or if Ron just couldn't picture a character I run as THAT intimidating, because Devon was always quite unfazed by Trish and her threats...

EDIT: Holy smokes! How did I completely forget that Trish has theme music!? The main reason Trish is yet ANOTHER fire user, when we already have so many in X-Future, is because of her theme song. See, I was fairly obsessed with Fall Out Boy’s song “My Songs Know What You Did In The Dark (Light Em Up)” when it first came out. I would spend days just listening to it and “Radioactive” by Imagine Dragons on repeat.

One day I was rocking out to MSKWYDITD for probably the 4th time in a row or something, and I lamented Lia being so mild mannered. I would have loved to have had a chaotic fire user that would follow the destructive high energy I felt whenever I heard that song. Someone who would as much fun as those women in the music video. I mean, just watch them. I wanted a character with their energy and vibe: 

I wanted another fire user, and Devon had JUST defected to The Brotherhood on X-Future, so I figured it would be perfect to make that more chaotic fire user as a Brotherhood member. THAT was when I figured “She could be a good foil for Devon; two fire users, one more chaotic than the other”... and THAT was when Trish went “Fire yes; Devon fuck no!”

I haven’t been able to control her since...

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So, there you have it, the truly original characters that make up the core cast of Glitches. Next up, as in a few minutes, will be the adult cast of my story: the characters reworked from their X-Men canonical origins. Stay tuned!

Welcome to our second tutorial post about LiveJournal, the site where you can find out why people ship that ship, enjoy great art of ages past and great art of not so long ago, learn to write lousy smut, and more.

So let’s say you’ve found some inspired artwork on nekid-spike and you want to thank the artist for giving the world a chocolate Spike. Or you’ve read the latest adorable Cangel ficlet on sunnydalescribe, and you’d like to tell the author how you feel. Or maybe you’re interested in a fandom event, and the announcement post says, “Sign up below.” It’s time for...

[gif by nojillnolife]

Comments. It’s time for comments. And a couple of other things you can do with entries.

LIVEJOURNAL FOR SCOOBIES #2: COMMENTS

There isn’t much you really need to know in order to comment on an LJ entry. :) There is a bunch of minor details you might want to know about, though. This post starts with the basics and gets more obscure as it goes on -- see which parts are useful to you today.

TL;DR:

the comment button is down below some ads; 

“reply” is for replying to a specific comment;

if the URL doesn’t end with “html”, you’re probably in a comment thread.

Where’s the comment button?

To comment, click “Leave a Comment” or “Post a New Comment”.

If you’re looking at an opened entry and you don’t see a “Post a New Comment” button, scroll down past ads until you do (see screenshot 10, which is the first of this week’s screenshots).

If you’ve scrolled and there isn’t a “Post a New Comment” button, but you see some other buttons with weird labels, you can put a checkmark in “Readability” in the top right corner of the window and then look again.

If there is no commenting button at all, maybe the author has disabled comments for the entry.

What are my options when composing a comment?

In the comment form, you have some formatting options (screenshot 11). [Edit: I was wrong in the screenshot annotation, it’s perfectly possible to do all the same things in the desktop version of LiveJournal.]

When you’re done, you can preview the comment (screenshot 11).

You CAN make a new post in your journal based on the comment, but this might only be useful in rare, specific cases. It looks like in screenshot 12.

What happens right after I comment?

You’re redirected to the comment that you just created. The URL changes. Entry URLs end with “html”. Comment URLs contain “thread”.

Pro tip: don’t hit the back button after you post the comment. LJ will duplicate the comment if you do. Use other navigation options instead, like clicking the journal name to return to the recent entries feed.

If you want to bookmark or copy a link to the whole entry after you’ve posted a comment, check you’re not taking the comment link instead of the entry link. The entry link should end with “html”.

How to reply to a comment?

To reply to a comment, click “Reply”. To reply to the whole entry, click “Post a New Comment”.

Do I need a LiveJournal account to comment?

Generally not! Depending on the privacy settings of the journal/community, you might be able to comment anonymously. If not, you can authenticate with Facebook, Twitter, Google, OpenID, and a couple of Russian sites, as alternatives to LiveJournal login.

How to link to a comment?

To get a link to a specific comment thread, click the date/time at the top of a comment. See screenshot 13.

How do screened comments work?

People can choose to screen all comments or anonymous comments in their journals/communities, and to screen individual comments. Screened comments are hidden from everyone except the entry author and community mods. They look greyed out to those who see them, and they can be unscreened (made visible) by clicking an eye icon.

What do all those tiny icons do?

In the mobile LiveJournal site, there are a lot of purely visual buttons on comments, and to find out for sure what they do, you pretty much have to tap them blindly and risk blocking your friends.

I did it so you don’t have to.

...Later, I noticed you can hover over them in the desktop version and see what they’re called. See screenshot 14 to learn everything I learned.

Who gets notifications about comments?

If you Post a New Comment, the entry author gets a notification.

If you reply to a comment, both the entry author and the comment author do.

You can choose to receive notifications about all comments to someone else’s entry by clicking the “track” icon at the top of that entry (blue pin icon). You can also choose to track a comment thread by hovering over the date/time of the comment and clicking the blue pin icon when it appears.

Can I “like” an entry?

Sure! That’s the heart button right under the entry text. This feature is new, and I think most LiveJournal post authors will prefer a comment, but if you’re not feeling up to commenting, this is a quick way of giving a little friendly nudge.

Where can I share an entry?

Automatically? Facebook and Twitter, pretty much. You can also have an embed code. The sharing icon is green, and it’s in the row of icons above an entry.

