So I just finished the book and wanted to offer my thoughts on the somewhat confusing ending that occurred. I’m not stating these as fact, just how I interpreted the events.
Spoilers ahead (I don’t know how to block spoilers on mobile so forgive me!)
>! saw some people questioning why the Atlas Six didn’t just kill Dalton to appease the archives, especially after he “snapped.” I was thinking that killing Dalton would be the solution too, but I realized that he technically isn’t one of the six in their cohort, so it might not count.!<
I also think to solve the issue of owing the archives a body, Nico died bc he was objectively the only person in the cohort that everyone liked to a certain degree (Reina just wouldn’t admit it until too late) and Libby knew the archives would want a BIG sacrifice (something something about the arrow striking most true). Parisa almost offered herself up to be slaughtered, and it probably could’ve worked, but it wouldn’t have been as heavy to the characters so the archives wouldn’t have gotten as much out of it. I do feel like if Nico was the one to be sacrificed, then it could’ve been done in a vastly different way. I still can’t decide if Libby went into the experiment knowing she would probably kill him, or if she was so confident it would work until it didnt that she had to make a snap judgement. I don’t think she truly hated him, every character suffers from unreliable narrating and we have to draw a lot of their true feelings from their interactions with other characters.
Libby is a nuke gaining speed and heading for destruction, and after killing Ezra and Atlas, Parisa can see that Libby is filled with the sure fire determination of a despot, someone who thinks they’re so right they’ll betray whoever is in their way because they assume their way is the best way. She goes a little mad and paranoid, and it’s a tragedy because it takes killing her soulmate to make her stop. If she hadn’t, she would just become another Ezra, or Atlas, or Nothazai, which is why Parisa wanted to kill her.
And I think the reason we see Nico in Gideon’s dream realm is that the archives preserved some of Nico’s magic and “essence” (Dalton alluded to the archives making copies of them) and that is who Gideon sees. Gideon compares this version of Nico to previous times he’s s hung out with Nico in dreams and sees that this is something different. So in a way, I think Nico is living on.
The appearance of Callum’s hair in the security cameras has me a little stumped: I think that could be read several ways. I initially thought that it was Callum walking into Wessex building bc of the exaggerated swagger and confidence (and sunglasses) the character possessed. And the way Tristan was speaking to James, I then assumed it was Callum disguised as Tristan via a charm. I now think Callum’s personality has just rubbed off on him.
I thought that perhaps Tristan had chosen a timeline where Callum lived, and we see Callum backing him up in the building by cutting the cameras, but that doesn’t seem like Callum’s style. I feel like he would make himself more apparent. That whole multiverse part during Tristan’s chapter honestly just told me that worlds exist where in some capacity these characters are happy(happier) so even if Callum is truly dead in this timeline then…at least there’s that small comfort. But yeah I still don’t know. Ghost?
Parish’s relationship with her husband confused me. I’m unsure of the dynamic- I thought he abused her, but he also really loved her and Parisa regretted that she couldn’t return those feelings? I could be very wrong on that observation, from the first books I thought Parisa greatly disliked him but to me, this book says she still harbors feelings for him. I might’ve missed some nuance there, or such complexity might not exist…if anyone has any further clarification, plz lemme know.
I also think, after reading the afterword, that the “point” of these characters’ arcs is largely about dealing with the corruption that comes with the pursuit of power, and realizing that chasing that power doesn’t make you any bigger than anyone else. All of them hold lofty ideals and expectations of themselves (even past the depression and self loathing) that have only grown and grown as the books progress, but this last act basically sees all of them fail where it matters most. They are brought low by their own hubris and lack of communication, and the relationships they cherish most suffer because of it. There are a lot of themes regarding the futility of doing so much to change the world, and these guys have sacrificed so much to do that and reach their potential. But in the end, they’re just small, lonely creatures who need eachother. Reina’s arc expressed this most clearly, by her depending on Callum to influence people, and anguish at losing Nico before they could reconcile. But also, her whole story fell flat in this book to me…she was very underutilized. Tristan is similar as he laments always standing by to witness tragedy unfolding and doing nothing to stop it (ie he witnessed Ezra and Atlas dying, Nico, and finally Callum.)
Some people definitely could’ve been more fleshed out (namely Dalton imo) but I enjoyed the interludes where we got to see more of Atlas’ past. Ilegit hadn’t clocked that he was dead until it was explicitly stated near the end. I thought he would appear to yell at everyone to work together…but he’s lowkey the most tragic one of all.
. Out of the three in the series, this is my least favorite book, but there were still moments I thoroughly enjoyed (honestly anytime Tristan and Callum interacted). I wish there was more to tighten up some of the big loose ends. I think the first two acts can be saved, but the last portion got sloppy.
But what do you think? And what other big questions are you left with?

I don't know if this even exist since most of what i read in this genre seems to focus too much on the main character going alone for dungeons clearing spree or tower climbing for 50 chapters and only grind xp and loot or just sitting in a close room cultivating just you know .. putting this huge focus on this style of solo progression.
Personally i prefer the parts where the main character progression is happening by interacting with other intelligent people through making deals and alliances or when a war happen between different groups so the main character has to fight intelligent people and not just mindless monsters.
For example defiance of the fall has some of that with the main character interactions with he demon race and the government and the marshalls clan and building his city, etc. but then still the author spend a lot of time focusing on the character going solo for xp and loot grinding which especially bugged me and made me drop the novel in the tower climbing arc because it just went for too long.

What’s the Difference Between On-Page SEO and Off-Page SEO?

On-page SEO focuses on optimizing parts of your website that are within your control, while off-page SEO focuses on increasing the authority of your domain through content creation and earning backlinks from other websites. To further understand the difference between the two, you have to understand, at a basic level, how search engine algorithms work. Let’s break it down.
There are two main buckets that search engines (SEO) look at when evaluating your site compared to other sites on the web.

1. On-page SEO looks at what your site (or your page) is about
2. Off-page SEO looks at how authoritative and popular your site is

On-Page vs. Off-Page SEO: What’s the Difference?

Put simply, what you rank for is largely determined by on-page factors, while how high you rank in the search results is largely determined by off-page factors.

How Does Each Type of SEO Affect Your Rankings?

What is On-Page SEO?

On-page SEO (also known as “on-site” SEO) is the act of optimizing different parts of your website that affect your search engine rankings. Where your website appears in search engine results pages is determined by a number of ranking factors including site accessibility, page speed, optimized content, keywords, title tags, etc. On-page SEO is about optimizing the stuff that you have control over and can change on your own website.

On-page SEO checklist:

How do you make sure your on-page SEO tactics are up to snuff? Here is a helpful checklist for on-site optimizations that can help curate your strategy.

Title Tags

Put your targeted keywords in the title tag of each page on your site. There are many best practices that go into writing an effective title tag.

• Limit your title tags to 55-60 characters (including spaces)
• Push the keyword closer to the beginning of the title (ONLY if it sounds natural)
• Don’t stuff your keywords
• Include brand at the end of the title tag, separated by a pipe bar () Example: “Chicago SEO Digital Third Coast”

Headings (H1)

Headings are usually the largest words on the page, and for that reason, search engines give them a little more weight than your other page copy. It is a good idea to work your target keywords into the headings of each web page but make sure you accurately reflect your page’s great content.
Make sure your H1s limited to one per page, all other headers are H2 or H3

URL structure

Put keywords into your URLs if possible. However, do not go changing all of your current URLs just so they have keywords in them. You shouldn’t change old URLs unless you plan on redirecting your old ones to your new ones. Consult a professional before doing this.

