What A Long Way To Say "PLEASE SAVE HIM"

To say humans are inherently good, one may miss the fact that greed, indulgences and vainglory is also part of their nature.

To say they are inherently evil, one forgets that humans are also capable of love, good cheer and restraint.

If humans are indeed good, then they have failed.

If humans are evil, then the concept of morals should be nonexistent.

In the end, being good or evil is their choice.

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Reblog for future reference

Actually

The question I get the most is how I write characters that feel like real people. 

Generally when I’m designing a human being, I deconstruct them into 7 major categories:

1. Primary Drive 2. Fear: Major and Secondary 3. Physical Desires 4. Style of self expression 5. How they express affection 6. What controls them (what they are weak for) 7. What part of them will change.

1. Primary Drive: This is generally related to the plot. What are their plot related goals? How are they pulling the plot forward? how do they make decisions? What do they think they’re doing and how do they justify doing it. 2. Fear: First, what is their deep fear? Abandonment? being consumed by power? etc. Second: tiny fears. Spiders. someone licking their neck. Small things that bother them. At least 4. 3. Physical desires. How they feel about touch. What is their perceived sexual/romantic orientation. Do their physical desires match up with their psychological desires.

4. Style of self expression: How they talk. Are they shy? Do they like to joke around and if so, how? Are they anxious or confident internally and how do they express that externally. What do words mean to them? More or less than actions? Does their socioeconomic background affect the way they present themselves socially?  5. How they express affection: Do they express affection through actions or words. Is expressing affection easy for them or not. How quickly do they open up to someone they like. Does their affection match up with their physical desires. how does the way they show their friends that they love them differ from how they show a potential love interest that they love them. is affection something they struggle with?

6. What controls them (what they are weak for): what are they almost entirely helpless against. What is something that influences them regardless of their own moral code. What– if driven to the end of the wire— would they reject sacrificing. What/who would they cut off their own finger for.  What would they kill for, if pushed. What makes them want to curl up and never go outside again from pain. What makes them sink to their knees from weakness or relief. What would make them weep tears of joy regardless where they were and who they were in front of. 

7. WHAT PART OF THEM WILL CHANGE: people develop over time. At least two of the above six categories will be altered by the storyline–either to an extreme or whittled down to nothing. When a person experiences trauma, their primary fear may change, or how they express affection may change, etc. By the time your book is over, they should have developed. And its important to decide which parts of them will be the ones that slowly get altered so you can work on monitoring it as you write. making it congruent with the plot instead of just a reaction to the plot. 

That’s it.

But most of all, you have to treat this like you’re developing a human being. Not a “character” a living breathing person. When you talk, you use their voice. If you want them to say something and it doesn’t seem like (based on the seven characteristics above) that they would say it, what would they say instead?

If they must do something that’s forced by the plot, that they wouldn’t do based on their seven options, they can still do the thing, but how would they feel internally about doing it?

How do their seven characteristics meet/ meld with someone else’s seven and how will they change each other?

Once you can come up with all the answers to all of these questions, you begin to know your character like you’d know one of your friends. When you can place them in any AU and know how they would react.

They start to breathe.

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Anyone wants to join us in this Unofficial AyakashiRR discord?

We are still a small community, but we are slowly gaining numbers. We hope you can join us.

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Is Oda Nobutaka's death poem historical? If so, why isn't it brought up more often? It seems like a pretty damning condemnation of Hideyoshi for Honnoji.

In the first place you were mistaken: It has absolutely nothing to do with Honnouji. Nobutaka’s death poem was tied to the succession conflict after Honnouji. Despite the Kiyosu Conference concluding with the decision of electing Sanboushi (Nobutada’s son) to become the new clan head, Hideyoshi did things that offended Nobutaka, and war was waged.

The actual poem:

昔より主を討つ身の野間なれば報いを待てや羽柴筑前

mukashi yorishū o utsu mi noNoma narebamukui o mateyaHashiba Chikuzen*

If it must be Nomawhere men killed their lordin ancient days,await your own comeuppance!Hashiba Chikuzen (Hideyoshi)

I’m assuming you were talking about this “lord” in the poem. This referred to the Heian era samurai Minamoto no Yoshitomo, who was betrayed by his vassals and died in Noma. He was buried in the very same temple Nobutaka committed seppuku. So this “lord” reference doesn’t mean Nobunaga, but Nobutaka himself.

