Other Details: Featuring episode summaries and a run down of some characters in French. Also, I scanned this assways, so it’s a bit disjointed, with one page talking about DS9, and the next page talking about TNG. A genius is me~ A translation is in the works and I will reblog/update this post once I finish it, but it’s been a while since I translated anything from French to English and vice versa, so there will be some inaccuracies and clunkiness.
Got all these done! In order of Skyfyre, Eldoron, Ian, Trish, Jessie, Orion. The purpose of these is to supplement more detail heavy 2D scenes and 3D isometric pieces showcasing the layouts of everyone’s living spaces aboard Rajin. This step will come later in the production and these pieces will be redone for publication.
Of course wanted to have fun by getting into the minds of my characters as they rushingly visualize their individual rooms with whatever tools they had available (ie Skyfyre borrowing Eldoron’s artistically designed board game and tearing up pieces of paper or Trish drawing in the dirt).
@rumples-tumbles is hosting The Original Fiction Challenge (with a twist)! The deadline is 1 May 2019! For more details, please check the thread here+!
Challenge Details:
I could make this easy on everyone and say it's JUST an Original Fiction challenge but where's the fun in that? Yes, your main objective will be to write me a piece of Original Fiction (thank you very much), but there's a twist!
*sigh* Isn't there always with you?
It's okay, purple text -- it's a fun twist. While I was tinkering with my scoring rubric (which you can find at the end of this, to see what you're working towards for this challenge), I decided that with such a broad spectrum of Original Fiction, it might be fun to add some conditions.
What have you done now?
Well, I decided that, since I love supplemental materials so much, I'd ask for that as a part of the challenge.
So, in other words, you're asking people to write Original Fiction and supply supplemental materials for that piece?
Yes! These are the two absolute requirements for this challenge -- write Original Fiction and give me at least one piece of supplemental material. Otherwise, you can choose your own genre, theme, plot, characters -- write whatever you want. A steampunk dystopia, a fiery romance, a comedy horror...whatever you want. I will accept anything that is accepted on the archives.
What is supplemental material and how do you want them to give it to you?
Supplemental material (in this instance) is any extra material that adds to or supports your story. These can be things like small missing moments, letters, diary entries, maps, picspams, mood boards, character boards, and so on and so forth. Note that graphics for your story will count only if you've made them yourself, but you do not have to use graphics as supplemental materials. If you are at all confused about if something you'd like to submit is something I consider supplemental material, feel free to PM me . Keep in mind that ALL supplemental materials MUST not breach ToS or ANY of the site's Rules & Guidelines regulations.
You may submit supplemental materials in one of four ways (or any/all, I'm not picky):
Via appendices at the bottom or in a separate "chapter" of your piece. Or, if it's a chapter image or banner, wherever that will fit appropriately. (Just be sure to let me know where it's at.)
Via dropping them here in this thread with your story submissions.
Via putting them in your Writer's Journal (please link me to the WJ where the supplemental materials are)
Via linking me (from this thread) to a Social Media (Tumblr/Twitter/Pinterest | No Facebook, please -- I'm not on FB) post of your supplemental material.
This might work best for any written supplemental materials such as diary entries, letters, etc.
Keep in mind the minimum word count for stories in chapters on the archives, as your material may be too short for this method.
When it comes to reviewing for judging, an appendices "chapter" will be reviewed and will not count as a "chapter" as far as multi-chaptered requirements go (see Rules section of this challenge).
This might work best for graphics, picspams and such.
Please keep the Unvalidated Material wordcount limitations and other rules in mind if you are dropping unvalidated materials like diary entries and such here.
Once again, keep in mind all the rules of the Forums and that section if you are planning on doing this.
Keep in mind the site Rules/Guidelines & ToS if you're choosing this avenue, and please rate your link if you're redirecting me offsite to "M-rated" materials, in accordance with the site's rules.
This avenue may work best for you if you are submitting multiple graphics (picspams, character boards, mood boards, etc.).
for all of you lovely, brave folk who’ve said “oh i’ll read whatever you write” and who dove gamely into my sudden descent into Homoerotic Witcher 2 nonsense, and quite understandably reacted with “ok i’m on board with the homoeroticism but. who the fuck are these people”
I love you, you are so brave, you are the best. I am going to take care of you.
HERE is the answer. But, if you need more detail, don’t worry. I’m here. Crucially, do not misunderstand me: canon “fell” down the stairs and i am the “grieving” widow with an inheritance here, who has just answered the door to you in one of those translucent robes with the marabou feathers, and that’s the frame from which I’m telling you this story; I’m really just here to suck out the juicy homoerotic bits. There’s a lot of dumb bullshit in canon.
(Full disclosure: I am sorry but I don’t enjoy the voice acting or animation of this game and so have interacted directly with it as little as possible. I clearly enjoy aspects of its story but the game itself not so much. If you love it, great! but this post isn’t for you anyway, so go enjoy whatever it is you enjoy and I’m not judging you, in fact you’re ultimately the reason I’m here at all. Unironically, ❤️.)