• Label your directories and folders in a way that makes sense for users
• Don’t repeat keywords in your URL more than once. Keywords are helpful, but overdoing it effects user experience. Example: /best-socks-comparison-best-socks-best-socks?
• Keep URLs as short as possible

Alt text for images

Any content management system should allow you to add something called “alt text” to all images on your website. This text isn’t visible to the average visitor – alt text is in fact used by screen reader software to help blind internet users understand the content of your images. Search engines crawl images in a similar way, so inserting some relevant keywords while accurately describing the image will help search engines understand your page’s content.
Writing an alt attribute for each image keeps your website in compliance with WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines). Keep the following things in mind when writing alt text:

• Thoroughly describe the image in 8-10 words
• Include your targeted keyword where it sounds most natural
• Include, if relevant, a geo-locator (e.g., Chicago)

Fast-loading pages, or page load speed

Google wants to help its users find what they’re looking for as quickly as possible to provide the best user experience. Therefore, optimizing your pages to load faster helps your site rank higher in the search results.
Google has a tool called PageSpeed Insights that will analyze your site on both mobile and desktop. and then suggest tips to optimize page speed. There are also several quick fixes to eliminate whatever is bogging your site down and slowing your page load time. Key site speed factors to consider:

• Minimizing HTTP requests
• Making sure server response time is <200ms
• Setting browser caching to at least a week or longer
• Enabling Gzip compression
• Having image sizes under 100kb (.jpg, .png, .gif)
• Placing all CSS in an external style sheet
• Minifying all JS, CSS and HTML
• Prioritizing above the fold content loading

Mobile Friendliness

In recent years, Google has prioritized mobile page loading speed as a key ranking metric.
How do you know if your website is mobile-friendly? Unfortunately, Google recently dropped support for some free public tools that helped. However, you can now use Google Search Console to analyze this type of information. Specifically, the Core Web Vitals report can help you identify if your mobile pages are loading slower than they should be.

Page Content

The content on your pages needs to be useful to people. If they search for something too specific to find your page, they need to be able to find what they’re looking for. It needs to be easy to read and provide value to the end user. Google has various ways to measure if your content is useful.

• Aim for at least 500 words of copy. Although there is no exact formula for how many words a page should have, Google seems to prefer when a page has a lot of relevant and helpful content surrounding your topic.
• Copy must be unique to each page, not duplicated from other pages on your site, and should directly address your visitors’ search queries
• Push the keyword closer to the beginning of the title, but ONLY if it sounds natural

Internal Linking

Linking internally to other pages on your website is useful to visitors and it is also useful to search engines. Here’s an internal link to another blog post on our site that talks more about internal linking. Very meta.
When adding internal links, make sure to have relevant anchor text. Anchor text is the clickable text in a hyperlink (usually indicated by blue font color and underline). To optimize your anchor text, make sure the selected word or phrase is relevant to the page you’re linking to.
On-page SEO ensures that your site can be read by both potential customers and search engine robots. With good on-page SEO, search engines can easily index your web pages, understand what your site is about, and easily navigate the structure and content of your website, thus ranking your site accordingly. As a best practice, make sure your page content includes 1-3 relevant internal links.

Schema Markup

Adding structured data helps Google better understand the content of a page. Google also uses certain types of structured data to display “rich results” in SERPs such as a recipe with start ratings or step-by-step instructions with an image carousel. These rich results often appear at or near the top of SERPs and generally have higher click-through-rates than normal organic listings.
Google prefers structured data to use schema.org vocabulary, and recommends using JSON-LD format. They also provide a handy Rich Results Test tool to check your code. While there are a variety of ways to add structured data to your website (plugins, Google Tag Manager, etc.), it’s always best to get a professional involved if you’re not comfortable writing code.
Check out Google’s guide to structured data and rich results here.

Social Tags

Having your content shared on social tells Google that people find your content relevant, helpful and reputable. Not every page on your site is share-worthy, but you can optimize the pages that are with these tips:

• Make sure you have Open Graph tags and Twitter Cards installed
• Make it easy with “tweet this quote” links, or social share buttons for each post

Core Web Vitals

User experience is key to a website’s long-term success. In spring 2020, Google unveiled Core Web Vitals, a common set of signals that they deem “critical” to all users’ web experiences.
The purpose of these signals is to quantify the user experience with a website, from page visual stability and load time, to interactive experiences.

• Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) – measures perceived page loading speed and marks the point at which the majority of the page content has downloaded.
• First Input Delay – quantifies user experience of a user’s initial engagement with a page.
• Cumulative Layout Shift – quantifies the amount of layout shift on visible page content and measures visual stability of a page. It’s usually causes by images without dimensions, dynamically injected content, web fonts causing FOIT/FOUT, and other embeds added without dimensions.

To check your LCP score, access your Google PageSpeed Insights and make sure your page hits LCP within 2.5 seconds. To accomplish this, remove unnecessary third-party scripts that may be running, upgrading your web host, activating “lazy loading” so page elements load only as users scroll down the page, and remove any large page elements that may be slowing it down.
One of the simplest ways to optimize cumulative layout shift is to add height and width dimensions to each new site element. Also, avoid adding new content above existing content on a page (unless responding to user interaction).

Page Experience

Google is working on a new ranking signal (likely to come out in 2024) that prioritizes websites with positive user experiences.
The ‘page experience signal’ will consist of Core Web Vitals, plus mobile-friendliness, safe-browsing, HTTPS security, and intrusive interstitial guidelines.
According to Google, “optimizing for these factors makes the web more delightful for users across all web browsers and surfaces, and helps sites evolve towards user expectations on mobile. We believe this will contribute to business success on the web as users grow more engaged and can transact with less friction.”

What is Off-Page SEO?

Off-page SEO focuses on increasing the authority of your domain through the act of getting links from other websites.
A good analogy for how authority works is this. If you have a bathtub with rubber duckies in it (the ducks are your pages), and you start filling the tub with water (links), your duckies are all going to rise to the top.
This is how a site like Wikipedia ranks for pretty much everything under the sun. It has so much water in its bathtub that if you throw another rubber duck in it, it’s going to float to the top without any other effort.
There’s a score called “Domain Authority” that calculates how authoritative your website is compared to other sites. You can type your domain name into here to see your score.

How to optimize for off-page SEO

There are several factors that influence your off-page SEO rankings. While each one is tackled with different strategies, they share an overarching goal of building the trust and reputation of your website from the outside.

1. Inbound links
2. Social media marketing
3. Guest blogging and guest posting
4. Unlinked brand mentions
5. Influencer marketing

The biggest off-page SEO factor is the number and quality of backlinks to your website. Some examples of ways you can build links to your website are:

• Creating awesome content that people want to link to because it is valuable. For example, this super helpful blog post about how to improve about us pages. The post provides a ton of actionable recommendations. People tend to link to content that is useful. Creating an online tool for your industry is another powerful content type. Things like online calculators tend to get the most backlinks out of all content types because they help people accomplish a goal.
• Social media shares of your content that ultimately generate links.
• Outreach e-mails to influencers in your industry that ultimately link to you.
• Guest blogging on sites related to yours. These guest posts will have links back to your site.

While link quantity is still important, content creators and SEO professionals are realizing that link quality is now more important than link quantity. As such, creating shareable content is the first step to earning valuable links and improving your off-page SEO.
How many links do you need for good off-page SEO? That is a tough question and it’s going to be based on the domain authority of your competitors, as you want to make sure you’re playing in the same sandbox.
SEOs also used to believe that buying links was a valid way of link building; however, Google will now penalize you for buying links in an attempt to manipulate page rank. You can also be penalized for submitting your links to link directories whose sole purpose is to increase your domain authority. Again, quality wins out over quantity when it comes to link building.

Is On-Page or Off-Page SEO More Important?

It’s not about choosing between on and off-page SEO, that would be like having to choose between a foundation or a roof for your house. On-page and off-page SEO work together to improve your search engine rankings in a complementary fashion.
However, SEOs generally advise getting your on-page SEO ducks in a row before focusing too much on off-page SEO.
Just like building a house, you want to set the foundation first before building the rest of the house. Like a foundation, you may need to come back and do some maintenance to your on-page SEO from time to time. Balancing the two will help make your website “bilingual” so that your users can understand it as well as the search engine robots- and that’s how your rankings start to improve.

