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  1. Naruto is know for it's large cast of lovable characters but as of episode 112 of the original series I can definitively say that Rock Lee is easily my favourite character in the series. Everything from his positive demeanor, to his underdog background is so very beautifully shounen, he's so very cheesy with his background of fighting back against those who didn't believe in him, finding comfort in Might Guy and rising to become a splendid ninja. But what I think makes him special is just how genuinely sympathetic, yet still endearingly passionate in the face of absolute failure and misfortune he can be. An example of what I've expressed comes from his legendary fight against Gaara in the preliminaries before the finals of the Chunin Exams. When he is defeated by Gaara we learn that he will never be able to return to being a shinobi due to the severity of his injuries, this causes Lee to question his future and everything up until this point becuase of his ethos being to never give up and that with hard work even he can become a splendid ninja but in spite of it all he keeps a positive outlook and whole heartedly believes he will one day recover with perseverance. Eventually Naruto finds the legendary healer Sanin Tsunade who is famous for her healing capabilities, however she urges Lee to quit being a shinobi due to his only option being life threatening surgery, at this point, desperate for an answer he asks Might Guy what to do, in a highly emotional climax both Lee and Might Guy decide that in order to coninue his dream he must never give up as that is his nindo, his ninja way. In the end he displays something so beautifully simple, that passion and perseverance will always pay off and that even in the worst of times we can continue to be better for ourselves and for those we love. Rock Lee is my favourite because he's corny and goofy and simple and so emblematic of what I love about shounen anime.
    7 points
  2. To anyone who has made something or attempted to make something, you know this feeling too well. "Can I really do this? Who am I kidding? I don't know what I'm doing." I dabble in a lot of things. From web development, video editing, animation, web comics, making games, photography etc. But I never called myself a web developer, video editor, animator, artist, game developer, photographer. Because I never really felt I was one. I thought since I was a beginner and not as good as others, I shouldn't call myself a (insert title here). As it would be insulting to the REAL (insert title here). No matter what my accomplishments were, no matter how much experience I got, I was just a wannabe, a fake, an impostor. But then I realized.... you are what you do. Some people talk the talk and some walk the walk. Some think they are cool while some ARE cool. If you made a website, you are a web developer. If you made a web comic, you are an artist. If you took a photo, you are a photographer and so on. Many if not all veteran creatives went through this stage. Where they doubted themselves. But chose to keep going. And in the end, the feeling of being a wannabe disappeared. They became a real legitimate (insert title here). Have you ever felt impostor syndrome? How did you overcome it?
    6 points
  3. Hey everyone! I was debating whether or not to make this post here as it's a big window into my personal life, but as I soon realised this journey takes a leap of faith into the hands of people who I know very little about other then our shared interest in anime, as a long time member of this community I want to reach out and open this up to everyone to support as it is a global problem, I completely understand that in this current day and age money is short, but even to support and spread the word to as many people as you can then it will hopefully really boost this fundraising and help this amazing charity reach their goal, Thank you The AF family "I'll be trekking to the summit of Kilimanjaro for charity on the 22nd of August 2023! The charity I am doing this with is the Meningitis Research Foundation aka the MRF. MRF's goal is to work alongside WHO to defeat Meningitis by 2030! Meningitis still affects more than 5 million people per year and is one of the leading causes of death in children under 5. It is also young adults who have a high risk of Meningitis. That's why I need your help, by donating/supporting this cause you are helping MRF reach its goal while also helping spread awareness through the Kilimanjaro trek. I would greatly appreciate any support whether that's a donation of any amount or spreading the word around with this link! All it takes is the kindness of 500 strangers to make a donation of 10 euros to reach our goal but any little bit helps a lot, and please spread the word! Thank you so much! Ross" (Donation page has been removed since goal has been reached)
    5 points
  4. The story is about a woman who discovers that she has supernatural abilities after kids in her city begin to go missing and must locate a book called The Ruthisian Codex to gain mastery over her powers and find the people responsible for the kidnappings. The lead character's name is Phia and the first chapter explores her seemingly normal life as a budding caterer. Throughout the book, I will describe certain dishes that she makes in detail and include the recipes at the back of the book. I may also include pictures but I'm not 100% certain yet. I'm also considering starting a Discord & hosting monthly virtual brunches where people can create their favorite foods from the book & we can all show our creations & hang out for a few hours. Making recipe videos for YouTube or live streaming myself preparing the dishes is also another idea I have. Phia's abilities and back story all center around Ancient Egyptian mythology and religion. Her love of cooking, her romantic interests, and some of her other hobbies are all tied into the Egyptian deities that she identifies with the most.
    5 points
  5. I love LOVE reading! Personally, I've always been a physical copy type of girl and rather not get a digital copy/e-reader. AND, I will buy books I love however, I do have a library card because... that **** is expensive....(I'd be broke with all the books I'd want to buy lol). When I was younger I had lived in Vancouver for a solid two years after that I wanted to move back home and needed to lug all of my books back with me. I never realized how much I loved reading until I had 3 suitcases of books and a duffel bag of clothing. *Priorities* I don't mind audio books, they're usually my go to when I can't sleep or have a long drive ahead of me....can't...use my hands ^^; When I was in University, I always felt a little like Hermione from Harry Potter, as I would usually be done most of my textbooks before the course truly started. I am a fairly fast reader and like to have a varied selection of books on the go. I can be a slightly annoying person when I get into a good book - my sister used to get angry at me as I would usually ignore everything around me until I was completed a story. Basically, I'm really good at ignoring the world around me when I have my nose in a good article or story. I'm always inspired by the authors of novels and how much research that must go into their work. I mean to create such captivating stories you must know a decent amount of a topic to be able to describe places, situations and actions. For example, you can't write a believable story about a climber if you know nothing about climbing, or it would be a pretty empty story line with no body. I always thought it would be such a fascinating job to become a writer because it gives you an outlet to learn as much as you can and share that knowledge in a variety of ways, although, I have always felt a disconnect from idea to paper. Those who are creative enough to come up with an idea and then bring that idea to fruition - you're amazing in my eyes and I thank you everyday. Here's a short list of some books I've read this past year - keep in mind, I read almost everything haha so it might not be up your alley (no particular order) - An Invisible Library (by Genevieve Cogman) "Series" - Deadly Outbreaks (by Alexandra Levitt) - The Memory Illusion (by Julia Shaw) (really neat book, read if you like to learn about memory in the use of crime, and whether or not its possible to implant memories on people) - Sleeping Beauties (by Stephen King) - Death by Video Games (by Simon Parkin) - The Rules of Magic (by Alice Hoffman) - The Bone Season (by Samantha Shannon) "Series" Mime order - How Can I help? A Week in My Life as A Psychiatrist (by David Goldbloom) - The View from the cheap seats (by Neil Gaiman) - The Night Circus (by Erin Morgenstern) - The Goldfinch (by Donna Tartt) - An Orchestra of Minorities (by Chigozie Obioma) - Lost Connections (by Johann Hari) - Sapiens (by Yuval Harari) General Recommendations: - Margaret Atwood is my favorite author .....so anything? haha - Haruki Murakami another fav auth (start with 1Q84) I also really enjoy poetry authors I would recommend (and are probably already known) - Rupi Kaur - B. Abbott (I have High Poet Society, but he has two books now I think?) - Lang Leav - John Donne Anyways, maybe I'll add more posts about books :3 I feel like, getting to know a person's reading list, really lets you get to know the person. And of course, here's a pic I am currently working on
    5 points
  6. Hi everyone! So I have been very inactive on here both on the forum side and updating this blog, with working in Spain for the last 4 months and then my father passing away unexpectedly everything has been very chaotic but the grind to the top of Africa never stopped. With our vaccines got last week (Hep B, Diptheria, and Yellow Fever) luckily my Tetanus was still in date! as someone who has very bad anxiety around needles hearing that we will be going through Kenya meant we'd need yellow fever vaccines quiet unfortunate but hey I managed to get through the 3 without fainting (cant say the same thing about straight after ) We've also been slowly getting the gear needed, I might do a post about that at some point. Really breaking through the bank account though. Anyway as the main focus of this trek as some of you might have known from the last post is raising money for MRF with 100% of the money donated going to them, We are currently 855 euro away from the final goal of 5490!!!!!!! So with a final grind and push (think I've emailed over 100 businesses and not one has responded) LETS HIT THIS GOALLL WOOOOH (Donation page has been removed since goal has been reached) (Any support is very much appreciated, whether its donation or spreading the word! <3)
    4 points
  7. Welcome back to confirmation biases. Last time, I explained that to avoid confirmation bias, you'd have to view a perspective on both sides. If you haven't read it yet, I suggest you do. So, what did I mean by viewing a perspective on both sides? Well, simply put, I meant what I said. You find both proving and disproving evidence of a topic. Well, how do you do this? Think of it this way - "Does this evidence give clear evidence that this might be right? If not, is there any counter evidence?" If the answer to this is yes, congratulations - You've found sound evidence that does not confirm that your belief is 100% right. At the most, you've most likely only confirmed a very small portion of your claim. If the answer to this is no, however, you then look for counter evidence. Counter evidence to see if your not-clear evidence is incorrect. Let's use an example, again. You're investigating a murder. You have solid evidence that the murderer is a 15-year old child from... I don't know, Kentucky. However, you know that this one piece of evidence doesn't confirm it, and therefore, look for counter-evidence. Then, you do find counter-evidence. You find counter-evidence that they're not from Kentucky, and that they're actually from New Jersey. So, you put both of these aside and begin battling out which seems more likely. If, however, you can't find a conclusion, then set them aside for later until you find more evidence/counter-evidence. Once you have enough, argue with yourself, then make your case. This has been Week One of Logic Lessons with L, stay tuned for Week Two, which we'll be discussing about planning and unplanned executions of... anything.
    4 points
  8. Definitely feeling weird with how things are going right now. Looking forward to some more normalcy here hopefully soon. Its also been such a busy week, I feel out of the loop. Out of the life loop haha. I hope everyone is doing alright and taking care of themselves. Take this time to re-eval life Here's a creepy cat dog thing to add to this strange day.