The rest of you, clicky the cut, I promise it won’t hurt much, and then you’ll Know. Well enough, anyway. Uh in case you didn’t catch on, this is all spoilers for Witcher 2.
W2 is from Geralt’s POV, and as the player you can have him ally with one of two choices, to give you two entirely separate paths through the game, with different outcomes.
In the prologue, you meet Vernon Roche, who is the head of Temeria’s Special Forces, the Blue Stripes, an elite military unit who execute the orders of King Foltest. Foltest is… an interesting fellow, whose policies include some… fairly… uh, nonhuman-unfriendly ones. You also meet Iorveth, commander of a band of nonhuman guerrillas, the Scoia’tael [Squirrels], who are waging asymmetric warfare against… well, among others, Foltest, who has done (or, more accurately, ordered Roche and others to do) some uhhh well let’s not sugarcoat this: genocides. (War crimes have been committed on both sides, to be somewhat fair; the Scoia’tael do some ill shit, and a lot of people die horribly, on both sides, for often no more than the crime of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.) So, that’s your premise for this ship, incidentally-- Sworn Enemies, Mutually War Criminals. (It’s alleged that the Blue Stripes were created *expressly* to oppose the Scoia’tael, for some extra juice here.)
Anyway, in a flashback in the prologue, Iorveth allies himself with a Mysterious Personage, who at the end of the prologue, assassinates Foltest. (Mysterious Personage has also, just previously, assassinated the king of Aedirn, Demavend, leaving Demavend’s somewhat-ineffectual son Stennis in charge and not doing a super great job at fending off the invasions of the opportunistic Kaedwen, to the north, whose king, Henselt, is, get this, also at risk of getting murdered by the same Mysterious Figure and indeed that’s a feature of your video game choices.)
Going forward, Geralt gets to pick whether to side with Roche or with Iorveth. If you side with Roche, you make a lowkey enemy of Iorveth, and a particular set of... sort of bad things happens. If you side with Iorveth, Roche is pissy with you but actually helps you out here and later when he shows up in W3 he’s slightly huffy with you but also remains a decent bro there, so it doesn’t actually matter, SO I’m going to just assume Iorveth’s path for all these next bits.
So, Iorveth’s Path: VERGEN is a city on the Pontar River at the border between Aedirn and Temeria and Kaedwen, and this wildly popular woman named Saskia the Dragonslayer has raised a peasant army to supplant the ineffectual Aedirnian regular army at repelling an invasion by the neighboring kingdom (Kaedwen) and wants, eventually, in return for her fighting, to establish a Free State there, and Iorveth is allied with her, and Geralt can choose to help her if he does Iorveth’s path, which is what I’m basing these stories on.
The super awesome twist with Saskia is that she is actually a polymorphed dragon herself, the daughter of Borch Three Jackdaws from the dragon hunt of book and Netflix, and it was Iorveth’s idea for her to style herself the Dragonslayer and take credit for her own other form’s disappearance. This is rad as FUCK and I do not know why you would pick Roche’s path when it means you don’t get to help her.
(There is some complication where Philippa Eilhart fucking mind-controls Saskia after a poisoning plot, which is like, half the game, but only relevant here in the end because I, too, have availed myself of Phil in my post-canon plots and that’ll surely matter now that I’ve worked Saskia in.)
Anyway what you need to know really is this: Vernon Roche is this square-jawed slightly constipated motherfucker whose king got killed out from under him and is left in W3 a patriot without a country:
[image description: screenshot from Witcher 3, of Vernon Roche, who is a thin white man in a black folded fabric cap, leaning against a wood-paneled wall and glowering just to the left of the camera. And yeah his sword hilt has glitched through his arm because we love CDPR and their physics.]
And Iorveth is an overgrown theatre kid with a penchant for violence and drama in equal measures, far far too beautiful and arrogant for this world. [WEARING a GARLAND of BADGES he has LOOTED from the CORPSES of his SLAIN ENEMIES.]
[image description: a promotional image from the Gwent game, of Iorveth napping in a tree, arms folded behind his head. He is an elf, one pointed ear visible, and is wearing a red headscarf covering the scarred right side of his face where an eye is missing, and is armored in leather and mail with a long-skirted green-quilted gambeson, a decorative blue sash around his waist, and a leather strap across his chest bedecked with enameled badges bearing the heraldic devices of several human kingdoms. He has a complicated bow and a quiver of arrows dangling from his belt, and looks peaceful. A red squirrel is climbing on the bole of the tree near his head.]
And Saskia is A MOTHERFUCKING DRAGON who looks like this in her human form how could you NOT. [I don’t like her dragon form, it’s… like… trying too hard to be unfuckable, and like, don’t challenge me like that I’m no amateur she is absolutely going to fuck in that form, but also, I’m mentally redesigning her to be less uhh early-2010s video game crusty.]