SEO #onpageseo #Offpageseo #Corewebvitals

Hey guys. I'm not an expert on this topic at all, but wanted to see if the Bible draws much inspiration from Greek mythology. Specifically, I'm wondering if theres any possibility that Satan is supposed to be "The Father" in the Bible. Apologies if I get some details wrong re: the Greek mythology aspect. Likewise, apologies if this offends anybody; I'm coming from the angle that the characters and story are fictional.
Zeus was a powerful God who overthrew his Father, Cronus. Cronus was resigned to swinging a scythe of time, mercilessly cutting through the ages. Hence he became known as "Father Time".
Seeing the name Zeus, I immediately thought of Jesus. Jesus in Spanish (a Latin derived language) is pronounced "hay-soos", or similarly "hay-zeus". In French (another Latin derived language), it should sound something like "Je-Zeus" (Je = I, in French)
Cronus is associated with the planet Saturn. This is obviously where many feel "Satan" got his name. Zeus' own Son, Apollo, is represented by the Sun itself. Apollos, unsurprisingly, shows up in the Bible as a friend of Paul. Cronus had six kids with his sister Rhea. Rhea is pronounced "Ria". Mary is the English form of the name Maria (Ma-Ria), which was in turn a Latin form of the Greek name María.
The myth is that Cronus ate the first five of his children. Not wanting him to eat the sixth, Zeus, Rhea tricked Cronus by giving him a stone wrapped in a blanket, and took Zeus instead to be raised in a cave. Of course, in the New Testament, after his death, Jesus is taken to a cave, the entrance is covered with a stone, before he is then also, "raised".
Holly, synonymous with Christmas, was a holy plant associated with Saturn. Similarly, Saturnalia was an ancient Roman festival that ran up until the 23rd of December, right before the birth of Jesus.
Mary was miraculously impregnated by the Holy Spirit. In Ephesians, Satan is described as "the prince of the power of the air, a spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience". The snake is also the animal of Cronus, so "seed of the serpent" might be another nod to Satan being the Holy Spirit.
Some suggest that 'Santa Claus' is an anagram of 'Satan Lucas' (Lucas similar to Lucifer; both referring to light). I know there's other theories and variations of this. Anyway, maybe the joke is that Santa is called "Father Christmas", as Satan is Father of Christ.
Theres obviously loads of other material taken from earlier Greek mythology. For example, the Titans being angels who did not respect their position of authority. Tartaria was the infernal abyss, just like the biblical Hell. Sorry if all of this is a bit scattered, but would appreciate any opinions, corrections, or insights.
Thanks.

It is B.S. that you have to do a shi'arcraft race to advance the story and to recruit Scarlet. So far I have Not been able to do it. So I guess I may Not be able to advance the story and get Scarlet. At least Suikoden did Not require to do a mini game to advance the story and any mini games required to recruit characters were Not difficult. I can Not control the ship. I end up spinning around. I end up doing 180 turns. I end up missing orbs. I end up off course. Even if you save right after he asks you if you are ready to train during the training you have to quit then reload your save and go over all of the dialogue all over again because you have to hit Y(Xbox) to quit instead of just hitting a button to restart/retry. So far this part of the game is the only part of the main game , main story thats Not fun , enjoyable. You have to beat Yuferius VII 's time of 1:19:42 Scalet is 1st. Yuferius VII is second. Barnard will remark that second place is more than enough to impress them; this is the minimum placement you’ll need to progress. Beating the target time will guarantee second place. On the other hand, if you can get under a minute, you’ll win the race! No way Im even getting 2nd. Suikoden I-V and Tactics Dragon WarrioQuest I-VIII , XI FF I- X-2 , XII , Tactics , Tactics Advance 1 and 2 Chrono Trigger , Cross Lunar Breath Of Fire I-IV Blue Dragon Enchanted Arms Bravely I Am Set Suna Lost Sphere Octpath Traveler I and II None of these games require you to play a mini game to advance the story.

Hi, I have been reading through my notes, correspondence with my psych and reacquainted myself with this subreddit having made a little bit of progress. I realise how deeply personal and different our work with schema therapy can be. It is a fraught process that is really hard work at times. Having made unexpected progress though, I thought maybe it would be helpful to describe parts of my context, not so much that people find it familiar or relatable, but moreso that people grab the toolset that schema therapy gives you and run with it in your own way.
Background: It's probably been just over fourth months of fairly intensive schema therapy. I am in the fortunate situation of having regular appointments with a clinical psychologist. I would say I had two points where I generated schemas. First one was the same as everyone else: Early childhood. Second one was 17-21 when I became effectively bedridden due to chronic illness.
When I have talked about this second period, I describe it as "Having to rebuild who I was from scratch, entirely based around energy efficiency". I remember staring into the pitch blackness of my bedroom during this time, absolutely flawed that the one part of me that seemed to function right was what Schema Therapy might describe as "Demanding Critic". This would have been 18-19 years ago so I had no idea about schema therapy at all, I just had this constant internal dialogue tearing strips off me for not trying harder, not getting up, not fixing myself. I was completely exhausted otherwise, but this damn thing was as active as ever? What the hell, why was it the last thing standing? It was so different from the rest of me. "If you know how to fix everything, be my guest, I'm in your hands, here's the keys!" I remember thinking. Alarmingly, the internal dialog responded: "Fine, I will". "Good fucking luck" I thought, and passed out for several hours. I didn't realise it, but I had just given Demanding Critic a parental role.
Demanding Critic used a process of elimination to tear apart, kludge, re-engineer and jerry-rig me from someone who slept for 16-18 hours a day out of necessity into someone with a degree, a house, a family, a part-time job. It took a while. It wasn't easy. It's amazing what can happen when you give seething self-hatred the keys to your entire self. Punitive critic used to be a thing, but had it's parts ripped out and reconfigured for completely different purposes. Entire ways to simulate being a conscious, involved person in social situations were constructed. I trained myself to do very complex tasks by muscle memory so I could do them while completely exhausted. The complex effects of depressive episodes could be filtered and rewired to emulate happiness. Fatalistic pessimism was employed towards emulating initiative and drive. Their logics and mechanisms were set to fire off automatically according to the myriad of different contexts I found myself in, so I didn't have to consciously engage in the moment, I could just react according to programming. The "machines" as I called them were fine tuned over years. But it seems that entire parts of myself were deactivated having been deemed too difficult to regulate, or too energy intensive. Demanding Critic was as brutal at he was creative. Entire emotional spectrums were pulverised, or at best used as catalysts for the activation of certain mechanics. They weren't properly experienced, because that used up too much energy, and I couldn't trust myself to make it through the day. Same with speculative, ill-defined senses like 'Hope'. It wasn't worth the effects of disappointment. No one could know how much pain I was in, or how much I was really suffering, or how exhausted I really was. Press on you stupid meat-bag. In your state what good is hope or despair? You'd be a poor judge of either. Press on! Hurry up and succeed. It doesn't matter what has happened to you, what people say or do to you, you can barely feel it above the pain anyway. MOVE. MOVE. MOVE.
This process was refined until a semblance of normativity took place externally, and internally I had acclimated to the new approaches that were by now a pretty seamless, responsive system. Something still wasn't right though, and with investigation came the ASD/ADHD diagnosis, then the CPTSD diagnosis. Once again unto the breech, I pushed myself to understand and recover as best I could. Except doing so meant realising what was happening around me, what interpersonal boundaries were, how I was being treated by my loved ones, everything that had really happened to me for thirty-odd years.
Kaboom.
In the aftermath I'm in a difficult, but stable situation, and undergoing schema therapy. Learning about the modes my therapist asked me to talk about the ones I identified. Demanding Critic spoke directly through the keyboard as an intense character: The Machinist. It became obvious that the system of schema therapy lent itself to treating modes as characters within a narrative, and I have just ran with it. The Machinist, interestingly enough, set down his tools and deactivated many of his machines, because if my Therapist and I found a "Better Solution", he wanted in on it, being fundamentally benevolent, and concerned with a Successful Result. Without Schema Therapy lending itself to narrative and mythos, I doubt I could have so easily deactivated the system of "machinery" required to prop me up. It's led to all kinds of shocking discoveries: The missing (No longer presumed dead) Happy Child that has been carefully hidden away amongst the deactivated components of myself. The fact that I lived entirely in the Past or the Future. The present was deemed "Too energy consumptive". I didn't know whether I had a "Healthy Adult Mode", but weirdly The Machinist could fill that roll sometimes but obviously had his limitations. Then out of the void, deactivated parts of me started to come back online. Something started to assert itself in the Present. It was very interested in emotions. Instead of casting them aside and pushing past them to get on with what i was supposed to be doing, it insisted I experience them, decode them and experiment with them. New experiments in the real-time interaction with people were enacted, with the emotional fallout, good and bad, further experimented with. This present-based-thing has been curiously self-compassionate, and has guided me through the difficulties and risks of fully engaging in real time with my emotional spectrum when relating with others, my work, and my life. All for the sake of her experiments. She is The Scientist. She is getting all kinds of results and recording all kinds of functions I had no idea I was capable of. The Machinist is head over heels in love with her, having watched her working over the least two weeks. She's kinda started flirting with him, allowing a desire for perfection to be felt over some work I was doing. "Show me what you can do". I consciously disparaged the desire for perfection, looked down and my consciousness was shocked to discover The Machinist had taken over my motor skills and indeed had made something perfectly, and was having fun. It seems I have two self re-parents.
Now, it's bonkers to read, I'm sure. I apologise. But it's working. It really is fucking working. Take what you can from schema therapy and run with it. Make it yours, whatever that means for you. It's gonna be weird. It's gonna be wild. I reckon the easiest way to engage with it has to be it's propensity for character and narrative, but maybe the path of least resistance for you is some other aspect of it I can't detect.