Tokugawa vassals’ communication in the following year also had referred to Nobunaga’s sons as Hideyoshi’s “lords”. A letter sent out by Sakakibara Yasumasa condemned Hideyoshi for being ungrateful to his former masters, as he was “not satisfied with killing just one lord” (Nobutaka), but is now also trying to go after the other one (Nobukatsu). 

About whether or not the death poem is REAL, it’s entirely debatable. There’s two different poems recorded, and the second one does not mention Hideyoshi at all.

たらちねの 名をばくださじ 梓弓 いなばの山の 露と消ゆとも

Translation/interpretation for this cannot be found. For what it’s worth, the parts I do understand say this: “Mother’s name [ばくださじ]/Cherry birch bow/The dew of Mount Inaba fades”. 

Both poems are found in Edo era records, and no contemporary copies were ever discovered so far. There’s no way to verify that this is an accurate copy especially if it’s second-hand documentation***. 

Part of the reason for it to be considered “weird” is because the one who ambushed Nobutaka and brought the order of seppuku was his own brother Nobukatsu. Why would Nobutaka be angry at Hideyoshi and not his brother? There’s a bit of difficulty in determining what Nobukatsu’s status here, but at any rate, it can’t be immediately assumed that Nobutaka is upset with Hideyoshi because his brother is for some reason serving Hideyoshi. 

There’s a possibility that while bringing down the order Nobukatsu said bad things about Hideyoshi, but there’s also a bigger chance that the poem itself is recorded wrong or fake.

***) This matters because the Shinchoukouki, considered the most reliable account of Nobunaga, is also technically an Edo-era record (compiled in 1600s). However the author Ota Gyuuichi is an eyewitness, so the text is considered mostly accurate due to being a first hand account. The only problem being that if this was written much later, he might have forgotten the specifics, or got details mixed up

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My Commander Shepard

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Gonna start a post with blank memes. Please add any you have on hand and reblog to spread them.

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Hideyoshi, showing up to a court trial in a fursuit: It is I, your public defurender :33c

Inuchiyo, crying: I’ll plead guilty if you execute him too.

Free Online Language Courses

Here is a masterpost of MOOCs (massive open online courses) that are available, archived, or starting soon. I think they will help those that like to learn with a teacher or with videos.  You can always check the audit course or no certificate option so that you can learn for free.

American Sign Language

ASL University

Sign Language Structure, Learning, and Change

Arabic

Arabic for Global Exchange (in the drop-down menu)

Intro to Arabic

Madinah Arabic

Moroccan Arabic

Arabe (taught in French)

Catalan

Intro to Catalan Language & Society

Intro to Catalan Sign Language

Chinese

Beginner

Basic Chinese I. II, III, IV , V

Basic Mandarin Chinese I & II

Beginner’s Chinese

Chinese for Beginners

Chinese Characters

Chinese for HSK 1

Chinese for HSK 2

Chinese for HSK 3 I & II

HSK Level 1

Mandarin Chinese

Mandarin Chinese for Business

More Chinese for Beginners

Start Talking Mandarin Chinese

UT Gateway to Chinese

Chino Básico (Taught in Spanish)

Intermediate

Chinese Stories

Intermediate Business Chinese

Intermediate Chinese Grammar

Dutch

Introduction to Dutch

English

Online Courses here

Resources Here

Faroese

Faroese Course

Finnish

A Taste of Finnish

Basic Finnish

Finnish for Immigrants

Finnish for Medical Professionals

French

Beginner

AP French Language and Culture

Basic French Skills

Beginner’s French: Food & Drink

Diploma in French

Elementary French I & II

Français Interactif

French in Action

French Language Studies I, II, III

French: Ouverture

Intermediate & Advanced

French: Le Quatorze Juillet

Passe Partout 

La Cité des Sciences et de Industrie

Vivre en France - A2

Vivre en France - B1

Frisian

Introduction to Frisian (Taught in English)

Introduction to Frisian (Taught in Dutch)

German

Beginner

Beginner’s German: Food & Drink

Conversational German I, II, III, IV

Deutsch im Blick

Diploma in German

German at Work

Rundblick-Beginner’s German

Intermediate

German: Regionen Traditionen und Geschichte

Landschaftliche Vielfalt

Gwich’in

Introduction to Gwich’in Language

Hebrew

Biblical Hebrew

Know the Hebrew Alphabet

Teach Me Hebrew

Hindi

A Door into Hindi

Business Hindi

Virtual Hindi

Icelandic

Icelandic 1-5

Indonesian

Learn Indonesian

Irish

Introduction to Irish

Irish 101

Irish 102

Italian

Beginner

Beginner’s Italian: Food & Drink

Beginner’s Italian I

Introduction to Italian

Italian for Beginners 1 , 2, 3 , 4 , 5, 6 

Intermediate & Advanced

AP Italian Language and Culture

Intermediate Italian I

Advanced Italian I

Letteratura italiana

Japanese

Genki

Japanese JOSHU

Japanese Pronunciation

Sing and Learn Japanese

Tufs JpLang

Kazakh

A1-B2 Kazakh (Taught in Russian)