You can “repost” any public entry to your journal by selecting the LiveJournal sharing option. This will instantly repost it in your journal exactly as it is, and will add an icon and a text on your end saying “reposted”. NOTE. This is a recent feature, and a lot of people don’t like if their entries are reposted, so it’s always a good idea to ask first!

What else can I do with someone’s entry?

Add to your memories (orange ribbon icon at the top of the entry).

Track: get notifications when someone comments on it (blue pin icon).

Where can I get more help with LJ commenting?

Try this set of LiveJournal FAQs. If that doesn’t help, feel free to ask. :)

Next week’s post will be about communities! Eventually, the whole post series will be here.

Top 10 Myths vs. Facts about Arthritis

Top 10 Myths vs. Facts about Arthritis

Thursday, January 17, 2019

Intro

Arthritis is the most common cause of disability in the United States. It affects 23% of the working population, almost 54 million people. And let's don't talk about the elderly population!

Everyone know arthritis exists, its unavoidable. But not many people know what it is or even acknowledge its existence in a regular way.

I was diagnosed with Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis when I was just 13 years old. It was a very traumatic experience for an awkward preteen like me. Not only did I have to deal with the regular dose of cringiness that comes with high school drama, puberty and the discovery of Tumblr, but also this strange condition that I would have not thought of having in a million years was right there, standing at my door like that uninvited neighbour that will sit on your couch, expect to pamper and you just sit there waiting for them to leave.

Only that arthritis never left my side: it was there all day, every day, every single day for the last 6 years.

A short way of putting it, arthritis translates to "joint inflammation", and it is a symptom. You heard me right: arthritis is medically defined as a symptom. It is usually caused by an illness you currently have or had, but it could also present itself independently as a disorder.

In that case, arthritis is any disorder that affects the joints. Joints, being the area where two bones meet, are under constant friction when moved around. The joint capsule (joint sac)and synovium (joint liquid that lubricates the joints) can swell, causing stinging pain, visible swelling and pain, overall stiffness, redness, and limited mobility. It may also result in long term partial or generalized bone loss/ erosion and/ or cartilage loss. The best way I could describe it is having your knees be injected with jelly (ew) and the jelly squeezing your knee into itself everytime you want to get out of bed in the morning, or go up the stairs, or rush to that history class because you are late again.

An article by Social Science & Medicine explains that the characteristics of this disorder and what treatment is most appropriate to use really depends a lot of the time length since diagnosis- aka how long you had the disease-, the socio-economic and social background of the patient and the relationship between the patient and their disorder.

But why does it happen in the first place? As said, it could be another disease entirely isolated from your joints. But no one really knows why this disorder occurs to this day. Some suspect it is caused by genetics, environmental factors, stress, or none of them. No origin, no clear way to get rid of it, simple.

Being a teen with arthritis ain't easy, let's be real. I had to quickly learn how to survive my daily shenanigans as both a maturing, growing woman and handle my joint inflammation all at the same time. It was always confusing for others to realize that I had a medical condition that asked me for extra help every now and then. They also struggled to know what to know, how to react and what to expect. That's perfectly normal, but don't worry I gotcha.

Warning: I am not saying you do any of these nasties, but if you do or know someone who does, make you so send them this for some lovely PEP.

Links below :)

And now, without further ado, here we go Top 10 Myths vs. Facts about Arthritis!

Myth 1: Only old people get arthritis

When people think about arthritis, the first thing that comes to mind is probably your grandparents trying just a little harder to get out of their chairs. It has something to do with their joints, right? And most likely will never get better with time.

Telling people I have arthritis is like dropping an elephant right at their brains, and I can never know what their next move will be. Most of the time, they are shocked, surprised someone so young could carry such an elderly condition.

“Are you kidding?” “That is not funny” “Oh, interesting: you ARE serious”

It's understandable that human curiosity gets in the way of what is coming out of your mouth dear friend. But no, I do not appreciate you looking at me like a circus attraction, look at my knees in an awkward way or just stare into the sky asking the aliens maybe for more things to ask.

Instead, do like when there's fire: stop, drop, roll on the ground back and forth. Maybe not the last two but you get the point. Hold your queries train and be respectful at all costs. We could happily answer your questions without needing to feel attacked and you ignored. We do not owe you an answer, but place yourself in our shoes first beforehand, please!

Fact 1: All walks of life can get arthritis.

There is no scientific evidence that shows a correlation between arthritis incidence and age or sex. The only thing for sure is that osteoarthritis is most common in the elderly (age thee, folks), while other disorders like lupus are more common in young adults and teens (hint: me!).

That's the truth people: there is no such thing as a person that “looks” like they have arthritis. People with arthritis are big and small, tall, medium or short, old or young, fat or thin, thick or slim, work full time, study or not work at all. People with arthritis come from so many places, have different races, colours, hair and body types, religions, lifestyles, families, relationships, places they live in, places to go and places they won't go. People with arthritis can be disabled in other things, visually impaired, mentally challenged or ill, be missing a limb, be blind or deaf or have speech impediments. They have tattoos, some like to dance, paint and sing, others like reading books, watch movies or go outside. Some like pineapple on pizza, some don't (don't set this blog on fire people: make pizza, not war). Some chose conventional medicine, some chose alternatives or none at all. Just like you and me, there are so many types of people in this world, and some of the people you already know and admire are probably going through a rheumatic struggle right now and you never noticed. Arthritis has no shape, no stereotypical mould we follow. Isn't it amazing?

Myth 2: It's a disease.