My personal favorite is Double Eagle by Dan Abnett. It’s characters, who range from pilots to hq staff to munitorum works are all really interesting and have wonderful story arcs. These character developments keep the book very interesting in the time between combats. Also the combat is fantastic. Though its mostly air combat and dogfights the nature of this kind of fighting makes it fast paced and very tense because even the smallest amount of damage can down a plane and kill the pilot. Its a different kind of experience from the normal ground combat storys of 40k books. And although its irrelevant for the big 40k story progression and just a substory of gaunts ghosts that doesn’t hurt it in the slightest.
So i will recommend to everyone who is even a bit interested the book that is the battle of britan in space!

Anywhere i searched i couldnt find it. So it was a 2d game where you played as a puff (i think) the view was like birds view from top to down and you could move on the arrows or the keys WASD. you would collect 4 colors of puffs, Green, yellow, blue and red which gave you points. The lrvels also had enemirs you should evade and after a certain amount of levels the theme changes and you also have harder enemies. I remember there being some kind of map which you would progress torugh by beating levels, and before every level you would start you would see a puff thay looks like a doctor which has some dialogue, the level themrs from what i can remember were some green grass and bushes, then some ice and like a ship with wooden floor, and ofcourse more that i cant remember. I also remember that you could choose different characters by unlocking them, i remember one being red and having a colorful propeller hat on him

Its common knowledge she is his fav character. But for someone's fav character, she hasn't had much struggles or character development since arc 4 which is a decade old at this point. And does not feel like an equal to subaru as the main heroine because she is not allowed to suffer physically or mentally anywhere near as much as him nor her naivety is punished by the narrative.
Every author has a fav character. But to being able to portray a child subaru get beheaded while you can't even draw emilia bleeding when fighting without her just dying feels 'unprofessional' for a lack of better term. While she is hated for unfair reasons for most if the world, she hasn't had an arc where she has a personal antagonist of her own like todd or roswaal for subaru. (Pandora is endgame.
Tappei once said that both of his leads are gonna have 3 transformations to complete their journey as hero/heroine. Subaru serms to have had 2 by now. But emilia ony has had 1 in arc 4. According to the recent talkshow, she only has one left which is weird because when did she changed post timeskip ? Arc 5 cannot be it becuz she didn't understood her love yet and she was not the emotional focus nor she of it like subaru is in arc 3 and 6. Nor she did got dedicated time for any development. So either he changed his mind or is now going too easy on her to the point that its not even light favoritism but active detriment.
I hope his moments for emilia to shine are not just her being able to fight someone like sphinx currently in arc 8. It feels very annoying when you have him constantly creating more despairful situations for the mc to grow and make him feel cooler in his words but does not do that the same for the heroine for whom he created this story for in the first place. Emilia has not had any moment of serious hopelessness or a brutal antagonist of her own to struggle against and emerge victorious alone by herself. Her reunion did not felt anything emotional with subaru.
I still have hopes tho cuz Vollachia was not planned and he constantly surprises us. But I do hope we some progress in her character or her realtionship with subaru in the next arc cuz otherwise after so many years of no primary focus on the heroine feels.. strange and frustrating. He better not hold her transformation till arc 11 or something cuz then her character would be imo a permanently damaged a bit because of just how long we were made to wait for it no matter how good it will turn out to be.

1. 4 FREAKING EPISODES WHATTT?? And in part 2 they are already married
   
2. The whole plot didn’t even seem like friends to lovers in the book the progression from friendship to love was soft and sweet the way Colin slowly realised that he was indeed in love with pen was done so well Colin had always loved her he loved her mind the way she spoke about certain things and the way they shared witty comments near lady Danbury you saw their chemistry so clearly. BUT NETFLIX decided let’s change all of that keep the steamy scenes in.
   

It’s like they read the book and was like “I’ve got a better idea” let’s add in a suitor for Penelope (which i really don’t mind I loved the guy) to MAKE Colin OPEN his EYES that Penelope is intact worthy of his romantic feelings because he would never ever be able to see her in that kind of way if another guy doesn’t come in and sees Penelope that way to show him that Penelope is a WOKAN ( A FREAKING HOT ONE AT THAT)
What even pissed me more off was the carriage scene ( don’t even get me started) the way he instantly invited her to his house and was like “are you going to marry me or not” (LIKE WHAT) in the previous seasons we got much more in-depth about the other characters love stories and much better progress and we only saw the main characters point of view we understood their feelings their yearn for each other as well as home life and how they helped each other to overcome it. This season is like a child playing with mud and splatting it everywhere that’s it just a child playing with mud. THIS SEASON HOWEVER they tried to include others like violet and Francesca (which I loved her and John sterling 😩🫶🏾) which made the main characters seem like the other characters. WHERE IS the main character energy shonda???
The only other good thing that came out o this season was Penelope’s DRESSES AND OUTFITS MY GIRL ATE DOWN SHE WAS THE BEST DRESSED her having her hair down ( 30 INCH BUSS DOWN INDEED MY LOVE 😩🫶🏾) which made her stand out as only your husband could see you with your hair down in that era. She shows that she is only following her own rules but with the new life she wants for herself her habits still hold her down such as having difficulty speaking with others as she has only been a wall flower most of her life ( good job shonda ig 🙄) the good parts however with this show was very few it felt like being served with the most disgusting food ever in a luxurious restaurant but the only good thing with this restaurant is just your drink so you shove the food down because you skipped breakfast as this restaurant was recommended by others for having amazing good food and you drink the drink to only keep the food down.
Overall this was such a disappointment and Penelope should be our president.

Long story short, I started playing Genshin the day it came out and basically lived my life in it for a year with two accounts (AR58 and AR56). Given my ADHD, it was pretty amazing for me to be able to focus on it for such a long time and actually dedicate time to something, but then I quit for two years (i got burned out). Life happened, and I kept logging in once or twice because I had to for some characters (Nahida) but I am back now, mainly cuz of Father. The time back reminded me how much I love the game, not just for the Cough Cough ASSests Cough Cough and Lore. Which leads to my main point.
I WANT TO WRITE A GENSHIN ISEKAI NOVEL
The plot, flow, and mechanics are mostly done, and the progression and JOURNEY are set. But I want to know what you would like to see or what you would do in a situation where you've been isekai'd. Be wild, and imagine what you wish you could change or make happen in the story or in the background where many NPCs don't get the spotlight. Or certain things to try out that you never could do again or ever. Or something you wish would happen that maybe it might happen. Any relationSHIPS that u wanna see or be apart of. Can be anything. Also things that u dont want to happen.