    4 points
  9. I'm kind of, fascinated with old stuff. REALLY old stuff. And while I've never found anything particularly outstanding to other people maybe, i always treasure what i do find. and today, i wasn't really expecting to find anything! i was just out in my backyard garden, picking through stones from the freshly cultivated soil, because i do find a lot of gemstones in my garden after hoeing it, and i think they're pretty. i kind of have a little of collection of them. but then i saw something that caught my eye, a bright red rock with something sticking out of it. and at first i thought it was just like, another type of rock mixed in with the red rock, but when i picked it up and looked closer, i knew what i was seeing was the back end of a fully-intact shell. and i was like, wow! i have to break this thing open. Sure I could've kept it the way it was, but i knew inside were probably layers of more shell fragments that were more interesting to look at to add to my collection. So I grabbed a hammer, and split the thing in half, and this is what i found. I'd never found anything containing a fossil fully intact before...just the ghostly remnants of an imprint of something no longer there. but look, there it is, that's a fully intact shell. how cool is that! you can see lots of other bits of imprints of shells that are no long there, too, all over the stone, which is what most of my rocks look like. But holy cow, this shell is still here. And it's not the only one. Theres a couple here and there, sticking out in different ends of the rock. I like to go out and hunt for stuff like this, because it's fun. But I never expected to find a fossil sitting in my own backyard. These are the other interesting fossils ive acquired the imprinted leaves I actually got at a festival in one of those old-fashioned towns, that kind of preserves the way it used to be when it was founded in the 1800s. The limestone to the right of it is a block of a bunch of shell fragment and coral imprints, theres a fossilized reed in there i found on my grandpas property as a little kid, and i found this one a couple years ago while camping out in the woods. anyways, i was SO super stoked about this, i just had to post something. Also I noticed my blog title was kind of similar to someone elses, so i tried changing it, but im not very creative LOL
    4 points
  10. Before my friends and I started watching anime we were just people who would play sports everyday talk and so on we didn't do much in our lives really... Until one day my friends came back with a happy look one their faces different then most days they told me they watched something called "Anime" they began telling me how it was like how amazing and how amazing it was. Later that night I decided to watch anime for myself so I did I watched Totoro once I finished watching the movie it felt like i changed into a whole new person. The next day I told my friends I watched anime from their we found different new amines together such as Totoro Fairy tail Naruto Boruto Angel beats Attack on Titan Tokyo ghoul My hero Academia Promised Neverland One piece Dragon ball z Pokemon Your lie in April Kimi no na wa and many more I have to say anime has brought me closer with my friends and has taught me so much like to all ways follow your dreams the life of a human sorrow and much more. I'm really glad I started watching anime when I did now I know over 100 anime's. I'll continue to watch anime as there is so much more I still haven't watched yet! Anyway that's all bye
    4 points
  11. This are some of the chocolates you can find/try here, some became part of my childhood days.
    4 points
  12. Today I ran into some pricks that pissed me off so much I wanted to roll up and jaw check them. Sometimes when your really struggling and keep your struggle to yourself you'll run into a few of these particular people who believe because you struggle or live in poverty your at fault or you made poor choices. They believe they can say whatever they want. Be held to a different standard then working folk. It's never that simple though. While its true many people can drag themselves out of the worse situations and when many put their mind to it they can overcome, every circumstance is different. You can't paint one entire brush on a whole canvas. You're not gonna get a different color. I'm not one for excuses. If I did something wrong I can admit it. I'm the type of guy that won't ask for help if I can avoid it. When I do ask for help-and it isn't often- its a hand up. Not a hand out. But then you have these group of people who undermine the very meaning of struggle. They're so blessed with people in their life that CARRIED them or could use money carelessly without any repercussions. They'll utilize nepotism and explain to you your faults are the reason you failed in life. Nevermind they have 5 or 7 people in their life to lean on. Those of us that have to brave and endure alone when we have no one. Or someone who needs to lean on US. And when we do take the risk-the chance to reach out- we're looked at as indolent. We working people who barely make ends meet. I'm really tired of running into these sort of people. Entitled shits who think they own everyone. Or everything. Quite a few people have to adapt a survival-like mentality just to survive... but i've been told countless times by countless people people are good. You can't adapt a survival mentality and leave room for morality. That's bullshit. Only people who can do that are people who never got their hands dirty. These people I ran into today. Hell I swear. Their shit must gold.
    4 points
  13. It's been a long time since I've written here in my blog. I really write writing and somehow it's my way of venting out my feelings, emotions and especially my frustrations. Speaking of frustrations let's talk about my frustration about cooking. So if you knew me for like quite some time maybe way back December 18 or something I've written this blog about living on my own in college and so here I am today still unable to cook a single grain of rice for dinner. We all have that feeling heroic moments when you just suddenly woke up from an 8-hour slumber induced by no sleep late last night due to a long quiz that never happened caused by your teacher feeling like, "Oh, I'm not gonna give a quiz today just cause I don't want to." and think that you could do everything you want to do cause you think you're the most capable being on earth. So here you were, washing some rice, readying for your first ever cooking show and humming to yourself while putting it over your rice cooker. You take out your phone taking the most epic picture possible just cause it's your first time cooking rice and its expected in your country to know how to cook rice at the age of 10 and you're already 18 and ambitious enough. You take this little stroll in insta until you smell something burning and this time it's not your hair. It's your nonexistent work of art. You forgot to add in some water and all you had to do was wait for that rice cooker to just say keep warm! So College life is going well for me aside from the fact that I had to buy my Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner from the Cafeteria. Good job self! You're going to survive it all so come at me life! *notice the potato sarcasm* So if you're having a bad day out there cause you're crush can't notice you, or your being bullied by someone who doesn't really know your true self at school, or you're bored all the time just cause you have all the time in the world and time is your slave or you're just plain frustrated with life's problems and hurdles remember there's a girl out there that is supposedly expected to capable of cooking rice at the age of 10 and is now 18 but still can't have dinner due to her own clumsiness, negligence plain old stupidity. Don't be too harsh on yourself. We learn from mistakes but for me I think I'm going to learn from youtube since Mum's not here. Keep Breathing~
    4 points
  14. So this blog entry for today is somewhat a story about myself and a motivation speech or something. I was kind of confused if I would call this a random potato talk or an Exclusive on Potato patch and assuming you've read the title then you already know which I picked as a title. This blog entry is kind of a secret that I intend to share with the intention of teaching or conveying a lesson to everyone. This is also quite personal and I trust everyone can be trusted with this information about me Two years ago, 2015 when I was still 15-16 years old I was facing a lot of troubles on my own. Ever heard of Fifteen by Taylor Swift? Yeah, that was pretty much what I was listening to that time obviously cause I can relate much to it. Everything was new. I've experienced having internet friends, my high school life had become a little interesting and soon I was about to graduate from Junior High. I've had this first forum around somewhere. I was culture shocked of course. Who wouldn't? Growing up I wasn't familiar with blondes, brunettes, red heads, colored eyes aside from brown or black and different skin tones. On my first forum I was a lurker. I would randomly like posts and just be online quietly, watching what these people would talk about all day without me really having a two way interaction with them. Of course some forum members noticed and I've received some posts on my profile and I can still remember how happy I was that somehow I got noticed not in a strange or weird way. Along those lines I've grown close with a specific person in that forum and eventually he became my boyfriend. I knew back then that online relationships doesn't really work but naive as I am I still embarked on a relationship. Being inlove is fun. It made me think that I was lucky and for the first time I was really loved. Every time I would receive an I love you my heart fluttered and brings shivers to my spine. The idea of me getting jealous was fun and everytime he would console me on how I shouldn't get jealous was something new to me. In other words, I was childish and naive. Time passed until I discovered that he was cheating on me. That event caused too much drama since many of my close online friends found out and they've cause quite a rampage in that forum causing me to take refuge here. We broke up of course and that chapter of breakup was followed with four consecutive breakups until June 2016. My most painful heartbreak. Reading this far I bet you wouldn't think about me having this many boyfriends in just a short time huh? Well, guess you wouldn't know a person until you really know them Looking back now I really want to strangle my 16 year old self, put it in a sack and throw it in a river somewhere. I was young and I was seeking for attention that those boyfriends gave to me in a short period of time. I am quite unreasonable and I never really learned from the last. I cried a lot of tears, gave a lot of efforts and felt a lot of feelings inside. Being young and inlove is fun just for the sake that it is fun and self rejuvenating. Being young and inlove can make you think that somehow this thing before me will last forever and somehow it'll eventually work. I want everyone to know that love, relationships and your attitude now are all temporary. Everything can change even people. Knowing that everything is temporary I suggest you hold on to it while you still can and when it's time to let go you just let go. Love is wonderful and intimate. Love start with one step and another. I suggest you start with the step of loving and accepting yourself
    4 points
  15. So lately I've been busy with school. I didn't have much time visiting here on AF and it is possible for me to be a lot more busier than before causing me to maybe visit less often than I can before. This is a big change for me since AF has been a part of my daily life ever since 2015. Of course, I wasn't that active before. I can even still remember myself being so unsure and scared whether I'll join the various threads this forum had to offer before or not. I was scared of course. Maybe they won't agree with my comments and suggestions. Maybe they'll find me weird enough not to talk to me. AF wasn't my first forum that deals with anime. My cousin and I decided to troll around here for the time being because I was having a hard time on another forum which I was a member of that time. I needed a place that I can hide to for a while. The goal wasn't even set for me to reach a year here but I guess things changed. My name back then was MaskedMalevolent which I find too childish after a few months that I changed it to RyePotatoes afterwards. The Rye is the first three letters of my real name, Ryelle. The Potatoes is because I feel like a potato. There's no special meaning behind it actually After some time the trolling changed when I met new friends in here and I've even established a family tree around here. It was more than what I expected it to be. In the past two years I can't say that I have been active everyday and for me that was fine. The forums grew and that 500+ members on the forum statistics doubled and there were a lot of new members again that I've met. There were dramas and all but I thought Internet life is just like that I guess. I've actually missed the old friends I had here. Including those friends that changed and moved on with their lives and I can't say that's the best part of it. I hope this blog entry helped you to get to know me better by knowing why I joined AF. I can't say this is my best asset but I thought it'll be better for you guys to get to know my darkside ( which became my reason for joining this forums) once in a while rather than thinking I'm such an angel or anything.