Words have a lot of meaning, and for this reason, one must choose very carefully about how to talk about someone else's health, especially if you do not know them or what they go through.

Words like “sick”, “troubled”, or “ill” are incorrectly used to refer to arthritis. Sure, I am not going to stand up and run a mile as effectively as the nearest person, but that doesn't you the right to make me feel any less healthy, inferior or weak.

Criticizing my lifestyle and wellbeing choices, how I chose to medicate myself or whether or not I will try these ancient magical fairy dust your family kept buried in their backyard for generations is irrelevant, just like you judging my outfit today. My taste is exquisite, thanks.

So, if you feel inclined to stick your nose into people's property, think about how it would feel if someone had strong opinions about your daily choices. Because living with arthritis is that: daily choices we make to get by, just like anyone else.

Fact 2: It's a medical symptom or disorder.

Yeah, it's true. Not so exciting anymore, right?

The National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIH) defines arthritis as the symptom of joint inflammation, usually a symptom of something else but can also be a diagnosis of its own. It is also defined as a diagnosis of its own that affects the joins. Arthritis can cause joint swelling and pain, overall stiffness and limited mobility, redness and may result in long term partial or generalized bone loss/ erosion and/ or cartilage loss. This is because the joint capsule (joint sac)and synovium (joint liquid that lubricates joints) swell, causing a stinging pain.

So yeah, not a disease. Symptom or disorder it's just fine to thank you.

With that information in mind, maybe you can stop worrying about my business and start focusing on your next time.

Myth 3: There is only one type of arthritis.

Arthritis is an umbrella term to refer to any inflammation of one or more joints. That's it. But that doesn't mean things cannot get a little complicated or confusing.

There are many kinds of arthritis: spondylitis, gout, rheumatoid arthritis, juvenile idiopathic arthritis, reactive arthritis, psoriatic arthritis, osteoarthritis, etc. The list goes on.

The American Rheumatism Association (ARA) determined the criteria for rheumatoid arthritis diagnosis in 1956. The criteria were established by 5 committee members after studying 332 cases in 19 American cities. There are 11 original diagnose criteria to this day (links below!). There are three main possible diagnoses:

       ○ Definite: at least 7 criteria and 6 weeks of joint symptoms

       ○ Probable: at least 3 criteria and 6 weeks of joint symptoms

       ○ Possible: another set of criteria

The main indicator of an arthritic disorder is Rheumatoid factor (RF), which is basically the "good to go" lever that says with utmost medical evidence that you have arthritis. However, other indicators, treatments, and criteria are still sensitive, not specific, impractical and circular. Also, initial studies were mere surveys, misclassification ensued, incorrect tables and comparison squares were used to collect and analyze data, etc.

Over the last 60 years, medicine has developed a more uniform vocab, communication to allow for better comparison, teaching, diagnosis and awareness raising.

There are so many options! That's why we are everywhere, watching you. Have fun knowing that.

Fact 3: Rheumatisms are diverse and unique to all.

Even though arthritis might be looking more like a Wikipedia reference list right about now, it does not have to be ultra difficult to understand that rheumatic conditions like arthritis are incredibly varied and personalized to the patient's body.

Rheumatologists- aka joint doc- have a hard time finding cures and data and pills to give because of this reason. Remaining calm, doing your research on your type of arthritis and letting others know what it is and how they can help you is the best way to pull through!

Myth 4: We need help always.

I remember in high school and a few months in uni, I started calling myself grandma, and consequently, my friends did the same. I thought it was funny, laughing at myself and taking lightly something that I already had to deal with anyways. Plus, it matched my quiet (lie), caring demeanour (also lie lol).

A few weeks ago I realized that that may have been a mistake, as it makes others associate me with an old lady who constantly needs help: whether from doctors, my parents or family, my professors or my friends.

When you have limited mobility 24/7 and you are still a teen that heavily depends on your parents to drag you to your doctor- sometimes literally- give you your meds and scold you everytime you wish to do anything remotely fun, it can begin to build in your developing brain that fears of doing things that have nothing to do with your disease.

You fear to live your safe haven called home, loose that adventurous feeling to party hard and enjoy those sneaky teenage drinks and, deep down, fear for your plans of the future and how some of them might get chucked off your life forever just because you have a rheumatic disorder.

In high school, I used to hate myself for that. I hated myself and my body for not doing what I wanted them to do. To a point where I was delusional: I would tell myself that this was not my body, it could not be, my body couldn't be this weak and fragile. The boy was I wrong!

Also, don't get me started on how people think you are “faking it” because you want the attention and the extra benefits.

Sweetie, next time you (under highly mysterious circumstances) slip in my long list on how wrong you are and you roll down the stairs and break your ankle crying because you won't be able to go to Karen's party next week, call me. We will have some quality time together. Your petty butt, me, panadol and some good pep talk to hopefully make your brain work.

Truth 4: People with arthritis don't need help, always.

No one fakes being sick. No one is that insane, or persistent. Although things like stress and lack of care can worsen inflammation, no one is really faking the reality of the facts.

Sure, I do get help because I am disabled- yes, I am clinically allowed to use that term if I chose you, don't get triggered. That means I am allowed to take shorter queues in supermarkets, take special lifts, use the biggest bathroom stall. Thankfully, we live in a world were now electrical doors, ramps and tons of other aiding infrastructure is available for people like us and more :) Working, studying, medical, recreational, transport, industrial and domestic aid is stepping up its game on that area, and we haven't even talked about non material ways of help! (a new post!).