• It's not going to be an "I got reincarnated into another world with a smartphone" type of story.
• I will be sticking quite close to the Genshin world and accurate while not trying to change it.
• It will take time because I need to catch up with the story (I've only just completed Sumeru) and I need to catch up with the events. What's up with locking lore behind time-based events?
• This point is just to thank the Genshin Fandom Wiki for existing and being a great help, and if anyone has any suggestions for finding lore or theories about Genshin, please suggest them.
• No, it’s not a manga/manhua/manhwa/anime/animation or anything besides a novel. I will publish it somewhere on the internet (a web novel site).
• Thank you for your time!

ps. If it wanst clear, I will be taking a shot at this "Journey" thing that everyone keeps saying in the game.

"Reality? To me that was reality. I don't know about this place. What makes you certain you won't find yourself tied here, trying to explain yourself to people who look like you? I was pretty sure that was reality. Now, well now I just don't care. This is all a dream, so do whatever you want to me. I'm not kissing the cross. Just light the pyre." Shawna told the nogs. They shuffled forward on their trunklike legs, one of them offering her a cross with a figure of a crucified nog with a golden crown and its lips puckered.
"I said I'm not kissing it. Burn me." Shawna grimaced at the horrid little nog. The nogs shrugged in unison and lifted the buckets of icy cold water at their feet. One by one they walked up to her and doused her in cold water, soaking her t-shirt and hair and making her shiver and blow water off her lips while the rest ran down her chin.
"Is she dead?" One of the nog asked.
One of them shuffled forward and waved its hands back and forth in front of her staring, lifeless eyes. "No reaction." the nog confirmed. They'd done it, they'd finally slain the Wicked Witch of the Stars. Some of the Ethgar were saddened, crying big sticky nog tears that left streaks on their faces.
Shawna held perfectly still, trying not to laugh. They really thought she was dead, they thought they'd burned her alive with their buckets of cold water. Stupid nogs, just a few moments longer and she could break free from their braided bonds and be on her way, richer than John Godson.
"I just worry her soul wont reach the Likeliness, We should hold the jesus-nog to her lips, just to be sure." A nasty little Ethgar suggested.
"We should all just shuffle off." Shawna tried some ventriloquism.
"Who said that?" Ethgar were asking each other. The nogs suddenly all looked back at Shawna, their little devil eyes glowing in the starlight.
"Oh fiddle cakes!" Shawna swore.
She didn't usually use such foul language, but she was at her wits end with the Ethgar. First, their ridiculous test of faith to learn about Red Raven, and the treasure of the Seven Wonders. Then she had to climb Mount Velvet while nogs slung biffy sludge from their blow tubes while singing insults to her. With her knuckles bloodied and fitz in her hair, she'd reached the summit only to be accused of heresy, for she'd forgotten to remove her shoes. She'd have to climb the whole mountain again, just as penance.
After the six recitals of the Bindinfingin's half a dozen holy books, the extinct lizards granted her a one-hour library pass in their sacred underground grottos. Was it enough time to memorize enough of their holy scripture to be able to compete in the junior nog bible quotation contest and become a wearer of the golden crown of the most kissable-crucifiable? It was, because Shawna really applied herself and memorized no fewer than three verses, which was two more than any junior nog had ever quoted. With the golden crown on her head, she could at last learn the last part of the legend of Red Raven, and find out where the treasure was hidden.
Wealth unimaginable, seven wonders, that's a lot of moolah.
Bindinfingin ghost-holograms followed her around with sad expressions. The long dead intelligences expected better of her.
"We've waited your return for fourteen thousand trine. Red Raven will you not reveal at last the eighth wonder? We have so waited to know the final answer." The Bindinfingin said to Shawna, but she ignored them. They almost sounded like they thought she was someone else and that the treasure was one of those 'the treasure was the adventure' or 'the treasure was really just friendship' or someshit.
Shawna wasn't going to eat an adventure-friendship treasure, not after the nog figurine got smoochies from her. "Jesus, give me the strength of patience not to kick all these nogs."
"Do dead humans talk?" A nog asked.
They began arguing and discussing whether humans could talk when they were dead. Shawna put her two cents in, insisting that she could indeed talk while she was dead.
"Thou shalt not speak to the dead." A nog zealot drew his putty maker. Others pulled out their blow tubes, spit ball launchers and bald makers. One or two had forgot to pack weapons to the witch burning ceremony, but scooped up some dirt into their empty buckets.
"Thou shalt not fart from thy mouth." Shawna said in the dark, mimicking a nog-sounding voice. Then, as she blew a raspberry, the nogs went berserk. They had divided into two groups, each with opposing religious views, although none of them were sure what religious view the group they were divided into was seeing. The sound of the raspberry was like a starting bell, and within minutes the nogs had annihilated themselves, dead nogs scattered everywhere. The last of them finished itself off. Nogs were perfectionists.
"Now for that treasure." Shawna said gleefully. She followed the path through the empty nog village and found their sacred grotto. It was unguarded, and at last, she'd done it, found what she was always told wasn't even real.
"Reality, Shawna." A familiar voice said from the silent swamps all around.
"Who said that?" She asked.
"Reality is the treasure. I just want you to come back to me. I know you're in there. I can feel you dreaming."
Shawna shook her head. "I know what's real."
A few glowing bugs floated lazily on the air past her, going off to some hollow log to party. Shawna felt watched, like someone was holding her hand. It was going to be good, when she didn't find the treasure, what a weird feeling. Shawna shook it off. The treasure was hers.
"You think you can take my treasure?" The space pirate captain's hologramatic ghost stood in her way.
"So, you're Red Raven. Notorious brigand, mutineer and baroness. I'm here for your treasure, I knew it was real, I knew it all along." Shawna smirked. "The aliens, they worshipped you, but I know you're just a criminal." Shawna told her. "You even almost had me fooled with the Bindinfingin holograms making this sound like some sort of morality scam."
"Yet you made it all the way here." Red Raven smiled, proud of Shawna.
"Of course I did. You think I don't know what's real and what isn't?" Shawna laughed.
"The treasure is real. You just have to go through that door and accept what's on the other side." Red Raven pointed. "It's the treasure."
"See? You're still trying to psych me out. I'm abouts to be richer than John Godson. Sick of this." Shawna grabbed the handle, but something felt wrong.
"Just go through." Red Raven urged her.
"I can't." Shawna felt her eyes watering. "I just want to stay here. I'm not ready."
"You'll never be ready to be rich like John Godson. Nobody ever is. Just go in there already. I gots to get my wings, Shawna." Red Raven made 'go on in' gestures, shooing Shawna with the backs of her hands waving up at her.
"If this is any kind of treasure that isn't money, I swear I'm coming back here for you, and even though you're dead, I'll choke you out anyway." Shawna told Red Raven.
"Yes-yes, all that. Now go through already, the hour draws late." Red Raven seemed to have unlimited patience, despite her efforts to urge Shawna into the treasure behind the weird creepy disembodied door floating in the swamp. The door that looked suspiciously like her bedroom door as a child, growing up. Not liking this one bit, no sir.
Shawna took a deep breath, closed her eyes, turned the handle and went through.

“What defines virtue and how are we to gauge it? An inquiry that reverberates through epochs, its answer as fickle and capricious as the fates of those who deem to ask it. Duty, honor, justice - many over the ages would name these virtues, the conduits through which noble intentions find expression. Yet, as the battlefield of beliefs unfolds, a legion emerges, each as sworn to these principles as to obliterating all who would dare stake alike claim. Thus, battles rage and wars are waged and, in the end, those who are left are no more right than those fell by the blade. Alas, it is the victors whose ideals are etched into monuments for posterity. Except even words chiseled in unyielding stone are fated to fade in time. So is the wicked cycle destined to repeat in all its futility, its ephemeral prize seized again, only to be lost and sought anew. Try and picture, if for but a moment, a world where our rulers paused to reflect on the lessons of yore. They, too, would discern the elixir that enables one to escape the confines of memory—the very burden our fleeting nature forbids us to carry. Progress and evolution. Adaptability and transcendence. Everlasting and yet not stagnant, irrefutable, and yet fluid, these are the only true virtues. Thus, must we ever venture into the uncharted and unfamiliar for only from these unexplored domains may the truly virtuous arise.”
Where: Discord (Video and Voice) + FoundryVTT
When: every Saturday 5 - 9/10 pm GMT+1 (CET), 11 am - 3/4 pm EST
Who: party of 4 players and a DM seeking one extra player
Updates: Recruitment updates will be posted here.
Hello there and well met! If you’ve made it past the flavor text (or skipped it) and through the basic info (hopefully didnt skip past that one) you might very well be at the right address! Without further ado onto the post.