    4 points
  16. Anxiety, Depression and so on. Obstacles we often meet that we are meant to defeat. Ever since I was little I grew up thinking that if I'll just try harder I'll surely achieve everything. If I'll just give it another chance I'll over come it. But as time goes by I figured out that things won't really go that way. I figured out that life is brutal and no matter how many times I'll try opening boxes of rainbows storms will always come our way. When life gives you lemons make lemonade. In every dark cloud there's always a silver lining. Just go with the flow. There's always a plan B. These phrases are so easy to say and so idealistic but in truth it's hard to achieve and hard to do. When people are in rough situations we close our doors and even our windows (if possible) for opportunities and other possibilities. We often focus on the hard part and disregard the fact that we can still do something about the problems we are facing. This blog entry is meant for people who have friends or family members that are experiencing Anxiety, Depression and so on. I implore everyone to please be mindful of what we say towards people who are experiencing depression and anxiety. We don't tell them "it's okay " or "everything's going to be fine" those phrases are already heard frequently and somewhat robotic. At the very least, we can do a better job in comforting them by being an ear they can talk to or a pillow they can hug or punch. We give advice ONLY when we are asked to.
    4 points
  17. So this will be a short blog post because I just want to announce that my webtoon, "Geisha Epic" is now available online. I just uploaded chapter one to webtoons.com. I thought of uploading to Tapas too but I got turned off that they only allowed 10 MB for a chapter. And chapter 1 of my webtoon is pretty big at 20 MB. Since it's the first chapter I decided not to keep it short and just go for it. If I want to upload to Tapas, I have to divide chapter one into two. And I don't want to do that because I feel like I'm cheating the reader. Making it look like it's longer than it actually is. So I'm passing on Tapas for now. But someday I want to make a webtoon that is exclusively only to Tapas. Because they have some interesting features that webtoons.com doesn't have. If you've been following this blog, thank you so much. I really appreciate it. And no it's not ending. I will still make blog psots as I continue to work on Geisha Epic. I will just switch to my visual novel for now. Check out the debut chapter of my webtoon here: https://cutt.ly/IQpeahC See you in the next blog.
    3 points
  18. I was bored so i just drew a picture or two , so here i am , sharing them My first on is this 2020 picture .. and heres the second one : a picture of a cute nurse girl stay safe everyone , plus i'd like to hear your opinions of these pictures , thank you
    3 points
  19. Single Since Birth is a webtoon that is currently uploaded to Webtoons.com (https://www.webtoons.com/en/challenge/single-since-birth/list?title_no=401158) Here is the synopsis: I was on You Tube one day when I saw a video that caught my eye. The title read, What happened to the man who married a hologram? The groom in the thumbnail seemed familiar. Then I remembered a news article in the past about a Japanese man who married an anime character. Turns out, it was the same guy. So I got curious and clicked on the video. I got pretty emotional after watching that. It wasn't really pity. I did not feel sorry for the guy as he actually seemed happy with his decision. Instead, I felt inspired. I wanted to make a story about a genuinely nice guy who would eventually find love. That they don't have to settle for an imaginary character. And there is no need to escape into fantasy. I know there are more guys like him out there and I wanted to let them know that it's okay. You will find true love. So what do you think of the video? Or his decision to marry a fictional character?
    3 points
  20. I was today-years-old when i found out you could make blogs on this forum. even though i don't think anybody is going to read these! but thats okay. I guess I'll start by going over the goings-ons of this past week. i was very sick this past month, i had all the textbook symptoms pf COVID-19 but can't tell you for sure because i never went to the hospital to get tested. whatever the hell it was, i can tell you id never had anything like it before, and it hurt like hell. i've had a severe case of pneumonia before, where i was coughing up blood and nearly ended up in the hospital, and this wasn't even as severe as that, but somehow worse??? it feels like, suffocating in a room full of air, like a gorillas sitting on your chest. with normal pneumonia its just, the flu, and nonstop coughing, and you're coughing up mucus and other nasties, and that also hurts like hell, but its coming up. with this you could hear it all in my chest when i breathed, but when i would cough, it was dry, and rattled my whole chest, and nothing ever came up. The crap just kept building up in my chest until i couldn't breathe, and i did all these desperate measures to try to clear my airways to try to get it out, because i knew if i didn't, id need to go to the hospital, and we cant afford a hospital bill. it was a few weeks of hell, but i think ive finally shaken it off. the cough still shows up every now and then, and the pressure in my chest is still there, but i think it just kind of really f*cked me up and ive been trying to do breathing exercises to be able to expand my lungs fully again. what i did was go through a crap ton of congestion medication and i got a medicated air humidifier kit, and those things combined helped me cough it up a little bit, but still those things barely did much at all. it was just barely enough to keep me breathing without passing out. in hindsight i probably should have gone to the hospital anyway LOL...it was really bad. but look! here i am, not dead! im sort of ok now! huzzah. my brother's starting homeschooling too, we live in the middle of nowhere in a food desert so what grocery stores we have around are always sold out out of everything, the local community is kind of relying on the farmers for eggs and meat, and we have food drives to donate canned foods for people who have nothing at all. my sisters been helping us find groceries and slipping the stuff we need past the door, out of arm's reach. meanwhile, ive been going absolutely nuts barricaded in my room! i wish i could tell you what i was doing while i was actually sick too, but i honestly don't remember. i was pretty miserable and think i just layed around a lot, like, dying and stuff. i think id occasionally log onto tumblr from my phone and gripe "uhhhhghhhghh i'm dyinngg" and logging out and disappearing for a week hahaha but currently, ive been practicing guitar a bit, someone stole some of my tabs and reposted them on songster or whatever that site is called, which im not too peachy about. (sorry i cant embed this one, but,) SO much stardew valley. so much. i binged that for a week or so, downloaded all the mods i could. i married shane, like i do every time, because idk, every time i see him at the back of that saloon looking like the pathetic POS he is, i can't help but want to help him. he reminds me a lot of myself, and idk, his arc kind of makes me hope the same thing will happen to me some day. how dumb is that! also he loves chickens and hot peppers as much as me, heheh then, when i got bored with that, i moved on to species ALRE, a game i got myself for my birthday. rip to everyone else who have birthdays during the pandemic LOL. everything physical is overpriced, like, everything, even stuff you can't think would benefit in any way by raising prices during a pandemic. but at least steam games are there for you, their price tags don't go up. BTW, species ALRE is this silly evolutionary game where you observe an environment of a specimen that will evolve naturally by survival of the fittest, the genetic mutations that benefit better in it's environment surviving over others that don't, and it ends up in some truly HORRIFIC abominations. an absolutely cursed game, i love it. now, my CURRENT obsession, is python. I built myself a bot that bullies me into doing stuff because uh, im like, severely depressed and forget to take care of myself or do things i enjoy. nobodies probably noticed, but i disappeared from here for a long time, and my bot is the one that told me to come back here for like, idk, social interaction stuff,, it also tells me to drink water, reminds me to eat, (ive packed on a few pounds from the skin and bones i was before, thats healthy, right? oof) it reminds me to play games i used to enjoy..gives me random anime and shows to watch...when nobody cares about you, build something that does, i guess. on the same sort of topic, ive built a generator thats kind of like a dungeons and dragons assistant, that makes npcs and stuff for you. that's pretty nifty! right? ive also been experimenting with making text adventure games, but i doubt id ever get invested enough to do a project that big, but it's always nice to learn how to do things just to say you could. i also, ALSO, learned how to host my own web server on my computer using python, which i explained how you can do yourself on my blog here. (just don't do that planning to do it long term, your internet provider will probably get mad. it's also not safe or secure. just like, do it to temporarily share files with friends.) if you want to host longterm without paying someone to host for you or without buying a business package from your provider, look up Beaker Browser which is another thing im a total huge nerd about. Peer2peer web hosting, whaaat! if you get into that (one of us, one of us,) you can find my own dat link here: dat://97d5c5a9b56da6273edada84d6f1c7b86d4a1b529f381bdcec8fd9c0806ef615/ (if im actually online at the time, anyways.) seriously look up beaker browser and the dat protocol, they're really cool. AND i'm also (sorry, this is the last one) starting the garden this year. It's been bigger every year, so hopefully this'll be a good one. i am worried about my health though, i'm worried i wont be able to upkeep it this year as well as i used to, but, i'm going to try i think. we've got hot peppers, we've got zucchinis, we've got tomatoes, butternut squash! i can't wait to get me some fried zucchini and pickle my own jalapenos. i love some pickled jalapenos on a cheese and egg sandwich with toasted bread. aish, i lied. i also started a sourdough starter that ive been baking with, since the stores don't usually have any yeast these days. yall should look into learning how to maintain those, it's wild yeast that you just get out of the thin air to cook with. it's like a pet! anyway that's how i'm doing...i'm sort of doing, as opposed to like, not doing, like i usually do, anime series ive been binging during all this, too: Nisekoi Itai no wa Iya nano de Bougyoryoku ni Kyokufuri Shitai to Omoimasu. happy pandemic everyone loll. see you some other time. or maybe i wont, ah oh, and if anybody has any cool names for my bot, that would be cool. i feel weird just saying "my bot" when talking about it. maybe some day ill use this feature to post about something relevant. sorry if this is all over the place, i have ADHD and have trouble trying to articulate literally any coherent thought
    3 points
  21. I think everyone by now had heard of the virus . Staying at home is pretty boring , all i can pretty much do is , be on my computer , watching anime or youtube , reading or drawing . All of times are like eating , sleeping or doing work . It canceled a lot of things , like a trip that was supposed to be today for me . Just saying , everyone , Stay safe , and find something to do ,and very importantly . DON"t be with people who are sick !!
    3 points
  22. well if you're reading this imma tell you a story of my life about my friends when i was in middle school I have a lot of friends , i can list my friends in each year and it changes a lot In 6th grade my friends were , Morgan ,kennedy , Jael, Jennifer, Eshal , Alexandra and Queen But it's not like that seventh grade ... Jael got homeschooled so left us, Jennifer got put in another class and stopped interacting with us , and i made a lot of new friends too such as , Summayya, Dijla ,Kaniz,Rewale and Khadijah . They were precious to me and so , i hang out with them Now for eighth grade my friends were about the same but My Bff morgan and kennedy moved ....... i missed them a lot but we stayed in contract ,and i also made new friends ,Sena , Shena, Allison , Anneh , and Malaika. They're good friend of mine , plus i met most of them because we all went to orchestra. Also just saying , tell your friends you're grateful for them now cause they might be gone next minute and you're regret it , that's why i don't want to lose any of my friends. Also because of my friends they got me to likke anime and drawing just lie me . They encourage me and tell me positive words, so i'll do more for them too
    3 points
  23. Drawing can be so hard ... but its really really fun. practice makes perfect , so one day ,someone will compliments your drawings , and that makes me feel good , to have someone compliment you , for you to see your own amazing drawings , you can make a story out of everything you draw .... everything , that's why i love drawing so much . Sorry if some of the pictures are sideways..