Korean

Beginner

First Step Korean

How to Study Korean

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Intermediate

Intermediate Korean

Nepali

Beginner’s Conversation and Grammar

Norwegian

Introduction to Norwegian

Norwegian on the Web

Portuguese

Curso de Português para Estrangeiros 

Pluralidades em Português Brasileiro

Russian

Beginner

Easy Accelerated Learning for Russian

Advanced

Reading Master and Margarita

Russian as an Instrument of Communication

Siberia: Russian for Foreigners

Spanish

Beginner

AP Spanish Language & Culture

Basic Spanish for English Speakers

Beginner’s Spanish: Food & Drink

Introduction to Spanish

Restaurants and Dining Out

Spanish for Beginners 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

Spanish Vocabulary

Intermediate

Spanish: Ciudades con Historia

Spanish: Espacios Públicos

Advanced

Corrección, Estilo y Variaciones 

Leer a Macondo

Spanish:Con Mis Propias Manos

Spanish: Perspectivas Porteñas

Swedish

Intro to Swedish

Swedish Made Easy 1, 2, & 3

Ukrainian

Read Ukrainian

Ukrainian Language for Beginners

Welsh

Beginner’s Welsh

Discovering Wales

Multiple Languages

Ancient Languages

More Language Learning Resources & Websites!

Last updated: April 1, 2018

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Could you please give me something like a list of things that need to be determined about a character, more than just age, height, gender and things like that, please i need like a list of as many as possible 💕💕💕 your blog is a miracle

I will try my best. This is a list I usually try to conform to (but I have it stored in my head, rather than as a physical list, so apologies if it doesn’t make much sense…!):

Character motivation. What are they doing? Why are they doing it?

Backstory. What happened before their debut in the story?

Greatest fear. Speaks for itself; what do they fear most?

Relationships with other characters. Who do they like? Who do they not like? Who opposes them? Who helps them? Who are they related to (by blood, or circumstance)?

Main personality traits. Positive ones, and negative ones.

Moral limits. What will they absolutely not do? What would they consider doing to meet their goal?

Attitudes/Opinions. What are the main issues in your story’s world, and what is this character’s opinion on it? How do they behave towards other characters, based on their opinions of them? Who or what do they consider to be below them? What behaviours do they choose to do or not do, which gives them a sense of importance/self-esteem (i.e. being tee-total, going to church every Sunday w/o fail, always adopting pets, rather than buying them, etc)?

Abilities. Either magical, or non-magical depending on your setting. What are they best at? What are they not so good at?

Speaking skills/conventions. How do they sound when they speak? What is their vocabulary like? How do they manage/behave in everyday conversations?

Education. According to your world’s standards, how educated is the character?

Family. How were they brought up? What was their family situation like?

Friendships. Which friendships do they value the most? How many friends do they have? How easily can they make friends?

Sexual/romantic relationships. How many relationships has the character committed to? Can they commit to relationships? How do they behave when in a relationship? How do they feel about other people’s relationships?

Work. What do they think about work? What kind of work would they like to do? What kind of work are they doing? If the character is a student, then consider their work ethic, their favourite subjects, etc.

Sense of self. What is your character’s self-image like? How do they feel about themselves? What do they think about themselves in relation to other people (i.e. how do they compare themselves to somebody else?).

Health. Speaks for itself; what is this character’s health like? In the past, in the present, and in the future?

Housekeeping. How do they live, in an everyday setting? Are they tidy, or messy? What things do they consider to be necessary to a daily routine, and what things do they consistently forget about/deem to be unimportant?

Politics. How they view society, and what should be done in a ‘civil’ society. What they think of their world’s politics. How they might ‘class’ themselves.

Religion. Their views on life, death, and creation. Their understanding of their ‘purpose’, or their beliefs in how everything came to be.

Tastes. In fashion, food, and anything else you might think of.

I hope this helps, Anon! Maybe some of our followers might reblog this and add extra things, or you might think of extra things you can add yourself. Feel free to do so, if this is the case!

- enlee