🐲The campaign🐲

Having only just recovered from the Second Sundering and the War of the Silver Marches, the North had been ravaged by a whole new set of tumultuous events - the rise of the Cult of the Dragon and that of the Absolute, the Fall of Eltruel and the short reign of the beholder crime lord Xanathar just some among them. After a brief respite from the twisted and the unnatural the clouds once more begin to gather. Along the Long Road, whole hosts of wild beasts and monsters have been accosting travelers seemingly at random and in the grand metropolis of Waterdeep a sudden rise in crime seems to coincide with strange events passing unnoticed beneath the surface. Amidst all this, in spring of 1493 DR, a party of adventurers delves into a mystery of enchanted gemstones being utilized to nefarious ends by unknown perpetrators all the while navigating the labyrinthine twists of city faction politics.
As implied by the post title, this is an ongoing campaign (we are 12 sessions in at the time of this post). Due to some irl commitments weve recently dropped a player and are looking to replace them.
As the title suggests, this is a roleplay focused mystery/lore driven campaign. Expect an overreaching plot with ample secrets to uncover, conspiracies to unravel and eldritch truths to unearth. The first word of the password is "Doth". On the same level of importance or more important even be that the players preference, there is a variety of subplots to engage with, from small and goofy and random to ones rivaling the main story arc in complexity and variance. Among these, individual character story arcs play a leading role, at times seamlessly intertwined with the current focus of the party, at times separate and independent.
As was already mentioned and is further described below, this is a roleplay focused campaign and a roleplay heavy game. This means that roleplay exists as a unifying concept for all other aspects of the game including exploration, combat, and puzzles. That said DnD is only DnD with all three of its main pillars intact and this campaign is no exception in that regard. I very much enjoy the mechanical side of the game as well besides roleplay and so things like multiphase boss fights and custom magic items are definitely on the table.

🧙‍♂️The DM🧙‍♂️

Hello there, Jay here, 25 yo law student from Central Europe currently working on finishing his master’s degree, trying to stay afloat in the current lease market. I study and work in a law firm by day and DM or play DnD by night (more like evening but night sounded cooler). I have been a big fan of TTRPGs since my early teens and of online DnD for the past five years. I’ve DMed multiple campaigns, finished CoS not least among them and I currently play in a long-term campaign. Before you ask, yes, my schedule is strained but not to the point I am unable to engage with my hobbies.
I would describe my DMing style as driven, realistic, and involved but also very conscious about player agency and collaborative storytelling as core values that make TTRPGs so popular and unique. I spend a lot of time ensuring the worlds I create and the stories I want to tell feel alive. From hand-picked music, to fully voiced NPCs and scenic descriptions designed to breathe life into the campaign setting I daresay my games rival in quality those of the professional DMs that charge for each session.
There is a drawback to this all however. Second word of the password is "thy". I expect a lot from my players as well. Writing a story in DnD is not a one person job. It takes a collective effort of the entire group to create something truly unique, something that one can be proud while looking forward to each session. Unwinding and letting off steam means something else for everyone. For me it means losing myself in the creative process of roleplaying an NPC or describing a scene, watching my players masterfully portray their own characters or having the party derail my plans in an awesome unforeseen and unexpectedly enriching way. If you find yourself in any of what I just described than this may be a game for you. If you don’t, that’s fine. This is definitely not a game for everyone.

🏰The setting🏰

Forgotten Realms is a default setting of Dungeons and Dragons but it is anything but boring and mundane. With now decades worth of lore behind it, it offers an unparalleled opportunity for anyone wanting to build on solid foundations to bring their ideas to life. While it has garnered a lot of attention lately with the release of a certain videogame (more people now know Astarion than a good amount of Hollywood celebrities I’d say) it has had its loyal following even before then, being constantly expanded and living its own life in a host of both online and home games. It’s been a natural choice of mine for a while now and not once have I had any regrets. The third word of the password is "mirror". I feel with how great of a variety of content the Forgotten Realms offer everybody is able to pick something that suits their creative vision. In summary the Forgotten Realms almost feel like a real place with how much worldbuilding has been done with them and offer a diversity of content few other TTRPG settings can boast.
When it comes to setting of the campaign in the world of Faerun I have once again made a somewhat traditional pick and decided to place the onset of the game onto the Sword Coast, more precisely into the city of Waterdeep. If one of the key upsides of Forgotten Realms is diversity of content, Waterdeep is one of the best representations of this. Being the largest settlement on the known Faerun, Waterdeep offers nigh limitless options in terms of main story arc genre, character creation and character backstory implementation. It has everything every large TTRPG settlement ought to have (fickle upper class, enigmatic factions, quaint taverns and extravagant nightclubs, always in bad mood city watch, a castle and a harbor) as well as few pretty original ideas such as colossal definitely not alive statues, a city council where even its members don’t know each other’s identity and a massive dungeon right underneath the city where you can literally fall right from a tavern taproom.
In case you are wondering, while this campagn takes place primarily in the city of Waterdeep itself, there is nothing stopping the players from exploring past the city if they so choose. The final word of the password is "crack?". Different parts of the main plot and various subplots can and will encourage the party to explore Waterdeep environs and sometimes even further.

📃The requirements📃

No exceptions here. Unless otherwise stated, the requirements must be met at the time of application.

• to apply you need to be 20+ yo
• you need a functioning webcam (at the time of application) and a stable internet connection - we will be using both video and voice on discord and as a general rule Wifi doesn’t handle long video calls well (believe me when I say I speak from experience) so cable or other similar form of stable connection is strongly encouraged
• you need a Discord account and you will need a Forge account - Forge is a hosting service for Foundry, don’t worry, you won’t need to input any personal info (besides maybe an email) to register and I will be footing the bill
• you need a PC that can and will run Foundry Virtual Tabletop - check the minimum requirements on the Foundry website, a fair warning, Foundry won’t run on tablets and phones (not that you should consider those in the first place)
• you need at least an elementary knowledge of Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition - when it comes to the awareness of the rules, I won’t be too harsh, but definitely don’t apply if the first time you’ve seen the PHB was a week ago
• you need TTRPG/roleplay experience and/or a very strong roleplay inclination - this is a heavy roleplay game where most if not all ingame talk will be done in character and where you will be expected to voice your character in a way that is distinct from your standard voice
• you will need to be very punctual when it comes to session attendance - I expect my players to attend most if not all sessions, online or not, this campaign is a designed as a longterm commitment and by applying you are acknowledging this, having other hobbies and time-consuming real-life obligations is understandable (I got those too) but those 4-5 hours you will be expected to set aside for the session

🙋‍♂️How to sign up🙋‍♀️

Youve made it all the way to the end of this long post. Congratulations. Or maybe you’ve skipped all the way to the end. In that case I strongly recommended you go back. If not to learn what you are applying for than to make sure you haven’t missed something very important. Now if you are confident that you have what it takes and that this is a game that you could have a lot of fun with, please fill the below attached google questionnaire (if for any strange reason the link doesn’t end up working, please let me know in the comments under this post) and if fortune favors you, I shall get back to you promptly. Best of luck to you and I hope to speak to you soon!
https://forms.gle/5kc4RbwavJPfT8PD9
______________________________________
PS: As a part of the questionnaire, you will be asked to submit a short piece of your narrative writing in a form of a google doc link (not a custom piece of writing, any relevant past one you have will do). Maybe best have that ready beforehand? On that note, dont apply for the game with a detailed backstory of a character you want to play that you arent willing to adapt to the conditions of the setting/campaign.
PSS: Not to discourage you but if you do make it through the questionnaire and into the second group of applicants you will be asked to do a discord interview with your webcam turned on. I am asking you to go through a lot for a game you might not even end up liking I know, but if you do end up liking it, all this effort will be well worth it as I am sure my other players would agree.