    3 points
  24. In case anyone was coming here hoping to find useful information, turn around, I am not an expert in this subject matter, just thoughtful insights here. If you're looking for someone else's perspective on this subject, well hello! You've come to the right place. I wanted to share my thoughts on mute characters in writing, because until recently I hadn't even considered the possibility of a mute character in a story, or even in life for that matter. Not that I'm consciously noninclusive, it's just that I can only recall one instance where there was a mute person I've been exposed to, and it was in a movie that I watched. She was a very beautifully done character with loads of personality and a huge impact on the story, and it was because she went through this huge change, overcoming her struggle with trusting, and being afraid to the point of not speaking, that the story was so beautiful. However, she only did this because of the help of the other characters in this movie. These characters were also given the heroic honor to notice this young character and help her life change for the better when they could have easily left her alone and chosen to ignore her entirely. She was mute, she wasn't a squeaky wheel asking for attention, yet they chose to take the time to get to know her and to help her, and this made their characters better too. The point: mute characters take more effort, but they can be worth it. Since starting the RP "The Harmony of our Hearts" with @Nova who requested that there be a mute character, I have been concerned that I may have bit off a bit more than I could chew. I was thinking, how on earth will I be able to role play this character, when she can't speak.. What will her contribution even be? I'll admit, its been pretty tough to pull this off, and I hope I'm doing okay, and not creating a character that no one wants to be around... But the thing is, if mute characters take effort, then the other characters in the story will just have to take the time to understand and help my character to truly flourish again. The premise behind her being mute is pretty rough, but basically it was from an accident that she witnessed or perhaps somehow feels to blame for. At the same time, her best friend Kagura is unhealthy, and is prone to getting injured, being around her makes her remember this accident. So i'm hoping that I can eventually rebuild this characters strength and overcome the anxiety and the fear underlying her condition. Communicating with these characters in the story has been challenging, mostly I will be doing facial expressions, body language, and as I recently mentioned in the story, texting other characters. I don't want to add telepathy, because I feel like this story isn't going to include these types of abilities. It's more of a love story, so perhaps Sofias desire for the love interest, or even his future involvement with her will help her to heal and we can see a massive change in the character as the story reaches a climax. Anyway, I hope you've gotten something out of this, or considered mute characters for one of your future stories. Let me know in the comments if you've got any creative ideas for Sofia to be interacting with her friends in this RP.. I'll give you the link below. Looking forward to it. -Seshi
    3 points
  25. Well, if you read that title and are expecting this blogpost to be a guide on how to become a successful Youtuber... Sorry, but no. Note: this entry is rambling and my personal experience/opinion. You know, for a big part of my life, I've wanted to have a community. I've tried a lot of different things, like reddit, 4chan, discord, etc. A lot of them don't really sit right with me. Let's start off with reddit. For the most part, the reddit website is fine, but I have lots of issues with the r/anime subreddit. Here are some of my issues with it: The same things are said over and over again. This is possibly due to the seasonal format recycling the same ideas. This is really bothersome for me because no new "ideas" are being thought of. There's too much Fanart. Fanart isn't necessarily bad, but if I wanted to see fanart of a show, I would subscribe to that show's subreddit. Most comments in a fanart post have nothing new to say. There's no discussion at all. The same joke or a variation of it is always top comment, rather than the comments that have something interesting to say. This is due to the "early bird gets the worm" system that reddit has when it comes to its voting system. Instead encouraging thinking, the reddit system encourages taking a trending joke and fitting it into the scenario. Because a comment was posted earlier, it has been seen for a longer time; therefore, that comment will get upvoted. Comments that are not top comments get buried in an avalanche of redditors rushing to get their karma. The upvote/downvote system is stupid. Many times, I get downvoted for doing nothing wrong. Conversely, people who say stupid/obvious things get upvoted. In other subreddits, downvoting should only be used to show that something is off-topic, offensive, or rulebreaking, but r/anime uses it as a disagree button I post many things that are on-topic, yet still get downvoted for no apparent reason. This is super frustrating because I can never find out why I got downvoted. It just happens. It feels too impersonal. On my time on AF, I feel like I've already gotten to know some of you guys despite being here for less than a month. From using reddit over years, I have not felt the same. I feel like no one knows who I am, and no one knows who each other are. The only way people know people is through other websites. (For instance, Youtubers or Twitter users, etc.) I explained to someone why I don't like getting spoiled. I was downvoted, and then someone replied to me saying "spoilers don't ruin a show". The person who replied to me got upvoted. Both the person and the people who downvoted me failed to see that I was explaining why you shouldn't spoil things for other people. Instead of trying to understand me, they downvote me anonymously. Some other points that may or may not be true anymore: Mods are power-hungry, corrupt, and hard to work with Rules don't make sense or are unintuitive Posts get taken down for no good reason And most importantly, the biggest problem of all... The community is way too passive aggressive. They dance around what they're saying in a sarcastic manner, which is really frustrating. Boy, that list was longer than I expected. I still love reddit, but it's definitely time for me to part ways with r/anime. I've had very few problems with other subreddits, like r/manga or r/animemes. This may be because more specific subreddits have a focus. For instance, fanart isn't banned on r/manga, but it's taboo to spam fanart there because the subreddit is, in essence, a manga-focused subreddit. The r/anime subreddit, however, will just hoard whatever anime-related content it sees while hypocritically banning topics that "aren't anime". MrAnimeFan and others have had this issue before, and it's really confusing. Next up is 4chan's /a/. I've pretty much only lurked there, but the vibes are definitely not for me. Essentially: Way too many untagged spoilers Constant aggressiveness Refusal to understand other viewpoints, even when proven wrong Impersonality/lack of "community" It's still way better than r/anime, though. The discussions on /a/ are way more "intelligent" than r/anime, there isn't a stupid voting system, and their general taste in anime is much better than r/anime's. That last point is entirely subjective, but I still stand by it. I probably feel this way because many of my thoughts about an anime are never even mentioned on r/anime, (or they are downvoted when brought up) but are explained in detail on /a/ in a precise way that just clicks with me. The biggest example I can think of off of the top of my head is My Hero Academia. Everyone and their grandmother loves this show, but there were so many things that bothered my enjoyment of the show that're just overlooked on r/anime. On the other hand, /a/ will gladly call out anything they have an issue with. The biggest difference between reddit and 4chan is that redditors try to conform to what other redditors are thinking to farm upvotes. However, 4chan users mostly don't care about what other 4chan users are thinking and will jump at the opportunity to directly insult them. So what's better, Kinbaryu: a redundant website that stays inside its own thought bubble, or a volatile website that claws at itself to prove a point? I don't want to partake in either, yet I still do. I love anime, and I love talking to other people about anime. For every 3-4 painful threads on /a/ or r/anime, there's always a good thread where the replies are interesting to read. I love reading what people have to say about an anime, and how it inspires them to draw or write or change their life. These threads make me appreciate a show in entirely new ways I couldn't have imagined on my own. It's fascinating. Maybe these websites aren't for me, then. I'm okay with that. So, I turned to discord. Afterall, you could talk to anyone in the server, and there's a name and profile picture that lets you identify who someone is. But in regards to anime-based servers, here's why I don't like them: Many servers are dead. Anime-based servers are typically quiet. General servers that have a channel for anime discussion are even more quiet. Some servers that aren't dead are way too chaotic. I can't tell who's who, and I can't tell what's going on. There's no sense of connection, meaning it's hard to get your foot in the door on these servers. There's always drama. I don't care. I want to talk about anime. A lot of servers don't even talk about anime. Over ~15 anime-related servers I had joined, only two have consistently talked about anime. In a lot of them, here's the most they would talk about anime: "Oh hey, I like My Hero Academia." "Oh really! Me too! My favorite hero is [Hero], who's yours?" "[Hero]" There's nothing interesting being said here. They don't explain why they like the hero, or what they think about the show. This is probably a huge factor in why I have a resentment against My Hero Academia. Eventually, I was led to more things, like Instagram, Twitter, Youtube, and AnimeForums. So far, I'm not having a bad time here, honestly. I do lurk too much, though. I should definitely try to be more active, like @Kaga Koko. But really, I actually feel welcome here, especially compared to r/anime, /a/, or discord servers. There's even high-level discussion, with @Ryan Dave Jimenez explaining the parallels between Harry Potter and My Hero Academia in my last blog post, with @Wedgy responding to that comparison. Most importantly, neither of them are attacking each other for having a different opinion/interpretation of the series, and neither of them are being passive-aggressive to one another. Ryan didn't take it as a personal attack when Wedgy responded to his interpretation because he understands that it's an interpretation. This is probably because the two of them are mature adults that know how to present their viewpoints without feeling like they need to attack the other person for thinking differently. That's all I've ever wanted, to be honest. Does this dude ever stop talking...? Wrapping up, I don't know what direction I'm going with Youtube. Hopefully, I have a main channel for humor and a side channel for more in-depth talks like these, but who knows what the future holds. Alright, the entry is over, I promise. If you managed to read this whole thing, thanks. I really do appreciate it.