No friend. I do not need your help right now thank you. I appreciate you trying to bombard me with wonderful ideas on what I should or not do. I understand your concern and I am happy you are trying your hardest to help me. But maybe taking a chill pill and closing all those tabs, having a nice conversation and some tea is the best thing you can do right now.

I have the stuff to do, let's be real. We all do. I am a full-time student, but that doesn't mean I still don't have time to take care of myself and what my body needs. Years of experience have taught me a lot, and so will to you, dear arthritic friend. Things do get better :)

Myth 5: People with arthritis are lazy.

Now we travel to the other side of the spectrum:

“Well, at least you get to chill in bed when you want and get away with it! That sounds like fun to me!”

Yeah, if fun means having to attend blood tests, scans, doctors appointments, pill regimens, and regular checkups weekly, monthly or more in extreme circumstances. And being at home resting is no walk in the park either: you might need to get a higher shelf, you might struggle to fix your pill schedule, you might slip and die and no one will find your lying corpse (ok too much drama, I will calm down).

But yeah, you get the point. People with arthritis have the stuff to get done, sometimes double or triple more stuff that you have to get done on a daily basis. We are not lazy in any sort of way, but sometimes we do get overwhelmed and the need to chill for our own safety. Its normal, healthy and fun.

Fact 5: They are trying as hard as anyone else.

I am not lazy. Everyone that knows me knows I have absolutely zero chills. I enjoy working, shocker! I like learning, getting my stuff together, reading and doing all sorts of things. I also love taking care of my body, researching on how I can help it help me do the things I enjoy so much.

Yeah, I might need a little pushing around sometimes, but that is because of things I cannot control. My joints can have a crisis at any second, and you bet I will not roll on the supermarket floor in agony with my shopping bags when I can calmly proceed to the disabled people line and avoid everyone some trouble- including me.

So please, if you see someone not standing up for the old lady on the bus, do please find her another seat because I can't stand up right now. Work those legs and offer your own seat!

Myth 6: Their problem, my problem.

Living in a time where your private and virtual life constantly overlaps is exciting, but also means that what we perceive as private gets a little blurry.

Again, the whole fairy dust story. This time, a mist of sprinkles and cupcakes or pain and misery blinding you, not letting you perceive reality as it is. Yes, we are getting Neo up in here.

When you tell people you have arthritis, the immediate shock leads them to a very natural place: survival mode.

"You should try this or that!" "Have you considered this? It has Oprah's recommendation, so maybe it will work." "Maybe God is trying to tell you something, better get to work."

"You must be feeling/ perceiving/ doing/ acting/ treating yourself this way. It's the best way!"

There is no such thing as the best way. Scientifically speaking, there are so many ways to treat arthritis, and with all the criteria, surveys and medical information available, it is completely impossible to say to full certainty which of these treatments is actually the best. Maybe Oprah's works for her and some of her fans, but it may not work on my body, and that's ok too. I don't need to feel disappointed that I failed Oprah or anyone, or angry that my body did not react the way it was expected too. I have enough issues to work through already!

So before you aggressively google "how to cure arthritis asap", stop and think about other healthier ways you can vent your worries and actually help us with things we need every day.

Fact 6: Their business is their own.

Ok. This is it. This is the end. In the words of Freddy Mercury, "I don't want to dieeeee, Sometimes wish I'd never been born at all". *epic guitar solo*

You have Arthritis, the Big A. And you have to learn with it and fast, God knows for how long.

Formulating a plan of attack right now may not ease your inner emo right now, but don't sweat it.

Arthritis is no piece of cake, at least it will not be in at least a couple of years. You slowly build habits and coping mechanisms that make those creaky joints just a little better to grip.

So do not come to me with a Shakespearean monologue on how devastated I should be, how my life is over, or worse: how miserable you are for living the unimaginable tragedy of having a disabled buddy. What an incredibly sad event man! How brave of you! I will attend your funeral.

But dress code: facts!

Myth 7: They must be miserable or boring.

Unfortunately, as do other medical issues, arthritis falls under phenomena called invisible illness. These are like those angsty preteens always standing at a 45-degree pose in the school lockers: cold, mysterious, and most of the time unseen. No one bothered to understand them and preferred to go away and check their snapchats streaks as they scoot by.

Arthritis sounds dark and spooky, but I am not sad all the time because of that. Heck, I am sad that my toast gets burnt in the morning, not because I have a life-threatening condition that may or may not stay with me forever! Priorities, people.

I had a hot minute to consider what is important enough to worry about in life. It's part of growing and learning how to cope with this disorder.

So please do not remind me of how sad I must be feeling, or how disappointed my family and friends must be. I am no burden to them, no burden to me and no burden to you, lovely sir. Respect that.

Fact 7: We are fun and approachable.

The angsty teen could have never flowered into a beautiful butterfly goddess without the help of self-worth and friendship. Let's be friends! Let's go out, grab a coffee, talk about the latest gossip or Instagram challenge, watch a movie, a party (with moderation kids), talk in the phone, etc.

Arthritis is hard, and sometimes being open about it with other people your age can be challenging and a struggle. But maybe you can take the lead and show us how fun life can be. Who knows: maybe a lovely friendship will flower.

Myth 8: They must be ultra freaky about everything.

I might not be the most "normal" person in the world, but I am no freaking dinosaur, ok?

Yeah, I take pills, measure my temperature, cancel plans and then remake them because of crisis periods, sit down for a little longer than the average human, etc.

I am not weird or freaky. Sure, I enjoy indie and pokemon soundtracks, but that is aside of the point. We are not here for your entertainment or mean comments about our medical condition.  We do not appreciate being so rudely excluded just because you think you discovered the next cure for cancer or something when looking at us take paracetamol.