Hey all. I am a 21yo F from the US (pst). It is quite late here and I am just coming up with this. I have been having a itch for a rp like this again. I am brainstorming as I type so it won't be a perfect flushed out prompt so sorry for that. Some context I write usually in third person can do first. I prefer romance but enjoy a slow burn and ROMANCE, I want the characters to have emotion and fall for each other. I tend to write multiple paragraphs and would love someone who is at least semi lit and puts in similar effort. Finally I am in university rn so my hours are off and on but I will try to respond a couple times a day. Finally I want this to be longterm so please be commited to it!
Now for the rp. I was having the urge to play a elf or dragon. As in one of those cool female dragons who appears as a humanoid. I saw a clip I think it was from dota, dont quote me. But this guy met this dragon and man was she hot as a human. Anyways 🤷‍♀️. I thought playing a race that maybe is more rare in this universe or less seen in the region. I was thinking magic would exist and we should discuss how it behaves. Like if you need ways to control it or some ar ejust gifted with it. I was thinking a fantasy universe similar to like dnd or lotr. With kingdoms and regions of different races. Your usual medieval fantasy type beat. As for the story I havent got there yet. I have some thoughts and would love to discuss it. But for a set plot I do not have one yet. So send me your ideas or I can share mine. I hope I dont deter you with my spur of the moment rp idea!

Long story short, I started playing Genshin the day it came out and basically lived my life in it for a year with two accounts (AR58 and AR56). Given my ADHD, it was pretty amazing for me to be able to focus on it for such a long time and actually dedicate time to something, but then I quit for two years. Life happened, and I kept logging in once or twice because I had to for some characters (Nahida) but I am back now, mainly cuz of Father. The time back reminded me how much I love the game, not just for the Cough Cough ASSests Cough Cough and Lore. Which leads to my main point.
I WANT TO WRITE A GENSHIN ISEKAI NOVEL
The plot, flow, and mechanics are mostly done, and the progression and JOURNEY are set. But I want to know what you would like to see or what you would do in a situation where you've been isekai'd. Be wild, and imagine what you wish you could change or make happen in the story or in the background where many NPCs don't get the spotlight. Or certain things to try out that you never could do again or ever. Or something you wish would happen that maybe it might happen. Any relationSHIPS that u wanna see or be apart of. Can be anything. Also things that u dont want to happen.

• It's not going to be an "I got reincarnated into another world with a smartphone" type of story.
• I will be sticking quite close to the Genshin world and accurate while not trying to change it.
• It will take time because I need to catch up with the story (I've only just completed Sumeru) and I need to catch up with the events. What's up with locking lore behind time-based events?
• This point is just to thank the Genshin Fandom Wiki for existing and being a great help, and if anyone has any suggestions for finding lore or theories about Genshin, please suggest them.
• No, it’s not a manga/manhua/manhwa/anime/animation or anything besides a novel. I will publish it somewhere on the internet (a web novel site).
• Thank you for your time!

ps. If it wanst clear, I will be taking a shot at this "Journey" thing that everyone keeps saying in the game.

I just watched "I Saw the TV Glow," and it's one of the weirdest and trippiest movie I've seen in a while. It's what you'd get if you took Beau is Afraid and bathed it in LED lights and 90s kid nostalgia. The visuals and atmosphere are hypnotic but I want to focus on the puzzling themes and messages and my personal interpretation. Beware, there will be spoilers.
In the film, Owen and Maddy become obsessed with the fictional TV show "The Pink Opaque." The characters repeatedly indicate that The Pink Opaque feels more real to them than their everyday lives. When asked if he likes boys or girls, teenage Owen says he thinks he actually likes TV shows. The film is touching on the feeling that there is something more invigorating about the heightened reality in scripted dramas than the mundanity of our everyday lives. It is like people substituting p*rn for sex, or watching travel vlogs from the comfort of their beds.
Owen gradually becomes more pathetic and lifeless as the film progresses. After skipping eight years, the film transitions to Maddy revealing to Owen in a spellbinding monologue that The Pink Opaque is the true reality and everything else is an illusion. At this point, Owen is working a dead-end job in a movie theater, barely able to make eye contact with anyone, living in a bleak home with his father. The only source of vibrancy in his life comes from the suffused glow of his childhood TV show. Maddy is offering him a lifeline, with The Pink Opaque representing the opportunity to hold on to his childhood and the radiance of his childhood experiences. But Owen rejects the lifeline in favor of returning to his mature and dull adult life. As he abandons Maddy, the words "THERE IS STILL TIME" are etched out on the road, but Owen walks past them, abandoning his youth forever.
When Owen watches the show later, he finds it cheesy. The magic he found in life had vanished. As he becomes older, it becomes more difficult for him to breathe. The people around him smile and cheer, but at their core he sees them as lifeless and dead, which we see when Owen freaks out at the birthday party and nobody reacts. Owen aches to be in the TV show of youth, even if it means tearing apart his chest and choking to death in a hole in the ground, rather than continuing his mind-numbing adult routine of filling ball pits at an arcade center. But it's too late. The movie ends on a sad whimper, with the character in a final pathetic state of mumbling apologies to people who don't care and are barely even real. It's unsatisfying, but it suits the film's narrative themes.
After I watched the film, I learned that the director had the trans experience in mind when creating the film. This post is not to detract from that original interpretation, but to offer an alternative perspective that I had while watching the film.