    3 points
  26. This is the second entry in a series on how to make your own web manga. Now that you have a story idea we can start expanding it. For the sake of continuity, let’s say my chosen story idea is: We have an idea. Not a story. In its current form, it’s useless. It doesn’t give us much information. We have to take it from concept to actualization. We can do this by adding structure. Basic Story Structure Every good story has a beginning, middle, and end. Think of your favorite movie, book, or anime. They all have that. It’s what separates a good story from a bad one. Stories that don’t follow this tend to be incomplete and confusing. Beginning Takeji is a nerdy highschool boy. He’s quite tall and gets bullied for it constantly. This makes him want to quit school. Middle One day he meets a transfer student named Hayato who is also tall. Hayato shows him an NBA game. This motivates Takeji to learn the sport of basketball. With Hayato’s help he gets ready to try out for his school’s basketball club. End Takeji makes the cut and is accepted into the club. However, he also realizes how far he is from making it into the NBA. He has a lot to improve on first. This was only the first step of his long journey. Try reading this story again but skip the middle part. Confusing isn’t it? Club? What club? He wants to make it in the NBA? But why? I thought he wanted to quit school? Try reading it without the end part. It feels unfinished right? It makes you want to know what happened next. Was that it? That’s the whole story? Did he make his school’s basketball club? What is the “Beginning” for? This is where you do the introductions. Where does your story take place? Show the time period and setting. Reveal the main character and side characters. Give a taste of what people can expect. What is the “Middle” for? This is where you tell your story. This part will be longer than the beginning and end. The climax (highlight) of the story takes place here. The middle is the part that people find the most exciting. What is the “End” for? This is where you wrap things up. And provide a satisfying ending. You can also setup a sequel here. Like what I did in my example. Your story’s message should have already been delivered at this point. Our story idea has now been transformed into a complete story. Albeit a very short story. Next stop is to flesh it out some more.
    3 points
  27. You only kissed my lips in hopes, I would remove the stains, she left on yours.
    3 points
  28. Hej, allesammans! It's been awhile, I was hoping to be on here more consistently than I have been, but my health has had other ideas. Despite winter being my favorite time of the year my illnesses just aren't handling it well. It didn't help that I got both terrible bronchitis and a cold. My asthma has significantly worsened and I'm spending many nights unable to sleep due to constant wheezing. However, it's given me plenty of anime time, at least! Along with rewatching favorites I also watched several for the first time: Code Geass Days Log Horizon Denki-Gai Princess Principal Yuuki Yuuna is a Hero: Washio Sumi Chapter, A Sunny Place, and The Hero Chapter Death Note I also finished the autumn season anime I was following, started the winter season, finished my rewatch with my sister of Naruto, and started rewatching Boruto with the same sister (INTJ). Speaking of my sisters, today is a snow day and to make it more special I begged my sisters to watch Your Name (Kimi No Na Wa) with me. They've been hesitant for a while, especially because we have a list of shows we're trying to watch together. But, the snow put them in a good mood and they agreed! They loved it just as much as I hoped they would, which made me so happy! It quickly became my favorite movie and I've now seen it so many times, I'm happy to finally share it with them. Yesterday I started Sound of the Sky, and while I've not had a lot of time to watch it today I have watched a few more episodes and will probably finish it tonight. I'm finding it enchanting! I just loved the first episode and the magical feel of exploring a new village during a festival. The show just gives me good feelings. Anyways, I hope you all are doing well, I look forward to catching up!
    3 points
  29. I'm pretty sure you had a sleepless night at least once in your life. If you didn't and you aren't a dead guy like @Wodahs-oto sama, well, I envy you and you're sure to have a sleepless night tonight. Moving on! Sleepless nights are a pain in the butt. When you have a sleepless night and feel sleepy later in the day, well, anyone can get frustrated. Just like I am right now. I feel so sleepy that I'm practically yawning my head off. Anyway, sleepless nights. Sleepless nights. Sleepless nights. Sleepless nights. Sleepless nights. *keeps on repeating "sleepless nights"* Moving on! The reason people have sleepless nights is mostly because of high sugar intake right before bed or looking at your phone/computer/laptop/tablet computer right before bed. But there are times when you get sleepless nights from tension or when you think about something very...weird. Like sometimes before I go to bed I have a lot of weird thoughts. Sometimes i feel like I am the only on in this world who is real. Everyone and everything else is just an illusion. Whenever I think this way, yelp, hello sleepless nights! But sleepless nights aren't all bad. If you have had a sleepless night at least once in your life you'll be safe from the sleepless night I'll give you! So just remember, if you haven't had a sleepless nights even once in your life, I'll make sure to give you one! Always remember, if you can't sleep and are having a sleepless night, just get out of your bed and do something extremely boring. Studies show that you feel sleepy when you do something extremely boring. Oh, and never take sleep pills without a doctor's permission. And one more thing, sleepless nights aren't the same as insomnia. Now, have a very sleepy night! Unless you've never had a sleepless night before, that is...
    3 points
  30. So this one day when I was laying down in my bed, daydreaming, I suddenly remembered about my childhood passion of singing. I couldn't sing then, and now I still can't, but for some reason I had a thing for music, which hasn't changed yet. I was, and still am, the only one who looked forward to our weekly music classes. For me music was, and still is, the key to life. We had an old busted radio when I was younger. Nobody even looked at it, so I was the only one to listened to the 1970s hits. I still remember that I used to sit in an old rocking chair and listen to the radio with a cup of milk in my hands (I was trying to act like a grownup!) while the radio blared some popular 1970s songs like "How Deep is Your Love" by Bee Gees and such. I listened to the oldies back then because I didn't know about the new songs like "Clumsy" by Fergie (it's one of my favorites now!) or "Bad Day" by Daniel Powter (This one's a golden!). But I'll admit that I soon forgot about all those songs after i tasted my first up-to-date song back in 2009. It was "21 Guns" by Green day and I still love the song. After that I thought that the oldies were disgusting and weird. But my passion for music hasn't changed, even though I have a few picks of oldies that I love now and hate the rest. But sometimes, when I come across "It's My Life" by Bon Jovi or "Summer of 69" by Bryan Adams I just can't help forgetting about all the new pop songs. I just sing along with the song and remember all those good ol' days of my old busted radio. My busted radio was just a start, I have a long journey ahead of music me...
    3 points
  31. We all have memories, don't we? Some of them are sad, some are happy, some are angry and some are embarrassing. When we remember a memory we become happy, sad, angry or even bury our head in shame. Memories are so much more valuable than you think. These golden things can change the way we feel. Say, for instance, that you're depressed and you suddenly remember a funny memory. Your expression changes from "Life really sucks..." to "WTF?! LMAO!!!" Oh. Wait. I just remembered a memory right now. I remember i was in 1st grade. It was raining and S (my so-called best friend) and I couldn't go play so we sat inside. Inside where we sat there were a lot of parents and some kids aged 4-6. I just took hold of S and started kissing her. On the lips. In front of those parents and kids. In our country being gay or lesbian meant that you had some kind of mental illness or you were harassing your partner. If they saw you do these stuff they would either take you to a mental hospital or to the police. And I kissed S in front of all those people. Think about that for a while. Done thinking? Okay. Moving on. So anyway, where were we? Oh yes. Memories. Okay, so what would happen if you didn't have memories? Well, one second you'd be all lovey-doyey and the next you'd be like "OMFG WHO THE HELL ARE YOU?!!" That would totally ruin your chances of getting married and having kids. But if you did get married, you won't remember how to have kids. So you'd go around asking "Where do babies come from?" like a five year old. So let's be real, okay? You can't simply survive without your memories. Except I'm pretty sure I can live with the memory mentioned above. Is this how you right a blog? I really don't know how to since this is my first time writing a blog. Hey kids, I live in a cave and I'm your ancestor! Yay! Hello great-times-infinity grandmother! Okay. Shoo, get out of here!
    3 points
  32. When I was young, around 5th grade, my teacher asked the boys in our class about their thoughts on girls. One boy from the class (which I still know now on Facebook because he went on another school from me) said, "Girls are our Mums! They clean the house and take care of me." It was a sincere answer and I'm pretty sure he was able to say that because it's what he have witnessed in their own home. Women should be like this. Men should be like that. We all offer our each and own opinions on how Women and Men should be. Men should take her bae on dates, or give her a bunch of flowers with a bucket full of chocolates on every special occasions such as anniversaries, monthsaries, weeksaries and even daysaries (if possible) or men should never hold much more think about holding a hand against women or that men should be sensitive enough to care or in other words be a walking possession of women . On the contrary women are expected to be "untouched", a good cook who can do chores, a being that should never express her opinions; summing it all up, a walking possession of men. Watching my Facebook feeds I see a lot of photos expressing gender equality which ONLY highlights the rights of women. Didn't anyone thought about the fact that Men should have their share of shout outs about their rights as well? I saw a guy once who helped this struggling lady with her heavy bags. In a moment I imagined and thought to myself if this said Gender equality exist then that guy could've left that lady struggling with her bags. He didn't need to go out of his way and help that lady. Let the girls carry their heavy bags. Let the girls settle fights with punches and kicks. If it's gender equality then it's every gender for themselves. Gender equality doesn't exist. We have to be honest that each and everyone of us whether you are a man or a woman, a girl or a boy, a lesbian or gay, we have our own opinions about each gender. These opinions can't be changed with a single flick of a magic wand or a single blog entry that is made by a Potato online. It is not our rights that should be changed or implemented BUT our own mindsets. Let's take it easy with everyone. Let's put our standards about each other a little lower.
    3 points
  33. Ok, so, a good spot to farm AP is on the beaches of Balamb for Fastitocalon-F monsters which always appear in groups of 2 for a whopping total of 6 AP per fight. With the Card ability (best used after whacking a monster a few times) you won't need to worry about beefing up your party too early. It's a great way to learn GF Abilities relatively quick, but there's still a deal of grinding that has to be done using this method. If you get too many cards, just Refine them into Water Crystals, then sell Fish Fins and Water Crystals at the Balamb shop to make room and to get some Gil early on.
    2 points
  34. Finally the school year is coming to an end. That means I have 3 clean months of freedom to relax...well I hope. Although I know I'll be put to work, I know I'll be able to watch hella anime...so that pleases me a lot. I'm also going to my grandmothers for the summer, and her house is very fun, so that will be a nice break for me. My household is hell, and staying there all summer would be a pain in my arse. What are your summer plans?
    2 points
  35. I've learned again to appreciate it Naruto in it's entirety. It's not just solely a zero to hero type of story, but it addresses the most fundamental problems in our world today like hatred, how we respond to it and it's how we choose to respond that in turn affects others.