Truth 8:  Who wants to be, really?

Relax pal. You will continue your Black Mirror analysis of my life later.

We are just trying to get by. Mean looks or side glances will not help in that process. Get to know us a little better first before putting a magnifying glass at our faces!

Myth 9: They must take huge amounts of commercial medicine.

Warning: I am not your doctor. No degree, no genius, no Jesus. You have been warned.

This is a very touchy subject so bear with me. Whether we take commercial meds is our business. The most common treatments for arthritis are ibuprofen and paracetamol. These divas could be complemented or replaced with a million different treatments, like other medication, natural treatments, nutritional supplements, meditation and diets, surgery or biological agents. The list is literally endless.

How someone chooses to treat themselves is their or their caretaker's concern, not yours. Do not suggest a million treatments at once, you are just confusing us even more!

Commercial medicine is neither good or bad, as long as your doctor or specialist is aware you are taking them. Period. Debate over.

Fact 9: Not necessarily.

Look, guys, it's getting late and I am very lazy right now. I am not about to name and explain every single possible you could take or follow, and I am not going to tell you which is best. Life ain't fair.

Just follow the one you, your caretakers and your specialist see fit. You will have plenty of time to experiment in your own time.

Myth 10: They are all the same.

Short answer: NOOO!!!!

Done.

Fact 10: Shush and listen.

This post is already hella long so I will be short and sweet.

You have ears, use them. Perhaps they are attached to your brain, and your brain has wiggles called neurons, right?

Listen to us arthritis folk. You and we might be amazed by how hardworking, brave, happy, smart, funny, witty and overall badasses we can be if we stick together.

Like Troy Bolton said so gracefully, "this is the last time to get it right, it's now or never". To most of us, that is literally a fact. Enjoy life, what it gives you, what it doesn't and learn to listen.

Listen to your body, to your mind, to others and, most importantly, to yourself.

Aaaand that's all folks! I hope I did not roast you in a permanently bad way or made you feel sad or shocked. Thanks for dropping by and I will see you with future posts!

Links and comments below babies :)

Bye!

References

(1) Yukinori Okada. Genetics of rheumatoid arthritis contributes to biology and drug discovery. Nature. 2013; Available from: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature12873 .

(2) Versus Arthritis. What is arthritis? Available from: https://www.versusarthritis.org/about-arthritis/conditions/arthritis/.

(3) Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, (CDC). Improving the Quality of Life for People With Arthritis

At A Glance. Available from: https://www.cdc.gov/chronicdisease/resources/publications/aag/arthritis.htm.

(4) Frank C. Arnett, Steven M. Edworthy, Daniel A. Bloch, Dennis J. Mcshane, James F. Fries, Norman S. Cooper, et al. The American Rheumatism Association 1987 Revised Criteria for the Classification of Rheumatoid Arthritis. American College of Rheumatology. 1988; Available from: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/art.1780310302 .

(5) Dennis Gray. The treatment strategies for arthritis sufferers. Social Science and Medicine. 1985; 21 (5): 507-515. Available from: https://www.niams.nih.gov/health-topics/arthritis .

(6) National Institute of Arthritis and Muscoskeletal and Skin Disease, (NIH). Arthritis. Available from: https://www.niams.nih.gov/health-topics/arthritis.

Shine like stars across the land.

Cling to the word of life…

Today’s reading of the Scriptures from the New Testament is the 2nd chapter of the Letter of Philippians:

If you find any comfort from being in the Anointed, if His love brings you some encouragement, if you experience true companionship with the Spirit, if His tenderness and mercy fill your heart; then, brothers and sisters, here is one thing that would complete my joy—come together as one in mind and spirit and purpose, sharing in the same love. Don’t let selfishness and prideful agendas take over. Embrace true humility, and lift your heads to extend love to others. Get beyond yourselves and protecting your own interests; be sincere, and secure your neighbors’ interests first.

In other words, adopt the mind-set of Jesus the Anointed. Live with His attitude in your hearts. Remember:

Though He was in the form of God,

He chose not to cling to equality with God;

But He poured Himself out to fill a vessel brand new;

a servant in form

and a man indeed.

The very likeness of humanity,

He humbled Himself,

obedient to death—

a merciless death on the cross!

So God raised Him up to the highest place

and gave Him the name above all.

So when His name is called,

every knee will bow,

in heaven, on earth, and below.

And every tongue will confess

“Jesus, the Anointed One, is Lord,”

to the glory of God our Father!

So now, my beloved, obey as you have always done, not only when I am with you, but even more so when I can’t be. Continue to work out your salvation, with great fear and trembling, because God is energizing you so that you will desire and do what always pleases Him.

Do all things without complaining or bickering with each other, so you will be found innocent and blameless; you are God’s children called to live without a single stain on your reputations among this perverted and crooked generation. Shine like stars across the land. Cling to the word of life so that on the day of judgment when the Anointed One returns I may have reason to rejoice, because it will be plain that I didn’t turn from His mission nor did I work in vain. Even if my lifeblood is to be poured out like wine as a sacrifice of your faith, I have great reason to celebrate with all of you. And for the same reason, you can be glad and celebrate with me.

I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy your way. He will visit soon so that he may report to me how you are doing. To hear all that is going on with you will truly encourage my heart. There is no one like Timothy. What sets him apart from others is his deep concern for you and your spiritual journey. This is rare, my friends, for most people only care about themselves, not about what is dear to the heart of Jesus the Anointed. You know Timothy is genuine in the Lord’s ways. He has been a faithful partner to me as we express the good news, as much as my own flesh and blood would have been. I expect to send him soon, and I will as soon as I see how things turn out here. I trust in the Lord that it won’t be very long before I can come and be with you in person.