[Image description: Gwent card art of Saskia, a blonde woman with a gold-and-red cord headband, standing dashingly on a rock in a heroic pose with flames behind her. She is wearing heavy silver-colored armor with large shoulder spauldrons and a red-and-gold brocade-looking bodice, and brandishing a large sword and a shield. She looks very stern but also looks about 22 and Video Game Hot, though not excessively so.]
Iorveth was supposed to be in W3 but got cut. Alas; he would have been fascinating. Roche is in W3 but is minor, and can either survive it or not based on your decisions.
(The Mysterious Personage who kills Demavend and Foltest is the Viper witcher Letho of Gulet, who you’ll probably encounter in various other places on your fandom journey, and he’s been paid by Nilfgaard to kill all these kings in exchange for a vague promise of getting to re-establish the School of the Viper, so do with that information what you will.)
Most importantly, in all of this:
if you help Roche, there’s a scene where he defeats Iorveth, but does not kill him, claiming that he hears foes approaching and there isn’t time (after having let Iorveth make an incredibly long melodramatic speech, as he lies there attracively posed with his back arched, bleeding, saying more or less that if he must die at least it’s a worthy opponent: Roche lets him go on for this whole time and then is like welp peace out and bails); if you help Iorveth, there is a scene in which he defeats Roche, and takes his special forces badge as a trophy, but refuses to kill him because he is the “last of a dying breed” and it wouldn’t be sportsmanlike. Yes! Yes! It is THAT HOMOEROTIC in the ACTUAL TEXT, so I am not making this up. They are sworn enemies obsessed with one another and by fanfiction law they must fuck so I am called upon by the ancestors’ spirits to make this happen.
I was going to include an appendix of sources but genuinely, you can just poke around on the Internet if there’s a specific thing here that hooks you. I linked in the story to @laurelnose‘s github repository of the [WIP-- partial] game transcript, which is less painful than trying to scrub through playthrough vids on YouTube. (Though if you watch only one, here is both possible outcomes of Roche and Iorveth’s Homoerotic Fight Scene. Which gives you a taste of like. How hard you have to work to make this all hot. Listen I don’t like the animation style.) If you’re interested you should totally look more up; there’s a lot of great background character and setting stuff that wildly enriches your fandom experience. But if you’re not, don’t feel bad if this is all you know, because this is literally all I know and I’m pretty confident I’ve got the gist enough for fic, baby, and that’s what’s important. Now I’m gonna rub my gay little hands all over it and polish off the weird eugenics shit and avoid the actual hate crime and go to town.
To supplement or not to supplement: the importance of extra materials in the college application With application season just around the corner, you are probably considering ways to set your application apart from the others. Have you thought about which supplemental materials to include? Here is what some top colleges say about supplemental materials: Yale ...read more →
To supplement or not to supplement: the importance of extra materials in the college application With application season just around the corner, you are probably considering ways to set your application apart from the others. Have you thought about which supplemental materials to include? Here is what some top colleges say about supplemental materials: Yale ...read more →
Do you have any advice for getting off the Columbia waitlist?
Sorry you’re stuck in this limbo! I know it can definitely feel like it’s worse than being outright rejected. I would recommend sending a letter a few weeks later, thanking them for considering you but mostly updating them on things you’ve done since then. I’m sure you submitted some supplemental materials, so if you did, consider this a second chance, and if you didn’t, now’s the time to show them things they might not have considered about you before! Any essay contests you might have submitted to, cool artwork you’ve done, research you did for your chem or philosophy class, music you’ve performed or recorded, anything like that. You also want to show your passion for the school without being obnoxious, so while you’re at it try to add another statement about why you’d be a good fit for the school and it would be a good fit for you.
If this applies, you’re also going to want to send another letter regarding anything else in your life that wasn’t too represented on your app, or that you want to go into more detail about. Anything like mental health, care of siblings, care of parents, etc. The last time I was on a waitlist, I talked about my commitment to violin and how it might have caused my less-than-4.0 GPA, even though violin was already on my application. I ended up getting in.
The last thing you wanna make sure you do is ask your counselor to send another letter of testimonial, this time being really specific. This is why it’s important to be really close with your advisor/counselor, because on this second time around, they’re going to vouch for you as if they have been living with you for the past 17 years, so make it easier for them! Get to know them really well, and let them find out what makes you especially fit for the school.
Erik Singer is a dialect coach who works with actors to perfect different accents and dialects. In this video, he quickly analyzes the performances of 32 actors based on their use of accents. Pretty fascinating to watch. He singles out Philip Seymour Hoffman’s portrayal of Truman Capote as an exemplary use of the proper accent. High marks also go to Kate Winslet doing a Polish accent, Idris Elba’s South African accent while portraying Nelson Mandela (and his Bal’more accent in The Wire), and Cate Blanchett playing Katherine Hepburn in The Aviator.
Nicolas Cage in Con Air and Tom Cruise in Far and Away? Well, let’s just say they couldn’t pahk the cah in Hahvahd Yahd.