    2 points
  36. INTRODUCTION Hello, and welcome to a rather ridiculous blog post. As an enjoyer of nekomimi – that is cat-eared characters – in anime, I’ve chosen to review how the trope has developed throughout 2021. This is intended as a bit of a parody of similar annual reviews in academia. I’m not taking this writing very seriously, and you probably shouldn’t either. That being said, let’s take a look at what happened to cat characters in 2021! GENERAL TRENDS Of the many terms to describe cat-eared characters (“nekomimi”, “catgirl”, “catboy”, “catperson”, “nekomusume”), the most popular one by far is “catgirl”, according to Google. For that reason, I’m using the term as a proxy for more general interest in nekomimi, at least in the English speaking world. [Google Trend data for "catgirl" for the last 5 years. The spike in Oct '21 is off the chart, peaking at 100 points higher than expected] Google Trends shows that searches for the term has generally increased over the past 5 years, growing at an average rate of 1.17 points per year. The graph above shows that for most of 2019 and 2020, searches for "catgirl" grew slower than expected. However in 2021 it seems we've gotten out of this slump. In October of this year, especially there was an extreme spike in the number of searches. Initially, I suspected that this increase was the result of people preparing cat-themed costumes for Halloween, but a comparison to previous years’ data indicates that searches for “catgirls” should remain fairly constant the entire year. That is to say: We do not expect to see a Halloween spike. So why was this year different? As far as I can tell, this attention was due to two things: [1] The release of a catgirl themed cryptocurrency on October 21st [2] Notorious meme man Elon Musk tweeting about catgirls 3 times that same week (possibly to influence prices of [1]) While it is unfortunate that this interest in catgirls had not much to do with actual nekomimi in anime, I’m hoping that it nonetheless kicks off demand for new neko-style content. Because, as we’ll see in the next sections, we’re in desperate need of it. [Musk tweeting about catgirls in October 2021] ANIME Nekomimi representation in anime has been absolutely dreadful for 2021. In preparation for this blogpost, I’ve combed Google, Reddit, Twitter and quite a few anime databases in order to figure out what cat-eared characters made their debut this year. After many hours, I’ve come up with a disappointingly small list. Here is quick summary of what I could find. Don’t Toy With Me, Miss Nagatoro features the titular character dressing up as ‘Nekotoro’ and her friends donning the ‘Torocat’ mascot costumes. As a recurring gag, Komi-san occasionally grows cat ears in Komi Can’t Communicate. Though originally played as one of Komi’s reactions, other characters in-universe are able to see them too, for some reason. And for fall anime, The Fruit of Evolution featured Origa Calmeria sportting nekomimi as well. [Komi's cat ears pop up throughout the series] Although not strictly a cat, I consider Jahy’s hairstyle “cat-like” enough to mention The Great Jahy Will Not Be Defeated on this list as well. Outside of Japanese animation, we found a few neko characters as well. Mao Ling Xiangce features an entire island of them doing standard moe things. And Crunchyroll introduced Olive as a villanous catgirl for their original High Guardian Spice series. What is there to say about the catpeople of 2021? Unfortunately, not much. Anime nekomimi appear to have fallen by the wayside. We may glimpse a cat ear here and there, but they are all too brief. Their moments in these series are typically meant to augment a character’s humorous quirks rather than be a key element of their identity. Adendum: The following characters were graciously mentioned by Ohayotaku after this article was originally written. Thank you for the input! Mushoku Tensei's Ghislane Platinum End's Saki Rumble Garanndoll's Misa Kuroki + cat mech MANGA I’m horribly out of touch with the manga scene. If I figure out any cat characters that appeared in new manga this year, this section will be edited to include them. VTUBERS With the continued rise of virtual youtubers this year, it is worth examining this aspect of internet culture for cat aesthetics as well. Hololive, saw idols Lamy, Rushia, Flare, Luna, Gura and Kiara all debut versions of their avatars with cat ears. Searches on the Virtual Youtuber Wiki and Twitter reveal that neko-inspired outfits remain popular choices in freshening up vtuber wardrobes. The addition of cat ears to established outfits is often nothing more than superficial change, but in a nekomimi-starved world, it is a welcome sight. For the sake of brevity and relevance, I cannot list all of the smaller personalities I’ve found here, but be assured, they’re out there if you take a minute to look. And it is also worth mentioning that there seemed to be more neko-tuber activity in 2020. Had I done this review a year earlier, this section could have been a lot more interesting. [HololiveEN member Kiara showing off nekomimi avatar] CONCLUSION Looking ahead, I am hoping for a nekomimi revival in 2022. Over the years, the archetype has lost popularity to other kemononomimi such as kitsune, as well as fully anthropomorphized characters. But the appreciation for cat ears is still out there. And if the Catgirl Re-NYA-ssaince doesn’t happen this year, I will be happy if there are just one or two good cat characters to enjoy. As 2022 rolls around, I hope to acquire a better sense of where to find nekomimi related content. That alone will greatly improve the quality of future reviews. If you have any such resources or know of characters I didn’t cover, I would be extremely appreciative if you shared them. I’m looking forward to writing another one of these in a year. Thank you for reading!
    2 points
  37. Okay Everyone so I already updated my status a little while ago so I would like to continue on that note by making a few blog entries. Since yet again it has been some time since my last post. I don't know if I have mentioned to you all before but I quite the procrastinator while I am at home. So my room is a hot mess and it takes me forever to do stuff also as a Gemini I tend to get sidetracked a lot so I never really finish anything I actually start. Ugh sometimes I just wish I could get together while I'm home. Also I said only at home that's because when I am at work I'm totally different person. Diligent, hard working, problem solver, communicative, real people person. I wasn't or is not popular but when I think of a character I probably most resemble Umaru from Himouto! Umaru-chan. Anyway I digress back to the main program. lol. There was a few things I wanted to talk about one is this will be the only mention of things in the world right now as I am sure others are already talking about things and frankly I am sick of all this craziness and wish to not talk about it. I do however care very much about the people's well being and mental health so like I have said before if you need a friend to talk to I'm willing to listen that aside my blog shall bring happiness with reviews of anime's, manga, Japan, kpop, and jrock, among many other things. Ok moving on. I love Haikyu it is one of my top 10 favorites I can watch this series over and over again. That being said I was a bit disappointed when the new season is WHAT already over. Just 13 episodes I don't know why but it felt awfully short to me. I mean it is pretty standard 12 to 13 episodes per season but looking back The first and second season were each 25 episodes soooo you know WTF. But the wait shouldn't be too long. Tentative date will be sometime this July with 14 more episodes. So I CAN'T FREAKIN WAIT!!!! Second season of Fruits Basket started and I am already highly irritated at Motoko that girl I just wanna punch in the face. The first episode introduce a couple of new charcters who were highly strange to put it mildly. See what story those two bring. Other than that the episode was kinda plain honestly. But we are just getting back into the swing of things so I am sure there will be more adventures and drama awaiting. My looking Forward/New Season List Some more SAO - Now I know a lot of people have mixed feelings about this series. I will say I quite like however it does not make my top 10 list. Since I'm older I quite like some old school stuff but I have invested a lot of time in watching all of the series thus far. It's got some good qualities I feel the new story arc is a little lacking compared to original and GGO season's. I felt it was a little slow in the beginning but now that some of the original cast is starting to come back into action it is starting to feel more like itself sort to speak. Assendance of a Bookworm - I love Myne (sounds like Mine) she is the main character. Okay if you haven't watched this little gem I would. Classified as Isekai. Basically a reincarnation into another world. She is thrust into and frail poor girl, though she isn't alone her whole family is there don't get to sad on me. But this world is quite different and there is a lack of books which well from the title guessed her previous life she was a bookworm and thus part of her struggles begin. She super kawaii it's an adorable funny story. Guess I just started second season it was a really short break in-between that last couple episodes so I don't really call it a second season in my opinion. Food Wars 5th Plate - Soma is my jam. LOL. I absolutely love Food Wars I can't get enough of this sadly I believe this will be the last season. I have been thinking after this is over I might start reading the manga cause I love it so much. Highly anticipating what and where the shows going. Tower of God - Now I haven't watched the first episode of this but I'm hoping it will be decent. The story sounds good so we will see how the plot unfolds itself. When I watched the preview up the upcoming season there were a few shows I was interested in but I didn't freaking write them down at the time thus I can't remember what they were. So we will see when they come out and I will update you all on the promising new shows. Sorry forgot one. The 8th son? Are you Kidding me? - An isekai also. First episode was quite entertaining and I feel will be very funny and interesting to watch. During the first episode the opening montage does't happen until the halfway point of the episode was quite weird but it was an awesome rock song. SPOILERS!!! The main character is a salary man and after getting off from work prepares a meal and right before eating falls asleep and wakes up in a very strange place and is also now a young boy. He thinks he is rich nobility but it's more like poor nobility and then finds out that he isn't a 3rd son but in fact the 8th. Anyway some other funny stuff happens and it was pretty good.
    2 points
  38. I suppose, I should make an actual art post considering this is all new haha. Lets start with a picture I drew of a co-worker. She was sad one day because she didn't like her nose. I was a bit flabbergasted as I feel this person is beautiful inside and out....and so, I drew her lol Got to love inspiration no matter where it comes from. Now this one started as a sketch (just pencil) I have this sketch if anyone wants to see it haha... colored it after with some copics, and then did some edits on my phone. It is by no means exciting, quality isn't amazing....but it made my friend's day so who cares? ^.- My friend loves astronomy I tend to do a lot of mixed media in my work ^^;
    2 points
  39. Cosplay has been a part of many peoples lives for some time now. What was once a daft little past-time where high-schoolers would wear a cheap costume-shop wig and a garment hastily put together with hot glue, to these amazing full armour builds and becoming internet famous and even making careers out of it, cosplay surely has gone a long way, hasn't it? We all seen these amazing fictional characters on our TV screens. Whether it be 2D animation or a character model in a game it is as if we are constantly 'feeling' all kinds of textures with our own eyes. It is amazing how animation works to use clothing and hair to create a sense a realism that blends beautifully within the game's/show's environment. 'Wow, his scarf is floating in the wind.' Cosplayers can look at a character and compare a character's costume to real life physics. Sometimes the materials are hard and shiny, which is what is typical in armour. Other times there might be stripes or patterns. Maybe its pleated or wavy. You cant physically touch it for yourself but just by looking you can absolutely tell! Its amazing how one can translate something from fiction to real life. These people can take days, weeks, months, even years, to create a costume. They can also be brought too. Some newcomers might just see costume making as sewing but in reality that is only part of the hobby. Cosplayers make props, they learn makeup, style wigs, create armour, jewellery, accessories and surprisingly many of these people are self-taught. 'But I cant sew...' That is ok! We all have to start somewhere! No one becomes an expert over night. I have been cosplaying for 12 years and I am still learning. I still make mistakes all the time and there is a lot of sewing jargon I dont understand the definition of. I have been learning as I go along. There are plenty of tutorials online, and maybe you have friends or family that can help. Maybe just buy some clothes from a thrift ship and alter them, like dye or paint them. Not only there is the joy of the creation process, but also the sense of achievement of completing the costume! It doesnt end here! Consider showing your work off at a convention! The best feeling ever is making people happy because they got to meet their favourite character! Share the happiness! Its a hobby that makes many people happy!