But for now, I think it is best to send Epaphroditus home to you. He has become my dear brother in the Lord. We have worked well together and fought great battles together, and he was an encouraging minister to me in my time of need. He could not wait to see you all. He was concerned for you when he found out you knew how sick he really was. In fact, he nearly died. But once again, God was exceedingly kind and covered him with His mercy. And I, too, by His mercy, have been spared sorrow on top of sorrow.

I am so excited to be sending him back to you! I can picture the joy on your faces when he arrives; I can feel my worries falling away. Welcome him joyfully in the Lord. Esteem all spiritual leaders like Epaphroditus because he placed his life in grave danger for the work of the Anointed; he risked his life to serve me when you couldn’t.

The Letter of Philippians, Chapter 2 (The Voice)

Today’s paired chapter of the Testaments is the 12th chapter of the book of Jeremiah that includes Judgment but also a promise of restoration:

Jeremiah: Eternal, You always do what is right

when I bring a complaint Your way.

So now let me put a case before You:

Why do the wicked prosper so much?

Why do all the untrustworthy have it so easy?

You plant them and watch them take root;

You allow them to grow and even bear fruit.

And yet, Your words mean nothing to them, deep down.

Still, You know me, Eternal One; You see what is deep inside me.

You’ve examined my heart,

So why aren’t they brought to justice? Deal with them as sheep

set aside for slaughter, singled out for death.

How long must the land cry out in mourning,

the grasses of the field wither and bake in the sun?

The birds and wild animals have simply vanished,

all because of the wicked living here—

Because they say, “God does not see what will become of us.”

Eternal One: If you are worn out after only running with a few men,

how will you one day compete against horses?

If you stumble on the easy terrain,

how will you manage in the thick brush near the Jordan?

Jeremiah, even your brothers and the rest of your family

are ready to betray you.

Even they cry out for your death; don’t trust any of them,

no matter how nicely they speak to your face.

I have turned away My house,

abandoned My heritage;

I have given My deeply beloved one over to her enemies.

My very own people have acted toward Me like a lion in the wild,

roaring at Me in defiance. For this, I hate her.

Have My own people become like colorful vultures?

Are birds of prey circling all around them?

Gather the wild beasts and bring them on to devour My beloved.

Many shepherds have already destroyed My vineyard;

they have crushed My fields.

My beautiful land of promise has turned into a barren wasteland.

The very ground cries out to Me in this empty and forsaken land;

the whole land is desolate, but no one seems to care.

The destroyers pour over the bare hills in the desert

as the sword of the Eternal devours the land from one end to another.

There is no peace for anyone.

The people planted wheat, but they will reap only thorns.

In the end, there will be nothing to show for all their hard work.

Shame will be their harvest because of the Eternal’s burning anger against them.

The Eternal has this to say:

Eternal One: As for My wicked neighbors so eager to take away the inheritance I gave My people Israel, look! There will come a day when I will uproot them from their lands, and I will take Judah from their midst. But after I have uprooted them from their homelands, I will have mercy on them and restore them to their own lands and their own possessions. And if they diligently learn the ways of My people and trust in Me instead of idols, if they swear by My name saying, “As the Eternal lives,” just as they taught My people to swear by Baal, then I will establish them alongside My people. As for any nation that will not listen to and follow My ways, I will uproot it and destroy it completely.

This is what the Eternal has declared.

The Book of Jeremiah, Chapter 12 (The Voice)

A link to my personal reading of the Scriptures for Wednesday, August 25 of 2021 with a paired chapter from each Testament of the Bible along with Today’s Proverbs and Psalms

A post by John Parsons about being honest:

Teshuvah, or turning to God for life, is - in the present hour - an act of faith, for faith "sees the invisible" and discerns God's presence even as if "through a glass darkly" (1 Cor. 13:12). However, in the end, when everything will be manifest and brought to the light -- every soul will be turned to face God, and consequently every soul will be compelled to confess the truth about who they are. As C.S. Lewis wrote: "In the end that Face which is the delight or terror of the universe must be turned upon each of us either with one expression or with the other, either conferring glory inexpressible or inflicting shame that can never be cured or disguised" (Weight of Glory).

Human beings have a moral imperative, given by God Himself, to receive the truth and to live according to the nature of spiritual reality. Those who reject or suppress the truth, however, are responsible for their actions, as it is written, “No one who practices deceit shall dwell in my house; no one who utters lies shall continue before my eyes” (Psalm 101:7).

Being honest with ourselves is absolutely essential for any sort of authentic spiritual life... "No person is saved except by grace; but there is one sin that makes grace impossible, and that is dishonesty; and there is one thing God must forever and unconditionally require, and that is honesty" (Soren Kierkegaard). Confession means "saying the same thing" about ourselves that God says - and that means not only acknowledging our various sins, transgressions, and iniquities, but also affirming our new identity as the beloved children of God. Saying that God doesn’t love you is a lie as damning as denying His very existence... The great test of faith is whether you know in your heart that you are chosen, beloved, and forgiven by God, despite your many failures and sins.