In kindergarten (sorry I'm from singapore so we follow British but if im not wrong its like 5-6 years old) I already accepted Christ into my life. But my mom is a "I hate Christians!!" kind of person so I didnt dare to tell her anything. I didn't really have a good relationship with my mom cos to her studies are everything and she made me (until now) think that I'm never good enough. And I was only in primary school thinking my mom doesn't like me. I'm worthless, I want to kms. I made plans to grab the knife from the kitchen, jump off and things like that. Eventually I resulted to scratching my own skin cos I feel most pain when it's right at the nerve uk.
My whole life was until the end of primary school (12) was only to do things to make my mom happy. I wouldn't mention a word about Christianity to her. And when my mom was out at night, me, my dad and my sisters would worship. The moment the door opens, I scramble into the room. This also make me walk far from God and I would curse, swear and stuff. One day in P6, the last year of primary school (12 years old) I thought "Hey, I'm Christian so why am I swearing? Isn't this a sin?" So I stopped cursing. Of course, my mom wouldn't want me going around cursing but I didn't really do it for her, but rather for God. But I still didn't want to tell her about it.
When I graduated from Primary school, in Secondary (Sec) school, I finally got to bring my phone to school (13 years old), but my mom still could track me. Anyways I got to listen to some worship songs my dad sent to me and because I didn't have a music player downloaded and wasn't allowed to download any apps, I would listen through the WhatsApp audio player thing😭😭 on the way home. Usually on Sundays whene my mom isn't home,my dad would bring me to church. Then of course my mom would find out and scold me and this continued until sec 2 (14).
In Sec 3 (15 years old), I had whole control of my phone so I would listen to worship music on the way home. One day in, my dad brought me to church. My mom saw my location and immediately got mad because she knew where my dad's church is and also because my older sister attends service too and my mom was not happy. Since then, I was afraid to go to church. My mom even cornered me one day and made me promise not to go to church or I can forget calling her my mom. I kept crying that night and never dared to go to church (mind that i dont even cry often).
But towards mid year(?) I just decided ok Imma go to church. She can get angry but it won't really stop me. Because I got to know God through worship songs and now I wanted to know him more.
I regularly started praying in the morning on the way to school. Eventually my prayers became a ritual and dry. I felt no emotion and no pull towards God. Only on days when I was really upset/angry then I would feel Him comforting me. One day I really wanted to be the captain in my CCA (it's like after school activities but still part of school programs) and I didn't get it. I was so upset I cried on the way home because I actually put in so much effort into it. Then I became vice captain so ig that counts.
Anyways I became really upset and got frustrated because I didn't prove myself enough. I had so low expectations of myself, got depressed again, but I couldn't vent it out because I couldn't hurt myself anymore after learning my body is a temple of God. So I got super frustrated. I prayed for guidance decided to free up my Saturdays I went to church. Youth services for Secondary school students were on Saturdays and not Sundays so yeah. Towards like October last year I cleared up my Saturdays so I could go more regularly to church, and my mom was defo not happy AT ALL that I went with my own initiative. She ignored me for several weeks and of course I felt lonely and all buy eventually I felt okay because she doesn't even know me sooooo.
I'm still trying to patch up my relationship with her. Honestly, it's so strained I don't know what to do. I've prayed that she would accept Christ everyday but uhh nothing. This doesn't mean I don't believe in God if not this would not exist
One day I was fellowshipping with my dad. Why we did that is because of a long story that would be saved for another day.
But this is the part where it's important
Previously I had dreams and I shared with my dad because he is more experience in deciphering gifts and stuff (I'm sorry if you don't believe in gifts but I do!) And he told me to pray about it because I somehow knew these dreams had meaning and relation to God. A number of dreams had direct inference to God. I did pray about it, and also asked God along these lines; "God, give me guidance. I have strayed and I know. Lord please let me understand, and let me also be close to You. I want to know You, and I know, I haven't read the word. Lord, motivate me to read the scripture, and while reading let me also understand the dreams I have been having my whole life."
I can't remember what I said exactly. The one 9f the church sermons on one week talked about how God is not far, but we are far. And I felt that that was for me. Then one day my dad said to me and my older sister "I don't care you have to download the Bible rn" so I downloaded it but did nothing with it. Finally, one day I was late for work (yes I worked when I was 15 because I actually want an electric guitar) and it was New Year's Eve. My colleague texted me saying she'd pick me up and I said and quote "Isokkk I walk over" (me) ... "Give me your block" (colleague) "Omd tyyy" (me)
Part of me didn't want her to fetch me because it would be troubling her. But I don't know why I waited and was thinking "bruh I could've reached by now but she's late" but I just waited. I was wearing full white that day. And this woman must've thought I was going to church because it was a Sunday morning.
And she asked "Hello, are you going to church?"
I said "oh no no, I have church at night because it's countdown service. (basically the youth services brought our church service from Saturday 4pm to Sunday 8pm because we wanted to countdown service together)"
She said," Oh! So you're Christian! Do you read the Word often?"
I blushed because so many signs and I haven't read a single word. "No," I was so embarrassed
She continued "I used to be a teacher, a lecturer in a University (if im not wrong) There is a website called 7 minutes with God. It was originally created for Harvard students because they were busy and didn't have time to spend time with God." Then I couldn't hear what she said because she was talking so fast. All I knew was she was summarizing the website and encouraged me to read it.
I read it like on January 2nd this year on the way to school ( I'm 16 this year!!! But not 16 yet because as I said, it's not my birthday yet or anytime soon)
I was so inspired that I kept on reading the Word and devoted mornings to not only prayers (that I allowed God to guide me and not just pray for the sake of praying) but also for reading the Word!
See, when I prayed to have motivation to read the Word more, God gave me the sign THREE TIMES which I did not pick up until the 3rd sign, the lady. The first time during the sermon I was like "Yes God, I will do it!" but did nothing. The second time when my dad asked me to download the app version of the Bible, I said "Yes God, this is the sign!" and did not do anything. I got discouraged because my dad thinks I'm funny and wouldn't take my words seriously omd 😭. But the third time, God literally sent a random woman I don't know and told me to read. And I read, praise God!
this is the part where it relates to the meme
Because when I went to the shower I kept laughing because I thought of this meme. I didn't read the word or get touched because it was a coincidence. So coincidence? I think not! It's a miracle ❤️❤️❤️
I finished Mark and the New Testament, I'm currently at John right now.
Just now, after a meeting with my cell group (a small group for easier prayers etc in church), I was listening to worship music, and my grumpy dad was like "GO AND SHOWER" liek chill brou. So I went to the toilet with my headphones on and sat on the floor and just continued listening to worship music. Then my dad sent in the family group chat (just me, my older sister and him, my mom got mad and left) an article about this man called Patrick Lee/Bezalel. He is a local artist faithful in Christ
But reading halfway I kept crying because I was so touched (again I do no lt cry, but I related so much I cried even though nothing had to do with me, but it was like my mother's story where she had a hard of stone towards God) and then my phone went flat 😐 So I risked it and ran out to get my charger but thank God (like actually) my dad didn't scream like he would. Then I sat at the toilet floor and continued reading. Tears kept flowing down my face because Patrick Bezalel's story was such a miracle, and God kept giving him signs that God existed! And removed the layer of stone that surrounded the man's heart and made it soft and open to God again!
After that I continued worshipping God and was listening to worship music (yes in the toilet because I literally have 0 privacy because none of my parents think I need it). I kept crying because the songs were so related. Can you imagine? It went in this order:
1.Presence,Power,Glory 2.Hosanna 3.Promises 4.Holy Forever
Again, coincidence? I THINK NOT. It was so planned, like it was in my playlist for so long and I haven't really thought much about it. Tears kept streaming down and kept going and through sobs I silently prayed to God
"Oh my dear God you have been so so good to me, and so faithful to me Lord. You have guided me, guided my heart and nothing has gone wrong in Your hands Lord. I've been through the turning point I've prayed for. You have sent people, songs and my family members to come after me to open up to You Lord. Lord, I was having a CG (cell group) meeting and something just touched my heart. I am now sitting on the toilet floor and typing this, because Lord you have made a way to touch my heart, guide me through a prayer that came deep down from inside of me Lord, thank You for providing. Thank You God for the miracles You have did in my life, and all that I prayed for has came through Lord. The turning point I prayed for was when that lady had spoken to me about how to set aside time for You and the Word. Lord let me not forget this incident, this turning point, this miracle Lord. Let me put my trust in You Lord, and let You take my hand and let my life be walking next to You faithfully Lord. Lord I pray that I would not waver, and I would not take my eyes away from You. Even when I am crossing and walking toward You on water in the sea, let my eyes be on You, and the works You have done for me, and not be distracted by the worls around me, but to keep my eyes on You diligently Lord. Lord, I am a sinner, and now, I was, for You have sent Jesus Christ, Your Son, to die on the cross for me. Lord, I believe in You and I want to accept You in my life Lord, no matter what situation I am in. Lord, let people around me see Your love, joy, and faithfulness in me, and not let them see the girl I was before. Let them see change, and the love and desire I have for You, Lord. Let them see Your greatness, Your goodness and You. I thank You for everything You have done, and in Jesus's name, I pray that I will walk faithfully alongside You, and will not fail to continuously pray and worship You God. Thank You Lord for the miracles, for this turning point. Thank You God for guiding me, and let me be the branch that bears fruit, and let me be the branch that has life only through Jesus, Who is the vine, Who the reason I live Lord, Who is the reason I have life. Praise the Lord! Amen!"
This is the first time I prayed for so long and every one word was truly from deep down fron the depths of my heart. I couldn't stop crying. I really couldn't and I can't emphasize more that I don't cry often! Either it hurt me so much or that God moved my heart. This time was tears of joy.
I hope this could inspire someone out there, because in another prayer I prayed for those who needed God, even if I didn't know them.
Pray. Pray and ask God to help you seek Him. One thing I learnt from a sermon is the fervency in your prayers. I didn't mean to add this in but I suddenly saw this note I wrote on 25th February.
Title: fervency in prayer Fervency: being excited about something keen on something
At the heart of revival is the spirit of prayer • pray fervently • pray with faith
"But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed"
To be fervent in prayer is to pray tenaciously despite our struggles
Hopefully this helped someone out there, inspired you and is one of your signs to start giving your life to Him! It is actually proven 1 in 3 people are Christians. Isn't our goal to have this faith to reach all four corners of the world? It could sound impossible in the past, but now there is social media, anyone could read and realize "Hey God is actually with me!"