    2 points
  40. Ehh, not that anyone's ever really asked me about it, but I do mention MMaM allot, so I thought I might as well address it. MMaM stands for "Me, Myself and the Multiverse"; a series I have been working on for the last 3 years. its been mostly based off of characters and ideas formed within my head-thing (I'm an insomniac, so I spend a LOT of time thinking) so I've been developing an entire universe for the MMaM story-line, as well as other series based in that universe (such as "Memetically Me", which is one I'm working on atm) Without going into to much detail, I thought I might as well say that I will likely be using this blog, as well as the writers archive club, to share some of my thoughts, ideas and tips/tricks I have picked up over my short time of writing. (I will also be covering how to write a comic, as well as how to create narrative for characters in video games, in the writers archive. this wont be for a while, since I am still learning myself, but I will definitely get around to it) anyhow, hope this is at least helpful and informative, and I look forward to ranting on about narrative and ideas in the near future (Oh, and please, if anyone has ANY questions at all, or anything they would like me to discuss or go over within narrative or creative fields, then please ask! even if I don't know about it myself, I would happily research it with you, since it means we can all learn together!!! :D) Thank you for your time
    2 points
  41. I remember the days when all you had to do was worry about going to school and watching cartoons. Your elementary teachers who gave out hugs as much as they gave out candy and good advice. Maybe you had some homework that you threw off for awhile or it was easy and you got it done right away. Your teen celebrities that you had a crush on growing up. That summer camp you went to as a kid. When the only real issues you had to deal with was offline bullies and chores that you didn't really want to do but you did anyway. Friends you'd make. Or didn't make. Authentic people who truly cared about you and you them. Now everything has changed so much. The teen idols you grew with are either on drugs, considered obsolete, or dead. Rent and Bills are your indefinite companions. Bullies are now cyber as well as tangible. People seem either fake or unconcerned. Cartoons you grew up with as a child are considered old school. Music now sounds the same with no variety. Losing so much now than you ever have as a child. And now using nostalgia as a way of coping with a horrid future. I miss the way it was.
    2 points
  42. Why is it that the boy characters seem to get less attention? There are a vast amount of highly developed male characters, yet it is not nearly as likely that you've heard of them referred to by any "dere" character type. Here is a list of the Dere character type definitions I've found on the web, and characters from some of my favorite anime to give you an example of what they can look like. Deredere: Sweet and energetic to seemingly everyone - Momiji Souma (Fruits Basket) Aladdin (Magi) Honey (Ouran High Schoo Host Club) TsunDere: Outwardly harsh, not tactful, and easily disliked, perhaps lacking charisma, however once you get to know them they are a teddy bear. Kyou Souma (Fruits Basket) Inosuke (Demon Slayer) Inuyasha Kuudere: Seems not to care what others think or do, cold and blunt. Internally they are caring and thoughtful. Kaede Rukawa (Slam Dunk) Yusuke Urameshi (Yuu Yuu Hakusho) Naofumi Iwatani (The Rising of the Shield Hero) Yandere: Sweet until someone else shows interest in their object of affection Zenitsu (Demon Slayer) Motoyasu (The Rising of the Shield Hero) Dandere: Calm and sweet, usually reserved in groups, but opens up in private. May be referred to as "shy" Ren Mihashi (Big Windup!) Makunouchi Ippo (Hajime no Ippo) Lets show these boys some love What personality types do your favorite characters fall under?
    2 points
  43. AAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!! EEEEEEYAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!! HAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!! AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
    2 points
  44. Isekai Quartet is one of the anime airing this season. It's not finished yet, but I'd like to give my thoughts about it here. Overlord Overlord is by far my favorite out of the four. I love the characters; they bounce off each other in a way that I find hilarious, especially in the spin-offs like A La Carte and Ple Ple Pleiades. A common complaint I see about Overlord is that the guardians have no/the same personality because they're all loyal to Ainz. This might seem true to an outsider, but as someone who's a bit closer with the series, I feel that the characters are distinct and interesting. Overlord has, in my opinion, carried Isekai Quartet so far. Ainz has done the most legwork interacting with the other characters, which is the point of a crossover show. He even ends an episode in the most comfy way possible, but I'll let you experience that yourself if you haven't seen Isekai Quartet yet. Ainz should also be the most relatable for the average viewer, even if he's a skeleton lich Sorcerer King. KonoSuba For some reason, r/anime and /a/ just love KonoSuba. While I actually used to like KonoSuba a lot, constantly hearing exaggerations about how hilarious or based it is has turned me off of the show. (So much, in fact, that it has made me lower my score of it on Anilist.) My biggest issue with KonoSuba in Isekai Quartet is the repetitiveness of their gag humor. This is especially true of Darkness, who pretty much has one joke in both Isekai Quartet and the KonoSuba anime. I still do like Darkness in KonoSuba, but in Isekai Quartet, she's just outright annoying. Megumin also hasn't done much in Isekai Quartet yet either, so sorry if you're a Megumin fan. Honestly, watching Isekai Quartet made me realize why Aqua is so popular, even if Megumin is the "canon" ship with Kazuma. Aqua and Kazuma are hilarious. Their jokes felt the least repetitive, and in Episode 8, Aqua has a hilarious interaction with Albedo and Shalltear that just made me laugh because of the connection that was being made across the two anime. I still find /a/'s constant praise of KonoSuba to be worrying, but I shouldn't let that stop me from enjoying an otherwise good anime. Re:Zero Oof, Re:Zero has pretty much always been polarizing. A lot of people (including the characters IN the show) find Subaru obnoxious, but I actually like him. He has a wholesome hikki-esque sense of humor that a lot of people think about but don't say. Also, the Re:Zero anime (out of these four anime) is the most compelling to watch on an episode-to-episode basis. I still remember sitting on the edge of my seat watching Re:Zero for the first time and having the ending theme send chills down my spine. As for Re:Zero's role in Isekai Quartet, I personally find it to be the weakest link. Roswaal's voice is grating, Emilia & Beatrice have minor roles, and Rem's character is just "I love Subaru" now. However, I find Ram's smirk to be hilarious, and I still find Subaru's antics to be endearing, even if annoying. Youjo Senki Youjo Senki is by far the most unique isekai on this list. It's ugly, unfamiliar, and features a completely unrelatable protagonist. Because of that, it is the least popular of the four anime, but I would say it has the most purpose to it. Overlord (in the anime so far) has mostly been a power fantasy. KonoSuba is a comedy. Re:Zero has had more meat to it, bringing out the most extremes of its characters to grip the audience, but the ending of season 1 made it feel like the show had no purpose. On the other hand, Youjo Senki has a goal and path to the story with unique themes, settings and power system that're interesting to learn about. However, because of Youjo Senki's heavy focus on these topics, the characters are sparse and extremely boring. A comedy like Isekai Quartet is carried by the interactions between characters. Although Youjo Senki brings a squadron of people, it really has two characters, (Tanya and Viktoriya) and Viktoriya has yet to do anything interesting. But, Tanya has had a golden moment with Ainz where they enjoy themselves, which is honestly a breath of fresh air for me and the both of them. Both of them live stressful lives, feeling alone and disconnected with the people around them due to their leadership status, so it was actually nice to see them become good friends that can relate to one another. Tanya also gets along with Ainz's close "friend" Demiurge, which also brought a smile to my face. Summary - Is it worth watching? Honestly? Is this show worth watching? If you've already seen all four of these shows, then sure, it's a nice filler anime. But if you don't like one of the anime on the list, (for instance, you think Overlord's characters are boring or you don't appreciate KonoSuba's humor) then it may not be for you. Either way, it's not a huge waste of time, as it's only going to be 12 episodes that are around 12 minutes long each. So far, I would rate the show somewhere between a 5 and a 7, but it's not finished yet so it's hard to say definitively.
    2 points
  45. A character HAS to be relatable to be a “good” character, right? That’s what everyone refers to when they’re criticizing something they don’t like. Conversely, when a show features a relatable character, the show is often praised. This is likely why many isekai characters are average japanese men; moreso, these characters may also turn out to be the “otaku” stereotype, such as Natsuki Subaru from Re:Zero. Personally, I have much more fun with characters that are only partially relatable. For example, Kazuma from KonoSuba is relatable because of his social incorrectness. Many people would also feel annoyed by Aqua’s condescending nature, but would not banter with her because of her status as a goddess. Scenes like this from KonoSuba are funny because Kazuma expresses his relatable emotions in an unrelatable way. Personally, my favorite is the “literally me” archetype. I’m not sure if there’s a solid title or description for these types of characters, but I would describe them as anti-social, quiet characters that solve their problems in unconventional ways. Examples of this include (but are not limited to): Hikigaya Hachiman from OreGairu, Ayanokouji Kiyotaka from Classroom of the Elite, Naofumi Iwatani from The Rising of the Shield Hero, Keima Katsuragi from The World God Only Knows, Kobayashi from Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid, Shiroe from Log Horizon, and Araragi Koyomi from Kizumonogatari. I have also been told that Sakuta Azusagawa from Bunny Girl Senpai and Hotaro Oreki from Hyouka fall in the same vein. If your anime’s protagonist falls under this category, it’s very easy for me to watch your show. This is most likely why I favor anime over other shows, since this archetype seems to be pretty rare for main characters in western shows. The only character I can think of that fits in this vein is Sherlock from BBC's adaptation of Sherlock Holmes. My favorites from the above are Hikigaya Hachiman, Ayanokouji Kiyotaka, and Koyomi Araragi. Shoutout to @Muco for suggesting Classroom of the Elite to me; it was an extremely enjoyable show. Bonus points if your character has angry/bored eyes. On the other hand, I find it very hard to watch shows with timid main characters. For example, I still haven’t finished Neon Genesis Evangelion or Future Diary, and it was hard for me to watch two seasons of My Hero Academia. I find it fine when the main character develops, such as in Parasyte: the maxim, but even then, these characters are hard to stomach. Now, I need to clarify: I am not attacking you if you like these types of character. I don’t think that these characters are bad writing, either. Characters that go from zero to hero are satisfying to watch and easy to write and develop. My liking of "literally me" characters is just that: a preference. What about you? What do you like in an anime’s main character? Do you like the hothead, like Asta from Black Clover? This type of character is pretty common in shounen, like Naruto Uzumaki and Shoyo Hinata. Or do you like the bantering type, like Fuutarou Uesugi from Quintessential Quintuplets? This is a fun archetype, more common in comedy anime, but also exists in shows like Clannad. Maybe you prefer the vengeful type, like Tanya Degurechaff from Youjo Senki. There's also the A-hole characters, like Jotaro Kujo from Jojo's Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders. Another character could be the silent and/or mysterious type, like Afro Samurai's main character. Or maybe you have a complete opposite opinion of me, and like timid main characters, like Deku from My Hero Academia. Let me know! I love hearing about what other people think. If you feel like it, you should even tell me what main characters you like and why you like them. Thanks for reading!