Today is our opportunity to turn to God and find life. The Lord does not force us to choose life over death, though he does constrain us to choose, since being made in his image and likeness means that our choices are full of eternal and everlasting significance. When God finally appears at the end of the age, there will be no further call to choose to believe in his redemption, for the hour will be past, and our indifference will then mark our fate. Truth is the foundation of reality, and lying is therefore a form of denial of reality – a dangerous denial - since reality invariably proves self-authenticating (John 3:18). [Hebrew for Christians]

and another about forgiveness:

The essence of Torah is to love your neighbor as yourself (Rom. 13:10; Gal. 5:14). Teshuvah means, among other things, understanding how far we are removed from this ideal and how we might move to remedy the breach. This is a daily task, an ongoing duty... But we cannot give away what we don’t have to give, so if we’re deficient in self-love, we will be unable to genuinely love others, too. Part of loving others is the obligation to forgive yourself for your sins. For some people, this might mean “accepting that they are accepted” by God... Real change is difficult -- some would even say impossible -- though with God all things are possible -- including the miracle of a heart of stone turning to flesh.

Forgiving others is a way to be free of their hold over us. It is a letting go of the pain of the past and finding courage to press on in hope. In the Gates of Repentance it is written: ‎"I hereby forgive all who have hurt me, all who have wronged me, whether deliberately or inadvertently, whether by word or by deed. May no one be punished on my account. And as I forgive and pardon those who have wronged me, may those whom I have harmed forgive me, whether I acted deliberately or inadvertently, whether by word or by deed." Amen... It is only when we give up our hurt that we are able to move forward in the realm of the spirit. Faith and forgiveness are therefore intimately linked. Therefore Yeshua taught us to forgive others whenever we pray to the Father (Matt. 6:12).

For this coming year, may it please the LORD to first of all help us to love Him with all of our hearts, and to love others as we love ourselves... May it please Him that we “lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and run with endurance the race that is set before us” (Heb. 12:1). May the LORD renew our minds so that we might discern His will (Rom. 12:2), and may He help us abide in Him -- so that we will not be ashamed at His coming (1 John 2:28). May the new year be good and sweet for us all, and may our righteous deeds increase, like the many seeds of the pomegranate (1 John 2:29).

Hashivenu Adonai elecha ve'nashuvah, chadesh yamenu ke'kedem: “Turn thou us unto Thee, O LORD, and we shall be turned; Renew our days as of old” (Lam. 5:21). [Hebrew for Christians]

8.24.21 • Facebook

Today’s message (Days of Praise) from the Institute for Creation Research

August 25, 2021

Preaching the Resurrection

“And with great power gave the apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus: and great grace was upon them all.” (Acts 4:33)

There are multitudes today who believe that Christ’s resurrection was a “spiritual” resurrection, insisting that the idea of a dead body returning to life after three days in the grave is completely unscientific and impossible.

This was not what the apostles preached with great grace and great power, however. They would hardly have been excited about any kind of spiritual resurrection, since everyone— both Jews and the pagan Gentiles—believed in life after death. If that was their message, no one would have doubted, and no one would have cared. Even when the disciples saw the resurrected Christ, they first “supposed that they had seen a spirit” (Luke 24:37). Christ even had to urge them to “handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have” (Luke 24:39).

When the disciples finally became convinced of His bodily resurrection, they were quickly transformed into courageous evangelists, willing even to die in support of their glorious message of salvation. The resurrection was, indeed, contrary to scientific law and all human experience, and this very fact proved to them that their Lord was Himself the divine lawgiver and author of all human experience. All other founders and leaders of human religions, ancient or modern, are themselves subject to death, but He alone has triumphed over death. Only the Creator of life can conquer death, and the resurrection proves that Jesus Christ is Creator as well as Savior.

Therefore, when we today, like the apostles of old, proclaim the resurrection of Christ, we know that His name is above every name, and this enables us also to witness with great power, in great grace. HMM

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accord insurance cost on your home. Homeowners insurance typically covers your family, guests, belongings and medical losses, but not personal possessions. However, if a catastrophe or storm breaks out and you need a tow truck, you’ll need to file an insurance claim with your utility coverage. If you need to access the power of utilities, you can also look in to get a power line backup quote. With an electric utility, you can access electrical service like a power outlet or generator. You can also manage the bills under the company’s policy and bill your utility. Homeowners insurance provides coverage for you and your property, including your house, car and motorcycle. To learn about insurance, or to get tips on how to protect your property, check out . You’re probably wondering, “How much is home insurance in Missouri?” In most of the state, the average annual homeowners insurance premium costs an average of around $1,300, with the being about $4,. accord insurance cost. So when it comes to this kind of coverage, the most affordable company will be your cheapest one. In our analysis for 2025, the cheapest insurer in 2020 was USAA, while the worst one was GEICO, which was ranked as being the worst in the nation for insurance cost. Because of this, it is advisable that you get a quote from every insurance company you get a quote from. To find the cheapest car insurance in New York from the best for your situation, you can start with . You can also choose a policy that matches your requirements. Some are cheaper for older drivers, so we opted for Geico s cheapest policy as the middle of the road between 25-54 yr olds. After that, your best option is State Farm s minimum car insurance. In our study, we got that level and was able to compare it for people that are below 25 years of age, so get a quote. In the short answer is, no. You can always get lower liability coverage. accord insurance cost. For example, a homeowner can get their car insurance cost to an average of $140 per month. For someone over the age of 65, on the other hand, annual coverage is going to be from a $20 to $40 monthly rate. So, if you have an above average annual cost of $140, you will pay approximately $3 for a $200 or $300 per month For a man, age means he is in good health and will, therefore, have the lowest rates for the car insurance. Therefore, for a 40-year-old, the annual cost of $1,414 is from $1,092 to $1,948. However, if you are in a less expensive age group, your annual car insurance cost can drop to $1,092, from $1,940 to $1,843. For an 18-year-old.