    2 points
  46. So, it seems for the past 2 years I have been trying to land my dream job (not just preparing for it but applying too). This has been a very very long and painful process, and at this point, I can confess... I have rewritten my resume likely over 150 times in two years...and my cover letters...I have around 120 or so. That's a lot of writing. I remember the Dean of my school once saying "Anyone who claims to enjoy writing is a liar" and I raised my hand and said, "I actually like writing....sir....." Haha! Didn't earn me any points with that guy but ah well. I do love writing stories. I'm still working on my short (the one I meant to be around 15 pages long that has turned into 120 pages and counting) story on the side but writing all of these resumes and cover letters has given me a different perspective to writing. I've even written resumes and cover letters for my friends (I tell all my friends they must expect to spend a minimum of 4-8 hours with me for a resume, and another 8-16 hours for a cover letter - the information you have to drag out of people to write these is insane) and darn....I make those things look great! One of my friends worked as a cleaning lady for around 8 years, and in fast food for another 4 years and I made her resume sound very professional and geared it towards her dream warehouse job with the terminology I used to describe her work responsibilities. Sometimes I wonder though, why it takes so long for me to comb through and improve my own work. I likely turn a blind eye towards my own resume's flaws. In the past, I relegated updating my resume to a yearly task that I set for myself on my whiteboard in my office on New Years Day (along with all my other goals (you know, save X amount of money in savings, attain this or that certification, pay off that loan) things that I wanted to get done that year that I would mark off as I accomplished them). I'm now realizing that doing this yearly, I probably missed some major additions I could've added before that now are just out of my grasp....not to mention...if you don't use it, you lose it (the magic resume touch that is). Well, I've got the touch now. Maybe I should open up a resume/cover letter writing service, charge people by the hour to do it. At least I'd make money from it. So far I've been just giving it away! I'm also a lot happier with my resume than I can say I was two years ago. It is full of interesting information, not just generic stuff, that exemplifies my abilities and leads to enhancing others. It's all building on itself. I seem to be getting better at displaying pertinent information. It isn't enough to just list the robots I've worked with. Now I'm listing what their functions were as well as the software components. Give the random HR representative a shred of information to understand what it means (HR rep must be the strangest job in the world - they get to pick people who get to see the hiring manager, and most of the time they have no understanding of what the person does or how they get the job done). I'm still at a disadvantage. Studies have shown ambitious men get three times the interviews that ambitious women do, but at least this resume is written proof of my abilities. ~sighs~ Well, back to applying for the dream. Some day I'll get there. Not sure when. If I keep trying though, my ticket's eventually got to be pulled. This cat's not giving up the hunt that easily!
    2 points
  47. Bright eyes and quiet stares, moments to admire.
    2 points
  48. So here we are, Panic! at the disco's High hopes MV. Lets get into it, shall we? Okay, so the video starts off with Brendon stepping out of a car (0:07), well-dressed as usual. His exit from the car is timed perfectly with the music and is the perfect time for his reveal. When first the words "High, high hopes" are sung we can see the camera moves upward and focuses on the sky-scrapers; this makes us think of how high sky-scraper's are immediately and prepares us for the rest of the MV very well, a great start. The on-screen text fades but not before we see it pass behind Brendon (0:23), this serves better for the camera angle chosen seeing as otherwise we would merely see the tree behind Brendon; simply, it is more aesthetically pleasing. While Brendon sings "High, high hopes" we can see that he is looking upward, again, its the small things that make all the difference, this was very well choreographed. As Brendon sing the line "I was gonna be that one in a million" (0:32) the shot is just perfect, with the people passing him by right in front of him and the cars and numerous people in the background it really shows how many people their are, yet he is still the main focus of the shot standing precisely in the middle of the shot; perfect. As Brendon walks down the side-walk we can see him getting shouldered by many people (0:37); we can attribute this to the many hard-ships he has faced (many of which we can see in "Hey look ma, I made it") such as losing his other band members and many more hardships. We can see he is distressed as he turns around because it is written all over his face yet as he continues walking he takes yet another shoulder, this time however he does not look back at all and yet continues walking forward confidently; this shows us that he has taken control, he doesn't care what people say or what hard-ships get in the way, he is doing this. As the lyrics state in "Emperor's new clothes", "I see it, I want it, I take it" and as Brendon said in an interview on said song: "I wanted a song that says, 'this is mine. I do what I do because I feel that its my right. I own this, and I've earned it, and I deserve every bit that I put into this work". This is the kind of transformation I feel like we are witnessing in the music video for High hopes. At 1:03 when Brendon sings the words, "Momma said, don't give up" he looks upward at the towering building before him, obviously symbolizing the challenges he would have to face in his career; Brendon looks intimidated at first but immediately gets down to it and begins scaling the building just as the Chorus breaks in again, simply fantastic! The entire scene of Brendon's walk up the building is fantastic, this MV fits perfectly with the Lyrics and is just really beautiful to watch. As Brendon nears the end of the climb he slips and nearly falls (2:13) just as he start's singing "They say its all been done but they haven't seen the best of me", he then conquers the climb and makes it to the top of the building, solidifying his victory and new beginning. Again, just wanted to point out how wonderfully choreographed and performed this MV was, Brendon could honestly be an actor. After he has reached the top of the tall building till the end of the video (just as the whole video was) is perfect. We can see his logo stapled atop the building, I believe this tells us he was always destined to make it to the top, like his momma said "Fulfill the prophecy" he has done it and accomplished his destiny. Okay guys, so that was a rather quick and to the point review, I hope you liked it! Feel free to comment below and be sure to appreciate the beauty around you so you will realize just how beautiful your day truly is! ~♥
    2 points
  49. So, like many of you out there, I do enjoy a good book and some day, I hope I can sit down and enjoy reading a book I wrote on my own. Does anyone else out there have a dream like that? I've been writing stories ever since I was in middle school and I am forever thankful that I had an AMAZING mom who took the time out of her busy days after work to sit down with me and teach me to read all by herself, just because I asked her to. Yep, I was reading before I even got into kindergarten and by the time I hit first grade, the teachers were parading me around to read to the other students (in hopes I would inspire them). Back then, reading to my fellow classmates, I was on a fifth grade level and my love of reading has only grown since (along with my level haha). Reading stories inspired me to excel and think and by the time I started writing my own, I had some pretty stiff convictions about what a good story would entail. Character development. No plotholes. A setting and world so vivid you could see it around you as you read the page. Like many people, I started out by writing fanfiction. In actuality, fanfiction is GREAT practice for writing an actual novel. It takes the world building component and the character building component out and lets you practice fleshing out a story. The rise and fall of the plot, the subtle changes in the characters as they grow through a story, and the sculpting of a conclusion, wrapping up the story in a tidy bow. Then, around five years ago, I decided to take the plunge and write my own story straight from my brain to the keyboard. To create that world in its entirety and sculpt the characters from the vision in my head. Sounds easier than it really is. Needless to say, I wrote a great first chapter. I've gone back and done some minor tweaking to it but that's where I'm stuck. I've introduced one major character and now I need to introduce another. The rest of the story I've jotted down in notes throughout the years. I've researched different types of weapons and armor (it's a medieval fantasy type story), I've written background biographies for the various characters in the story, the main villain has been augmented so many times she is no longer recognizable from her first incarnation. I know how I want it to start and I know where I want it to be, it's just the getting there that seems to be tripping me up now. That and life pretty much stole all my motivation for the past four years...but that story is a tragedy that no one wants to read haha... So, with all my extra time recently, I've started back writing. I've tweaked my novel's first chapter and now I've started on a new story. This new story is more of a "short story" meant to grease my writing gears again and man did I need it. In just a few short days I burned out 37 pages of material (yeah...short...I know...) and that was just chapter one of my short story. I could tell with every four to five pages that my writing was improving as well. I think at this point I might be back to the skill of writing that I stopped with last time. And now...the delimna....to continue writing my short story (and hopefully finish it...was planning four chapters).....or instead work on my old novel. I think I've finally figured out the proper way to proceed (I need an actual introduction of the main group and protagonist before my other protagonist meets them...I could never figure out what was missing before but I suddenly see it for what it is now.). I've already gone back in and revised the new story's first 20 or so pages..... Decisions....decisions.... Doesn't help that now when I fall asleep at night I dream of two different stories meandering about in my head.... I might have to just drink some shots tonight and flip a coin to decide on this one. Wish me luck, guys!
    2 points
  50. Now, I've never been the one to share my thoughts on certain things. But I decided to step out my comfort zone give it a go at a blog. I'm not the best writer, so bare with me. I want to share some facts about me. 1. I'm 16 2. I'm a loner 3. My top 3 favorite anime shows are; Inyuasha, Fairy Tail, & Kuromukuro 4. My favorite color is black 5. I love reading mangas, and comics 6. My first ever manga was a book called "Emma". 7. I like playing video games 8. I have 4 sisters, including me, 5. 9. I love supernaturals and horror shows (like The Walking Dead, & Supernatural). And lastly 10. I love junk food. So that's about it for my Introduction, I still have many things to say but that's for a later post. Till next time, Peace.
    2 points
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