Lesser-known factors impacting Honda Accord insurance rates

Lesser-known factors impacting Honda Accord insurance rates include: Honda Accord Insurance prices are set by Honda and are calculated using numerous factors such as: You can get a quote online. Honda Insurance is a subsidiary of . The insurance brokerage services are distributed over the internet through partners. In 2015, . The organization was founded by Honda engineers to help engineers and tech enthusiasts get a fair insurance policy. The organization is now headquartered in Tamaulipuram, in India. Honda Accord (Honda Accord), Honda Civic and Honda Civic Car insurance company have both been sold in the United States. In 2017, Honda Honda was ranked the top insurance brand in the North American market with an impressive number of discounts offered. This insurance company offers a discount of up to 13% to its drivers. These discounts include an accident prevention system, car safety class, theft resistant materials such as airbags, protective devices such as anti-lock lock brakes, anti-lock brakes bezel, roadside assistance, and roadside isolation systems. The company was recently certified as a top.

Pay less for Honda Accord insurance

Pay less for Honda Accord insurance and get a free insurance quote. If you’re still in a financial pinch and want to protect your home and personal assets with new auto insurance, remember we’ll give you the ability to keep your old insurance rates the same and get back on your feet when things get worse. If you’re thinking about switching to a new insurance company, the best policy change you can make is to stop making changes. Your best chance to see savings levels in the future is to keep a good driving record. While you may feel a sense of confidence knowing that you’re getting the best premium, you can have a good record even if something goes wrong. If you plan on switching, you may be able to stay on your current car insurance policy for as little as the first month or three months. Or consider a free short-term insurance plan that covers you when you switch to a new car, like a policy you’d been offered as a member of the local team.

Want cheaper insurance? Avoid these vehicles

Want cheaper insurance? Avoid these vehicles, as you can save an average of $130 each year. If you’re on the hunt for cheap car insurance, this research can be beneficial. To give you a sense of cost, according to the , the average (the standard policy covering bodily injury and property damage) in California is: If you’re looking for the cheapest California insurance premiums, it’s worth paying close attention to policy limits. In California, state law requires drivers to carry certain minimum amounts of liability insurance: While liability insurance provides for you and others under the policy you carry — like extra expenses if you’re sued if you’re in a car accident and you’re uninsured. You can opt for higher coverage limits while your policy is still active. For example, purchasing a 50/20 liability-only policy might allow you to settle for only $50.

Cheapest cars to insure among popular models

Cheapest cars to insure among popular models Since we analyzed a full range of cars in the USA, the following model marks are common: While these are the average cost, assume you only drive the car occasionally (as long as you have car insurance) or only regularly (a daily, weekly or monthly drive), the car model, trim and condition, as well as a few other details will be used to calculate your quote. When we compared rates for the most popular models, we found that the Chevy Camaro and Honda Civic are the two cheapest options, especially for drivers in the US and Canada. In some cases, you may also want to consider a used car for insuring instead of buying an older one. According to Insurify’s data, drivers save an average of $1,192 per year on auto insurance. However, the best way to get the most expensive car insurance quote is not to drive it around to the store. Insurance companies require you to provide your driver’s license number, or driving record.

How car models affect insurance rates — down to the trim

How car models affect insurance rates — down to the trim level. The average rates for new cars are higher than for 2012, but the is higher than at year-two. The average rates for new cars in the last year are above a year s average, although 2011-12 cars have the lowest rates, just as they were in 2012. In terms of safety ratings, 2014 cars are the second most popular cars with average insurance costs topping out at $1,114. The average cost for the car also has a low average cost. The state minimums were higher for older cars at $1,500, but many states offer a lot more affordable insurance for newer and more desirable vehicles. With the state minimum insurance in force, your vehicle s liability limits are increased to protect other drivers and passengers. More drivers are traveling to and from work to them on public roads, and the number of thefts and losses in the same area is going to vary by city. If you need to insure a new or used car, you only need to pay into.

Specifics of your auto insurance policy

Specifics of your auto insurance policy. In most cases, your insurance company is required to comply with the specific auto insurance law. If your state requires you to carry a specific amount of liability coverage, your auto insurance carrier will be able to tell you. In some cases, the carrier will require you to pay an out-of-pocket deductible, which you might be responsible for if you need to pay for a rental car or a trip to avoid collision damage. This usually means anywhere from $2,000 to $50,000 and includes rental reimbursement and any injury-fueled use. If your insurance company is going to require you to carry a specific maximum amount of liability coverage, there are other options you might consider. Some states mandate a limit on your coverage. California and Hawaii, for example, require you to carry a certain amount of . There’s another type of liability insurance, uninsured motorist coverage, which helps pay for a high-risk driver. If you’re in an accident and your.

How to Renew Honda Accord Car Insurance?

How to Renew Honda Accord Car Insurance? Read our short guide to . The key features of new insurance packages are: Compare quotes from the best insurance providers If you are looking for reliable car insurance, you need to find and find the right car insurance rates when comparing quotes. CarInsuranceComparison.com was created because we wanted to make it easy for anyone to compare car insurance online - from many different companies! Disclaimer: CarInsuranceComparison.com strives to present the most up-to-date and comprehensive information on saving money on car insurance possible. This information may be different than what you see when you visit an insurance provider, insurance agency, or insurance company website. All insurance rates, products, and services are presented without warranty and guarantee. When evaluating rates, please verify directly with your insurance company or agent. Quotes and offers are not binding, nor a guarantee of coverage. Whether you’re planning to start driving in the next year or two, there’s still a lot to remember just.